Victim Blaming and Third-person Effect: A Comparative Analysis of Attitudes for Revenge Porn and Sexual Assault

Over the past decade, awareness for sexual assault prevention and education has been raised through national media coverage and programming for college students by a growing number of universities nationwide. While this is an important step in combating sexual violence, the phenomenon of revenge porn is quickly becoming recognized as an emerging form of digital sexual violence as more people are having their private and intimate images shared publicly as their own online and digital activities increase. This thesis study sought to understand how the populations� current familiarity and awareness about the revenge porn phenomenon influenced the populations� perceptions about revenge porn and its victims. A total of 206 participants, including college students at a public Midwestern university and participants on social media platforms, responded to an online survey with a series of quantitative items examining knowledge levels, exposure to information, myth acceptance, and blameworthiness for revenge porn. Participant responses were analyzed through independent and paired-samples t-tests and analysis of variance tests. Consistent with examined literature, participants with lower knowledge levels and exposure to information about both revenge porn and sexual assault reported higher victim blaming attitudes and myth acceptance for both topics and vice versa. Blameworthiness and myth acceptance were also examined through a third-person effect perspective to determine if perceived influences for self and others regarding media effects for revenge porn and sexual assault affected victim blaming attitudes, and the results indicated that third-person effect had stronger effects regarding revenge porn over sexual assault, and those stronger effects correlated with higher levels of victim blaming and myth acceptance for revenge porn than with sexual assault. These findings suggest that increased awareness for sexual assault has been effective in reducing victim blaming attitudes for sexual assault, and with more awareness, victim blaming attitudes for revenge porn can see similar reductions.Mass Communication

Signaling of noncomprehension in communication breakdowns in fragile X syndrome, Down syndrome, and autism spectrum disorder

The ability to indicate a failure to understand a message is a critical pragmatic (social) language skill for managing communication breakdowns and supporting successful communicative exchanges. The current study examined the ability to signal noncomprehension across different types of confusing message conditions in children and adolescents with fragile X syndrome (FXS), Down syndrome (DS), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and typical development (TD). Controlling for nonverbal mental age and receptive vocabulary skills, youth with comorbid FXS and ASD and those with DS were less likely than TD controls to signal noncomprehension of confusing messages. Youth with FXS without ASD and those with idiopathic ASD did not differ from controls. No sex differences were detected in any group. Findings contribute to current knowledge of pragmatic profiles in different forms of genetically-based neurodevelopmental disorders associated with intellectual disability, and the role of sex in the expression of such profiles. LEARNING OUTCOMES: Upon completion of this article, readers will have learned about: (1) the social-communicative profiles of youth with FXS, DS, and ASD, (2) the importance of signaling noncomprehension in response to a confusing message, and (3) the similarities and differences in noncomprehension signaling in youth with FXS (with and without ASD), DS, idiopathic ASD, and TD

Software Carpentry: Version Control with Git

A half-day introduction to version control with Git and GitHub for researchers, developed and maintained by the Software Carpentry team