International Communication Association Conference – Day 1

After a wonderful plenary last night that provoked us to think about who we are and how we respond, individually and as an association, to the current political environment, Day 1 for me has been a great experience. Much quality scholarship emerging from the Popular Media and Culture, and Children and Media streams.

Here’s the following notes from the sessions I attended:

9:00 AM-10:15 AM, Capitol 6 (Regency 4), Subcultures, Subgroups, and Sublayers, Standard Paper Session, Popular Media & Culture, Chairs: Chengbao Jin, Shanghai University

Rita Genser – Engineering Adaptive Conspiracies: Cults and the Case of QAnon

• Framework, cultish language Subculture Evolution model (establishment, implosion
• Users look for the movement, had a mysterious connection with the figure Q
• Emergence of specialised jargon ‘Anons’
• Working together on a common goal – the connection of Q with Trump
• The ‘Covfefe’ method (Trump Tweet)

Jiahui Xing – Regulating the Past: The Role and Unexpected Empowerment of Hanfu Experts in Chinese Costume Drama Production

• Hanfu and costume drama
• Drama trends are declining, the NRTA introduced new policy (? I missed the name)
• Genre trend: ancient drama – they believe it has a bad impact on society and these were banned
• RQ: does theatre strategies work anymore?
• Cultural intermediaries (Hanfu Experts) – transfer the knowledge of the Hanfu to the society (contemporary China)
• Four layer legitimation Mechanism – regulation, industrialisation, institutionalisation, populisation
• Vietnamese drama are produced in China, using the costume from China (Hanfu), causing cultural tension between the two
• Intermediation has not restricted but empowered, Hanfu became cultural intermediation

10:30 AM-11:45 AM, Grays Peak A (Grand Conv Center 2), Artificial Intelligence, Algorithms, and Digital Interactive Entertainment, Standard Paper Session, Popular Media & Culture, Chairs: Hilde Van den Bulck, Drexel U; Chairs: Hui Lin, Kings College London

[Chaos finding the right room/building]

Museum Interestingness and Aesthetic Interaction: The Evolution From Intuitive to Embodied Cognition X. Chen; J. Jiang; J. Li

• Cognitive processing mechanisms for exhibition understanding
• Integration of design elements with visitor cognitive characteristics

Hui Lin – Challenging the Algorithms: Users’ Resistant Strategies on Douyin

• PhD candidate – early finding and thesis overview
• Framework – EchoChamber and filter bubbles, Algorithmic Surveillance, stereotyped categorisation and identity construction (Cheney et al.)
• RQ: why use Doutin when algorithims have negative impact?
• Folk theories (Eslama et al. 2016), Influencing user behaviour
• Algorithmic resistance
• Walk Through method (Ben et al.)
• 31 young urban users (18-35), week-long video recordings and interview
• 6 month recruitment (q: Is this population representative?)
• Users resist when the algorithm is used in various ways – even resistance (commercial exploitation)
• Check out the Social Media + Society article
• https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20563051251313610

12:00 PM-1:15 PM, Capitol 4 (Regency 4), HIGH-DENSITY: Growing Up Online: Social Media and Adolescent Mental Health, High-Density Paper Session, Children, Adolescents and Media, Chairs: Sarah Ashby, Brigham Young University

Social Media Use and Loneliness: A Longitudinal Study of Adolescents in South Korea S. Vigil; J. Shawcroft; D.P. Cingel; H. Lee

• High density of users/increased loneliness – is there a connection?
• 958 users aged 14-18, Differential Susceptibility to media effects model, social media use
• Results – no causal relationship, peer belonging acts as a protective factor, FOMO but social media doesn’t make this worse, use remained stable over time

The Swiss Cheese Model of Social Cues: A Theoretical Perspective on the Role of Social Context in Shaping Social Media’s Effect on Adolescent Well-Being J. Trekels; E.H. Telzer

• Youth feel connected with their friends but feel pressure to be the best version of themselves
• Media effects: selective, transactional, conditional, however these theories miss the physical, cognitive and social changes young people go through
• Friends are key to development, more nuanced to social cues, access through social media
• Swiss cheese model – social cues on platforms, social cues in the surroundings, in the individual (neuro) context
• Published here: https://academic.oup.com/joc/advance-article/doi/10.1093/joc/jqaf001/8029825?searchresult=1

The Influence of Adolescent Depression on Social Media Experiences: Evidence From a Daily Diary Study L. Janssen; P.M. Valkenburg; L. Keijsers; I. Beyens

• Do adolescents experience social media differnet to those who do not have depressive perspectives:
• 479 Dutch, 14-17, 100 day diary study
• Baseline survey Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale (Reynolds, 2005) – 17% depressed
• Some results:Those who were depressed are more preoccupied with feedback from their peers
• Self reinforcing feedback loop, e.g. someone who feels rejected may have those feelings reinforced
• AWeSome is the space of research – https://www.project-awesome.nl/for-researchers

Experiences: Evidence From a Daily Diary Study L. Janssen; P.M.

