Joshua M Scacco
Biographic Data
| ID | 308049 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Joshua M Scacco |
| GIVEN NAMES | Joshua M |
| FAMILY NAME | Scacco |
| SIGNATURE | SCACCO J M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of South Florida |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0898-8725 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 186 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Anxious adolescents? Digital media use, perceived technological impairment, and internalising problems among 11- to 13-year-olds
This study examined a wide range of digital media use behaviors and analog activities as predictors of internalising problems (IP, an index of adolescent depression and anxiety) among N = 1,510 11-to 13-year-olds residing in Florida. In an attempt to better understand the relationship between digital media use and IP among children – prior research on which has produced mixed results – we examined whether perceived technological impairment (PTI),…
A Tale of Two Debates: How Citizens Navigated a Particularly Stormy Period of a Turbulent Presidential Election
Introduction to the forum: Flooding the zone: Paths forward for information quality, misinformation, and disinformation work
Difficult Health Conversations: Dilemmas That Vaccinated People in the United States Experienced When Discussing Covid-19 Vaccination with Hesitant Family Members
During the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, public health officials in the United States called upon vaccinated individuals to encourage reluctant family members to get vaccinated. Due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic becoming politically polarized, encouraging a loved one to get vaccinated could create a difficult conversation that was emotionally charged and accentuated ingroup/outgroup dynamics. Using normative rhetorical theory as a theoretical …
Curating Emergent Publics Through Domain Crossing
Audiences for messages divide attention among a variety of media outlets, sources, and venues. Such segmentation creates a challenge for message creators to (re)engage audiences' attentional capacities. This research investigates how domain elites may curate emergent attentive publics for public affairs content by engaging in processes of domain crossing to potentially redirect audience attention. Conceptually, we contribute to historic and conte…
Worry About Covid-19, Acquiring Health Information, and Communication Resilience Processes: Creating Resilience During the First Wave of the U.S. Pandemic
Integrating concepts from the communication theory of resilience (CTR) with theories of health information management and media-stimulated interpersonal conversation, this study investigates associations between worry about COVID-19, acquiring health information from government, news, and personal sources, and enactment of resilience processes. Findings from a representative sample (N = 600) of Floridians show that the extent to which people worr…
The Influence of Conflict News on Audience Digital Engagement
In a competitive digital environment, news outlets employ attention-gaining strategies, including the portrayal of conflict. Yet such coverage may backfire. Using an experiment comparing exposure to disagreeable or uncivil conflict news, we examine how articles with different types of conflict relate to intended news engagement through the mediating variables of perceived incivility, news source credibility, and/or surveillance emotions and test …
A goals-plans-action model analysis of messages encouraging hesitant family members in the United States to get vaccinated for Covid-19
Information Environments and Support for Covid-19 Mitigation Policies
This research assesses how the environment for coronavirus disease (COVID) information contributed to the public's willingness to support measures intended to mitigate the spread and transmission of the virus in the early stages of the pandemic. A representative sample of 600 Floridians was surveyed in April 2020. After controlling for sociodemographic factors, COVID anxiety, and knowledge about the virus, we find that components of the informati…
Democratic Disarray: Organizational Messaging Coherence and the Local Echoing Press During the 2020 Iowa Democratic Caucus
The Iowa caucuses are the inaugural event of the American presidential nomination process. When the state Democratic Party failed to report the 2020 caucus results in a timely manner, researchers began to assess how party and press officials co-constructed the events. This research presents an in-depth case of the Iowa state and local Democratic Party's public communication response regarding an event described by the Des Moines Register as "hell…
Securing the guardrails of democracy? Accountability and presidential communication in the 2020 election
The 2020 election raised critical questions about how presidents can be held accountable for their public communication. This essay focuses on how the ubiquitous presidency’s drive for attention—illustrated most recently by former President Donald Trump during the campaign and transition—led agents such as Congress, technology platforms, and the public to quickly reassess how presidential communication can be contoured to diminish threats against…
The curiosity effect: Information seeking in the contemporary news environment
This research investigates how digital news headlines influence contemporary news information seeking. In two studies (a lab experiment and a field test), we examine how the presentation of news information—traditional, summary news headlines or clickbait, curiosity news headlines—influences the attitudinal and behavioral components of news seeking. Study 1 models the news-seeking process, finding that summary headlines heighten perceptions of he…
