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Department of Journalism & Media Communication

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https://hdl.handle.net/10217/100460
These digital collections include theses, dissertations, faculty presentations, and faculty publications from the Department of Journalism & Media Communication. Due to departmental name changes, materials from the following historical department are also included here: Journalism and Technical Communication.

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Browsing Department of Journalism & Media Communication by Author "Abrams, Katie M., advisor"

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    Effectiveness of promotion or prevention message frames on food storage messages about black bears
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Young, Heather Alexa, author; Abrams, Katie M., advisor; Anderson, Ashley A., committee member; Solomon, Jennifer N., committee member
    As conflict between humans and black bears (Ursus americanus) increases, researchers and managers look for strategies to decrease this conflict. One main driver of conflict is the availability of anthropogenic food. Bears are attracted to these food sources, conditioning them to continue to seek anthropogenic food and more frequently visit areas where humans are present. When a bear becomes food-conditioned, bears and people are at higher risk. When humans store food properly in bear-proof storage containers, this risk decreases. However, motivating people to comply with proper food storage can be difficult. We hypothesized that promotion- and prevention-framed messaging placed on storage containers would help motivate behavior change. No statistically significant difference was found between message frames. However, we did find support for constructs from the theory of planned behavior: subjective norms and perceived behavioral control. Results also inform future research on message framing and field research in park settings to motivate behavior change in visitors.
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    Effects of goal-framed and dynamic norm messages on national park campers' intentions to comply with wildlife attractant storage guidelines
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Gorostiza, Jordan Matthew, author; Abrams, Katie M., advisor; Anderson, Ashley A., committee member; Niemiec, Rebecca, committee member
    Wildlife habituation and conditioning have posed persistent issues for managers of U.S. national parks and protected areas. The tendency for park campers to unintentionally feed wildlife by improperly storing known attractants contributes to these issues. There are park regulations requiring campers to properly store wildlife attractants that often go unfollowed. There is a noted management preference for addressing this noncompliance through communication. Previous research suggests that goal-framed and dynamic norm message frames may be effective at fostering behavioral antecedents and intentions to engage in pro-environmental behaviors such as proper attractant storage. This study examined if goal-framed and dynamic norm messages were effective at encouraging compliance. Results demonstrate no statistically significant impact on antecedents or intentions to store attractants from either goal-framed messages, dynamic norm messages, or goal-framed messages paired with dynamic norm messages. However, these statistically nonsignificant findings are aligned with a growing body of literature that have highlighted the complexities of accurately measuring the effects of goal-framed messages and the potential limited effectiveness of dynamic norm messages. Future research should focus on exploring these complexities in order to better understand how goal-framed and dynamic norm messages might be useful tools to park managers in mitigating the effects of negative human-wildlife interactions.