Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This study explored the cross-situational component of the situational theory, by identifying the influence of personality differences on the communication behavior of publics. It linked the concept of need for cognition (NFC) from psychology with one independent variable in the situational theory ¨C problem recognition. I used qualitative method for this exploratory study. Results showed that qualitative interview also identified individuals with different levels of NFC and their respective characteristics. Individuals with high NFC tended to show much higher internal problem recognition across situations than those with low NFC, but the external problem recognition was not evident cross-situationally. They also tended to engage in passive communication behaviors for more situations, but the active communication behavior was still rare across situations. Acknowledging that people¡¯s communication behaviors are still mostly situational, the findings did identify the special type of ¡°intellectual public¡±, who responded to more situations involving more intellectual interest than actual relevance.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper fits with this year's AAPOR conference theme of trust by examining the impact of mass media coverage on trust in the military, the Executive Branch of the U.S. government, and major companies. Trust in these institutions has recently undergone dramatic changes as seen in a set of long standing General Social Survey (GSS) confidence questions asked by a variety of polling organizations. Key reasons for the changes include press coverage of the toppling of the Taliban government in Afghanistan for the military, the handling of the war-on-terror and Saddam Hussein of Iraq for the Executive Branch, and
the collapse of Enron, their accountants, and other high-flying companies for major corporations.
The impact of coverage of these and other crucial events is assessed by predicting time trends of survey questions on the three types of confidence. The predictions will be made from 1977 to shortly before the AAPOR conference using relevant coverage in the Associated Press and the Washington Post. This quarter-century time period is chosen because both survey results and news coverage are available from the Nexis electronic database for the entire time period.
The study builds on Fan, Wyatt, and Keltner (2001, The Suicidal Messenger: How Press Reporting Affects Public Confidence in the Press, the Military, and Organized Religion, Communication Research, 26:826-852), which succeeded in predicting the same confidence questions asked of the press, the military, and organized religion for a shorter time period. For both the present study and earlier one, the press is analyzed by computer using the InfoTrend method, and the modeling is performed using the ideodynamic computation which overcomes important problems inherent to autoregressive models.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study proposes a resource-based explanation for the negative relationship between teenage parenthood and educational attainment and tests the explanation using survey data from the 1988-2000 National Education Longitudinal Study (U.S. Department of Education, 2002). The availability of material resources such as housing and financial support is hypothesized to mediate the negative effect of teenage parenthood on education. Resources provide a potential explanation for the well-documented negative impact of becoming an adolescent parent on one’s future educational attainment. Results support the hypothesis: resources mediate the detrimental influence of parenthood on education, and resource-rich teenage parents do not have significantly lower educational attainment than non-parents. This finding has important implications for policy since providing teenage parents with resources may reduce or eradicate the educational penalty of parenthood, likely improving socioeconomic conditions for both parent and child.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In this paper, I argue that the literatures on the social construction of social problems and agenda-setting have neglected to consider variation within media outlets time periods in the extent to which issues are presented as social problems (i.e., situations about which more should be done). Drawing on Swidler’s (2001) repertoire theory of culture, I develop a set of measures for the extent to which newspaper articles present homelessness as a social problem. I then examine the effects of events on these measures. I find that dramatic events make newspapers more likely to present issues as social problems, but routine events (press conferences, rallies, studies, etc.) trigger the articles that are the most likely to present issues as social problems. My findings suggest a reconsideration of Hilgartner and Bosk’s (1988) zero-sum theory of social problem competition.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Arguments in interpersonal relationships can be divided into two types: public issue arguments and personal issue arguments. Arguing over topics such as politics, a public issue argument, can be very different than arguing over topics such as cleaning the house, a personal issue argument. This study examines argument type as a situational constraint on argumentative and verbally aggressive behavior. Both men and women reported higher amounts of argumentative behavior in the public issue argument. Women reported higher amounts of verbally aggressive behavior in the personal issue argument, but men did not report significantly different levels of verbally aggressive behavior in either type of argument. Implications for the study of argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness in personal relationships are discussed.