Student Research Explores Media, Sports and Society

Photo of Harlen Makemson, Professor, School of Communications

The scope of the Spring 2025 edition of the Elon Journal ranges from politics to sports, from crisis communication to representation in Hollywood.

Cap Henneman’s study of college football players’ social media activity in the age of Name, Image, and Likeness showed that athletes posted mainly athletic content on Instagram and mostly behind-the-scenes content on TikTok. Similarly, frontstage content reaped more engagement on Instagram, and backstage content received more engagement on TikTok.

Callie Reing’s examination of the 2024 presidential debate discovered that the majority of posts from both Kamala Harris’s and Donald Trump’s verified TikTok accounts negatively framed their opponent and adopted an overall negative tone. In addition, posts with added production value generated more views and likes than those that simply posted a clip from the debate.

Avery Simmons’s analysis of television comedies found that verbal and linguistic humor was common in both successful and unsuccessful shows, but successful sitcoms also favored character-based and situational humor, while unsuccessful shows leaned more towards physical and playful humor.

Caitlan Hannegan’s research on Boeing’s response to a pair of 737 MAX crashes in a five-month span concludes that the company’s press releases were more effective after the second crash, as the company incorporated more of the industry-recommended strategies. However, none of the press releases were entirely effective, as Boeing failed to propose actions to support victims and deflected blame.

Mackenzie Smith examined five films released post-Obergefell v. Hodges to identify how representation and intersectionality of queer characters has changed in Hollywood. The findings suggest that the roles queer characters were given, while perhaps more prominent than in the past, still often landed as either villains or victims — either demonized or sympathized. The study found that films have a “model queerness”: the type of acceptable queer portrayal to audiences.

In each of these cases, undergraduate student researchers – with the help of their faculty mentors – turned their passions into published scholarly articles of which they can be very proud. Please enjoy their fine work in this edition.

Harlen Makemson
Professor
Editor, Elon Journal