AEJMC Chicago--the rest of the story

For those of you still tuned into my conference whirlwind recap, this will be the last post and I'll use it to reflect on some of the highlights (which are hard to narrow down).

On Friday morning, I presented my research at a poster session. I presented in the PR division with research conducted with my advisor from Virginia Tech, Dr. Robert Magee (who was unable to attend this year's conference). We used Grunig's situational theory of publics and regulatory framing of video messages to understand effects on attitudes toward a brand and the brand's campaign issues (in this case the brand was Dove and the campaign was the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty and Self-Esteem Fund). Our title: "Social campaigns help our image, right?: Using the situational theory to explore attitudes toward a brand and its issues." I was excited to share this research, as I've been working on it for a long time now and the results (I think) are quite interesting. Thankfully, most people I talked to thought so, as well! I was happy to meet other graduate students interested in media messages and effects, particularly in health, who use similar methodologies and I'm looking forward to keeping in touch with them as we move through our programs (particularly those from the University of Tennessee and the University of Kentucky).

This conference also taught me how much I enjoy poster sessions, both as a presenter and as an audience member. While presenting, I was able to have more in-depth discussions with passersby and make connections with people, which is more difficult in formal presentations. As an audience member, I enjoyed being able to learn about a variety of research occurring in areas of interest and being able to do this at my own pace. Some of the research going on that I found interesting included:

• Using diffusion of innovations to understand the incorporation of digital technology in education as well as in health (which may speak to some of the ideas I had during the CDC conference)
• The differences in cognitive and behavioral effects of expressing versus reading supportive messages in online health support groups
• The effects of graphic messages in health promotion via video games
• Of particular relevance to some of my current research was a study researching how science was discussed in an online debate regarding the benefits of breastfeeding

Finally, one of the more fascinating presentations came during a top paper session for the Advertising Division of AEJMC. Jorg Matthes of the University of Vienna shared his top paper regarding implicit persuasion. Due to my interest in persuasion and media messages, my interest was sparked just from his title: "Child Exposure to Food and Beverage Placements in Movies: Toward an Implicit Persuasion Model." All findings from his experiment found that for those in the experimental conditions, food and beverage product placements had a significant effect on children's choices. However, there was no effect on explicit attitudes about the products. Wow! Certainly this has both advertising and health implications. My next question is: What happens if health groups place healthy foods in these movies? By the theories and findings used in Matthes' research, children should go for the healthy food items. This I would be very interested in experimenting with. This would also utilize the lessons learned from the panel on mass communication experimental methodology .

Needless to say, it was a long and busy week in Atlanta and Chicago. Although tired, I feel a renewed energy to start the semester and get to my studies!

And just in case you think we never left the hotel...here is proof that Josh and I did do some exploring while in Chicago:

Josh and I at Millennium Park 

                                              



                              Wrigley Field

Lovely view from our hotel room 

      and of course some delicious pizza!

AEJMC Chicago Day 1

After the CDC conference I hopped on a plane to Chicago for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication's annual conference. It was the centennial conference for the organization and was an amazing week. I am a student member of the organization and am a graduate student member of three divisions: Mass Communication and Society, Communication Technology, and Communication Theory and Methodologies. I have never attended the full conference, although I have taken part in the southeast colloquium. To add to the excitement of the week, my husband was able to join me in Chicago and attend some of the events.

I decided to write a separate post for the first day of the conference because of a very interesting panel I attended and this was the night of the keynote speaker.

The first panel I attended at the conference was "Experimental Methodology in Mass Communication: How to Improve as Scholars and Reviewers," led by Rob Wicks (Arizona), Esther Thorson (Missouri) and Glenn Leshner (Missouri). This was a great decision on my part because it resonated with every session and presentation I attended the rest of the conference and can serve as a practical checklist as I continue in my own research. The panelists outlined 7 attributes that should be included in any experimental research paper, which they also outlined in their December 2011 article in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly:

1. Clear  explication of the theory being tested and explanation of how the posited relations among independent, dependent, moderator, mediator and control variables relate to that theory.
2.  Causal relationships (with a very clear explication of how the experimental design will demonstrate causal relationships between a and b)
3. Clarity in conceptualizing media stimuli
1. According to Dr. Thorson, we “...need to move toward understanding the physical structures in messages that create psychological processes” 
4.  Clear identification of hypotheses and research questions (they also note that if there are too many RQs then the project needs re-thinking)
5. Clear specification of the sample and acknowledgement of its limitations
6. Correct specification of effect size, power, number of participants and alpha levels
7. Eliminating alternative explanations

There were a lot of components to think about during this panel session. While some of these 7 criteria seem obvious, they brought up different ways of thinking about experiments. I'll touch on a few of the main things that stand out to me from this session. 

