Cheryl Campanella Bracken

• Ph.D.
• Professor (Full) at Cleveland State University

Amid new streaming services, rebranded streaming services, and content moving from one platform to another, the use of streaming services, or over-the-top (OTT) services is at an all-time high. This chapter makes two empirical contributions to our understanding of current viewer behavior. First, we provide a snapshot of how university students are...

Amidst new streaming services, rebranded streaming services, content moving from one platform to another, use of streaming services, or over-the-top, OTT services are at an all-time high. This study makes two contributions to our understanding of viewer behavior during these ever-changing media and ever-changing pandemic times. First, we provide a...

Introduction The current study explores binge watching as a functional entertainment choice, and examines similarities and differences between it, appointment viewing, and serial viewing in terms of prevalence and technologies used over time. Methods/Measurements Two surveys were conducted in fall 2015 (N = 373, 62% female and the mean age = 22.01...

This book situates binge watching as one of several new television viewing behaviors which collectively contribute to a fundamental change in the way we view television today. Simply put, binge watching changes, or has the potential to change, everything: Engagement, immersion, attention to content and other devices, identification with characters...

Binge-watching, simultaneously treated as both guilty pleasure and legitimate health concern in popular press and academic discussions, is a pervasive media behavior. Yet distinguishing it from other ways of television viewing remains elusive in communication research. The present study employs empirically supported variables to determine if differ...

The term ‘binge watching’ is common in popular media and is one of several new ways of TV viewing that capitalizes on the wide availability of digital video and streaming services. However, the term lacks clear conceptualization, and the underlying motivations associated with it remain under-explored. Results from eleven focus groups of university...

Modality and medium characteristics are important to our understanding of how media can influence audiences. These characteristics are related to the formal features or affordances of media platforms. The comparison of media channels or media has a long history in the area of mass media effects research. The examination of modality characteristics...

Objectives: Compared to cigarettes, little cigars and cigarillos (LCC) are minimally regulated, affordable, and widely available to young people. Because Twitter is a preferred mode of communication among younger people, product portrayals may be useful for informing both interventions and public health or tobacco policy. Methods: A mixed-methods s...

Popular media is both a common source for information about mental illness and notorious for its disproportionately negative and violent portrayals of those with mental illness. This research undertook an experiment (N = 92) to explore the competing influences of mass communication messages and interpersonal familiarity/ experience with people with...

This study explores presence and television violence viewing, specifically, comparing non-victims and prior victims of family violence. The findings suggest victims of family violence are cued by televised portrayals of family violence and as a result are more immersed and perhaps more likely to view the portrayals as more realistic. Women reported...

In a series of in-depth interviews, ten older adults described their use and experience with mobile technologies (e.g., E-readers and tablets). The results reveal that while older adults may not be leaders in new technology adoption, they do utilize mobile technology when they find it useful. The participants expressed both satisfaction and some fr...

In this experimental study, we use secondary task reaction time (STRT) to measure Attention to a media presentation and compare STRT to traditional self-report measures of Telepresence (immersion, social reality, spa-tial presence, and transportation) and enjoyment. Further, we compare the STRT measure with the composite items of Telepresence–Immer...

In an experiment manipulating the image quality of television ads, 127 participants watched television commercials in either high or low image quality. The participants rated each ad for their attitude towards the ad and purchase intentions. Additionally, sensations of telepresence and transportation were assessed. The participants who viewed the a...

The present paper considers the existing research in cybertherapy, which is a psychological therapy carried out with the use of a mediated environment, and examines the way in which the users’ sense of presence in the mediated environment can be of relevance for the validation of the intervention. With this purpose, a collection of 41 papers report...

The relationship between citizens and local government in urban areas has had a colorful history. Here we ask how communication channels—interpersonal and mass—and organizational involvement affect citizen attempts to influence their local government through grassroots activities such as personal contacts, letter writing, attending meetings. Data f...

Several long-standing theories intersect in discussing the impact of community characteristics and of the mass media. The structural pluralism model popularized by Tichenor and his colleagues says that social structure influences how mass media operate in communities because they respond to how power is distributed in the social system, whereas the...

The current study investigated the contributions of trait empathy and narrative transportation to audience members’ film enjoyment. Undergraduates (N = 199) evaluated two films they had seen recently and responded to items measuring different types of trait empathy, narrative transportation, film enjoyment, and perceived realism. Fantasy empathy, b...

In an experiment exploring the impact of sound on sensations of telepresence, 126 participants watched a video clip using either headphones or speakers. The results illustrate that sound is an important factor in stimulating telepresence responses in audiences. Interactions between soundscape and screen size were also revealed. A traverse interacti...

Developing and implementing mission statements continues to be a widely used managerial strategy. This study tests a model incorporating the immersion and transportation dimensions of presence and media richness for evaluating the effectiveness of two commonly used strategies (paper versus video) for introducing a mission statement to members of an...

The number of small and mobile screens being used for entertainment is growing daily. This paper presents the findings of the impact of smaller video format (specifically the Apple iPod), media content, and sound delivery on audience responses. The 2 × 2 × 2 experimental design varied screen size, content, and sound delivery. Participants were expo...

