Mass Communication and Society 1997 Abstracts

Mass Communication and Society Division

Content Analysis of Popular Songs Sung by Female Performers From 1965 to 1995 • Linda Aldoory, Syracuse University • This study content analyzed popular songs from Billboard’s Top 100, performed by women 1965 to 1995, hypothesizing that lyrics have kept pace with women’s increases in salaries, work force numbers and education. Findings revealed little support. Women portrayed in songs remained supportive of partners, dependent, and involved in unequal relationships. However, references to male partners decreased. Overall, popular songs performed by women today still portray females as stereotyped even with many women gaining in salaries, education, and employment.

Beyond Educational and Informational Needs: What is Quality Children’s Television? • Alison Alexander, Keisha Hoerrner, Lisa Duke, University of Georgia • Until the parameters of what constitutes quality children’s television can be agreed upon by all parties in the debate, discussions as to how the industry should progress in providing quality television cannot be resolved. This project takes the first step toward defining the quality construct by empirically analyzing how the industry defines quality. Our goal was to explore the characteristics of the best of the best children’s programming to determine the characteristics of a quality product. Our data were drawn from the archives of the George Foster Peabody Awards to study all the award-winning programs in the children’s category. Using the Peabody Awards winners as the data set, this project sought to answer the following research questions: (l) What are the characteristics of a quality program? and (2) What claims does the industry make about a quality program?

Press Freedom in Liberia, 1847 to 1970: The Impact of Power Imbalances and Asymmetries • Carl Burrowes, Marshall University • Breaking with the general pattern in the press-freedom literature to explain restrictions on an ideational basis, this paper argues that asymmetry and imbalances in the distribution of power resources among institutions are likely to accompany restrictions on the mass media of communications. That proposition, derived from the work of sociologist Dennis Wrong, was tested using data from Liberia, West Africa, spanning a period from 1847, when the nation declared its independence, to 1970, by which time significant inequalities had emerged. these data on power assets suggest a historical shift toward concentration of resources in the executive branch and corporate sector. Significant losses of press freedom were linked to new waves of foreign investments which caused increased asymmetry and imbalances to develop in the distribution of power resources.

Citizen Response to Civic Journalism: Four Case Studies • Steven Chaffee and Michael McDevitt, Stanford University, Esther Thorson, University of Missouri • Sample surveys are used to evaluate four civic journalism projects in three cities. Citizen exposure to each campaign was correlated with desired outcomes such as interpersonal discussion, activity in organizations, cognitive and affective involvement, and perceived efficacy. In Charlotte, NC, an intensive news series on inner-city crime brought whites closer to blacks in their concern about the problem. In Madison, WI, projects on both land use and juvenile delinquency stimulated participation in solving a neighborhood problem. In San Francisco, CA, intensive coverage of campaign issues increased turnout in the mayoral election among groups that tend not to vote regularly.

The Legitimization of Generation X: A Case Study in Status Conferral • Rebecca Chamberlin, Ohio University • This content analysis describes the coverage of a generational cohort and relates it to Lazarsfeld and Merton’s status conferral and Strodthoff, Hawkins, and Schoenfeld’s model of ideology diffusion. It studies the sources used (by age and occupation), portrayal and topics covered in magazine and newspaper articles about Generation X from 1987-1995. The coverage went through phases of disambiguation, legitimization and routinization.

Television Viewing and Perceptions of the 1996 Olympic Athletes: A Cultivation Analysis • Xueyi Chen, Syracuse University • This study is aimed at examining the effects of exposure to television coverage of the 1996 Olympic Games on the public perception of Olympic athletes and their performance. A telephone survey of a random sample of 397 adult New York residents from late September to early October of 1996 reveals that there is no significant relationship between television exposure and the public perception of Chinese athletes and their performance, but cultivation effect is found in the public perception of American athletes and their performance.

Corporate Newspaper Structure and Control of Editorial Content: An Empirical Test of the Managerial Revolution Hypothesis • David Demers, Washington State University, Debra Merskin, University of Oregon • Corporate newspapers are often accused of placing more emphasis on profits than on information diversity and other nonprofit goals considered crucial for creating or maintaining a political democracy. These charges contradict the managerial revolution hypothesis, which expects that as power shifts from the owners to the professional managers and technocrats, a corporate organization should place less emphasis on profits. This study empirically tests the managerial revolution hypothesis and finds support for it.

A Cynical Press: Coverage of the 1996 Presidential Campaign • Sandra H. Dickson, Cynthia Hill, Cara Pilson and Suzanne Hanners, The University of West Florida • An analysis of 332 CBS and Washington Post stories on the 1996 presidential campaign revealed coverage which was cynical in nature. Three factors suggest this to be the case: (l) the news organizations used overwhelmingly a game rather than policy schema in campaign coverage; (2) the sample, while chiefly objective in tone, contained few positive stories and a high percentage which were negative; and, perhaps most importantly, (3) when motives were attributed to the candidates, they were almost exclusively categorized as self-serving and more often than not the reporter served as the source for the motive statement.

News Media, Candidates and Issues, and Public Opinion in the 1996 Presidential Campaign • David Domke, University of Minnesota • This research has two primary goals. First, we examine whether news media were biased in coverage of the candidates or issues during the 1996 U.S. presidential campaign, as Republican Party candidate Bob Dole and others claimed. Second, we use an ideodynamic model of media effects to examine whether the quantity of positive and negative news coverage of the candidates was related to the public’s preference of either Bill Clinton or Dole. The model posits that a candidate’s level of support at any time is a function of the level of previous support (as measured in recent polls) plus-changes in voters’ preferences due to media coverage in the interim. This model, then, allows exploration of whether news media coverage, alone, could predict the public’s presidential preferences in 1996. Using a computer content analysis program, 12,215 randomly sampled newspaper stories and television transcripts were examined from 43 major media outlets for the time period March 10 to November 6, 1996. Findings reveal both remarkably balanced media coverage of the two principal candidates, Clinton and Dole, and a powerful relationship between media coverage and public opinion.

New Findings on Media Effects Upon Political Values and Attitudes • Christiane Eilders, Science Center Berlin • News value research has mainly been concerned with news selection by the media. This paper examines the role of news factors in the selection of political information by the audience. It is suggested that news factors indicate relevance and can therefore serve as selection criteria for the audience. The assumption is tested employing a content analysis of news items and the corresponding retentions of 219 respondents and comparing the news value of retentions and original news items.

The Portrayal of Women on Prime Time TV Programs Broadcast in the United States • Michael G. Elasmar, Mary Brain, Boston University, Kazumi Hasegawa, University of North Dakota • A content analysis of a probability stratified sample of prime time television programs broadcast in the United States was carried out. The sample included 1,903 speaking females. This study finds that, in comparison to previous studies, there has been an increase in the number of women characters on prime time TV although they are now more likely to be shown playing minor roles. Women on prime time are also less likely to be married, less likely to be housewives, less likely to be caring for children, more likely to have dark hair, less likely to commit or be the victim of violent crime, less likely to be involved in a romantic relationship, and more likely to be under the age of 50.

JMC Faculty Divided: Majority Finds Dozen Uses For Research • Fred Fedler, Maria Cristina Santana, Tim Counts, and Arlen Carey • The authors surveyed members of AEJMC. All but 4 of their 279 respondents reported using the field’s research. The respondents were most likely to use research to learn more about their field and to prepare for classes. More than 90% conducted research, and many explained that it made them better teachers Ñ and also that they enjoyed it. There were few differences by rank or gender. There were, however, differences by degree and institution.

The Characters of Television News Magazine Shows: News sources and Reporters in Hard Copy and 60 Minutes • Maria Elizabeth Grabe, Shuhua Zhou, Brooke Barnett, Indiana University • This content analysis examines Hard Copy and 60 Minutes in terms of news sources-and reporters. Specifically, we investigated their prominence, demography, and dramatic potential as characters in the news drama. News sources were also scrutinized for their institutional affiliation. A number of scholars have focused on newspaper and television newscast sources while ignoring news magazine programs. These inquiries consistently point at the disproportionate representation of elite news sources. In a society that rests on democratic ideals about the mass media’s facilitation of a pluralistic public debate, these findings provoke concern. Our analysis of 60 news magazine segments provide some support for these concerns. Yet, it is clear that Hard Copy featured a demographically more diverse pool of news sources than 60 Minutes. The study’s findings also reveal little difference in how the two news programs employ news sources and reporters as dramatic forces in news stories.

Community Integration from Hood to Globe • Ernest A. Hakanen, Drexel University • Abstract Media are important to a citizen’s sense of community integration. There are many levels or domains of community (i.e. friends, neighborhood, city, country and international). Respondents (N=182), randomly selected in a telephone survey, were asked about their feelings of responsibility to and influence (both measures of community integration) on various community domains. The data were analyzed for media effects on responsibility and influence. The findings are discussed in terms of political efficacy, community integration, and public sphere.

Lynch Mob Journalism vs. Compelling Human Drama: Editorial Responses to Coverage of the Pre-trial phase of the O.J. Simpson Case • Elizabeth Blanks Hindman • This analysis of newspaper editorials from June through December 1994 examines the media’s institutional views of their ethics and responsibilities regarding the O.J. Simpson murder case. It finds that the media shifted the blame to tabloids and non-media people and groups, acknowledged media irresponsibility, and argued that coverage was necessary despite unethical behavior. The media used libertarian, social responsibility, and communitarian philosophies of ethics situationally, often to justify questionable media ethics.

Priming of Religion as a Factor in Political Attitudes: The Role of Religious Programming • Barry Hollander, The University of Georgia • Religion and politics have long been intertwined, and yet little is known about the effect of religious programming on political attitudes. Priming is used as a theoretical basis for studying how religious programs can make religion an important factor in political attitudes. Analysis of national survey data reveals that exposure to religious broadcasts can make religion more of a factor in the formation or maintenance of political attitudes, particularly among Christian fundamentalists on high-valence issues such as abortion. Exposure to such programs also influences how important Catholics perceive religion to be in attitude maintenance and formation, but mainline Protestants are relatively unaffected by such broadcasts.

In the Eye of the Beholder? Complaints of Bias Filed By Overseas/Ethnic Groups With the National News Council 1973-84 • L. Paul Husselbee, Ohio University • Despite efforts to establish and maintain news councils in the U.S., few exist. Detractors argue that news councils threaten press freedom; supporters say they enhance journalistic credibility. The National News Council was formed in 1973 to serve as an unbiased watchdog of national media, but it failed in 1984, in part because journalist who feared bias refused to support it. This study examines complaints filed with the National News Council by overseas/ethnic interests to determine whether the council’s decisions conformed to ideological expectations of accepted theories of bias and stereotyping. It concludes that the third-person effect seemed to be present in the substance of complaints; this finding may suggest that the consistency of the council’s findings with previous studies indicates the fair, honest and judicious nature of the National News Council over its 11-year existence.

Murphy Brown Sets the Agenda: A Time Series Analysis of the Family Values Issue, 1988-1996 • Patrick M. Jablonski, The University of Central Florida • This study examines the relationship among the agendas of the media, the president, and the public regarding the family values issue in the United States from 1989 to 1996. ARIMA time-series analysis is used in an attempt to assess which factors drove the family values issue: the public, the press, or the president. Most important problem survey results from multiple organizations are aggregated into a series of 96 monthly time points to measure the public agenda. The media agenda is developed from a frequency analysis of articles containing the phrase family values in The New York Times and The Washington Post. The presidential agenda is developed from a similar analysis of the Public Papers of the Presidents. The three univariate time series are identified, estimated, and diagnosed. The white-noise component of each series is subsequently employed in a bivariate cross-correlation analysis to address the research questions. Results indicate that the presidential agenda was significantly driven by the press agenda regarding family values. Meanwhile, the public agenda followed both the presidential and press agendas at 4 month intervals.

Trusting the Media and Joe from Dubuque Online: Comparing Internet and Traditional Sources on Media Credibility Measures • Thomas J. Johnson and Barbara K. Kaye, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale • This study surveyed politically-interested web users online to examine whether they view Web publications as credible as their traditionally delivered counterparts. Credibility is crucial for the Internet because past studies suggest people are less likely to pay attention to media they do not perceive as credible. This study found online media were judged as more believable, fair, accurate and in-depth than their traditional versions. However, both online and traditional media were only judged as somewhat credible.

Credibility and Accuracy in the Reporting of Scientific News • Steve Jones, Chad Moody, Andrea Sharrer, Amy Rhodes, University of Tulsa • Do science journalists check sources for credibility and accuracy? Do they report the information in a way that will attract readers or in a way that will portray the information clearly and accurately? To answer these questions we surveyed newspaper journalists from the forty major newspapers in America to discover the efforts they make in determining the accuracy of their sources. The study also considers the efforts they make to present the information accurately.

Moving to the Center: Press Coverage of Candidates’ Ideological Cleavage in a Campaign • Tien-tsung Lee, University of Oregon, Anthony Y.H. Fung University of Minnesota • Many political studies conclude that the ideological center is the winning position in elections. Considering the difference between Democrats, Republicans and the general population, candidates should compete for their partisan centers to win the primaries, then move to the center to win the general election. With empirical data, this paper tests whether there are indeed three ideological centers, and whether the press coverage of the 1996 presidential election supports the moving-to-the-center hypothesis.

Reexamining Violent Content in MTV Music Videos • Greg Makris, University of North Carolina • The purpose of this study was to examine violence in music videos by conducting a content analysis of videos appearing on MTV. Violent acts in a sample of MTV videos were coded by type, quantity, and total time duration. The results were compared by musical genre. Just over half of the videos contained violence, with assaults appearing most frequently. The overall time of all violent acts was brief. Among genres, Rap and Hard Rock videos appeared to be more violent.

The Construction of the News: A Survey of the Italian Journalists • Andreina Mandelli, Francesca Gardini, Bocconi University • The aim of this paper is to try to understand the view held by Italian journalists of news construction (selection and coverage of the events), and how this view influences the presentation of the news itself, while focusing on the controversial phenomenon of spettacolarizzazione the sensationalistic presentation of the news item. The findings underscore the increasingly urgent need to analyze more in depth the issues of news production, and consequently of its effective quality standards.

Issue Salience and the Third-Person Effect: Perceptions of Illegal Immigration in a Southwestern Region • Frances R. Matera, Arizona State University, Michael B. Salwen, University of Miami • This study, based on a telephone survey of 626 Phoenix, Arizona, respondents, examined the relationship between the salience concept in agenda-setting and the third-person effect. The third-person effect predicts that people perceive media messages to exert a greater persuasive influence on other people than on themselves. The study’s findings suggested that issue salience might magnify people’s tendencies to perceive greater media influence on others than on themselves. The study also examined whether Latino respondents’ ethnic-racial identification with the social problem of illegal immigration influenced their perceptions of media influence on themselves and on other people. Examination of the ethnically relevant problem of illegal immigration suggests that there may be ethnic differences that need to be explored in future research.

A Model of Public Support for First Amendment Rights • Jack M. McLeod, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Mira Sotirovic, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Zhongshi Guo, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kuang-Yu Huang, World College of Journalism and Communication, Taiwan • This paper presents a model of public support for First Amendment rights. The model indicates two distinctive paths of support of rights in two cases: the (speech and assembly) rights of a neo-Nazi group to march in a Jewish neighborhood and the (press) right of a reporter during wartime to send home a story critical of military without military clearance. One path, providing positive support for rights, involves reading of newspaper public affairs, knowledge and reasoning. The second, a negative path, indicates rejection of rights through material values of control, watching of television entertainment and expression of negative affect. Data are gathered in a telephone survey of 436 adult residents of Dane county, Wisconsin.

How Responsible for Journalism are Journalists? • John McManus, Saint Mary’s College of California • Most national codes of journalism ethics place the entire moral responsibility for news on editors and reporters. And although recent court decisions have recognized some journalists as professionals, empirical evidence suggests the nearly century-long expansion of journalists’ autonomy has begun to erode as media corporations seek to maximize shareholder value. As journalists become more decision-takers than decision-makers, these codes of ethics become ethically suspect themselves. We need new codes that recognize the realities of market-oriented journalism.

Perceiving the Television Audience: Conceptualization in an Academic Institution • Lawrence J. Mullen, University of Nevada, Las Vegas • This study focuses on the ways in which college television producers perceive the audience. Two ways of conceptualizing the audience (size and discernment) are analyzed. Descriptive data and regression analyses found patterns of audience conceptualization similar to that of professional television production environments, yet tempered by the organization of the academic institution. Small and well-defined is one way that college media producers perceive their audience. A relationship between the things students do to prepare for their productions and perceptions of a fragmented audience is another way they conceive the audience. Based on the finds from past research, young producers in academic organizations are conceiving the audience in slightly more diverse ways than in the professional organizational environment. Though academic television production seems to allow a broader interpretation of the audience, more can be done in the way of audience conceptualization.

Where We Live and How We View: The Impact of Housing Preferences on Family Television Viewing • Carol Pardun, Kansas State University • A survey of 269 home owners revealed that architecture has an impact on the number of televisions in the home. In addition, it was discovered that although 36% of respondents viewed television most often in the living room, 29 other rooms for television viewing were mentioned. The study also discusses that families’ viewing preferences are a significant factor in the number of sets that families own.

The Influence of Communication Media on Confidence in Democratic Institutions • Michael Pfau, Patricia Moy, Erin Kock, Wei-Kuo Lin, Weiwu Zhang, Lance Holbert, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This study examines the relative influence of various communication modalities on public confidence in democratic institutions. The paper argues that communication modalities serve as an important source of secondary socialization for people: that negative depictions of such democratic institutions as the office of the Presidency, Congress, the court system, the public school system, and the news media by specific modalities cultivate negative perceptions of those institutions among users of those modalities. To test these positions, the study employed a broad interconnected approach, combining an extensive content analysis of the quantity and tone of all references to the specific democratic institutions listed above by communication modalities in conjunction with a survey of the public’s use of those modalities and confidence in institutions.

The Effects of Media Coverage of the O.J. Simpson Murder Trail: Pre and Post-Trial Issue Salience and Role of Expert Sources • Robert Pyle, Winthrop University • It was called the trial of the century. The O.J. Simpson murder trial was a major media event. Live cameras in the courtroom allowed the nation to witness the trial in real-time. And when the nation was not watching live unmediated coverage of the trial on CNN or Court Television, it was viewing the mediated courtroom drama nightly on network television news. This study examines how mediated and unmediated coverage of the murder trial affected viewers perception of Simpson’s guilt or innocence. The study also examines if expert analysis of the trial altered, in any fashion, the way viewers perceived issues, such as crime, judicial fairness and domestic violence. The study also looks at how ethnicity guided personal attitudes on Simpson’s guilt, as well as larger issues such as race and violence.

Blaming the Media: An Analysis of Public Opinion on the Media’s Role in Crime and Violence • James A. Ramos, Michigan State University • This paper looks at public perception of media effects through public opinion polls about crime, violence, and the media. These polls were examined using framing analysis in order to determine what is the public’s perception of the link between these issues and the media and how this has changed over time. Results show, among other things, that the strength of the perceived effect is conditional, based on whether media are presented within a context frame.

The Evolution of Crime Dramas: An Update • Arthur A. Raney, The University of Alabama • Thirty prime-time crime dramas were content analyzed in an attempt to update previous research completed by Gerbner, Dominick, and others. Characters portraying victims and suspects were coded for information such as gender, ethnicity, age, social class, crime experienced (victim), and crime outcome (suspect). Results were compared with the 1995 FBI Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and previous television crime drama data. The findings suggest a continued overrepresentation of murder and other violent crimes on television as opposed to reality. White, middle-class males continue to be overrpresented, while females and Blacks are underrepresented, as victims and suspects on television. Arrests of suspects remain disproportionately high in dramas as opposed to reality, while a disturbing trend toward the killing of suspects has arisen.

Public Information and Public Dialogues: An Analysis of the Public Relations Behavior of Newspaper Ombudsmen • Craig Sanders, John Carroll University, Neil Nemeth, Purdue University • In this content analysis of the public columns of American newspaper ombudsmen we found the dominant role performed by ombudsmen was a one-way form of communication, usually explaining the newspaper’s behavior. This often occurred in tandem with two-way forms of communication, usually allowing the public to comment on the newspaper’s performance. To varying degrees, ombudsmen allow the public to scrutinize the newspaper’s performance. This facilitates a limited public dialogue about the newspaper’s performance.

Sensational: A Comparison of Content and Presentation Styles of the 60 Minutes and Dateline NBC Television News Magazines • Patrick J. Sutherland, Ohio University • This paper summarizes research findings on sensationalism and tabloidism in television news programming. Research consisted of a content analysis of 329 news magazine segments airing on CBS’s 60 Minutes and on Dateline NBC. Content and presentation styles were compared. 60 Minutes’ content remained consistent as primarily serious and informational. The two news magazines aired a similar proportion of entertainment segments between 1993 and 1995. Dateline’s presentation style was significantly more sensational and less factual.

Noble Journalism?: Four Themes of Revelation • Sari Thomas, Temple University • In this paper, we propose that the time has come to question explicitly two very common assumptions about hard-news journalism: (l) that the subject matter of news journalism is more important than the content of other genres of mass-media narrative, and (2) that the consumption of journalism news serves to inform intelligently in comparison to the function of other genres of mass-media narrative. Although there are three distinct bodies of scholarship, each of which serves to demystify this presumed nobility of journalism, they all tend to sidestep critical investigation of the two assumptions articulated above. The consequence of this theoretical evasion is that not only tabloid journalism, but, more importantly, media fiction has been underestimated and undervalued. This paper, then, attempts to outline the three existing themes of critical journalism theory and to redress the comparative degradation of popular culture by developing a fourth theme of revelation.

Affective and Behavioral Impact of Civic Journalism • Esther Thorson, Andrew Mendelson, Ekaterina Ognianova, University of Missouri-Columbia, Lewis Friedland.

<< 1997 Abstracts

AEJMC Council of Affiliates Member Organizations

American Journalism Historians Association
The mission of AJHA, founded in 1981, is to advance the study of journalism and mass communication history, to foster support for the field, and to recognize outstanding achievement in the teaching and research of journalism and mass communication history. The association considers “journalism history” to mean a continuous process, emphasizing but not necessarily confined to subjects of American mass communications. It should be viewed not in the context of perception of the current decade, but as part of a unique, significant, and time-conditioned past.

American Society of News Editors
The American Society of News Editors advances the cause of quality, independent professional journalism. Founded in 1922 to “defend the profession from unjust assault,” ASNE is primarily an organization of newsroom leaders in the United States. Visit ASNE.org for information on how you might benefit by joining ASNE and how to join. ASNE is 90 years old as an organization and focuses on providing leadership for journalism organizations and academic organizations and for startup journalism endeavors. And, in some ways, we are starting from scratch. This summer ASNE moved its headquarters from Reston, Va., to the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute on the University of Missouri’s campus in Columbia. It’s symbolic yet practical. Ye, we will partner with you. Yes, we can help you. Yes, you can help ASNE news organizations. “Reynolds is focused on innovation and how to preserve and carry forward the most essential values in journalism, including investigative journalism, the preservation of free speech and First Amendment rights, in ways that can engage the public,” says David Boardman, ASNE vice president and executive editor of the Seattle Times. “That aligns just perfectly with ASNE’s mission, and we saw some great potential for synergy with that organization.” ASNE will join organizations like Investigative Reporters and Editors and the National Freedom of Information Coalition in calling the University of Missouri home. In fact, “ASNE’s role is more important than ever,” says Susan Goldberg, ASNE president and Bloomberg News’ executive editor. “The more chaotic and changing and growing our industry is, the more we need effective and ethical leadership of these organizations. ASNE’s job really is to help journalism newsroom leaders manage change and to champion excellent journalism standards. Managing change is one of the most pressing needs of newsroom editors.” In this era of partnerships and collaboration, ASNE is expanding membership to include digital, broadcast and academia. ASNE is all about rebuilding and refocusing its mission. “We want to position ourselves as the thought leaders of journalism on any platform,” Goldberg says.

J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism
A center of American University’s School of Communication, J-Lab is a catalyst for innovations in journalism that help journalists, educators and citizens use new technologies to launch entrepreneurial news sites, grow access to responsible news and information, and learn how to adapt to the changing digital news ecosystem. J-Lab funds new approaches to journalism, researches what works and shares core insights though its publications, five websites, e-learning modules and in-person training designed to inspire and equip news providers to adapt to the changes. J-Lab has trained more than 6,000 journalists and journalism educators in recent years at its interactive summits, panels and symposia. It is currently focused on supporting and networking entrepreneurial university news startups. This year’s COA/J-Lab luncheon features several of these initiatives. A wrap-up of a recent summit of those sites is here: http://www.j-lab.org/ideas/category/blogically-thinking/trending-university-news-sites/. J-Lab has a respected 10-year track record of turning ideas into action. Our 90 pilot projects have been highly successful, our innovation awards are known throughout the industry, our research is cited regularly by others. Through these and other activities, we create space for experimentation, identify what works, and apply those insights to the future of journalism.

Journalism Education Association
The Journalism Education Association is the largest scholastic journalism organization for teachers and advisers. Put simply, we educate teachers on how to educate students. We fulfill this goal through numerous activities: We provide training around the country at national conventions and institutes. We offer national certification for teaching high school journalism. We publish print and online resources on the latest trends in journalism education. We provide avenues for virtual discussion among teachers, as well as communities and mentoring to learn best practices. We monitor and actively defend First Amendment and scholastic press rights issues across the country. Among JEA’s more than 2,500 members are journalism teachers and publications advisers, media professionals, press associations, adviser organizations, libraries, publishing companies, newspapers, radio stations and departments of journalism.

National Federation of Press Women
The National Federation of Press Women is a dynamic nationwide organization of professional women and men pursuing careers across the communications spectrum. We are a mix of journalists, public relations professionals, editors, designers, free-lance entrepreneurs and authors sharing their knowledge and experience across media platforms. For 75 years, NFPW has promoted the highest ethical standards while looking toward the future by offering professional development, networking and protection of our First Amendment rights. We offer conferences, competitions and recognition, a job bank, a First Amendment Network, discounted libel insurance, and education fund grants to help members take advantage of professional development opportunities. We also support student activities and education with an emphasis on ethics and editorial rights.

NewsGuild-CWA communications
Originally founded by print journalists in 1933, The Newspaper Guild is commonly known today as NewsGuild, a union of 21^st century media workers that fights for quality jobs and equality in the workplace; for truth, accuracy and integrity in journalism; for transparency at all levels of government and bureaucracy; and for the freedoms established by the First Amendment. Our 25,000 members in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico are employed in every area of traditional and digital media, as reporters, photographers, editors, designers, advertising sales representatives, circulation workers, business staff and more. We also represent independent translators, interpreters, non-profit organizations’ staff and smaller but growing groups of other employees, including a new unit of ESL (English as a second language) teachers in New York City. As the result of a 1997 merger with the Communications Workers of America, our collective voice is strengthened by 650,000 fellow members and tens of thousands of active retirees. Nationwide, our journalists and other members are frequent guests in classrooms, from elementary schools through college. Several of our locals have also begun teaching community courses in partnership with their newspapers. A unique summer program led by our San Francisco-area local is training college journalists about the media and the value of unionism. We are eager for other opportunities, and invite educators to contact our national headquarters, or the NewsGuild local nearest to them. Contact information and links are online at NewsGuild.org.

Scripps Howard Foundation
Established in 1962, the Scripps Howard Foundation is the corporate philanthropy of The E.W. Scripps Company, a 134-year-old media company with newspapers and TV stations in more than 30 markets and an array of digital products and services, including social games. Mike Philipps () is president and CEO of the Scripps Howard Foundation. The Foundation’s largest expenditures support journalist excellence, diversity and a free press. Among Foundation programs of specific interest to AEJMC members: annual institutes that foster academic leadership skills and the teaching of entrepreneurship as it relates to journalism; twice-monthly “How I Got That Story” webinars offered free of charge to journalism educators, students and professionals; Semester in Washington; Visiting Professors and Professionals in Social Media exchange; multimedia internships for partner school students and a journalism study trip to Japan through a collegiate reporting competition. Ohio University’s Scripps College of Communication and E.W. Scripps School of Journalism and Hampton University’s Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Mass Communication receive general support from the Foundation as do named programs on more than a dozen campuses nationwide. The Foundation’s prestigious Scripps Howard Awards annually honor journalists and college educators with $175,000 in prizes. In addition, the Foundation supports communities in which Scripps does business and the philanthropy and volunteer work of Scripps employees and retirees. Two scholarship programs are offered to employees’ children. For more information about specific programs, contact Sue Porter, vice president/programs, at sue. or visit the Foundation’s website at www.scripps.com/foundation.

Southern Newspaper Publishers Association
Southern Newspaper Publishers Association is committed to the preservation of responsible journalism and the long-term economic strength of newspapers. SNPA provides newspaper executives with information, ideas and best practices to anticipate competitive challenges and grow in an evolving media market. Its innovative training programs focus on issues that are critical to the professional success of the thousands of employees who work for newspapers. In 2013, SNPA will launch an initiative to create a dynamic liaison with journalism schools and departments throughout the Southeast. Journalism educators may join the Association, and are welcome to attend SNPA programs.

SWECJMC
SWECJMC is a regional affiliate of AEJMC with member schools in an eight-state region including Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah. SWECJMC is the founder of the Southwestern Mass Communication Journal, now also available online at http://southwesternmcjournal.wordpress.com/about/. Each fall, SWECJMC hosts a symposium research conference where faculty members and students present referred papers and posters.

<<Council of Affiliates

Cultural and Critical Studies 2013 Abstracts

South Park and the Defense of the Status Quo • Larry Anderson, University of Memphis • Trey Parker and Matt Stone, co-producers of the popular adult cartoon series South Park, have reputations as iconoclastic critics of contemporary culture. This study conducted an examination of the use of literary devices in three episodes of the series to determine whether the duo employ their knowledge of metaphors, symbolism, and other literary techniques to support the status quo in economic issues.

Ghetto Princes, Pretty Boys and Handsome Slackers: Masculinity and Race and the Disney Princes • Guillermo Avila-Saavedra • This essay aims to explore the symbolic interconnections of race and gender through qualitative discourse analysis of the construction of masculinities in the three Disney films with non-White male protagonists. The analysis exposes the performance of gender roles in the context of race and class as established by the narrative. A discursive analysis of these popular movies reveals the mediated construction of multiple forms of masculinities as well as changing notions of masculinity and femininity.

Media-To-Come: Media Literacy, Autoimmunity, and Hope • Ralph Beliveau, University of Oklahoma • A new paradigm has emerged of fluid networks, where connections are temporary, structures are contextualized, relationships are incidental, and the visual, aural and textual integrate temporarily but seamlessly. Descriptions of fluidity have yet to be discussed in terms of their implied potential for realizing a new experience of citizenship. I argue that these notions can be made sensible through the notion of “Democracy-to-Come.” It must also address the notion of “autoimmunity,” where a social formation begins to act as if under attach and begins to destroy itself as a protective response. Resistance to media literacy pedagogy represents such a self-destructive response.

Zombie Messiah: Apocalypticism, Secularism, Semiotics, and Warm Bodies • Jonathan Birkel, Brigham Young University • Using a semiotic Marxist approach, this paper explores science, secularism, and postmodern rhetoric as they are presented through the apocalyptic film Warm Bodies. Results show that by using a Christian narrative structure, anti-Christian ideologies are conveyed which promote doubt in authoritative structures and hostility toward absolutism. Findings suggests that Christian audiences may be persuaded into believing that doubt toward religious structures is not only normal but appropriate.

“The Best I Can Be”: Framing Disability Through the Mascots of the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics. • Sim Butler, University of Alabama; Kimberly Bissell, University of Alabama • For the first time ever during the summer Olympic and Paralympic games, the mascots for each game were introduced together, as a pair. The Paralympic mascot, Mandeville, and the Olympic mascot, Wenlock, are strikingly similar in appearance and construction. However, their adventures, established through a website and online movies, highlight striking differences between the mascots and the athletes they represent. As mascots portray physical representations of the ideologies of sporting teams, leagues, and events, producing two mascots for two different sets of athletic competition creates a unique situation through which to compare normative constructions. Through the online mediated representations of Mandeville and Wenlock, the present study used rhetorical analysis to examine the textual and visual stories of the two mascots communicated specific messages to viewers about ability and disability. Within these films, those deemed as disabled are clearly otherized through injury, isolation, and displays of ability. As these films are cartoons for children, their effect has the potential to influence the constructions for a new generation. The lens through which viewers learned about able-bodiedness and disability through the Olympic mascots presents a stereotypical representation of the body at best, but through the animated stories told about the two mascots, dominate frames about disabled athletes being injured, isolated, or being incapable of managing specific tasks are constructed. These and other findings are discussed.

The 2012 “Women’s Olympics”: Striving toward equity in major news and sports magazine coverage • Sara Blankenship, University of North Texas; Tracy Everbach, University of North Texas • This qualitative study examines the coverage of women in Sports Illustrated, Time and Newsweek magazines during the 2012 Olympic Games. These “Women’s Olympics” also marked the 40th anniversary of Title IX. A textual analysis under a feminist framework shows an equitable portrayal of powerful women, defying previous trends that downplayed their agency. We theorize that the effects of Title IX may finally be taking root by exhibiting women’s sports as exciting, entertaining and victorious.

