Engaging High‐Sensation Seekers: The Dynamic Interplay of Sensation Seeking,Message Visual‐Auditory Complexity and Arousing Content

This study extends the research on message‐sensation value (MSV) by treating it as a dynamic stream of complex visual‐auditory information and arousing content (MSV‐d). Real‐time attentional and emotional responses to this dynamic stream during the PSA viewing process are indicated by psychophysiological measures. Dynamic models are used to systematically examine endogenous and exogenous influences on message processing to more accurately understand the effects of MSV‐d variables and individuals' sensation seeking tendencies during the processing of the PSAs. An important finding is that generally, increasing visual‐auditory complexity activates an approach tendency in those with high sensation‐seeking tendencies but activates an avoidance tendency in those with low sensation‐seeking tendencies, and this response pattern is moderated by arousing content.     

Defining Media Enjoyment as the Satisfaction of Intrinsic Needs

This article presents a model of enjoyment rooted in self‐determination theory ( Deci & Ryan, 1985 ) that includes the satisfaction of three needs related to psychological well‐being: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In an experiment designed to validate this conceptualization of enjoyment, we manipulate video game characteristics related to the satisfaction of these needs and examine their relative effects on enjoyment. The validated model explains 51% of the variance in enjoyment, even without including needs usually studied in relation to enjoyment such as pleasure seeking. Results indicate the utility of defining enjoyment as need satisfaction. These results are discussed in terms of a broader conceptualization of enjoyment represented as the satisfaction of a comprehensive set of functional needs.     

Politically Motivated Reinforcement Seeking: Reframing the Selective Exposure Debate

This article seeks to reframe the selective exposure debate by demonstrating that people exhibit a preference for opinion‐reinforcing political information without systematically avoiding opinion challenges. The results are based on data collected in a national random‐digit‐dial telephone survey (n = 1,510) conducted prior to the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Analyses show that Americans use the control afforded by online information sources to increase their exposure to opinions consistent with their own views without sacrificing contact with other opinions. This observation contradicts the common assumption that reinforcement seeking and challenge avoidance are intrinsically linked aspects of the selective exposure phenomenon. This distinction is important because the consequences of challenge avoidance are significantly more harmful to democratic deliberation than those of reinforcement seeking.     

Seek and You Shall Find? How Need for Orientation Moderates Knowledge Gain from Twitter Use

A Web‐based survey (N = 306) examined if Twitter use enhances individuals' news knowledge, and if so, how such effects might vary depending on their need for orientation (NFO) and the type of news (hard vs. soft). The duration of Twitter use positively predicted hard news knowledge, but only for those higher in NFO. In contrast, daily Twitter use had negative influence on high NFOs' soft news knowledge, with no corresponding effect for lows. Although high NFOs were more likely to use Twitter for information‐seeking than their less surveillance‐driven counterparts, such motivation did not facilitate knowledge gain. Systematic processing of public affairs information and selective avoidance were discussed as potential explanations for differential knowledge gain by high and low NFOs.     

Greek Museum Media Visibility and Museum Visitation: An Exploration of Cultural Agenda Setting

This project investigates the classic agenda‐setting hypothesis in the context of the Greek cultural market. It is hypothesized that Greek museums with higher visibility in newspaper content are related to higher visitation than museums with lower media visibility. Because of the nature of the Greek cultural market—Greece receives more than 10 million tourists during the summer months—several variables are controlled for, such as the seasonality of visitation, the type of governance of the organization, one‐time events, such as the Olympic Games, which took place in the summer of 2004, and promotion initiatives undertaken by museums. When controlling for such culturally specific variables, there is evidence supporting the agenda‐setting hypothesis within the Greek cultural market.     

