Robert Holbert

Temple University | TU · Communication and Social Influence

Explanatory power is a key criterion for assessing the strength of a theory. This essay provides an expanded detailing of explanatory power’s three components: Plausibility, range, and postdiction. In addition, a case is made for how plausibility advancements signal field-general contributions, range-based works gravitate toward subfield-specific o...

The coronavirus pandemic is a unique context that can allow researchers to address boundary conditions. This essay details four different types of boundary conditions and emphasizes they are not created equal. A review of pandemic-related research published in nine communication journals reveals a relative dearth of studies exploring moderation-bas...

The idea that the success of media personae in attracting audiences and maintaining their loyalty depends on the creation of a pseudo-friendship, known as para-social relationships, has been a mainstay of mass media research for more than half a century. Expanding the scope of para-social relationship research into the political realm, the notion t...

Political interest is a key predictor of likelihood to vote. We argue that the political interest–vote intention relationship can be explained by well-established theories that predict behavior across domains (e.g., theory of reasoned action, theory of planned behavior). Relying on the integrated behavioral model, we propose a core mediation model...

Social and behavioral scientists rarely indulge in asking a single question about a given phenomenon of interest. As a result, the ordering of the items being presented to a subject of observation becomes a detail requiring attention. Also, as communication scholars, we know words matter. The systematic, empirical study of question wording and item...

Item response theory (IRT) is an approach to measurement assessment that is severely underutilized in communication science in general, and media psychology in particular. Communication scholars have more fully embraced a direct alternative to IRT, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), for the development of valid and reliable operationalizations of...

Despite its growing prominence in news coverage and public discourse, there is still considerable ambiguity regarding when and how fact-checking affects beliefs. Informed by theories of motivated reasoning and message design, a meta-analytic review was undertaken to examine the effectiveness of fact-checking in correcting political misinformation (...

This essay provides a summary of editorial priorities and details a series of steps being taken to aid Journal of Communication’s continuing mission to present high-quality communication research. Insights are offered based on our editorial team’s first six months of shepherding the journal. In addition, a number of theory- and method-related point...

Meta-theoretical focus is given to how communication researchers are approaching and hypothesizing moderation. A moderation typology is offered and an evaluation of the field’s common practices for positing moderation reveals an inability to discern between three overarching classifications (Contributory, Contingent, Cleaved). A content analysis of...

The free press performs essential democratic functions, but widespread negative attitudes toward the press threaten its legitimacy and effectiveness as a check on formal institutions. In order to combat these attitudes, media organizations must understand who holds them and why. A survey-based study of U.S. adults (N = 2052) focuses on associations...

A content analysis of 900 political- and health-related media articles published in 11 outlets from 2010 through 2015 reveals a complete disconnect between discussions of statistical power and alpha levels. This study proposes the use of discontinuous criterion power analyses to address this power-alpha blind spot. Additional analyses indicate a si...

A secondary analysis of 2010–2014 World Values Survey (WVS) data (N = 81,229) is performed across 56 countries to assess frequency of exposure to television news versus the Internet and mobile phone as information sources. A large majority of the comparisons (105/112; 93.75%) reveal television to be used more frequently than Internet or mobile phon...

This study explores the ability of parasocial relationships to predict support for political candidates and elected officials. A May 2017 survey of U.S. adults (N = 2,055) included items that reflect traditional approaches to the study of candidate support (e.g., political party identification, policy agreement) along with several batteries of a ne...

Improved communication clarity is needed in the presentation and critical evaluation of proposed theory advancements in the field of communication. We encourage communication scholars to be more explicit in detailing the nature of their theoretical pursuits and to utilize with greater frequency established criteria for the assessment of theory. Eng...

Political party conventions, rivaled only by general election debates, are media events that can affect democratic processes through their ability to reach a wide audience. Conventions hold a unique place in the American electoral system by serving as a pivot point between the nation’s primary and general election phases. From a normative perspecti...

