ABSTRACT A qualitative textual analysis was conducted on articles and accompanying pictures and videos created by journalists covering the pro-Palestinian encampments that referenced past activist movements. My analysis produced these primary themes: The Blueprint, Those Were the Days, Life in the Bubble, and The Same, Only Different. Analogies drawn by journalists between past protest movements and pro-Palestinian activism had all but ended by the summer of 2024. Journalists confirmed the stability of the protest paradigm by adding nostalgia-driven comparisons to past activism to its array of tools. Invocation of past movements affirmed that the encampments have had a negligible impact on the activists’ own making. The chief problem for journalists with pro-Palestinian protestors affirmed through analogy is not that they are violent or destructive—though those behaviors are evident—it is that it is at best an open question as to whether they compare favorably to their predecessors.

ABSTRACT Drawing on Bandura’s social cognitive theory, this study examined the motivational and psychological dimensions of group-based student learning from the perspectives of psychological capital (PsyCap), group flow, and academic self-efficacy. The existing literature offers limited insight into how students learn from group projects. To fill this gap, the present study examined the role of group interaction, self-efficacy, and students’ sense of immersion in the group learning process. The findings indicate that students’ PsyCap on conducting groupwork, their flow experiences during collaboration, and their academic self-efficacy significantly predicted learning. Moreover, both PsyCap and academic self-efficacy predicted students’ flow experience. A path model was constructed to assess the direct and indirect relationships among variables. It was further found that individuals’ flow experience in a group served as a mediator explaining how and why PsyCap and academic self-efficacy affected student learning. The path model explained 51% of the variance in learning. Results from this study could be applied beyond higher education and be used in other contexts.

ABSTRACT The present study employed framing theory to analyze how major Nigerian newspapers constructed the narrative of the cost-of-living crisis following the 2023 fuel subsidy removal and naira flotation. Through a quantitative content analysis of 505 articles from six newspapers (Punch, The Nation, The Guardian, Vanguard, Daily Trust, Leadership), the research applies Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) typology of five news frames and an analysis of news media functions. The findings reveal a stark bifurcation in media narratives. A clear dichotomy emerged: one group of newspapers (Punch, The Nation, The Guardian) adopted an Accountability Model, heavily emphasizing frames of attribution of responsibility and human interest while performing a critical watchdog function. In contrast, another group (Vanguard, Daily Trust, Leadership) employed a Conflict-Event Model, dominated by the conflict frame and a passive information function, thereby depersonalizing the crisis and sidestepping accountability. The study concludes that the Nigerian press did not present a unified narrative but instead constructed parallel realities, fundamentally shaping public understanding along ideological and editorial lines. This fragmentation has profound implications for democratic accountability, highlighting how media framing can fracture public consensus during a national emergency.

ABSTRACT Drawing on the dialogic communication framework, this mixed-method study examines the Lebanese government’s dialogic communication efforts on social media during COVID-19. Data were collected through a content analysis of all COVID-19-related Instagram posts published by the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) between 2020 and 2023. In addition, interviews were conducted with key representatives from MoPH and social media users who follow MoPH. Findings indicate limited use of dialogic communication by the MoPH, which prioritized information over interaction. The principle of usefulness of information generated fewer likes, while positive appeals and online mobilization garnered more comments. Interviews confirmed minimal dialogic interaction. While the Ministry expressed willingness to foster dialogue, structural and crisis-related barriers hindered implementation. On the public’s side, interest in deeper interaction was constrained by distrust in responsiveness and lack of replies. Interview insights point to the need to integrate dialogic communication as a system-wide practice in the public sector. The study findings may be particularly relevant to low-trust, developing countries prone to instability and crises, presenting dialogic communication as an untapped opportunity to build trust and advance the common good. The study further contributes to dialogic communication theory by proposing an Instagram-specific, multi-level framework for future research and practice.

ABSTRACT At a time when historically low trust in the credibility of news and information has profound implications for citizens and the state of democracy, it is perhaps more imperative than ever for researchers to investigate and better understand how perceptions of message credibility are formed. Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 ‘infodemic’ in which belief in actionable information was complicated by political ideologies, the current study examined how personal knowledge about COVID-19 and one’s own political ideology was related to message credibility perceptions. Findings from two cross-sectional surveys show that knowledge about COVID-19 positively predicted perceived message credibility among respondents. Moreover, the effect of knowledge on perceived message credibility was the greatest among the most liberal respondents, while that same effect decreased the more conservative a respondent was, yet increased knowledge had a non-significant impact amongst the most conservative individuals in our sample.

ABSTRACT Social media branded content has become essential in digital marketing strategies, serving as a key component for consumer engagement through the consumption, contribution, and creation of brand-related content activities. The purpose of this study is to explore content-driven motives that lead to engagement behavior on Instagram. Using a qualitative approach, focus group interviews were conducted to capture consumers’ perceptions of branded content that convey cues about brands, products, and the message being communicated. Twenty Turkish customers were recruited to uncover how they derive meaning from their interactions with content posted on the Instagram profiles of the four leading smartphone brands: Apple, Huawei, Samsung, and Xiaomi. A refined set of eight content-induced motives – visual appeal, prosocial signaling, authenticity, localization, customer-centricity, storytelling, trendiness, and retro-vibe – has been identified regarding how consumers recognize and interpret their experiences engaging with branded content on Instagram. The findings of this study provide a comprehensive understanding of the consumer engagement phenomenon by unveiling an Instagram-specific vision of branded content from the consumer’s perspective, offering valuable insights for both academicians and practitioners.

ABSTRACT Research into spoken crisis communication rarely concerns its meaningful expression and reception by way of human speech sounds. This paper explores the potential of a phonetic approach to crisis communication in general and political crisis communication in particular. It does so, first, by reporting an original quantitative study of Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s use of prosody, focusing on speech rate and voice pitch, in her speeches to the Danish public during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the study found no systematic relationship between the positive or negative contents of Frederiksen’s speeches and her use of speech rate and voice pitch, the authors go on to examine the limitations of their high-level, quantitative approach. This examination centers on a closer, qualitative analysis of two particular press conferences. At this closer level of analysis, Frederiksen’s use of speech rate and voice pitch is shown to be highly deliberate, variable, and meaningful. Our findings indicate that, from a crisis communication perspective, significant interactions between the contents and the prosody of speech may emerge not at the macroscopic level of whole communications, which is where our quantitative study looked for them, but at the microscopic level of intentional utterances.

ABSTRACT The Budweiser brand and its collaboration with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney was analyzed using a crisis communication lens following calls from members of the public to boycott. A total of 20,000 X/Twitter posts (N = 20,000) from spring 2023 were assessed in the wake of the initial response to the crisis. A total of 20,000 X/Twitter posts (N = 20,000) from summer 2023 were reviewed during the damage control stage. A total of 20,000 X/Twitter posts (N = 20,000) from winter 2024 were evaluated during the image restoration phase. Additionally, a total of 135 participants (N = 135) completed an online survey. Results showed that political affiliation, race, and sexual orientation are related with Budweiser’s crisis and perceived effectiveness of Budweiser’s crisis management. People are moderately familiar with Budweiser’s initial response, damage control, and image restoration actions during the crisis, but the perceived effectiveness of these actions are related with purchase history in 2023. This study provides invaluable insight into public perceptions about social media marketing and the reactions to a brand’s crisis management. The study also serves a practical function, as the findings can be presented to brands and influencers alike to better understand public attitudes, values, and beliefs.

ABSTRACT This study delves into the construction, communication, and reception of crisis narratives on TikTok, specifically focusing on videos discussing the purported origins of COVID-19 via the hashtag #covidorigin. Employing a content analysis approach, this research examines patterns in content types and their relationship with public engagement metrics such as views, likes, comments, and shares. This study observed that popular TikTok videos discussing the origin of COVID-19 majorly incorporated at least one of the following: a first-hand narrative (a story in the first-person), a secondhand narrative (an account someone heard from other people), and/or an informational report (e.g., legislative documents, news reports, and book summaries). Additionally, while U.S. intelligence agencies have yet to reach a consensus on COVID-19’s origin, this research detected a surge in #covidorigin videos following a 2023 interview in which FBI Director Wray stated that COVID-19 likely originated from a laboratory incident in China. Overall, this study suggests the influential role public leaders and media sources have in disseminating COVID-19 information and the importance of coherent crisis narratives in shaping public understanding. It also considers the effects of content types and communication formats in terms of how the public engages with speculative claims online.

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to identify how sustainable fashion brands communicate with consumers on social media, specifically, Instagram. By applying a data mining technique to analyze brand posts and consumer comments, we thoroughly examine how consumers engage with sustainable messages from each brand and how those engagements are associated with brand posts. A sample of six sustainable fashion brands was selected, including Eileen Fisher, Everlane, Girlfriend Collective, Patagonia, Reformation, and Stella McCartney. Public posts of the six brands and corresponding consumer comments on Instagram between November 1, 2019 and November 1, 2022 were collected. LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) text mining technique was applied to extract topics from each brand’s posts and follower comments. A fixed effects linear panel model was then employed to examine if consumer comments are significantly associated with sustainable messages from each brand. Ten major sustainability-related themes were identified from brand posts, and four major sustainability-related themes were discovered from consumer comments. The linear panel results provide preliminary evidence that the sustainability-related themes from consumer comments are positively influenced by the sustainability-related themes from brand posts, indicating that brand posts indeed affect consumers’ opinions about sustainability.