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This paper will address two separate but linked contradictory phenomena within the greater discursive universe of hiphop culture, non-normative masculinity and black technological identity, or the ‘thug-nerd’. First, I aim to explore a particular instance of a self-avowed, overdetermined performance of the black geek in the work of the artist Fatlip. Second, I examine the links between music technology and black identity through an analysis of the black producer whose relationship to complex musical technologies is often masked, elided or reconfigured under broader assumptions of either black technophobia or an anti-intellectual hypermasculinity. Here the thug-nerd indicates the degree to which black technological identity is structured not through references to normative white or Asian constructions of the techno-geek, but rather re-presents a long alternative history of black engagements with technology. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces a discussion session titled "Top Papers in Sports Communication" to be held during the conference of the International Communication Association in 2016.

The article announces a discussion session titled "Top Faculty Papers in Ethnicity and Race in Communication (ERIC)" to be held during the conference of the International Communication Association in 2016.

The article announces a discussion session titled "Top Four Papers in Interpersonal Communication" to be held during the conference of the International Communication Association in 2016.

The article announces a discussion session titled "ICA Affiliate Journals: Communicationand Society" and "Studies in Communication/Media"-Presentation and Top Papers" to be held during the conference of the International Communication Association in 2016.

The article announces a discussion session titled "Top Student Papers in ERIC" to be held during the conference of the International Communication Association in 2016.

The article announces a discussion session titled "Top Papers in Organizational Communication" to be held during the conference of the International Communication Association in 2016.

The article announces a discussion session titled "Top Papers in Health Communication" to be held during the conference of the International Communication Association in 2016.

The article offers information on the discussion titled "Top Papers in Intercultural Communication," to be held during the International Communication Association's 2016 annual conference, featuring topics such as community storytelling in a Californian Ethnoburbia, and intercultural research.

The article announces a discussion session titled "ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session 1" to be held during the conference of the International Communication Association in 2016.

The article announces a discussion session titled "Competitive Papers in Global Media and Culture" to be held during the conference of the International Communication Association in 2016.

The article announces a discussion session titled "Top Faculty Papers in Public Relations" to be held during the conference of the International Communication Association in 2016.

The article announces a discussion session titled "Media-Related Health Communication Research" to be held during the conference of the International Communication Association in 2016.