An Examination of the 1967 Michigan Chronicle Through a Politically Responsive Constructionist Lens • Liz Candello, Arizona State University • This article seeks to further the study of dialogue created by colorblindness and multiculturalism in advocacy journalism within the historical context of the civil rights movement, the African-American weekly newspaper the Michigan Chronicle, and its hiring of its only White reporter from 1965 to 1968. I argue that the Michigan Chronicle employed dialogue that was historically situated. I apply the Politically Responsive Constructionist theory to argue that “colorblindness” hinders, rather than advances dialogue about race in the United States.

The Degradation, Defiling, and Decay of Our Gender: Reading Bravo’s “The Real Housewives” Online • Nicole Cox, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College • As a franchise that has survived more than six years, 350 episodes, and seven series locations, Bravo’s The Real Housewives is a formidable force on cable TV. Centered on the lives of wealthy women, this research utilizes critical, feminist political economy to explore how fans negotiate the series’ gendered messages. Examining 71,000 online posts, this research demonstrates how females make sense of gendered messages and how they- through online interactivity- participate in their own commodification.

I am Spartacus: Whiteness’ Power to Liberate in Film and Television Productions • Richard Craig, George Mason University • Spartacus is one of the most recognized names and legends connected to slave revolts, the story of the Thracian slave who led a resistance against the Roman Republic for over two years, 73 B.C. – 70 B.C. The film and television industry have demonstrated an appeal for the story of this slave who revolts against the established order, and have reimagined the life of this rebellion in cinematic and televised retellings of this mythic individual. The narrative situated in the popular media depictions of Spartacus privileges whiteness as a great liberator, strategically and aggressively rebelling against the institution of slavery, in a historically based context. Yet, popular media has ignored the presence of similar narratives featuring Blacks who violently resisted the institution of slavery in the Antebellum south and West Indies, in a historically based context. This paper challenges the lack of popular film and television productions in popular culture recounting the deeds of historical rebellions led by “Others”. The absence of such narratives denies and devalues the historical lived experience of people of color. The popular cinematic and television depictions of Spartacus’ methodical violent uprising preserve the sense of purity connected to whiteness; not through the violence of the man and his followers, but rather embedded in Spartacus’ quest to see an end to the institution of slavery.

Orientalism for a New Millennium: Cable News and the Specter of the “Ground Zero Mosque” • Ruth DeFoster, University of Minnesota • This study uses discourse analysis to examine cable news coverage of the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque,” considering the arguments put forth by those supporting and opposing the center in the politically charged post-September 11 media environment. It found several trends in terms of sources present in cable coverage opposing the center, as well as a narrow set of talking points that underline the presence of an “Islamophobic” network of individuals/organizations present in American media discourse.

The face of multiculturalism in Korea: Media ritual as framing in news coverage of Jasmine Lee • Frank Durham • Racial purity remains a contentious issue in contemporary Korea. In this case study of news coverage of the first non-Korean appointed to national office there, Jasmine Lee, we have applied Turner’s social drama theory as a methodology for a critical framing analysis of coverage by the nation’s three largest English-language media outlets—the Korea Herald, the JoongAng Daily, and the Korea Times. Our ideological analysis focuses on the use of sources in this on-line context.

Breaking the circle: Citizens, journalism, and the statutory divide • Edgar Simpson, Central Michigan University; Aimee Edmondson, Ohio University • What is the definition of “journalist”? This study examined the United States statutes and administrative codes for all fifty states and the District of Columbia for definitions of our profession. Overall, this study found lawmakers and policy writers established specific duties, responsibilities, and exemptions for “journalists,” tending to rest the definitions and privileges on those employed by traditional news outlets. The authors, inspired by Barbie Zelizer’s definitions of journalism through values, routines, and practices, found five primary categories in which journalists were set apart from “citizens.” These are described as 1) official witness 2) promoter 3) town crier 4) chronicler/commentator, and 5) official representative of the people and of journalism. For instance, twenty states make specific provisions for journalists as “official witnesses” for arguably the most solemn acts of government, putting inmates to death and overseeing elections. While the definitions varied substantially, many tied the definition of journalist to employment by a legitimate or “bona fide” news outlet. The study discusses findings within the context of the ongoing debate over “citizen journalism” and offers suggestions toward definitions that incorporate the increasing role of the audience in producing journalism.

Parrhesia as social theory, digital parrhesia as media theory: Notes toward a holistic model for digital communication • Nicholas Gilewicz, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania • An attempt to reformulate discussions of digital communication, this article interpolates Foucault’s articulation of parrhesia into the digital realm while grounding it in wider literature about communication and social theory. Parrhesia implies that those who have the ability to speak freely have concomitant duties to truth and honest self-representation. This article works uses a method that operationalizes parrhesia to understand the work and 2012 death of “citizen journalist” Rami al-Sayed in the Syrian civil war.

Pseudo-Events as a Mesocyclone: Rethinking Pseudo-Events in the Digital Age • Timothy R. Gleason, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh • Daniel J. Boorstin’s concept of pseudo-events has been around almost as long as Queen Elizabeth’s reign as monarch. 2012 was the year of the Diamond Jubilee, a 60th year anniversary, which can be viewed as a giant pseudo-event made from smaller pseudo-events. Compliant media were ready and willing to present images reinforcing the power, authority, and naturalness of the monarchy. This study frames the Diamond Jubilee by reconceptualizing pseudo-events using the analogy of a Mesocyclone.

Escape, Tradition and Gender Discourse: The Neighborhood Gate • Noura Hajjaj, Marist College • The focus of this research is to examine the format, values, and cultural impact of “The Neighborhood Gate” across the Arab region. This iconic Syrian soap opera is enjoying extraordinarily successful runs and reaching very broad Arab audiences. Reflecting on the plot premises, the cultural themes, the representation of characters, and the expected masculine and feminine communication patterns, highlights the revolving messages and the portrayal of Arab women at a time of rising feminist self-determination.

Community Journalism as Community Development: Implications for the Journalistic Field • Gary Hansen, University of Kentucky; Elizabeth Hansen, Eastern Kentucky University Dept. of Communication • Drawing upon community theory, a case is made for viewing community journalism as community development based upon its contributions to both the creation of community solidarity and the development of community agency. Key concepts or “thinking tools” of Bourdieu’s field theory are then outlined, applied to journalism, and used to illuminate both the current position of community journalism within the journalistic field and the implications for the field of viewing community journalism as community development.

The Journalist In-Group: American Journalism Culture’s Promotion of Othering • Jennifer Hoewe, The Pennsylvania State University • This paper argues that the conceptualization of American journalism culture should consider journalists’ strongest source of group membership. Journalists have adopted Said’s definition of Othering by conceiving of themselves as familiar and others as strange. By social identity theory’s standards, they have positioned themselves as the in-group and others as the out-group. Thus, this paper argues that journalists have created the journalist in-group, which is upheld by the standards of many professional news organizations.

Deregulation v. Un-Regulation: A qualitative framing analysis of press releases published by interest groups in the debate over net neutrality • Brett Johnson, University of Minnesota • Net neutrality pits the interests of ISPs and Internet application creators against each other. As described by politics of technology theory (Berg 1998; Gillespie 2007), press releases help craft and sell the political ideals of a neutral or non-neutral Internet. This project will conduct an inductive, qualitative framing analysis (Gamson & Modigliani 1989) of press releases published by interest groups in the debate over net neutrality between 2006 and 2012.

Culture as Constitutive: An exploration of audience and journalist perceptions of journalism in Samoa • Linda Jean Kenix • Much research implicitly suggests that journalism values arise from culturally removed organizational structures or shared occupational training and few studies examine the perspective of journalism from both audiences and journalists. These omissions are important given the essentiality of mutually constructed and culturally embedded normative behaviours within journalism. This research examines audiences and journalists in Samoa, a country purposefully selected as a recently independent, post-colonial, country that relies upon a very traditional, shared national identity for it’s relatively nascent identificatory cohesion. This study aims to gain a better understanding of how local culture can set parameters and expectations for journalism; how journalists negotiate culture into their own professional ideology; and how audiences understand journalism within a cultural context.

Girls’ Generation: Neoliberal Social Policy, Governmentality and Girl Industry in the Age of KOR-US FTA • Gooyong Kim, Temple University; Dong-hyun Byun, Graduate School of Media Communication, Sogang University • This paper argues how the Korean government has been an integral part of Koran popular music’s (K-pop) recent global popularity as a part of state intervention in maintaining national competitiveness in a post-IMF neoliberal society. To be more specific, I will examine how the growing popularity and numbers of idol girl bands are possible in conservative Confucian Korean society, claiming that they are the apex of neoliberal commodity that creates vast surplus value to Korea’s talent management companies and provides the contemporary myth of market competition in the age of Free Trade Agreement between Korea and the United States (KORUS FTA). Foucault’s (2008) notion of biopower and neoliberal governmentality is deployed to understand Korean government’s support of K-pop industry as neoliberal social policy, which is not for social safety-net but for economic growth. I will conclude that contemporary female K-pop idol bands are the latest export item to earn foreign currency and to perpetuate the dominant market ideology of neoliberalism.

Navigating good citizenship in a networked world: The case of Kony2012 • Neta Kligler-Vilenchik, University of Southern California; Kjerstin Thorson, University of Southern California • This paper uses the case of Kony2012 to explore competing citizenship discourses. We propose that the controversy around Kony2012, expressed through online discussions and humorous images, illuminates a moment in which citizenship norms are in flux. Using media artifacts, we explore the tension between proposals that new media enable new kinds of civic action, and critiques of “slacktivism”, grounded in a vision of the informed citizen as the only acceptable model of good citizenship.

News Attention Climax: Does News Framing Create Better Capitalists? • Derek Last • This paper explores the theoretical phenomenon of “News Attention Climax”, and focuses upon the moment when news is first transferred from news producer to news consumer. A news attention climax system champions forms of delivery that are efficient, and that emphasize speed of reception. This is reflective of a neo-Taylorist movement that has guided, and continues to guide news delivery and reception, and which has only been augmented with social media and search engine optimization.

Net is Neutral, But the Media Is not Neutral: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Print News Coverage of Network Neutrality • Ju Young Lee, Pennsylvania State University • Based on Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model, this study intended to examine whether the media tended to serve governmental purposes to sustain their dominant status or viability in the media market. The print news coverage of the network neutrality policy during the period 2005-2011 was analyzed in terms of framing strategies, structures, and rhetorical devices. The major newspapers have supported the positions of both governments by differently framing the network neutrality issue using diverse rhetorical devices.

Social Conflict and Mistrust: Understanding the Ambivalent Relationship between Journalists and Underprivileged Groups in China • Zhaoxi Liu, Trinity University; Judy Polumbaum • A field research reveals that journalists in a Southwestern China metropolis share the view that helping members of the lower social strata or those in need is a prominent component of the meaning of their work as journalists. At the same time, journalists do not completely trust those they are willing to help. Such ambivalent feeling is deeply rooted in China’s social environment, particularly the widespread social conflict and mistrust. From a cultural studies perspective, this study intends to arrive at an understanding of the mixed feeling journalists have toward a particular social group through a contextualized analysis of journalists’ work. In so doing, this study demonstrates that journalistic practice is in indeed deeply connected with its social context.

Media Errors and the “Nutty Professor”: Riding the Journalistic Boundaries of the Sandy Hook Shootings • Dan Berkowitz, U of Iowa; Zhengjia Liu, The University of Iowa • This study explores dual threats to journalism’s authority and professional paradigm during coverage of the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. One threat concerned widespread errors in early reporting. A second threat came shortly after, when a communication professor blogged that the news media had been complicit in a government conspiracy to further the gun control agenda. This study also addresses how social media became part of journalism’s boundary work.

“The King Is Dead, Long Live The King!” • Rashad Mammadov • Relationships between the Soviet Union and the United States in Cold War have been analyzed from different angles, but primary focus is usually on political events with lack of attention to the role of media as a mirror of politics. Although declared cooperation with the West was the key characteristic of Khrushchev’s Thaw, by examining the cartoons of Krokodil magazine I find evidence that Khrushchev’s position about the US was even more radical than Stalin’s.

Warriors and Witches: Cinematic Constructions of Navajos in “Windtalkers” and “Skinwalkers” • Megan McSwain, Middle Tennessee State University • Analyzing Native Americans in a narrower approach, this study focuses on one tribe. This paper deconstructs the discourses used to define Navajos in the 2002 films Windtalkers and Skinwalkers. Both films are found to portray images of Navajos as the Other, Navajos as devices, Navajo religion as superstition, Romanticized Navajos, and Corrupted Navajos. While the films attempt to depict the Navajo as a distinct tribe, Native American stereotypes are still prevalent in the twenty-first century.

Political Performance, Boundary Spaces, and Active Spectatorship: Symbolic Organization During the 2012 Democratic National Convention • Daniel Kreiss, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Laura Meadows, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This paper presents an ethnographic study of the 2012 Democratic National Convention. We combine literatures on journalistic and political fields with scholarship on performance theory to provide a framework for understanding conventions as contemporary media events. We detail the layered production of performance in the journalistic and political fields, arguing that performances were directed internally and across fields for strategic advantage, and for co-present spectators and the public at-large. Conventions provide boundary spaces for actors from different fields to coordinate work and mediated, integrative spaces for the polity. We conclude by arguing that media events provide occasions for networked practices of ‘active spectatorship’ that serve as paths to political authority and ultimately consent for citizens, if not necessarily political power.

Connected and Disconnected: Catchphrases on the Chinese Internet From 2003 to 2012 • Guo Mengjun, Tsinghua University • The article examines the trends of catchphrases on the Chinese internet from 2003 to 2012 as a popular form of cultural and political expression and their social, culture and political implications. The development of internet-mediated discourse has strong bearing on the environment that gives birth to it, and it reflects the transformation of social, political, cultural and technical reality. I analyze ongoing social changes in Chinese society through the lens of evolving online catchphrases.

‘Weinergate’ online and on paper: A media insurgent and a mainstream newspaper cover the Weiner story. • Natalia Mielczarek, University of Iowa • This study relied on textual analysis to analyze how a media insurgent, the conservative blog Big Government, inserted itself temporarily into the vertical, top-down traditional media landscape by breaking the story of Congressman Anthony Weiner’s sexting. The blog, however, promptly gave up its story to mainstream media, engaging in ‘horizontal cross-dressing’ and self-incorporation. The project analyzed this dynamic through a framing analysis of the Weiner story in Big Government and the Washington Post.

Hegemony in the White House: An examination of gender portrayals on The West Wing • Ben Miller, Univeristy of Minesota; Tanner Cooke • This study examined the role of women in the hit television program The West Wing. Using a qualitative content analysis methodology, this study dissects the power dynamic of women within the already powerful context of the White House. While in recent years the role and position of women on television has elevated, this study argues that it is not the role that necessarily matters, but the interaction with male counterparts and the resulting relative power. The findings of this study uncover hidden power dynamics within the text of a popular program. Ultimately this leads to a discussion of cultural hegemony and the way in which representation can reinforce rather than eliminate hegemonic messages through television programs.

Man Therapy: Framing Mental Health as Masculine • Richard Mocarski, The University of Alabama; Sim Butler, University of Alabama • To address high numbers of suicides by men in America, the mental health promotion campaign Man Therapy attempts to de-stigmatize mental health as staunchly opposed to masculinity through overtly humorous constructions of “therapy the way a man would do it” (Cactus, 2012). Through a critical analysis of the campaign, including the interactive website, modeled as the fictitious office of Dr. Rich Mahogany, this project addresses the influences of humor within the confines of hegemonic masculinity, mental health, and suicide.

Gateway to the Global City: Digital Media and Mobile Place-making • Erika Polson, University of Denver • Drawing from ethnographic research of expatriates in Paris who use meetup.com and similar websites to organize face-to-face events, this paper engages theories of place and placemaking to argue that digital media are engaged in new forms of ‘digital emplacement’ which are particularly suited for proliferating mobile lifestyles and careers.

Seeing the Other: Sexuality and Gender in the Globalized World • Elizaveta Provorova, Temple University • Transnational sexuality studies, transnational feminism and global queer studies emphasize the importance of seeing sexuality and gender as global phenomena that are constantly shaping and being shaped by interrelationships between nations, cultures and groups of people. In this paper I discuss challenges associated with exploring non-mainstream gender practices and sexuality identities of the Other. As scholars belonging to a certain culture and academic tradition we should always be aware of our positionality and biases.

Exploring the Alternative-Mainstream Dialectic: What ‘Alternative Media’ Means to a Hybrid Audience • Jennifer Rauch, Long Island University-Brooklyn • This study enriches scholarship on “alternative media” by exploring what the category means to audiences. A survey (n=224) revealed a distinct system of alternative-media values and practices supported by users. They valued alternative content (neglected issues, diverse voices, mobilizing information) above forms (being nonprofit, advertising-free, small-scale). Despite criticizing corporate-commercial media, this hybrid audience used many such outlets and considered some “alternative.” I discuss why the alternative-mainstream dialectic remains useful in a converged culture.

