Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Communication

Past research has found that generally having a discussion with other people about a health message after exposure can help increase the effectiveness of the message. While certain factors, such as conversational valence and the relationship between conversational partners, can impact the effectiveness of such a conversation, there is little research into the causal mechanisms that drive the impact of a discussion on attitudinal outcomes. To investigate the potential mechanisms of how a discussion of a health message can lead to more positive outcomes than there being no discussion, this dissertation turns to the elaboration likelihood model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) and self-validation theory (Petty et al., 2002). These theories suggest that discussion of a health message leads to more elaboration about the message. This higher level of elaboration leads to more thought confidence which results in more positive attitudes towards the health topic. Additionally, it is theorized that interpersonal discussion of a health message leads to more perceived validation of thoughts which has also been shown to positively influence though confidence. Dissertation hypotheses were tested within the context of a narrative about BRCA mutation testing for women in their 20s. To test whether elaboration was higher in interpersonal discussions than in other situations, this dissertation asked participants to either to discuss a health message, to think carefully and write about the message, or were not directly asked to elaborate on the health message. Additionally, those who were asked to discuss the health message were given exclusively positive feedback by a confederate (whom participants thought was another participant in the study). Results indicate that those who had a discussion did not engage in more elaboration than those who were asked to write about the message or were not given any elaboration instructions, nor was condition related to differences in perceived validation. (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Shelly Hovick PhD (Advisor); Emily Moyer-Guse PhD (Advisor); Jesse Fox PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2010, Communication

Constructive interpersonal political discussion among citizens is traditionally regarded as an indicator of a healthy democracy (e.g., Fishkin, 1991, 1995; Habermas, 1962/1989; Tarde, 1901/1989). At the same time, politics bears an inherent complexity, ambiguity, and intricacy (Delli Carpini & Williams, 1996) that makes it a topic ripe for uncertainty arousal. Considering that uncertainty arousal is more likely when situations are ambiguous, complex, and unpredictable (Babrow, Hines, & Kasch, 2000; Babrow, Kasch, & Ford, 1998), Uncertainty Reduction Theory (Berger, 1979; Berger & Bradac, 1982; Berger & Calabrese, 1975) is applied in this dissertation to study the crossroads of interpersonal discussion and the consumption of a variety of mass-mediated messages about politics. This dissertation will examine the processes by which political mass media messages that vary in their level of ambiguity arouse receiver-based uncertainty and influence subsequent interpersonal discussion. Four types of messages are investigated: two types of satire (horatian and juvenalian) and two types of news (traditional news and editorials). These four messages are differentiated by two dimensions of ambiguity—ambiguity of message goals and ambiguity of message meaning. Satire and news are argued to be different in ambiguity of message goals, whereas satire is high on goal ambiguity (Bogel, 2001; Knight, 2004; Simpson, 2003) and news is low on this type of ambiguity (McQuail, 1992). For ambiguity of message meaning, horatian satire and traditional news are argued to be high and juvenalian satire and editorials are argued to be low. A computer-mediated discussion experiment was conducted to address 23 hypotheses that serve as the foundation for the dissertation. Results show that satirical messages (high on ambiguity of message goals) generally incite more receiver-based uncertainty and generate more uncertainty expressions during discussion.

Committee: Robert Holbert PhD (Advisor); William Eveland PhD (Committee Member); Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick PhD (Committee Member); Emily Moyer-Gusé PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication