Empowering Engagement: Understanding Social Media User Sense of Influence

For all the hope and hype hailing the democratizing effect of social media, few studies have explained public influence as an element of social media engagement. Insight into how and why individuals attempt to exert influence over organizations online is particularly underdeveloped. This study takes the first step in understanding sense of influence online through in-depth interviews with social media users. Findings call into question assumptions in research about the motives and meanings underlying individual efforts to exert influence via social media. The data from 19 in-depth interviews with active social media users suggest that sense of influence is enacted for social relationships rather than to influence organizations or society, and information is the driving force of that effort. Findings also place the imperative on strategic communication to emphasize the value of the organization’s role on social interaction toward a fully functioning society.     

Personenorientierte Medienrezeption: Ein Zwei-Ebenen-Modell parasozialer Interaktionen

Since its original formulation in 1956 by Horton and Wohl, the concept of parasocial interaction has received remarkable attention among communication scholars. However, it still suffers from a range of desiderata and lacks a coherent theoretical foundation that could guide empirical research. In this article, we present a two-level model of parasocial interaction (PSI) that is intended to lead to a better understanding of the processes of PSI. By refering to theories of media and social psychology, two levels are distinguished: «Low-Level-PSI» comprise the less intensive, superficial modes of media person perception whereas «High-Level-PSI» refer to intensive and elaborated forms of interpersonal involvement with a media character. Both levels are discussed in terms of cognitive, emotional and conative processes which characterize person-oriented media reception. Subsequently, media factors as well as individual characteristics are introduced which are likely to facilitate the intensity of PSI processes as reception is going on. The article concludes with a prospect about useful further developments of the two-level model as well as its implications for empirical audience and reception studies.     

Empathie und Medienempathie

Empathy is the capacity and tendency of a person to recognize, understand, and be sensitive to other people’s emotions. The roots of this construct go back to the psychology of emotions and personality psychology. Communication science frequently makes use of it to describe the experiences and emotions during media reception. However, the question can be asked whether empathy and media empathy are two different constructs requiring different measuring instruments. To begin with, this question will be discussed theoretically with important arguments being presented both in favor of and against the thesis of congruent constructs. Subsequently, a measuring instrument for media empathy will be introduced which is constructed following precisely the tried-and-tested operationalization of empathy. It was employed in two studies, and their findings will be compared with one another. The results display both similarities and marked differences, especially with regard to reception variables. Since communication science uses media empathy to explain the effects of reception, different references to reception variables represent a particularly apt argument for the broad independence of the construct and thus for a separate measuring instrument. The present measuring instrument, developed in the context of a pilot study, will be suggested as a provisionally valid operationalization.     

Exploring Big Data and Privacy in Strategic Communication Campaigns: A Cross-Cultural Study of Mobile Social Media Users’ Daily Experiences

Mobile communications have played an indispensable part in contemporary human experiences. The combination of social networking and mobile technologies presents an interesting phenomenon because the pervasive nature of mobile technologies significantly impacts on users’ privacy concerns about highly personal social media like Facebook. The massive amount of data collected from users’ mobile social media usage behaviors is beneficial to strategic communication professionals and practices. However, there are significant privacy concerns as a result of these big data applications. Because cultural context provides what is considered to be private and how individuals should respond to any infringement with their own privacy, Geert Hofstede’s 5-D cultural dimension framework was used as an interpretive framework to understand cross-cultural data collected from the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). The data were analyzed by examining country-specific differences in mobile social media users’ experiences, particularly, concerns over privacy among these cross-cultural mobile social media users. Individualism/Collectivism index was found to explain cross-cultural variations in our study. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.     

Was ist die Funktion von Tod und Sterben in medialer Unterhaltung?

Why do death and dying occur so frequently in fictional media entertainment, although our rather hedonistic contemporary society seems to marginalize the subject otherwise? Searching for answers to this question, the paper first reflects possible explanations from entertainment theory. Displaying death is very reliable in terms of facilitating affective responses by the audience and thus serves as a safe technique to generate entertainment experiences. Subsequently, the paper discusses the perspective of terror management theory from social psychology to approach the subject of death in media entertainment, followed by an even more abstract reflection on religiosity, coping with death and secularized societies. The conclusion is that media entertainment has begun to take over parts of the coping support that was traditionally offered by the religions, thus contributing to the audience’s search for meaning in life and dealing with one’s own mortality.     

