Maria Elizabeth (Betsi) Grabe | Boston University (original) (raw)
Papers by Maria Elizabeth (Betsi) Grabe
Page 1. ORIGINAL ARTICLE An Experimental Investigation of Source Confusion in Televised Messages:... more Page 1. ORIGINAL ARTICLE An Experimental Investigation of Source Confusion in Televised Messages: News Versus Advertisements Narine S. Yegiyan & Maria Elizabeth Grabe Department of Telecommunications, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405-5501 ...
Communication, Oct 28, 2014
The term tabloid is often traced back to Alfred Harmsworth, who used the term in 1896 to describe... more The term tabloid is often traced back to Alfred Harmsworth, who used the term in 1896 to describe the size of his British newspaper the Daily Mail. Early tabloid newspapers were recognized by their compact size and oversimplified news content, which made them accessible to non-elite readers. Currently, the term tabloid applies to all news media—regardless of platform or trendiness—and refers to stylistic and content dimensions of news messages. Within the tabloid market, however, distinctions are drawn between daily newsstand papers and weekly supermarket publications. While the daily tabloid papers share some elements of the news agenda with the mainstream press (e.g., both cover political stories and election campaigns), the weekly tabloids emphasize scandal, sports, and entertainment (see Sparks and Tulloch 2000, cited under Cross-National Comparative Work). Some of the early research on tabloid journalism was inspired by (and supported) criticism that emerged from high-minded public intellectuals and elite journalists in the late 1800s. Certainly the tabloid was—and perhaps still is in some circles—viewed as a corrupting force that soiled the sacred mission of journalism to inform the public. Indeed, some of the early research echoed this normative stance. Historians were the ones to bring context and nuance to this moral panic, and later on cultural studies scholars made the tabloid a legitimate cultural product, worthy of serious scholarship. Along the way, a few quantitative scholars offered evidence to suggest that tabloids might help—not hinder—informed citizenship. John Langer’s Tabloid Television: Popular Journalism and the “Other News” (Langer 1998, cited under Struggle for Definition) forcefully entangled these research streams in arguing for the relevance of tabloid news as a symbol of cultural values and as an information tool. Key scholarly outlets and the advances (theoretically and methodologically) in this relatively young and somewhat disjointed area of research will be reviewed in this bibliography.
Critical Studies in Media Communication, Sep 1, 2002
... Maria Elizabeth Grabe is an Associate Professor in the Ernie Pyle School of Journalism at Ind... more ... Maria Elizabeth Grabe is an Associate Professor in the Ernie Pyle School of Journalism at Indi-ana University. ... Poli-ticians, including the former Secretary of Education, William Bennett, Sena-tors Joseph Lieberman and Sam Nunn, as well as the former Secretary of Health and ...
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Oct 17, 2022
This study considered the impact of gender on visual coverage of the top 12 candidates in the 202... more This study considered the impact of gender on visual coverage of the top 12 candidates in the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary. Using Microsoft Azure’s Face API, we analyzed 9,529 still images from 43 mainstream news sources for facial emotion (happiness, anger, neutrality) and prominence (close-up, medium, long shots). We found visual evidence for an age-old narrative that undermines confidence in women’s leadership fitness: They were presented as emotionally less composed than men. Although we found no gender differences for facial prominence per se, its interaction with facial emotion gave nuance to gender differences in visual coverage of leadership performances.
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 2008
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media
Black Americans in the US not only suffered from disproportionately high hospitalization and deat... more Black Americans in the US not only suffered from disproportionately high hospitalization and death rates throughout the pandemic but also from the consequences of low COVID-19 vaccination rates. This pattern of disparity is linked to distrust of public health systems that originates from a history of medical atrocities committed against Black people. For that reason, mitigation of race-based inequity in COVID-19 impacts might find more success in grassroots information contagion than official public health campaigns. While Black Twitter is well-positioned as a conduit for such information contagion, little is known about message characteristics that would afford it. Here, we tested the impact of four different message frames (personalization, interactive, fear appeal, neutral) on the social contagion potential of bi-modal social media messages promoting COVID-19 vaccinations and finding personalized messages to be the most shareable. Wary of recommending personalization as the blueprint for setting a social contagion health campaign in motion, we probed further to understand the influence of individual-level variables on the communicability of personalized messages. Subsequently, regression models and focus group data were consulted, revealing that thinking styles, vaccine confidence levels, and attitudes toward social media were significant factors of influence on the contagion potential of personalized messages. We discussed the implications of these results for health campaigns.
