Communication Research

Character morality is an integral variable within disposition theories. Zillmann proposed that moral judgments of characters result from a viewer monitoring and approving/disapproving of a character’s behaviors. Raney proposed a schema-based theoretical expansion of this model, wherein moral judgments of characters and disposition formation—facilitated by the activation of character-schema (e.g., hero/villain)—might occur prior to the observation of behavior. Three experimental studies were conducted to test Raney’s hypotheses and to integrate them into Zillmann’s original models. Study 1 indicates that visual cues associated with heroes and villains evoke character-consistent moral judgments absent character behaviors. Study 2 demonstrates that character-schema activation is magnified by the presence of an opposing character. Finally, Study 3 demonstrates that schema-based moral judgments can bias approbation of behaviors and subsequent moral judgments of characters. Theoretical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

The presence of non-humans in media narratives - for example, in the supernatural genre - may make salient that we are all human. According to the common ingroup identity model, the human superordinate category should influence attitudes toward lower-level outgroups. The present study examines this in the context of ethnic outgroups, specifically African Americans. Similarity of supernatural villains to humans was manipulated to influence whether “human” was a relevant superordinate group. Additionally, character race was varied to understand the influence of group diversity cues. Consistent with the common ingroup identity model, exposure to a Black human character fighting non-humans reduces prejudice toward African Americans, and this reduced prejudice generalizes to other minority groups. Results suggest a complex relationship between exposure to supernatural villains and diversity cues on attitudinal outcomes, with identity as human as one possible mechanism for reducing prejudicial attitudes.

Theories of eudaimonic entertainment and destigmatization concur to suggest that empathic feelings elicited by portrayals of Paralympic athletes can increase audience interest in para-sports and can lead to prosocial attitude change toward persons with disabilities in general. Three experiments were conducted to examine this dual, mutually reinforcing function of empathy in promoting public awareness and destigmatization. Participants watched television spots about the Paralympics that elicited different levels of empathy. As expected, structural equation modeling revealed indirect effects of empathy on audience interest, attitudes, and behavioral intentions that were mediated by elevation and reflective thoughts (Studies 1 and 2), and by feelings of closeness, elevation, and pity (Study 3). Mediation effects were positive for reflective thoughts, elevation, and closeness, but were negative for pity. Results are discussed with regard to problematic effects of pity, and concerns that elevating “supercrip” narratives might lead to negative perceptions of persons with disabilities in general.

People generally believe they are less susceptible than others to influences of media, and a growing body of research implicates such biased processing, or third-person perception, in public support for censorship, a type of third-person effect. The current study extends research of the third-person effect by studying two efficacy-related concepts in the context of sexual content in films. Analysis of cross-sectional data from 1,012 Singaporeans suggests that people exhibit self-other asymmetries of efficacy beliefs: They believe others are less capable than they are of self-regulation and that censorship is more effective at restricting others’ access to sexual content in films. Furthermore, the former belief was directly related to the belief that others are more susceptible to negative influence, and thus was indirectly related to support for censorship; whereas the latter belief was directly related to support for censorship. Results may help distinguish the roles of self-regulation and government censorship as bases of local media standards.

While media research has long ago acknowledged that watching TV is a social activity, only a few studies have examined the effects of co-viewing on adult reactions to a televised text. In the current investigation, we used social-cognitive theory combined with previous research on the intra-audience effect, audience identification, transportation, and attitude change to develop hypotheses connecting co-viewers’ reactions, co-viewers’ gender, and viewer’s post-exposure attitudes. Participants watched a movie segment that ended in a rape scene. We manipulated their confederate co-viewers’ displayed reaction (enthusiastic or bored) and gender, and subsequently measured perceived co-viewers’ attributions of responsibility for the rape, the viewers’ transportation, identification with the male protagonist, and acceptance of the rape myth (the tendency to attribute responsibility for sexual violence to the victim). Results demonstrated that for those participants who correctly perceived the engagement manipulation, the effect of the confederate co-viewer’s engagement manipulation on rape myth acceptance was positive and significant. In addition, both manipulations had an indirect effect on rape myth acceptance, sequentially mediated through transportation and identification.

This study offers a cross-national multilayered analysis of music flows between 1960 and 2010. Advancing on previous empirical studies of cultural globalization, it attends to the global and country level, while adding the individual level of music flows. Concretely, the authors analyze the international composition of pop charts in nine countries by (a) mapping trends, (b) comparing countries, and (c) conducting multivariate analyses. The results show that pop charts increasingly contain foreign music, with the exception of the United States. Explanatory analyses of foreign success confirm that limited cultural distance results in greater flow as found in film and television studies, while revealing additional positive impacts of centrality of production (e.g., artists from more “central” countries in music production are more likely to chart abroad) and the “star power” of artists. Both the innovative methodological approach and findings of this article offer promising research avenues for globalization, media industry, and celebrity studies.

Verboord, M., & Brandellero, A. (2016). The globalization of popular music, 1960-2010. Communication Research. Advance online publication. doi:10.1177/0093650215623834

The editors of Communication Research, Drs. Gibbs and Knobloch-Westerwick, wish to issue this statement of correction regarding the aforementioned article, published in OnlineFirst on January 16, 2016. This article was first submitted to Communication Research on July 11, 2012, and accepted for publication by the prior editors on November 19, 2015.

In 2015, Drs. Marc Verboord and Amanda Brandellero published a book chapter that is based on the same data set and dependent variable as the abovementioned article. As a reference to the book chapter was not cited in the Communication Research journal article, the editors of CR would like to correct the academic record here by including the reference in this correction notice:

Verboord, M., & Brandellero, A. (2015) National popular culture in an interconnected world: The case of pop charts. In W. de Been, P. Arora, & M. Hildebrandt (Eds.), Crossroads in new media, identity and law (pp. 218-236). London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

We have examined the two texts and corresponded with the authors on the matter. The authors responded that the two texts target different audiences (the chapter for readers of an interdisciplinary work in the areas of new media and law, while the article for specialists in global cultural communication) and that different analyses are reported in the two texts. We agree that the article has more complex analyses, different theory considerations than the chapter, and examines additional independent variables. However, we are concerned about the use in both works of the same dependent variable (condensed to a dichotomous variable in the article, whereas the chapter uses the same variable with metric information). Further, the authors failed to acknowledge any other publication reporting data from the same data set in their correspondence with the journal or through a citation in the manuscript. Our final determination has been to issue this statement of correction and editors’ commentary. Subsequent versions of the article will be corrected to include the citation to the book chapter.

As editors of Communication Research since 2016, we wish to take this opportunity to reiterate the journal’s mission of publishing new, original research and theory. Upon submission to Communication Research, authors are required to disclose any other works drawing on the same whole (or partial) data set in the pursuit of assessing and ensuring a manuscript’s novelty to the literature, as well as overseeing appropriate attribution to related works. Our aim is to enrich our field of study and the body of work that buttresses it, and the cooperation of future authors in flagging prior publications drawing on the same data set is vital to this endeavor.

Drs. Jennifer Gibbs and Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick