This study examines the relationship between perceived social support and emotional well-being wh... more This study examines the relationship between perceived social support and emotional well-being when predicting various types of information seeking behaviors of breast cancer patients in the Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (CHESS)a well-established ...
Agriculture is one of the most dangerous U.S. occupations with high rates of injuries and fatalit... more Agriculture is one of the most dangerous U.S. occupations with high rates of injuries and fatalities, and especially more dangerous for children, having more young worker deaths than any other industry. Thus, safety education is essential in promoting safe and healthy working habits in agriculture. Augmented reality (AR) technology has great potential to enhance the effectiveness of safety education due to its high levels of system-user interactivity and media enjoyment. This study aims to: (1) develop Augmented Reality Intervention for Safety Education (ARISE), an AR 3D simulator that presents farm accident situations with immersive media technology, (2) examine the feasibility of ARISE, and (3) evaluate the potential of ARISE as an effective agricultural safety education program for farm parents and children. To test the feasibility of ARISE, we conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with ten parent-child dyads at an extension office located in Maryland. Participants were f...
OBJECTIVE: Informal caregivers (family and friends) of people with cancer are often unprepared fo... more OBJECTIVE: Informal caregivers (family and friends) of people with cancer are often unprepared for their caregiving role, leading to increased burden or distress. Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (CHESS) is a Web-based lung cancer information, communication, and coaching system for caregivers. This randomized trial reports the impact on caregiver burden, disruptiveness, and mood of providing caregivers access to CHESS versus the Internet with a list of recommended lung cancer websites. METHODS: A total of 285 informal caregivers of patients with advanced nonsmall cell lung cancer were randomly assigned to a comparison group that received Internet or a treatment group that received Internet and CHESS. Caregivers were provided a computer and Internet service if needed. Written surveys were completed at pretest and during the intervention period bimonthly for up to 24 months. Analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) compared the intervention\u27s effect on caregivers\u27 disrupt...
Background Social media platforms have experienced unprecedented levels of growth and usage over ... more Background Social media platforms have experienced unprecedented levels of growth and usage over the past decade, with Facebook hosting 2.7 billion active users worldwide, including over 200 million users in the United States. Facebook users have been underutilized and understudied by the academic community as a resource for participant recruitment. Objective We performed a pilot study to explore the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of Facebook advertisements for the recruitment of an online agricultural health and safety survey. Methods We undertook a 1-week advertising campaign utilizing the integrated, targeted advertising platform of Facebook Ads Manager with a target-spending limit of US $294. We created and posted three advertisements depicting varying levels of agricultural safety adoption leading to a brief survey on farm demographics and safety attitudes. We targeted our advertisements toward farm mothers aged 21-50 years in the United States and determined cost-effectivenes...
Background Agriculture is one of the most hazardous occupations in the USA. Especially, tractor r... more Background Agriculture is one of the most hazardous occupations in the USA. Especially, tractor rollover incidents are the leading cause of farming-related injuries or deaths. This study examines the effect of a VR intervention (Virtual Reality Intervention for Safety Education; VRISE) on behavioral intentions for occupational safety and identifies a psychological mechanism that shows how the immersive technology works. Methods VRISE was developed by a multidisciplinary team of agricultural educators, computer scientists and communication specialists. It was designed to provide a virtual environment where users practice tractor operation and try to avoid several rollover hazards. The participants (291 high school students) were recruited at the 2019 National Future Farmers Association Convention & Expo and randomly assigned to one of three conditions: two different types of control groups (Control1: No treatment group and Control2: 2D Screen group) and the treatment group. Results F...
Drug overdose is a leading cause of injury and death in the United States, and opioids are among ... more Drug overdose is a leading cause of injury and death in the United States, and opioids are among the most significant of causes. For people with opioid use disorders (OUDs), opioid stigma can lead to devastating consequences, including anxiety and depression. Still, mass media may stigmatize people with OUDs by ascribing stigmatizing labels (e.g., "opioid addict") and other stigma features to those individuals. However, it is unclear how these stigmatizing messages influence public perceptions of people with OUDs and public support for rehabilitation and Naloxone administration policies. The model of stigma communication (MSC) provides a framework for understanding these relationships. This study used the MSC in two online factorial experiments, the first among college undergraduates (N = 231) and the second among Amazon Mechanical Turk workers (N = 245), to examine how stigmatizing messages about people with OUDs influence stigma-related outcomes. Results reveal that opioid stigma messages influence different outcomes depending on the content of those messages. Classification messages with a stigmatizing mark (e.g., "Alex appears unkempt") and label (e.g., "opioid addict") led to greater perceptions of dangerousness and threat in both studies. High stigma classification messages also led to an increased desire for behavioral regulation and social distance in Study 2. Structural equation modeling in Study 1 also supported the applicability of the MSC in the opioid context. Implications for health communication theory development and practice are discussed.
