Scripps Blogs

PhD students Nisha Garud, Enakshi Roy to give papers in Japan

by Michael Sweeney, Professor; Associate Director for Graduate Studies

PhD student Nisha Garud will present a research paper that grew out of her master’s thesis when she attends the annual conference of the International Communication Association, June 9-13 in Fukuoka, Japan. Garud and PhD student Enakshi Roy also will present a jointly authored paper.

Garud’s paper, “Understanding Believability of Entertainment vs. Science Satirical News Online in Context of Level of Satire and Source Reputability”, examined content and source cues for levels of satire and source reputability and investigated their effects on perceived believability of entertainment and science satirical news.

The idea for the study emerged from the fact that satirical news from the website Onion.com foxed Garud into believing its story as real. Hence, she wanted to investigate the factors that attract people into believing satirical news as true. This study used an experimental method where in experiment one, 80 participants viewed manipulated news stories measured as high and low on satire, while in experiment two, 64 participants viewed manipulated satirical stories with high-reputable and low-reputable sources from entertainment and science genres. Results showed perceived believability was different across entertainment and science stories. Satire in science stories was not easily perceived as high-satire science news were found to be more believable than high-satire entertainment news. Source reputability did not affect believability of satirical science news.

Garud’s thesis was titled “Effects of Content and Source Cues of Online Satirical News on Perceived Believability.”

Roy and Garud’s joint paper is “Visual Terror: Analyzes of ISIS propaganda through Images Published in Dabiq.”

Based on the theoretical framework of propaganda analysis and visual rhetoric, the paper examines 1,004 images published in 11 issues of ISIS’ online magazine, Dabiq. Given the growing appeal of ISIS among Westerners, this study is a content analysis the images for propaganda frames and themes in Dabiq. Additionally, visual rhetoric analysis of symbolizations in these images is conducted to further interpret their meaning and ideology.

April 11, 2016