International Communication 1998 Abstracts
International Communication Divisioon
The Role of Culture in International Advertising • Niaz Ahmed, Saint Cloud State University • The purpose of this study was to contribute to the debate on standardized versus specialized approaches to international advertising. This cross-cultural content analysis compared print advertising from the United States and India and examined how cultural values are manifest in advertising. The results found that there were significant differences in the way these two countries produced advertising messages and that different cultural values were reflected in their advertising expressions. This cross-cultural study suggests that caution should be exercised when considering standardization in advertising between divergent cultures.
Saudi Arabia’s International Media Strategy: Influence Through Multinational Ownership • Douglas A. Boyd, Kentucky • This study reviews and analyzes Saudi information policy that has attempted to keep some Western-oriented entertainment and information programming from reaching that country’s citizens. The focus of the research is the kingdom’s special concern about Direct Satellite Broadcasting (DBS) and how members of the royal family have become involved in the most important commercial Arabic-language satellite service in the Arab world.
Television News in a Transitional Media System: The Case of Taiwan • Yu-li Chang and Daniel Riffe, Ohio University This paper examines TV journalists’ views of the burgeoning cable news industry in Taiwan, which has been undergoing transition from authoritarianism to democracy. The survey results showed that private cable news operations still are partisan. Journalists’ experiences of autonomy and job satisfaction are all affected by the partisan nature of cable news media. Those who work in organizations with neutral editorial policies enjoy a higher degree of autonomy. Those whose personal politics matches with the company’s editorial policy tend to be more satisfied with their work.
Press Finance and Economic Reform in China • Huailin Chen and Chin-Chuan Lee, Chinese University of Hong Kong • The study provides a detailed account of the changing structure of press finance in China and its impact on various aspects of press operation. It closely scrutinizes the role of marketization in the process of partisan press’ decline and the transformation of newspapers’ financial management, practitioners’ income system, ownership structure, production process, and content. The emerging patterns suggest that the Chinese press in undergoing a liberalizing experience in some areas, which serve to dilute its mouthpiece function.
American Imperialist Zeal in the Periphery: The Rural Press Covers the Spanish-American War and Annexation of the Philippines • Dane Claussen, Georgia and Richard Shafer, North Dakota • 1890s farmers were politicized by economic/legal issues represented by Nebraskan Bryan’s popularity. In the 1898 Spanish-American War, most early volunteers were from western states, and farmers could closely follow war news in general newspapers. But agricultural publications varied in coverage levels, were conflicted by simultaneous anti-imperialism and patriotism, and•despite understanding that the War’s true goals were capitalistic•failed to inform farmers about new market or new competition posed by overseas possessions.
Considering Alternative Models of Influence: Conceptualizing the Impact of Foreign TV in Malaysia • Michael G. Elasmar, Boston University and Kathleen Sim, Marketing & Planning System • A review of the different perspectives on the impact of foreign TV reveals that the current dominant paradigm concerning this relationship is known as “media-based cultural imperialism” or “media imperialism.” After reviewing the assumptions made by proponents of media imperialism, we asked whether this theoretical perspective adequately explains the relationship between consuming imported TV programs and being influenced by these programs. For proponents of media imperialism, finding a link between these two variables is sufficient to demonstrate the existence of a conspiracy against indigenous cultures.
Reporting Under Civilian and Military Rulers in Africa: Journalists’ perceptions of Press Freedom and Media Exposure in Cameroon and Nigeria • Festus Eribo, East Carolina University and Enoh Tanjong, Buea • This study is a comparative analysis of journalists’ perceptions of press freedom in Cameroon and Nigeria. The former has a democratically elected government while the latter has a military oligarchy. The conventional wisdom or hypothesis that a democratically elected government may tolerate press freedom while a military regime will censor the press was not fully supported by the empirical evidence in this study. Cameroonian journalists in this study do not believe that the press is free.
