Increasingly, practitioners are using artificial intelligence (AI) to strategically monitor and respond to crises. However, there is little evidence indicating whether a crisis response, disclosed as AI-scripted, will be accepted by stakeholders and what effects the disclosure may have on message credibility, attribution of responsibility, message acceptance, and organizational reputation. Using Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), this 2 (type of crisis) x 2 (presence or absence of AI label) online experiment explored how the disclosure of AI-generated content affects post-crisis organizational outcomes. Participants (n = 238) were randomly assigned to a vignette featuring a victim (e.g. shooting) or accidental (e.g. data breach) cluster crisis and a detailed response that either disclosed or did not disclose that the content was AI-generated. Results revealed no effect of disclosure on message credibility or attribution of responsibility. However, message acceptance served as a mediator between message credibility and attribution of responsibility on organizational reputation. This study contributes to SCCT and provides contextual evidence for practitioners who are considering AI for crisis responses. Ethical implications and future directions are discussed.

Four experiments were administered throughout the COVID-19 pandemic: April/May 2020 (n = 587), September/October 2020 (n = 279), March/April 2021 (n = 590), and September 2021 (n = 353) with a national sample of Americans. Using Terror Management Theory (TMT), these set of studies evaluated whether mortality salience impacted speaker credibility and behavioral intentions to follow government recommendations to stay safe from COVID-19, testing TMT. Results show that repeated reminders of mortality over time may have negated the desire for information from a trusted source. Implications for TMT and long-term awareness of death are discussed.

Previous health communication research has demonstrated the negative psychological and health effects of depicting thin-sized models in mass media advertisements including on social media sites such as Instagram. However, gym advertisements are one common source for the presentation of lean and thin-sized models on Instagram. Therefore, the current study guided by social comparison theory and signaling theory aimed to experimentally examine the effect of thin-sized models relative to plus-sized models as well as slogan-type (health and wellness versus physique-based) on women's appearance comparison, body satisfaction, perceived gym fit, and intentions to join the gym. A sample of 217 undergraduate students who identified as women were randomly assigned to one of four Instagram gym advertisement conditions varying in model body-size and slogan-type. Appearance comparisons, perceived gym fit, and intentions to join the gym were measured post advertisement exposure and body satisfaction was measured pre-and-post advertisement exposure. As expected, exposure to Instagram gym advertisements featuring thin-sized models resulted in greater appearance comparisons and lower body satisfaction than exposure to Instagram gym advertisements featuring plus-sized models. Moreover, the combination of plus-sized models with health and wellness slogans in Instagram gym advertisements resulted in greater gym fit perceptions although there was no effect of model body-size and slogan-type on intentions to join the gym. This study supports social comparison theory, signaling theory, and practically the findings indicate that Instagram gym advertisements that depict plus-sized models (versus thin) with health-and-wellness slogans (versus physique) generate fewer body image concerns and lead to greater gym fit perceptions.

The COVID-19 pandemic was an unprecedented threat to global health. During times of public health crises, governments and healthcare practitioners must effectively communicate preventive guidelines to the public to reduce viral transmission. Public compliance with recommended health behaviours is essential to the success of the overall pandemic response. This online experiment investigated the persuasiveness of visual message format on COVID-19 handwashing guidelines on people's behavioural intentions. A total of 350 participants, recruited through Amazon's MTurk, were randomly assigned to one of three information format conditions: text, infographic, or video. Results indicated that perceived severity, benefits, self-efficacy, cues to action, and perceived barriers significantly predicted people's intentions to comply with suggested preventive guidelines. There were no significant differences between the three information formats, in terms of behavioural intentions. These results have consequences for identifying and implementing public health strategies for a global health crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic to achieve higher citizen engagement, and for understanding future emerging infectious disease preparedness.

Individuals who report perceived stress often eat more unhealthy foods and more calories than those with lower stress levels, though individual differences and contexts are important. This study investigated how visual food cues on fast-food menus may increase calorie consumption intentions due to their potential motivational influences. A 2 (presence or absence of visual cues) x 4 (exemplar fast-food restaurant menu) fractionated experiment administered online (N = 325) indicated that when participants viewed menus with visual cues, they selected a greater number of calories to consume. Additionally, data showed an interaction effect of perceived stress and visual cues revealing that visual elements incentivized participants reporting higher stress to select more calories whereas visual cues did not have this effect for people reporting lower levels of perceived stress. Though important limitations exist, a key takeaway is that food cue exposure is another important factor to consider when predicting how stress may affect eating decisions.

