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Contains fulltext : 239445.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) The formation and maintenance of friendship closeness is an important developmental task in adolescence. To obtain insight in real-time processes that may underly the development of friendship closeness in middle adolescence, this preregistered experience sampling study [ESM] investigated the effects of social media use on friendship closeness. The study was conducted among 387 adolescents (54% girls; Mage = 14.11 years; 96% Dutch) from different educational tracks (44% lower prevocational secondary education, 31% intermediate general secondary education, 26% academic preparatory education). Adolescents reported six times per day for 3 weeks on their Instagram, WhatsApp, and Snapchat use in the previous hour and their momentary experiences of friendship closeness (126 assessments; 34,930 observations). Multilevel analyses revealed positive between-person associations of friendship closeness with general WhatsApp use and Instagram use with close friends. In contrast, at the within-person level, we found small negative overall associations of general WhatsApp use and Instagram use (with and without close friends) with friendship closeness. However, there was large heterogeneity in the person-specific effect sizes of the within-person associations of social media use with friendship closeness. For example, person-specific effect sizes of the association of Instagram use with close friends with friendship closeness ranged from ß = -.745 to ß = .697. These results underline the importance of acknowledging person-specific effects in developmental and media effect theories. 15 p.

The wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, the crisis in Bahrain and the confrontation with Iran have created an environment of sectarianism in the region. This hostility has challenged the media to deal with the issue of citizenship ( Al-Muwatana) in a responsible manner. This study applies Social Responsibility Theory to shed light on the role of print media in shaping the concept of citizenship in the Arabian Gulf, with reference to states that enjoy full or partial freedom, especially Kuwait and Oman. The results of this study show that Omani newspapers deal with citizenship positively when reporting news from Syria, Bahrain, Iraq, Yemen and Iran despite press censorship, while Kuwaiti print media, with its greater freedom of the press, is more negative on the topic of citizenship.

This review provides an overview of the literature regarding digital technology use and adolescent well-being. Overall, findings imply that the general effects are on the negative end of the spectrum but very small. Effects differ depending on the type of use: whereas procrastination and passive use are related to more negative effects, social and active use are related to more positive effects. Digital technology use has stronger effects on short-term markers of hedonic well-being (eg, negative affect) than long-term measures of eudaimonic well-being (eg, life satisfaction). Although adolescents are more vulnerable, effects are comparable for both adolescents and adults. It appears that both low and excessive use are related to decreased well-being, whereas moderate use is related to increased well-being. The current research still has many limitations: High-quality studies with large-scale samples, objective measures of digital technology use, and experience sampling of well-being are missing. .Esta revisión entrega una panorámica de la literatura acerca del empleo de la tecnología digital y el bienestar de los adolescentes. En general, los resultados traducen que los efectos globales son negativos, aunque muy insignificantes. Los efectos difieren según el tipo de empleo: la procastinación y el empleo pasivo están relacionados con efectos más negativos; en cambio, el empleo social y activo se asocia con efectos más positivos. El empleo de la tecnología digital tiene efectos más potentes en los indicadores de corto plazo del bienestar hedónico (como los afectos negativos) que las mediciones a largo plazo del bienestar eudaimónico (como la satisfacción con la vida). Aunque los adolescentes son más vulnerables, los efectos son comparables para adolescentes y adultos. Parece que tanto el empleo reducido como el excesivo están relacionados con una disminución del bienestar, mientras que el empleo moderado se vincula con un mayor bienestar. La investigación actual todavía tiene muchas limitaciones: faltan estudios de alta calidad con muestras numerosas, mediciones objetivas del empleo de tecnología digital y muestras de experiencia de bienestar.Nous proposons ici une revue de la littérature sur la pratique des technologies numériques et le bien-être de l’adolescent. Les données générales sont en faveur d’un effet négatif mais qui reste négligeable. L’usage définit la nature de l’effet : la procrastination et la passivité sont associées à un effet plus négatif alors qu’une pratique active et tournée vers la socialisation s’associe à un effet plus positif. Les effets sont plus importants sur les marqueurs à court terme du bien-être hédonique (comme les affects négatifs) que sur ceux à long terme du bien-être eudémonique (épanouissement personnel) ; ils sont comparables chez les adultes et les adolescents, même si ces derniers sont plus fragiles. Une utilisation excessive ou à l’inverse insuffisante semble diminuer le bien-être, alors qu’une pratique modérée l’augmenterait. Cependant, la recherche actuelle manque encore d’études de qualité élevée à grande échelle, de mesures objectives de la pratique des technologies numériques et d’expérience d’échantillonnage du bien-être.