First, the panelists reminded the audience several times that our main goal in experimental research is to understand causality. This should always be at the forefront as we think through the theories, planning, execution, and results of our experiments. This will permeate all areas of our studies. Therefore, even when thinking about our sample and generalizations this should come into play. This is interesting to me. We often think about the samples we use, which many times college students in a somewhat convenient sample. Even when we randomize conditions, the sample is not truly random. This can be a limitation and is usually listed as a limitation in studies. However, by focusing on causality, as well as our theory and constructs, we will be more concerned with generalizing the constructs and causes more than the population. In fact, our goal is usually to generalize the construct/cause/theory, rather than to a population. Perhaps we shouldn't be so hard on ourselves and so quick to point out population limitations? We need to think about the overall goal of the experiment AND we need to clearly point all of these out in our paper. 

Second, the 5th point in the outline provided points to a couple of things I've often wondered about. The panelists really allude to the need to understand what our numbers mean. With the use of computer programs, it's easy enough to produce results and plug in our Fs and p values. If the p is greater than .05 we say we found no effect and generally we don't budge from that guideline. However, there are cases in which a .06 p shouldn't be ignored. As one panelist said "surely God loves the .06 as much as He loves the .05." The problem is that many researchers do not really know what all of the numbers tell us, so they won't argue for the use of a .06 in a paper. What have we missed because of this? I'm definitely glad I took the stats course I did last semester as it may assist me in this process at some point!

After 4 pages of notes, this panel was very helpful to me. I will be hanging onto this list and notes for the foreseeable future! I'm also anxious to get back into experimental studies with a renewed passion! Bring on the semester!

End of Day

Finally, the end of the day brought about the celebration of the centennial at AEJMC (check out twitter with #AEJMC12 for more highlights) and the key note speaker, Richard Gingras of Google News Products. He was quite a captivating speaker that explored the future and necessary changes in journalism and journalism education. A wonderful recap of his talk can be found here! My husband and I both recommend reading through it! 

After stuffing ourselves with Chicago treats at the reception, the first full day of the conference came to a close with excitement in the air. 

Stay tuned for a post on the rest of the conference, including my own research shortly!

CDC Conference

From August 7-9th I was in attendance at the CDC's National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media in Atlanta, GA. While I only had one full day there, as it was the same week as AEJMC, I thoroughly enjoyed the time. It was a large conference with presenters and exhibitors from a variety of areas, including academia, government, healthcare workers, and companies in the health field, such as health insurance. This made for a rich arena from which to share and learn. 

I was presenting two posters with Dr. Kelly Albada regarding breastfeeding intentions from a media complementarity theory's perspective. One of our posters related to our research about the predictors of breastfeeding intentions, including body image, media use, and interpersonal relations. The second poster illustrated our research regarding women's nutritional information seeking during pregnancy. It was interesting to talk to and receive feedback from participants that work in these different fields. We engaged in lively discussions with several people in the public health field that advocate for breastfeeding. We were able to discuss our findings and talk about other avenues of research that might be important, such as time, work environment, and other stressors that might inhibit intentions to breastfeed. In retrospect, it seems very plausible that these factors might interact with the media use and information-seeking variables to predict intended behaviors. We were also pleased to be approached by others with questions and interest in continuing the discussion after the conference, including someone from the health insurance field. This certainly points to the practical implications these studies can have, which is what we want!

