Stephen M. Croucher

Massey University · School of Communication, Journalism and Marketing

The COVID-19 pandemic has uncovered prejudices, systemic inequities and critical feelings about governmental institutions around the globe. Since the start of the pandemic, the 12 nations that make up South America have had more than 67 million cases and 1.3 million fatalities. Public trust in and willingness to speak out about government responses...

This study explores how belief in social media outlets is an important aspect of agenda melding in an online environment. In this study, the researchers employ agenda melding as a theoretical lens to explore how belief in social media outlet can predict support for the proposed Border Wall. The researchers surveyed 232 people to find out how belief...

ABSTRACT This study investigated the extent to which patient self-advocacy predicted COVID-19 vaccine hesitance in the U.S. (n = 1987). Results indicated being vaccinated, increasing age, and higher education were each positively related to increased vaccine non-hesitance. Also, those who sought more information and who were more assertive about th...

Background This study applies the Patient Self-Advocacy scale to investigate vaccine hesitancy in New Zealand. Due to New Zealand’s very limited tertiary hospital system and vulnerable populations, the Government’s strategy to address COVID-19 has been to prevent the virus from entering the nation and to eliminate it when it does cross the border....

Math anxiety is a psychological burden that can hinder individuals across their lifetimes. However, the current literature lacks a valid measure of math anxiety that can be used across instructional modalities and among non-student populations. As such, it is difficult to assess math anxiety in virtual learning environments, track math anxiety acro...

Applying a skills-based approach to media and information literacy (MIL), this study explores the MIL competencies of teachers in multi-ethnic schools in Yunnan Province, China. A focus group approach was used. Results showed: (1) teachers have limited access to media and information technologies; (2) teachers do not show much of an understanding o...

More than 5.89 million people have died from COVID-19. Due to COVID-19, there is a need for organizations to reconsider their structures and systems in response to increased remote working and decreased face-to-face (FTF) interactions. This study analyzes organizational relationships, specifically the supervisor-subordinate relationship. This study...

This study examines the understudied daily lives of Westerners in China, focusing on 35 American migrants’ experiences of being stereotyped as the foreign Other during their daily interactions with Chinese locals as an illuminating case. The interviewed Americans’ narratives reveal that the perceived stereotyping, triggered by their race and/or nat...

This study investigated COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and support for employer vaccine mandates and support for termination for non-vaccinated employees among a national sample in New Zealand. A total of 1852 individuals participated in the study. Results indicated participants who are able to get vaccinated are less likely to support employer mandate...

Purpose In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study aims to explore how working remotely might impact the superior–subordinate relationship. Specifically, this study examines how immediacy explains articulated dissent, considers how an individual’s attitudes toward online communication predicts immediacy and articulated dissent and compares t...

Twitter is a powerful tool for world leaders to disseminate public health information and to reach citizens. While Twitter, like other platforms, affords world leaders the opportunity to rapidly present information to citizens, the discourse is often politically framed. In this study, we analysed how leaders’ of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing g...

Teachers routinely face dissatisfying work conditions and may express their frustrations to their peers. This study explores the extent to which causal attributions of work-related doubt, occupational commitment, and intention to quit influence teachers’ willingness to voice their concerns about their occupation. Through a survey of 210 teachers in...

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about significant changes in how people communicate with, and participate in, organizations. This study used structurational divergence to explore the extent to which, during the time of COVID-19, organizational members experienced communication tensions between superiors and subordinates. This study of 956 participant...

As of May 2021, more than 14.7 million people have been infected and nearly 409,000 people have died from COVID-19 in Brazil. During the pandemic, there were countless cases of discrimination, racism, prejudice, and violence towards Brazil’s Afro-Brazilian population. Using integrated threat theory (ITT), this study investigates prejudice towards A...

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought increased discrimination, stigma, and racism toward individuals of Asian descent. Little research has concentrated on public perceptions regarding who is to blame for the spread of the virus. This study extends integrated threat and attribution theories by examining the extent to which prejudice against Asians is r...

As of July 2021, more than 153 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 globally. Russia has 5.5 million cases with more than 135,000 deaths; while Kyrgyzstan has nearly 132,000 cases and 2000 deaths. While the virus hit the two nations at different times and with different severities, the two nations, as with so many others, both experienc...