The study examines the use of immersive journalism, journalistic storytelling using Virtual Reality, as a tool to promote knowledge, empathy, and change in views and opinions on the phenomenon of s...

We simulated the effects of mass media in society using a new theory of opinion dynamics that incorporated both trust and distrust into human relationships. We calculated not only the case where the media works uniformly for the people of society, but also the case of microtargeting where the media works only for those who have weak opinions. We also calculated the mass media effect that drives people to a particular opinion. The network of people is a random network, the coefficient of trust between people is determined by random numbers, and half of human relationships are untrusted.

We find that the viewership of business television raises the propensity of households to refinance their homes when doing so is financially advantageous. To estimate the effect of business TV, we exploit the staggered entry of Fox Business Network (FBN) into zip-codes across the U.S. Exposure to FBN is associated with a 6.5% increase in local refinancing volume in response to a 100 bps drop in mortgage interest rates. We confirm the media effect on refinancing by using an instrument for TV viewership, which exploits exogenous variation in the channels’ ordinal positions. The media influence is stronger for minority and riskier applicants. Overall, business TV likely raises financial awareness and serves as a nudge against inertia.

Current studies on the media effect fail to reach a consistent conclusion in a global setting. Lacking independence and highly controlled, the media functions differently in China and exerts unexpe...

The introduction and popularity of politically biased news sources represents a significant historical shift in the media environment, with important unexplored consequences. Evidence points to partisan segmentation in the contemporary news market, but while assumptions abound, the mechanism driving consumers to sort along party lines is unclear. I develop a framework for news choice based on perceptions of objectivity and credibility and report a test of its central mechanism using a nationally representative survey experiment. I find support for a congenial media effect, where news content from an unfamiliar source is seen as more credible and less biased when it is consistent with existing beliefs, while balanced news content may be dismissed as less credible and biased. Previous studies have examined how perceptions of bias in identical news content can change when it is attributed to different sources. In today’s media world however, access to more news sources generally and the ease with which content from those sources can be shared makes it increasingly likely people will be exposed to news content from either unknown or potentially fake news sources. This study contributes to the literature by identifying the unique effect of message content on perceptions of news bias and source credibility, while holding source constant. Paradoxically, my findings indicate that political selective exposure may arise out of individuals’ genuine desire for unbiased news.

The impact of COVID-19 on destination image is critical for international tourism recovery. This study is conducted focusing on China, the first epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, with mixed methods. Drawing on survey data collected from 500 US travelers, the study first examines China's destination image perceptions and travel intention. The results reveal that (1) US respondents have low travel intentions to China amid the pandemic; (2) Destination safety and security is the most influential image factor that leads to the low travel intentions to China. News media is proposed to have significant influence on China's image formation due to the COVID-19. A simple content analysis is conducted on CNN's news and China is found to be tied closely with COVID-19 and most news articles are emotionally negative. Those respondents who follow news outlet websites for COVID-19 view China more negatively and have lower travel intentions.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the political media memes’ functioning, their effects and persuasion, to classify them and to describe their structure. In this study finding authors describe the actual persuasion of media memes in contemporary Russian society. Media memes have got a clear structure via they could spread in social media. This structure also allows to classify media memes for better understanding their functioning and general message, authors rank political media memes illustrating the ones of recent US presidential elections. These units’ successful using as a format of media effect and their replication in media can depend on our ways of persuasion, on neurological and psychological basis of information virality. In a nutshell, political media memes couldn’t be considered as humor units only, but also as a format of media impact, an effective tool of media discourse, propaganda and political agitation during election season.