Performing Community: Public Television and Library Policy • Camille Reyes, Rutgers University • In 1967, the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television published a report with recommendations that became the foundation for American Public Television policy. The report strongly urged Congress to fund a quality alternative to the commercial broadcasting system, recognizing a need for programming unfettered by the imperative of mass audiences for advertisers. The language of diversity and public service runs throughout the document, yet such rhetoric falls short within the deeper structural recommendations for the nascent network. This paper analyzes the contradictions related to community service in the original report, and argues that policymakers must strengthen the definition of diversity within the system before any argument to increase federal funding will be successful. The paper also offers transferable policy guidance from the field of library and information science. Public libraries have long faced similar challenges to those of PBS in serving the information needs of diverse communities. Literature pertaining to collection development and needs assessment in public libraries provides useful suggestions for media reformers striving to reshape a system that for all its faults has the great potential to fulfill its original and vital public interest mission.

Residents’ Journal: Chicago’s public housing residents take on the news • Loren Saxton; Elli Roushanzamir, University of Georgia • This paper explores how racial, class, and spatial pressures condition the exercise of contingent agency via Residents’ Journal, an online journal that publishes articles pertinent to Chicago’s public and government-assisted housing communities. The critical textual analysis examines how community media provide and limit alternative spaces of social (re)positioning and reclamation of social power. Ultimately, the paper calls for the continued critical analyses of community media as forms of resilience, opposition and platforms for social change.

Framing of Osama bin Laden’s Death: A Global Perspective • Whitney Sessa, University of Miami, School of Communication; Michael North, University of Miami; Katie Lang, University of Miami, School of Communication • Media framing of Osama bin Laden’s death was examined in four international, 24-hour news networks: CNN.com, BBC World News, Al Jazeera English and Al Arabiya English. This study found no association between news network and frames used, suggesting that neither geographical location nor ethnocentrism influenced media frames. In contrast to previous media analyses conducted of bin Laden, this study found the dominant frames of bin Laden to be “neutral figure” or “terrorist leader.”

The “Madness” of Capitalism’s Reckless Warrior/Priest: Jim Cramer as Oracle of the Post-Meltdown Neoliberal Capitalism • John Sewell, The University of West Georgia • This essay is a discursive analysis of “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer’s postings on TheStreet.com in 2010 to understand transnational business masculinity in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown in terms of myth, fantasy theme, and prophetic stance. For his affluent and primarily white, male subscribers, Cramer functioned as channeler and oracle, providing rhetorical vision and offering “secret knowledge” that spurred risky trading behaviors based on narrative and emotion rather than rationality.

The Poetics of Goodbye: Plot, Change and Nostalgia in Narratives Penned by ex-Baltimore Sun Employees • Stacy Spaulding, Towson University • Using plot and thematic analysis rooted in narrative and organizational studies, this study examines the narratives produced by a group of workers laid off by The Baltimore Sun in April, 2009. This study describes the poetics of “goodbye narratives,” the narratives written by ex-employees regarding their organizational experience. This paper demonstrates that these narratives constitute a unique genre with identifiable poetics. Through narrative devices such as plot, these writers make story choices that reflect differing ideological outlooks on the meanings of The Sun’s 2009 layoffs. This analysis also explores collective memory of organizational changes. These narratives speak dramatically to the impact of organizational decline and the influence of staffing levels, changes in ownership and decline in product quality on employee morale. This paper further theorizes that the presence of nostalgia can be seen as a narrative marker of durational discourse which collects, conserves and curates both individual and collective sense making.

The Blue Approach and Propaganda: Law Enforcement, Indy Media, and the 2008 RNC Protests • Robert Frenzel, Old Dominion University; Burton St. John, Old Dominion University • Law enforcement at the 2008 Republican National Convention (RNC) in St. Paul, MN used a variety of coercive measures to keep independent media under control. This work examines such efforts as evidence of propaganda of the deed – non-symbolic actions that also served to send subtle messages that power centers associated with the RNC would not tolerate disruptions. This work also points to implications for today’s journalism and the challenge to its ability to cover protest.

So says the stars: A textual analysis of Glamour, Essence and Teen Vogue horoscopes • Edson Tandoc, University of Missouri-Columbia; Patrick Ferrucci, U of Missouri • This study examines horoscopes published in three women’s magazines: Essence, Glamour, and Teen Vogue, a magazine for teenage girls. Leaving out race and age, the demographics of all three magazines are very similar. In this textual analysis of more than 400 individual horoscope entries, three dominant themes emerged: love, money and work. Stereotypes associated with race and age—more than zodiac signs—shape the fate of those who read and believe in what horoscopes predict.

Crime of Impossibility? A Critical Examination of Western Obscenity Laws and the Criminalizing of Fantasy • Jason Zenor, SUNY Oswego • Few issues receive the same condemnation as sexual abuse of children. But, unfortunately, harm to minors has become the primary justification for speech censorship throughout the world. In fact, people have been incarcerated for possessing cartoon pictures of fictitious minors engaged in sexual conduct- with little media scrutiny or public outcries of injustice. This attack on the freedom of thought has undoubtedly put the fandom of erotic anime on alert- is their genre protected expression or child pornography? This article examines international attempts to pass new obscenity and child pornography laws and recent efforts to censor erotic anime. First, this paper will examine the development of sexually explicit Japanese animation and the sociological and historical roots of the genre, illustrating the social value that it has for its fandom. Then it outlines the laws for obscenity and child pornography in countries with a large anime fan base. Finally, the article analyzes the western socio-legal ideology that has led to censorship and why they are misguided and antithetical to the free speech values of democratic nations.

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Minorities and Communication 2012 Abstracts

Faculty

The DC Snipers and Shifting Signifiers of Otherness: Newspaper Coverage of John Allan Muhammad and John Lee Malvo • Angie Chuang, American University School of Communication; Robin Chin Roemer • Studies of news coverage of Other identity in the form of blacks, Muslims, and immigrants have found that such signifiers are often overemphasized and represented as motive of crime or terrorism. A mixed method data analysis of newspaper coverage of the DC Snipers, arrested for a 2002 shooting spree that killed ten people, shows that the suspects’ layered identities and unusual crime challenged historic representational patterns.

Newspaper Coverage of the 25th Anniversary of the King Holiday • Carla Kimbrough, University of Nebraska-Lincoln • Anniversaries hold special meaning; they give us a time to reflect, to celebrate, to mourn, to remember. Holidays often offer the public a chance to do all of that. This paper analyzes qualitatively how newspapers covered the 25th anniversary of the national holiday named in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. King has become one of the country’s most celebrated citizens and the only one to be honored with a national holiday who was not a U.S. president (Haines).

Opposite but Equal: Examining the Protest Paradigm through the Hegemonic Lens • Josh Grimm, Texas Tech University • This study explores how Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., were in the New York Times and Washington Post. Drawing on concepts of hegemony and racism, a textual analysis was conducted to examine coverage of each man. Through this framing, Malcolm X was labeled as a deviant while Martin Luther King, Jr., was embraced as a righteous leader. These characterizations reinforced hegemonic power structures while challenging the established “protest paradigm.”

Natives in the News: How the Rapid City Journal Covered Native Americans on Page 1A • Savannah Tranchell; Mary Arnold, South Dakota State University • A content analysis of the 2010 Rapid City Journal’s front page, the paper examines how often the Journal runs stories about Native American and tribal issues and which topics are covered. The findings offer a snapshot of the Journal’s reporting on Native issues and highlights patterns in coverage. The study concludes that, in the name of quality journalism, media outlets like the Journal must maximize coverage of the community rather than doing what is easy and readily accessible.

Hispanics’ uses and gratifications in the three-screen media environment • Kenton Wilkinson, Texas Tech University; Anthony Galvez, Rhode Island College; Todd Chambers, Texas Tech University • This paper applies uses and gratifications theory to assess how Hispanics residing in and around a midsized southwestern U.S. city utilize “three screens:” television, Internet and mobile phones. Focus groups and a survey (n=204) were used to compare younger and older users and those with differing levels of acculturation. The results indicate that mobile phones are a crucial contemporary technology, and that academic researchers should be paying close attention to promotion and use of the three screens.

Illegal or Undocumented? Alien or Immigrant? An Examination of Terms used by the News Media, 2000-2010 • Thomas J. Hrach, University of Memphis • This study examined the terms news organizations used to describe people living in the United States illegally for the period from 2000 to 2010 and whether the Hispanic or Latino population of a region was a determining factor. It utilized a database that searched 3,863 titles from news organizations during the 11-year period for nine regions of the country and a statistical analysis. It found that “illegal immigrant” was the dominant term, and its use increased despite pressure from immigrant advocates to discontinue its use.

On-Air Diversity: Comparing Television Network Affiliates’ Ethnic Representation • Amy Jo Coffey • A national sample of the on-air talent (N=1513 reporters, N=2094 anchors) at television network affiliates (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX) was content analyzed to compare the ethnic diversity of their on-air personnel. Grounded in representation and strategic competition theory, results indicated that the network affiliates had highly similar representation levels between them, however Hispanics were the most underrepresented group overall. Representation levels were also found to be highly similar to national population levels, offering some encouraging news for diverse hiring.

“Where Do I Belong, from Laguna Beach to Jersey Shore?”: Portrayal of Minority Youths on MTV Reality Shows • Sung-Yeon Park, School of Media & Communication, Bowling Green State University; Korea University, Seoul, ROK (Visiting professor); Mark Flynn, Bowling Green State University; Alexandru Stana; David Morin, Bowling Green State University; Gi Woong Yun • MTV Reality shows popular among young audiences were analyzed. All minority groups, except mixed-race women and gay men, were underrepresented. No ethnic/racial difference was found in plot centrality, popularity, and being hated. In romantic involvement, however, intergroup differences emerged: mixed-race women were more likely to be in a committed relationship, in an interracial relationship, and a target of romantic desire whereas Latinos and Blacks were less likely to be represented in all three aspects of the romantic involvement.

Does Language Matter? The Effects of News in Spanish vs. English on Voting by U.S. Latinos • Barry Hollander, University of Georgia • As the Latino population in the U.S. continues to grow, along with this population’s political impact, it is important to understand how the news media are used in terms of integration into the nation’s social and political culture. This study uses national survey data to examine the role the language of the news – in Spanish or English – may play in political participation.

Latino Online Newspapers vs. Mainstream Online Newspapers: A Comparative Analysis of News Coverage of the 2010 Health Care Reform • Masudul Biswas, Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania • This study analyzes the news coverage of the 2010 Health Care Reform in a comparative context between Latino online newspapers and mainstream online newspapers by using the theoretical framework of media framing.

Choctaw and Cherokee Nations: How Freedom of Expression Isn’t “Just a White Man’s Idea” • Kevin Kemper, University of Arizona School of Journalism • Freedom of expression isn’t “just a white man’s idea.” This theoretical essay engages with laws by and affecting the Choctaw and Cherokee Nations in Oklahoma to see whether individual liberties like free expression and its subsets of free press and speech can be reconciled with the sovereignty of those tribes. Karl Popper, in The Open Society and Its Enemies, argues that those who put the needs of society over the rights of the individual are promoting totalitarianism.

Writing the Wrong: Can Counter-Stereotypes Offset Negative Media Messages about African-Americans • Lanier Holt, Indiana University • A plethora of studies show media messages activate or exacerbate racial stereotypes. This analysis, however, may be the first to examine which types of information – those that directly contradict media messages (i.e., crime-related) or general news (i.e., non-crime-related) are most effective in abating racial stereotypes. This study’s findings suggest fear of crime is becoming more a human, fear, not just a racial one. Recommendations for media are also briefly discussed.

Student Papers

“What if Michael Vick Were White?”: Analyzing Framing, Narrative, and Race In Media Coverage of Michael Vick • Bryan Carr, University of Oklahoma • Literature shows that athletics and the media that cover them have long been intertwined with issues pertaining to race and ethnicity. This relationship was particularly prevalent in media coverage of the Michael Vick dogfighting case, with many authors questioning whether Vick would have received different treatment if he had not been African-American.

User-Generated Racism: An Analysis of Stereotypes of African Americans, Latinos, and Asians in YouTube Videos • Lei Guo, University of Texas at Austin; Summer Harlow, University of Texas at Austin • This study examines representations of African Americans, Latinos and Asians in YouTube videos, exploring whether YouTube serves as a type of alternative media where the status quo is contested. Results show most videos analyzed perpetuated racial stereotypes. Further, videos that included stereotypes, most of which contained user-produced content, were more popular. We argue citizens use YouTube to perpetuate the same stereotypes found in mainstream media, rather than use it as an alternative counter-public sphere.

Ghost in the House: Remembering Champion Jack Johnson • Carrie Isard, Temple University • Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion of the world, lived a life full of public triumph and private tribulations, and in the time since his death, his memory has emerged as a complex and contradictory story.  Using a collective memory theoretical framework, this paper conducts a narrative analysis of four Jack Johnson memory texts: Hollywood film The Great White Hope (1970); Big Fights, Inc. documentary Jack Johnson (1970); Ken Burns’ documentary Unforgivable Blackness (2005) and Trevor Von Eeden’s The Original Johnson two-part graphic novel (2009, 2011) to examine how Johnson has been remembered in shifting historical, political and social contexts.

Perception and Use of Ethnic Online Communities as a Health Information Source among Recent Immigrants in the United States • Junga Kim, University of Florida • This study investigated the role of ethnic online communities as a health information source for Korean Americans, applying the uses and dependency model as a theoretical framework. A survey was conducted to examine use and evaluation of online communities and physicians as diabetes-related information source among Korean Americans with different levels of acculturation.

Celebrated Images of Blackness: A Content Analysis of Oscar Award Winning Films of the 20th Century • Roslyn Satchel, Louisiana State University Manship School of Mass Communication • Religious liberty is essential to democracy.  Democracy, and civility between religious groups, however, are in jeopardy due to the ways in which media conglomerates use religion—Christianity, in particular—as a political force for creating xenophobia against cultural minorities.  This paper examines 10 films with the highest viewership of all time for framing bias and system justification in use of “the native” stereotype as described by Stuart Hall (1981).

Stereotypes in Blockbusters: An examination of Asian Characters in Top Box Office American Films (2000-2009) • Jia-Wei Tu, Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong; Xing Liu • This study is an up-to-date investigation on how Asians are portrayed in American films. Top 10 American gross income films of each year from 2000 to 2009 were analyzed. Asian characters in the 100 films were examined from four dimensions: images, romantic relationships, costumes and accents. The findings have demonstrated that Asians are not completely annihilated but symbolic trivialized; the Asian stereotypes still exist in the top box office films.

Fine and Punishment:  James Harrison, NFL fines and USA Today’s construction of black masculinity • Molly Yanity, Ohio University • Research points to a structural problem of overt and inferential racism that is prevalent in American society and finds its way en masse to the sports pages. While violence in sports draws larger audiences to arenas and stadiums, the “Bad Black Man” seems to be the scapegoat when that institutionally-promoted violence results serious health risks. During the 2010 National Football League season, Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison was represented as the “Bad Black Men.”

Framing Immigration: An Analysis of Newswire and Regional Newspaper Coverage of Immigration in the U.S. • Rodrigo Zamith, University of Minnesota • This study seeks to analyze and compare the coverage of the issue of immigration in the United States by newswire services and regional newspapers in cities near the southern border. Drawing from framing theory, the author adopts a mixed-method approach consisting of an interpretive analysis and a computer-aided analysis. The findings reveal important similarities and differences in the framing of the issue and in the depiction of immigrants, with serious social and political implications.

<< 2012 Abstracts

Journalism Quarterly Index-Newswriting and Reporting

Volumes 61 to 70
1984 to 1993
Subject Index: Newswriting and Reporting

Between Quotation Marks (Adrienne Lehrer), 66:902-06.

Communication and Community Integration: An Analysis of the Communication Behavior of Newcomers (Keith R. Stamm and Avery M. Guest), 68:644-56.

A Comparison of Trial Lawyer and News Reporter Attitudes about Courthouse Communication (Jeremy Harris Lipschultz), 68:750-63.

Competition, Ownership, Newsroom and Library Resources in Large Newspapers (John C. Busterna, Kathleen A. Hansen and Jean Ward), 68:729-39.

Contracts and Confidential Sources: The Implications of Cohen v. Cowles Media (Paula S. Horvath-Neimeyer), 67:1078-1082.

Deviant Acts, Risky Business and U.S. Interests: The Newsworthiness of World Events (Pamela J. Shoemaker, Lucig H. Danielian and Nancy Brendlinger), 68:781-95.

