The study examined the ways in which individuals manage inconsistent information about actors and fictional character that the actors play. Previous research suggested that people tend to attribute characters' characteristics to the actors. Therefore, actor-character inconsistency might be deemed as hypocritical and undermine the effects of the media content. However, this effect was hypothesized to be moderated by information processing mode. Specifically, when viewers transport into the narrative, namely, become absorbed in the story, they are not able to integrate actor information with character information. Similarly, when processing the message heuristically, viewers lack sufficient cognitive resources to integrate actor information. Thus, it was hypothesized that character incongruence will only diminish media effects when viewers process the media content critically. These hypotheses were explored in the context of perceptions of cosmetic surgery and sexual objectification of women. Participants read a fictitious interview in which the actor Raymond Romano expressed either approval of breast augmentation procedures or criticized this practice. Then, participants watched an edited segment from an Everybody Loves Raymond episode in which Romano played the role of a character that encouraged his wife to undergo cosmetic surgery. Viewers were requested to engage in issue elaboration, encouraged to transport into the show (narrative elaboration) or had to complete a distraction task while watching (heuristic processing). They listed all the thoughts they had during the media exposure and completed questionnaires assessing attitudes towards cosmetic surgery and sexual objectification of women. The same measures were completed again, one week after the lab session. Analysis of viewers' reported thoughts indicated that the manipulation successfully induced the different types of processing. Further, participants in the issue elaboration condition tended to generate both message consistent thoughts and counter-augments, whereas participants in the narrative elaboration condition generated few counter-arguments. In the heuristic processing condition, viewers listed very few thoughts, and did not counter-argue with the message. However, narrative consistent or inconsistent thoughts did not affect persuasion. Finally, incongruence between the actor and the character did not reduce persuasiveness of the message or hinder actor's likability, suggesting that viewers successfully maintain separate actor and character schemas.

Children as young as three years old are scared of the idea of growing old, and negative stereotypes about older people have started to develop by the time children enter elementary school. Negative stereotyping of older characters has been found to be prevalent in all forms of media. Because children use media to figure out who they are and what the world is like, this study looks at some of the most popular films of the past two decades aimed toward children. This study is a content analysis of older major and minor characters from the 60 top grossing Disney live action films in the 1990s and 2000s. This study is a continuation of an earlier study conducted analyzing the same subject in Disney animated films. The two studies will be compared throughout in order to identify trends in Disney's portrayal of older characters. The results of this study found an even more disparate underrepresentation of women and minorities than previous studies. However, this study found a majority of positive portrayals of older people. The majority of older characters in Disney live action films were identified with: the personality traits of “friendly” and “intelligent”; the primary roles of “friend” and “boss”; the health status of “active” or “very active” and in good health; and the stereotypes of “Perfect Grandparent”, “John Wayne Conservative”, and “Golden Ager”. These positive portrayals in all areas are in sharp contrast to many previous studies conducted concerning the portrayal of older characters in the media and are even more positive than the results from the previous study conducted on Disney animated films. As children interpret their social reality based on the media they watch, including Disney live action films, this research postulates that children will cultivate a more positive image of older people as they are portrayed in these films.

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This dissertation proposes a novel definition of anonymity, drawing on past definitions as well as psychological theory, to propose that pseudonymous identities can have a complex and nuanced influence in emphasizing certain personality traits when used in online discussion. This dissertation connects this definition to the Proteus Effect — the observation that individuals adopt behavior stereotypical of the avatars they use in virtual worlds (Yee & Bailenson, 2007) — to test how the presence and character of avatars in an online instant messenger influences aggression during political discussions. A 2x2 factorial experiment is used to evaluate participant aggression following small group deliberations between groups of participants assigned aggressive and unaggressive usernames and avatars, as well as accounts displaying an avatar and username vs only a username. A follow-up online experiment is used to show that similar effects of identity on behavior can be achieved simply by assigning participants to participate in similar tasks as moderators or as themselves.

This qualitative study aims to look at how the knowledge and awareness regarding source criticism is seen amongst media students attending their first year at Linnaeus University. Our theoretical base includes to explain what source criticism is, about media literacy, the power media has in the Swedish society, the effects that media can create, and the effects of internet. This study consists of eleven interviews where knowledge and awareness regarding source criticism are in focus. Our interviewees have contributed with diverse reasoning and thoughts, which will be presented closer in this study. A central part of this study also contains questions about the reasoning of the eleven media students regarding source criticism in relation to their career choice and position in society.Our result shows that the knowledge and awareness regarding source criticism amongst the eleven students are high, however they also express that this might not be the case amongst the population in general. All interviewees testify that source criticism is a subject that affects and that it is a high possibility it does not get the attention it deserves.

In order to fully explicate the role of news media in individuals’ political participation, this dissertation aims at establishing an integrative structural model that specifies relationships among news media use, its antecedents and mediators of its influence on political participation. The proposed model is comprised of key factors of political participation that previous research has identified. The relational structure is based on models and theories relevant to prediction of political behaviors. Specifically, the model integrates (a) communication mediation model, which posits that communication behaviors (i.e., news media use and interpersonal discussion) mediate the effects of socio-demographic variables (i.e., income, education, age, gender, and race) and political dispositions (i.e., political interest, partisanship and ideology) on political outcomes; (b) agenda-setting theory, which posits that frequent exposure to news media increases the salience of news objects in audiences’ minds; (c) cognitive mediation model, which posits that elaborative and collective thinking is a prerequisite to produce political outcomes of news exposure; (d) theory of planned behavior, which posits that human behavior can be best predicted by three proximal variables (i.e., attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control); (e) O-S-R-O-R (orientations-stimulus-reasoning-orientations-response) model of communication effects, which provides a parsimonious framework of effect process. Using the structural equation modeling (SEM) method, this dissertation analyzes the 2008 American National Election Studies data set to test the validity of the proposed structural model. Results indicate that frequent exposure to news media stimulates attentive news use as well as intra- and interpersonal reasoning, which produce a wide range of political outcomes. Two reasoning behaviors (i.e., self-reflection and interpersonal political discussion) are critical mechanisms that linked news media use to various political outcomes including political participation. Personal-psychological mediators, such as strength in affects, personal traits, opinions about political issues, campaign interest, political knowledge, attitude strength, perceived ability of political parties and political efficacy all significantly mediate the influence of news media use on political participation. News media use mediates significant portion of effects that a set of preexisting variables have on political participation as well as various types of political orientations. / text