In this paper, a three dimensional drug model is constructed to investigate the impact of media coverage on the spread and control of drug addiction. The dynamical behavior of the model is studied by using the basic reproduction number R0. The drug-free equilibrium is globally asymptotically stable if R0 1. The results demonstrate that the media effect in human population cannot change the stabilities of equilibria but can affect the number of drug addicts. Sensitivity analyses are performed to seek for effective control measures for drug treatment. Numerical simulations are given to support the theoretical results.

Based on one set of micro-level survey data, we examine impacts of the mass media effect on investor sentiment. The financial information is distributed through three mass media channels. The study reveals that the mass media effect leads to investor sentiment fluctuation, and significantly affects investors’ trading decisions. Moreover, the impacts of media reports are asymmetric: in a rising market, investors pay more attention to optimistic reports and ignore those with a negative signal; by contrast, in a declining market, investors are more vulnerable to pessimistic reports, and reports with active information do not bring a significant effect.

Regarding the effect of the third-person perception on censorship attitudes, the present study first highlighted logical weaknesses of previously proposed rationales and limitations of previously used statistical models to test the effect. This study reanalyzed data from past research on the effect of the third-person perception. In Study 1, the average effects of the other-self perceptual gap in the media influence on censorship attitudes were estimated based on reports from 13 previous studies (total N = 6,414). Study 2 reanalyzed Schmierbach, Boyle, Xu, and McLeod's (2011) correlational data (N = 692). The results of these two studies showed that the presumed effect on others is a stronger predictor of censorship attitudes than the other-self differential in perceived media effect.

This study sets out the results of media effects experiment of two historical documentaries, conducted within joint research project “Broadcasting History in the Transnational Space” by the Vienna University and Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv researchers’ team. The main objectives of the study were to explore the impact of Holocaust and Holodomor documentaries on personal traits changing, psychological inclinations, as well as on representations of historical issues. Juergen Grimm’s model “Multidimensional-Imparting-of-History” (MIH) was used for assessing imparting history. The method of modelling was the basic method used during the research. It covers empirical indices of humanitarian values, national identity as well as European and Asian identification. Total of 185 student volunteers (1st to 3rd year of studies at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv) were involved in the experiment. Students watched two documentaries about two major historical tragedies of the 20th century: Holocaust (Genocide of Jews) in Europe during 1939–1945 and Holodomor (Great Artificial Famine) in Ukraine during 1932–1933. Before and after being exposed to the documentaries, students filled out a questionnaire that included social-identity, national-identity as well as psychological parts. The main finding of the experiment is the students’ significant predilection to compromise and reduce conflictive and aggression traits. Under the impact of both documentaries, we observed the growth of the disposition for transnational and trans-ethnic community-building (Communitas Skills) and general tendency towards cosmopolitan problem-solving and commitment for universal human rights (Political Humanitas).

Inconsistent results have been reported concerning the relationships between SNS usage and loneliness. The current two-wave panel study with a one year interval examined the possibility of reciprocal and curvilinear relationships between active public Facebook use and adolescents’ social/emotional loneliness. Belgian adolescents from fifteen high schools participated (N = 1188, 55% male). The results showed a U-shaped relationship between (1) active Facebook use and social/emotional loneliness and (2) emotional loneliness and active Facebook use. Specifically, active Facebook use predicted decreased social/emotional loneliness among low to moderate users, while among heavy users, increased levels of social/emotional loneliness were predicted by active Facebook use. Emotional loneliness predicted higher active Facebook use among lonely adolescents. At the same time, emotional loneliness predicted decreased active Facebook use among adolescents who did not feel lonely. These findings stress to consider different types of loneliness, and reciprocal and curvilinear relationships in future social media research. ispartof: JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENCE vol:67 pages:35-44 ispartof: location:England status: published

