RESEARCH

Peng, Z. (2023). A privacy calculus model perspective that explains why parents sharent, Information, Communication & Society, DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2023.2285462

Parents sharing children’s information online without permission has posed a threat to children’s privacy and identity safety. While previous studies on sharenting have employed both qualitative and quantitative approaches to explore factors that influence parents’ engagement in sharenting behaviors, there is still a need for a formative theoretical model to explain the underlying mechanism. Drawing on a rich body of sharenting and privacy literature, this study employs the privacy calculus model to investigate what factors explain parents’ sharenting behaviors by collecting data from 500 parents. Results show that privacy concerns and privacy self-efficacy have positive relationships with sharenting behaviors, whereas self-presentation has a negative relationship with sharenting. The results indicate that parents who have more confidence in privacy knowledge and protection are more aware of the potential risks, more confident in the effectiveness of protection measures, and more likely to sharent. Limitations and implications for social media companies and parents are also discussed.

Peng, Z. (2023). Dissemination via data visualization. In L. Ford & T. Scandura (eds.), SAGE Handbook of Survey Development and Application.

The goal of this chapter is to help survey researchers and practitioners learn how to apply design principles in visualization design and select the optimal graph type to either explore or present the data, as well as incorporate the best practices of each chart type to reduce as many interpretative errors and biases as possible.

Peng, Z.(2023) Your growth is my growth: examining sharenting behaviours from a multiparty privacy perspective. Communication Research and Practice, 1-19.

Sharenting, a behaviour that parents share children’s personal information online, has brought about multiple privacy concerns and risks. Parents are criticised for violating children’s privacy and putting their identities at risk of being stolen. Existing sharenting studies tried to explain the sharenting behaviour based on the assumption that shared content is solely owned by children. This study, adopting a multiparty privacy perspective, proposed that sharenting content includes information owned solely by children and co-owned by parents and children, emphasizing the importance of recognizing information co-ownership by parents. By conducting 16 in-depth interviews, the current study investigated parents’ perceptions of sharenting content and explored factors that may influence sharenting behaviours. Results indicated that parents have a misunderstanding of information ownership and are unaware of children’s rights to co-owned information. Also, the sharenting behaviours are also influenced by audiences’ comments, family members’ privacy perceptions, cultural values, and exposure to negative news.

Yingying Chen, Peng, Z., Sei-Hill Kim, & Chang Won Choi. (2023). What We Can Do and Cannot Do with Topic Modeling: A Systematic Review, Communication Methods and Measures

Topic modeling has become an effective tool for communication scholars to explore large amounts of texts. However, empirical studies applying topic modeling often face the critical question of making meaningful theoretical contributions. In this study, we highlighted the importance of theoretical underpinning, the research design, and the methodological details of topic modeling studies. We summarized five normative arguments that address critical issues in theory building and testing, research design, and reliability and validity assessments. Using these normative arguments as criteria, we systematically reviewed 105 communication studies that applied topic modeling. We identified gaps and missed opportunities in previous studies and discussed potential pitfalls for the field.

Peng, Z., & Miller, S. (2021). An Examination of How Social and Technological Perceptions Predict Social Media News Use on WeChat. Journalism Practice, 1-20.

The decision to use a particular social media application for news is affected by many factors, but less is understood is how a platform’s technological features promote or impede people’s social media news use. A structural equation model derived from the Unified Theory Acceptance and Use of Technology and Task-Technology Fit models were applied to investigate what social and technological perceptional factors explain people’s news use behaviors within the context of WeChat. Results showed an application’s technological features (i.e., technology characteristics and task-technology fit) played a significant role in predicting multiple social media news use behaviors. We put forth a theoretical model that predicts social media news use based on the results.

Miller, S., Cepak, A., & Peng, Z. (2020). The Pedagogical Approaches to Teaching Journalistic Interviewing Competencies. Electronic News, 14(2), 78-96.

Teachers shape how aspiring journalists collect and evaluate information. The primary method journalists employ to gather this information is through the interviewing method. However, research has yet to be conducted on how this important competency is taught in university settings. This study sought to identify the instructional approaches used by print and broadcast journalism educators through qualitative interviews. The results revealed that a variety of exercises and pedagogical approaches (i.e., observation, simulation, direct experience, and reinforcement) are employed by educators to teach students the complexities of the interviewing process. We also highlighted classroom exercises, identified challenges, and shared teaching strategies concerning the teaching of both broadcast and print journalistic interviewing.

Watson, B.R., Peng, Z., & Lewis, S. C. (2019). Who will intervene to save news comments? Deviance and social control in communities of news commenters. New media & society, 21(8), 1840-1858.

Which bystanders will confront racist, misogynist, personal attacks in news comment sections? This article applies sociological concepts of deviance and social control to categorize efforts to moderate online news comments. Three dimensions of social control are theorized: affirming and sanctioning social control, formal and informal social control, and direct and indirect social control. Particular focus is on indirect informal social control (i.e. rating and reporting of news comments) in order to examine which users are likely to intervene to maintain social order. An analysis of secondary data from a survey of online news users found that demographics play an important role—younger, wealthier, White, males are most likely to report abusive comments. Trust in the news media and authoritarian personality traits also significantly predicted bystander intervention. Theoretical implications for the role of social control in enforcing social norms in news comment spaces and for professional comment moderation are discussed.

Peng, Z., Vajrapana, P., Li, X., & Kononova, A. (2018). What to click: Exploring clicking behavior of students during online shopping from a cross-cultural perspective. In American Academy of Advertising.Conference Proceedings (Online) (pp. 158-169). American Academy of Advertising.

Carpenter, S., Cepak, A., & Peng, Z. (2018). An exploration of the complexity of journalistic interviewing competencies. Journalism Studies, 19(15), 2283-2303.

Journalists have engaged in interviewing practices since the nineteenth century to collect information for news stories. Today, it is considered the dominant approach in news-gathering among journalists. We know very little, however, about the theoretical breadth of interviewing and the associated competencies construct that journalists should possess to be classified as an expert interviewer. Consequently, the first appropriate step toward specification of this particular news-gathering practice is qualitative research. In the present study, we explored the breadth of journalistic interviewing competencies through 20 semi-structured interviews with journalists and journalism educators. The present study revealed 10 possible journalistic interviewing competencies: listening, interaction management, research, empathy, articulation, self-presentation, verification, news judgment, observation, and open-mindedness, based on editor and educator responses. The results demonstrate the complexity of interviewing in journalistic settings and suggest a need for greater empirical and educational focus on the art of interviewing.