Ph.D. Degree Program Archive
Influencers’ smiles work regardless of product and message
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to examine how influencers’ visual content affects consumer attitudinal and behavioral responses to influencer advertising. The proposed model includes smile intensity of influencers […]
International Conference Association (ICA) Top Paper Award
International Conference Association (ICA) “Top Paper Award: Haley Hatfield and Grace Ahn’s paper “Do Black Lives Matter in the Empathy Machine? Investigating Whiteness and Immersion on Creating a Shared Reality […]
Influencer Crisis Communication During the COVID-19 Pandemic: @KatieMCrenshaw
Abstract: Social media influencers (SMIs) equipped their niche following with health crisis response information about social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. While many SMIs provided audiences with COVID-19 crisis response […]
New Technology, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence
Abstract: Moore’s law, which has helped to explain the exponential growth achieved in traditional computational power over the past half-century, has been eschewed for Neven’s law. Neven’s law posits that […]
Crisis Information Vetting: Extending the Social-Mediated Crisis Communication Model
Abstract: Social media provides users easy access to unpredictable and unfiltered information from multiple sources during crises, further challenging publics to discern the accuracy of the information they receive and […]
Ethical and Legal Principles for the Practitioner Consumers, Organizations, and Platforms
Abstract: The standard advice in crisis communication is to respond quickly, but only with what is absolutely known to be fact. Social media have increased the potential for quick response, […]
Gaining insights into effects appeals for COVID-19 vaccine messages targeting 18-23 year old college students
Journalistic challenges to a politician’s race-related policies: Rules for interview appropriateness and perceptions of bias and credibility
Abstract: This study uses a randomized posttest-only between-subjects experiment to investigate the communication rules participants perceive after a journalist interviews a politician about race-related policies. The journalist’s adversarialness (no challenge, simple challenge, […]
Making sense of DEI: The construction of diversity, equity, and inclusion at public relations agencies in the United States
Abstract: This in-depth interview study captures the perspectives of DEI professionals at public relations (PR) agencies and their evolving understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), focusing on the relationship between […]
Bridging the Fear and Hope: A Smartphone Eye-Tracking Examination of the Effects of Hope in Fear-based Health Messages
Abstract: This study used a smartphone eye-tracking approach to examine understudied areas in health communication – hope in fear appeal – when people are exposed to differential emotional shifts with fear […]