CEPS Journal 1 (2011) 4, S. 27-43, It is argued that multimedia technology affords an opportunity to better visualise complex relationships often seen in chemistry. This paper describes the influence of chemistry simulation design facets on user progress through a simulation. Three versions of an acid-base titration simulation were randomly allocated to 36 volunteers to examine their interactions with the simulation. The impact of design alterations on the total number of interactions and their patterns was analysed for the following factors: (a) the place of a feature on the screen, (b) alignment of the sequence of instructions, (c) additional instruction before the simulation, (d) interactivity of a feature. Additionally, interactions between individual factors, such as age, prior experience with science simulations and computer games, perception of the difficulty of science simulations, and general subject knowledge, on one hand, and the efficiency of using the simulation, on the other hand, were examined. The findings suggest that: (a) centrality of the position of an element significantly affects the number of interactions with the element, (b) re-arranging the sequence of instructions on the screen in left-to-right order improves the following of instructions, (c) providing users with additional written advice to follow numbered instructions does not have a significant impact on student behaviour, (d) interactivity of a feature was found to have a strong positive correlation with the number of interactions with that feature, which warrants a caution about unnecessary interactivity that may hinder simulation efficiency. Surprisingly, neither prior knowledge of chemistry nor the age of the participants had a significant effect on either the number of interactions or the ability to follow on-screen instructions. (DIPF/Orig.)

This study measures political bias exhibited in the top four Indian English newspapers during the 2014 elections in India. It analysed news articles on the top contesting national parties published from April 7–May 12, 2014. A strong-positive correlation was found to exist between the overall press bias and election results. Furthermore, readership was found to have a moderating effect on the positive relationship between bias and votes. While the four newspapers had varying amounts of influence on the voting preference of the masses, their political leniencies were found to be inter-correlated. Finally, a model is built to predict the probable vote share by analysing political bias in the popular press – with an accuracy of 90.2%.

Engagement researchers indicate that the engagement level of people in a narrative has an influence on people's subsequent story-related attitudes and beliefs, which helps psychologists understand people's social behaviours and personal experience. With the arrival of multimedia, the digital narrative combines multimedia features (e.g. varying images, music and voiceover) with traditional storytelling. Research on digital narratives has been widely used in helping students gain problem-solving and presentation skills as well as supporting child psychologists investigating children's social understanding such as family/peer relationships through completing their digital narratives. However, there is little study on the effect of multimedia features in digital narratives on the engagement level of people.\ud \ud This research focuses on measuring the levels of engagement of people in digital narratives and specifically on understanding the media effect of digital narratives on people's engagement levels. Measurement tools are developed and validated through analyses of facial data from different age groups (children and young adults) in watching stories with different media features of digital narratives. Data sources used in this research include a questionnaire with Smileyometer scale and the observation of each participant's facial behaviours.

The media inform the public about crime while also reflecting and shaping thinking about crime. The news media primarily provide information when they report on crime as part of the coverage of public affairs, but they also shape thinking about crime. The entertainment media, particularly television and film crime stories, primarily entertain audiences, but they also reflect and shape public opinion about the threat of crime, the causes of crime, criminal justice policies, and the criminal justice system. The media effect on the general public’s thinking about crime includes both the news media and the entertainment media because the trends toward infotainment in the news media (e.g., docudramas and true crime reality shows) and realism in the crime genre (stories that are based on or inspired by actual events) have blurred the distinction between fact and fiction. The study of ideology in the crime genre includes the development of theories; empirical analyses of the media effect; explaining ideology, film, and television crime stories as legal texts explaining criminal procedure; and the exploration of current issues related to thinking about rights, law, violence, and justice.

This study extends the research of the third-person effect by examining the effect of time span of media message on perceptual and behavioral components of the third-person effect. Using a survey of Hong Kong residents, the study explores perceived media effect of the news coverage of a short- and a long-term issue and the predictor of intention to take action to reduce negative effect. The results revealed no third-person effect by the short-term messages and the reverse third-person effect (first-person effect) by the long-term messages. There was a significant difference in discrepancy between the perceived media effect on self and others (third-person perception) produced by the messages of the short- and long-term issue. The study also found that perceived media effect on self is a stronger predictor of intention to take action to reduce the negative effects of the short- and long-term issue than the third-person effect.

The goal of this study was to begin to determine how parent, peer and media influences on the perception of body image of preadolescent girls and boys in Rize. The research was carried total 70 students of Mehmet AkifErsoy middle school . Surveys were collected and analyzed in the statistics department using SPSS 14.0 for Windows. Results indicated peers had the largest negative influence (X 1.60/3.0) and media had the largest positive influence (X 2.12/3.0) for scale-response. Results also revealed the higher the positive influence, the higher positive self-image. As one increases positively the other will increase positively. The correlation between parents, peers, and media and body image was found to be significant, P < .000 < α = .05. A correlation coefficient of .606/1.0 revealed a moderate to strong correlation. Results also indicated the preadolescent surveyed had a lower reported body image score than the influence from parents, peers, and media together. Results should be used by health educators to develop educational classes, programs that focus on the impact from parent, peer, and media influences on the perception of body image. The present study provides more insight and new trends in data, to the understanding of the onset of body image development in preadolescent.

Political parties would normally claim that their campaign and communication materials have effects on voters, be it on their supporters or their opponents during election campaigns. However, such effects are assumed effects by the parties unless voters are themselves assessed about the effects of such materials on themselves. The supporters of the parties are likely to regard such campaign materials as congenial to them but this may not be so with the opposition supporters who would regard such materials as negative. Taking the third-person effect to analyze effects on the audience as the theoretical framework, this study posited that opposition members would regard the materials as negative and thus would claim that they would not have any effect on them but they would likely say that such campaign materials would have effects on own party supporters. Davison (1983) posited that individuals will perceive that negative mediated messages would have their greatest impact not "on me" or "you" but on "them,"- the third person. Research suggests that people judge others to be more influenced than they are by media, advertising, libelous messages, media violence, pornography, and television drama. The theory referred to as the Third-person effect developed on the postulation that audience members would not admit that media had any direct effect on them, but would instead believe that the media influenced others, the third person (Tewksbury, Moy, & Weis, 2004; Price, Tewksbury, & Huang, 1998). On the other hand, while people would discount the effects of negative or biased messages on themselves, they would, under the notion of the First Person Effect, readily admit to being influenced by such messages. This study was based on studying the effects of political literature on party and opposition party supporters taking the messages to be positive to one group and biased and partisan to another group. The study focuses on the assumed effects of political literature on own party and opposition party supporters. It traces the degree of influence of Malaysia's largest political party, Barisan Nasional (BN) political communication literature on its own supporters and on non-BN party supporters. While the third-person effect assumes a null or minimal effect on one's self and some or strong effect on others, the question that arises are on welcoming favorable media effects on oneself and assuming unfavorable effects on others.

Using quantitative survey data from the Swedish Consumer Tendency Survey as well as a unique data set on media reports about inflation, we analyze the formation process of inflation perceptions and expectations as well as interrelations between the variables. Throughout the analysis, the role of media reports about inflation is emphasized and results for the low inflation period January 1998 to December 2007 are compared to those including the high inflation year 2008. Rejecting rationality, we find that perceptions, but not expectations, are affected asymmetrically by news, where media effects are generally stronger in times of high and volatile inflation. For the low inflation sample period, inflation expectations are more affected by shocks to perceptions than vice versa, but Granger causality runs from expectations to per- ceptions. Including more volatile inflation, we find more feed-back between the variables and a strong media effect especially on perceptions.

Mass media have a responsibility to popularise social and developmental issues. This is a central thesis of the normative view of mass media and development. Given the precarious nature of environmental sanitation in the West African country, Ghana, what is the nature of media coverage of environmental sanitation? And how does media coverage relate to people's perceptions of and attitudes toward the problem? While it may be counterintuitive for people to rely on media as sources of information on an obtrusive problem such as environmental sanitation, using content/frame analysis and a survey, this article suggests the potential of mass media (television news) in Ghana to project particular worldviews relating to issues that audiences encounter in their daily lives – a mechanism this article refers to as agenda moulding. Thus, even for obtrusive social and development issues such as environmental sanitation, the nature and level of media coverage matters.

