Visual Communication 1997 Abstracts
Visual Communication Division
The Development of Self Efficacy in Young Women in Relation to the Perception of Attention to Sexuality as Power in Advertising Images • Cecelia Baldwin, San Jose State University • This empirical study examines the hypothesis that attention to sexuality, in advertising, is perceived as self efficacy, or a personal power enabling one to control one’s own life. Semiotic theory provides it’s framework. The subject population consisted of two groups of young women, average high school students and advanced placement high school students. The hypothesis was upheld in independent t-tests. Additionally, ANOVA analysis revealed significant differences that may help young women to refute this perception.
Coverage of Gandhi’s Funeral Brings Competing Philosophies and Camera Technologies into Focus • Claude Cookman, Indiana University • A comparison of the photographic coverage of the funeral of Mohandas Gandhi by Margaret Bourke-White and Henri Cartier-Bresson reveals why and how their different philosophical and technical approaches produced very different results. It also details Cartier-Bresson’s method- for producing a news reportage, and demonstrates that despite his current denial of photojournalism, he was compelled to witness important events and communicate what he photographed to the audiences of mass-circulation, illustrated magazines.
A Time Out of Mind: When the Chicago Tribune Rescued Trapped Suburban Women • Alan Fried, University of South Carolina • A Chicago Tribune self-promotion advertising campaign from the 1950s was analyzed using ethnographic content analysis and proxemic analysis of photographs. The campaign stands out for the way it depicted its audience, its voice, and for its advertising appeals. Although the appeals hearken back to the Social Ethos described by William H. Whyte, Jr. in The Organization Man and David Reisman’s The Lonely Crowd, the ad campaign fits within Media System Dependency Theory.
Readability of Body Text in Computer Mediated Communication: Effects of Type Family, Size and Face • Joel Geske, Iowa State University • This experimental design used 78 subjects to test readability of different type sizes and type faces in both a serif and sans serif type family. The study found there are few significant differences for speed of reading between type sizes of fourteen, twelve and ten point type. Twelve point type had the highest rankings for both speed of reading and recall of material. Bold type did not increase readability and hurt recall in most cases. Little difference was found between serif and sans serif type except in ten point type where speed and recall were poorer with the serif type face.
Cameras in Courtrooms: Dimensions of Attitudes of State Supreme Court Justices • Dennis Hale, Bowling Green State University • This study attempted to extrapolate the future development of state supreme court policies concerning cameras and broadcast equipment in courtrooms by interviewing recently retired members of the courts. Support for cameras in courtrooms was contrasted with judicial support for eight other mass media rights. Courtroom cameras received the weakest support of the media rights. The justices predicted a weakening of the right during the next five years.
Learning News Through the Mind’s Eye: The Impact of Supporting Graphics on Television News • Stefan A. Jenzowsky, Thomas Knieper, Klaus B. Reginek, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universtitat Munchen • The purpose of this paper is to investigate how we process supporting graphical inserts in television news and which learning processes are involved in watching everyday news programs. Data is presented from a laboratory experiment in which two independent variables were manipulated: (a) the graphic visualization of news presentations, and (b) the graphic representation in recognition tasks. Results suggest a high acceptance of supporting graphics and a picture superiority effect for any condition of retrieval, while no encoding specificity effect was found for most conditions.
Political Endorsements In Daily Newspapers and Photographic Coverage of Candidates in the 1995 Louisiana Gubernatorial Campaign • John Mark King, Louisiana State University • Daily newspaper endorsements in the 1995 Louisiana gubernatorial campaign and photographs of candidates were examined. Independent variables were endorsement in the primary election and the runoff election. Dependent variables were photo size, color/black and white, fold location, placement and depiction of the candidate. Results from 10 hypotheses showed that endorsed candidates were more likely to have photos published on front pages and more likely to have favorable photos published than candidates not endorsed by newspapers.
The Flapper in the Art of John Held, Jr.: Modernity, Post-Feminism, and the Meaning of Women’s Bodies in 1920s Magazine Cover Illustration • Carolyn L. Kitch, Temple University • In the 1920s, the flapper • a symbol, then and now, of the Jazz Age • was closely associated with the magazine illustration of John Held, Jr. An examination of this imagery considers women’s representation as a primary site for the intersection of early-twentieth-century feminism, modernism, and consumerism. It suggests that, during a pivotal decade in both women’s history and mass-media history, the progressive cultural construct of the New Woman became commodified and contained in the flapper.