Daily Links Between Adolescents’ Perceived Digital Well-Being, State Self-Esteem, and Affective Well-Being J. Rosič; R. Vanherle; L. Vandenbosch

• Perceive well-being is when users are more happy than not (?), cognitive domain,
• 14 day diary study
• Results when users perceived higher digital well being they also recorded higher perceived self esteem – all fairly typical outcomes for this kind of research within this field of research. It is supportive of existing research.

[Sideline thoughts – the gender of the researchers is significantly skewed towards female (like, 1 male/non-binary), no tlak of platforms, but instead ‘social media’, nothing seems to challenge the status quo. Perhaps this is psychology?)

Appnome Analysis Reveals Small or No Associations Between Social Media App-Specific Usage and Adolescent Well-Being Y. Liu; L. Marciano

• Trying to understand the relationship between social media use and well being
• Outlines the existing methods, but introducing user-donated screenshots – usage times from phone, provides app overviews
• Relationships between apps and well-being? used HappyB Study Being, (?)
• Results: no causality between social media use and negative well-being
• Nod to what is the correct time to measure this kind of research (avoiding cherry picking insights) – good persepctive here

Diverse Platforms, Diverse Effects: A 100-Day Diary Study on Social Media and Adolescent Mental Health A. van der Wal; I. Beyens; L. Janssen; P.M. Valkenburg

• Gap – how effects vary within individuals across multiple dimensions
• Frame- within-person unity, within-person duality
• Method, diary: 44,211 daily diary entries (questionnaire sent each night at 7:30pm)
• Dynamic structural equation modelling (DSEM)
• Found there is a negative effect on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram; positive or neutral effect on WhatsApp and Snapchat

Performance and Toxicity: The Relationship Between Toxic Communication During Adolescent Videogame Play and Performance -Contingent Self-Esteem E.J. Noon; L. Carbone; L. Vandenbosch

• Reciprocal Mediation Model: in gaming they come across toxic activity, primarily against women

4:30 PM-5:45 PM, Mt. Oxford (Grand 3), Critical Perspectives on Gender, Race and Ethnicity, and Sexuality, Standard Paper Session, Popular Media & Culture, Chairs: Radhika Parameswaran, Indiana U Bloomington

“Sexy Side of Queerness”: Provocative LGBTQ+ Artists’ Music Videos and Commentary About Sexual Content Clay Williams

• Sam Smith & Troy Sivan – 2023 provocative video
• Content discourse across six music videos
• Self esteem – larger people demonstrated higher levels of esteem with videos of a “larger body condition” as per Williams
• Exposure to thinner music videos decreased self esteem, this has also been found in the heterosexual men category
• First study on GBTQ+ provocative entertainment and effects

A Critical (Rhetorical) Fabulation of Indigenous Trans Women in the United States Andy A. Acosta

• Hip Hop elements (authenticity measures); styles drill, bounce, etc. traumacore: sexual assault therapy
• Case study: Bobby Sanchez
• Theory: Critical Fabulation; Artifacts: four albums
• Indigenous Hip Hop: deliberative rhetoric – digging into the lyrics that cross sexual orientation
• Critical rhetorical fabulation – Indigenous hip hop that demonstrates the connection between music and politics

Fashioning Identities: How Chinese Youth Reconstruct Hanfu and Social Identities on Social Media Y. Dai

• Definition – Fashion as per the Han people: fashion, non-Western fashion, nationalism in Hanfu Studies
• RQs: What are the instutions shaping Hanfu culture? Gen Z representing? Digital practices shaping aesthetics?
• Self-Orientalism: a pushed form of reappropriating Hanfu for China’s national image (that are 56 cultural groups)

“Them’s a Rat”: Queerness and Inclusive Communities in World of Warcraft Andrew Restieri

• WoW celebrated its 20th year last year – I feel old
• RQs: How LGBTG+ find community, what support is there, what do they tell us about online inclusivity?
• 17 semi structured interviews, snowballing sampling from a guild on Discord. Interesting how participants were reluctant when Zoom was introduced as the preferred platform
• Results: most time toxic and not inclusive, many use voice changers, users were terrified of being mis-gendered
• Meaningful connections: some were extra connection activities, but many expressed there is nothing beyond the online experience