Press Release: Partisanship Influences Perceptions of Communications from Government Agencies
Government agencies have long distributed prepackaged “video news releases,” or VNRs, to media outlets, as part of their mission to keep the public informed about their policies and activities. The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) has said that distributing VNRs without clearly identifying the government as their source, as was done on at least two occasions by the Bush Administration, violates laws against covert propaganda. However, to date little has been known about the effects of attribution – or lack of attribution – of government VNRs on audiences.
A study by a team of researchers from Penn State University and the University of Hartford published in the current issue of the Journal of Public Relations Research indicates that the effects of attribution on audiences seems to depend more on who’s watching the VNR than on what the government agency is saying in it.
According to Colleen Connolly-Ahern, an Assistant Professor at Penn State University and the leader of the research team that included Susan Grantham of University of Hartford and Maria Cabrera-Baukus of Penn State, “The original reason for the legislation, and the premise upon which the GAO has operated, is that VNRs are somehow more credible when they appear to be independent news stories, and not identified as government communications. But our findings don’t indicate that at all.”
In fact, said Connolly-Ahern, the credibility of the communications seems to depend on your political affiliation. “Self-identified Republicans actually judged a VNR higher in expertise when they knew it was from a government agency, and not a traditional news story. For self-identified Democrats the effects were reversed, with Democrats finding the VNR less expert when it came from a governmental agency.” The data was collected during the last year of President Bush’s second term.
The role of government is to develop policies that support public interests and reduce risks for all citizens. But Connolly-Ahern, Grantham and Cabrera-Baukus’ findings indicate it’s important for administrators to understand that citizens may base the credibility of their communications on their relationship with the party in power.
The research was supported by a grant from the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication at the Penn State College of Communications. The authors are now planning to repeat the study. “The change in administrations has given us the chance to see whether or not the findings are different under a Democratic administration,” said Connolly-Ahern.
The Fulbright Scholar Program offers 35 awards in teaching, research or combined teaching/research in communications, including four Fulbright Distinguished Chairs. Even better, faculty and professionals in communications also can apply for one of the 175 “All Discipline” awards open to all fields.
What does Fulbright offer in communications? Here are a few of the awards for 2011-2012:
Venezuela: Grant opportunities in social sciences and humanities with a focus in communications.
Canada-Mexico: Opportunity for unique joint communications program in Canada and Mexico.
Sub-Saharan Africa: Awards in Swaziland, Zimbabwe, and Ghana provide unique opportunities for both scholars and professionals to teach courses, be involved with the campus, and conduct research. A PhD is not required for these awards (though it is preferred for the Swaziland award).
Faculty and professionals are also encouraged to participate in one of our weekly webinars, including a special March 25th session featuring Adam Grotsky, Executive Director of the United States-India Educational Foundation, on the expanding Fulbright opportunities in India. For more information, visit our website at www.iie.org/cies/webinar.
The application deadline is August 2, 2010. U.S. citizenship is required. For more information, visit our website at www.iie.org/cies or contact us at scholars@iie.org.
The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) urges the Federal Communications Commission to adopt rules preserving open and nondiscriminatory access to the internet.
The debate about network neutrality is complex and contentious, but we wish to address a specific myth advanced by network neutrality opponents: that this regulation would stifle innovation and create disincentives for investment in next-generation broadband networks.
The AEJMC rejects this claim.
The most important internet innovations have not come from network providers, but from creative outsiders who built their inventions on top of a neutral network. Requiring network neutrality is vital to preserve competition and investment in internet content, services, and applications.
The FCC should codify the internet openness principles that already guide the agency, and Congress and the courts should support this move. The rules would protect both consumers and innovators of content, services, and applications from unfair discrimination by internet service providers. Perhaps most importantly, these rules would help preserve and develop the internet as a key tool for communication that serves our democracy.
This statement was issued by the President of AEJMC and through the President’s Advisory Council.
The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication is a nonprofit, educational association of journalism and mass communication educators, students and media professionals. The Association’s mission is to advance education, foster scholarly research, cultivate better professional practice and promote the free flow of communication.
This is a great explanation of media convergence from CBS Sunday Morning.
I recently stumbled upon a great resource from Texas Tech University professor Brian Brown. It is a web page that summarizes a few of the predominant theories in Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Group, Organizational, and Mass Communication. You can access the web page by clicking here.
The theories section of the website is still a little bare right now. I have been working to get as many links to relevant communication theories posted, but as you can imagine this is a significant task. If you have any links or have written a summary of a major communication theory, please email it to admin@communication-theory.com. You will be credited as the source for any summaries that you send. Thank you for your help.
This is a very extensive collection of online resources for communication studies. What it lacks in organization it well makes up for in relevance. Access it by clicking here.
This is a well produced video that uses Gerbner’s Cultivation Theory to analyze the effects of video game violence.