Western Press Coverage of the United Nations Operation in Somalia: A Comparison of Extra- and Intra-media Data Sources • Anita Fleming-Rife, Pennsylvania State University • Extra-media data (UNOSOM II press briefing notes) were compared to intra-media data (newspaper content). Newspapers were: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Guardian. Findings show that little news was reported and most was “bad.” While the focus was on conflict, correspondents did cover non-violent government activities. Finally, the data show that correspondents in the field are more likely to report that which they witness rather than rely on sources, official or unofficial.
Factors Influencing Repatriation Intention, an Aspect of the Brain Drain Phenomenon • Kingsley O. Harbor, Mississippi Valley State University • Based on Grunig’s situational theory, this study proposed and tested a systemic relationship represented by a casual model composed of attitudinal, communicative, and motivational variables. The systemic relationship so formed explained the intention of Third World students to or not to return home after their assignment in USA. Study used stratified random sample of 400 Third World students attending university. Phone interview refusal rate was 23%. Data analysis involved regression and path analytical models.
Korean Students’ Use of Television: An Expectancy-Value Approach • No-Kon Heo and Russell B. Williams, Pennsylvania State University • A questionnaire was administered to extend previous research on the expectancy-value judgments of media use in a study of Korean students’ television viewing experiences. Consistent with the previous findings, the data showed that students’ expectancy-value judgments were important in their viewing decisions. Above all, information seeking was the most expected outcome of television viewing among Korean students.
Putting Okinawa on the Agenda: Applying Three Complementary Theories • Beverly Horvit, Missouri-Columbia • This paper examines why U.S. and Japanese policy-makers decided to make changes in the base structure on Okinawa after a schoolgirl was raped in 1995. Applying three different but complimentary theories • agenda setting, rational decision-making and bureaucratic politics • provides a fuller understanding of how U.S. foreign policy was made on Okinawa. This interdisciplinary approach can also serve as a heuristic device to improve knowledge about the interplay media, foreign policy and international relations.
Beyond Asian Values in Journalism: Towards Cultural Politics in the Asian Media Globalization • Min Soo Kim, Pyonghwa Broadcasting Corp. • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.
Factors Influencing Gender Role Attitudes Among Lebanese Youth • Rana Knio and Michael Elasmar, Boston University • This study is an attempt to understand the various factors that influence Lebanese youth attitudes toward gender roles. In looking into possible associations, mere exposure was used as a guiding theory. Findings about gender role attitudes were varied. A weak, positive and statistically significant correlation was found between viewing US television programs and having more egalitarian attitudes toward gender roles. This particular finding supported mere exposure theory. However, traveling to the US and having friends and/or relatives living in the US had no influence on students’ gender role attitudes.
State Control on Television News in Post-War Lebanon • Marwan M. Kraidy, North Dakota • Whereas pre-war news media in Lebanon enjoyed a relatively high level of editorial independence, post-war Lebanon witnessed numerous conflicts between the Lebanese state and private broadcast media, caused by state attempts to control or ban television news and political programs. This paper traces attempts by the Lebanese state to control television news and analyzes internal and external factors influencing these attempts. Direct and indirect forms of control are discussed and conclusions are drawn.
Defining the Press Arbitration System: Its Impact on Press Freedom during the Sociopolitical Transition in South Korea • Jae-Jin Lee, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale • This study examines how press arbitration system has developed during the sociopolitical transition period in South Korea. The study analyzes how the press arbitration system has affected the relationships among the government, the press and the public. Considering that Korea’s press arbitration system reflects relative weight that the Korean society assigns to certain values, this study argues that the press arbitration system has served as main factor that brought major changes in the recent media environment.
Popular Literature and Gender Identities: An Analysis of Young Indian Women’s Anxieties About Reading Western Romances • Radhika E. Parameswaran, Indiana University • This paper takes an ethnographic approach to analyze young Indian middle-class women’s interpretations of imported Western romance fiction, particularly their responses to representations of sexually in these romances. My analysis is based on participant observation and interviews with forty-two women, teachers, parents, book publishers, and library-owners, which were conducted in Hyderabad, India during May-August 1996. I demonstrate that Indian women’s engagement with Western romances in postcolonial India is an experience that is mediated by their socialization within Hindu patriarchal and nationalist discourses.