Stepping beyond traditional mass communication and political communication frameworks, this study utilizes the Integrated Behavioral Model (IBM) to predict traditional broadcast and print news media exposure. Specific focus is given to experiential (is politics interesting?) and instrumental (is politics important?) attitudes. A secondary analysis...

There are four levels of measurement: nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio. Whether a single item or a composite (index or scale), greater understanding of any measure often comes with an evaluation of four moments: mean, standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis. The quality of a measure is judged using several criteria, the most important of which...

This study examines the influence of debate viewing-social media multitasking on campaign knowledge during the 2012 presidential election. Results from three waves of a national cross-sectional survey of U.S. adults conducted during and after the 2012 presidential election suggest that social networking site (SNS) use overall correlates with increa...

The abundance of political media outlets raises concerns that citizens isolate themselves to likeminded news, leaving the public with infrequent shared media experiences and little exposure to disagreeable information. Network analysis of 2008 National Annenberg Election Survey data (N = 57,967) indicates these worries are exaggerated, as general i...

This study highlights the explanatory principle of cognitive consistency as a foundation for political entertainment research. More specifically, appreciation for pro- versus counter-attitudinal political humor is analyzed via one statewide (N = 304) and two national surveys (N = 1008, N = 786, respectively). Analyses reveal a preference for pro-at...

Journalism and mass communication research is underutilizing structural equation modeling (SEM) for the purposes of specifying, estimating, and evaluating measurement models. The analytical exercises undertaken for this essay reveal SEM-based confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to be a multifaceted tool that can aid researchers in generating greater...

This study tested how source knowledge affects enjoyment of self-deprecating humor about a minority group. Participants made aware that the source of a message poking fun at people with disabilities was himself disabled had more positive evaluations of the cartoon and author than participants unaware of his disability. Participants initially given...

This chapter critically reflects on the state of the art in research on the political relevance of entertainment media. It is argued that most research on this important topic has been based on the ideas of understanding or consistency. While these lines of research also need to be expanded, the authors call for bring-ing the hedonic principle into...

This chapter offers a systematic assessment of DICTION's ability to address a wide range of media content. Each of the media-related works in this volume reflects a unique mix of communication inputs, and DICTION proves itself able to generate valid and reliable insights on a diverse range of material. In addition, the chapter focuses on a series o...

The explanatory principles of understanding and consistency are used to detail the past, present, and future of individual-level political communication media effects research. It is argued that the field of political communication is at a crossroads, with preferences for a dominant explanatory principle shifting from understanding back to consiste...

An 11-item Affinity for Political Humor (AFPH) scale is theorized as a higher-order latent factor with four lower-order latent factors (incongruity, superiority, anxiety reduction, and social connection). The theorized measurement model and several alternative models are tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). In addition, reliability and...

The shifting media environment is expected to have a variety of effects on political knowledge and behavior. An experimental study was conducted to assess the influence of media environment on news consumption, perceptions of media experience quality, and success on a political outcome. In addition, procrastination is introduced as a potentially im...

On November 28 and 29, 2012, ten scholars of political parody and satire and six parody/viral video producers met at the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania to share their expertise, discuss the democratic uses of parody, and develop a set of strategies to guide the successful use of political parody in generating posit...

Social media are an emerging news source, but questions remain regarding how citizens engage news content in this environment. This study focuses on social media news reception and friending a journalist/news organization as predictors of social media news dissemination. Secondary analysis of 2010 Pew data (N = 1,264) reveals reception and friendin...

This study focuses on the perceived effectiveness of political satire. A pair of experimental studies using original satirical works offer findings for audience perceptions regarding two types of satire, juvenalian and horatian, compared to traditional opinion-editorial argumentation. The two studies produced replicable findings that indicate clear...