Selective Use of News Cues: A Multiple‐Motive Perspective on Information Selection in Social Media Environments

This study investigated the effects of message and social cues on selective exposure to political information in a social media environment. Based on the heuristic‐systematic model, we hypothesized that readers' selective consideration of specific cues can be explained by situational motivations. In an experiment (N = 137), subjects primed with motivational goals (accuracy, defense, or impression motivations, as well as a control group) were asked to search for information. Participants preferred attitude‐consistent information and balanced information over attitude‐inconsistent information, and also preferred highly recommended articles. Defense‐motivated partisans exhibited a stronger confirmation bias, whereas impression motivation amplified the effects of social recommendations. These findings specify the conditions under which individuals engage in narrow, open‐minded, or social patterns of information selection.     

Information Processing and Risk Perception: An Adaptation of the Heuristic-Systematic Model

The heuristic-systematic information-processing model (HSM) holds that individuals will use 1 or both of these modes of information processing when attempting to evaluate information in order to arrive at a judgment. Using survey data, an adaptation of this model is evaluated across a series of 3 cases in which epidemiological information is communicated to communities concerned about cancer rates. This adaptation of the HSM proves to be a potentially useful model for understanding how individuals perceive risk. Although the model does vary across the 3 applications enough to justify inclusion of the case as a control variable, relationships among the model's most important constituent variables are generally consistent and strong. A quarter to a third of the variance in risk perception is predicted by information processing in a structural model having an acceptably close fit to the data.     

Framing,Motivated Reasoning,and Opinions About Emergent Technologies

How do individuals form opinions about new technologies? What role does factual information play? We address these questions by incorporating 2 dynamics, typically ignored in extant work: information competition and over‐time processes. We present results from experiments on 2 technologies: carbon‐nanotubes and genetically modified foods. We find that factual information is of limited utility—it does not have a greater impact than other background factors (e.g., values), it adds little power to newly provided arguments/frames (e.g., compared to arguments lacking facts), and it is perceived in biased ways once individuals form clear initial opinions (e.g., motivated reasoning). Our results provide insight into how individuals form opinions over time, and bring together literatures on information, framing, and motivated reasoning.     

Entertainment and Politics Revisited: How Non‐Escapist Forms of Entertainment Can Stimulate Political Interest and Information Seeking

This article revisits the controversial relationship of entertainment and political communication. On the basis of a theoretical integration of entertainment theory with theories of motivated information processing, we suggest that entertainment consumption can either be driven by hedonic, escapist motivations that are associated with a superficial mode of information processing, or by eudaimonic, truth‐seeking motivations that prompt more elaborate forms of information processing. Results of two experiments indicate that eudaimonic forms of emotional involvement (characterized by negative valence, moderate arousal, and feeling moved) stimulated reflective thoughts about politically relevant content, issue interest, and information seeking. This pattern was consistent across two types of entertainment stimuli (fictional films and soft news) and two types of affect manipulations (moving film music and moving exemplars).     

The Effects of Journalist Opinionation on Learning From the News

This study considers whether opinionated television news—that is, news in which the anchor expresses a clear point of view—promotes learning relative to traditional, objective news. Results from an online experiment indicate that news opinionation neither increases nor decreases learning. An examination of processing mechanisms helps to explain this null effect: While perceived bias in opinionated news enhances learning, opinionated news also shifts the focus of information processing away from the message and toward the source, thereby distracting from learning. Learning differences as a function of attitudinal congruency with the opinionated news message are explored. Although there are no differences in learning congruent versus incongruent information, this likewise can be explained by patterns in perceived bias and information processing.     

Not in the Mood? Affective State and Transactive Communication

This study expanded transactive memory theory by incorporating affective influences on processes that have been primarily examined through a cognitive lens. Drawing on J. P. Forgas' (1995) affect infusion model, the research developed a multilevel model of the role of individual‐ and group‐level state positive affect for individual transactive communication, operationalized as information seeking and sharing. A test of the model using 25 student groups showed that (a) both individual‐ and group‐level positive affect were positively related to individual volume of transactive communication; (b) affective homogeneity among members of a group had a significant relationship to information sharing, but not information seeking; and (c) the interaction between affective homogeneity and group positive affect did not impact either transactive communication process.     