This examination of secondary agricultural education students’ performance was used to determine ... more This examination of secondary agricultural education students’ performance was used to determine if students could perform up to industry standards. In this study, the industry standard were blueprints created by engineers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Students had to fabricate a Cost-effective Roll-Over Protective Structure (CROPS) to be placed on a tractor within their community. All the pieces of the CROPS were inspected by an outside consultant with experience with inspecting projects and visual inspection of welds. It was found that students struggled the most with fabricating the axel brackets. The axel brackets required the most drilled holes and cuts of all the pieces therefore creating more areas where mistakes could be made. Students fabricated the vertical support tubes with the most accuracy. According to the DataDriven Decision Model (DDDM), teachers analyzed student work, provided feedback, and need to incorporate this new knowledge into...
Mobile technologies offer the potential for efficacious and cost-effective lifestyle intervention... more Mobile technologies offer the potential for efficacious and cost-effective lifestyle interventions for weight loss. Extant research indicates that mobile health (mHealth) lifestyle interventions are potentially effective and practical methods of weight loss, but it is less known what intervention characteristics are associated with weight loss effects. This meta-analysis examined the effectiveness of mHealth physical activity interventions for weight loss compared with non-technology/usual care interventions and the moderating effects of behavioral change theories, techniques, and mobile technologies. A total of 24 studies were identified based on inclusion criteria. Weight loss was the primary outcome. The results showed a medium significant effect size ( d = 0.395; 95% CI = 0.243, 0.546; Z = 5.107, p < 0.001; N = 5146) favoring mHealth interventions. Interventions were significantly more effective when wearable devices were used ( QB = 4.102, df = 1, p < 0.05) and when feed...
BACKGROUND Social media websites have unprecedented levels of growth and usage over the past deca... more BACKGROUND Social media websites have unprecedented levels of growth and usage over the past decade, with Facebook.com hosting 2.5 billion active users worldwide and over 200 million Americans. This population has been underutilized and understudied by the academic community as a resource for participant recruitment. OBJECTIVE We explore the efficacy of Facebook.com recruitment for an online agricultural health and safety survey METHODS We undertook a pilot study lasting one week on Facebook utilizing their integrated, targeted advertising platform – Facebook Ads Manager. We posted three advertisements depicting varying levels of agricultural safety adoption leading to a brief survey on farm demographics and safety attitudes. We targeted our advertisements towards farm mothers aged 21-50 in the United States and determined cost-effectiveness and potential biases. RESULTS Three, one-week advertisements were listed concurrently for $294 USD, total. We reached over 40,000 users and gat...
ABSTRACT In its use of interactive media technology, the public takes on an important role in dis... more ABSTRACT In its use of interactive media technology, the public takes on an important role in disseminating news, especially when sharing it through social networking sites. This study demonstrates what motivates media users to participate in the process of sharing online news in two cultures: South Korea and the United States (U.S.). Employing the theory of reasoned action, this study empirically displays how the intention to share online news is influenced by attitudes and subjective norms. Particularly, this study measures both attitudes toward and subjective norms about (1) the specific news article and (2) social media participation. Our findings reveal more substantial effects that attitudes have on behavioral intention than subjective norms in the U.S. group. The discussion highlights the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.
Purpose Although Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is the most commonly diagnosed sexually transmitted ... more Purpose Although Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is the most commonly diagnosed sexually transmitted infection in the USA, much controversy exists with respect to HPV vaccination, especially among parents of adolescents. Previous research has shown that exemplars in the media influence public opinion estimates about controversial social issues. However, little is known about the underlying psychological processes of how exemplars influence public opinion formation. The purpose of this paper is to systematically explore such psychological processes based on the projection theory. To this end, the important yet controversial public health issue, the mandatory HPV vaccination, was chosen. Design/methodology/approach A two-factor (exemplar vs proportion), between-subject experiment was conducted using online newspaper articles as main stimuli. A total of 138 participants completed the study. The analytical framework comprised the Sobel test with the Bootstrap method and a series of Ordinary...
BACKGROUND Injury data and reports provide valuable information for both public and private organ... more BACKGROUND Injury data and reports provide valuable information for both public and private organizations to guide programming, policy, and prevention, but in the increasingly complex and dangerous industry of U.S. agriculture, the injury surveillance needed to produce this data is lacking. To address the gap, AgInjuryNews.org was established in 2015. The system includes fatal and non-fatal injury cases derived from publicly available reports, including occupational and non-occupational injuries, occurring in the agricultural, forestry and fishing (AFF) industries. OBJECTIVE To develop a stakeholder-engaged redesign of the interactive, up-to-date and publicly available dataset of U.S. AFF injury and fatality reports. METHODS Instructor-led heuristic evaluations within a 15-student undergraduate course, data from 8 student participants of lab-based usability testing, and 2016 and 2017 user surveys, coupled with input from the national steering committee informed 2018 development prio...
This study examined the effects of an anti-smoking campaign that employs a crowdsourcing method w... more This study examined the effects of an anti-smoking campaign that employs a crowdsourcing method with a social networking service. Drawing upon social capital scholarship and the expression effect research paradigm in eHealth systems, the study also investigated the roles of social trust and community life satisfaction in the social media campaign that has a specific geographical boundary. To that end, we conducted an experiment using a two-group pretest-posttest design. We randomly assigned 201 participants to two conditions: "campaign message reception only" as a control group and "message reception and expression" as a treatment group in which participants fully engaged in the campaign process by sharing their own campaign ideas with other participants. Findings revealed that social trust and community life satisfaction interacted with the treatment condition to positively affect persuasive intentions, but in distinct ways. Social trust moderated the effect of the message reception and interaction condition on participants' willingness to encourage community members to stop smoking. In contrast, community life satisfaction moderated the effect of the treatment condition on encouraging others to comply with the community's anti-smoking policy. These results provide theoretical and practical implications related to the roles of social capital in geographically defined social media campaigns.
Drawing on the theory of reasoned action, this study examines direct and indirect effects of citi... more Drawing on the theory of reasoned action, this study examines direct and indirect effects of citizen journalism on civic participation. Through a quasi-experimental design, analyses show that citizen journalism practice has a direct effect on civic participation and enhances attitudes toward nonprofi t and voluntary organizations leading to volunteering and donating behavioral intentions.
This article presents an innovative methodology to study computermediated communication (CMC), wh... more This article presents an innovative methodology to study computermediated communication (CMC), which allows analysis of the multi-layered effects of online expression and reception. The methodology is demonstrated by combining the following three data sets collected from a widely tested eHealth system, the Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (CHESS): (1) a flexible and precise computer-aided content analysis; (2) a record of individual message posting and reading; and (3) longitudinal survey data. Further, this article discusses how the resulting data can be applied to online social network analysis and demonstrates how to construct two distinct types of online social networks-open and targeted communication networks-for different types of content embedded in social networks. As the field of communication increasingly turns its attention to online communication, it is important to consider the ways in which we can advance our ability to study communication in these contexts. In many ways, the field has been trying to catch up with the changes occurring in communication patterns as a result of the technological advancements of digital media. Traditionally, for example, a reception-effects paradigm has dominated much of communication research, especially in the field of mass communication, which assumes most influence results from exposure to messages, as the ideas that people encounter either inform or persuade (Fishbein & Cappella, 2006; Lasswell, 1950). With the advent of computer-mediated communication (CMC), however, an expression-effects approach is emerging as a significant alternative to this dominant approach (Pingree, 2007; Shah, 2016). Indeed, an impressive body of research examines the effects of CMC expression on the message sender's psychological outcomes (
This study investigates how social support and family relationship perceptions influence breast c... more This study investigates how social support and family relationship perceptions influence breast cancer patients' online communication networks in a computer-mediated social support (CMSS) group. To examine social interactions in the CMSS group, we identified two types of online social networks: open and targeted communication networks. The open communication network reflects group communication behaviors (i.e., one-to-many or "broadcast" communication) in which the intended audience is not specified; in contrast, the targeted communication network reflects interpersonal discourses (i.e., one-to-one or directed communication) in which the audience for the message is specified. The communication networks were constructed by tracking CMSS group usage data of 237 breast cancer patients who participated in one of two National Cancer Institute-funded randomized clinical trials. Eligible subjects were within 2 months of a diagnosis of primary breast cancer or recurrence at th...