Online news has become one of the major news sources in the 21st century and more people read news on the Web. The aim of this paper is to examine the news seeking behavior of the online news audience. The paper attempts to put the study into the context of digital society and link the online audience with the online medium format and Net user characteristics. Since online news audience adopts a “purposive news seeking mode” to locate news they want to read, this paper tries to identify the key elements in their online news consumption. Findings indicate that the online news seeking mode is characterized by convenient search, timely search, pick and choose (selective search), target search, non-linear reading and comparative reading. Online audiences’ news seeking behavior is affected by the Net users’ characteristics and the “open” format of the online news media. Three types of online news readers are identified, namely “demanding readers,” “pragmatic readers” and “casual readers.” ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Returning to Davison’s original formulation of the third-person effect, this paper argues that TPE is a theoretical framework accounting for a particular process of media effects: that of behaviors in relation to the media conditioned by the biased perceptions about media effects. Behavioral consequences of the third-person perceptions must be explicated more carefully in terms of those targeted at or about the media messages in question. Analyzing data from a web-based survey, this paper shows that self-other perceptual gaps vary across messages with desirable or undesirable presumed influences; such gaps predict inclinations to engage in restrictive or corrective behaviors with regard to the messages of undesirable influences and promotional behaviors with regard to the messages of desirable influences. In addition, behavioral consequences are related to different elements of the lay theories about media effects called “media effect schemas.” This study also shows that perceived effects on self vs. on other have different behavioral consequences. Implications for future TPE studies are discussed. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines e-democracy in the era of ‘read-write’ media by comparing the goals and structures of e-government with community-based media initiatives. I draw directly on Steven Coleman’s (2003) finding that political apathy can be attributed to the culture of institutional politics, a culture that alienates large parts of the population within Western democracies. Adequate representation requires that politicians understand the views and concerns of the people they claim to represent. Is this aspect of democracy diminishing? If so, how can politicians access ‘what it feels like’ to be a citizen? How do we know that our concerns are being taken into account? What is the role of the media in this equation? Participatory, community-based media would seem to hold at least a partial solution to this problem as it allows citizens to bring their concerns into the public sphere. Where e-government has chiefly concentrated on the provision of services and community empowerment through policy deliberation, this paper looks at how broader community communication, including personal narrative and stories, may contribute to the project of e-democracy. Participation and representation have become defining issues in a globalising world. As such, the history of community-based media provides some valuable lessons for e-democracy. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper follows a 'therapeutic discourse' realized in the Israeli media around what the paper conceptualizes as one 'traumatic photograph' (Wigoder, 2001: 18-19), a visual genre based on Barthes’ description of the 'shock photos' (1993: 32-34; 1997: 71-73). The photographic narrative begins with a complication, in which one of the most memorable images of the second Intifada, the bloodstained hands of young Paelestinian, were photographed at police headquarters in Ramallah immediately following the lynching. The narrative's resolution occurred eight months later with this image’s antithetical repetition, in which a photograph of the same person, chained in a detention cell of the Israeli General Security Services with his hands bound, was distributed to all major Israeli newspapers. By examining the visual narrative constructed through various media formats, I propose an analytical framework for an encounter between a viewer who identifies with the victim, an Israeli-Jew in this case, and the images of which the narrative consists. My intention in using this type of analysis is to provide an account of several processes involved in the production and consumption of traumatic and healing photographs in contemporary violent conflict, and specifically for the ways in which visual archives work within national conflicts. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its inception, agenda setting research has been grounded in psychological theories which posit the role of salience in the formation of opinions. Media effects are explained through the media’s ability to report certain issues rather than others, thereby enabling or disabling individuals from recalling particular aspects of a public controversy. This paper argues that such a psychological model can not explain observed media effects for issues that are already of high salience, i.e. the ability of the media to move public opinion on issues that are already broadly discussed and highly relevant. Instead, this paper will offer an alternative theory for media framing grounded in the psychological and rhetorical theories of Kenneth Burke. Specifically, it will be argued that Burke’s pentad and his description of how pentadic ratios can affect perceptions offers an alternative methodology for investigating media effects. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking it to the Streets: Mainstream Media Coverage of Anti-Global Capital Protests Abstract Submitted to the International Communication Association 2003 Conference This paper examines mainstream media coverage of events staged by global capitalists at the turn of the twenty-first century and the protests consistently mounted against them. It begins with the "Battle of Seattle" in the winter of 1999, when 70,000 people shut down a meeting of the World Trade Organization. Over the next two years, scores of protests against global capitalism were mounted at similar gatherings in the United States and around the world, including Washington D.C., New York, Philadelphia, Porto Alegre, Madrid, Barcelona, Goteburg, Davos, Salzburg, London, Paris, and Genoa. The Big Media could not ignore these protests, but they did strive to symbolically contain them. As one participant-observer told In These Times, "Most of what has been written is so inaccurate that I can?t decide if the reporters in question should be charged with conspiracy or simply incompetence." This paper combines textual analysis with political economy to examine the specific strategies employed by the media to symbolically contain the protests. These strategies include the depiction of anti-globalization activists as a fractious and disparate lot with too many different causes and internal conflicts to sustain a unified movement, and a focus on the police as a highly trained and disciplined force whose difficult job it was to protect people and private property by outwitting protesters. I believe the topic is particularly relevant to the theme of the 2003 ICA conference, "Border Crossings," both because it combines political economy with textual analysis and because it examines media coverage of the people?s attempts to "crash the gates" of parties of the wealthy and powerful throughout the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based primarily on communication science literature available and taught in the German-speaking world. Firstly, it should be noted that this contribution to the theme of the conference is not finalized but is an ongoing work in progress. By the actual conference date, theoretical deduction will have been complemented by first empirical results on the themes presented here. By then the respective borders referenced in this paper will also have been examined and positioned within the context of their theoretical basis. Editorial departments of newspapers in Switzerland, Germany and the USA will have been analyzed empirically, allowing for comparison. The link to the conference theme of "Communication in Borderlands" is established by presenting two borders. On the one hand, "personal borderlands" are identified as different wishes and requirements of newspaper management and newspaper staff within existing organizations. On the other hand, this paper assesses "disciplinary borderlands"; how these can be made accessible and usable for communication science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a paper highlighting the challenges of mobile access to online reviews and price comparison in Japan. The paper was presented at the 61st International Communication Association (ICA) Annual Conference, held at Boston, Massachusetts, on May 29, 2011. It explores the objective of the Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) project, which was launched in 2006, with a leading principle that customers must have freedom, and not be slaves to vendors.

