Due to the increasing importance of acquiring technological tools in communication strategies, and while taking into account that non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) use Instagram as a potential artivist tool to disseminate their initiatives and needs, the present article aims to investigate the form and content of photographs published in the social website Instagram during 2017 by the 20 most relevant NGOs at the international level. Specifically, we study the choice of formal elements, such as the design and editing, the intended purpose and feeling of the message transmitted in the photographs, as well as the type of actor or actors of the images (including their role, number, gesture, sex and age). In addition, we study the use and the engagement generated by children’s images. Content analysis, non-parametric statistical analysis with Chi-square test and variance analysis (ANOVA) are used as methodologies. The results of the study show how prototypical images used by NGOs (young children enjoying the benefits of aid with positive appearance and gestures) present content and formats that do not correspond to the type of image that generates more engagement from the target audience. Debido a la creciente importancia que adquieren las herramientas tecnológicas en las estrategias de comunicación, y teniendo en cuenta que las Organizaciones no Gubernamentales (ONG) utilizan Instagram como una herramienta con potencial artivista para difundir sus iniciativas y necesidades, el presente artículo tiene como objetivo investigar la forma y el contenido de las fotografías publicadas en esta red social a lo largo del año 2017 por las 20 ONG más relevantes a nivel internacional. En concreto, se estudia la elección de elementos formales, como el tipo de plano o la edición, la finalidad del mensaje que se quiere trasladar o el sentimiento transmitido en las fotografías, así como el tipo de actor o actores protagonistas de las imágenes (rol, número, gesto, sexo y edad). Además, se estudia el «engagement» generado por las fotografías y el uso que se hace en ellas de la figura del niño. Se utiliza como metodología el análisis de contenido, el análisis estadístico no paramétrico con prueba de Chi-cuadrado y el análisis de varianzas (ANOVA). Los resultados del estudio muestran cómo la imagen prototípica que usan las ONG -receptor de la ayuda menor de edad, disfrutando de los beneficios de esta ayuda y con gesto positivo- presenta un contenido y un formato que no se corresponden con el tipo de imagen que más «engagement» genera entre los usuarios y seguidores.

Individuals vary in the extent to which they have unfavorable attitudes towards vaccines. The Vaccination Attitudes Examination (VAX) Scale is a recently developed brief 12-item questionnaire created to better understand general vaccination attitudes. The current research aimed at providing a Spanish adaptation of the VAX Scale. After conducting an initial pilot study, Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis showed that the Spanish version of the scale had good internal consistency and factor structure (Study 1), discriminant validity from other individual differences measures (such as the Beliefs about Medicine Questionnaire and the Medical Mistrust Index) as well as good predictive validity of relevant vaccination-related outcomes (Study 2). In conclusion, in the present research, the Spanish version of the VAX scale proved to have a high internal consistency, showed convergent validity with other conceptually similar constructs, and successfully predicted vaccination intentions and vaccination decisions. Having this scale available in Spanish will allow researchers to analyze vaccination processes and vaccine hesitancy over a great number of people.

This research indicates that a critical factor for understanding the success or failure of anti-violence campaigns is the aggressiveness of the target audience. We propose that person and situation interact in predicting post-intervention attitudes toward violence, fighting expectations, and intentions to learn how to use real guns. Across two studies conducted in different countries and with different age populations, we found that anti-violence campaigns were effective, only for those for whom the message was already pro-attitudinal (low trait aggressiveness). In contrast, for individuals with relatively higher scores in trait aggressiveness, there was no difference in attitudes toward violence between those who received the anti-violence intervention and those assigned to the control group. In fact, the anti-violence messages resulted in a boomerang effect, increasing the favorability of attitudes toward violence in one of the studies. Aggr. Behav. 42:471-482, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Esta es la versión de autor del artículo publicado en: This is an author produced version of a paper published in: El acceso a la versión del editor puede requerir la suscripción del recurso Access to the published version may require subscription Changing Prejudiced Attitudes by Thinking About Persuasive Messages: Implications for ResistanceMiguel A. M. Cárdaba Villanueva Centro UniversitarioPablo Briñol, Javier Horcajo Universidad Autónoma de MadridRichard E. Petty This research showed that changing attitudes toward stigmatized groups can be affected by both simple processes that require little thinking but also by traditional elaborative forms of persuasion that require high thinking processes. Importantly, even when the obtained attitude change was equivalent for situations in which there was high and low message elaboration, the changes produced in high thinking conditions were found to be more resistant to further attacks than equivalent changes produced by less thoughtful mechanisms. Not only were those attitudes more resistant as measured objectively (study 1) but participants also perceived their attitudes to be subjectively more resistant (study 2). Ohio State University3 Attitudes refer to general evaluations people have regarding other people, places, objects, and issues (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993;Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Groups of people (e.g., the French, Asian, women) can be understood as attitude objects that can influence thoughts and actions. As is the case with any other attitude object, one's overall evaluation of the group (e.g., prejudice) can influence behavior toward members of that group (e.g., discrimination; e.g., see Dovidio, 2001). The current research examines the importance of considering the basic process by which a reduction in prejudice toward stigmatized groups occurs. In particular, we examine the implications of reducing prejudice through processes that require extensive or little amounts of thinking. Prejudice Reduction: Low Thinking ProcessesBased on the idea that contemporary prejudice is quite subtle (e.g., it can be held and expressed in unconscious ways; Devine, 1989;Dovidio & Gaertner, 2004;Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995), some scholars have considered that the best strategies for fighting it must also be subtle. Thus, recommended techniques aimed at reducing prejudice are often based on processes that imply little thinking. For example, the contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954), one of the most well known strategies for reducing intergroup conflict, is proposed to rely on processes requiring little information processing, such as mere exposure (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006) and classical conditioning (Dovidio, Gaertner & Kawakami, 2003). Indeed, two of the most primitive and effective means of changing attitudes involve mere repetition of the attitude object (mere exposure) and associating it with stimuli that already have a valence (conditioning; e.g., Kawakami, Phills, Steele & Dovidio 2007).Attitudes toward minority groups can be changed through other processes that also require r...