When Do People Misrepresent Themselves to Others? The Effects of Social Desirability,Ground Truth,and Accountability on Deceptive Self‐Presentations

Following Leary's (1995) impression management model, three experiments assessed factors that affect deceptive self‐presentations of height and weight. One experiment examined the role of biased cognitive processing. It revealed interactions between biased scanning—focusing on one's own socially desirable characteristics—and participants' sex that affected discrepancies between actual and self‐reported height/weight. Another investigated the effect of establishing ground truth prior to self‐assessment. It determined that exposure to one's actual measures (ground truth) prior to self‐report reduced inaccuracy. The third examined the role of perceived accountability. It found that anticipation of being measured reduced discrepant self‐reports. Results suggest that psychological and social processes provide higher‐order explanations for distorted self‐presentations of the kind that other studies have attributed to specific goals and sociotechnological factors.     

When Good News Is Bad News: Explicating the Moderated Mediation Dynamic Behind the Reversed Mobilization Effect

This study investigates the mobilizing potential of positive news framing on opponents of a referendum proposal. On the basis of an experiment (N = 470), using bootstrapping as a method to assess conditional indirect effects, mediation analysis showed that positive news framing—endorsing a referendum proposal regarding European Union (EU) integration—was perceived as negative by opponents and mobilized those with higher levels of skepticism toward the EU to turn out and vote because of increased risk perception. This “reversed mobilization” effect was contingent upon existing levels of self‐efficacy, yielding evidence for a “double conditional indirect effect” of positive news framing on turnout intention via risk perception which was strongest among those showing greater levels of EU skepticism as well as stronger self‐efficacy beliefs.     

Distributed simultaneous wireless information and power transfer in multiuser amplify‐and‐forward ad hoc wireless networks

This paper studies the problem of stable node matching for distributed simultaneous wireless information and power transfer in multiuser amplify‐and‐forward ad hoc wireless networks. Particularly, each source node aims to be paired with another node that takes the role of an amplify‐and‐forward relay to forward its signal to the destination, such that the achievable rate is improved, in return of some payment made to the relaying node. Each relaying node splits its received signal from its respective source into two parts: one for information processing and the other for energy harvesting. In turn, a matching‐theoretic solution based on the one‐to‐one stable marriage matching game is studied, and a distributed polynomial‐time complexity algorithm is proposed to pair each source node with its best potential relaying node based on the power‐splitting ratios, such that their utilities or payments are maximized while achieving network stability. For comparison purposes, an algorithm to enumerate all possible stable matchings is also devised to study the impact of different matchings on the source and relay utilities. Simulation results are presented to validate the proposed matching algorithm and illustrate that it yields sum‐utility and sum‐payment that are closely comparable to those of centralized power allocation and node pairing, with the added merits of low complexity, truth telling, and network stability.     

Influence of surface composition on back‐contact performance in CdTe/CdS PV devices

The atomic composition of the surface of the CdTe layer in a CdTe/CdS photovoltaic (PV) device has a significant influence on the quality of the electrical contact to this layer. This paper reports the results of a systematic study that correlates the composition of the back surface as measured with X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) with pre‐contact processing and device performance. We found that certain processing steps produce an oxide layer that degrades device performance by producing a metal – oxide – semiconductor (MOS) contact, rather than the intended metal – semiconductor, Schottky barrier contact. We also found that the as‐deposited CdTe film is cadmium‐rich for several hundred angstroms at the back surface. This n‐type layer may impede current flow for majority holes, degrading device performance. Published in 2000 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Aggregate Effects of Decentralized Knowledge Production: Financial Bloggers and Information Asymmetries in the Stock Market

New media have markedly enhanced individuals' capacity to produce and disseminate original knowledge; however, the literature has not extensively examined the broad effects of such decentralized production processes. This study thus focuses on a unique context—the stock market—in which it is possible to test the aggregate impact of blog‐based information production. Using data on 150 top financial bloggers and stock returns from the S&P 500, this study supports the hypothesis that financial blogging activity diminishes harmful information asymmetries between key market investors. This study thus adds to the “media effects” literature, highlights the societal relevance of bloggers, and shows how economic concepts and financial market settings can be employed for powerfully testing communication theories.     