The self-help industry is rife with books offering advice in relational communication. Interpersonal communication experts should be concerned with the credibility of these self-help authors and what advice is dispensed. Study one of this paper involved an examination of the qualifications of 31 popular self-help authors in relational communication. The results revealed that although many authors had earned Ph.D.s, none had degrees in communication and most had not published any empirical research. Study two analyzed fourteen books for their content and the type of evidence used. Five common themes were revealed including using a banking analogy, dividing couples into types, elaborating on a series of steps for the strategies offered, referring to childhood as a cause for current relational problems, and offering exercises to implement the strategies offered. Most authors relied solely on anecdotal evidence for their claims. Implications for future research in the area of interpersonal communication are discussed. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempted to explore the concept of a global community investigating if and how matters of difference and diversity are incorporated in its theorizing. Media appears as a central actor in the global circulation of meanings and images of contemporaries. While the literature is divided between visions of homogeneity and heterogeneity, and complicated by how individuals, nations, civilizations, or humanity are conceptualized in a global culture, this essay suggested that a world community must commence from embracing heterogeneity as its chief project – and as its most obvious solution. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports the results of two experiments on the role of situation models and linkages between models on movie comprehension. In both experiments, participants watch the last 45 minutes of Alfred HitchockÂ’s Rear Window . Half of the participants watched the movie in English and half watched in French with English subtitles. We expected participants to form fewer linkages between situation models in the subtitle condition due to the cognitive of reading subtitles which should interfere with the elaborations necessary to form linkages between the situation models. The first experiment examined the pattern of inferences generated during movie watching. The results showed that participants in the English condition made more backward inferences than participants in the subtitled condition which suggest that participants develop more associative links between situation models. In Experiment 2, after watching the last 45 minutes of the film, participants were asked to sort the 78 events into piles based on their similarity. The associated network that resulted from the similiarity data supported the results of Experiment 1 by showing that the representation of the movie involved more elaborative linkages when watched in English than in French with subtitles. The implication of these results from models of movie comprehension are discussed. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyse the complex and diverse ways in which audiences engage with media in the context of domestic social change and globalisation. Theoretically it is to develop a diversified rather than polarised or reductionist conception of the active audience, thereby showing a possibility for a convergence of a variety of active audience studies, in terms of the concept of ‘audience engagement’. Empirically, it looks at the various ways in which Japanese audiences engage with the media and ICT in the global rich media environment. It makes use of previously identified dimensions of audience activities from several traditions of audience research and adds to these new dimensions revealed from my ethnography of so-called ‘modern’ Japanese families living in the media-rich Tokyo Metropolitan Area. The seven modes of engagement I will consider are: information-seeking activity, connectivity, ‘world-creation’, parasocial interaction, utility, interpretation and, finally, participation. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the concept of media allusions and the reasons for and use of them by college students. Media allusions are references to or adaptations of lines from movies, television, and other popular media. The literature suggests that people use media allusions as “cultural handshakes” to identify others with shared social and mediated knowledge and to simply add humor or enjoyment to a conversation. Results showed that people who use media allusions enjoy the puzzle aspect of using and recognizing these allusions in social interactions, and that they derive pleasure from using media allusions to describe situations. Furthermore, these motives for using media allusions are related to personal identity and mood management reasons for using films. Implications for understanding media allusions are discussed. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last three decades there has been a voluminous output of research on new technologies. Yet, when we look back for theoretical inspiration as we puzzle over another new technology, we find only nuggets of insight. The lack of conceptual residue from a prolonged period of hectic research activity gives reason for pause. On reflection it seems that we often get caught in a cycle where soon after we have made some sense of and described a new technology yet another one appears on the horizon and drawn by its newness we move our attention. In this paper we revisit the voluminous literature on videotex, a technology that had captured the imagination of researchers not too long ago, and map out this cycle and then suggest strategies for breaking out of it. