American youth and adolescents have the highest rate of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections in the industrialized world. Entertainment media, the preferred genre of todays adolescents, depicts sex, drugs, and alcohol use at a greater rate than any other genre of programming. What are health communication strategists doing to counter the widespread, inaccurate portrayals often depicted in this type of programming? With previous knowledge gap and health communication research failing to examine youth oriented and racial targeted entertainment programming, this study utilizes a survey to analyze BET, MTV, and VH1 audiences health knowledge, recall, and attitude toward PSAs to identify lapses in health communication strategy. This study distributed an Internet survey to a large southern university undergraduate population to capture the perceptions of BET, MTV, and VH1 target audiences. Respondents with low viewing habits of MTV and VH1 exhibited greater knowledge of HIV and alcohol. No difference in knowledge was found among high and low viewers of BET. Respondents reported their perceptions of the effectiveness of three PSAs. The most effective PSA utilized the fear and loss appeal. This PSA also portrayed real life consequences not often portrayed in entertainment programming. Finally, the PSA that utilized the informational appeal was more effective in promoting the advocated behavior among female respondents. Contrasting previous social identity theory research, the inclusion of same-ethnicity models within the PSAs was not indicative of perceived effectiveness of the message. Interestingly, ethnic-related impressions did influence respondents perception of the PSAs personal relevance. The survey provided support for third-person effects with respondents overestimating others viewing habits. The results of the study indicate a greater need of informational HIV and alcohol PSAs on VH1 and MTV. The gaps in knowledge exhibited by the respondent group reveal the lapses in health communication broadcasted on the selected cable-music channels. In addition, the results illustrate the ideal frames and themes deemed effective by youth audiences. The ideal youth and adolescent targeted PSA would include same-ethnicity models, a strong informational argument, a strong emotional appeal, portrayal of real life risks, and inclusion of a loss-frame appeal associated with the risky behavior.

Research of crime news suggests that Blacks are over represented as criminals when compared to crime reports; study of race and crime judgments reveals that viewers with heavy amounts of television news viewing associate Blacks with crime more often than viewers who watch lower amounts of television news. Further complicating the perception of Blacks is their lack of diversified coverage in the news. Most coverage of Blacks frames them as liabilities to their communities, while offering few positive depictions to counter the Black criminality frame. The Internet may aid in exacerbating stereotypes of Blacks by allowing users to selectively expose themselves to more crime news than they would receive from traditional media. Prior studies of race and crime coverage have analyzed Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia news. The current study seeks to reveal if Baton Rouge, Louisianas local news websites present an accurate reflection of the crime committed in Baton Rouge and endeavors to reveal the amount of positive, counteractive depictions of Blacks present on such websites.

The video game industry makes more than $10 billion a year in the United States alone. It is a young and booming medium. Growing alongside the video game business is the video game media, a niche form of journalism comprised mostly of gaming websites and a few reporters in traditional media. This thesis examines the young gaming news industry through in-depth interviews conducted with six journalists from various news outlets. The research focused on two things: if game journalists followed the same norms and routines as news journalists and if game companies were able to influence what game journalists wrote through public relations efforts. To determine what standards game journalists followed, the researcher asked the participants about each of the journalistic norm and routines. The norms of journalism are news value, objectivity, balance and fairness, professionalism, watchdog role, enduring values, style and format, scoop, and professional cooperation. To find out about outside influence affecting the work of the journalists, the researcher asked participants questions about their interaction with PR workers, how they perceived themselves being influence, and how they perceived other being influenced. The researcher found that video game journalists followed the norms and routines of news journalism and that game journalists are perceived themselves to be free from the influence of video game companies.

Sports fandom research often states sports fans know and understand facts surrounding various sports, teams, leagues, and players. College sports literature argues that media involvement increases popularity and revenues, and as a result, competition, controversy, and complexity. The Elaboration Likelihood Model posits that when involvement in a subject is high, so too is motivation and ability to comprehend, and as a result, cognition increases. Given this, results show that sports fandom acts similarly to issue involvement, leading to increased sports-media consumption. Together, both fandom and consumption lead to increased knowledge of facts surrounding college sports. Results imply that general interest in sports leads to knowledge acquisition of facts related to college sports, independent of a preference for college sports. Due to the pervasiveness of college sports in sports-media, those who value sports and attend to sports-media as a result, come to learn about college sports through mere exposure. Results speak to the popularity of college sports and indicate that sports fans remain aware of characteristics unique to college sports and accompanying discussion that takes place within sports-media. Results, however, also indicate that college sports-media consumption is niche-specific, as individuals who placed the most value in college sports scored the highest, signifying that selective exposure to college sports leads to heightened knowledge. Thus, results imply that media do provide incisive information about the complex nature of college sports and fandom does influence behaviors and reinforces preferences. Individuals ultimately control the information they receive, selectively attending to content that coincides with their preferences while avoiding exposure to that which does not. Sports remain another way for individuals to reinforce niche preferences and ultimately learn.

Nearly 27 million people in North America played fantasy sports in 2009. This quantitative study examined how a persons level of participation in fantasy football affects team identification, team loyalty, fandom of the National Football League (NFL), and consumer behavior. I also looked at whether fantasy football participants prefer a win by their fantasy team or their favorite team. An online survey was conducted using a snowball sample. I found higher participation levels result in higher team identification, higher team loyalty, and higher fandom, where fandom of the NFL is higher than team identification. Higher levels of participation also led to more time spent watching NFL games as well as more time spent online researching and updating their fantasy football team. I also found that over 41% of fantasy football participants prefer a win by their fantasy team, instead of their favorite team. A win preference of fantasy team resulted in lower team identification and team loyalty, which could have major implications on ticket sales, team merchandise sales, and sponsorship sales.

