Jesse Fox

• Ph.D.
• Professor (Associate) at The Ohio State University

The concept of affordances in communication technology research has proven to be heuristically provocative, yet perceived affordances are rarely measured. After extracting commonly cited social affordances from the literature, we developed a measure to assess participants’ perceptions of these affordances. The scale was tested across eight communic...

Humanoid social robots (HSRs) are human-made technologies that can take physical or digital form, resemble people in form or behavior to some degree, and are designed to interact with people. A common assumption is that social robots can and should mimic humans, such that human-robot interaction (HRI) closely resembles human-human (i.e., interperso...

The open science (OS) movement has advocated for increased transparency in certain aspects of research. Communication is taking its first steps towards OS as some journals have adopted OS guidelines codified by another discipline. We find this pursuit troubling as OS prioritizes openness while insufficiently addressing essential ethical principles:...

Social media users post an endless stream of life updates, commentary, and other content. This online self-presentation constitutes a narrative that can be examined as a shared account. In this study, we tested the applicability of Duck’s model of relational dissolution (Duck, 1982; Rollie & Duck, 2006) to participants’ personal and public accounts...

Online video games can be a toxic environment for women. A survey assessed women’s (N = 293) experiences with general harassment and sexual harassment in online video games, including frequency of harassment, rumination about the harassment, perceptions of organizational responsiveness (i.e. efforts the gaming company made to address harassment), a...

Like online dating sites, mobile dating applications are popular technologies for navigating the dating market, whether for seeking romantic relationships or sexual partners. The searching-matching-interacting (SMI) framework describes mate selection in the dating market and how mediated market intermediaries (e.g., dating apps) can aid these funct...

Technology, relationships, and well-being represent three influential parts of our daily lives. They also represent a common area of research for scholars in a variety of disciplines. Here, we offer guidance for researchers interested in studying the connections among these issues and introduce the special issue in the Journal of Social and Persona...

Embedded within the sociocultural context of romantic relationships are features such as race, culture, neighborhoods, the legal system, and governmental policy. Due to the inherent difficulties with studying large structures and systems, little work has been done at the macro level in relationship science. This volume spotlights the complex interp...

Bowman et al. (2022. How communication scholars see open scholarship. Annals of the International Communication Association, 46(3)) present a survey of ICA members regarding open science beliefs, attitudes, and practices. Rather than an inquiry on open scholarship, it provides a replication of psychology’s approach to open science in content, execu...

The Fluid Earth (FE) is an interactive data visualization initially developed for learning about Earth’s atmosphere in informal educational settings. In this study, we tested FE in middle school classes to assess student engagement in a formal educational setting. Using a quasi-experimental design, students were assigned to interact with the data v...

This chapter discusses what researchers need to know about social media before attempting to research them.

This chapter, “Online Social Aggression: Harassment and Discrimination,” examines the emotional experiences associated with a broad range of online aggressive behavior. We begin by conceptualizing online social aggression (OSA) and providing an organizational framework for types of OSA including cyberbullying, online harassment, online incivility,...

The open science (OS) movement has advocated for increased transparency in certain aspects of research. Communication is taking its first steps toward OS as some journals have adopted OS guidelines codified by another discipline. We find this pursuit troubling as OS prioritizes openness while insufficiently addressing essential ethical principles:...

This study investigated the effects of taking photos (of the self or objects) on women. Objectification theory states that women are subjected to societal pressure to focus on their physical appearance. The emergence of social media as a communication channel has further reinforced the emphasis on women’s appearance, beauty ideals, and body image....

Alongside the development of VR technology, empirical research and theorizing on VR entertainment is also expanding. Currently missing is an integrative conceptual framework that identifies properties of VR that distinguish it from other currently available entertainment media. In the present chapter we attempt a step in this direction. After revie...

Affordances of Internet sites and Internet-based applications make personal information about romantic partners, friends, family members, and strangers easy to obtain. People use various techniques to find information about others, capitalizing on online affordances by using search engines to find relevant websites and databases; scouring the targe...

The computers are social actors framework (CASA), derived from the media equation, explains how people communicate with media and machines demonstrating social potential. Many studies have challenged CASA, yet it has not been revised. We argue that CASA needs to be expanded because people have changed, technologies have changed, and the way people...