This study examines the relationship between perceived social support and emotional well-being wh... more This study examines the relationship between perceived social support and emotional well-being when predicting various types of information seeking behaviors of breast cancer patients in the Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (CHESS)a well-established ...
Agriculture is one of the most dangerous U.S. occupations with high rates of injuries and fatalit... more Agriculture is one of the most dangerous U.S. occupations with high rates of injuries and fatalities, and especially more dangerous for children, having more young worker deaths than any other industry. Thus, safety education is essential in promoting safe and healthy working habits in agriculture. Augmented reality (AR) technology has great potential to enhance the effectiveness of safety education due to its high levels of system-user interactivity and media enjoyment. This study aims to: (1) develop Augmented Reality Intervention for Safety Education (ARISE), an AR 3D simulator that presents farm accident situations with immersive media technology, (2) examine the feasibility of ARISE, and (3) evaluate the potential of ARISE as an effective agricultural safety education program for farm parents and children. To test the feasibility of ARISE, we conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with ten parent-child dyads at an extension office located in Maryland. Participants were f...
OBJECTIVE: Informal caregivers (family and friends) of people with cancer are often unprepared fo... more OBJECTIVE: Informal caregivers (family and friends) of people with cancer are often unprepared for their caregiving role, leading to increased burden or distress. Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (CHESS) is a Web-based lung cancer information, communication, and coaching system for caregivers. This randomized trial reports the impact on caregiver burden, disruptiveness, and mood of providing caregivers access to CHESS versus the Internet with a list of recommended lung cancer websites. METHODS: A total of 285 informal caregivers of patients with advanced nonsmall cell lung cancer were randomly assigned to a comparison group that received Internet or a treatment group that received Internet and CHESS. Caregivers were provided a computer and Internet service if needed. Written surveys were completed at pretest and during the intervention period bimonthly for up to 24 months. Analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) compared the intervention\u27s effect on caregivers\u27 disrupt...
Background Social media platforms have experienced unprecedented levels of growth and usage over ... more Background Social media platforms have experienced unprecedented levels of growth and usage over the past decade, with Facebook hosting 2.7 billion active users worldwide, including over 200 million users in the United States. Facebook users have been underutilized and understudied by the academic community as a resource for participant recruitment. Objective We performed a pilot study to explore the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of Facebook advertisements for the recruitment of an online agricultural health and safety survey. Methods We undertook a 1-week advertising campaign utilizing the integrated, targeted advertising platform of Facebook Ads Manager with a target-spending limit of US $294. We created and posted three advertisements depicting varying levels of agricultural safety adoption leading to a brief survey on farm demographics and safety attitudes. We targeted our advertisements toward farm mothers aged 21-50 years in the United States and determined cost-effectivenes...
Background Agriculture is one of the most hazardous occupations in the USA. Especially, tractor r... more Background Agriculture is one of the most hazardous occupations in the USA. Especially, tractor rollover incidents are the leading cause of farming-related injuries or deaths. This study examines the effect of a VR intervention (Virtual Reality Intervention for Safety Education; VRISE) on behavioral intentions for occupational safety and identifies a psychological mechanism that shows how the immersive technology works. Methods VRISE was developed by a multidisciplinary team of agricultural educators, computer scientists and communication specialists. It was designed to provide a virtual environment where users practice tractor operation and try to avoid several rollover hazards. The participants (291 high school students) were recruited at the 2019 National Future Farmers Association Convention & Expo and randomly assigned to one of three conditions: two different types of control groups (Control1: No treatment group and Control2: 2D Screen group) and the treatment group. Results F...
Drug overdose is a leading cause of injury and death in the United States, and opioids are among ... more Drug overdose is a leading cause of injury and death in the United States, and opioids are among the most significant of causes. For people with opioid use disorders (OUDs), opioid stigma can lead to devastating consequences, including anxiety and depression. Still, mass media may stigmatize people with OUDs by ascribing stigmatizing labels (e.g., "opioid addict") and other stigma features to those individuals. However, it is unclear how these stigmatizing messages influence public perceptions of people with OUDs and public support for rehabilitation and Naloxone administration policies. The model of stigma communication (MSC) provides a framework for understanding these relationships. This study used the MSC in two online factorial experiments, the first among college undergraduates (N = 231) and the second among Amazon Mechanical Turk workers (N = 245), to examine how stigmatizing messages about people with OUDs influence stigma-related outcomes. Results reveal that opioid stigma messages influence different outcomes depending on the content of those messages. Classification messages with a stigmatizing mark (e.g., "Alex appears unkempt") and label (e.g., "opioid addict") led to greater perceptions of dangerousness and threat in both studies. High stigma classification messages also led to an increased desire for behavioral regulation and social distance in Study 2. Structural equation modeling in Study 1 also supported the applicability of the MSC in the opioid context. Implications for health communication theory development and practice are discussed.