Moderating Effect of Group Cue While Processing News on Immigration: Is the Framing Effect a Heuristic Process?

This paper presents a study on the sociocognitive effects of news frames on immigration. One hundred and eighty‐six individuals were exposed to a newspaper story on increased immigration to Spain. The newspaper highlighted (a) the positive (economic contribution frame) versus negative (crime growth frame) consequences and (b) the group cue—Latinos versus Moroccans. In contrast with economic contribution frame, crime growth frame stimulated more negative cognitive responses toward immigration, increased the salience of immigration as a problem, generated a negative attitude toward immigration, and induced greater disagreement with positive beliefs about the consequences of immigration for the country. We conceptualized the framing effect as a heuristic process in which peripheral cues in the news story guided information processing.     

Biodegradable Fluorescent Nanoparticles for Endoscopic Detection of Colorectal Carcinogenesis

Early and comprehensive endoscopic detection of colonic dysplasia—the most clinically significant precursor lesion to colorectal adenocarcinoma—provides an opportunity for timely, minimally invasive intervention to prevent malignant transformation. Here, the development and evaluation of biodegradable near‐infrared fluorescent silica nanoparticles (FSN) that have the potential to improve adenoma detection during fluorescence‐assisted white‐light colonoscopic surveillance in rodent and human‐scale models of colorectal carcinogenesis is described. FSNs are biodegradable (t_1/2 of 2.7 weeks), well‐tolerated, and enable detection and delineation of adenomas as small as 0.5 mm² with high tumor‐to‐background ratios. Furthermore, in the human scale, APC^1311/+ porcine model, the clinical feasibility and benefit of using FSN‐guided detection of colorectal adenomas using video‐rate fluorescence‐assisted white‐light endoscopy is demonstrated. Since nanoparticles of similar size (e.g., 100–150 nm) or composition (i.e., silica and silica/gold hybrid) have already been successfully translated to the clinic, and clinical fluorescent/white‐light endoscopy systems are becoming more readily available, there is a viable path towards clinical translation of the proposed strategy for early colorectal cancer detection and prevention in high‐risk patients.     

The Effects of Management Traffic on the Local Call Processing Performance of ATM Switches Using Queue Network Models and Jackson's Theorem

This paper considers a TMN‐based management system for the management of public ATM switching networks using a four‐level hierarchical structure consisting of one network management system, several element management systems, and several agent‐ATM switch pairs. Using Jackson's queuing model, we analyze the effects of one TMN command on the performance of the component ATM switch in processing local calls. The TMN command considered is the permanent virtual call connection. We analyze four performance measures of ATM switches—utilization, mean queue length and mean waiting time for the processor directly interfacing with the subscriber lines and trunks, and the call setup delay of the ATM switch—and compare the results with those from Jackson's queuing model.     

Effects of Unresolved Factual Disputes in the News on Epistemic Political Efficacy

This experiment tests effects of passive, neutral reporting of contradictory factual claims on audiences. Exposure to such reporting is found to affect a new self‐efficacy construct developed in this study called epistemic political efficacy (EPE), which taps confidence in one's own ability to determine truth in politics. Measurement of EPE is found to be reliable and valid, and effects of neutral reporting on it are found to be conditional on prior interest in the issues under dispute. Implications of this effect and of EPE are discussed. Self‐efficacy theory ( Bandura, 1982 ) suggests these short‐term effects may accumulate over time. EPE may affect outcomes related to political understanding, opinion formation, and information seeking.