The difficulties of disclosing loneliness offline may motivate lonely people to turn to online platforms. For decades, social media have provided different outlets for people to share their experiences online. In recent years, social networking sites (SNSs) have become a prevalent form of social media for people to interact with both online and off...

Persuading individuals to engage in pro-environmental behavior is challenging. Interactive media, such as virtual environments and video games, present opportunities to minimize psychological distance and bolster perceived risks associated with environmental threats. In this experiment, we tested the effects of a serious game that allowed users to...

Social networking sites (SNSs) have become popular because they provide quick and easy access to social connections, entertainment, and news. Research has identified a number of benefits associated with SNS use, including friendship maintenance, social capital generation, and identity development (see reviews by Wilson, Gosling, & Graham, 2012, and...

Social media often have a dark side in romantic relationships. Affordances such as persistence, association, and visibility can promote romantic jealousy and the salience of relationship threats, including ex-partners. Retroactive jealousy occurs when a person feels upset about their partner’s romantic history even though ex-partners are not active...

Video game researchers have struggled to capture players’ personal experiences in natural gaming contexts. We used longitudinal diary methods to examine the everyday experiences of new and experienced players within a massively multiplayer online game, Team Fortress 2. Participants (N = 38) completed diaries about gameplay and negative social inter...

The spiral of silence (SoS) framework elaborates the factors that determine whether individuals are willing to express their opinions in public. Although previous scholarship has examined differences in between face-to-face and computer-mediated communication, research studies have rarely tested how perceived affordances of the channel influence wh...

Avatars are growing in popularity and present in many interfaces used for computer-mediated communication (CMC) including social media, e-commerce, and education. Communication researchers have been investigating avatars for over twenty years, and an examination of this literature reveals similarities but also notable discrepancies in conceptual de...

Previous research indicated that giving users the opportunity to customize a persuasive source lead to increased liking for the product that the source was selling. In this study, users were either assigned a two-dimensional avatar representing a persuasive source, allowed to select an avatar, or were asked to create an avatar to represent a source...

In this chapter, we review the existing literature on the stressful or negative experiences associated with social media use in romantic relationships. First, we identify the distinct features of social media, elaborating on how these features may influence romantic relationship processes. Next, we provide an overview of several areas in which soci...

Through social media and camera phones, users enact selective self-presentation as they choose, edit, and post photographs of themselves (such as selfies) to social networking sites for an imagined audience. Photos typically focus on users' physical appearance, which may compound existing sociocultural pressures about body image. We identified user...

In this study, we explored how social media, particularly social networking sites, serve as informal learning environments for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and otherwise-identified (LGBTQ) individuals during formative stages of their evolving LGBTQ identity. We conducted semi-structured interviews (N = 33) probing LGBTQ individ...

Although social networking sites are often lauded for their ability to establish and maintain relationships and social capital, research has shown that they can also foster distress and wreak havoc, particularly in romantic relationships. The affordances of SNSs that facilitate social interaction, such as the visibility and persistence of posts mad...

Previous studies have identified relationships between romantic media consumption and users’ romantic beliefs, but romantic video games (i.e., games in which players attempt to foster a romantic relationship with a chosen game character, also called dating games or dating simulators) remain understudied. Using a cultivation framework, we conducted...

To understand how narratives may best be implemented in video game design, first we must understand how players respond to and experience narratives in video games, including their reactions to their player character or avatar. This study looks at the relationship that transportability, self-presence, social presence, and physical presence have wit...

Online video games afford co-play and social interaction, often anonymous, among players from around the world. As predicted by the social identity model of deindividuation effects, undesirable behavior is not uncommon in online gaming environments, and online harassment has become a pervasive issue in the gaming community. In this study, we sought...

Transformed social interaction (TSI) suggests that virtual environments have unique advantages over traditional forms of interpersonal communication. Recent research has demonstrated that a persuasive speaker can use these advantages to create a more persuasive message. However, little has been done to establish how a receiver of a persuasive messa...

Social networking sites (SNSs) enrich many aspects of our relationships, yet they also have the potential for harm. Although considerable research has focused on the benefits of SNSs, there is a “dark side” to online social networks, particularly in romantic relationships. Distinctive affordances of SNSs (e.g., visibility and connectivity) enable n...