This examination of secondary agricultural education students’ performance was used to determine ... more This examination of secondary agricultural education students’ performance was used to determine if students could perform up to industry standards. In this study, the industry standard were blueprints created by engineers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Students had to fabricate a Cost-effective Roll-Over Protective Structure (CROPS) to be placed on a tractor within their community. All the pieces of the CROPS were inspected by an outside consultant with experience with inspecting projects and visual inspection of welds. It was found that students struggled the most with fabricating the axel brackets. The axel brackets required the most drilled holes and cuts of all the pieces therefore creating more areas where mistakes could be made. Students fabricated the vertical support tubes with the most accuracy. According to the DataDriven Decision Model (DDDM), teachers analyzed student work, provided feedback, and need to incorporate this new knowledge into...
Mobile technologies offer the potential for efficacious and cost-effective lifestyle intervention... more Mobile technologies offer the potential for efficacious and cost-effective lifestyle interventions for weight loss. Extant research indicates that mobile health (mHealth) lifestyle interventions are potentially effective and practical methods of weight loss, but it is less known what intervention characteristics are associated with weight loss effects. This meta-analysis examined the effectiveness of mHealth physical activity interventions for weight loss compared with non-technology/usual care interventions and the moderating effects of behavioral change theories, techniques, and mobile technologies. A total of 24 studies were identified based on inclusion criteria. Weight loss was the primary outcome. The results showed a medium significant effect size ( d = 0.395; 95% CI = 0.243, 0.546; Z = 5.107, p < 0.001; N = 5146) favoring mHealth interventions. Interventions were significantly more effective when wearable devices were used ( QB = 4.102, df = 1, p < 0.05) and when feed...
BACKGROUND Social media websites have unprecedented levels of growth and usage over the past deca... more BACKGROUND Social media websites have unprecedented levels of growth and usage over the past decade, with Facebook.com hosting 2.5 billion active users worldwide and over 200 million Americans. This population has been underutilized and understudied by the academic community as a resource for participant recruitment. OBJECTIVE We explore the efficacy of Facebook.com recruitment for an online agricultural health and safety survey METHODS We undertook a pilot study lasting one week on Facebook utilizing their integrated, targeted advertising platform – Facebook Ads Manager. We posted three advertisements depicting varying levels of agricultural safety adoption leading to a brief survey on farm demographics and safety attitudes. We targeted our advertisements towards farm mothers aged 21-50 in the United States and determined cost-effectiveness and potential biases. RESULTS Three, one-week advertisements were listed concurrently for $294 USD, total. We reached over 40,000 users and gat...
ABSTRACT In its use of interactive media technology, the public takes on an important role in dis... more ABSTRACT In its use of interactive media technology, the public takes on an important role in disseminating news, especially when sharing it through social networking sites. This study demonstrates what motivates media users to participate in the process of sharing online news in two cultures: South Korea and the United States (U.S.). Employing the theory of reasoned action, this study empirically displays how the intention to share online news is influenced by attitudes and subjective norms. Particularly, this study measures both attitudes toward and subjective norms about (1) the specific news article and (2) social media participation. Our findings reveal more substantial effects that attitudes have on behavioral intention than subjective norms in the U.S. group. The discussion highlights the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.
Purpose Although Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is the most commonly diagnosed sexually transmitted ... more Purpose Although Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is the most commonly diagnosed sexually transmitted infection in the USA, much controversy exists with respect to HPV vaccination, especially among parents of adolescents. Previous research has shown that exemplars in the media influence public opinion estimates about controversial social issues. However, little is known about the underlying psychological processes of how exemplars influence public opinion formation. The purpose of this paper is to systematically explore such psychological processes based on the projection theory. To this end, the important yet controversial public health issue, the mandatory HPV vaccination, was chosen. Design/methodology/approach A two-factor (exemplar vs proportion), between-subject experiment was conducted using online newspaper articles as main stimuli. A total of 138 participants completed the study. The analytical framework comprised the Sobel test with the Bootstrap method and a series of Ordinary...