Hate crimes against Muslims in the United States have been on the rise since 2016 (FBI, 2022), di... more Hate crimes against Muslims in the United States have been on the rise since 2016 (FBI, 2022), discouraging this group's participation in public life. Most Americans, therefore, encounter Muslims only via media representations. We investigated if two journalistic storytelling devices can kindle in white non-Muslim Americans empathy and supportive attitudes toward Muslim women who are victims of discrimination. Indeed, personalization and emotionalization of news stories increased empathy for Muslim victims among participants with high Muslim prejudice. Gender differences moderated the effect of emotionalization, with women participants reporting more empathy and willingness to help victims than men.
As legitimate and voluminous as vexations about disinformation are, intended and unintended injur... more As legitimate and voluminous as vexations about disinformation are, intended and unintended injury to information integrity-and to individuals consuming compromised content-are not new phenomena on the socio-political landscape. The circulation of exaggeration and lies is an historical reality of human self-organization. Yet the volume, velocity, and variety of contemporary disinformation makes an infodemic diagnosis a reasonable one and the successional levels of disinformed citizenship a legitimate concern for democracy's preservation. In light of this threat, we trace the salient trajectories and philosophical fault lines related to disinformation and offer diagnostics and present-day mitigation strategies for this hazard.
The International Encyclopedia of Communication
"Tabloid" means compact size. In reference to the press it describes smaller-sized ->... more "Tabloid" means compact size. In reference to the press it describes smaller-sized -> newspapers. Yet in contemporary journalism the term "tabloid" refers to both newspapers and television and carries a strong normative evaluation of news work (-> Television News). In many respects, the term "tabloid" has become removed from its original meaning and attached itself to the idea of sensational news coverage (-> Scandalization in the News; Sensationalism). Slogans like "if it bleeds it leads" and "bodybag journalism" refer to emphases on death and destruction and are commonly used in reference to tabloid news. An assessment of public debate among media critics and academics about this journalistic style reveals sweeping declarations about its corruptive influence on journalism. At the heart of this debate are two popular concerns: tabloid journalism violates notions of social decency, and it displaces socially significant stories
Emotion is often treated as unconducive to rationality and informed citizenship. For this reason,... more Emotion is often treated as unconducive to rationality and informed citizenship. For this reason, journalistic styles that personalize issues and elicit emotion are typically not taken seriously as information sources. The experimental study reported here tested these sentiments through the knowledge gap hypothesis. Eight investigative news stories, arguably important to informed citizenship (e.g., child labor, corruption in public housing administration, lethality of legal drugs), were each presented in two versions. One featured emotional testimony of ordinary people who experienced the issue, and the other did not—resembling the traditional view of news as cold hard facts. Emotional versions were associated with smaller knowledge gaps between higher and lower education groups. Moreover, the size of knowledge gaps varied across three memory measures: free recall, cued recall, and recognition. Contrary to the inimical role that is traditionally assigned to emotion, these findings s...
American Behavioral Scientist, 2016
Political communication scholars have shown that nonverbal communication cues have the potential ... more Political communication scholars have shown that nonverbal communication cues have the potential to influence political judgments. The bulk of this literature has focused on leader displays in the context of electoral politics. The study reported here aligns with that body of literature, but tests how facial displays of ordinary citizens might affect political participatory intentions among different demographic groups. The study reported here provides support for the idea that being exposed to audiovisual news that features emotional testimonies of people with firsthand experience of social issues encourages political participation. The findings from a mixed design experiment ( N = 80) examining story personalization, ideological strength, and education level offer evidence that participants from both higher and lower socioeconomic segments of society become equally motivated for political participation after viewing emotional testimony of fellow citizens. It is reasonable to start...
The International Encyclopedia of Communication
Infoamérica; Iberoamerican Communication Review, 2015
Este estudio experimental pone a prueba la hipotesis de que exista una brecha de conocimiento en ... more Este estudio experimental pone a prueba la hipotesis de que exista una brecha de conocimiento en la interseccion entre niveles educativos y formatos de noticias (prensa impresa y online). Los resultados evidencian una brecha en la adquisicion de conocimiento sobre asuntos de interes publico entre ciudadanos de Corea del Sur (N = 123) con distintos antecedentes educativos. Ademas, se comprobo que el grado de comprension de las noticias alcanzado por el grupo de nivel educativo elevado no cambiaba al acceder a ellas en papel o por Internet, mientras que los participantes de nivel educativo bajo adquirian un mejor conocimiento leyendo un periodico que accediendo a una fuente informativa a traves de internet. Las conclusiones de este estudio, consideradas de manera conjunta, con rman a traves de una investigacion experimental la hipotesis de la brecha de conocimiento y aportan evidencia de como esta puede contribuir a la brecha digital.