As baby boomers age and the hospice industry grows to meet the demands for care, it is important that these organizations reach their consumers in sensitive and responsible ways. Building caring and mutually beneficial relationships with these consumers is important. Social media can give these organizations the platforms to build and maintain these relationships, but most of the hospice organizations in this qualitative study did not make good use of the opportunities online to relate to their publics. Using public relationships and relationship management measurements, this study monitored the online activity of seven hospice organizations. In general, these organizations under used all available online media. Two hospice organizations, Alive Hospice and Vitas Hospice, most appropriately used the media to interact with their publics online.

At some point in its history every organization will face a crisis situation. How an organization responds to a crisis incident decides its survival. As Internet technology flourishes, public relations practitioners are provided with additional tools to manage crisis situations. This study investigates the role that emerging social media components play in the field of crisis management. It presents a best practice approach to using new technology in times of emergency. A qualitative study of Louisiana public relations practitioners analyzes how and why social media is being integrated into crisis communication plans. Social media components are used to quickly communicate succinct messages and promote two-way symmetrical communication in times of crisis. Social medias role in the theories of issues management and image restoration is explored and incorporated. This study contributes to the literature on crisis communication and social media in regards to the field of public relations. Its findings can be useful to public relations theorists and practitioners in preparing for, handling, and recovering from a crisis. A best practice approach to using social media in a crisis, as concluded from the results, is presented at the end of the study.

Music plays an important role in the lives of individuals and often reflects important societal values. Music can also serve as an important reflection of the publics current opinion at a given point in time. Patriotism is a feeling of love for ones homeland and has often been the subject matter of music lyrics throughout history. In particular, country music has been perceived as being an especially patriotic genre of music. This thesis utilized quantitative and qualitative content analyses as the methods to examine the patriotic content of country music lyrics over the past decade. The sample was adapted from Billboards year-end Hot Country Songs chart. Nearly 40% of the sample conveyed patriotic themes. The majority of these songs expressed blind patriotism, or unquestioning support of America. The songs that exuded patriotism were categorized into one of four themes: songs about terrorist attacks, wartime and the armed forces; songs about the American dream; songs about current events in America; and songs celebrating American life. Additionally, the songs about terrorism, wartime, and the armed forces experienced a shift in tone throughout the decade. The beginning of the time period contained songs that were overtly pro-America and pro-war, the middle of the decade included songs that were much softer and focused on the soldiers lives rather than the actual war, and lastly, the end of the decade contained songs that told stories of wartime casualties that many families were experiencing first handedly. This study illustrates that country musics narrative and story-like lyrics have captured the patriotic feelings experienced by many people throughout the past decade. These songs collectively provided a snapshot of the opinions and values of society throughout the past decade.

The United States maintains a worldwide network of military bases and spends more on military expenses than the rest of the world combined. This project seeks to analyze how the U.S. mainstream media cover and discuss the American Empire both broadly and specifically. I conducted a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative textual analysis of the Media coverage of the 2009 U.S. Colombian military base agreement, which was protested by Latin American leaders. I analyzed the coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN.com, and The Miami Herald regarding the US militarys use of bases in Colombia in 2009. I used the alternative news sources Democracy Now! and Venezuela Analysis to compare to the mainstream outlets coverage and search for alternative arguments and omitted information. The White House frame emerged as the dominant frame due to its repetition across multiple sources from the U.S. and Colombian governments, as well as the U.S. media. With the near absolute exclusion of opposing domestic voices from the United States and Colombia, the base opposition frame was seriously disadvantaged. The coverage focused extensively on Hugo Chavez as the primary objector to the base agreement and the framing of the coverage largely undermined his arguments. Critical and dissident voices and perspectives did not appear in the U.S. mainstream media coverage sampled here. The story told by the U.S. media reflected the explanations for the base agreement through the lens of policy makers. This project demonstrated that while traditionally analyzing the content that appears in the U.S. media proved useful, the greater discoveries came from the less researched area of information omitted from the coverage.

This study examined the news coverage of the 2010 health care reform in a comparative context of mainstream and ethnic online newspapers. Since health care reform had consequences among all ethnic groups in the U.S., the news coverage of this policy issue warranted an analysis in a diverse media context. The importance of this study lies in the fact that diverse news media provide a wide range of perspectives to the public and policymakers for a better understanding of an issue at stake. In past studies, mainstream media coverage was criticized for emphasizing political conflict and gains and losses over actual policy problems and ignoring minorities interests. Consequentially, ethnic media appeared as alternative media by promoting missing voices of ethnic minorities in mainstream media content. In this context, using the theories of agenda-setting and framing this study explored how differently mainstream and ethnic newspapers advanced agendas and framed the debate around health care reform. This study used content analysis method to examine news stories and editorials on health care reform published from December 2009 March 2010 in two mainstream online newspapers, and four ethnic online newspapers representing two largest ethnic minorities in the U.S., African Americans and Latino Americans. After analyzing the trends in the use of attribute agendas and frames of the reform coverage, this research came up with four observations. One, mainstream newspaper coverage of the reform debate maintained its pattern of prioritizing political conflict, maneuvering, and consequences over policy-related details and ethnic group-specific information. Two, ethnic newspaper coverage, mainly of Latino newspapers, emphasized the reform details and outcomes. Third, two African-American newspapers could not cover the reform issue like Latino newspapers because of their heavy reliance on mainstream wire service stories. As a result, black newspaper coverage, unlike Latino newspaper stories and editorials, did not adequately include ethnic-group perspectives of health care reform. Four, this study identified that not all mainstream news outlets covered health care reform in the same way. Policy implications received prominent coverage in wire service stories of the reform, whereas political debate was the main focus of mainstream newspaper stories.