Social networking sites can facilitate self-expression, but for some, that freedom is constrained. This study investigated factors that influence LGBT+ individuals' identity management and political expression on social media. We interviewed 52 participants aged 18 to 53 around the 2012 U.S. election. Using co-cultural theory, we investigated commu...

Several factors predict relationship development, including physical attractiveness, similarity, proximity, and complementarity. Given this variety of factors, several theories and models have been proposed to predict how relationships evolve, including filter theory, social exchange theories, resource theory, equity theory, interdependence theory,...

This study integrated the computers as social actors (CASA) framework with objectification theory to predict that traits, such as sexism, influence perceptions of virtual representations as well as attributions of the source and message. Participants (N = 397) received a message about dating or job interviews presented by a virtual woman in either...

Existing research has investigated whether virtual representations perceived to be controlled by humans (i.e., avatars) or those perceived to be controlled by computer algorithms (i.e., agents) are more influential. A meta-analysis (N = 32) examined the model of social influence in virtual environments (Blascovich, 2002) and investigated whether ag...

Romantic relationship dissolution can be stressful, and social networking sites make it difficult to separate from a romantic partner online as well as offline. An online survey (N = 431) tested a model synthesizing attachment, investment model variables, and post-dissolution emotional distress as predictors of interpersonal surveillance (i.e., “Fa...

Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PlayStation overlay achievement and trophy systems onto their video games. Though these meta-game reward systems are growing in popularity, little research has examined whether players notice, use, or seek out these systems. In this study, game players participated in focus groups to discuss the advantages and disadvanta...

An online survey of a nationally representative sample of U.S. men aged 18-40 assessed trait predictors of social networking site use as well as two forms of visual self-presentation: editing one’s image in photographs posted on social networking sites (SNSs) and posting “selfies,” or pictures users take of themselves. We examined the Dark Triad (i...

Although previous research has investigated relationships between media consumption, sexism, and rape myth acceptance (RMA), limited research has investigated video games despite their emergence as one of the most popular forms of media entertainment globally. Given that video games typically feature even less diverse and more objectified represent...

Gamification, the application of game elements to non-game settings, continues to grow in popularity as a method to increase student engagement in the classroom. We tested students across two courses, measuring their motivation, social comparison, effort, satisfaction, learner empowerment, and academic performance at four points during a 16-week se...

Abstract Due to their pervasiveness and unique affordances, social media play a distinct role in the development of modern romantic relationships. This study examines how a social networking site is used for information seeking about a potential or current romantic partner. In a survey, Facebook users (N=517) were presented with Facebook behaviors...

Research has indicated that many video games and virtual worlds are populated by unrealistic, hypersexualized representations of women, but the effects of using these representations remain understudied. Objectification theory suggests that women’s exposure to sexualized media representations leads to self-objectification. Further, we anticipated t...

Gamification includes the use of gaming features, such as points or leaderboards, in non-gaming contexts, and is a frequently-discussed trend in education. One way of gamifying the classroom is to introduce leaderboards. Leaderboards allow students to see how they are performing relative to others in the same class. Little empirical research has in...

The examination of presence is important, as previous studies have shown that the subjective experience of presence can impact the effectiveness of virtual treatments (Villani, Riva, & Riva, 2007) and the degree to which these stimuli translate into real world behavior (e.g., Fox, Bailenson, & Binney, 2009; Persky & Blascovich, 2008; Price & Anders...

HCI designers have made significant advancements in the development of health agents. Although these developments are often technologically impressive, social scientific research provides some contraindications. Here, we review relevant social scientific research on tailoring, customization, agency, and realism that provides guidelines on how to de...

Virtual doppelgängers are human representations in virtual environments with photorealistic resemblance to individuals. Previous research has shown that doppelgängers can be effective in persuading users in the health domain. An experiment explored the potential of using virtual doppelgängers in addition to a traditional public health campaign mess...

Maintenance behaviors play an important role in sustaining relational states, especially within committed romantic relationships. Limited research, however, has considered media portrayals of these behaviors. From the framework of social cognitive theory, this content analysis examined relational maintenance behaviors portrayed by committed romanti...

Due to their prevalence and unique affordances, social networking sites such as Facebook have the potential to influence offline relationships. This study employed Baxter's (2011) refinement of relational dialectics theory to explore Facebook's role in emerging adults' romantic relationships. Data from ten focus groups revealed that Facebook contri...

