An experiment was conducted to examine the effects of news photo presence and role-congruency in ... more An experiment was conducted to examine the effects of news photo presence and role-congruency in news stories of Hillary Clinton on reader interest and memory. In the photos and stories, Clinton was either portrayed as a wife, or as a professional person. Results indicate readers ...
A recent but robust phenomenon described in communication literature has been the third-person ef... more A recent but robust phenomenon described in communication literature has been the third-person effect—the finding that in response to mass media messages, such as news stories and programs, people estimate themselves to be less affected than others. The present experiment asked whether this self-other pattern would characterize responses to two types of product commercials (i.e., those that did and those
Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, 2000
This study examines the effects of negative political advertising on responses to a Senate and a ... more This study examines the effects of negative political advertising on responses to a Senate and a gubernatorial race. Responses measured include: (1) knowledge about each race; (2) knowledge about a civics training media campaign; (3) confidence in knowledge about the races; (4) mood responses; (5) political cynicism; (6) political self-efficacy; and (7) voting behavior. The survey findings suggest that negative
Companies know the amount of profit they make, but may not know whether they are operating on the... more Companies know the amount of profit they make, but may not know whether they are operating on the uphill side or downhill side of the profit function with respect to each marketing investment variable. We first identify the risks of an uphill-located firm acting as if it were a downhill-located firm. Then, we develop a diagnostic tool to infer a company's type based on its location on the profit function and to offer guidance for driving it to the neighborhood of the maximum profit. Next, applying the proposed approach to daily newspaper industry data, we analyze the allocation behavior of companies with respect to three marketing efforts: investments in quality, distribution, and advertising sales effort. We find that a majority of the companies are located near the optimal level of spending for quality, which is a surprising finding given that previous studies have characterized marketing managers as over-spenders. In fact, when managers are sub-optimal, they are much more likely to be under-spending than over-spending. In other words, newspaper companies are clustered on the uphill side of the profit function. In addition, we provide sales elasticity estimates with respect to quality, personal selling effort and distribution investments, which are sparsely available in the extant literature (compared to price and media advertising elasticities). Finally, we furnish normative and empirical analyses of marketing resource allocation in a dual revenues market with possibly interrelated demands for subscriptions and advertising space. * * wrt abbreviates "with respect to" ** S1 and S2 denote the Small Firm and Large Firm segments, respectively.
This study examines whether changing the way news stories report on health can induce shifts in r... more This study examines whether changing the way news stories report on health can induce shifts in readers' perceptions of problems of obesity, diabetes, immigrant 10 health, and smoking. The authors manipulated two variables in a controlled experiment: the quality of sourcing-the number of sources and their expertise-and the framing-changing from an episodic, traditional frame to a thematic frame that incorporated information on context, risk factors, prevention strategies, and social attributions of responsibility. The authors found that a thematic frame made readers 15 more supportive of public policy changes and encouraged them to improve their own health behaviors. However, it did not alter their attributions of responsibility for health problems from one of blaming individuals to seeing the larger social factors. Adding richer sourcing to the thematic frame did not increase these effects, nor did readers find the thematic stories to be more interesting, relevant, believable, impor-20 tant, and informative. In addition, there were differential results because of story topics that represent uncontrolled effects. The implications for improving health reporting to encourage positive change in society are discussed.
This study uses a feminist framework of masculine cultural hegemony to examine the representation... more This study uses a feminist framework of masculine cultural hegemony to examine the representation of women in two newspapers--a medium-sized newspaper (Study 1) and a larger newspaper (Study 2). Surveys gauged news ste~:ff and news reader perceptions of female representation in news content to determine if perceptions matched con tent-analysis findings. Content-analysis results revealed a greater pmportion of males than females in both content and photos for both studies. Female staffers were more likely than their male counterparts to perceive this disparity, and news readers perceived an even greater disparity than the news staff News staffs were less likely to perceive disparities in the editorial, travel, and entertainment sections. We discuss the findings in relation to cultural hegemony and the rep1·esentation of women in the news.
Hítchon, ТЬогеопДМОТЮЫ AND PRODUCT INVOLVEMENT OVER REPETITIONS 377 level of frequency is problem... more Hítchon, ТЬогеопДМОТЮЫ AND PRODUCT INVOLVEMENT OVER REPETITIONS 377 level of frequency is problematic, however, since there exists the possibility of repeating a commercial too often to maintain positive impact. With increased exposure, memory for an ad ...
Children at three age levels (5-6, 8-9, and 10-12 years) were exposed to a story in one of three ... more Children at three age levels (5-6, 8-9, and 10-12 years) were exposed to a story in one of three videotape formats (audiovisual, video only, or audio only). Comprehension of the story and memory for the temporal order of events were assessed. The 5-to 6-year-olds in the video-only ...