Presidential communication in tumultuous times: Insights into key shifts, normative implications, and research opportunities
Scholars have long been interested in the communication of America’s chief executive, but the context in which that communication takes place has undergone dramatic changes over the past several decades. Given this, the present review aims to provide a foundation for new thinking about presidential communication in the contemporary environment. We attend to presidential communication in transition—to the uncertain paths that scholars have walked …
Disruptor-in-chief: The networked influence of President Trump in building and setting the agenda
One prominent competitor to press influence on the public in digital spaces is the President of the United States. This presidential influence is largely unaccounted for, however, in contemporary agenda-setting models. This study examines the network agenda-building and setting capabilities of President Trump around tax reform and North Korea to determine whether and how presidential use of Twitter facilitates agenda building and disrupts the tra…
The deliberative influence of comment section structure
Online news comment sections are a ubiquitous presence across media outlets. Although research has assessed both the content and effects of these comment spaces, little is known about how the structure of comment spaces influences news users’ online commentary. As democratic theorists argue, the structure of a communicative space can influence its deliberative quality. We conducted two separate experiments to determine how news comment section st…
Talk This Way: The Ubiquitous Presidency and Expectations of Presidential Communication
The American presidency is evolving, and with it public expectations of how often and where the president should communicate. The rhetorical presidency, characterized by inclusive public appeals broadcast in a few media venues, has transitioned to a ubiquitous presidency wherein accessible, personal, and pluralistic communications are the norm. Despite these changes in communication style at the presidential level, scholars have yet to document f…
The influence of online quizzes on the acquisition of public affairs knowledge
Drawing from a “mix of attributes” approach, this study analyzes whether interactive online news quizzes engage site visitors and help individuals acquire news knowledge. Results of a nationwide experiment (n = 456) indicate that online quizzes, whether using a multiple-choice or slider format, help citizens acquire public affairs knowledge and lead them to spend more time with public affairs information relative to presenting information without…
Like, recommend, or respect? Altering political behavior in news comment sections
Drawing from the stereotype content model, we examine how people respond to likeminded and counter-attitudinal political comments appearing after a news article. We experimentally test how citizens behave when they are able to click on one of three different buttons posted next to others’ comments—“Like,” “Recommend,” or “Respect.” In the experiment, political attitudes predicted button clicking, but the button label affected the strength of the …
The Presidential Expectations Gap: Public Attitudes Concerning the Presidency , by Richard Waterman, Carol L. Silva, and Hank Jenkins-Smith
Book review of The Presidential Expectations Gap: Public Attitudes Concerning the Presidency by Richard Waterman, Carol L. Silva, and Hank Jenkins-Smith
The worker as politician: How online information and electoral heuristics shape personnel selection and careers
Employers’ use of increasingly visible online information extends when, where, and in what role contexts personnel selection—and correspondingly career management—occurs. Data from 59 employers suggest the use of a new lens to evaluate workers: the worker as politician. By appropriating strategies from electoral contexts to “vote” on job candidates, employers are (unintentionally) reimagining personnel selection. Participants report seeking appro…
Changing Deliberative Norms on News Organizations' Facebook Sites
Comments posted to news sites do not always live up to the ideals of deliberative theorists. Drawing from theories about deliberation and group norms, this study investigates whether news organizations can affect comment section norms by engaging directly with commenters. We conducted a field study with a local television station in a top-50 Designated Market Area. For 70 political posts made on different days, we randomized whether an unidentifi…
The Cross-Pressured Citizen in the 2012 Presidential Campaign: Formative Factors and Media Choice Behavior
The cross-pressured citizen-a person who affiliates with one political party but plans to vote for the nominee of another-embodies the complicated nature of political decision making. Enduring considerable scrutiny since the pioneering campaign studies of the 1940s and 1950s, the role of the cross-pressured partisan in a presidential election campaign is still not fully understood by scholars. First, this study explores who the cross-pressured pa…
Revisiting the Protest Paradigm: The Tea Party as Filtered through Prime-Time Cable News
The emergence of a national “Tea Party” movement in the United States stimulated much media commentary regarding the movement’s origins, goals, participants, and even temperament. Unlike political movements of the recent past, the Tea Party stands starkly to the right. This study examines nightly cable news coverage of this movement by using key frames associated with the “protest paradigm”—the tendency for media to marginalize movements by drawi…
