Tijdschrift voor Communicatiewetenschap - Volume 38, Issue 4, 2010

Op donderdag 4 en vrijdag 5 februari 2010 vond het Etmaal van de Communicatiewetenschap plaats in Gent. Zoals het stilaan een traditie is geworden, focust dit themanummer van het Tijdschrift voor Communicatiewetenschap op een selectie bijgewerkte papers die op het Etmaal zijn gepresenteerd door onderzoekers van diverse Nederlandse en Vlaamse universiteiten en hogescholen. Het Etmaal van de Communicatiewetenschap is de afgelopen jaren uitgegroeid tot een belangrijke wetenschappelijke ontmoetingsplaats voor wie in de Lage Landen onderzoek verricht naar communicatie en media. Zoals de vakgroepvoorzitter Communicatiewetenschappen, Universiteit Gent, prof. dr. Daniel Biltereyst het in zijn welkomstwoord verwoordde: ‘Voor wie graag op de hoogte blijft van lopend en recent afgerond onderzoek, voor wie op zoek is naar nieuwe ideeën en inzichten, voor wie zijn netwerk van contacten wil uitbreiden en aanscherpen, is het Etmaal van de Communicatiewetenschap elk jaar opnieuw een feest.’ Met meer dan 250 deelnemers en 170 gepresenteerde papers en posters in verschillende domeinen van communicatiewetenschap kunnen we niet anders dan ook bij de editie van 2010 te spreken van een uiterst geslaagd feest.

Media ‘à la carte’? The Media Consumption of Turkish and Moroccan adolescents in Flanders

Media have an important impact on the day to day reality of adolescents. They often combine a variety of media sources and use traditional and new media simultaneously. Adolescents today are genuin media multi-taskers. We can only but assume there is no difference in that respect for adolescents from an ethnic minority group. However, the main question of this study is whether there exists a difference in the media use of Flemish and Turkish/Moroccan adolescents, of which the latter are moving between two cultures. This study focuses on the way Turkish/Moroccan adolescents in Flanders use traditional and new media in their every day life and what the impact is of socio demographic factors and their ethnic and cultural orientation such as language, religion and ethnic/cultural identity on that media use. By means of a survey we got an overview of the media that Turkish and Moroccan adolescents own as well as on how they use it. What is the role of media in their lives, how do they use it and what are their expectations? The results of a control group of Flemish adolescents are used as a benchmark.

Warnings, celebrities, and product placement: effect of celebrity appreciation and formulation of warnings on viewers’ responses

Although many studies on product placement have been conducted, effects of celebrities in product placement remained unstudied. In addition, new legislation forces television programs to show warnings for sponsored content. However, effects of such warnings for product placement are unknown. The present study shows that appreciation of the celebrity has a strong impact on the persuasiveness of product placement, but that this effect is moderated by the formulation of the warning that is presented. For viewers who do not appreciate the celebrity in the product placement, a warning that explains the deceptive nature of product placement mitigates persuasion. These viewers are less influenced than viewers who appreciate the celebrity or who saw no warning or a warning that shows the commercial source of the product placement.

Dutch and Flemish parties in the media and in the polls: assessing a mutual causal relationship

We address the question to what extent media visibility of political parties and standing in opinion polls influence each other. We look at various political parties in the Netherlands and Flanders during the past two decades. We hypothesize a positive influence from the one on the other, and pose the question to what extent this differs for parties with different characteristics. We conduct a computer-assisted content analysis of newspaper coverage and collect existing public opinion polls. We use a pooled time series analysis and tests of Granger causality. Results show that often a positive causal relationship between media coverage and opinion polls exists. Sometimes, however, the relationship is absent, or even contrary to expectations. Especially in the last years, Dutch parties at the extremes of the political spectrum profit from media visibility. In Flanders, the relationship only runs from polls to visibility, and not the other way around.

Causes and consequences of pathological gaming among adolescents

Pathological use of video games has been associated with indicators of psychosocial well-being, such as loneliness, low self-esteem, low social competence low life satisfaction, and high aggression. However, few studies have decisively demonstrated whether these indicators of psychosocial well-being are causes or consequences of pathological gaming. To address this gap in the literature, we conducted a two-wave panel study among 851 Dutch adolescents (543 gamers). Causal relations were analyzed using autoregressive structural equation models. These analyses indicated that social competence, self-esteem, and loneliness were significant predictors of pathological gaming six months later. Our analyses further indicated that increased loneliness and aggressive behavior were also consequences of pathological gaming. These results suggest that displacement of real-world social interaction resulting from pathological use of video games is likely to deteriorate existing relationships. This, in turn, decreases their psychosocial well-being.

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