Dimensions of Writing Apprehension Among Mass Communication Students (Daniel Riffe and Don W. Stacks), 65:384-91.

An Editorial Comment (Donald L. Shaw), 68:1.

Effects of Cuing Familiar and Unfamiliar Acronyms in Newspaper Stories, An Experiment (Jack Nolan), 68:188-94.

Effects of the Electronic Library on News Reporting Protocols (Jean A. Ward, Kathleen A. Hansen and Douglas M. McLeod), 65:845-52.

Effects of Newspaper Competition on Public Opinion Diversity (Dominic L. Lasorsa), 68:38-47.

Factors Influencing Development News Production at Three Indian Dailies (Hemant Shah), 67:1034-1041.

Fairness and Balance in the Prestige Press (Stephen Lacy, Frederick Fico and Todd F. Simon), 68:363-70.

Finding Work and Getting Paid: Predictors of Success in the Mass Communications Market (Lee B. Becker, Gerald M. Kosicki, Thomas Engleman, and K. Viswanath), 70:919-33.

Hispanic Americans in the News in Two Southwestern Cities (Judy VanSlyke Turk, Jim Richstad, Robert L. Bryson, Jr., and Sammye M. Johnson), 66:107-113.

How Bureacratic Writing Style Affects Source Credibility (Duangkamol Chartprasert), 70:150-59.

How Journalists at Two Newspapers View Good Writing and Writing Coaches (David C. Coulson and Cecilie Gaziano), 66:435-40.

How Journalists Describe Their Stories: Hypotheses and Assumptions in Newsmaking (S. Holly Stocking and Nancy LaMarca), 67:295-301.

The Impact of Quotation in News Reports on Issue Perception (Rhonda Gibson and Dolf Zillmann), 70:793-800.

The Impact of Training on User Evaluations of Videotext (Lee B. Becker and Bernadette M. Hemels), 69:1001-09.

The Importance of Mechanics in Journalistic Writing: A Study of Reporters and Editors (Steven A. Ward and Rick Seifert), 67:104-113.

Inclusion of “Useful” Detail in Newspaper Coverage of a High-Level Nuclear Waste Siting Controversy (Marshel D. Rossow and Sharon Dunwoody), 68:87-100.

Information Richness and Newspaper Pulitzer Prizes (Kathleen A. Hansen), 67:930-35.

Journalist and Librarian Roles, Information Technologies and Newsmaking (Jean Ward and Kathleen A. Hansen), 68:491-98.

Journalists and Novelists: A Study of Diverging Styles (Wayne A. Danielson, Dominic L. Lasorsa and Dae S. Im), 69:436-46.

Live Television Interviews at the 1988 Democratic Convention (David L. Womack), 66:670-74.

Media Coverage of Disasters: Effect of Geographic Location (Eleanor Singer, Phyllis Endreny and Marc B. Glassman), 68:48-58.

Motives for Ethical Decision-Making (Michael W. Singletary, Susan Caudill, Edward Caudill and Allen White), 67:964-72.

Murder and Myth: New York Times Coverage of the TWA 847 HijackingVictim (Jack Lule), 70:26-39.

The New England Journal of Medicine as News Sources (Edward Caudill and Paul Ashdown), 66:458-63.

News Context and the Elimination of Mobilizing Information: An Experiment (James B. Lemert), 61:243-49, 259.

News Coverage, Endorsements and Personal Campaigning: The Influence of Non-Paid Activities in Congressional Elections (Ruth Ann Weaver-Lariscy and Spencer F. Tinkham), 68:432-44.

News Sources and News Context: The Effect of Routine News, Conflict and Proximity (Dan Berkowitz and Douglas W. Beach), 70:4-12.

News Sources, Power Elites, and Journalistic Values in Newspaper Coverage of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (Conrad Smith), 70:393-403.

News Strategies and the Death of Huey Newton (Jack Lule), 70:287-99.

On the Wire: How Six News Services are Exceeding Readability Standards (Kevin Catalano), 67:97-103.

Political Diversity Is Alive Among Publishers and Opinion Page Editors (Suraj Kapoor and Jong G. Kang), 70:404-411.

Predictors of Job Burnout in Reporters and Copy Editors (Betsy B. Cook and Steven R. Banks), 70:108-17.

Press Identification of Victims of Sexual Assault: Weighing Privacy and Constitutional Concerns (Morgan David Arant Jr.), 68:238-52.

Proximity of Event as Factor in Selection on News Sources (Shannon Rossi Martin), 65:986-89.

Public Opinion on Investigative Reporting in the 1980s (David Weaver and LeAnne Daniels), 69:146-55.

Recent Trends in Adversarial Attitudes among American Newspaper Journalists: A Cohort Analysis (Jian-Hua Zhu), 67:992-1004.

Scientists’ Reasons for Consenting to Mass Media Interviews: A National Survey (Suzan M. DiBella, Anthony J. Ferri and Allan B. Padderud), 68:740-49.

Shotgun Marriage: A Study of Tennessee Law Enforcement, Reporters and Sources (Elinor Kelly Grusin), 67:514-20.

Source Diversity and Newspaper Enterprise Journalism (Kathleen A. Hansen), 68:474-82.

Sources and Channels of Local News (John Soloski), 66:864-70.

Sourcing Patterns of National Security Reporters (Daniel C. Hallin, Robert Karl Manoff, and Judy K. Weddle), 70:753-66.

Sportswriters Talk About Themselves: An Attitude Study (J. Sean McCleneghan), 67:114-18.

A Survey of VU/TEXT Use in the Newsroom (Cynthia De Riemer), 69:960-70.

Symbiosis of Press and Protest: An Exchange Analysis (Gadi Wolfsfeld), 61:550-55, 742.

Using Expert Sources in Breaking Science Stories: A Comparison of Magazine Types (Shannon E. Martin), 68:179-87.

Value Coding and Consensus In Front Page News Leads (Dennis M. Corrigan), 67:653-62.

Who Will Talk to Reporters? Biases in Survey Reinterviews (Marc Baldassare and Cheryl Katz), 66:907-12.

Winning Newspaper Pulitzer Prizes: The (Possible) Advantage of Being a Competitive Paper (H. Allen White and Julie L Andsager), 67:912-19.

<< JQ 61-70 Subject Index

Visual Communication 1998 Abstracts

Visual Communication Division

The Limits of Copyright Protection for the Use of Visual Works in Motion Pictures, Print Media and Pop Art in the 1990s • Andy Bechtel and Arati Korwar, Louisiana State University • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

Creating Visual Metaphors of the Internet • Walter M. Bortz, William R. Davie and Jung-Sook Lee, Southwestern Louisiana • This study examined visual metaphors of the Internet created by college students. The authors applied an Interaction theory to their data from a series of in-depth interviews and classified visual metaphors into metaphoric types. They identified 23 types of visual metaphors, including challenge, navigation, food, privacy, flowing, knowledge and information, and powerful force. They also discussed implications of metaphoric research for communication theory and practice by focusing on the nature of projective or similarity-creating metaphors.

Perceptions of Graphics Versus No Graphics on Web Sites • Rebecca J. Chamberlin, Ohio University • An experiment was conducted to better understanding how the design of a web site affects the viewers’ perceptions of it. High-graphic and low-graphic versions of web sites were compared by five groups of viewers. There was no difference in how difficult the viewers felt it was to find information on the sites. However, different demographic groups had different perceptions of attractiveness and different preference for content or graphics.

Design Characteristics of Public Journalism: Integrating Visual and Verbal Meaning • Renita Coleman, Missouri-Columbia • Public journalists argue that the content of stories generated through public journalism is different from that generated by traditional reporting methods. This prompts the question: If the content of stories generated through public journalism methods is different, and design is driven by content, doesn’t it follow that design for public journalism will be different than design for non-public journalism? Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, this study used the principles of design to explore how public journalism projects have been visually communicated in newspapers practicing the public journalism genre, and how it differs from the visual communication of non-public journalism.

Influencing Creativity in Newsrooms: A Survey of Newspaper, Magazine, and Web Designers • Renita Coleman and Jan Colbert, Missouri-Columbia • Editorial designers (newspaper, magazine and web) are an intrical part of the creative process in the newsroom, yet no research has been done in this area. This study provides insight into what influences the creative abilities of designers by analyzing their personality characteristics and thinking strategies as well as independent variables relevant to their working conditions. Understanding how to foster creativity in design will help newspapers and magazines stay competitive, and help web designers understand more about their nascent medium.

The Development of Standard and Alternative Forms of Photojournalism • Timothy Roy Gleason, Bowling Green State University • By the mid-1950s standard photojournalism practices were established which excluded alternative practices. The paper explores their development from the 1930s through the 1950s. Standards of journalistic objectivity and an emphasis on the denotative qualities of photography were propagated by editors and reporters. This style of photojournalism is presented in contrast to the work of Robert Frank. His photography was not accepted in journalism because of his subjective style.

Visual Design for the World Wide Web: What Does the User Want? • Deborah M. Gross, Florida • This paper examines interface design for the World Wide Web. The author designed a Website and conducted five focus groups to determine issues that were important to potential users. This study indicates that users will play a large role in the evolution of Web design standards. As more media options become available, users’ needs must be gratified. World Wide Web sites should be fast, fresh, exciting and interactive. Further implications for Web design are discussed.

Afterthoughts on the Representational Strategies of the FSA Documentary • Edgar Shaohua Huang, Indiana University • This paper analyzed the truth strategies of documentary photography from the positivist, social constructivist, Marxist, and postmodern perspectives in an attempt to find out what caused the decline of documentary photography and whether traditional documentary can reinvented. The analysis focused on the FSA works (especially on Arthur Rothstein’s famous Skull picture), which have been regarded by photographic communities as classical documentary photography.

Who Gets Named?: Nationality, Race and Gender in New York Times Photograph Cutlines • John M. King, Louisiana State University • This research examined 986 New York Times images to asses the impact of nationality, race and gender on named individuals in cutlines. Chi-square tests, significant at less than .001, showed that Americans were named more often than non-Americans. Caucasians were named more often than Hispanics, Asians and Middle easterners, but less often than people of African descent. Males were named more often than females. Two hypotheses were still supported after controlling for nine story types.

Altered Plates: Photo Manipulation and the Search for News Value in the Early and Late Twentieth Century • Wilson Lowrey, Georgia • Recent cases of news photo manipulation have editors and photo directors up in arms over the dangers of digital technology. Photo manipulation, however, was not born in the digital world • it is only nurtured there. Artists and photographers have been altering and staging photos since the invention of photography in the 19th century. And the period from 1910 to the 1930s, immediately following the perfection of the halftone technique, was perhaps the heyday for news photo manipulation.

The Rhetorical Structure of California Reich: Exploring the Strengths and Dilemmas of Guiding Audience Response in Classical Documentary Filmed in Cinema Verite • Kate Madden, SUNY Brockport • California Reich is a classical documentary filmed in cinema verite style which explores the Neo-Nazi movement in California in the mid-1970s. First aired in 1976, the hour-long film continues in video distribution today and shares space in the “war” section of some video stores. As classical documentary, California Reich fits into a tradition which clearly defines documentary as a rhetorical text which consciously attempts to persuade audiences to a particular point of view about its subject matter.

Effects of Novelty in News Photographs on Attention and Memory • Andrew Mendelson, Southern University-Edwardsville • Two experiments are reported that examined the effects of novelty in terms of preferences for viewing, viewing time, recall memory, and interest ratings, in an attempt to isolate how atypical news photographs are processed. This research separated the two concepts of content and compositional novelty. Both experiments showed that more novel news photographs attracted attention, were looked at longer, were rated as more interesting, and were better remembered.

When Mona Lisa and Madison Avenue Dance • Kimberly Paul, Texas-Austin • At the International Advertising Festival in Cannes, the success of an advertising campaign is measured not by its effectiveness but by its artfulness, its creativity. No matter that the top award is the Grand Prix. The real reward • and what most of the entrants are hoping for • is recognition that what they are doing is art. However, like Shakespeare’s two houses divided, the cultural families of art and advertising disagree over whether advertising can be a legitimate art form.

The First Person Effect in Mass Communications: Reaction to “The Man Against the Tanks” of Tiananmen • David D. Perlmutter, Louisiana State University • This paper suggests a phenomenon called the “first-person effect,” a useful way to explain how discourse elites, politicians, pundits, journalists, and scholars of visual culture, affect the news pictures that they comment upon. Using the famous image of the man who stood against the tanks neat Tiananmen Square in spring 1989, I examine to what extent a news image actually has the “power” to shock, outrage or change the opinion of the public and the policy makers.

Imperial Imaginary: Photography and the Invention of the British Raj • Shakuntala Rao, SUNY Plattsburgh • This paper attempts to make a connection between photography and the British rule in India. It specifically discusses the work of Samuel Bourne who traveled and photographed the subcontinent extensively from 1863-70. Analysis reveals that Bourne aided in, what refer to, as the “imperial imaginary” of the Raj primarily in his photography of Himalayan landscapes and ancient Indian architecture. Having arrived in India right after the sepoy mutiny, Bourne also faced aesthetic and political dilemmas when confronted with the vastness and variety of the land.

Errors and Inaccuracies in Iowa’s Local Newspaper Information Graphics • Lulu Rodriguez, Iowa State University • This content analysis explores the accuracy with which data are presented in charts in a select sample of community newspapers in Iowa. It examined 187 information graphics contained in 268 issues of 28 community newspapers. Results indicate the dearth of charts in many newspapers. Majority of the charts depicted international, local business and infrastructure development topics. Locator maps were the most predominantly used followed by line graphs and bar graphs. Violations of chart making conventions, misrepresentation of data using percentages, non-comparability of data, inappropriateness of chart, overdressed graphs, and the absence of text-graphic correspondence were the most common mistakes observed.

<< 1998 Abstracts

Public Relations 1998 Abstracts

Public Relations Division

Research
Public Relations and Consumer Decisions: Effectively Managing the Relationships that Impact Consumer Behavior • Steven D. Bruning and John A. Ledingham, Capital University • Within the business environment, public relations traditionally has been conceptualized as focused on enhancing the organization’s image and helping the public the see the organization as a “good corporate citizen.” This investigation sought to examine the impact that consumer perceptions of the organization-public relationship, consumer attitudes about price, and consumer attitudes about a particular product feature have on consumer behavior the findings indicate that the relationship that exists between the consumer and the organization differentiates those who are loyal to the organization from those who are not.

Women in the Public Relations Trade Press: A Content Analysis of Tide and Public Relations Journal (1940s through 1960s) • Patricia A. Curtin, North Carolina and Karen S. Miller, Georgia • A quantitative and qualitative content analysis of all editorial content by or about women in Tide and Public Relations Journal from the 1940s through the 1960s reveals women in a variety of roles: public relations professionals, working women, target audiences, and cheesecake. Coverage between the two magazines was markedly different, with Tide presenting a more varied depiction of women’s lives and work. Trends over time include the increasing marginalization of women within the field.

Bridging Connections: Refining Measurements of the Involvement Construct • Dixie Shipp Evatt, Texas-Austin • This paper offers theoretical refinement of Grunig’s situational theory of publics by explicating and testing the involvement construct. Zaichkowsky’s Personal Involvement Inventory (PII) is shown to be a reliable measure of the construct when applied to public policy issues and problems. Data reduction through a factor analysis shows that the involvement construct may have four distinct elements. In addition, level of involvement seeking behavior.

Public Relations’ Potential Contribution to Effective Healthcare Management • Chandra Grosse Gordon, Davis Partners, Lafayette, LA, and Kathleen S. Kelly, Southwestern Louisiana • A national survey of 191 heads of public relations departments in hospitals measured the department’s expertise or knowledge to practice excellent public relations, as defined by recent research. Utilizing two scales original to the study, correlations showed strong and significant relationships between organizational effectiveness and departments with high potential to practice the two-way symmetrical model, enact the manager role, and participate in strategic planning. Findings can be used by hospitals to help resolve the current healthcare crisis.

No Virginia, It’s Not True What They Say About Publicity’s ‘Implied Third-Party Endorsement’ Effect • Kirk Hallahan, Colorado State • This review essay examines “implied third-party endorsement” as an explanation of publicity effectiveness. In lieu of a the traditional view that publicity’s superiority can be attributed to conscious decisions by media workers to devote coverage to a particular topic, the author argues that publicity’s superiority can be explained, at best, as an inferred endorsement. The author argues that effects commonly attributed to third-party endorsements actually stem from biased audience processing that favors news and disfavors advertising.

Learning to Swim Skillfully in Uncharted Waters: Doris E. Fleischman • Susan Henry, California State-Northridge • Between 1913 and 1922, public relations began to be established as a profession and the life of one of its previously unacknowledged pioneers, Doris E. Fleischman, changed in remarkable ways. This paper charts Fleischman’s early career as a newspaper reporter and then as the first employee hired by Edward L. Bernays. It describes some of their early campaigns and the growing collaboration between them until 1922, when she became an equal partner in the firm of Edward L. Bernays, Counsel on Public Relations.