This article examines the influence of perceived personal impact on third-person perception and on protective behaviors in connection with exposure to media coverage of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic. Survey results show that the perceived personal impact of the disease spreading in the local community positively predicts perceived media effects on self and others. However, its impact on self-evaluation of media effect is more salient and, thus, negatively influences third-person perception. In terms of corresponding behaviors, people's concerns for their own safety rather than for others' predict the intention to take protective measures. The greater the third-person perception, the less likely that people will take protective actions.

Research on third-person perceptions has consistently yielded evidence of a perceptual gap in perceived media effects on self and others. Scholars have worked to understand the reasons behind this gap with mixed results. In this study, we consider how news story characteristics, such as depictions of who is affected and how they are affected, could have implications for individual assessments of the effects of video games on self and others. We further contextualize this experiment by considering the role of more stable beliefs such as maternalism, paternalism, and assessments of media vulnerability. Results indicate that more permanent factors superseded the effects of the news story manipulations. Ultimately, the data show limited influence of media coverage on effects perceptions and suggest that such person perceptions are driven more by long-standing beliefs.

Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan has been launched by the Government of India to fight sanitation problems in the country. The youth are targeted to spread the message of the campaign. They will carry it forward to all the citizens of the country. Both rural and urban youth are aware of the national cleanliness drive namely, Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan. Especially school and college students are made to participate in the drive through various activities to keep the localities around them clean and green. Urgent need was felt to make the youth of the nation more aware about the campaign as youths can bring revolutionary changes in the country. The objectives of the study are to find out the awareness of Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan amongst youth, know media that are being utilized by the youth and to get the views of the youth to make the Abhiyaan successful. The study was done to find out the awareness about Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan and to know the media effect on youth. The research also gives the view points of the youngsters for increasing the effectiveness of Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan. It is found from the study that the youths from the age group of 18 to 25 years are aware of sanitation drive. The authors made an attempt to identify certain effective ways to promote the national sanitation and cleanliness drive of the Government of India. In the process of collecting key findings, the study goes on to explore the preferred media for the publicity of the Abhiyaan. The effective media, the suggestions of the youths are known to make the Abhiyaan effective and successful.

This study conducted a survey of 217 adult game players in Hong Kong to explore the effects of gaming motivations and avatar-self identification on symptoms of online game addiction. Results show that avatar-self identification is positively associated with the problems and salience dimension as well as the uncontrollable game-play dimension of game addiction. The motivation to relax is positively related to perceived avatar-self identification and uncontrollable play; the motivation to socialize in online games is positively linked with the avatar-self identification and both symptoms of online game addiction. The motivation to escape is positively related to the symptom of problems and salience. The drive to achieve virtual accomplishment in online games is negatively associated with the problem caused by gameplay and the salience of online games.

First, this study tests for media effects on support for EU enlargement in a natural setting, while including actual media content in the analysis. Second, the moderation by anti-immigrant attitudes of media effects is tested, as it is argued that perceptions of ‘others’ influences how new information on enlargement is received. The study draws on a two-wave panel survey and a media content analysis in 21 countries. The results suggest there is a media effect, although not from individual exposure but from the information environment. In addition, individuals with stronger anti-immigrant attitudes are more strongly affected by a negative information environment.

Media effect studies on children have focused on time spent with media relative to some outcome. We argue that researchers should examine quantity as the sole measure of media input only when it is of theoretical significance. In most circumstances media content and form are more important than time spent. A media diet metaphor is proposed as an alternative approach that includes both amount of exposure and program content across media platforms. Quantity is relevant primarily for hypotheses that concern time displacement (such as TV viewing displacing physical exercise) or other medium-general effects. In addition, technological advances have not yet been exploited that can allow new methodologies for studying media use and impact. As examples, eye tracking and magnetic resonance imaging are discussed to illustrate how new approaches can provide researchers with opportunities to ask different questions and to provide new perspectives on old questions.

The perceived as well as actual (in) effectiveness of anti-drug ads has been prominent in public discourse and concern. Using the third person effect hypothesis, this study examined adolescents' perceptions on the effect of anti-drug ads and the perception's relationship to attitudes and intentions concerning drug use. The results suggested that adolescents estimated the anti-drug ad effect on the basis of their behavioral experience, the self-anchored expectancy of a pro-social media effect: Those who had used drugs anticipated the effect of anti-drug ads to be smaller than those who had not used drugs. The perceived informative realism of anti-drug ads influenced the perceived message quality, which in turn influenced the perceived effect on self. The perceived effect on self was positively associated with anti-drug attitudes and intentions. The implications on future third person perception research and anti-drug campaign efforts are discussed.