Twitter has transformed into one of the main platforms for citizen engagement today. However, even though previous studies have focused on opinions about vaccines in general or about specific vaccines, opinions towards COVID-19 vaccines on Twitter have not been researched to date. The objective of this research is, by using social network analysis and language processing tools, to examine the degree to which the opinions and interactions present on Twitter are favorable or unfavorable towards the main COVID-19 vaccines. In addition, the relevance of each of the vaccines is studied, as well as their level of controversy. Likewise, the present study investigates, for the first time, the conversation from different perspectives including the content and also the participants, by analyzing in detail the verified accounts and using tools for the detection of bots. In global terms, the results from verified accounts show a moderate favorability towards the COVID-19 vaccines, the most accepted being those of Oxford-AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna, and Sputnik V. On the other hand, the vaccine that attracts the most attention is the Russian Sputnik V, which is also the most controversial, behind those developed in China. Finally, verified users are shown to be relevant agents in the conversation due to their greater capacity for dissemination and reach, while the presence of bots is practically non-existent. Twitter se ha transformado en una de las principales plataformas de participación ciudadana hoy en día. Sin embargo, aun cuando estudios similares previos se han centrado en la opinión sobre las vacunas en general o sobre otras vacunas específicas, hasta la fecha no se han investigado las opiniones hacia las vacunas contra la COVID-19 en Twitter. El objetivo de esta investigación es, mediante el uso de herramientas de análisis de redes sociales y de herramientas de procesamiento del lenguaje, examinar el grado en el que las opiniones e interacciones presentes en Twitter son favorables o no hacia las principales vacunas de la COVID-19. Además, se estudia la relevancia de cada una de las principales vacunas, así como su nivel de controversia (polemicidad). Igualmente, el presente estudio investiga por primera vez la conversación no solo desde el punto de vista del contenido, sino también de los participantes que la integran, analizando en detalle las cuentas verificadas y empleando herramientas para la detección de bots. En términos globales, los resultados muestran una moderada favorabilidad hacia las vacunas de la COVID-19, siendo las más aceptadas las de Oxford-AstraZeneca, Pfizer y Moderna, y la de Sputnik V en el caso concreto de las cuentas verificadas. Por otro lado, la vacuna que más atención acapara es la rusa Sputnik V, que es además la más polémica por detrás de las de origen chino. Por último, los usuarios verificados se muestran como agentes relevantes de la conversación por su mayor capacidad de difusión y alcance, mientras que la presencia de bots es prácticamente inexistente.

Esta es la versión de autor del artículo publicado en: This is an author produced version of a paper published in: evaluating, and improving media literacy programs.

No abstract

Violent behaviors cause concern among people, policy makers, politicians, educators, social workers, parents associations, etc. From different fields and perspectives, measures are taken to try to solve the problem of violence. Institutional communication campaigns against violence and the publication of news related to violent events are often some of the actions used by policy makers. But some of the literature and data have shown that its effectiveness is not always exactly as expected. And even some anti-violence messages, can have the opposite effect and reinforce the attitudes of those who thought that violence is necessary. The hypothesis is that most people assume with no problem the core message of anti-violence campaigns. But, and this is the key issue and most problematic, individuals who are more likely to be violent (precisely those who should address such communications) could react to anti-violence message in a violent way. There is a tragic paradox: the anti-violence message could increase the predisposition to violent behavior. This would be a case of what some literature called boomerang effect. This article highlights the need for detailed empirical studies on certain effects of media (desensitization, imitation, accessibility and reactance), which could help explain the emergence of the boomerang effect.Los comportamientos violentos causan inquietud entre los responsables públicos (políticos, educadores, asistentes sociales, asociaciones de madres y padres, etc.) que, desde diversos ámbitos, toman medidas que tratan de dar solución al problema de la violencia. La difusión de campañas institucionales de comunicación en contra de la violencia y el fomento de la publicación de noticias relacionadas con sucesos violentos suelen ser algunas de las acciones utilizadas. No obstante, parte de los datos y de la literatura disponible han demostrado que su eficacia no siempre es la esperada e, incluso, dichas acciones pueden llegar a tener efectos contrarios al deseado y reforzar las actitudes de los que piensan que la violencia es necesaria. Se sostiene la hipótesis de que la mayoría de la población asumiría como propios los mensajes contrarios a la violencia. Sin embargo –y esto es la cuestión clave y más problemática– son justo aquellos individuos con mayor propensión a la violencia (precisamente aquellos a quienes deberían dirigirse tales comunicaciones) quienes podrían reaccionar ante el mensaje antiviolencia de un modo no deseado. Se da una dramática paradoja: el mensaje antiviolencia podría aumentar la predisposición a desarrollar comportamientos violentos. Estaríamos ante un caso de lo que cierta literatura denomina efecto boomerang. Por último, se señala la necesidad de un estudio detallado sobre determinados efectos de los medios de comunicación (insensibilización, imitación, accesibilidad y reactancia), que podrían ayudar a explicar la aparición de dicho efecto boomerang.