This essay offers a comprehensive framework for the investigation of presidential debate humor. Given the importance of presidential debates for educating and persuading voters and the ubiquity of humor in debate events, it stands to reason that communication research would benefit by a deepened scholarly understanding of humor in the debate contex...

This article offers a formal normative assessment of political satire. It summarizes social scientific research on the influence of political satire and findings on the normative implications of political satire within a democratic framework. Two cogent lines of empirical research, persuasion and understanding, receive special attention. Political...

A wide range of entertainment media content has been shown to influence some of our most important democratic outcomes. In addition, political communication scholarship is beginning to look at how certain entertainment-based media outlets function alongside more traditional political outlets (e.g., TV news, debates). In today's complex media enviro...

Much recent debate in political communication has centered on the influence of ideologically oriented media outlets. Some argue that the current media environment is creating partisan echo chambers, while others contend that today’s political media afford citizens increased contact with a diverse range of opinion. The current study seeks to clarify...

Much research has been published on cellular phone only households and the challenges posed by cellular phones to traditional survey methodologies that attempt to generate representative samples using only landline telecommunications. This study reports analyses comparing two separate survey strata (Nlandline = 152, Ncellular = 153) collected simul...

Content analyses have focused on the messages offered in political TV satire, and the communication discipline is amassing solid empirical evidence concerning a range of effects derived from this style of programming. However, there is remarkably little understanding of who is tuning in to view political TV satire beyond the audience being dominate...

This study extends political humor effects research by focusing on two distinct types of satire, juvenalian and horatian. Theoretical arguments grounded in the elaboration likelihood model culminated in the positing of a series of interactions between message (juvenalian, horatian, traditional opinion-editorial) and recipient ability (high, low) re...

The ways in which individuals interact with political media has changed significantly over the last 30 years. With the advent of cable television some scholars have argued that television's influence on political opinions can now be defined by the specific, niche audiences of the cable channels, instead of the vast, general audience of network tele...

This study is focused on the influence of late-night TV comedy viewing on political talk. It is posited that debate viewing serves as a mediator of this relationship, and age is argued to be a moderator of the association between late-night TV comedy viewing and debate viewing. More specific to age, it is hypothesized that the predictive value of l...

This article takes up Bennett and Iyengar's (2008) call for debate about the future of political communication effects research. We outline 4 key criticisms. First, Bennett and Iyengar are too quick to dismiss the importance of attitude reinforcement, long recognized as an important type of political media influence. Second, the authors take too na...

With the solidifying of the Internet as an influential form of mediated communication has come a surge of activity among media scholars looking into what leads individuals to use this emerging technology. This study focuses on religiosity as a potential predictor of Internet activity, and uses a combination of secularization theory and uses and gra...

The effects of exposure to different types of humor on argument scrutiny were examined in the context of televised messages. A resource allocation hypothesis (Young, 200835. Young , D. G. 2008 . The privileged role of the late-night joke: Exploring humor's role in disrupting argument scrutiny . Media Psychology , 11 : 119 – 142 . [Taylor & Francis...

This essay makes the argument that political communication researchers would be well served to look to communication theories developed in other communication subfields as a means by which to advance a number of different research agendas. A series of events or issues that came to light during the 2008 Presidential election are highlighted and spec...

The study of political mass communication information outlet effects has been dominated by two types of studies, those which focus on a single outlet and those which look at the comparative influence of multiple outlets. The current study seeks to advance a third study type by offering a theory of political campaign media connectedness. Three axiom...

Elections should serve to reaffirm a citizenry's belief in the legitimacy of its political processes and outcomes. This study focuses on perceptions of vote count accuracy as a criterion variable. An argument is offered that voters' personal perceptions of postelection vote count accuracy are predicted by vote choice, with those citizens who did no...

This experimental research focuses on four distinct, but related theoretical interests regarding the study of emotion and media effects: (a) emotion serving as a potential mediator of the relationship between the consumption of multiple media messages, (b) media messages sparking emotional reactions to attitude objects not specifically referenced o...