The diffusion of digital media technologies since the 1990s has opened many new channels through which advertisers may reach consumers. This chapter examines the manifestations and effects of advertising in video games. Although early video games rarely and purposefully included advertising, its presence in many contemporary game genres (particular...

Older cities struggling with issues of survival focus on jobs and the economy, but competition requires all cities to pay attention to the quality of life that attracts residents. Creating such an inviting environment includes “third places” that foster community and communication among people outside of home and work, yet we have little empirical...

With the expansion of telecommunication and online technologies for the purpose of survey administration, the issue of measurement validity has come to the fore. The proliferation of automated audio services and computer-based survey techniques has been matched by a corresponding denigration of the quality of traditional phone survey data, most not...

This study investigates the impact of video game image quality on telepresence. Past research has demonstrated positive associations between television image quality and presence and video game technology and presence. No study to date, however, has examined the presence effects of video games played in high definition, which is becoming increasing...

In an earlier period of mass communication research, scholars were more adventuresome in advancing “new” theories and less hesitant to “create” theory. The 1970s, in particular, bore witness to the emergence of several such theories—from the knowledge gap and agenda-setting to cultivation. Scholars have generated substantial literatures elaborating...

This article examines the impact of a sequence of variables that includes people's communication activity and quality of life assessments. Survey results indicate that more cosmopolitan people, those with more diverse interests, those with stronger patterns of media use, and those with higher levels of community knowledge hold stronger assessments...

In an experiment exploring the impact of sound on sensations of telepresence, 126 participants watched a video clip using either headphones or speakers. The results reveal that sound is an important factor in stimulating telepresence responses in audiences. Interactions between sound delivery and screen size were also revealed.

This study moved Presence into the realm of the smaller video format—comparing Apple iPod with a standard television presentation. Ninety-six students were exposed to one of two presentations on either an iPod or on a 32-inch television. Students saw either a 10-minute fast-paced (multiple cut) action sequence or a 10-minute slow-paced (long cut) c...

An increasing number of local news stations are producing and broadcasting their newscasts in high-definition television (HDTV), but to date there has not been an investigation of audience perceptions of news in high definition. This study presents the results from an experiment investigating the influence of television form (image quality and fiel...

The computers are social actors (CASA) paradigm asserts that human computer users interact socially with computers, and the paradigm has provided extensive evidence that this is the case for adults. This experiment examined whether or not children have similar reactions to computers by comparing children's predictable responses to praise from a tea...

Abstract This study investigates the impact of image quality and skill level on presence-related reactions to video games. Past research has demonstrated positive associations between image quality and presence and video game technology and presence. No study to date, however, has examined the presence effects of video games played in enhanced or h...

Previous research has demonstrated that form variables can increase television viewers' sense of presence. The current broadcasting of high-definition television (HDTV) programming makes testing this relation between form and presence possible in a new context, image quality. In this experiment, television viewers watched either HDTV or standard-de...

This study examined the fear control/danger control responses that are predicted by the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM). In a campaign designed to inform college students about the symptoms and dangers of meningitis, participants were given either a high-threat/no-efficacy or high-efficacy/no-threat health risk message, thus testing the extr...

The diffusion of information about critical events has been studied using events of differing importance in Americans’ lives: This study explores the diffusion of information about a tragedy that touched Americans and others around the world. Specifically, we explore how the time a person learned of the September 11 attacks influences their selecti...

While the concept of presence has been investigated for over 10 years, there have been few studies investigating presence and persuasion. Work in the area of consumer psychology has recently begun to explore the possible connections between aspects of presence and persuasion and have developed a new concept called – transportation imagery model. Th...

The concept of cosmopoliteness previously has been associated with the diffusion of innovations. Previous research suggests that cosmopolites are earlier adopters of innovations (e.g., new media technologies) and that they use more diverse media sources. This paper details the history of the concept and identifies eight dimensions. Two surveys were...

The Computers Are Social Actors (CASA) paradigm asserts that human computer users interact socially with computers, and has provided extensive evidence that this is the case. In this experiment (n = 134), participants received either praise or criticism from a computer. Independent variables were the direction feedback (praise or criticism), and vo...

I have lived in San Francisco while working as a full-time virtual faculty member for Michigan State University for nearly six years. Unlike most humans, I spend a larger proportion of every day as a virtual person than as a physical person. This article ...

As a method specifically intended for the study of messages, content analysis is fundamental to mass communication research. Intercoder reliability, more specifically termed intercoder agreement, is a measure of the extent to which independent judges make the same coding decisions in evaluating the characteristics of messages, and is at the heart o...

This paper describes the results of a uses and gratifications survey, based on the methodology of Katz, Gurevitch, and Haas (1973), that examined the extent to which different media fulfill a variety of human needs. The authors suggest that the Katz et al. (1973) method should be revisited when investigating uses and gratifications across several m...

Film and a number of emerging entertainment technologies offer media consumers an illusion of nonmediation known as presence. To investigate the possibility that television can evoke presence, 65 undergraduate students were shown brief examples of rapid point-of-view movement from commercially available videotapes on a television with either a smal...

This work is an overview of the scientific papers that have related the "sense of presence" in mediated environments to the use of these environments in psychological therapy. The majority of the works collected deal with VR applications in the assessment, therapy and rehabilitation of specific difficulties resulting from phobias, brain injury, cog...