Revisiting the Protest Paradigm: The Tea Party as Filtered through Prime-Time Cable News
The emergence of a national “Tea Party” movement in the United States stimulated much media commentary regarding the movement’s origins, goals, participants, and even temperament. Unlike political movements of the recent past, the Tea Party stands starkly to the right. This study examines nightly cable news coverage of this movement by using key frames associated with the “protest paradigm”—the tendency for media to marginalize movements by drawi…
Changing Deliberative Norms on News Organizations' Facebook Sites
Comments posted to news sites do not always live up to the ideals of deliberative theorists. Drawing from theories about deliberation and group norms, this study investigates whether news organizations can affect comment section norms by engaging directly with commenters. We conducted a field study with a local television station in a top-50 Designated Market Area. For 70 political posts made on different days, we randomized whether an unidentifi…
The deliberative influence of comment section structure
Online news comment sections are a ubiquitous presence across media outlets. Although research has assessed both the content and effects of these comment spaces, little is known about how the structure of comment spaces influences news users’ online commentary. As democratic theorists argue, the structure of a communicative space can influence its deliberative quality. We conducted two separate experiments to determine how news comment section st…
Like, recommend, or respect? Altering political behavior in news comment sections
Drawing from the stereotype content model, we examine how people respond to likeminded and counter-attitudinal political comments appearing after a news article. We experimentally test how citizens behave when they are able to click on one of three different buttons posted next to others’ comments—“Like,” “Recommend,” or “Respect.” In the experiment, political attitudes predicted button clicking, but the button label affected the strength of the …
The curiosity effect: Information seeking in the contemporary news environment
This research investigates how digital news headlines influence contemporary news information seeking. In two studies (a lab experiment and a field test), we examine how the presentation of news information—traditional, summary news headlines or clickbait, curiosity news headlines—influences the attitudinal and behavioral components of news seeking. Study 1 models the news-seeking process, finding that summary headlines heighten perceptions of he…
The worker as politician: How online information and electoral heuristics shape personnel selection and careers
Employers’ use of increasingly visible online information extends when, where, and in what role contexts personnel selection—and correspondingly career management—occurs. Data from 59 employers suggest the use of a new lens to evaluate workers: the worker as politician. By appropriating strategies from electoral contexts to “vote” on job candidates, employers are (unintentionally) reimagining personnel selection. Participants report seeking appro…
Disruptor-in-chief: The networked influence of President Trump in building and setting the agenda
One prominent competitor to press influence on the public in digital spaces is the President of the United States. This presidential influence is largely unaccounted for, however, in contemporary agenda-setting models. This study examines the network agenda-building and setting capabilities of President Trump around tax reform and North Korea to determine whether and how presidential use of Twitter facilitates agenda building and disrupts the tra…
Presidential communication in tumultuous times: Insights into key shifts, normative implications, and research opportunities
Scholars have long been interested in the communication of America’s chief executive, but the context in which that communication takes place has undergone dramatic changes over the past several decades. Given this, the present review aims to provide a foundation for new thinking about presidential communication in the contemporary environment. We attend to presidential communication in transition—to the uncertain paths that scholars have walked …
Talk This Way: The Ubiquitous Presidency and Expectations of Presidential Communication
The American presidency is evolving, and with it public expectations of how often and where the president should communicate. The rhetorical presidency, characterized by inclusive public appeals broadcast in a few media venues, has transitioned to a ubiquitous presidency wherein accessible, personal, and pluralistic communications are the norm. Despite these changes in communication style at the presidential level, scholars have yet to document f…
Securing the guardrails of democracy? Accountability and presidential communication in the 2020 election
The 2020 election raised critical questions about how presidents can be held accountable for their public communication. This essay focuses on how the ubiquitous presidency’s drive for attention—illustrated most recently by former President Donald Trump during the campaign and transition—led agents such as Congress, technology platforms, and the public to quickly reassess how presidential communication can be contoured to diminish threats against…
The influence of online quizzes on the acquisition of public affairs knowledge
Drawing from a “mix of attributes” approach, this study analyzes whether interactive online news quizzes engage site visitors and help individuals acquire news knowledge. Results of a nationwide experiment (n = 456) indicate that online quizzes, whether using a multiple-choice or slider format, help citizens acquire public affairs knowledge and lead them to spend more time with public affairs information relative to presenting information without…