Page 1. ORIGINAL ARTICLE An Experimental Investigation of Source Confusion in Televised Messages:... more Page 1. ORIGINAL ARTICLE An Experimental Investigation of Source Confusion in Televised Messages: News Versus Advertisements Narine S. Yegiyan & Maria Elizabeth Grabe Department of Telecommunications, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405-5501 ...
Communication, Oct 28, 2014
The term tabloid is often traced back to Alfred Harmsworth, who used the term in 1896 to describe... more The term tabloid is often traced back to Alfred Harmsworth, who used the term in 1896 to describe the size of his British newspaper the Daily Mail. Early tabloid newspapers were recognized by their compact size and oversimplified news content, which made them accessible to non-elite readers. Currently, the term tabloid applies to all news media—regardless of platform or trendiness—and refers to stylistic and content dimensions of news messages. Within the tabloid market, however, distinctions are drawn between daily newsstand papers and weekly supermarket publications. While the daily tabloid papers share some elements of the news agenda with the mainstream press (e.g., both cover political stories and election campaigns), the weekly tabloids emphasize scandal, sports, and entertainment (see Sparks and Tulloch 2000, cited under Cross-National Comparative Work). Some of the early research on tabloid journalism was inspired by (and supported) criticism that emerged from high-minded public intellectuals and elite journalists in the late 1800s. Certainly the tabloid was—and perhaps still is in some circles—viewed as a corrupting force that soiled the sacred mission of journalism to inform the public. Indeed, some of the early research echoed this normative stance. Historians were the ones to bring context and nuance to this moral panic, and later on cultural studies scholars made the tabloid a legitimate cultural product, worthy of serious scholarship. Along the way, a few quantitative scholars offered evidence to suggest that tabloids might help—not hinder—informed citizenship. John Langer’s Tabloid Television: Popular Journalism and the “Other News” (Langer 1998, cited under Struggle for Definition) forcefully entangled these research streams in arguing for the relevance of tabloid news as a symbol of cultural values and as an information tool. Key scholarly outlets and the advances (theoretically and methodologically) in this relatively young and somewhat disjointed area of research will be reviewed in this bibliography.
Critical Studies in Media Communication, Sep 1, 2002
... Maria Elizabeth Grabe is an Associate Professor in the Ernie Pyle School of Journalism at Ind... more ... Maria Elizabeth Grabe is an Associate Professor in the Ernie Pyle School of Journalism at Indi-ana University. ... Poli-ticians, including the former Secretary of Education, William Bennett, Sena-tors Joseph Lieberman and Sam Nunn, as well as the former Secretary of Health and ...
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Oct 17, 2022
This study considered the impact of gender on visual coverage of the top 12 candidates in the 202... more This study considered the impact of gender on visual coverage of the top 12 candidates in the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary. Using Microsoft Azure’s Face API, we analyzed 9,529 still images from 43 mainstream news sources for facial emotion (happiness, anger, neutrality) and prominence (close-up, medium, long shots). We found visual evidence for an age-old narrative that undermines confidence in women’s leadership fitness: They were presented as emotionally less composed than men. Although we found no gender differences for facial prominence per se, its interaction with facial emotion gave nuance to gender differences in visual coverage of leadership performances.
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 2008
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media
Black Americans in the US not only suffered from disproportionately high hospitalization and deat... more Black Americans in the US not only suffered from disproportionately high hospitalization and death rates throughout the pandemic but also from the consequences of low COVID-19 vaccination rates. This pattern of disparity is linked to distrust of public health systems that originates from a history of medical atrocities committed against Black people. For that reason, mitigation of race-based inequity in COVID-19 impacts might find more success in grassroots information contagion than official public health campaigns. While Black Twitter is well-positioned as a conduit for such information contagion, little is known about message characteristics that would afford it. Here, we tested the impact of four different message frames (personalization, interactive, fear appeal, neutral) on the social contagion potential of bi-modal social media messages promoting COVID-19 vaccinations and finding personalized messages to be the most shareable. Wary of recommending personalization as the blueprint for setting a social contagion health campaign in motion, we probed further to understand the influence of individual-level variables on the communicability of personalized messages. Subsequently, regression models and focus group data were consulted, revealing that thinking styles, vaccine confidence levels, and attitudes toward social media were significant factors of influence on the contagion potential of personalized messages. We discussed the implications of these results for health campaigns.