Beyond discussing our own research, there were many other posters, presentations, panels, and exhibitions that sparked my interest. Some I simply found interesting and there are others that I think can fit into my own research interests. I'm trying to figure those out, so here are just a couple of main points of interest from the conference and my thoughts or questions that came from them:

1. The Marketing and Advertising of Unhealthy Foods to Groups with High Obesity Rates:

    This is a hot topic right now. In the United States, groups with the highest obesity rates, particularly the Latino and African American communities, are being specifically targeted by companies selling unhealthy foods, such as McDonald's, Coca Cola, Kraft, and Honey Nut Cheerios (not even the regular cheerios). This has been troubling for many working in health promotion in these areas, as they are finding mixed attitudes in these communities. On the one hand they are finding that these groups, particularly in the Latino communities, are appreciative that these companies are acknowledging and trying to understand their culture. On the other hand, they understand that these pervasive advertisements are dangerous for a group already dealing with higher obesity rates (and the diseases that come with those--diabetes, heart disease, etc.). So what are public health professionals supposed to do? This came up during a morning plenary session and was discussed by Dr. Jennifer Harris of Yale University. Dr. Harris is also the Director of Marketing Initiatives at the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity. She has been working with a goal of changing the advertisements and working with the advertisers themselves to change what they are doing within the communities. During questions, someone asked why we would not just encourage healthy food companies to promote their products within the communities instead, as that would seem more promising. Dr. Harris' response was that while that would be ideal, many healthy foods can't be advertised there because they aren't anywhere--so there needs to be another way to promote eating healthy and they believe working with the advertisers already in the community would be the most productive method. Of course, I am providing only a glimpse of this discussion and Dr. Harris made many excellent points. 

    So, how might this fit into my own research? As someone who is interested in the effects of health campaigns and messages, I have just a glimmer of an idea at this point. While corporations with the money to spend on advertising would obviously be the best candidates for providing better foods and advertisements, I wonder 2 main things: 1) how can public health professionals create messages within these communities that could motivate people to look for healthier options? What would these messages look like? What effects might they have? Who should the target audience be?; and 2) Has a media literacy campaign been implemented or thought of? What type of media literacy program would work best in these communities to have the most effective results? Should it be in conjunction with a nutritional literacy program? If the corporations aren't willing to drastically alter their goals in these communities, then we need to ensure that the people can critically think through these messages and have the power to make wise judgments about media AND nutrition. 

I also have a book I now need to read at some point (although this recommendation came from another panel session): The Marketing Matrix: How the Corporation Gets Its Power--and How We Can Reclaim It, by Gerard Hastings

2. Text4Baby and other health-related mobile reminders

I was very interested in learning about the updates to the Text4Baby program started by the National Healthy Mothers, Health Babies Coalition and sponsored by Johnson & Johnson. This program now reaches over 390K mothers with important healthy tips for mom and for baby. It also provides easy access to help when a mom needs to ask questions or talk to someone. The program is still being altered at times as they receive feedback from moms within the program. It's fascinating how well it is working and how much moms involved feel more empowered to make decisions for themselves and for their babies. In this same session, another presenter from the University of Kansas School of Medicine discussed the development and pilot testing of text reminders for immunizations for children. The pilot test for this has proven to be a positive way to make sure children get the immunizations they need, when they need them. Further, during Q&A another healthcare worker was discussing her program's plans to implement text reminders to check for ticks on a daily basis. 

Now, how did I think about this within my research? These programs are interesting and I wonder if this is a viable way in the long run to promote healthy behaviors, to empower those who may otherwise not feel like they could make the right choices, and to keep people on track with their health. Even in lower income communities, most people have a cell phone, so maybe this could even be a way to encourage healthy eating habits with reminders 1 to a few times a week? It would be an interesting experiment to pilot a program within these communities and test the results. Do people use the messages and appreciate them? Have they made healthier decisions because of the messages? Have there been any major health outcomes (i.e. lower blood pressure, loss of weight, lower cholesterol, etc.)? It would almost be a nutritional literacy program that merely requires a phone. Would that be more effective than just a face-to-face media or nutritional literacy program? 

Clearly, I have so much to think about from this conference. I hope to get there again next year with more research to share and more ideas to come away with! 

Stay tuned for posts about the AEJMC conference!

Conference Whirlwind

Over the past week I've been in attendance at two conferences: The CDC's National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media in Atlanta, GA and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication's (AEJMC) Annual Conference in Chicago, Ill. It's been a busy week, but has also been a refreshing week that has sparked excitement for research to come--perfect, as the fall semester starts next week! I intended to write each day, but clearly that did not pan out. Instead, I'll use the next few posts to share some of the highlights, spending a little more time on some areas over others.