BACKGROUND Injury data and reports provide valuable information for both public and private organ... more BACKGROUND Injury data and reports provide valuable information for both public and private organizations to guide programming, policy, and prevention, but in the increasingly complex and dangerous industry of U.S. agriculture, the injury surveillance needed to produce this data is lacking. To address the gap, AgInjuryNews.org was established in 2015. The system includes fatal and non-fatal injury cases derived from publicly available reports, including occupational and non-occupational injuries, occurring in the agricultural, forestry and fishing (AFF) industries. OBJECTIVE To develop a stakeholder-engaged redesign of the interactive, up-to-date and publicly available dataset of U.S. AFF injury and fatality reports. METHODS Instructor-led heuristic evaluations within a 15-student undergraduate course, data from 8 student participants of lab-based usability testing, and 2016 and 2017 user surveys, coupled with input from the national steering committee informed 2018 development prio...
This study examined the effects of an anti-smoking campaign that employs a crowdsourcing method w... more This study examined the effects of an anti-smoking campaign that employs a crowdsourcing method with a social networking service. Drawing upon social capital scholarship and the expression effect research paradigm in eHealth systems, the study also investigated the roles of social trust and community life satisfaction in the social media campaign that has a specific geographical boundary. To that end, we conducted an experiment using a two-group pretest-posttest design. We randomly assigned 201 participants to two conditions: "campaign message reception only" as a control group and "message reception and expression" as a treatment group in which participants fully engaged in the campaign process by sharing their own campaign ideas with other participants. Findings revealed that social trust and community life satisfaction interacted with the treatment condition to positively affect persuasive intentions, but in distinct ways. Social trust moderated the effect of the message reception and interaction condition on participants' willingness to encourage community members to stop smoking. In contrast, community life satisfaction moderated the effect of the treatment condition on encouraging others to comply with the community's anti-smoking policy. These results provide theoretical and practical implications related to the roles of social capital in geographically defined social media campaigns.
Drawing on the theory of reasoned action, this study examines direct and indirect effects of citi... more Drawing on the theory of reasoned action, this study examines direct and indirect effects of citizen journalism on civic participation. Through a quasi-experimental design, analyses show that citizen journalism practice has a direct effect on civic participation and enhances attitudes toward nonprofi t and voluntary organizations leading to volunteering and donating behavioral intentions.
This article presents an innovative methodology to study computermediated communication (CMC), wh... more This article presents an innovative methodology to study computermediated communication (CMC), which allows analysis of the multi-layered effects of online expression and reception. The methodology is demonstrated by combining the following three data sets collected from a widely tested eHealth system, the Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (CHESS): (1) a flexible and precise computer-aided content analysis; (2) a record of individual message posting and reading; and (3) longitudinal survey data. Further, this article discusses how the resulting data can be applied to online social network analysis and demonstrates how to construct two distinct types of online social networks-open and targeted communication networks-for different types of content embedded in social networks. As the field of communication increasingly turns its attention to online communication, it is important to consider the ways in which we can advance our ability to study communication in these contexts. In many ways, the field has been trying to catch up with the changes occurring in communication patterns as a result of the technological advancements of digital media. Traditionally, for example, a reception-effects paradigm has dominated much of communication research, especially in the field of mass communication, which assumes most influence results from exposure to messages, as the ideas that people encounter either inform or persuade (Fishbein & Cappella, 2006; Lasswell, 1950). With the advent of computer-mediated communication (CMC), however, an expression-effects approach is emerging as a significant alternative to this dominant approach (Pingree, 2007; Shah, 2016). Indeed, an impressive body of research examines the effects of CMC expression on the message sender's psychological outcomes (
This study investigates how social support and family relationship perceptions influence breast c... more This study investigates how social support and family relationship perceptions influence breast cancer patients' online communication networks in a computer-mediated social support (CMSS) group. To examine social interactions in the CMSS group, we identified two types of online social networks: open and targeted communication networks. The open communication network reflects group communication behaviors (i.e., one-to-many or "broadcast" communication) in which the intended audience is not specified; in contrast, the targeted communication network reflects interpersonal discourses (i.e., one-to-one or directed communication) in which the audience for the message is specified. The communication networks were constructed by tracking CMSS group usage data of 237 breast cancer patients who participated in one of two National Cancer Institute-funded randomized clinical trials. Eligible subjects were within 2 months of a diagnosis of primary breast cancer or recurrence at th...
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