Fess Up or Stonewall? An Experimental Test of Prior Reputation and Response Style in the Face of Negative News Coverage • Lisa Lyon and Glen T. Cameron, Georgia • A fully counterbalanced, within-subjects experiment addressed fundamental questions about the value of corporate reputation. The 2 (good vs. bad reputation) x 2 (apologetic vs. defensive) design also compared apologetic and defensive responses to negative news about a company. Reputation profoundly affected memory attitude and behavioral intentions, bearing our platitudes about bottom-line importance of reputation management. Conversely, response style was nor particularly robust as a factor affecting cognitive, affective and behavioral measures. Interaction effects of the two factors ran counter to common wisdom abjuring the stonewall response.

Reaching Publics on the Web During the 1996 Presidential Campaign • Carol Anne McKeown and Kenneth D. Plowman, San Jose State • This case study explored how the 1996 Democrat and Republican parties’ presidential candidates used the World Wide Web to communicate to voters during the general election. The study found that the campaigns were able to present more in-depth issue information through this new communication medium than traditional medial channels. Results also indicated that the campaigns did not use this new technology to increase interaction between voters and candidates.

Dealing With The Feminization of the Field: Attitudes and Aptitudes of College Women in Public Relations • Michael A. Mitrook, Central Florida; Kimberly V. Wilkes and Glen Cameron, Georgia • A survey of nearly 700 students in introductory public relations classes found that stereotypes of public relations could be one reason women are drawn to public relations and men are not drawn to public relations. Men in the sample saw less opportunity for management and rated the field as both feminine and masculine. Women in the sample saw public relations a job valuable to society.

The World Wide Web as a Public Relations Medium: The Use of Research, Planning, and Evaluation by Web Site Decision-Makers • Candace White and Niranjan Raman, Tennessee • The World Wide Web is viewed as a new medium for public relations by many organizations. Given the evolving nature of the Web and the mixed findings about commercial successes of Web sites, little is known about the managerial aspects of Web site research, planning, and evaluation. This study found that in many cases, Web site planning is done by trail and error based on subjective knowledge and intuition, with little to no formal research and evaluation.

Public Relations Strategies and Organization-Public Relationships: A Path Analysis • Yi-Hui Huang, National Chen-chih University • The purpose of this study was to explore two focal concepts and especially their casual relationships: public relations strategies and organization-public relationships. I chose Taipei as the locale for the study and delimited my research scope to examining executive-legislative relations. A self-administered questionnaire sent to legislators and their assistants in Taiwan was the primary method of data collection. This study contributes to the development of public relations theory in the following ways: 1) introducing a new measure of public relations effects, 2) providing a reconceptualization of models of public relations.

Integrating Intercultural Communication and International Public Relations: An “In-Awareness” Model • R.S. Zaharna, American • This paper addresses what Hugh Culbertson (1996) called the “hot topic” • international public relations. The literature review examines parallel trends within international public relations and intercultural communication. Examples from a Fulbright project are presented, each highlighting a cultural aspect. The examples provide a cultural base for constructing a theoretical model by synthesizing research from intercultural communication and international public relations. The model asks three key questions: What is feasible? What is involved? What is effective?

Teaching
Teaching Public Relations Campaigns: The Current State of the Art • Vincent L. Benigni and Glen T. Cameron, Georgia • A national survey of campaigns professors was conducted to provide public relations faculty with helpful pedagogical information about the public relations campaigns course and to provide the current Commission on Public Relations Education with an empirical basis for setting curricular guidelines. Results indicated that while the great majority of campaigns classes incorporate research elements, many are not grounded in theory, a crucial criterion for “excellent” public relations. Responses also indicated a glaring absence of “real-world” strategies and tactics in the course and inconsistencies regarding the agency-style setup.

High Tech vs. High Concepts: A Survey of Technology Integration in U.S. Public Relations Curricula • Patricia A. Curtin, Elizabeth M. Witherspoon and Dulcie M. Straughan, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • A perennial issue in the journalism and mass communication professions is whether students are acquiring the skills they need to enter and thrive in an ever-changing work environment. This paper reports the results of an electronic mail survey of public relations educators about how they integrate new technology use and instruction into their curricula. The second phase of the study will survey public relations practitioners about technology skills they require of entry-level employees.

Advising the Bateman Case Study Competition: A Help or Hindrance to the Academic Career • Emma Louise Daugherty, California State University-Long Beach • Many faculty in public relations advise students in competitions that provide hands-on experience. The benefits of student participation are well documented, but rewards systems evaluate faculty on teaching, research, and service. Most universities place the greatest importance on research and then teaching. This study examines whether advising student competitions, particularly the Bateman Case Study Competition, helps or hinders an academic career. Fifty-five advisors of the 1997 Bateman Case Study Competition responded to a survey that measured the importance of their advising in decisions on tenure, promotion, and merit bonuses.

Enlightened Self Interest • An Ethical Baseline for Teaching Corporate Public Relations • Patricia T. Whalen, Michigan State • Despite the current unpopularity of “enlightened self interest” as an ethical baseline for teaching public relations, this paper suggests that it may be a practical way to bridge the discrepancy between the personal ethics approach to corporate decision-making favored by public relations educators and the fiduciary responsibility approach favored by corporate executives. The paper explores a number of studies that indicate that such a discrepancy does, indeed, exist and suggests that as long as it does, it will keep public relations practitioners from playing a significant role in corporate decision-making.

Student Papers
Public Relations or Private Controls? The Growth of “Private” Public Relations • Bruce K. Berger, Kentucky • This exploratory research examines the changing nature of public relations sites. It is theorized that new technologies allow corporations to bypass media screens and increase control over message and message environment at emergent sites. A typology of public relations sites is created as a basis for examining control and public/private aspects. Two hypotheses are then tested through a telephone survey of senior public relations executives at 35 of the Fortune 500 companies and through an analysis of actual expenditures in sites during the 1990s.

Crises on the Cyberspace: Applying Agenda Setting Theory to On-line Crisis Management • Tzong-Horng Dzwo (Dustin), Florida • With rapid advancement of new communication technologies, people currently can freely and actively express their own opinions in the new media. As a result, public relations professionals encounter a harder challenge when a crisis hits their organizations. This paper proposes a crisis communication model by integrating Sturges’ (1994) public opinion model of crisis management with the agenda-setting theoretical framework. Hopefully this model will provide greater insights into how to effectively manage public opinion and control the crisis to the advantage of the corporations.

Searching for Excellence in Public Relations: An Analysis of the Public Relations Efforts of Five Forestry Companies in the U.S. • Kimberly Gill, Florida • This preliminary study was designed to gauge the use of public relations and to provide a baseline evaluation of the public relations programs of five forestry companies according to J. Grunig’s 17 factors of excellent public relations (1992). Companies were chosen because of their prominence in the industry and availability of information. Data was collected from the web sites of each company, employee interviews and various public relations materials produced by each company.

Organizations and Public Relations: Institutional Isomorphism • Hyun Seung Jin, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Research on the effects of environmental forces in determining organizational structure and practice has supplied public relations researchers with framework. However, previous studies have not shown a strong relationship between types of organizations and public relation practices. Thus, this study asks “why are organizations not practicing public relations very differently?” Using the literature of institutionalization of organizational practices, the study develops a theoretical explanation and alternative hypotheses.

Exploring an IMC Evaluation Model: The Integration of Public Relations and Advertising Effects • Yungwook Kim, Florida • This paper is trying to establish the relationships among variables in corporate communications, especially between public relations and advertising, and to establish an evaluation model for integrating the effects of communication activities in the context of integrated marketing communication (IMC). This paper deals with the categorization of IMC evaluation by integrating public relations and advertising and advertising evaluation. And the weakness and need of IMC evaluation are delineated. For testing, a new approach for integrating effects of communication activities is introduced and the IMC evaluation model is specified.

Conflict Resolution: The Relationship Between Air Force Public Affairs and Legal Functions • James William Law, Florida • This research examines the relationship between Air Force public affairs and legal functions to find out what conflict exists, how often it occurs, how it is resolved, what the results are for the Air Force as a whole, and what can be done to improve the relationship. The study is based on conflict resolution theory and examines the relationship in terms of win-win, win-lose and lose-lose scenarios.

Paychex Public Relations: Does it Contradict the Excellence Study? • Andrea C. Martino, Monroe Community College • According to the International Association of Business Communicators Excellence Study, centralizing the public relations function and having the department represented by the top communicator in the dominant coalition contribute to an organization’s excellence. But neither qualification is true in the case of Paychex, Inc., a multi-million-payroll processing company in Rochester, N.Y. Can such an organization be considered excellent by IABC standards? And if so, can it continue?

Public Relations and the Web: Measuring the Effect of Interactivity, Information, and Access to Information in Web Sites • Michelle O’Malley and Tracy Irani, Florida • This study’s purpose is to develop research which examines targeted publics’ attitudes and behaviors with respect to interactivity, information, and access to information in Web sites. Using TORA, this study examined whether perceived interactivity, information, access to information or any combination thereof, would be the best predictor of intention. Results showed that a combination of information and interactivity would be the best predictor of intending to revisit a Web site.

Hospital Public Relations and Its Relationship to Crisis Management • Melissa Ratherdale, Florida • This study qualitatively explores hospital public relations practitioners to implement effective crisis management. In-depth interviews with hospital public relations practitioners revealed that the current organizational climate does not allow for effective crisis management. The climate does allow for practitioners to educate their CEOs about strategic public relations. By doing this, practitioners potentially can move themselves into the necessary roles to effectively manage crises.

Intercultural Public Relations: Exploring Cultural Identity as a Means of Segmenting Publics • Bey-Ling Sha, Maryland • Framed by literature on public relations management, societal culture, and cultural identity, this study found that differences in identification with a cultural group predicts differences in the variables of the situational theory of publics. Non-Caucasian survey respondents were significantly more likely to recognize, feel involved with, process information about, and seek information about racioethnic problems. Canonical correlation showed a “minority public” arising around racioethnic and gender issues and a “youth public” arising around alcohol abuse and academic dishonesty.

<< 1998 Abstracts

Newspaper 1998 Abstracts

Newspaper Division

Newspaper Coverage of Medicine: A Survey of Editors and Cardiac Surgeons • Raymond N. Ankney, North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Richard A. Moore, Conemaugh’s Memorial Medical Center and Patricia Heilman, Indiana University-Pennsylvania • Forty-four newspapers offer health-science sections, and millions of Americans rely on newspapers as their number one source of medical information. Daily newspaper editors and cardiac surgeons were surveyed about newspaper coverage of medicine. Cardiac surgeons gave newspapers a much lower accuracy rating than editors (p=-.000). In conclusion, there are significant differences in perceptions between editors and cardiac surgeons about newspaper coverage of medicine.

50 Years Later: “What it Means to Miss the Paper” Berelson, Dependency Theory and Failed Newspaper Delivery • Clyde Bentley, Oregon • This study revisits a landmark investigation of newspaper readership published 50 years ago. Like the work of Bernard Berelson, it attempts to discover why regular newspaper readers “miss” their paper when they cannot receive it. This study uses individual stoppages cased by normal delivery problems at a daily newspaper in lieu of the strike originally studies. The study reviews the research on readership since the original project and suggests linkages to the media dependency theory.

Hobbes, Locke and Newt Gingrich: Enlightened or Biased Reporting? • Lee Bollinger, South Carolina • This paper asks the question, just who can we trust? The researcher content-analyzed coverage in the Atlanta Journal & Atlanta Constitution 1994-1995 and found manipulative language which suggests that journalism has stepped beyond the borders of merely enlightened opinion. Using the perspectives of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke on the subjects of social responsibility, social contract and government, the researcher attempts to answer the research question.

Triggering the First Amendment: Newsgathering Torts and Press Freedom • Matthew D. Bunker and Sheree Martin, Alabama and Sigman L. Splichal, Miami • The recent Food Lion case highlights attempts by those suing the press to short-circuit First Amendment protections by attacking how news is gathered rather than its publication. This paper examines recent cases illustrative of this trend. It then analyzes and critiques the current state of the law and suggests a new framework that provides protection for the press as it goes about the vital process of gathering news.

Information Pollution?: Labeling and Format of Advertorials in National Newspapers • Glen T. Cameron, Cox Institute for Newspaper Management Studies; Kuen-Hee Ju-Pak, California State University-Fullerton and Bong-Hyun Kim, Diamond Ad • Four hundred thirty advertorials found in three national newspapers over a ten year timespan were analyzed as possible contributors to information pollution, defined here as the blurred distinction between editorial and commercial messages. Blurring occurs when advertorials masquerade as editorial items. The content analysis suggests that most advertorials are not easily recognized, multi-page inserts. Further, advertorials could be better labeled and formatted to signal readers of the commercial nature of the item.

Parallels in Partisan Journalism: A Comparative Study of Party Newspapers of the Early American Republic and Those of Contemporary West Africa • W. Joseph Campbell, American University • Common features are both striking and abundant between the press of the early years of the American republic and that of contemporary sub-Saharan Africa. Both encountered financial difficulties that forced many newspapers to cease publication after only a few issues. Both faced uncertain access to newsprint and limited reading audiences. Both slowly evolved from weekly to daily publication. This study concludes that the parallels between the early U.S. partisan press and the contemporary partisan press in Africa are more substantial than superficial than merely curious.

Free Trade or Fair Trade?: The U.S. Auto Trade Policy and the Press • Kuang-Kuo Chang, Oregon • Conducting both quantitative and qualitative content analyses, this study shows that the auto elite set the agenda for the New York Times and Detroit News, both of which were inclined to have their news coverage of the auto trade conflicts between the U.S. and Japan biased toward the so-called fair trade, not free trade. Additionally, the News is more likely than the Times to be more biased, especially when the conflicts were mounting.

CD-ROMs in Metro Daily Newspapers • Lucinda D. Davenport, Michigan State University • The focus of this baseline study was to document the use of CD-ROMs in newspapers, something no other research has done. In particular, the study answers why newspapers have CD-ROMs, the number and types of CD-ROMs used most often, accessibility of CD-ROMs, and how they are used in the reporting processes. Results show that CD-ROMs are an important reporting tool at newspapers. Implications are that training seminars, workshops, university courses and textbooks need to include CD-ROM as part of their instruction.

Effect of Structural Pluralism and Corporate News Structure on News Source Perceptions of Critical Content • David K. Demers, Washington State University and Debra L. Merskin, University of Oregon • A recent content analysis of newspaper editorials and letters to the editor disputes the conventional wisdom that newspapers become less vigorous editorially as they acquire the characteristics of the corporate form of organization. However, many scholars remain skeptical. This study tested the editorial vigor hypothesis using an alternative methodology a national probability survey of mainstream news sources (mayors and police chiefs). The data show that the more structurally complex the newspaper, the more news sources perceived that paper as being critical of them and their institutions.

Caught In The Web: Newspaper Use of The Internet and Other Online Resources • Bruce Garrison, Miami • This paper reviews use of the World Wide Web and other online services by U. S. daily newspapers. The study analyzes general computer use, value placed on the Web as a news tool, preferred browsers, search tools, most widely used sites, site qualities and problems, and online successes and failures. General computer use is at 88% and online use is at 90%. Daily use has almost doubled and about 92% of newspapers use the Web. Furthermore, online research by reporters has increased to 48% from 25% two years earlier.

Use of Sources by Statehouse Newspaper Reporters: A Content Analysis • Eileen Gilligan, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This content analysis of 864 articles demonstrates how newspaper reporters in four states used sources based on political prominence. The prominence of governors was compared to that of legislators, lobbyists, ordinary citizens, and others. Newspaper circulation also was a variable. Results show that governors were not treated as more prominent than legislators; however, governors took precedence over non-government sources except when paired with ordinary citizens. Small newspapers used more quotations from governors than large newspapers.

Effects of Photographs in News Reports on Issue Perception • Rhonda Gibson, Texas Tech University; Dolf Zillmann and Stephanie Sargent, Alabama • The influence of photographs in news reports was investigated. Reports featured either no photograph, a photograph exemplifying one side of the issue under consideration, a photo exemplifying the opposite side of the issue, or two photographs exemplifying both sides. Issue perception was ascertained immediately or ten days later. Perception of issues was strongly influenced by the one-sided use of photographs. In the delay condition especially, assessments were biased in the direction suggested by the photographs.

Australian Newspaper Gatekeepers: Their Use Of Readership Research • Kerry Philip, University of Queensland • Australian gatekeepers enjoy limited use of readership research. Despite considerable research being done at the nation’s major newspapers, gatekeepers report limited access to the research but strong, interest in using it. The gatekeepers take a conservative approach to the news agenda and favor following the agenda, deferring to audience preferences, rather than setting the agenda. Australian newspapers, like newspapers around the world, are struggling, to reverse a national trend towards lower circulation.