Although the behavioral component was an integral part of the original formulation of the third-person effect hypothesis, little research has examined the impact of biased media effect perceptions on behaviors that assume others have already been affected. The present study examines how third-person perceptions (the belief that other people are particularly vulnerable to media messages) contributed to intentions to prepare for problems stemming from Y2K, also known as the “millennium bug.” Analyses using data from 2 regional probability samples taken in late 1999 show that perceptions about the potential effects of news messages influenced public anxiety about the Y2K situation and beliefs that other people would overprepare for the new year. These 2 variables, in turn, predicted intentions to stockpile supplies of food, water, gasoline, and cash. The article discusses the implications of these findings for understanding the relationship between perceptions of media effects and an extended range of behaviors.

Introduction Research on the impact of suicide reports is traditionally focussed on two possible outcomes: On the one hand, there is ample evidence for additional copycat effects after media coverage of suicides referred to as ‘Werther-Effect', on the other hand, suicide rates decrease after appropriate media depictions of suicides referred to as ‘Papageno-Effect'. In contrast, studies that only limitedly support these imitative or preventive effects – i.e. all ambiguous findings – are hardly regarded. Objectives/Aims The present study exclusively focuses on all studies ( n =28) with equivocal findings on the connection between media coverage of suicides and factual suicides and aims to systematically analyse central characteristics of these studies. Methods A qualitative content analysis of identified studies has been conducted whose results are systematized in Table 1 . Results The analysis shows that a lion's share of ambiguous studies draws on aggregate data and unidirectionally hypothesises harmful media effect, which only insufficiently describes reality. Conclusions Future hypotheses on the imitation of suicides should be formulated in a more differentiated (bi-directional) way and studies should include content analyses of media coverage as far as possible.Table 1 Analysis of all studies that ambiguously prove copycat suicides after media coverage of suicides.

In this chapter, the kinetics of drug degradation is reviewed, and it is shown how various excipients, such as buffer salts and complexing agents, the phase distribution of the drug such as in suspensions and emulsions, and external factors such as temperature, oxygen, and light, can influence reaction rates. It is shown how the shelf-life of drug products can be enhanced through proper formulation. The chapter contains numerous practical examples of how various equations and theories are used to solve problems encountered during drug stability testing.

With the advent of social network sites (SNSs), people can efficiently maintain preexisting social relationships and make online friendships without offline encounters. While such technological features of SNSs hold a variety of potential for individual and collective benefits, some scholars warn that use of SNSs might lead to socially negative consequences, such as social isolation, erosion of social cohesion, or SNS addiction. This study distinguishes types of SNS relationships, and investigates their relationships with social isolation, interpersonal trust, and SNS addiction. We classify SNS relationships into two types: (a) social relationships based on reciprocity between a user and his/her friends, and (b) parasocial relationships in which an ordinary user is aware of activities of a celebrity (e.g., famous actors, athletes, and others) but not vice versa. Based on achievements in studies of media effect and social psychology, we constructed a set of hypotheses, and tested them using a subsample of SNS users drawn from representative survey data in South Korea. We found that dependency on parasocial relationships is positively related with loneliness but negatively correlated with interpersonal distrust, while dependency on social relationship is negatively correlated with loneliness but positively related with trust. However, more dependency on both social and parasocial relationships are positively related with SNS addiction. Implications based on findings are also discussed.

Technological innovations over the past decade have expanded the number of news and entertainment options available to consumers, leading to the emergence of partisan news media. We contend that the emergence of partisan media should have decisive effects on the strategic calculations of elected representatives who are chronic consumers of news media. Moreover, we theorize that partisan news media's influence on legislative behavior will be most apparent when elections are near. Exploiting the incremental roll-out of the conservative Fox News Channel in the late 1990s, we find that the emergence of Fox News caused U.S. House members to alter their levels of party support dynamically, responding both to the proximity of elections and changes in the media environment in their district. Fox News caused both Republicans and Democrats in Congress to increase support for the Republican Party on divisive votes in the waning months of the election cycle.