This research examined the factors influencing people's likelihood of following the COVID-19 preventive measures of hand washing and wearing face masks communicated via infographics, in the U.S. and India. Guided by the Health Belief Model (HBM), this study used a 3 (source: national versus international versus a dummy source) X 2 (topic: hand washing versus wearing a face mask) X 2 (country: the U.S. versus India) research design. The results showed that the HBM constructs of perceived benefits, perceived barriers, cues to action, and self-efficacy were associated with people's likelihood of following the suggested guidelines. Message credibility mediated these relationships. Source credibility mediated the relationship between people's perceptions of severity and their intentions to adopt the preventive measures. Particularly for the hand washing infographics, people's likelihood of following these guidelines were significantly higher in the U.S. than India. Theoretical and managerial implications for international strategic communication are provided.

Chapter 5 Identity and Information Overload Examining the Impact of Health Messaging in Times of Crisis Jessica Wendorf Muhamad, Jessica Wendorf MuhamadSearch for more papers by this authorPatrick Merle, Patrick MerleSearch for more papers by this author Jessica Wendorf Muhamad, Jessica Wendorf MuhamadSearch for more papers by this authorPatrick Merle, Patrick MerleSearch for more papers by this author Book Editor(s):H. Dan O'Hair, H. Dan O'Hair University of KentuckySearch for more papers by this authorMary John O'Hair, Mary John O'Hair University of KentuckySearch for more papers by this author First published: 25 March 2021 https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119751809.ch5 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Communicating Science in Times of Crisis: The COVID‐19 Pandemic RelatedInformation

This article employs a political economy approach to examine the interests of the major players involved in decisions to reopen US-based sports during the COVID-19 pandemic. They include owners, politicians, and media outlets involved in full-contact combat sports entertainment, specifically Ultimate Fighting Championship and World Wrestling Entertainment. Though the push to resume sports was often attributed to the fans who were “starving” for content and athletes who wanted to fight or wrestle, these decisions were, and are, closely linked to the political-economic interests of the individual politicians, sports owners, and media corporations. The symbiotic relations among them also require examination.

As most college campuses across the U.S. switched to remote learning in March 2020 as a result of COVID-19, students began taking classes online, many of them using video conferencing tools such as Zoom asynchronously and synchronously. Quantitative and qualitative data from an online survey administered between April and July 2020 at two university campuses located in COVID-19 hotspots document the impact of this sudden pedagogical change on 295 respondents. Results showed many students acknowledged both practical and psychological challenges associated with the change, yet recognized that skills gained during the pandemic could be beneficial for their future careers. Overall, the study presents a look at the impact COVID-19 has had on university students and how a sudden change in education practices can affect learning, based on factors including self-efficacy, interaction, and motivation.

Every year, millions of Americans get sick from foodborne illness and it is estimated half of all reported instances occur at restaurants. To protect the public, regulators are encouraged to conduct restaurant inspections and disclose reports to consumers. However, inspection reporting format is inconsistent and typically contains information unclear to most consumers who often misinterpret the inspection results. Additionally, consumers are increasingly searching for this information in a digital context. Limited research explores inspection reports as communication tools. Using affect-as-information and ELM as theoretical frameworks, this experiment investigated how discrete emotions (e.g., disgust) conveyed through pictorial cues (i.e., emojis) influenced consumers' processing of inspection reports. Participants, recruited from Amazon's MTurk, were randomly assigned to one of six experimental conditions in a 3 (emoji: smiling vs. disgusted vs. none) x 2 (violation level: low vs. high) between-subjects design. Then, participants completed a questionnaire regarding perceptions and cognitive processing of the message. Results revealed that, compared to text, disgusted face emoji increased risk perceptions and avoidance behavior. In terms of emotion, smiling face emoji motivated participants to feel more emotions related to sanitation. In turn, positive feelings decreased elaboration likelihood. As predicted by ELM, involvement also predicted elaboration, such that participants who were highly involved with inspection reports elaborated more than those less involved. Involvement also moderated the relationship between emoji presented and elaboration. Practical implications are also discussed.