Conflict, Consensus, & the Community Newspaper: Unearthing a Buried Counter-Thesis in Social-Structural News Media Theory • Joseph Harry Michigan State University • Tichenor, Donohue and Olein’s ‘social-structural’ thesis is that community structure strongly conditions newspaper coverage of social conflicts. Big-city newspaper coverage of conflict reflects the metropolis’ conflict-driven nature; conversely smaller-town newspapers reflect the consensus-oriented nature of their own communities by downplaying conflict. Evidence from source-use patterns in a small-town versus a big-city newspaper argues for the authors’ buried but under-explored counter-thesis: Sometimes, a small-town paper performs exactly opposite of what the authors’ central thesis would predict.

To Each According to Its Niche: A Resource Dependence Analysis of the Structural Segregation in China’s Newspaper Industries • Chen Huailin, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Guo Zhongshi, Hong Kong Baptist University • This article adopts a political economy of communication analysis of an emerging structural transformation in China’s print media. Through comparisons of old and new resource allocation patterns in the country’s newspapers, it argues that tensions between ideology and marketization facilitate a structural segregation that polarizes powerful party newspapers and popular mass appeal tabloids. The end result of such a divergent movement is that each group has secured its own niche in the market with a distinct configuration of resources.

Megan’s Law: Being Just in Coverage of Criminal Justice • Michelle Johnson, Westfield State College and William A. Babcock, University of Minnesota • In the 1990s, a growing number of states adopted community notification laws, requiring police to inform residents when sex offenders move in to their neighborhoods. In many states, journalists receive lists of high-risk sex offenders in their circulation areas. Journalists must decide how or if they will use this information in news stories, considering the risk offenders pose to their neighbors, the prospect of vigilantism against sex offenders, and the role of the media as a watchdog on the criminal justice system.

Online Newspapers: A Trend Study Of News Content And Technical Features • David Kamerer and Bonnie Bressers, Kansas State University • This is a content analysis of online newspapers in April and November 1997. Coders examined them for technical features, content, and advertising support. Online papers grew more sophisticated in each category over the six-month period. They also increased their use of links to other sites. In technical features, daily newspapers were the most sophisticated, followed by specialized newspapers and nondailies. In news content, dailies were most sophisticated, followed by nondailies and specialized newspapers.

Community Journalism At Work: Newspapers Putting More Emphasis on Importance of Local News • David Kaszuba and Bill Reader, Penn State University • In a content analysis of daily newspapers with circulations under 50,000, described as “community newspapers,” the authors found that, over the past 30 years, newspapers have increasingly devoted larger percentages of their front pages to the presentation of local news. The larger of these community newspapers appear more devoted to local news coverage, possibly as a result of having more resources available for such coverage than their smaller counterparts.

News Bias and the Sandinistas: A Content Analysis of Coverage by The New York Times And The Miami Herald of The 1990 And 1996 Nicaraguan Elections • Kris Kaszuba, Indiana University • This article finds evidence of news bias in the coverage of the 1990 and 1996 Nicaraguan elections by the New York Times and the Miami Herald. The bias is reflected in amount of coverage, prominence of stories and sources used. Both newspaper took at least some cues from the U.S. government. For example, when the U.S. government had a more active role in opposing the Sandinistas, the two newspapers also relied more on anti-Sandinista sources. This study illustrates that the U.S. media even in a relatively free system operate under some formal and informal government and social controls.

The Impact of Beat Competition on City Hall Coverage • Stephen Lacy and Charles St. Cyr, Michigan State University and David C. Coulson, Nevada-Reno • The study used a survey of 232 newspaper city hall beat reporters about the impact of newspaper and television competition on their coverage. Newspaper competition was more likely to affect content than television competition, but television did have an impact on some reporters, especially in the absence of newspaper competition. The most interesting results were the relationship between competition and reporter-editor interaction and the strong impact of this interaction on reporters’ perceptions of content changes.

Sources in New York Times’ Coverage of China Before and After June 4th, 1989: A Content Analysis Focusing on Influence of Crisis Situation On Sourcing Patterns of US Media in World News Coverage • Guoli Li, Ohio University • This is a study of the New York Times’ coverage of the students’ movement in China in 1989 and focuses on the influence of this political incident on the sourcing patterns of the New York Times when covering China. By comparing the New York Times’ coverage of China in four time periods both before and after the students’ demonstration, the author finds that the crisis situation impacted the sourcing patterns of the New York Times both during and after the event and has a lingering effect.

Record Newspapers, Legal Notice Laws and Digital Technology Solutions • Shannon E. Martin, Rutgers University • Record newspapers have served for decades as official bulletin boards in communities across the United States. Many of these newspapers, designated by state statutes, are now providing online, digital format news products that do not meet statutory guidelines for public notice functions. The research reported here examines the adjustments to existing legal language necessary so that digitally delivered newspapers may serve the informational function intended by public notice that has been traditionally provided in record newspapers.

The Reporting of Survey Data in Newspapers: Do Readers Get the Complete Story? • Paul McCreath, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • In the first edition of Precision Journalism, Phil Meyer stated that news stories should include seven items such as the sample size and margin of error when reporting the results of public opinion polls. A content analysis was done to determine compliance with the suggested standards. The paper concludes that newspaper stories are good at including a basic level of information concerning survey data, but those conducting the research should stress the importance of including ancillary information which gives a truly complete picture.

Analyzing Bias in Press Coverage of State Policymaking for Higher Education • Michael K. McLendon and Marvin W. Peterson, Michigan • Theoretically-grounded analysis of press coverage that examines what news accounts convey about the interactions of higher education institutions during periods of tremendous legislative conflict is virtually non-existent. This study utilized a theory of news construction to predict and to analyze patterns of press coverage of legislative conflict between two nationally-prominent universities. The chief finding is that newspapers with competing political interests give preferential treatment to their “local” universities, producing “biased” news coverage of critical state policy episodes.

Effects of Novel News Photographs On Readers’ Interest in and Memory for Newspaper Content • Andrew Mendelson, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville • The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of novelty in content and composition of news photographs on newspaper readers attention and memory for the photographs and the accompanying stories. An experiment showed that the different novelty conditions had no effect on story interest story rank or story recall, even when people judged the photographs as different from each other in novelty. Only specific news topics affected story interest and recall.

The Economics of Online Newspapers • Donica Mensing, Nevada-Reno • Little is known about the economics of online news sites. A survey of online editors at U.S. newspapers with daily updated Web sites revealed that few papers are covering costs for their Web sites. Display advertising is the single largest source of revenue, followed by Internet access fees and classified advertisements. The outlook for Web profitability is murky, with revenue strategies problematic because of technological limitations, audience size, consumer demand and intense competition.

Measuring Recall of Linear And Non-Linear Online News Stories • Donica Mensing, Jennifer Greer, Jon Gubman, Sumita Louis, Nevada-Reno • Online newspapers are seeking to tell stories differently to take advantage of the medium’s unique characteristics. This study examines whether information recall is affected by online news presentation style. No differences were found in recall between subjects reading linear news articles that required scrolling down multiple screens and subjects reading the same information in a non-linear, linked format. Additionally, no significant differences emerged in examining story type and its interaction with subjects’ computer comfort levels.

Sources of the Decline in Newspaper Reading: Examining Long-Term Changes by Means of Nonlinear Trend Decomposition • Wolfram Peiser University, St Mainz • In many Western countries, newspaper reading has declined in the past decades. Intercohort differences apparently play a role, younger birth cohorts reading less frequently. Applying a new method of trend decomposition, this research investigates how much of the decline in U.S. and German newspaper readership during the past 25 years was due to cohort succession (in conjunction with intercohort differences). Results indicate that cohort succession contributed substantially to past declines and works towards future declines.

Coping With Change: The Reaction of St. Louis Post-Dispatch Journalists to Changes in the Newsroom • Earnest L. Perry and Peter Gade, Missouri • Cole C. Campbell became the editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1996, a turbulent year of change at one of the nation’s most respected newspaper. The former editor of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, Campbell replaced William Woo, who had been Joseph Pulitzer III’s hand-picked successor a decade earlier. Picked for his “journalistic skills, business acumen, leadership and vision,” Campbell’s track record showed him to be a proponent of change in the newspaper industry.

Generation X: Is Its Meaning Understood? • Paula M. Poindexter and Dominic L. Lasorsa, Texas-Austin • Although newspapers and other mass media increasingly have been using the term “Generation X” to refer to young adults, little is known about what the public thinks about this label A random sample of 489 Austin, Texas, area residents in 1997 found that an unexpectedly large number of people, almost one in three-was unfamiliar with the term and that of those familiar with the term, fewer than 14 percent considered it to be a label with a positive connotation and nearly 40 percent said it was a negative term.

Lux Libertas: Open Records and Open Meetings at the University • Patricia A. Richardson, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This study analyzes 24 North Carolina newspapers’ coverage of proposed changes in the state’s open records and open meetings laws over a five-month period in 1997. At issue was the definition of public body as it applied to the state university system. Analyses according to objectivity and equal presentation of viewpoint showed the media did not act as a forum for open exchange, nor were they objective in reporting on the issue.

“Reality” as it Appears in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch: A Content Analysis • Shelly Rodgers, Michael Antecol and Esther Thorson, Missouri • This study finds that ethnic, gender and age groups are portrayed in biased and stereotypical ways in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Adult, white, male characters dominated all topics except juvenile crime, education and health. Stories that ran in the Front and Business sections generally were more negative than other sections, and the Business section tended to frame “blame” in terms of the institution. Overall, stories tended to take a liberal slant. Suggestions for improving news coverage are discussed.

Digital Formats for the Future: The Web vs. Paper vs. a Vertical-Screen, Page-Based Design • Carl Schierhorn, Stanley T. Wearden, Ann B. Schierhorn, Pamela S. Tabar and Scott C. Andrews, Kent State University • Newspapers are moving rapidly into the digital age, but little research exists to guide them on consumer preferences. Web sites, read primarily on horizontal computer screens and requiring scrolling to read an entire page are state of the art, but some have argued for a lightweight Portable Document Viewer (electronic tablet) with a vertical touch screen. This study tests subjects’ preferences for a traditional newspaper vs. a Web site with the same contents vs. a vertical-screen, page-based design suitable for display on a PDV.

Superstars or Second-Class Citizens?: Management and Staffing Issues Affecting Newspapers’ Online Journalists • Jane B. Singer, Martha P. Tharp, Amon Haruta, Colorado State University • This paper reports preliminary findings from a survey of online and print editors at 466 U.S. newspapers, designed to identify key online staffing issues such as salary and experience levels, job classifications and benefits. The results indicate that online newspaper staffs remain small, with salaries and benefits roughly commensurate with those paid to print employees in comparable jobs. Online editors express concerns about the pressure to turn a profit, as well as about the perception that they and their staffs are seen as second-class citizens by many of their print colleagues.

Newspaper Ombudsmanship As Viewed by Ombudsmen and their Editors• Kenneth Starck and Julie Eisele, Iowa • Declining readership and growing cynicism among Americans has caught the attention of newspaper professionals across the country. The newspaper ombudsman position has been identified by media experts as a potential tool for enhancing credibility. This study, stimulated by American Society of Newspaper Editors concerns about credibility, surveyed editors and ombudsmen at newspapers where ombudsmen are on staff. Responses indicate that ombudsmanship enhances the newspapers efforts to be fair and accurate and, in the process, to promote accountability and credibility.

A Shifting Attention Agenda: A Study of Travel-Related Articles in the New York Times From 1950 To 1989 • Barbara R. Shoemake Southern Mississippi and Huiuk Yi, College of Commerce and Economics-S. Korea • This paper examines 40 years of travel articles from the New York Times and compares them to Americans’ international travel data. Scholars of tourism studies stress the importance of information sources in the development of destination images. Tourism advertising and tourists’ information-seeking strategies have been the focus of heavy research. However, travel articles and editorial content of columns have not been heavily reviewed as to their importance in determining tourists’ images of destinations.

Local Press Coverage of Environmental Conflict: A Content Analysis of the Daily Review, 1985-1994 • Claire E. Taylor, Jung-Sook Lee and William R. Davie, Southwestern Louisiana • An examination of 600 items in the local press coverage of environmental conflict over a ten-year period showed that a community daily in a small, but heterogeneous system (l) did indeed favor government/industry sources rather than activists/citizens through all five stages of the conflict; (2) supported local industry in editorials and staff opinion columns in only two stages (Mobilization and Confrontation); and (3) legitimized local industry and marginalized its opponents through all five stages.

Readers’ Response to Digital News Stories Presented in Layers and Links • Karen Vargo, Carl Schierhorn, Stanley T. Wearden, Ann B. Schierhorn, Fred F. Endres and Pamela S. Tabar, Kent State University • This study of 162 students compared their preferences on ways of hyperlinking news stories to related material and their preferences on the format of links. It compared the traditional World Wide Web underline, eight- to 10-word headlines, headlines plus a deck and headlines plus a 40- to 80-word abstract. It found that these readers, by a substantial margin, preferred longer links • both from an original screen to an entire story and from the story to a sidebar.

Complementing the Alternative: Newspaper Sourcing of Complementary and Alternative Medicine • Brian Vastag, Stephanie Dube, Lisa Brown, Scott McMahan and Kristie Alley Swain, Texas A&M University • Interest in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is growing among doctors, researchers, and health care consumers. By examining sources used in CAM articles in nine elite newspapers from the U.S. and overseas between 1992 and 1997, this study set out to address the question: Who gets a say in the CAM debate? An analysis of 259 articles found CAM coverage to be overwhelmingly positive. Conventional health care sources were used more frequently than CAM sources.

Innovators or News Hounds? A Study of Early Adopters of the Electronic Newspaper • Tom Weir, Oklahoma State University • The study looks at a sample of early adopters of an electronic newspaper and compares them with a random telephone sample across personality characteristics and demographic categories to assess the usefulness of several hypothesized predictors of adoption. The research finds that general experience within the product category is not particularly important. Opinion leadership is demonstrated to be significant, but greater innovativeness is not, highlighting a unique situation with media as an information utility.

Portrait vs. Landscape: Potential Users’ Preferences for Screen Orientation • Stanley T. Wearden, Roger Fidler, Ann B. Schierhorn and Carl Schierhorn, Kent State University • Little research has been done to establish consumers’ preferences when reading from screens, and no research, prior to this study, has established whether consumers prefer a portrait (vertical) or landscape (horizontal) screen orientation. Using a mockup of a Portable Document Viewer, the researchers tested the screen-orientation preferences of a random sample of 201 consumers in a mall-intercept survey. There was a strong preference for a portrait screen orientation for reading a newspaper.

Handling Hate: A Content Analysis of Washington State’s Newspaper Coverage of Hate Crimes and White Supremacists • Virginia Whitehouse, Whitworth College • Washington’s newspapers aggressively cover white supremacist hate groups and do a fair job of reporting hate crimes. Hate crimes were best covered, and sometimes only covered, when committed by hate groups. Violent crimes, particularly assault, tend to be downplayed. This creates an inaccurate community portrait of local hate crimes. Because media coverage in large part shapes public opinion, communities may fail to respond to the true nature of hate in their midst.

‘Powerful’ Attributive Verbs and ‘Body-Language’ Statements Revisited • Sherrie L. Wilson, Nebraska-Omaha • This paper reports the results of an experiment to determine the impact of “stronger” attributive verbs than said (“insisted,” “contended,” “exclaimed”) and “body-language” statements (“waving a stack of petitions,” “pounding her fist on the table”) on the readers of news stories. The study was modeled after earlier research by Cole and Shaw.

<< 1998 Abstracts

Cultural and Critical Studies 2001 Abstracts

Cultural and Critical Studies Division

“I’m Not a Feminist… I Only Defend Women as Human Beings”: The Production, Representation and Consumptions of Feminism in a Telenovela, • Carolina Acosta-Alzuru, University of Georgia • This study investigates the encounter between feminism and a successful Venezuelan telenovela. It focuses on the meaning(s) associated with the terms feminism and feminist in Venezuela, and how these meanings are both a reflection and a constitutive element of the country’s culture. Drawing on Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, the representation of feminism in the serial is examined through textual analysis. In addition, the production and consumption of this representation is analyzed through interviews with the head writer and actors, and with audience members. The findings suggest a separation between the telenovela’s empowering message for women and Venezuelans’ understanding of feminism. This split mirrors the paradox that feminism faces worldwide: it is an influential movement that is, nevertheless, widely stigmatized.

http://feminist.identity/in/Web.sites.for.women/ Or, Analyses of Feminist Identity in Web sites of Chick Click, Cybergirl, iVillage and Women.com Networks • Debashis “Deb” Aikat, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Based on concepts related to cultural studies and detailed discourse analyses of top four mainstream women’s Web sites, this study examined the level of discourse regarding feminist identity based on five specific categories: 1. Empowerment, 2. Sexuality, 3. Justice and equality, 4. Action for Social, Political and Economic Change, and 5. Other Pertinent Themes.