Guiding Lights of International News-Flow Research: A Temporal Comparison of Influential Authors and Published Works • Yorgo Pasadeos, Emily Erickson-Hoff, Yvette Stuart and Laura Ralstin, Alabama • The international news-flow research literature has progressed from descriptive “foreign press” and “foreign news” accounts to modeling and fitting international news flow within broader theoretical frameworks. Critical studies of international news flow have had a similar progression. Although the international news flow have had a similar progression. Although the quantitative expansion in this research area in the 1980s was not matched in the current decade, qualitative progress may have offset the relative stagnation in the quantity of recent international news-flow research.
Can the Leopard Change its Spots: Parliamentarians’ Attitudes About Press Freedom in Zambia • Greg Pitts, Southern Methodist • Democracies have a free press. In Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda’s humanism defined the role of the individual and the press. Zambians experience greater freedom since muliparty elections in 1991 but humanism has shaped the values of current leaders. This paper quantitatively investigates support for the press among the Zambian Parliament. Regression models show that perceptions of media accuracy and fairness are not indicators of press support. Zambia must experience intergenerational value changes to overcome Kaunda’s humanism.
South Asian Student Attitudes Toward and Beliefs About Advertising: Measuring Across Cultures • Jyotika Ramaprasad and Michael L. Thurwanger, Southern Illinois University • Using a survey, this study applied to South Asia constructs developed in the United States • beliefs about advertising and attitude toward advertising in general (AG) • and their operationalizations with two goals in mind. First, to determine whether the factor structure of these beliefs is similar in the United States and South Asia. Second, to measure whether South Asian consumers’ beliefs about advertising predict their AG. The five South Asian countries in the study were Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
American News Coverage of International Crisis Negotiations: Elite Sources of Media Framing and Effects on Public Opinion • Dhavan V. Shah, Wisconsin; Kent D. Kedl and David P. Fan, Minnesota • The manner in which media present elites’ interpretations of international crises has important implications for strategic public diplomacy. This study considers two recent international crises: the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (1990 – 1991) and the military coup d’ tat of Haiti (1993 – 1994). Framing provides a basis for an analysis which examines (a) the problem definitions and treatment recommendations attributed to U.S. elites in key newspapers, and (b) the effects of these negotiations frames on public opinion.
Broadcasting in South Africa: The Politics of Educational Radio • Paul R. van der Veur, Montana Tech of the University of Montana • This paper explores efforts by successive British and Afrikaner led governments to use the educational potentials of broadcasting in molding the development of the African population. The study traces the transition of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) into a vehicle for the extension of Afrikaner nationalism and subsequently into an institution in the vanguard of the movement toward a multicultural democracy.
An Economic Imperative: Privatization as Reflected in Business Reporting in the Middle East • Leonard Ray Teel, Georgia State University; Hussein Amin, American University in Cairo; Shirley Biagi, California State University-Sacramento; Carolyn Crimmins, Georgia State University • Egypt, a socialist nation from the mid- 1950s until the 1990s, is an excellent case study of a national economy experiencing dramatic reforms in privatization and deregulation. Although similar economic initiatives are being undertaken in other Arab countries, including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Tunisia and Morocco, reforms have been pushed ahead faster in Egypt, especially since 1994, and despite significant obstacles in the form of loyalty to socialist ideas, public cynicism toward capitalism, and general distrust engendered by recent economic fraud in the banking industry.
Why Beijingers Read Newspapers? • Tao Sun and Xinshu Zhao, Minnesota, Guoming Yu, People’s University • Unlike the previous studies that focus on why and how the Chinese government and Communist Party used the mass media, this study asks what Chinese audience look for while reading newspapers. From the perspective of uses-and-gratification theories, two dimentions were proposed: the societal-level information, and the individual-level information. Those two dimentions differ from the dimentions found in uses-and-gratifications studies conducted in the United States. Using an audience survey of 749 Beijing residents in November 1996, we conducted three independent round of factor analyses based on three different groups of variables.