Revisiting the Protest Paradigm: The Tea Party as Filtered through Prime-Time Cable News
The emergence of a national “Tea Party” movement in the United States stimulated much media commentary regarding the movement’s origins, goals, participants, and even temperament. Unlike political movements of the recent past, the Tea Party stands starkly to the right. This study examines nightly cable news coverage of this movement by using key frames associated with the “protest paradigm”—the tendency for media to marginalize movements by drawi…
The worker as politician: How online information and electoral heuristics shape personnel selection and careers
Employers’ use of increasingly visible online information extends when, where, and in what role contexts personnel selection—and correspondingly career management—occurs. Data from 59 employers suggest the use of a new lens to evaluate workers: the worker as politician. By appropriating strategies from electoral contexts to “vote” on job candidates, employers are (unintentionally) reimagining personnel selection. Participants report seeking appro…
Changing Deliberative Norms on News Organizations' Facebook Sites
Comments posted to news sites do not always live up to the ideals of deliberative theorists. Drawing from theories about deliberation and group norms, this study investigates whether news organizations can affect comment section norms by engaging directly with commenters. We conducted a field study with a local television station in a top-50 Designated Market Area. For 70 political posts made on different days, we randomized whether an unidentifi…
The Cross-Pressured Citizen in the 2012 Presidential Campaign: Formative Factors and Media Choice Behavior
The cross-pressured citizen-a person who affiliates with one political party but plans to vote for the nominee of another-embodies the complicated nature of political decision making. Enduring considerable scrutiny since the pioneering campaign studies of the 1940s and 1950s, the role of the cross-pressured partisan in a presidential election campaign is still not fully understood by scholars. First, this study explores who the cross-pressured pa…
The Presidential Expectations Gap: Public Attitudes Concerning the Presidency , by Richard Waterman, Carol L. Silva, and Hank Jenkins-Smith
Book review of The Presidential Expectations Gap: Public Attitudes Concerning the Presidency by Richard Waterman, Carol L. Silva, and Hank Jenkins-Smith
The influence of online quizzes on the acquisition of public affairs knowledge
Drawing from a “mix of attributes” approach, this study analyzes whether interactive online news quizzes engage site visitors and help individuals acquire news knowledge. Results of a nationwide experiment (n = 456) indicate that online quizzes, whether using a multiple-choice or slider format, help citizens acquire public affairs knowledge and lead them to spend more time with public affairs information relative to presenting information without…
Like, recommend, or respect? Altering political behavior in news comment sections
Drawing from the stereotype content model, we examine how people respond to likeminded and counter-attitudinal political comments appearing after a news article. We experimentally test how citizens behave when they are able to click on one of three different buttons posted next to others’ comments—“Like,” “Recommend,” or “Respect.” In the experiment, political attitudes predicted button clicking, but the button label affected the strength of the …
The deliberative influence of comment section structure
Online news comment sections are a ubiquitous presence across media outlets. Although research has assessed both the content and effects of these comment spaces, little is known about how the structure of comment spaces influences news users’ online commentary. As democratic theorists argue, the structure of a communicative space can influence its deliberative quality. We conducted two separate experiments to determine how news comment section st…
Talk This Way: The Ubiquitous Presidency and Expectations of Presidential Communication
The American presidency is evolving, and with it public expectations of how often and where the president should communicate. The rhetorical presidency, characterized by inclusive public appeals broadcast in a few media venues, has transitioned to a ubiquitous presidency wherein accessible, personal, and pluralistic communications are the norm. Despite these changes in communication style at the presidential level, scholars have yet to document f…
Presidential communication in tumultuous times: Insights into key shifts, normative implications, and research opportunities
Scholars have long been interested in the communication of America’s chief executive, but the context in which that communication takes place has undergone dramatic changes over the past several decades. Given this, the present review aims to provide a foundation for new thinking about presidential communication in the contemporary environment. We attend to presidential communication in transition—to the uncertain paths that scholars have walked …
Disruptor-in-chief: The networked influence of President Trump in building and setting the agenda
One prominent competitor to press influence on the public in digital spaces is the President of the United States. This presidential influence is largely unaccounted for, however, in contemporary agenda-setting models. This study examines the network agenda-building and setting capabilities of President Trump around tax reform and North Korea to determine whether and how presidential use of Twitter facilitates agenda building and disrupts the tra…
