Rebecca Frazer
Assistant Professor | University of Florida
Gainesville, FL, UNITED STATES
Rebecca Frazer is a media psychology researcher, focusing on how people process and respond to story-form/narrative media.
Biography
Rebecca Frazer’s work has examined psychological processing of narratives in a variety of contexts, including entertainment television, online news, terrorist propaganda, and social media testimonials. She is particularly interested in people’s experiences of enjoyment, appreciation, social learning, persuasion, and coercion as they relate to narrative exposure. Frazer primarily conducts experimental research, and much of her work incorporates principles of moral psychology as a lens for understanding human responses to narrative. She has taught courses in strategic communication, persuasion, research methods, media and terrorism, and global social change communication. She also has professional experience in public relations and communications consulting.
Areas of Expertise (8)
Media and Public Policy Attitudes
Humanization in Media
Moral Psychology
Narrative Media
Media Psychology
Persuasion
Media and Extremism
Dehumanization in Media
Articles (3)
Demystifying Schadenfreude: How disposition theorizing explains responses to social media stories of unvaccinated COVID-19 deaths
New Media & SocietyMatthew Grizzard, et. al
2023-07-22
Herman Cain Awards are presented on reddit.com/r/hermancainaward to individuals who share COVID-19 misinformation on social media (SM) and subsequently die from the disease. We apply affective disposition theory’s moral judgment predictions regarding message and audience factors and Schadenfreude theorizing to explain reactions to similar SM posts. In an experiment with a large census-matched sample, participants viewed a series of SM posts similar to those on featured on reddit.com/r/hermancainaward.
Marketing Against Extremism: Identifying and Responding to Moral Disengagement Cues in Islamic State Terrorist Propaganda
Journal of Public Policy & MarketingRebecca Frazer
2022-04-08
This study presents selective moral disengagement as a paradigm for analyzing extremist marketing messages and developing effective countermessages. Selective moral disengagement explicates eight mechanisms common to extremist media content that can influence seemingly ordinary people to support and commit atrocities. Through a qualitative content analysis, the author investigates the use of moral disengagement mechanisms in an online propaganda magazine (Rumiyah) of the so-called Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization.
Moral Disengagement Cues and Consequences for Victims in Entertainment Narratives: An Experimental Investigation
Media PsychologyRebecca Frazer, et. al
2022-02-27
The role of moral disengagement in evaluating narrative character behaviors has been a source of scholarly investigation for some time. Despite a theoretical interest in the process, little work has experimentally manipulated content features related to the mechanisms proposed by Bandura in his selective moral disengagement model. This paper presents the results of an experiment that manipulates the presence/absence of a victim of an immoral protagonist’s actions in an audio-visual narrative.