Markham Competition
Telecommunications Policy Reform and the Legacy of the Indian Post-Colonial State • Paula Chakravartty, Wisconsin-Madison • The core concern of this paper is to understand the social context which frames the politics of the state’s changing role in economic development in India. In this paper, I argue that central to understanding the policy process of telecommunications is the issue of state legitimacy in a democratic regime. I argue that seemingly clear-cut telecommunications policy issues such as access to services, information disparity, regulation and public accountability, are actually fought over in the larger politics of nationalism and corruption.
Worldview Differences of Natural Resources Between Spain and Costa Rica: A Content Analysis of On-line Newspapers • Lorena Corbin, Iowa State University • The study analyzed the environmental content of two large circulation on-line newspapers, one from a developing country (Coasta Rica) and one from a developed country (Spain). Olsen, Lodwick and Dunlap (1992) developed a paradigmatic model which presents the differences between the dominant worldview and the post-industrial worldview. Based on this, it was expected that the Costa Rican paper would emphasize the exploitation of natural resources (dominant), while the Spanish paper would emphasize environmental protection (post-industrial).
A Content Analysis of The Jerusalem Post-Bias in Syria-Related and Har Homa Articles • Hala Habal, Baylor University • This content analysis was conducted with two separate samples. The first was a constructed two-week period, representing 1997. The second was a six-day period, beginning July 30 and ending August 6, representing a period of conflict. The highest category of main article theme fell under the “conflict” grouping. Most stories had Israel as their main focus, with the highest number of proper mentions. A greater number of sentences in the lead of each article fell in the “report/attributed” category, with very few in the inference and judgment categories.
The Price of Ignorance: How Correspondents’ Language Skills Limit Their Work in Japan • Beverly Horvit, Missouri-Columbia • Many of the American correspondents working in Japan do not understand the Japanese language. Their language skills limit their access to a wide range of sources, which may help distort their reporting, and pose other practical constraints. At another level, not knowing the language, both verbal and nonverbal, limits their ability to understand the Japanese culture, which is reflected in the language.
The Structure of International News Flow in Cyberspace: A Network Analysis of News Articles in Clarinet • Naewon Kang, Wisconsin-Madison and Junho Choi, Purdue University • This paper examines the pattern of international news flow in cyberspace, using network analysis. It suggests that the world system perspective no longer effectively clarifies the global structure of the international news flow in cyberspace. For the better understanding of the dynamics of international news flow in cyberspace, this paper suggests that (a) single or comprehensive interpretation(s) like political significance, global commercialism, and sociocultural proximity would provide a more plausible explanatory framework.
Journalism Under Fire: Reporting the El Mozote Massacre • Kris Kodrich, Ohio State University • In January, 1982, New York Times reporter Raymond Bonner came across a gruesome scene in El Salvador • the charred skulls and bones of dozens of men, women and children. His January 27 article, headlined, “Massacre of hundreds reported in Salvador village,” brought shock and outrage, but was soon discredited and criticized by U.S. government officials and media conservatives, included a vicious editorial in the Wall Street Journal. El Mozote has come to represent years of brutal repression in El Salvador.
Human Rights in China: A Pawn of A Political Agenda? A Content Analysis of The New York Times (1987-1996) •Xigen Li and Charles St. Cyr, Michigan State University • A content analysis of 10 years of New York Times coverage of human rights in China has found that The Times set its own agenda in covering human rights in China apart from president agenda. While U.S. president concerned more on U.S.-China trade than human rights in China, The Times continued its coverage of human rights in China as presidential concern subsided. The evidence over 10 years of news coverage also suggests that despite a relatively independent rate of production of human rights news stories by The Times, neither incumbent presidents nor their opponents treated human rights as a high-visibility, independent issue or as a separate issue in foreign policy.
Michael Fay in ‘Lash Land’: A Case Study of Social Identity Construction in Foreign News Coverage • Meredith Li-Vollmer, Washington • Foreign affairs reporters may routinely come across opportunities to enhance or protect the social identity of their national group; thus, their identities as U.S. citizens may influence the construction of international events. A framing analysis of articles covering the caning of American Michael Fay in Singapore reveals that journalists not only actively defended and enhanced the social identity of the United States, but also attempted to mobile a social identity dynamic in the American public.