Hate crimes against Muslims in the United States have been on the rise since 2016 (FBI, 2022), di... more Hate crimes against Muslims in the United States have been on the rise since 2016 (FBI, 2022), discouraging this group's participation in public life. Most Americans, therefore, encounter Muslims only via media representations. We investigated if two journalistic storytelling devices can kindle in white non-Muslim Americans empathy and supportive attitudes toward Muslim women who are victims of discrimination. Indeed, personalization and emotionalization of news stories increased empathy for Muslim victims among participants with high Muslim prejudice. Gender differences moderated the effect of emotionalization, with women participants reporting more empathy and willingness to help victims than men.
As legitimate and voluminous as vexations about disinformation are, intended and unintended injur... more As legitimate and voluminous as vexations about disinformation are, intended and unintended injury to information integrity-and to individuals consuming compromised content-are not new phenomena on the socio-political landscape. The circulation of exaggeration and lies is an historical reality of human self-organization. Yet the volume, velocity, and variety of contemporary disinformation makes an infodemic diagnosis a reasonable one and the successional levels of disinformed citizenship a legitimate concern for democracy's preservation. In light of this threat, we trace the salient trajectories and philosophical fault lines related to disinformation and offer diagnostics and present-day mitigation strategies for this hazard.
The International Encyclopedia of Communication
"Tabloid" means compact size. In reference to the press it describes smaller-sized ->... more "Tabloid" means compact size. In reference to the press it describes smaller-sized -> newspapers. Yet in contemporary journalism the term "tabloid" refers to both newspapers and television and carries a strong normative evaluation of news work (-> Television News). In many respects, the term "tabloid" has become removed from its original meaning and attached itself to the idea of sensational news coverage (-> Scandalization in the News; Sensationalism). Slogans like "if it bleeds it leads" and "bodybag journalism" refer to emphases on death and destruction and are commonly used in reference to tabloid news. An assessment of public debate among media critics and academics about this journalistic style reveals sweeping declarations about its corruptive influence on journalism. At the heart of this debate are two popular concerns: tabloid journalism violates notions of social decency, and it displaces socially significant stories
Emotion is often treated as unconducive to rationality and informed citizenship. For this reason,... more Emotion is often treated as unconducive to rationality and informed citizenship. For this reason, journalistic styles that personalize issues and elicit emotion are typically not taken seriously as information sources. The experimental study reported here tested these sentiments through the knowledge gap hypothesis. Eight investigative news stories, arguably important to informed citizenship (e.g., child labor, corruption in public housing administration, lethality of legal drugs), were each presented in two versions. One featured emotional testimony of ordinary people who experienced the issue, and the other did not—resembling the traditional view of news as cold hard facts. Emotional versions were associated with smaller knowledge gaps between higher and lower education groups. Moreover, the size of knowledge gaps varied across three memory measures: free recall, cued recall, and recognition. Contrary to the inimical role that is traditionally assigned to emotion, these findings s...
American Behavioral Scientist, 2016
Political communication scholars have shown that nonverbal communication cues have the potential ... more Political communication scholars have shown that nonverbal communication cues have the potential to influence political judgments. The bulk of this literature has focused on leader displays in the context of electoral politics. The study reported here aligns with that body of literature, but tests how facial displays of ordinary citizens might affect political participatory intentions among different demographic groups. The study reported here provides support for the idea that being exposed to audiovisual news that features emotional testimonies of people with firsthand experience of social issues encourages political participation. The findings from a mixed design experiment ( N = 80) examining story personalization, ideological strength, and education level offer evidence that participants from both higher and lower socioeconomic segments of society become equally motivated for political participation after viewing emotional testimony of fellow citizens. It is reasonable to start...
The International Encyclopedia of Communication
Infoamérica; Iberoamerican Communication Review, 2015
Este estudio experimental pone a prueba la hipotesis de que exista una brecha de conocimiento en ... more Este estudio experimental pone a prueba la hipotesis de que exista una brecha de conocimiento en la interseccion entre niveles educativos y formatos de noticias (prensa impresa y online). Los resultados evidencian una brecha en la adquisicion de conocimiento sobre asuntos de interes publico entre ciudadanos de Corea del Sur (N = 123) con distintos antecedentes educativos. Ademas, se comprobo que el grado de comprension de las noticias alcanzado por el grupo de nivel educativo elevado no cambiaba al acceder a ellas en papel o por Internet, mientras que los participantes de nivel educativo bajo adquirian un mejor conocimiento leyendo un periodico que accediendo a una fuente informativa a traves de internet. Las conclusiones de este estudio, consideradas de manera conjunta, con rman a traves de una investigacion experimental la hipotesis de la brecha de conocimiento y aportan evidencia de como esta puede contribuir a la brecha digital.