In this chapter, the authors highlight what communication researchers are doing right and wrong with their present use of structural equation modeling (SEM), and note where there is the potential to expand the use of SEM for the purpose of theory building. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Extant research on presidential debate viewing focuses primarily on the cognitive outcomes (e.g., knowledge gain) associated with this particular mediated communication event. This study expands effects-based research on political debate viewing by focusing on citizens' discrete emotional reactions to candidates (e.g., joy and anger). In addition,...

This study examines program ordering effects derived from viewing CNN television news relative to The Daily Show on the political gratifications associated with both types of information sources. Internal political self-efficacy is assessed as an individual-difference moderator. Main primacy effects are found on the gratifications associated with b...

This study uses framing to assess how the office of the President of the United States is depicted on NBC's The West Wing. This work represents a theoretical and empirical domain extension of framing in political communication, an area of study dominated by analyses of news content. Three distinct presidential depictions are analyzed: chief executi...

This study analyzes the influence of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 in coordination with presidential debate viewing on the outcome variable of confidence in George W. Bush's policy positions. In addition, the combined influence of these competing persuasive appeals is assessed across three political ideology groups: liberals, moderates, and conse...

This study extends priming research in political communication by focusing on an alternative political information source (i.e., Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9-11), affect rather than cognitions, and the existence of intra-affective ambivalence. In addition, two moderator variables are analyzed: political party identification and need for closure. Th...

Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a multivariate technique suited for testing proposed relations between variables. In this article, the authors discuss the potential for SEM as a tool to advance health communication research both statistically and conceptually. Specifically, the authors discuss the advantages that latent variable modeling in S...

This study examined the influence of soft-money-sponsored issue-advocacy advertising in U.S. House and Senate campaigns, comparing its effects against candidate-sponsored positive advertising and contrast advertising on viewers' candidate preferences and on their attitudes that reflect democratic values. The results revealed no main effects for adv...

This study uses 2000-2002 American National Election Study (ANES) panel data to assess the influence of national television news viewing on opinions concerning the need for federal involvement in social issues reflective of postmaterialist values. This relationship is analyzed in coordination with the testing of perceptions of the proper role of go...

General questions concerning the role of entertainment media in politics permeated the 2004 election cycle. Political communication scholars are beginning to systematically analyze potential sociopolitical ramifications stemming from entertainment television viewing, but one difficulty with this emerging area of research is an inability to forge co...

This study focuses on one often overlooked political communication-based media effect, intramedia mediation, and the indirect effects that stem from relationships that exist among various forms of media use. Data from a 2000 national Annenberg election panel survey are used to assess a series of relationships between television and newspaper public...

This study posits that debate viewing is a mediator between news use and vote choice, and that party identification is a moderator in the relationship between debate viewing and vote choice. A series of OLS regression equations, first tested using 2000 ANES data, revealed that debate viewing initially serves as a mediator between television news vi...

This article develops a social scientific approach for the empirical testing of media as environment form effects. The theoretical origins of this work merges McLuhan’s thoughts on micro-level media form influence and recent advances in the study of embodied cognition. A social scientific assessment of medium theory is provided, followed by an over...

This study analyzes the effects of political talk radio use on the perceived fairness of the 2000 U.S. presidential election. In particular, a process of influence is hypothesized leading from talk radio use to feelings toward the two major-party candidates (Bush and Gore). Citizens’ affective associations with the candidates are then argued to hav...

We focus on the relationships among three types of television viewing (news, police reality, and crime drama) and attitudes toward capital punishment and handguns, as well as the likelihood of actually owning a handgun. A host of exogenous variables are treated as predictors of television use, support for police authority, fear of crime, and our cr...

Every 4 years presidential candidates devote months and hundreds of millions of dollars campaigning for the highest office in the land. Some question whether these presidential campaigns actually make a difference in election outcomes. In 2000, the Bush and Gore campaigns provided a golden opportunity to empirically assess campaign effects because...