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to examine the copyright law and its implementation in India using two case studies- New York based author Barbara Bradford Taylor’s copyright infringement case in India against Sahara Televisions network and Indian music composer Bappi Lahiri’s lawsuit in a district court in Los Angeles against Dr. Dre who is the producer of the song “Addictive” by “Truth Hurts”. The second case study is used to analyze the differences of the Indian copyright law to that of the US. The study highlights the loopholes in the copyright law in India, a country where piracy is in abundance causing the U.S. an estimated loss of 500 million dollars in 2004 alone. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How did “fatwa,” once an unambiguous, simple term for a ruling on a question of Islamic religious law, come to mean “death sentence” in U.S. news language and popular culture? This paper uses content analysis to trace this newly created meaning through a series of gatekeeping failures to a position from which its more ominous meaning is easily inferred – not simply in references to political-religious violence but in discussions of baseball, advertising, and literature. The shared meanings it reflects are the underpinnings of the Orientalism that Said described in the 1970s and 1980s, a “pervasive Western discourse” built around a fundamental “ideology of difference.” ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Roaring Twenties and early years of the Depression, proponents of birth control, especially the American Birth Control League (ABCL), found difficulty locating broadcast stations willing to carry their messages. This narrative chronicles and analyzes the confluence of three concurrent movements: broadcast program censorship policies in the late 1920s and early 1930s, splits in feminist ranks over what women’s birth control rights should be publicly advocated, and general fears that women’s power over their own lives would have a detrimental affect on patriarchy, family values and the traditional family structure. This paper specifically reviews how the major company involved in broadcasting – the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), which owned and operated two networks – framed the issue of contraception to keep the contentious issue off their networks’ airwaves. Most other broadcasters followed NBC’s lead, and the strategies they developed collectively became the underpinning for controlling non-dominant, controversial issues presented over radio. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In India, the number of dowry-related deaths has been increasing exponentially. This study explores newspaper coverage over a period of five years to examine media content. The study also includes interviews with editors of the papers to observe the factors that led to this coverage. Using the hoopla hypothesis, the study employs a content analysis of 3,358 newspaper articles and interviews with a convenience sample of 23 editors from the same newspapers. Across all four newspapers studied, there were discernable pre-hoopla, hoopla, and post-hoopla stages. The hoopla period, characterized by the most number of stories, was ushered in by identifiable triggering events. A comparison of the national and regional newspapers’ coverage showed that the coverage was more intense in the national newspapers that produced longer and in-depth articles. The results also show that regardless of the scope of coverage (national vs. regional), coverage intensity is related to the prevalence of dowry within a sub-national region and the “newsworthiness” of dowry cases—a characteristic that is reiterated in the editor’s responses. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper commences by asking why the media in Shanghai lag behind their peers in Beijing and Guangzhou in terms of political courage. Several explanations have been furnished. We hold the cultural “traits” of Shanghai people to be too reductive and too general. Market abundance may be important to understanding the media’s complacency, but is still inadequate to account for political factors. In sum, we must explain the political economy of the media in relation to a particular cultural milieu. The most crucial explanation appears to lie in the patron-client relationship in the practices of authoritarian corporatism. Based on field interviews, we conclude that Shanghai is a big city but a small place: a resource-rich city that only has one layer of power authorities, and hence the distance from the epicenter of power to various media organizations is very short, making media control through a patron-client system very effective and powerful. We have examined this patron-client relationship from the perspectives of media conglomeration, elite circulation, resource allocation, and (lack of) media professionalism. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a paper aimed at examining the dynamics of pharmacist-client interaction and relationship in the frame of Relational Dialectics Theory (RDT), which was presented at the International Communication Association Convention, held in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 26, 2011. It explains how competing discourses can be related to the enactment of client-centeredness in the pharmacist-client relationship. Also highlights the changes have been made in the field of community pharmacy.