Die heimlichen Entscheider

Facing the spread and importance of information technology, the lack of empirical studies of IT journalists must be considered a research gap. The small group of IT journalists includes important gatekeepers in the IT market, who play a major part in determining the success and failure of IT products. To examine the powerful position derived from this role is the central aim of this study: How do IT journalists in Germany perceive their influence on buyers and users of IT products? How do they perceive their influence on the IT industry? Based on an online survey of 102 IT journalists in Germany, the study measures subjective perceptions of effects on the general audience and the industry. The findings indicate that IT journalists view themselves as influencing consumer decisions of the general audience as well as corporations’ decisions in product development. However, these perceptions of effects are not related to (1) the audience size of the IT medium, or to journalists’ images of (2) the audience and (3) the IT industry. The perception of their own influence seem to be commonplace among IT journalists, independent of the power of media outlets and particular professional perceptions. The accuracy of journalists’ perceptions of effects and their normative implications are discussed.     

Macht der Neuen Medien?

Virtual reality media mark the latest milestone in media evolution in respect to the media’s capacity to involve users’ senses and perceptual resources. Therefore, these new media are assumed to hold an especially strong potential to influence their users. Based on a conceptual model from presence research, this study explicates the potentially powerful effects of virtual media as users’ impression of ?being overwhelmed‘ by the medium, which can manifest in different steps (e.g., attraction of attention, suspension of disbelief, or presence). Subsequently, an experiment (N = 85) tests the impact of key characteristics of virtual media (sensory immersion and interactivity) on the conceptualized different steps of ?being overwhelmed‘. The study uses the example of a virtual museum. Both self-report data and a machine-based procedure (Secondary Task Reaction Times) are applied to measure the state (types) of ?being overwhelmed‘. Results indicate that the general assumption of powerful effects of virtual media should be specified in terms of person x situation models because the subjects’ personal characterists also affected the qualitiy and intensity of users being ?overwhelmed‘.     

Social Media Activities of Political Communication Practitioners: The Impact of Strategic Orientation and In-Group Orientation

The question of why political communication practitioners use social media for strategic political communication activities has rarely been investigated. By using well-established theoretical approaches of communication research, such as the influence of presumed influence approach, this study sought to determine the extent to which the subjective perceptions of German political communication practitioners explain their professional social media activities. The results of a survey (N = 1,067) indicate that the more political communication practitioners perceived that other political communication practitioners used and were influenced by Facebook and Twitter, the more often they used social media themselves. In contrast, the presumed reach of Facebook and Twitter among politicians, journalists, and citizens, as well as the presumed influence of both media on these groups, were not related to the practitioners’ social media activities. These findings suggest that the practitioners’ social media activities are driven more by an in-group orientation toward their colleagues and less by a strategic orientation toward external stakeholders.     

Examining the Impact of Public Engagement and Presidential Leadership Communication on Social Media in China: Implications for Government-Public Relationship Cultivation

This study examined how public positive and negative social media (i.e., WeChat) discussion about President Xi Jinping in China, along with Xi’s leadership communication styles of assertiveness, responsiveness, and authenticity on social media influence publics’ evaluation of his leadership effectiveness, which in turn, influences public trust and satisfaction with the government. Through a quantitative online survey of 396 WeChat users in China, randomly selected via an international sampling firm and a structural equation modeling analysis, the results show that publics’ political discussion about Xi on social media in China significantly influences the perceived leadership effectiveness of the president. Specifically, the more the publics engage in positive discussion about the president on social media, the more they perceive him to be a better political leader, and vice-versa. The president’s leadership communication attributes of responsiveness and authenticity strongly and positively influenced perceived leadership effectiveness and the quality of government-public relationships. Publics’ evaluation of the president’s leadership effectiveness directly contributed to public trust and satisfaction toward the government. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.     

Die Rolle der Individual- und Massenmedien im Integrationsprozess von Jugendlichen mit Migrationshintergrund

Migrant’s media use is a growing research field in communication. This article offers an integrated view on the relationship of media use, adolescents’ identity development and social integration. Based on Hurrelmann’s conceptualization of (media) socialization, Esser’s integration theory and Keupp’s concept of identity development, this study deduces a theoretical framework for analyzing the importance of individual and mass media in the process of adolescent immigrant’s social integration. Empirically, an exploratory-qualitative survey consisting of eight group discussions and ten face-to-face interviews highlights the importance of the hybrid character of socialisatio in multi-cultural entities (community of origin and admission). The media’s role in this process is limited.     

