Trusting the Media? TV News as a Source of Knowledge

Abstract

Why do we trust TV news? What reasons might support a recipient’s assessment of the trustworthiness of this kind of information? This paper presents a veritistic analysis of the epistemic practice of news production and communication. The topic is approached by discussing a detailed case study, namely the characteristics of the most popular German news programme, called the ‘Tagesschau’. It will be shown that a veritistic analysis can indeed provide a recipient with relevant reasons to consider when pondering on the trustworthiness of sources of information. Moreover, it will turn out that these reasons are part of what recipients might gather from media literacy.     

Setting the bar: divergent sociocultural norms for women's and men's ideal appearance in real-world contexts

Research suggests that exposure to sociocultural norms for idealized appearance can reduce both women's and men's body satisfaction. Despite comparable effects for both genders in the lab, in the “real-world” women's body satisfaction is chronically lower than men's. Real-world gender differences may arise from discrepancies in men's and women's everyday exposure to norms. Across eight studies using a variety of content analysis, survey, and experimental methods, we examine differences in sociocultural norms for ideal appearance pertaining to women and men in “daily life” contexts. We demonstrate that appearance norms encountered by women in daily life are more rigid, homogenous and pervasive than those for men, and that more messages implying the attainability of the ideal appearance are directed at women. Finally, experimental results show that homogeneous, rigid norms (like those typically encountered by women) are more harmful to body image than heterogeneous, flexible norms (like those typically encountered by men).     

Media exposure, internalization of the thin ideal, and body dissatisfaction: comparing Asian American and European American college females

Internalization of the thin ideal mediates the media exposure-body dissatisfaction relation in young adult European American females. There is little related research on Asian Americans. We used structural equations modeling to test: (1) whether media exposure was associated with body dissatisfaction in Asian American young adult females, (2) internalization of the thin ideal mediated any such association, and (3) whether the mediational model provided equivalent fit for European American and Asian American samples. Participants were 287 college females (154 Asian Americans, 133 European Americans). Internalization of the thin ideal explained the media exposure-body dissatisfaction association equally well for both groups. Results suggest that Asian Americans may be employing unhealthy weight control behaviors, and may be prone to developing eating disorders, at rates similar to European American young adult females. Clinicians need to screen carefully for body dissatisfaction, unhealthy weight control behaviors, and eating disorders in Asian American females.     

Cultural representations of thinness in women, redux: Playboy magazine's depiction of beauty from 1979 to 1999

Playboy's portrayal of the male ideal of feminine beauty, in terms of overall body size, percent normative weight, and waist-to-hip ratios (WHRs), was analyzed for the years 1979–1999. Trends were examined through body measurements obtained from Playboy centerfolds. Results reveal a continuation of the low body mass index (BMI) found in the Playmates by earlier studies; however, for the 21 years examined, the trend towards increasing thinness seems to have stabilized and may have begun to actually reverse. There was also an increase in the centerfolds’ WHRs over the 21-year time period. Overall, the results support the continued valuing in American society of a thin ideal for women; while the images of beauty have become somewhat heavier over the 21-year period reviewed, the Playmates remain markedly below weights normative for their age group.     

Radio psychology: A comparison of listeners and non-listeners

The major objective of this study was the application of help-seeking models to the study of radio psychology. A total of 443 subjects was divided into two research groups, non-listeners (n = 246) and listeners (n = 197) to at least one of two Israeli radio counselling programmes dealing with parent-child and interpersonal relationships. Through telephone interviews the subjects' responses to the instruments designed specifically for this type of study were reported: listening motivations, attitudes towards psychological help and reasons for non-listening. The results revealed that while listeners do not necessarily perceive themselves as help-seekers they, as well as the non-listeners, attributed listening to the motivations of curiosity, comparison with others and attaining psychological knowledge. The results suggested that listening to radio psychology programmes is a means of facilitating the earlier stages of the help-seeking process.     

Media representations of environmental issues: From scientific to political discourse

IntroductionThe media is considered to be a social agent that intervenes in the elaboration of social representations of environmental issues.ObjectiveThis research analyses media representations of environmental issues and how they have been constructed and transformed from the Rio Summit in 1992 to 2006. The authors adopted a constructionist approach based on the theory of social representations (Moscovici, 1961/1976) to describe the generation of information by the mass media.MethodA sample of 1039 news articles from two Spanish newspapers (La Vanguardia and El País) was analysed. The period of study ranged from the Rio Earth Summit to several years after the Johannesburg Summit (1992–2006), and the study analyses both the content and form of the environmental news.ResultsThis longitudinal study shows not only an increase in environmental news during the period of analysis but also an increased variety of themes addressed and represented. The results evidence significant urban problems in recent years. The environment has shifted from being associated with nature to being predominately associated with the urban environment.ConclusionThe results suggest that there has been a movement from scientific to political discourse and a change towards greater reflection and social recognition of the relevance of environmental issues.     

“Appearance potent”? A content analysis of UK gay and straight men's magazines

With little actual appraisal, a more ‘appearance potent’ (i.e., a reverence for appearance ideals) subculture has been used to explain gay men's greater body dissatisfaction in comparison to straight men's. This study sought to assess the respective appearance potency of each subculture by a content analysis of 32 issues of the most read gay (Attitude, Gay Times) and straight men's magazines (Men's Health, FHM) in the UK. Images of men and women were coded for their physical characteristics, objectification and nudity, as were the number of appearance adverts and articles. The gay men's magazines featured more images of men that were appearance ideal, nude and sexualized than the straight men's magazines. The converse was true for the images of women and appearance adverts. Although more research is needed to understand the effect of this content on the viewer, the findings are consistent with a more appearance potent gay male subculture.     

The Incomplete Tyranny of Dynamic Stimuli: Gaze Similarity Predicts Response Similarity in Screen-Captured Instructional Videos

Although eye tracking has been used extensively to assess cognitions for static stimuli, recent research suggests that the link between gaze and cognition may be more tenuous for dynamic stimuli such as videos. Part of the difficulty in convincingly linking gaze with cognition is that in dynamic stimuli, gaze position is strongly influenced by exogenous cues such as object motion. However, tests of the gaze-cognition link in dynamic stimuli have been done on only a limited range of stimuli often characterized by highly organized motion. Also, analyses of cognitive contrasts between participants have been mostly been limited to categorical contrasts among small numbers of participants that may have limited the power to observe more subtle influences. We, therefore, tested for cognitive influences on gaze for screen-captured instructional videos, the contents of which participants were tested on. Between-participant scanpath similarity predicted between-participant similarity in responses on test questions, but with imperfect consistency across videos. We also observed that basic gaze parameters and measures of attention to centers of interest only inconsistently predicted learning, and that correlations between gaze and centers of interest defined by other-participant gaze and cursor movement did not predict learning. It, therefore, appears that the search for eye movement indices of cognition during dynamic naturalistic stimuli may be fruitful, but we also agree that the tyranny of dynamic stimuli is real, and that links between eye movements and cognition are highly dependent on task and stimulus properties.     

协变量相关对时变效应模型参数估计的影响

时变效应模型被广泛应用于密集追踪研究中,研究者往往会同时纳入2个或以上协变量。然而,协变量相关对其参数估计的影响较少被研究者关注。本研究在不同类型协变量的情境下,采用蒙特卡洛模拟,探讨协变量相关对时变效应模型参数估计的影响,结果表明：（1）在两种协变量类型的情境下,协变量相关都会影响时变效应模型斜率函数β_1和斜率函数β_2参数估计的准确性;（2）两种协变量类型的情境下,协变量相关和样本量的交互作用都会影响时变效应模型斜率函数β_1和斜率函数β_2参数估计的准确性;（3）两种协变量类型的情境下,样本量、观测数据缺失率主要通过主效应影响时变效应模型参数估计的准确性。     

Complexity and Communication 3.0

There is an increasing interest in the complexity of mainstream communication education, and in the management of today's Global Media Organizations. Real world systems in communication processes cannot be completely designed, controlled, understood, or predicted, even by the sciences of complexity, but they are more effectively understood and explained as complex systems. I explore complexity in this article, analyzing the new paradigm of Agenda-Setting of today's New Media and Communication.