The purpose of this study is to examine whether changing the way newspaper stories report crime a... more The purpose of this study is to examine whether changing the way newspaper stories report crime and violence can induce shifts in readers' perceptions of the problem. Using an experiment that manipulates the framing and graphic presentation of newspaper stories on crime and violence, we seek to discover whether the public health model that calls for news stories to incorporate information on context, risk factors, and prevention strategies will help readers learn more about the context in which crime and violence occurs, endorse prevention strategies in addition to punishment, and become more attuned to societal risk factors and causes of crime and violence.
Marketers decided to pull over $100 million worth of commercials from network, cable, local and s... more Marketers decided to pull over $100 million worth of commercials from network, cable, local and syndicated TV outlets on the United States market in the first 48 hours of the 2003 Iraq war. Given this loss to advertisers and media, we looked at how consumers respond to commercials during wartime. Would they change their attitude towards products that are advertised
The authors present a case study of a collaboration among the Berkeley Media Studies Group, the U... more The authors present a case study of a collaboration among the Berkeley Media Studies Group, the University of Missouri–Columbia School of Journalism, and journalist Jane Ellen Stevens to introduce to five metropolitan newspapers new violence-reporting techniques that include a public health perspective. A handbook was designed for journalists, and workshops were conducted to explore with editors and reporters how newspapers
This article examines the impact of a socially oriented public health media campaign that aims to... more This article examines the impact of a socially oriented public health media campaign that aims to influence social indicators among adults as a means to advances in youth health outcomes. Hierarchical regression analyses are conducted on telephone survey data from 18 weekly telephone surveys of adults in Kansas. Media campaign exposure was positively associated with two outcome measures: beliefs about youth development and behaviors toward youth development. In addition, these two outcome measures increased significantly over time, with the dissemination of the campaign's television and newspaper advertisements. Furthermore, these over-time increases were present only among respondents who were exposed to the media campaign. These findings offer support for the campaign's influence on the two social indicators, which would, per other research, be expected to influence improvements in youth health. Findings are discussed in reference to previous research in the areas of public health and mass communication, with implications made for practitioners and researchers.
466 JOBEM 35:4 Fall 1991 variables in this literature are the issue-image and the attack-support ... more 466 JOBEM 35:4 Fall 1991 variables in this literature are the issue-image and the attack-support dichoto-mies. But examination of the great variety in real-world political ads clearly indicates the existence of many other dimensions of variation that may well be important. As we ...
A salient media issue prior to the 1988 Presidential election was the concern that political adve... more A salient media issue prior to the 1988 Presidential election was the concern that political advertising overemphasized image information and provided too little issue information (cf. Caywood & Laczniak, 1985; Cundy, 1986). But the prominent and apparently effective use of attack ...
An experiment was conducted to examine the effects of news photo presence and role-congruency in ... more An experiment was conducted to examine the effects of news photo presence and role-congruency in news stories of Hillary Clinton on reader interest and memory. In the photos and stories, Clinton was either portrayed as a wife, or as a professional person. Results indicate readers ...
A recent but robust phenomenon described in communication literature has been the third-person ef... more A recent but robust phenomenon described in communication literature has been the third-person effect—the finding that in response to mass media messages, such as news stories and programs, people estimate themselves to be less affected than others. The present experiment asked whether this self-other pattern would characterize responses to two types of product commercials (i.e., those that did and those
Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, 2000
This study examines the effects of negative political advertising on responses to a Senate and a ... more This study examines the effects of negative political advertising on responses to a Senate and a gubernatorial race. Responses measured include: (1) knowledge about each race; (2) knowledge about a civics training media campaign; (3) confidence in knowledge about the races; (4) mood responses; (5) political cynicism; (6) political self-efficacy; and (7) voting behavior. The survey findings suggest that negative
Companies know the amount of profit they make, but may not know whether they are operating on the... more Companies know the amount of profit they make, but may not know whether they are operating on the uphill side or downhill side of the profit function with respect to each marketing investment variable. We first identify the risks of an uphill-located firm acting as if it were a downhill-located firm. Then, we develop a diagnostic tool to infer a company's type based on its location on the profit function and to offer guidance for driving it to the neighborhood of the maximum profit. Next, applying the proposed approach to daily newspaper industry data, we analyze the allocation behavior of companies with respect to three marketing efforts: investments in quality, distribution, and advertising sales effort. We find that a majority of the companies are located near the optimal level of spending for quality, which is a surprising finding given that previous studies have characterized marketing managers as over-spenders. In fact, when managers are sub-optimal, they are much more likely to be under-spending than over-spending. In other words, newspaper companies are clustered on the uphill side of the profit function. In addition, we provide sales elasticity estimates with respect to quality, personal selling effort and distribution investments, which are sparsely available in the extant literature (compared to price and media advertising elasticities). Finally, we furnish normative and empirical analyses of marketing resource allocation in a dual revenues market with possibly interrelated demands for subscriptions and advertising space. * * wrt abbreviates "with respect to" ** S1 and S2 denote the Small Firm and Large Firm segments, respectively.