This study investigated the effect of banner animation on search-reaction time for banner ads. The purpose of the experiment was to test two competing theories about banner animation effects: distinctiveness theory and motion effect theory. All participants (N = 31) in a 2 (Animation) x 2 (Banner Type) x 4 (Number of Animated Distractors) within-subjects factorial experiment were participated in a Web banner search task. Each subject completed a total of 72 trials. In each trial, the subject was shown a target banner and asked to search the target in the mist of distractors that were arrayed in a subsequent display. In the half of conditions, the targets were animated while in the other half of the conditions, the targets were present static. Results of the search time showed no main effects for animation and distractor numbers supporting the motion effect theory. Both theoretical and practical implications of the key findings were discussed. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To make sense of the currently unfolding World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)––and global communications policymaking in general––we must engage with two projects. First, we must historicize WSIS in relation to an earlier UN-sponsored summit, the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO), which was similarly focused on global communications policy. Second, we must theorize WSIS in terms related to the dominant political economic system defining global relations today: neoliberalism. Neoliberalism’s ascendance coinciding with NWICO’s demise is not random coincidence. Tackling these two projects will help bring into focus both continuities and changes over the previous three decades. This time period is a crucial chapter in the development of our current global communication system. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political communication scholarship readily acknowledges that masculinity is a form of political capital in American politics, but has not made clear how this concept becomes manifest in the strategic language used by politicians, particularly since September 11th. In this study we content analyzed the speeches from the 2004 political conventions of the Republican and Democratic parties in order to see if gendered discourse was present and, if present, how it was strategically employed. Findings indicate that masculinity was used in the discourse of both political parties in order to shape party identity, and that a two-pronged strategy, which we describe as hyper-masculine, was used by the Republican Party to bolster party identity and discursively emasculate opponents. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on how much the concept of globalization via the Internet is impacting online journalism. This study relied on the expertise of online journalists from Latin America, North America and Europe through their participation in three sets of online focus groups. In all the focus groups, the findings showed that online journalists perceive a comprised distance between themselves and the audience, although the desired extent of this closer interaction, as well as the reasoning behind it, varied. Secondly, as online journalists, they share commonalities in the technology resources they use for their daily news production that include acquisition devices, processing and distribution technologies. This study aims to serve as a foundation by which to explain how this online medium is evolving and how online journalists perform and operate within it. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid proliferation of cell phones and other mobile devices has created a new channel for advertising and marketing. This is an exploratory study that focuses on the attitude towards cell phone, cell phone advertising and SMS ads. This study also investigates consumer behavior in accepting and using cell phone ads. Survey method was used, and the questionnaire was answered through in-class and take-home survey. This study finds that respondents’ attitude toward both general cell phone ads and SMS ads was negative. However their attitude toward the cell phone medium was very positive. The result shows that the individuals who had more positive attitude toward cell phone ads were more receptive to accept and use cell phone ads. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on six leading communication journals and their use of online citations. The study uses content analysis to explore if there is a relationship between citation characteristics and their stability. The findings show that online citations in the .gov and .org domain are more likely to remain accessible over time. Year of publication and URL level also emerged as significant predictors of online citation permanence. More than 37% of the online citations have disappeared from the original source from 2000 to 2003. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of communication research reliability and replicability. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of collective identity has drawn much attention during the last decades, especially in the fields of communication, sociology, and anthropology. In the field of communication, studies have focused on the negotiation of cultural identities from various ontological and epistemological perspectives and have conceptualized groups as ethnic, cultural, gender, or national. This article suggests using the concept of collective identity as an orienting framework to study interrelated and multidimensional group identities without reifying a group as ethnic or cultural. By applying the concept of collective identity to the study of group identities as expressed by people of Arab descent in the U.S. the study demonstrates the heterogeneity and interrelatedness of collective identities and their cultural, socio-political, and religious meaning dimensions. The study also shows that collective identity expression can be strategic and shift in importance, depending on the socio-political climate in society. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempts to explore how online communities work in the context of social capital through a survey of 344 Internet users. Specifically, this research investigates various factors of media use, social capital, and demographics that may have an influence on online community use. Although some argue that Internet use may erode an individual’s social life, this study found that people who access the Internet for online community use tend to have more sociability and generalized norm than do online community non-users. When important socio-psychological factors of social capital, such as trust and life contentment were considered, however, social capital was not fully related to online community use. In this regard, it is suggested that online communities may enhance the communication ability of individuals due to technological advantages, but face-to-face communication in the form of traditional community is still essential to ensure the quality of community. In terms of media use, Internet use was a significant factor of online community use whereas traditional media was not related to online community use. Also, gender and race were significant factors of online community use among demographics. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to increase consciousness about the lived experiences of Latino/a Americans in organizations. It gave voice to Latino/a American subordinates who disclosed riveting details of their experiences with supervisors. Thematic analysis indicated that the women assumed the role of educator, teaching others the norms of their culture. It also revealed that heterogeneous relationships with bosses required the women to exert more energy to overcome intercultural differences. Interestingly, the presence of other Latino/a Americans sometimes lead to interracial competition. Similarly, the Latino American men maintained that same-race superior-subordinate dyads posed fewer challenges than communicating across races. The men further reported that interracial competition made communication with a Latino/a American bosses somewhat stressful, but communicating with bosses who spoke the same language helped alleviate stress. Further, the men found that their ideas were not as readily embraced as those of dominant groups; the same idea would be praised if it were submitted by a dominant member. Finally, skin color sometimes dictated how people communicated with the men. When their Latino American features were concealed or less obvious, others in the organization did not treat them differently based on their race. The men perceived that the communicative practices employed by their colleagues and superiors were contingent on the prominence of physical features that were widely associated with their race. Overall, the participants communicate about the strategies they utilize to successfully communicate and network with their bosses. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the enormous challenges independent record labels have to face, the treatment of this field seemed to be appropriate. On account of the wide range of companies and scenes in this important part of the market for recorded music, only a general consideration of the topic was possible. To sum it up one may say that - based on an analysis of the competitive situation as well as the value chain - independent record labels will have to search for a clear strategic positioning in the market increasingly. A key role in the strategies of independent record labels as differentiation focusers should play brand management. It offers Independents many opportunities to improve their competitive position that are contrasted by just a few threats. Long-term preferences should be build not only for the artists respectively their releases but also for the label itself, especially considering the fact that independent record labels seem to be predes-tined for branding. The added value of labels as brands must be commu-nicated. Simultaneously the branding measures have to be adjusted to each product personality. In this way the label as brand could be the stra-tegic key to marketing. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The link between the feature-length films and the short films is inevitable; musical shorts were part of the progression to talking films and their prominence as a medium coincided with the emergence of feature-length films with all-black casts, also musical in nature. However, what should be asked is why sound film, as early as the first experimental pieces, exploited the musical talents of African-American artists rather than including them as dramatic actors in their own milieus. Furthermore, what did musical shorts offer that feature-length films could not? What types of narratives and representations did they employ? Also, which images and narratives from previously seen black performance onscreen were negotiated with alternative representations? Most importantly, did the jazz and blues artists featured in these short films offer the opportunity to present non-stereotypical representations and to what extent could they do this? This project analyzes seven musical shorts featuring iconic black performers Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Lena Horne, Ethel Waters and Nina Mae McKinney. There are several reasons why these short films and later soundies are crucial to early black representation. Hundreds of these shorts were made between the late 1920s and mid 1940s, but information about them tends to be scarce. However, considering their trajectory in the development of black representation in Hollywood, they are within a key formative moment of black representation. In looking for “positive” representations of African-Americans, Hollywood went to black singers, musicians and dancers that white audiences already knew, a practice that continues with black representation today. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brand integrated magazine formats, a form of brand placement in which advertising messages are incorporated into the editorial content of a magazine, are the focus of this study. An experiment (N = 323) was conducted to study the effects of these formats on credibility, reliability, and intention to purchase the magazine. Six versions of the same magazine were created that varied on two dimensions of commercialism, namely percentage of brand integrations and source. The results showed that the percentage of brand integrations negatively affected perceptions of credibility and reliability of the format. The perception of the source as commercial or non-commercial had no effect. With respect to intention to purchase the magazine, there was an interaction effect of source and percentage of brand integrations. The results show that source credibility theory applies to brand integrated magazine formats. This study adds to the small body of academic research on the proliferating practice of mixing advertising and editorial content. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the theoretical framework provided by the limited-capacity model, a 2 x 3 experimental design will be employed in the investigation of the impact of both audio complexity and visual type on listeners' recall of audio blogs and visual information presented on the blogsite, and affective responses to both audio and visual stimuli of the blogsite. The three levels of the visual type independent variable will be: semantically congruent images presented as a kind of slide show accompanying the blog, semantically congruent pop-up advertisements that appear during the audio blog and semantically incongruent pop-up advertisements that appear during the audio blog. Based on real travel audio blogs taken from the web, two five-minute audio blogs will be created and the sound design manipulated. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated viewers’ perceptions of the realism of fictional films with improbable or fantastic elements. The study consisted of six focus group interviews in which participants were shown clips from three recent films and asked to discuss their responses. Participants tended to identify unrealistic elements of the films on the bases of literal impossibility and inconsistency with the viewers’ sense of psychological or metaphysical laws. There were no clear, systematic differences in the way fans and non-fans of fantasy-based genres described their realism judgments. The implications of the study’s findings are discussed with reference to the transportation model of narrative persuasion and recent conceptual research on media realism. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A five-day diary study of 207 students who were to perform a speech was conducted to determine if there was a difference in motivation, practice, alcohol use, trait anxiety and state anxiety among three types of students. The three types of students examined were those that under-estimate the quality of their speeches (those that report their anticipated grade as lower than the grade they actually receive), those that are on-target with their estimations (those that accurately assess their speech grade), and over-estimators (those that report their anticipated grade as significantly higher than the grade they actually achieve). Differences among the three groups were found for reported alcohol consumed and reported state anxiety. No differences among the groups were found for the traditional variables of motivation to perform, practice for the speech, nor for trait anxiety. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although argument quality is considered to be very important to the outcome of the persuasion process, little research has been done on the question whether the strength of arguments is related to the type of evidence that is used. In three experiments, 494 participants indicated the extent to which they accepted claims that were either supported by anecdotal or statistical evidence. Statistical evidence is more persuasive than anecdotal evidence in support of a claim on a large number of unspecified entities (Experiment 1, 2). In support of a claim on a specific entity, anecdoctal evidence can be as persuasive as statistical evidence (Experiment 2, 3), as long as the case story in the anecdotal evidence is perceived as sufficiently similar to the entity in the claim (Experiment 3). These findings are in accordance with insights derived from argumentation theory. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This present study explored how people socially responded toward anthropomorphized computers, moderated by copresence and reciprocity. With an increase in the reliance on new technologies, research has documented a variety of ways in which people appropriate overlearned social behaviors (e.g., politeness) not only to each other, but also to computers. Evidence has supported the mindless responses people exhibit when interacting with computers. However, anthropomorphism as an alternative explanation to these social responses has been largely discounted. An experiment (N = 151) was conducted to examine the relationship between anthropomorphism and politeness toward the evaluation of a computer. Other moderating variables, such as reciprocity and physical proximity are tested in this relationship. Results indicated that anthropomorphism and reciprocity affected politeness toward a computer. In addition, the effect of anthropomorphism and physical proximity on politeness was different depending on reciprocity. The results have implications highlighting the roles in which anthropomorphism of computers, physical proximity to computers, and reciprocity of computer interaction enhance the strength of positively-biased social responses. Furthermore, this study extends politeness literature by acknowledging the growing similarities between face-to-face communication and human-computer interactions as a result of anthropomorphism. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]