In virtual environments (VEs), users experience visceral simulations that feel like the real world. Virtual experiences are proposed as a novel operationalization of gain and loss framed environmental messages. A 2 (gain vs. loss frame) × 2 (high vs. low interactivity) × 3 (pretest, posttest, delayed posttest) experiment was conducted. Immediately...

Sexism toward women in online video game environments has become a pervasive and divisive issue in the gaming community. In this study, we sought to determine what personality traits, demographic variables, and levels of game play predicted sexist attitudes towards women who play video games. Male and female participants (N=301) who were players of...

Abstract Often, virtual environments and video games have established goals, and to achieve them, users must either compete or cooperate with others. The common ingroup identity model predicts that individuals maintain multiple identities at any given time based on roles, demographics, and contextual factors, and that they interpret others based on...

This study examines the implications of social networking web sites (SNSs) within romantic relationships. Specifically, Knapp’s (1978) stage model of relationships is examined through a new lens wherein the role of SNSs, specifically Facebook, is explored in the escalation stages of romantic relationships (i.e., initiating, experimenting, intensify...

Abstract Social networking sites serve as both a source of information and a source of tension between romantic partners. Previous studies have investigated the use of Facebook for monitoring former and current romantic partners, but why certain individuals engage in this behavior has not been fully explained. College students (N=328) participated...

Research has indicated that many video games and virtual worlds are populated by unrealistic, hypersexualized representations of women, but the effects of embodying these representations remains understudied. The Proteus effect proposed by Yee and Bailenson (2007) suggests that embodiment may lead to shifts in self-perception both online and offlin...

Abstract Social networking sites are becoming a prevalent form of communication in the escalation of romantic relationships. An online survey (n=403) addressed emerging adults' experiences with Facebook and romantic relationships, particularly a unique affordance of Facebook: the ability to declare oneself as "In a Relationship" and actively link o...

Previous research indicates that photorealistic virtual representations (i.e., agents and avatars) of the self can influence attitude and behavior change. this study was designed to test participants’ physiological reactions to exercising or still agents that resembled the self or a stranger. a within-subjects experiment tested participants’ (n = 1...

Avatars are defined as virtual representations that are controlled by a human user. Commonly, we observe avatars in video and online games, social networking sites, and virtual worlds. This chapter explores the use of avatars in the expression, exploration, and evolution of users' identities, both online and offline. Theoretical explanations for th...

Many people fail to save what they need to for retirement (Munnell, Webb, and Golub-Sass 2009). Research on excessive discounting of the future suggests that removing the lure of immediate rewards by pre-committing to decisions, or elaborating the value of future rewards can both make decisions more future-oriented. In this article, we explore a th...

We present an overview of facial expressions and emotions and measurement methodologies used in prior studies. Computer models that classify emotions and predict behaviors based on facial expressions can be an effective alternative to human coders. Most predictions can occur based on a small sample of behavior. Empirical studies using the proposed...

In this study, the role of presence in the imitation of a virtual model was examined. Immersive virtual environment technology (IVET) was used to create photorealistic virtual representations of the self that were depicted eating food in a virtual world. Changes in the virtual environment (via a changing or unchanging body) were incorporated to cre...

This experiment exposed a sample of U.S. undergraduates (43 men, 40 women) to suggestively or conservatively clad virtual females who exhibited either responsive, high eye gaze or nonresponsive, low gaze in an immersive virtual environment. Outside the virtual world, men and women who encountered a highly stereotypical character—a suggestively clad...

Social cognitive theory is often implemented when researchers develop treatments and campaigns for health behavior change. Immersive virtual environment technology (IVET) enables novel explorations of health behavior modeling. In Study 1, participants were randomly assigned to one of three treatments: vicarious reinforcement, in which a virtual rep...

In this article, we provide the nontechnical reader with a fundamental understanding of the components of virtual reality (VR) and a thorough discussion of the role VR has played in social science. First, we provide a brief overview of the hardware and equipment used to create VR and review common elements found within the virtual environment that...

Cognitive science is the study of mind, and is an interdisciplinary field that encompasses psychology (→ Psychology in Communication Processes), philosophy, computer science, education (→ Learning and Communication), neuroscience, anthropology, and linguistics. The intellectual origins of the field can be traced back to the 1950s, when researchers...