Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication

In an effort to address their newly empowered and increasingly fragmented audiences, many newsrooms are hiring editors tasked with audience engagement. This paper investigates this new genre of news workers, the scope of their activity and their roles within news organizations. Interviews with 22 audience engagement editors working in 20 U.S. news organizations show how they conceptualize journalism, journalistic practices and standards, and how engagement strategies fulfill important institutional functions. Audience engagement editors serve as multi-tasking intermediaries between reporters, editors, advertisers, and their audiences.

This volume provides a thoughtful and wide-ranging exploration of approaches to the critical study of advertising. Current and impending prac- tices of advertising have in many ways exceeded the grasp of traditional modes of critique, due at least in part to their being formulated in very dif- ferent historical conditions. To begin to address this lag, this edited collec- tion explores through critical discussion and application a variety of critical approaches to advertising. Authors address a variety of concrete examples in their chapters, drawing on existing research while presenting new  nd- ings where relevant. In order to maintain the relevance of this collection past this particular historical moment, however, chapters do not simply report on empirical work, but also develop a theoretical argument.

This article discusses the emergence and prevalence of a prospective nostalgic narrative of present events articulated through the practices of selfies and GoPro-ing as instances of anticipatory future yearning, colloquially identified as nowstalgia. The compound term collapses past, present, and future into a deeply complex temporal construct, as the object of such a yearning is but a possibility that is waiting to happen or, at best, one that is taking place in the present.

Using a critical cultural approach, the article proposes nowstalgia as an analytical tool for the exploration of selfies and GoPro-ing as moments of active construction of a presumably valorized past-in-the-making. The conditions of production of nowstalgic narratives hinge, the author argues, on the abstraction or removal of the subject from the present actions and situations in which they are immersed, in favor of documenting them, which becomes justified by their possible yearning in the future.

Through a conjunctural analysis based on documentary sources, this investigation looks at the development of three forms of relationship between the computer and the human operator which emerged as the result of the processes by which the computer passed from wartime field devices used in the early 1940s to the distributed workflow of time-sharing computing of the early 1960s. The transit through these different processes allowed for the production of the computer as a cultural artifact, establishing the ways and means in which the operator and the computer became entangled in three distinct, yet deeply interrelated forms of relationship. The proxy relationship, which became produced through the usage of computerized apparatuses during WWII and posited the substitution of the human operator with the computer. The peer relationship, which required the digital general-purpose computer to become produced through its usage and posited the collaboration of the human and the computer, establishing each one as autonomous ontological entities, between who a dialogical relationship emerged. The partition relationship, which became effected through the incorporation of both, time-sharing computing and direct object manipulation, positing the existence of the operator and the computer not only as distinct ontological entities, but also residing in separate, irreconcilable worlds. The emergence, operation, and expansion of each of these relationships is studied and, in doing so, the conception of the human-computer interface is refocused as the result of the tensions and articulations of contradictory and coincident discursive and social practices. As such, the analysis posits that, although each of these three relationships developed within, through, and against specific contexts, they have not been abandoned in later computational developments but, instead, that they have become actualized and incorporated as facets of the human-computer interface.

A common challenge facing public health practitioners and social marketers is how best to frame and present benefit–risk information in campaigns that aim to change perceptions and increase acceptance of health recommendations, such as vaccinations. Given that public service advertisements and brand promises are often core components of social marketing and health communication efforts, this study examined whether, and how, framing and the use of text or image support to convey influenza vaccination brand promises affected college-attending young adults' beliefs and intentions regarding influenza vaccination. PSAs that varied with respect to gain or loss frame and type of support provided (i.e., image vs. text-supported) were used as the stimulus material. The findings indicated two pairings performed equally well with respect to the outcome measures used. A gain-framed image-supported PSA and a loss-framed text-supported PSA were both associated with the highest levels of positive affect toward the PSA, positive attitude toward flu vaccination, flu vaccination confidence, and flu vaccination intention. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of assessing both the framing used in social marketing or health communication materials and the approach used to support the framing. It is likely that the effectiveness of framing is affected by the visuals and text used to reinforce the brand promise conveyed by the framing, irrespective of whether it is positive or negative.

This study explores social media users' personality traits and motivations for the usage of two different social media platforms, Facebook and Pinterest, as well as how the varied uses impact users' negative emotional experiences. The findings suggest that the intensity of social media usage is positively related to negative emotions. For Facebook users, socialization, entertainment, and information seeking motivations significantly influence their platform use intensity and, subsequently, lead to negative emotions. Self-status seeking also has a direct effect on Facebook users' negative emotions. For Pinterest users, socialization is not a significant motivation for usage of that platform. However, entertainment, information seeking, and self-status seeking significantly predict their platform use intensity, which subsequently lead to negative emotions. Similarly, all four motivations for Facebook and Pinterest uses are influenced by users' personality traits: extraversion and openness. Yet, openness has a greater impact on using Pinterest than Facebook in terms of fulfilling socialization needs. Neuroticism has a positive impact on socialization and information seeking motives for use of both platforms, while conscientiousness and agreeableness have a negative influence on fulfilling self-status seeking needs. In addition, agreeable social networking site users are less likely to use Facebook than Pinterest for fulfilling self-status related gratifications, while they are likely to use Pinterest instead of Facebook for entertainment and information needs. Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

This study first refines the conceptual framework of publics’ communicative behavior in social-mediated health crises. Then two multiple-item scales for measuring publics’ health crisis information
seeking and sharing (CISS) are developed and tested by employing online survey data sets from a random national sample of 279 adults and 280 adults in the United States, respectively. Results indicate seven types of crisis information seeking behavior and 17 types of crisis information sharing behavior crossing over platforms, channels, and information sources. The CISS scales provide a valid and reliable tool for crisis communication researchers and practitioners to measure publics’
information seeking and sharing activities in social-mediated public health crisis communication.