This study examines whether changing the way news stories report on health can induce shifts in r... more This study examines whether changing the way news stories report on health can induce shifts in readers' perceptions of problems of obesity, diabetes, immigrant 10 health, and smoking. The authors manipulated two variables in a controlled experiment: the quality of sourcing-the number of sources and their expertise-and the framing-changing from an episodic, traditional frame to a thematic frame that incorporated information on context, risk factors, prevention strategies, and social attributions of responsibility. The authors found that a thematic frame made readers 15 more supportive of public policy changes and encouraged them to improve their own health behaviors. However, it did not alter their attributions of responsibility for health problems from one of blaming individuals to seeing the larger social factors. Adding richer sourcing to the thematic frame did not increase these effects, nor did readers find the thematic stories to be more interesting, relevant, believable, impor-20 tant, and informative. In addition, there were differential results because of story topics that represent uncontrolled effects. The implications for improving health reporting to encourage positive change in society are discussed.
This study uses a feminist framework of masculine cultural hegemony to examine the representation... more This study uses a feminist framework of masculine cultural hegemony to examine the representation of women in two newspapers--a medium-sized newspaper (Study 1) and a larger newspaper (Study 2). Surveys gauged news ste~:ff and news reader perceptions of female representation in news content to determine if perceptions matched con tent-analysis findings. Content-analysis results revealed a greater pmportion of males than females in both content and photos for both studies. Female staffers were more likely than their male counterparts to perceive this disparity, and news readers perceived an even greater disparity than the news staff News staffs were less likely to perceive disparities in the editorial, travel, and entertainment sections. We discuss the findings in relation to cultural hegemony and the rep1·esentation of women in the news.
Hítchon, ТЬогеопДМОТЮЫ AND PRODUCT INVOLVEMENT OVER REPETITIONS 377 level of frequency is problem... more Hítchon, ТЬогеопДМОТЮЫ AND PRODUCT INVOLVEMENT OVER REPETITIONS 377 level of frequency is problematic, however, since there exists the possibility of repeating a commercial too often to maintain positive impact. With increased exposure, memory for an ad ...
Children at three age levels (5-6, 8-9, and 10-12 years) were exposed to a story in one of three ... more Children at three age levels (5-6, 8-9, and 10-12 years) were exposed to a story in one of three videotape formats (audiovisual, video only, or audio only). Comprehension of the story and memory for the temporal order of events were assessed. The 5-to 6-year-olds in the video-only ...
The purpose of this study is to examine whether changing the way newspaper stories report crime a... more The purpose of this study is to examine whether changing the way newspaper stories report crime and violence can induce shifts in readers' perceptions of the problem. Using an experiment that manipulates the framing and graphic presentation of newspaper stories on crime and violence, we seek to discover whether the public health model that calls for news stories to incorporate information on context, risk factors, and prevention strategies will help readers learn more about the context in which crime and violence occurs, endorse prevention strategies in addition to punishment, and become more attuned to societal risk factors and causes of crime and violence.
Marketers decided to pull over $100 million worth of commercials from network, cable, local and s... more Marketers decided to pull over $100 million worth of commercials from network, cable, local and syndicated TV outlets on the United States market in the first 48 hours of the 2003 Iraq war. Given this loss to advertisers and media, we looked at how consumers respond to commercials during wartime. Would they change their attitude towards products that are advertised
The authors present a case study of a collaboration among the Berkeley Media Studies Group, the U... more The authors present a case study of a collaboration among the Berkeley Media Studies Group, the University of Missouri–Columbia School of Journalism, and journalist Jane Ellen Stevens to introduce to five metropolitan newspapers new violence-reporting techniques that include a public health perspective. A handbook was designed for journalists, and workshops were conducted to explore with editors and reporters how newspapers
This article examines the impact of a socially oriented public health media campaign that aims to... more This article examines the impact of a socially oriented public health media campaign that aims to influence social indicators among adults as a means to advances in youth health outcomes. Hierarchical regression analyses are conducted on telephone survey data from 18 weekly telephone surveys of adults in Kansas. Media campaign exposure was positively associated with two outcome measures: beliefs about youth development and behaviors toward youth development. In addition, these two outcome measures increased significantly over time, with the dissemination of the campaign's television and newspaper advertisements. Furthermore, these over-time increases were present only among respondents who were exposed to the media campaign. These findings offer support for the campaign's influence on the two social indicators, which would, per other research, be expected to influence improvements in youth health. Findings are discussed in reference to previous research in the areas of public health and mass communication, with implications made for practitioners and researchers.
466 JOBEM 35:4 Fall 1991 variables in this literature are the issue-image and the attack-support ... more 466 JOBEM 35:4 Fall 1991 variables in this literature are the issue-image and the attack-support dichoto-mies. But examination of the great variety in real-world political ads clearly indicates the existence of many other dimensions of variation that may well be important. As we ...
A salient media issue prior to the 1988 Presidential election was the concern that political adve... more A salient media issue prior to the 1988 Presidential election was the concern that political advertising overemphasized image information and provided too little issue information (cf. Caywood & Laczniak, 1985; Cundy, 1986). But the prominent and apparently effective use of attack ...
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Papers by Esther Thorson