In 2006, the NBA introduced the "one-and-done" rule that restricted high school graduates to enter directly into the NBA draft following high school. In turn, a high school prospect would essentially now have the option of playing professionally elsewhere (most likely overseas), enter the NBA's Developmental League, or play NCAA basketball. The rule has proved to be quite controversial, as it has had a great effect on both NBA and NCAA basketball, as well as the players. Various media outlets have been quite vocal not only about the rule itself, but the perceived effects it has had on both collegiate and professional basketball. This study will utilize framing theory to explore the way the media has presented the issue to the public, its causal interpretation, any moral evaluations necessary, and any solutions to the problem. This study will utilize a content analysis to analyze not only the media's presentation of the rule, but also what frames have been formed pertaining to the rule's successes and failures. The study will also aim to give a greater understanding of how the basketball media form frames.

This thesis explores the role of the media in voting behaviour in Turkey in terms of the 2010 constitutional referendum. The media is a very important tool for both providing information and entertainment for people in Turkey. Thus, it can be claimed that the media are very powerful and have a large influence on audiences. In this study, I seek to explore the media’s power over citizens’ political choices. In other words, this thesis aims to reveal the affect the media content has on voters. To achieve this goal, I have chosen to analyse the 2010 referendum because of its special characteristics, which differentiate it from other referendums and elections in Turkey. Although there are many studies which examine the media effects on voting in the literature, these generally concentrate on developed democracies. Furthermore, general elections and presidential elections are more common in the field. The number of studies searching for the media’s effect on referendum voting in Turkey is very limited. For this reason, I prioritise referendums and the media systems to provide a better understanding of the Turkish case, as a developing democratic country. In addition to this, media content and public opinion constitute the main data for the methodological part of the study. In order to identify the influence of the media in the 2010 referendum, I employ a three-step method including firstly, an analysis of the public opinion survey data to understand voter preferences; secondly, media content analysis to see the media coverage on the referendum issue and the salience of the referendum in the media and; as the third and final step of the analysis, I link the public opinion data and the media content. My contribution to the field is the analysis of the media effects on referendum voting with a systematic and an extensive methodological approach, which is supported by the analysis of the media system in Turkey, as an example of developing country. I expect to contribute a comprehensive analysis of the referendum voting in respect of the media nested with the voter preferences to the literature on politics in Turkey.

The goal of our thesis was to study the relation between trust and media. Therefore, we have introduced some selected theoretical approaches of trust in relation to society and we have also formulated our own theoretical implications on the basis of this review which we have later used in our research of trust in media. In the theoretical part we have defined the concept of trust in terms of two key principals of trust based on the rational and intuitive understanding of trust. We have described hierarchical levels of trust in society and then we have focused on interpersonal and system level. We have reviewed selected theoretical approaches to trust and we have outlined the development of trust within sociology. We have explained the function of media in society and pointed out the reasons of the interest in studying trust in media together with the review of the concepts of media effects. Then we have briefly summarized the empirical research and mentioned the situation in the Czech Republic. Finally we have suggested some phenomenons that may cause the decrease in trust are named. In the research part we have concerned with the analysis between media source popularity operetionalised as a frequency of using of the media source and its credibility perceived by recipients. Another research goal...

Motivations for entertainment consumption are complex, involving moods, wants, anticipations, and several other factors. Typically, attempts at a theoretical understanding of motivations for media selection have centered on enjoyment, or hedonic, pleasure-seeking motivations. Recently eudaimonic, or truth-seeking, motivations have also been given much attention. Most investigations into hedonic and eudaimonic motivations for media consumption have conceptualized these motivations as traits, rather than as states. Recent research has used survey methods to determine that those with hedonic motivations tend to seek out entertainment that is hedonic in nature and feel more fun affect while watching, while those with eudaimonic motivations for consuming entertainment tend to seek out media that is eudaimonic and nature and experience more meaningful affect during viewing. This experiment successfully manipulated hedonic and eudaimonic states using clips with either hedonic or eudemonic tone from three different television shows, with hedonic or eudaimonic tone in clips significantly affecting participants\' reports of hedonic and eudaimonic states as well as meaningful and fun affect. The effects of clips with hedonic or eudaimonic tone on these responses were not moderated by typical hedonic and eudaimonic trait preferences. The experiment also examined the effect that clips with hedonic or eudaimonic tone might have on subsequent program selection by allowing participants to rank hedonic or eudaimonic clips for subsequent viewing. The hedonic or eudaimonic tone of the clips only predicted participants\' subsequent  preference for eudaimonic or hedonic clips in the case of one of the three shows in the study; this effect on subsequent clip preference was found with the show that generally elicted the strongest responses from viewers in other study measures. Implications for our understanding of television consumption motivations are discussed. / Master of Arts