The Florida? Policy Agendas Project was founded in?2014?to assess issue attention in the legislature and news media of Florida. Stemming from a multi-disciplinary approach, this project explores individual state legislators’ priorities in the policymaking process and how sub-national actors deviate from longstanding theories of national legislatures. A recent network analysis highlights the role of non-partisan networks in legislators’ agenda-setting. The relatively fixed nature of legislators and their districts promote stability in the legislative agenda. And the interdependence of legislators’ decisions helps explain the infrequent, but rapid shifts in the agenda; occasionally the decisions of a few legislators will reverberate throughout the network, creating a cascade of attention to new topics. Our work helps explain when those transformative shifts are likely to occur. The project is managed exclusively at Florida State University.

In 2011, civil unrest erupted in Egypt quickly gaining a popular momentum that further led to the demise of President Hosni Mubarak. While certain media initially described the revolt as a Facebook revolution, this study specifically evaluated whether three distinct newspapers of record may have contributed to promulgating such a description. A content analysis of news articles (N = 869) published in The New York Times, The Guardian, and Daily News Egypt revealed that in fact the revolution was rarely attributed to social media and that newspapers varied in their tone of the coverage with Daily Egypt being more neutral. This study suggests that social media facilitated and accelerated the 2011 upheavals.

News outlets recurrently publish stories depicting restaurants in a negative light by using vivid exemplars based on a reporter’s personal testimony rather than detailing food safety reports. This magnifies the most severe violations and may impact the public’s perception of the issue as well as influence behavioral intentions. Using exemplification theory, a between-subject experiment (N = 286) revealed that participants exposed to exemplars with personal testimonies considered food safety risks to be higher and declared being less likely to eat at a restaurant than those exposed to exemplars without testimonies. Practical applications for food safety messages are discussed.

Reviews of editorial practices and academic studies have shown that journalists often rely on organization websites-and online newsrooms in particular-to inform news stories. Yet, at a time when many academics are called upon as experts by the media, university newsrooms have been ignored. To fill this gap, this study assesses newsrooms of universities to determine whether they are providing adequate resources to cover the institution or identify experts. Previous research demonstrated higher ranked Fortune 500 companies have more comprehensive newsrooms, potentially putting them at an advantage when it comes to news coverage. To better understand whether disparities exist among the top US institutions, this study features a content analysis of the newsrooms of the top 202 universities ranked by U.S. News & World Report. Findings show that although higher ranked universities typically feature more comprehensive newsrooms, universities at all levels are missing opportunities to provide journalists with information necessary to cover the university, thus limiting visibility to outside stakeholders. The most common features were internally written news stories and links to social media. Resources specifically for journalists were less common. Assessing newsrooms is valuable because they influence media coverage, which can improve credibility and perceived external prestige.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore whether public relations professors’ presence on social media and the inclusion of a social media assignment influence students’ perceptions of a course. Design/methodology/approach The experimental portion of this investigation consisted of a 2 (the presence or absence of a professor’s social media accounts) × 2 (the presence or absence of a social media assignment) factorial design resulting in four conditions. Findings The presence of a social media assignment positively influences students’ intent to register for a public relations course. Research limitations/implications The manipulation of a professor’s social media use and the inclusion of a social media assignment might have been too subtle. A more explicit scenario might elicit more reactions from the participants. Practical implications This study discussed key findings and best practices for professors who may want to use social media and the use of social media assignments in the classroom. Originality/value This experimental investigation emerged from a distinct need to understand whether university students expect their professors to engage in social media activities.

The use of guest speakers as a pedagogical technique across disciplines at the college level is hardly novel. However, empirical assessment of journalism and mass communication students' perceptions of this practice has not previously been conducted. To fill this gap, this article presents results from an online survey specifically administered to such students (N = 545) at a large public research university and a small liberal arts college. Results of statistical significance indicate that inviting a guest speaker is most valuable to students when the speaker comes from the industry and interacts face-to-face with the audience through personal examples and career tips rather than a formal slide-based lecture. Finally, this article contributes to and expands upon previous literature by offering a set of recommendations for the use of guest speakers in journalism and mass communication curriculum.