Media and Democracy in Argentina • Dave Park, Wisconsin-Madison • This paper looks at how the constraints of Argentina’s mass media limit conditions for a healthy democracy. Media politics, corporate concentration, foreign ownership and market restraints are viewed as new censors of information in Argentina. In addition, vestiges of authoritarian control such as government regulation and threats against the press continue to plague the mass media. The conditions limit discussion of human rights issues while undermining basic rights to pursue, gather and disperse information.
News About Korea and Japan in American Network Television Evening News: A Content Analysis of Coverage in 1996 • Jowon Park, Tennessee-Knoxville • Television news abstracts about Korea and Japan in three networks’ evening news programs were analyzed. Importance, thematic content, and orientation of news were examined. The findings showed that the news about Korea was treated less importantly than the news about Japan. While Japanese stories showed diversity in thematic contents. Korean stories showed lack of diversity. The news about Korea had a strong orientation toward crisis, while Japanese stories were balanced between crisis and noncrisis orientation.
Pleasure, Imperialism, and Marxist Political Economy: Exploring A Biological Base • William Thomas Pritchard, Bowling Green State University • Marxist imperialism theses have problematized the consumption of Western media by non-Western cultures. This is an exploratory investigation into possible reasoning behind this consumption. An overview of cultural imperialism theory is presented, along with a problematic issue of Marxist imperialistic theory: the treatment of the concept of pleasure. Studies concerning the intrinsically pleasurable characteristics of color, sight, and other “building blocks” of media fare are presented as in-roads toward the possibility of Western media being intrinsically pleasurable.
Finnish Women and Political Knowledge: What Do They Know and How Do They Learn It? • Helena K. SSrkis, Iowa State University • According to a 1988-89 study, approximately half of American men score higher in political knowledge than three-fourths of American women. Various social and economic differences between American women and men are cited as the reasons for this finding. This study hypothesizes that because of the lack of these social and economic differences in Finland, a gap in political knowledge between women and men would not be found there. The most important predictors of political knowledge in Finland are also identified, which support the limited media effects model.
Hollywood Attracts South Korean Capital • Doobo Shim, Wisconsin-Madison • This study investigates the reasons for the Korean chaebols’ sudden participation in culture industry and capital investment in Hollywood in the 1990s. To do this, the Kim Young Sam government policy that made the change in the culture industry will be examined in view of the traditional economic system in Korea, especially with regard to chaebol policy. Finally, the implications of the globalization and the culture industry development on the whole Korean economy will be examined.
Telling the Truth or Framing a Crisis?: Comparative Analysis of the 1994 North Korean Nuclear Threat as Portrayed in Two American and Two South Korean Newspapers • Young Soo Shim, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale • This study investigated how two elite American newspapers and leading South Korean newspapers used different news frames in covering the 1994 North Korean nuclear crisis. The study unsupported a key hypothesis that the two American papers would focus more on the confrontational aspect of the crisis than the two South Korean dailies. But another main hypothesis that the two American newspapers would fervently advocate sanctions against North Korea than the two South Korean newspapers was supported.
Bahamian TV Programming, 1977-1997: A Case Study of Cultural Proximity • Juliette Storr, Ohio University •This paper revisits the debate on the international flow of television within the context of Straubhaar, et al., 1992, theory of cultural proximity and asymmetrical interdependence. The main focus of the paper is to examine how Straubhaar, et al.’s 1992 study applies to a small developing country like the Bahamas. 1,628 television programs on the national television station, ZNS TV-13, were analyzed for a period of twenty-one years, beginning with the start of local television in 1977 and ending in 1997.
Media, Markets and Messages: Ghana’s Radio Forced to Make Choices • Janice Windborne, Ohio University • Until Structural Adjustment, Ghana had an extensive, state-run broadcast system oriented toward education and development. Now, forced to privatize its media, the country is faced with the competition between fostering consumer culture among the growing urban elite class and fostering development of the rural majority of the country. Development messages are particularly relevant to women who generally have less education and fewer resources than men. Conflicting interests and consequent problems are examined.
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