The curiosity effect: Information seeking in the contemporary news environment
This research investigates how digital news headlines influence contemporary news information seeking. In two studies (a lab experiment and a field test), we examine how the presentation of news information—traditional, summary news headlines or clickbait, curiosity news headlines—influences the attitudinal and behavioral components of news seeking. Study 1 models the news-seeking process, finding that summary headlines heighten perceptions of he…
Securing the guardrails of democracy? Accountability and presidential communication in the 2020 election
The 2020 election raised critical questions about how presidents can be held accountable for their public communication. This essay focuses on how the ubiquitous presidency’s drive for attention—illustrated most recently by former President Donald Trump during the campaign and transition—led agents such as Congress, technology platforms, and the public to quickly reassess how presidential communication can be contoured to diminish threats against…
Information Environments and Support for Covid-19 Mitigation Policies
This research assesses how the environment for coronavirus disease (COVID) information contributed to the public's willingness to support measures intended to mitigate the spread and transmission of the virus in the early stages of the pandemic. A representative sample of 600 Floridians was surveyed in April 2020. After controlling for sociodemographic factors, COVID anxiety, and knowledge about the virus, we find that components of the informati…
Democratic Disarray: Organizational Messaging Coherence and the Local Echoing Press During the 2020 Iowa Democratic Caucus
The Iowa caucuses are the inaugural event of the American presidential nomination process. When the state Democratic Party failed to report the 2020 caucus results in a timely manner, researchers began to assess how party and press officials co-constructed the events. This research presents an in-depth case of the Iowa state and local Democratic Party's public communication response regarding an event described by the Des Moines Register as "hell…
Worry About Covid-19, Acquiring Health Information, and Communication Resilience Processes: Creating Resilience During the First Wave of the U.S. Pandemic
Integrating concepts from the communication theory of resilience (CTR) with theories of health information management and media-stimulated interpersonal conversation, this study investigates associations between worry about COVID-19, acquiring health information from government, news, and personal sources, and enactment of resilience processes. Findings from a representative sample (N = 600) of Floridians show that the extent to which people worr…
The Influence of Conflict News on Audience Digital Engagement
In a competitive digital environment, news outlets employ attention-gaining strategies, including the portrayal of conflict. Yet such coverage may backfire. Using an experiment comparing exposure to disagreeable or uncivil conflict news, we examine how articles with different types of conflict relate to intended news engagement through the mediating variables of perceived incivility, news source credibility, and/or surveillance emotions and test …
A goals-plans-action model analysis of messages encouraging hesitant family members in the United States to get vaccinated for Covid-19
Curating Emergent Publics Through Domain Crossing
Audiences for messages divide attention among a variety of media outlets, sources, and venues. Such segmentation creates a challenge for message creators to (re)engage audiences' attentional capacities. This research investigates how domain elites may curate emergent attentive publics for public affairs content by engaging in processes of domain crossing to potentially redirect audience attention. Conceptually, we contribute to historic and conte…
Difficult Health Conversations: Dilemmas That Vaccinated People in the United States Experienced When Discussing Covid-19 Vaccination with Hesitant Family Members
During the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, public health officials in the United States called upon vaccinated individuals to encourage reluctant family members to get vaccinated. Due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic becoming politically polarized, encouraging a loved one to get vaccinated could create a difficult conversation that was emotionally charged and accentuated ingroup/outgroup dynamics. Using normative rhetorical theory as a theoretical …
Anxious adolescents? Digital media use, perceived technological impairment, and internalising problems among 11- to 13-year-olds
This study examined a wide range of digital media use behaviors and analog activities as predictors of internalising problems (IP, an index of adolescent depression and anxiety) among N = 1,510 11-to 13-year-olds residing in Florida. In an attempt to better understand the relationship between digital media use and IP among children – prior research on which has produced mixed results – we examined whether perceived technological impairment (PTI),…
A Tale of Two Debates: How Citizens Navigated a Particularly Stormy Period of a Turbulent Presidential Election
Introduction to the forum: Flooding the zone: Paths forward for information quality, misinformation, and disinformation work
Political science (19 works) · Social Media and Politics (14 works) · Politics (13 works) · Public relations (13 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Media Studies and Communication (10 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Presidential system (8 works) · Psychology (8 works)