This essay addresses the need for media effects researchers to decompose their structural equation models. We highlight the importance of studying specific indirect effects within a conditional effects framework and discuss how the lack of analysis of this type of effect in structural equation modeling does not fit well with the discipline's theore...

This study uses priming as a theoretical basis from which to investigate potential effects of NBC's The West Wing on individual-level perceptions of the U.S. presidency. As a result, this work extends political communication-based priming research to entertainment television content. Josiah Bartlet, the fictional president portrayed on the show, is...

This study merges insights from cultivation and uses and gratifications to examine the relationship between environmental concern, five forms of television viewing, and pro-environmental behaviors. This research considers both the direct effects of various forms of television viewing and their potential mediating roles in the relationship between e...

In this study, three approaches commonly used by communication scientists to specify structural relationships using full-information maximum likelihood structural equation modeling are investigated. Specifically, a simulation study using Monte Carlo techniques was conducted to compare the structural paths generated by each of the three structural e...

Scholars studying the content of televised entertainment programming have long argued for a relationship between exposure to sexist media representations of women and opinions concerning women's status in society, yet research has rarely examined prime-time television audiences and their sociopolitical opinions concerning women's rights. To explore...

Citizens can gain a better understanding of the important issues of a campaign and where candidates stand on those issues from three primary sources: direct candidate-to-citizen mass media messages (e.g., political advertisements, debates), news (e.g., newspapers, television news), or discussion with fellow citizens. The current study conducted a s...

Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a viable multivariate tool used by communication researchers for the past quarter century. Building off Cappella (1975) as well as McPhee and Babrow (1987), this study summarizes the use of this technique from 1995–2000 in 37 communication-based academic journals. We identify and critically assess 3 unique meth...

Research on the effects of watching presidential debates tends to show that these messages can foster learning about the candidates' issue positions and influence voters' impressions of the candidates. This study uses a pretest/posttest design to assess more subtle effects of watching a 2000 presidential debate on attitudes and vote intention. Lead...

This study examined the effects of issue advertising on candidate preferences and the democratic process, comparing the impact of party-and PAC-sponsored advertising against candidate-sponsored positive and contrast ads. Results revealed that the influence of political advertising varies depending on party affiliation. For Republicans, candidate-sp...

This article explores the relationship between Internet use and the individual-level production of social capital. To do so, the authors adopt a motivational perspective to distinguish among types of Internet use when examining the factors predicting civic engagement, interpersonal trust, and life contentment. The predictive power of new media use...

Labels of elitism and egalitarianism are useless because there are elements of each in both objective and public journalism. Each advocates a different level of constraint on the press.

This investigation examined the role and influence of print and video communication modalities in inoculation. Inoculation is assumed to be an active cognitive process, and past research has assumed that inoculation treatments function in much the same way in fostering resistance to influence, irrespective of the medium employed to deliver them. Th...

Participation in a deliberative forum has received relatively little scrutiny as opposed to more traditional forms of participation. This study examines direct and indirect effects of discussion network characteristics on willingness to participate in a deliberative forum. Using data collected in a telephone survey of 416 respondents in Madison, Wi...

Robert Putnam (1995) charged that TV is the driving force behind the decline in social capital in the US. He argued that TV viewing has privatized leisure time, thus inhibiting participation in activities outside the home. Here, the extent to which TV reduces social capital through time displacement is examined, drawing on telephone survey data col...

This study compares people's use of political talk radio to that of other mass communication sources and to their confidence in democratic institutions. The paper argues that communication modalities (e.g., political talk radio) serve as important sources of secondary socialization: negative depictions of democratic institutions by specific sources...

Explanations of why people use various types of media content have been limited mainly to demographic location and self-interested motivational variables. The authors present an alternative, sociotropic source of influence on communication patterns: judgments of how the world works (worldviews), what societal values ought to be pursued (materialism...