Motivations,Consumption Emotions,and Temporal Orientations in Social Media Use: A Strategic Approach to Engaging Stakeholders Across Platforms

How to engage stakeholders effectively with different social media platforms is an important topic in strategic communication research. Grounded in uses and gratifications theory, consumption emotion theory, and temporal orientation framework, this study conducted an online survey among social media users in the United States (N = 940) to examine how individuals’ motivations, emotions, and temporal orientations in social media use might differ by multi-platform usage groups (i.e., Facebook+Instagram users vs. Facebook+Pinterset users). Our findings indicate that Facebook+Instagram users focus more on self-status seeking and entertainment, while Facebook+Pinterest users are more information-seeking driven and future-oriented. In addition, more optimism is detected among Facebook+Pinterest users. Implications for strategic communication theory development as well as insights for organization-stakeholder engagement on social media are discussed.     

?Wir sind besser als die anderen??

The paper applies social psychology??s results on the theory of social comparison to media content. The finding that people tend to evaluate themselves better than they evaluate others, even if there is no foundation for that in reality, presents the starting point of these considerations. Such an optimistic bias can also be observed in social groups. It is established and distributed in small groups by interpersonal communication and contributes to the individuals?? identification with the group and, thus, to the group??s stability. The paper argues that this phenomenon should be applicable to larger social groups such as religious and ethnic groups or social strata. In these cases, the optimistic bias would have to be communicatively distributed through the media. We introduce a theoretical model that combines the role of media content, its individual reception and processing, and the reciprocal effect of processing on social structure. Subsequently, first empirical evidence of optimistic-bias presentations in media discourses is presented, and resulting problems for future research are discussed.     

Lessons for Crisis Communication on Social Media: A Systematic Review of What Research Tells the Practice

This study analyzes explicit pieces of advice for effective social media crisis communication given by researchers in various subdisciplines of strategic communication. The themes are identified by a systematic content analysis of peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers (n = 104) published between 2004 and 2017. Five overall thematic “lessons” are identified and critically discussed. These are that effective social media crisis communication is about: (1) exploiting social media’s potential to create dialogue and to choose the right message, source and timing; (2) performing precrisis work and developing an understanding of the social media logic; (3) using social media monitoring; (4) continuing to prioritize traditional media in crisis situations; and finally, (5) just using social media in strategic crisis communication. These guidelines mainly emerged from quantitative research conducted in the context of the United Stated and on Twitter. There is need for more research focusing on other platforms and other empirical material. There is also a future need for an in-depth methodological discussion of how to further bridge the gap between research and practice on a global scale, and how to develop more evidence-based recommendations for strategic crisis communication practitioners.     

Where Does My Money Go? How Online Comments on a Donation Campaign Influence the Perceived Trustworthiness of a Nonprofit Organization

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are increasingly using social media to spread campaigns. Little research has focused on the influence of user comments on trust in NPOs regarding campaigns in social media. Stakeholders’ trust is seen as important for NPOs. Two experimental studies examine the influence of user comments with different connotations concerning campaigns that were published on the social networking site Facebook. The first experiment focused on the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The second experiment applied to a fictitious NPO, to avoid reputational influence. Irrespective of the NPO’s reputation, the results show that user comments in social media influence the perceived trustworthiness of NPOs. Negative comments resulted in a lower level of perceived trustworthiness. Positive comments, a balanced mixture of positive and negative comments, and the absence of any comments at all resulted in a higher level of perceived trustworthiness. In addition, the likelihood of an act of trust in the form of a donation or a recommendation of the campaign to others increased if the NPO was perceived as trustworthy. Finally, we were able to demonstrate the link between reputation and trustworthiness as two distinct constructs. Implications for the management of campaigns via social media are derived.     

Fakten oder Floskeln?

Following normative theories of democracy, voting decisions should be based on voters’ knowledge about parties’ future plans. Actually, most voters do not read party programmes but rather get informed by the mass media. This raises the question of whether mass media contain enough facts about party programmes to provide voters with the information they need in order to make rationally-based voting decisions. To answer this question, an input-output-analysis including the party programmes of the five major parties in the 2005 campaign and the news reports about these programmes in four newspapers was carried out. It shows that newspapers presented party goals insufficiently. This was due to parties’ communication strategies as well as the media’s news selection. Causes and consequences of these findings are discussed.     