A critical claim in software requirements regards the assertion that the team performances improve when media with higher richness levels are used. To investigate this claim, we have conducted a controlled experiment to compare traditional face-to-face communication, the richest medium, and a leaner medium, namely an advanced chat implementing a distributed version of Think-Pair-Square (i.e., a well known method for collaborative problem solving). The comparison has been performed considering the time needed to model functional requirements through a use case modeling technique. Since the only assessment of time could be meaningless, we have also analyzed the media effect on the quality of the produced use cases. The results indicate a significant difference in terms of time to model software requirements in favor of face-to-face communication with no significant impact on the quality.

Compared to adolescents with low exposure to smoking in movies, those with high exposure are about three times as likely to try smoking or become smokers. We have observed this effect in nationally representative samples using cross-sectional and longitudinal designs. This effect remains statistically significant after controlling for numerous other traditional risk factors, such as personality, parenting style, and sociodemographics. Indeed, the movie-smoking exposure effect on adolescent smoking initiation is greatest among those traditionally considered at lower risk for smoking, such as those low in sensation seeking and those whose parents do not smoke. In this article, we consider possible moderators and mediators of this important media effect as well as health-policy implications. The take-home message is that eliminating smoking in movies may prevent a substantial number of adolescents from smoking.

Objective: The immediate hemodynamic effects of contrast agents are well documented. Less is known about their longer-lasting effects. We investigated the later effect of iopromide on the neurovascular coupling mechanism after the performance of cerebral or coronary angiography. Neurovascular coupling is a fine-tuned and reliable mechanism adapting cerebral blood flow to cortical activity. When performing a visual stimulation and measuring the resultant flow velocity change in the posterior cerebral artery transcranial Doppler has been used to determine vascular integrity. Methods: The visually evoked blood flow velocity response in the posterior cerebral artery was measured with transcranial Doppler before, 1–2 h after and the day after angiography. The overshoot of the flow velocity response and the stable flow velocity level at the end of the stimulation phase were used to compare the different conditions. Results: A significantly diminished overshoot was found 1–2 h after angiography only in patients undergoing cerebral angiography. The stable blood flow velocity levels at the end of the stimulation phase remained unchanged in all cases. Conclusions: Our finding demonstrates effects of contrast media on dynamic blood flow regulation of the cerebral vasculature 1–2 h after application of direct contrast agent suggesting a possible concentration effect of the contrast agent. However, since the relative blood flow velocity increase under stable blood flow conditions remained constant, this dynamic alteration does not cause a reduction in cerebral blood flow.

Most laboratory and field studies into media effect have focussed on aggressive drive or attitude. Overall, their results suggest that a relationship exists between media violence and personal aggression -though the findings are by no means clear-cut. In contrast to this assessment, the present paper asserts that the mass media exert no proven influence at all. Reinterpreting previous work and discussing the findings of new research, we argue that a subcultural explanation is the most promising way of synthesizing their results and expanding the limited insight into media impact provided by the effects paradigm. The influence of the media can only be gauged by understanding the social and cultural conditions in which the media-audience relationship takes hold.

Effect of contrast material dose on clinically evident change in renal function was studied prospectively in 200 examinations requiring intravenous or intraarterial administration of contrast material. All patients were adequately hydrated. Blood urea nitrogen and serum creatinine were measured before and after the procedure. Ionic and nonionic contrast agents were used. Total dose of contrast material ranged from 30 to 530 mL (mean, 237 mL). There was no tendency to give smaller doses to patients with preexisting renal impairment and no relationship between total dose and patient age. No consistent clinical effect on renal function was demonstrated with increasing dose, regardless of whether ionic or nonionic agents were used. In adequately hydrated low-risk patients with predominantly normal initial renal function and within the dose range studied, there does not appear to be any consistent clinical change in renal function with increasing contrast material dose.