Elizabeth Stoycheff’s research while affiliated with Wayne State University and other places

Mental health stigma remains a significant barrier to accessing mental health care and treatment, particularly among racial, ethnic, gender, and LGBTQIA+ underrepresented groups in the United States. This study aimed to investigate the relative persuasiveness of mental health narratives featuring both marginalized and non-marginalized characters in reducing stigma among college students. We conducted an online between-subjects experiment with a sample size of 292 participants to explore the impacts of message format (narrative vs. non-narrative), narrative point of view (first-person vs. third-person), and character similarity (marginalized vs. non-marginalized voices) on the persuasion process, specifically targeting the reduction of stigma and changes in attitudes toward those seeking mental health services. Findings revealed that the use of narrative messaging had no effect on reducing mental health stigma or treatment attitudes, but narrative campaigns featuring members of underrepresented groups did enhance one’s perceived similarity with mediated characters, which in turn, resulted in more support for seeking mental health treatment. These findings have implications for the design of social media-based anti-stigma interventions and narrative persuasion in mental health research.

This study explores perceptions of online racial hate speech directed at Asian Americans in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined how individuals’ enactment of resilience communication in response to that threat affected their self-reported estimates of personal health. Using a nationally representative survey (n = 1767) that oversampled Asian Americans (n = 455), we found that Asian Americans perceived the problem of online hate speech to be more severe than members of non-targeted groups. Analysis revealed a mediated pathway through which heightened perceptions of online racial hate speech were positively associated with individuals’ enactment of specific resilience processes tied to identity affirmation, which was linked to positive gains in psychological health. Results contribute to resilience theory in the context of racism and the observed relationships between resilience communication and health. We discuss how individuals in minoritized communities and allies might use resilience to combat the synergistic stressors of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In response to Perloff's (this issue) essay examining the development and future of agenda setting, a series of scholars offer their own reactions to the essay and the broader issues it raises. © 2022 Mass Communication & Society Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

This study builds on previous surveillance and censorship research that has uncovered the chilling effects of these online technologies. It tests the assumption that political chilling occurs through affective heuristics. By manipulating an online privacy policy to include the presence of either website cookies, as a means of surveillance, or content moderation, as a form of censorship, this research indicates that both website features activate negative affect, but only surveillance engenders problematic chilling effects. The additional presence of U.S. national security justifications accompanying the website cookies or content moderation suppressed some feelings of fear, but did not reduce political chilling. These findings prompt a discussion of how website and application cookies impact expression in digital spaces.

Using a mixed-design online experiment, this study examined how individuals determine the quality of information they encounter online and engage in information verification and authentication processes. An online experiment tested the effects of “fake news” labels as discounting cues on individuals’ ability to correctly identify disinformation and their motivations to authenticate it with other credible sources. Results showed main effects of this “fake news” cue in online comments on participants’ accuracy in identifying fake news, need to authenticate the information, and their reliance on legacy news channels to do so.

This study seeks to contribute to the growing body of scholarship about the Internet’s role in authoritarian and transitioning countries. Based on two original surveys of Russian and Ukrainian Internet users, online behaviors were classified as either primarily capital enhancing or recreational in terms of their democratic potential. Indirect and differential models of how these types of Internet use are associated with citizen demand for democracy were tested using serial mediation. Capital-enhancing use exhibited an indirect positive effect on demand for democratic governance by increasing critical appraisals of the incumbent regime, whereas recreational Internet was associated with satisfactory evaluations of non-democratic regimes and more entrenched authoritarian worldviews.

Individuals’ political internet use has been identified as a determinant of democratic attitudes. But awareness of online government surveillance and content restrictions may prohibit citizens from freely using the internet for democratic socialization. Using a comparative survey in the United States and Russia, this study explores how perceived internet freedom influences support for democracy by relatively constraining or expanding citizens’ worldviews. Implications for global democratic backsliding are discussed.

The Panopticon is a popular metaphor in discussions about mass surveillance. Drawing on deterrence theory and chilling effects, we provide two empirical tests of this analogy to examine whether perceptions of online government surveillance suppress or entirely eradicate an array of sensitive online activities. Study 1 indicates that surveillance significantly deters individuals’ intentions to engage in illegal offenses, an effect that extends to political, but not privacy-protective behaviors. Study 2 retests the pervasiveness of this effect with a sample of Muslims who reside in the United States. Results indicate that restrictive chilling effects are not specific to any one online population, experimental stimuli, or political context. Implications for US political and social systems are discussed.