Primed Authenticity: How Priming Impacts Authenticity Perception of Social Media Influencers

ABSTRACT

Though organizations increasingly collaborate with social media influencers, such as bloggers and videobloggers, little is known as to how the contextual cues related to sponsored content affect the authenticity perception of the social media influencers among audience members. This study explores how positive and negative priming of sponsored content shapes the authenticity perception of the vlogger among its audience members. Four different manipulation conditions were constructed to study a U.S. based travel vlog on Qualtrics, with data collected via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. A theory-guided content analysis of 211 open viewer responses was conducted to compare perceptions of authenticity between the manipulation groups. The results verified the significance of priming: the same sponsored content can result in opposite reactions among the audience members depending on the positive/negative valence of the introductory text attached, highlighting the central importance of strategic communication related to the perception of sponsored content. The results also point out the importance of audience member engagement for experienced authenticity: The manipulation of audience participation with the vlog had a stronger effect on the perception of authenticity of the vlogger than the positive/negative valence of the introductory text.     

Franz Josef Strauß und sein Verhältnis zu dem Hamburger Nachrichtenmagazin 〉Der Spiegel〈

Social sciences have repeatedly concerned themselves with the question of how politics and mass media relate to one another. This article, taking the form of a study in recent communication history, discusses a concrete example in this context: the relationship of the long-term leader of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), Franz Josef Strauß, and the Hamburg news magazine 〈Der Spiegel〉 Beginning with 〈Spiegel〉 publisher Rudolf Augstein’s openly declared intention of protecting democracy from Strauß by preventing him to become federal chancellor, it is analyzed whether, and to what degree, Strauß’s national political career might have been affected by information and opinions published by 〈Der Spiegel〉.     

Political Myth as Strategic Communication: Analysis of Chinese Dream’s Rhetoric and English News Media’s Interpretation

Within a meaning-centered framework that integrates theories of strategic communication, political myth and the Encoding-Decoding model, this research examines the Chinese government’s rhetoric and English news media’s interpretations surrounding the Chinese Dream campaign. Findings show that English news media made largely oppositional readings, in contrast to the meanings encoded by the Chinese government. The research proposes that this was caused by the inherent tensions in China’s rhetoric, the top-down approach of propaganda, and the anticommunism ideology of the Western media, among others. This research provides an empirical case to illustrate Hallahan et al.’s (2007) proposition that meaning and influence are two fundamental emphases of strategic communication. It also provides an operational framework for analysis of political myth, which consists of four constructs, namely ways meaning is created, meaning created, meaning interpreted, and power relations manifested.     

Strategic Social Media Use in Public Relations: Professionals’ Perceived Social Media Impact,Leadership Behaviors,and Work-Life Conflict

Using the E-leadership theory as the conceptual framework, the study examined strategic communicators’ perceptions of the impact of social media use on their work, leadership behaviors, and work-life conflict. Through a national sample of communication professionals (N = 458), this study revealed the following key findings. The use of YouTube in professionals’ work, social media use in media relations, employee communications, and cause-related marketing/social marketing were significantly, positively associated with participants’ perceptions of the enhancing impact of social media use. Social media use in crisis management and employee communications significantly, positively predicted professionals’ perceptions of social media’s aggravating impact (e.g., extended work hours, increased workload) on their work. The use of Facebook and YouTube in strategic communication, the use of social media in environmental scanning, as well as the positive and negative impact of social media use all significantly and positively predicted communication professionals’ leadership behaviors. When the unintended negative effects of social media use happened, professionals perceived a low control over their work and thereby experienced a high level of time-based and strain-based work-life conflict. Finally, public affairs/governmental relations professionals who were frequent users of social media for their work reported a high level of strain-based work-life conflict.     

Am Tage schaue ich nicht fern!

Although the share of older people in our society increases, the media sciences rarely examine this group of media users. Existing studies often limit themselves to chronological age and neglect a more theoretical approach. This study includes theoretical references from gerontological research, which describes aging as a multidimensional process, and links them to user-oriented perspectives of mass communication research. Referring to qualitative data from interviews with elderly people, the study achieves to identify prospects, appraisals and resources, which influence media use of people in the process of aging.