Motivating Incentives, Self-Efficacy and Their Consequences for Web Authoring • Ghee-Young Noh, Michigan State University • This study was undertaken to identify relationship between determinants derived from social cognitive theory and Web authoring. Web authoring behavior was considerably explained by motivating incentives, self-efficacy, programming competence, and accessibility. However, motivating incentives and the perceived self-efficacy were more important factors than accessibility and computer programming to predict the degree of Web authoring. This study suggests that social cognitive theory could provide additional explanatory power for the mechanism of implementation of Web authoring.
Teaching the Use of Color: A Survey of Visual Communication Division Members • Lyle D. Olson, Roxanne Lucchesi, South Dakota State University • This paper presents the results of a survey to determine the extent to which journalism and mass communication educators are teaching the use of color and how they are doing it. It includes lists of the most used and top ranked resources for teaching the use of color. The respondents also indicated that students in their programs do not receive enough training in the use of color and that computer hardware and software resources at their schools to teach color are lacking.
Staged, Faked and Mostly Naked: Photographic Innovation at the Evening Graphic (1924-1932) • Bob Stepno, University of North Carolina • The New York Evening Graphic is remembered for its sensational fake composite photos, not for its other photo-illustration innovations. This paper describes a variety of techniques the Graphic used, including composographs and studio re-enactment of news events, and the media reaction at the time, particularly through Editor and Publisher. The paper finds there was little debate of the ethics of altering images, but the technique became linked to controversies over particular sex stories and images.
Moles and Clowns: How Editorial Cartoons Portrayed Aldrich Ames, Harold Nicholson and the CIA • John W. Williams, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale • No Abstract available.
Visual Communication • CREATIVE PROJECTS
Protest 96: Revolution in Cyberspace, a Paradigm Shift in Global Communication • Rita Csapo-Sweet, University of Missouri-St. Louis • This presentation documents an interactive exhibition in St. Louis that monitored and participated with the massive pro-democracy protest demonstrations that took place in Belgrade, Serbia, from mid-December 1996 to mid-February 1997. When the Milosevic government tried to silence the election results that the independent media were broadcasting, university students in Belgrade created a website and began disseminating their messages over the Internet. Suddenly their struggle became global and communication history was made.
If the Genie is Out of the Bottle: How Do We Teach the Ethical Decision-Making of Digital Imaging Manipulation in the Post-OJ Era of Photojournalism (Without Sounding Like a Luddite?) • Jock Lauterer, Penn State University • When photojournalists or picture editors use digital imaging manipulation to fundamentally alter the content of photos for whatever reason, they strike a death blow at the heart of what makes authentic photojournalism so valuable. This slide lecture is designed to introduce visual communications students to the historical abuses of photography, to alert them to the seductive and yet wonderful powers of the digital age, and to provide them with a journalist’s moral compass.
Structuring Text for On-line Delivery, or Life Beyond Repurposing • Stephen Masiclat, Syracuse University • The rush to publish online newspapers has made the World Wide Web the premiere venue for online journalism. But the vast majority of online newspapers are simply print articles re-purposed for the web. Articles constructed for printed pages are placed in an environment with new capabilities and severe limitations. This presentation is a demonstration of a different way to present information that is mindful of the online environment’s characteristics and its users.
Gone West: The American West in the ‘90s, a Photographic Essay by Alan Berner • David Rees, University of Missouri • ‘Gone West’ is a CD-ROM presentation of a photo essay by Alan Berner. It includes comments by the photographer about his own work and visual reference to Arthur Rothstein’s pictures which inspired Berner. This is a prototype of new technology applied to journalistic presentation and has educational benefits for students because they can view a complete body of work and hear the photographer’s own perspective about that work in a classroom or individual setting.
Creativity Workbook and Self-Promotion Web Site for Advertising Art Direction • Jean Trumbo, Cornell University • A creativity resource workbook was developed for students enrolled in an Advertising Art Direction course. The workbook includes idea generation exercises designed by the instructor to prompt innovation in the creation of student portfolios. The final objective of the course was to develop a professional quality portfolio and to augment that through a self-promotional web site. Work from each student was included on the web site. The materials in this workbook include creativity exercises and page templates that were used to build the student portfolio web site.
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