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen health preventive behaviors to prevent spread of the virus become highly politicized in the United States. A clear division exists between Democrats favoring health preventive measures and Republicans often defying such measures. Amid increasing fear of the virus, the 2020 United States presidential election became ce...

This chapter explores the perception Finns have towards refugees. In particular, building off intergroup threat theory (ITT), this chapter describes the extent to which Finns perceive refugees as a threat to Finnish society. Researchers have proposed Finns might perceive immigrants (and refugees) as threats because they share less cultural and phys...

Building off of the previous two chapters, this chapter looks at the refugee experience from the point of view of the refugee. While the overwhelming majority of integrated threat studies have been conducted from the point of view of the dominant culture, and a few from the point of view of an immigrant or minority’s perspective, none have explored...

This chapter provides a brief review of historical migration to Finland, discusses the legal aspects of migrating to Finland and the rights of immigrants and refugees, current trends in migration to and from Finland, and analyses how other Nordic nations (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden specifically) have responded to the refugee crisis. Through this d...

For a full picture and for more developed insights into the intergroup relations between Finns, immigrants, refugees, and other migrants, it was important for us to look beyond the experiences of refugees and ethnic Finns and to examine the position of other immigrants living or residing in Finland. Thus, this chapter explores the perception immigr...

This chapter draws four overall conclusions from this project. First, the intergroup interactions between Finns, refugees, and immigrants represent cultural fusion in action. In particular, the results of this support the assertions of cultural fusion theory. Second, this research reveals new theoretical and methodological lines of inquiry for inte...

This chapter outlines the myriad push and pull factors that led to the refugee crisis, describes the scale of the migration, and discusses how the European Union (EU) nations and the EU as a whole responded to the crisis. Four push factors are described: the change in migration policy in Macedonia that opened up the Balkan route to the EU, the war...

Oltre che ad innescare una crisi sanitaria globale, la pandemia COVID-19 ha fatto emergere in molti paesi fenomeni di sinofobia. Il presente studio esamina il pregiu-dizio anti-cinese in Italia nel contesto della pandemia COVID-19 alla luce della teoria integrata della minaccia (Stephan e Stephan, 2000). Tra i fattori considerati nello studio come...

Following the global outbreak of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), different countries took different approaches to informing their citizens about the pandemic and planned local public health initiatives. We use online participant panels in 4 affected countries – the US, Spain, Italy, and New Zealand – to explore the extent to which prejudice to...

Teacher communication behaviors have enormous impacts on students’ learning processes and thus have attracted extensive scholarly attention (Mazer, 2013). Teacher confirmation is the process through which teachers communicate to students that they are endorsed, recognized, and acknowledged as valuable individuals (Ellis, 2000). In primarily US-base...

This book combines various theoretical approaches to explore how Finland and its people responded to the European Union (EU) refugee crisis. Combining interviews with Finns, voluntary migrants to Finland and refugees in Finland, the text presents differing perspectives on migration in this country. Key themes addressed in the text include the exten...

The purpose of this investigation was two-fold: (1) to ascertain the extent to which course type (face-to-face or distance) affects instructor credibility; and (2) to examine whether these perceptions differ among New Zealand born and China-born students studying in New Zealand. Using a 2 × 2 factorial MANOVA, findings among New Zealand born and Ch...

The following is an introduction to this special issue on validity in communication. This introduction describes the rationale for this special issue and outlines the four objectives of the special issue.

The ongoing Covid-19 outbreak has brought increased incidents of racism, discrimination, and violence against “Asians,” particularly in the United States, with reports of hate crimes of over 100 per day. Since January 2020, many Asian Americans have reported suffering racial slurs, wrongful workplace termination, being spat on, physical violence, e...

Purpose The argumentativeness measure has been used in more than a 100 studies since 1982. The measure was developed and validated within a US university/college student sample. Despite its intended use, the measure is regularly used outside of the US and outside of the university/college setting without tests of validity. There is also intense deb...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between face concerns, articulated (upward) dissent and organizational assimilation. In this study, articulated dissent was conceptualized as a type of dissent. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire was distributed to 370 working adults in the USA via Qualtrics. The questionna...

This study examines the extent to which the Organizational Dissent Scale (ODS) maintains validity and temporal stability over time in a French sample. A longitudinal panel study was conducted. The results do not support that the ODS maintains validity nor temporal stability over time. These results are not indicative of problems with the original m...

There is no universal definition of bullying, but it is increasingly pervasive and is recognised as a ‘psychosocial hazard’ with associated wellbeing and organisational dysfunctions. Literature identifies antecedents associated with bullying, including leadership style, role autonomy, etc, but some overarching characteristics may also add to unders...

A considerable amount of research has examined the extent to which members of dominant cultures perceive minority groups as threatening their way of life. While various instruments measure these perceptions of threat, few researchers have empirically analysed the statistical properties of these scales. Specifically, studies have not adequately expl...

Through a case study analysis, this paper examines how scientific testing was involved in both the triggering and the resolution of the largest food safety scare ever to hit New Zealand. The paper examines the practical applications for communicators dealing with food safety-based risks and discusses how when dealing with crises, they need to take...

Methodological issues abound when conducting cross-cultural research. In this manuscript we discuss three methodological issues present in many cross-cultural communication studies: lack of geographic diversity, reliability, and validity. To explore these issues the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24) is assessed. The PRCA-24 se...

The self-perceived communication competence (SPCC) measure has been used in over 50 published studies since 2000. McCroskey and McCroskey (1988. Self-report as an approach to measuring communication competence. Communication Research Reports, 5, 108–113. doi: 10.1080/08824098809359810) developed the measure to be used within the US college/universi...

The present study sought to identify whether infographics should be infused into business curriculum as a tool for improving the efficiency of cross-cultural business communication. Students from the United States, New Zealand, and China were presented with a series of 10 infographics with all text in French, a language not spoken by any of the stu...

Media’s ability to enhance the salience of certain topics for the public and affect governmental policy-setting processes is widely recognized. This is particularly evident in health communication, where newspapers are one of the most important sources of health information. This study compares media depictions of tick-borne disease in the United S...

There is insufficient evidence to support screening of various tick-borne diseases (TBD) related microbes alongside Borrelia in patients suffering from TBD. To evaluate the involvement of multiple microbial immune responses in patients experiencing TBD we utilized enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Four hundred and thirty-two human serum samples or...

With an understanding that instructional communication and learning behaviors differ culturally, this study investigates the relationship between teacher confirmation and student motivation among Chinese, Korean, and Japanese students. Students in China (n = 718), Korea (n = 362), and Japan (n = 350) completed surveys assessing their perceived teac...

Organizational dissent is the expression of disagreement or contradictory opinions concerning organizational policies and practices (Kassing, 1998). It is an important form of communication because employees can give feedback to organizations regarding discontent and unethical practices. Thus, dissent provides organizations opportunities for improv...

Discussions concerning if and how immigrants should acculturate into Finnish society have become popular especially in the aftermath of the refugee crisis. Despite the abundance of research on acculturation preferences of majority members towards immigrant groups, research on the stability of majority acculturation preferences in adolescence does n...

Research has shown Russian speakers in Finland are often victims of prejudice and discrimination. Utilizing integrated threat theory, this study investigated the extent to which threats are significant predictors of prejudice towards Russian speakers in Finland among a highly neglected research population – the elderly. This study also aimed at fin...

The present investigation examined instructor immediacy behaviors, students' perceptions of those behaviors, and student math anxiety in Chinese classrooms. Consistent with the American college classroom, a simple causal chain was anticipated in which instructor immediacy behaviors positively induced a psychological response to immediacy, which had...

More than three decades of research on argumentativeness demonstrates that different cultures value differently this aspect of communication. Studies have evaluated levels of argumentativeness in numerous national cultures. This is the first study to explore levels of argumentativeness in Kyrgyzstan. Along with exploring the position of Kyrgyzstan...

Purpose This study aims to first explore the extent to which argumentativeness changed during the adaptation process among Muslim immigrants to France from 2006 to 2015 and, second, to examine the cultural fusion process. The study investigates the influence of intercultural contact on communication traits by exploring the extent to which members...