The work of being watched: interactive media and the exploitation of self-disclosure • Mark Andrejevic, University of Colorado-Bolder • In the era of new media interactivity, the development of customized marketing and production is increasingly reliant upon the work consumers and viewers perform by being watched. This article explores the role of the “labor of being watched” in rationalizing the process of customized consumption in general and of television viewing in particular. By way of example, this article takes up the case of digital VCR technology, which allows consumers to be “watched” while they are watching TV.

Literacy “Problems” and Skill “Solutions”: Toward Critical Communication Classes • Ralph J. Beliveau, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh • My discussion of education and media is concerned with kinds of literacy and their reproduction. The first part concerns the idea of “skills” in communication. Are “skills” classrooms becoming “deskilled” themselves, as important critical questions are decided from above and removed from the active classroom? Secondly, is there a way of conceiving of literacy that can respond to this problem, a literacy that goes beyond communication “skills” into developing critical reflective practitioners? Examples from a classroom ethnographic study are included.

THE MIDDLE EAST AS WILD WEST: NEWS OF TERRORISM IN ISRAEL THROUGH AN AMERICAN LENS • Dan Berkowitz and Dina Gavrilos, University of Iowa • no abstract

THE WAYWARD CHILD: An Ideological Analysis of Sports Contract Holdout Coverage • Ronald Bishop, Drexel University • Journalists write and talk frequently about the escalating salaries earned by professional athletes. However, special scorn is reserved for those athletes who holdout – for more money, or to renegotiate their contracts. In this ideological analysis, I explore the ideology that emerges from beat coverage by Seattle sportswriters of the 1999 holdout by Joey Galloway, a star receiver for the Seattle Seahawks. From July to November 1999, Galloway and the Seahawks were embroiled in a very public dispute over a contract extension sought by Galloway. My analysis is built on the idea that certain ideologies become dominant, to the exclusion of ideologies which present alternative perspectives. These perspectives are marginalized or suppressed Thus, one way of “seeing the world” holds sway – it achieves hegemony. For sports fans in Seattle, it becomes the preferred reading of Galloway’s conduct. Articles for the analysis were taken from Seattle’s two daily newspapers and cover the entire holdout. The ideology that emerges from these articles revolves around several key ideas: the team is sacred – it is bigger, and has more value, than any of its individual members; the coach is the ultimate authority figure, one whose judgment should never be questioned; a holdout by its very nature threatens the team; and players who do hold out are seen as greedy, selfish, and disloyal, or at the very least, driven solely by pragmatism. It was a news frame created and advanced by team officials. Seattle beat writers painted a picture of Galloway as a spoiled, petulant child who had to be stripped of his individuality and spend some time alone (a “time out?”) before coming back to the team. His holdout was positioned by reporters as a disruption – to the lives and careers of Galloway’s teammates, the progress of the team, and even to the relationship between the team and its fans in Seattle The holdout was set against a backdrop which saw team officials yearning for a simpler time when holdouts did not happen. Findings from the analysis can be used to help reporters improve their coverage of contract negotiations.

Rethinking Representations of Disability on Primetime Television • Christopher Campbell and Sheri L Hoem, University of Idaho • This paper argues that recent portrayals of people with disabilities on primetime fictional television demonstrate, first, reinscriptions of the stereotypical representations that have dominated traditional portrayals of disability in popular culture and, second, more complicated and beneficial representations that contradict the dominant representation. The paper includes “readings” of 1) an X-Files episode that prominently features characters historically associated with freak shows, and 2) three recent primetime dramas that include guest appearances by Marlee Matlin, an Oscar-winning actress who is deaf

“Don’t Want No Short People ‘Round Here”: Disrupting Heterosexual Ideology in the Comic Narratives of Ally McBeal • Brenda Cooper and Edward C. Pease, Utah State University • no abstract

ETHNOGRAPHY IN JOURNALISM: LAUGHABLE PREMISE OR NARRATIVE OF EMPOWERMENT? • Janet M. Cramer and Michael McDevitt, University of New Mexico • The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical theoretical rationale for the use of ethnography as a reporting method. The authors describe the need for ethnographic reporting in light of the functional tendency of the press to preserve the social order at the expense of marginalized groups. By arguing for journalistic autonomy and strong objectivity, the authors describe principles and ethical considerations of ethnography and provide a case study example of ethnographic journalism.

Framing the Militia Movement: A Ten-year Textual and Visual Analysis of Network News • Marie Curkan-Flanagan, University of Southern Florida and Dorothy Bowles, University of Tennessee-Knoxville • This study focuses on the contemporary militia. Using framing analysis as a theory, this study investigates the relationship between network news and the militia movement. Here, frames provide a systematic way of explaining how people use expectations to make sense of reality. Methodologically, this study uses a grounded theory approach. Through textual analysis of verbal and visual texts in three hundred and seven television news stories taken from ABC, CBS, and NBC newscasts from 1989 to 1999, this study found that the major frames used by network reporters and producers included: terrorism, domestic terrorism, war and peace, and government control to frame the militia movement.

Policing the Boundaries of Truth in Journalism: The Case of Alastair Reid • Elizabeth Fakazis, Indiana University • no abstract

Africa.com: The Self-Representation of Sub- Saharan Nations on the World Wide Web • Elfriede Fursich, Boston College and Melinda B. Robins, Emerson College • In a textual analysis of government Web sites of 34 sub-Saharan countries, we evaluate whether African nations can use the Internet to overcome their traditional low profile on the world stage. Our analysis finds that the sites echo the ongoing struggle over the definition and purpose of the nation-state in a globalized era. African countries present a reflected identity mirroring Western interests. We conclude that the potential of the Internet as an equalizing force in the global information flow tends to be exaggerated.

The Newseum and Collective Memory: Narrowed Choices, Limited Voices and Rhetoric of Freedom • Rachel M. Gans, University of Pennsylvania • Using the concepts of collective memory, the public sphere and political economy, this paper critically examines the narrative of the Newseum, the Freedom Forum’s museum of the news. This paper contends that the Newseum presents a narrative that is unresponsive to real criticism of the press, limits visitors’ ability to explore alternative ideas, and does so while invoking collective memory and a rhetoric of freedom.

Arab-Americans in a Nation’s “Imagined Community”: How News Constructed Arab-American Reactions to the Gulf War • Dina Gavrilos, University of Iowa • This study sought to investigate how “alternative” discourses about the Gulf War were presented in the news media at that time through the case of the Arab-American community. The central point of this paper is that although Arab-American concerns were articulated through some news media, these discourses were constructed in ways that ultimately maintained and reinforced the hegemonic notion of America as an “imagined community” deserving of citizens’ sentimental attachments and loyalties.

News Media and Sources in the Framing Process: An Ideological Criticism on the Media Framing of a Political Issue • Sungtae Ha, University of Texas-Austin • In the process of frame contests, sources play the role of frame sponsors representing various positions on an issue because they are the voices that can be heard or read in media texts. The issue of calls for President Clinton’s resignation is a great opportunity to examine the role of sources in a framing process in that many parts of American political power structure as frame sponsors have been involved in the issue. The findings support the assumption that news media routinely reflect the issue frames of the dominant political power groups. In this process, diverse news sources play the role of frame sponsors competitively imposing their voices in the texts. Two points should be noted: first, the degree of political involvement of sources becomes a significant explanatory device for understanding the role of sources in news texts. Second, sources of different political involvements employ different frame devices in terms of the level of contextualization.

Looking the Part: U.S. Anchorwomen as ‘Other’ • Elizabeth Blanks Hindman and Tracy Briggs Jensen, North Dakota State University • This project examines whether U.S. anchorwomen feel pressure over their appearance, the origins of that pressure and the its perceived effects upon the women. In-depth telephone interviews with local news anchorwomen were analyzed using Beauvoir’s theory of “Woman as Other.” The study concluded that, in fact, television anchorwomen perceive themselves, and are treated as, “other” to anchormen. Specifically, there is evidence of “man as the norm; woman as different,” and “woman made, not born.”

On the Road to War: The Use of Transportation as a Rhetorical Device in Martha Gellhorn’s War-torn Travel Journalism • Marcie L. Hinton, Berry College • War Reporter Martha Gellhorn’s non-fiction can best be understood as an original form of travel writing. This study explores how Gellhorn established a relationship with her audience by providing a vivid style of war reporting through her rhetoric of transportation. As a reporter throughout most of the twentieth century’s wars, Gellhorn straddled the line between traditional and contemporary travel writing while enlarging the frontier of cultures and creating a unique form of war-torn travel journalism.

The Buccaneer as Cultural Metaphor: Pirate Mythology in Nineteenth-Century American Periodicals • Janice Hume, University of Georgia • Daring pirates-of-old hold a place of honor in collective public imagination, and the American press has passed along their romantic tales, amplifying and legitimizing them for a mass audience. This study traces the progression of buccaneer legendary in nineteenth century American magazine articles, examining: (1) uses of history and memory, (2) pirate actions, (3) pirate attributes, and (4) deaths of the pirates. Each offers clues into a changing American press and culture.

The Making of an Outlaw Hero: Jesse James, Folklore, and Nineteenth Century Missouri Journalists • Cathy M. Jackson, Norfolk State University • This descriptive study notes the literary and folkloric rise of Jesse James to outlaw hero status; and through the use of social construction of reality theories, places him and newspaper stories as products of the crisis-filled, post-Civil War society in Missouri. A random perusal of Missouri newspapers from 1866-1882 reveal that journalists infused their stories with elements of oral narratives, insuring that James not only would achieve folkloric fame, but would live forever both in print and in history.

Reagan-Era Hollywood • Chris Jordon, Pennsylvania State University • Reagan-era cinema is a period in filmmaking history during which a U.S. president served as a causal agent of intersecting trends in Hollywood’s political economic structure, mode of production, and construction of the success ethic. Concentrations of ownership which occurred under Reaganomics and deregulation promoted a tent-pole strategy of blockbuster production which privileged movies about white hegemony, nuclear family self-sufficiency, and conspicuous consumption associated with mall multiplex culture, suburbia, and the 1980s neoconservative movement.

Voices Between the Tracks: Disk Jockeys, Radio and Popular Music, 1955-60 • Matthew A. Killmeier, University of Iowa • While much of the literature on radio and popular music of the period portrays disk jockeys as having a large degree of freedom, this paper challenges this rendition and argues their autonomy was constrained by a number of institutional and industry pressures. Based upon discourses in industry and lay publications, the author argues disk jockeys were pressured by recording industry largess and station management, which constrained their autonomy and public representation.

International Relations and National Public Discourse: U.S. Press Framing of the Benetton Death Row Campaign • Marwan M. Kraidy and Tamara Goeddertz, University of North Dakota • In this paper we analyze Benetton’s 2000 Death Row advertising campaign as a site of cultural production where ideological differences on capital punishment between the United States and Europe are played out. More specifically, we conduct a textual analysis of news stories and editorials about the campaign in the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune. We examine the mass-mediated public discourse framing the campaign in the US prestige press. Notably, the discussion will focus on how foreign ideas and national hegemonic frames domesticate ideologies.

Sex noise makes macho magazines both teasing and tedious • Jacqueline Lambiase and Tom Reichert, University of North Texas • Maxim magazine always features scantily dressed women on its covers, using a rhetoric of sublime repetition that is both predictable and erotic. Through content and rhetorical analyses and postmodern theory, this project studies the production and consumption of Maxim by analyzing ifs cover and its construction of an idealized macho culture. With these combined approaches, Maxim may be “looked at” and “looked through,” as a modernist artifact and as a postmodern effect of something else.

Framing Dr Death: How Jack Kevorkian was Characterized in Stories about Physician-Assisted Suicide in Four Michigan Newspapers • Kimberly A. Lauffer, Townson University • This qualitative study examines how one protagonist in the debate over physician-assisted suicide was portrayed as part of a larger study on the framing of the debate. News coverage of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in four Michigan newspapers from January 1996 to June 1999 was analyzed. Overall, coverage of physician-assisted suicide marginalized the issue of physician-assisted suicide and depicted its main mouthpiece, Jack Kevorkian, as a deviant, eccentric zealot who was obsessed with death. Framing theory asserts that such a strategy likely would negatively affect people’s perceptions of Kevorkian and the issue of physician-assisted suicide, making them less likely to support it.

My Grandmother’s Black-Market Birth Control: “Subjugated Knowledges” in the History of Contraceptive Discourse • Jane Marcellus, University of Oregon • This paper explores the historical context for a 1933 brochure advertising contraceptives. Using Foucault’s theory of “subjugated knowledges,” the paper looks at both public discourse about contraception and the discreet, coded one often used by women. Semiotic and text analysis of the 1933 brochure illustrate a clumsy attempt to create a female consumer in a way that addresses public discourse and intuits the existence of private discourse as well.

Media Literacy and the Alternative Media: A Comparison of KAZI and KNLE Alternative Radio Stations in Austin • InCheol Min, University of Texas-Austin • no abstract

Negotiating Gender in USA Today: A Critical Feminist Analysis of Print Coverage of the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup • Robert Newell, The University of Washington • Many feminist media scholars argue that mediated sport plays a crucial role in the social maintenance of a dominant gender order. This study reviews some common strategies for maintaining this order and explores how they are employed in print coverage of the 1999 FIFA Women’s Soccer World Cup. Focusing specifically on how the national newspaper USA Today depicts the female athletes, spectators and organizers of the event, the study reveals an abundance of indicators- most notably the sexualization of the team members- which suggest dominant efforts to marginalize women.

Communicating A Re-discovered Cultural Identity Through the Ethnic Museum: The Japanese American National Museum • Joy Y. Nishie, University of Nevada-Las Vegas • Ethnic groups within the United States often relinquish their identity, willingly or unwillingly, in order to gain acceptance within society. Their contributions are often overlooked in American museums where history is communicated from a distinctly European perspective. This study examines how the Japanese American National Museum, as an ethnic museum, recovers and re-discovers identity for Japanese-Americans through the messages communicated in their exhibits and displays.

Victims No More: Postfeminism, Television and Ally McBeal • Laurie Ouellette, Rutgers University • The television program Ally McBeal has entered public consciousness as a “statement” about postfeminism and women. This paper analyzes Ally McBeal as a symptomatic text that constructs an emergent phase in primetime postfeminism as the terrain of female subjectivity and common sense. Following a feminist cultural studies approach, it traces the “post-victimization” postfeminist discourse that structures the program and analyzes its construction of sexuality, class and contemporary femininity.

Local Culture in Global Media: Excavating Colonial and Material Discourses in the National Geographic • Radhika Parameswaran, Indiana University • In this essay, I analyze two cover stories, “Global Culture” and “A World Together,” in the August 1999 Millennium issue of the National Geographic to interrogate the representational politics of the magazine’s narratives on globalization. My textual analysis draws from the insights of semiotic, feminist, and Marxist critiques of media images and consumer culture. I explore the ambivalence that permeates the Geographic’s stories on global culture by accounting for multiple media texts and historical contexts that filter the magazine’s imagery. Drawing from postcolonial theories, the essay argues that the Geographic magazine’s interpretation of global culture is suffused with images of femininity, masculinity, and race that subtly echo the othering modalities of Euro-American colonial discourses. The essay undermines the Geographic’s articulation of global culture as a phenomenon that addresses Asians as only modern consumers of global commodities by questioning the invisibility of colonial history, labor, and global production in its narratives. In conclusion, I argue that postcolonial theories enable media research to go beyond the limited concepts of “stereotypes” and “multiculturalism”. I challenge discourses that cast postcolonial theory as an inaccessible, esoteric body of knowledge that is irrelevant for the “real” world of journalistic practices by outlining the pedagogical possibilities of this essay, and discuss the commodification of social issues in the media.

(Mis)Representing the Public: Images of Popular Intelligence in the Journalistic Reaction Story • Peter Parisi, Hunter College • Rhetorical analysis of major-press reaction stories, most concerning the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, reveals a pattern of systematic misrepresentation of the quality of popular thought. The predominant public view that private sexual conduct is irrelevant to a leader’s performance, was repeatedly downplayed • interpreted as cynicism, venality or narrow self-interest. Journalists insisted on the public maintaining a naive faith the honesty and morality of its leaders and the idea of “character” as private behavior.

The “Nature” of Advertising: How Ad Messages Serve Capital by Creating Nature • Elli Lester Roushanzamir, University of Georgia • Mass communication research seldom asks questions regarding how advertising constructs a version of the natural and incorporates that into the system of corporate persuasive messages. This project initiates an exploration into how advertising messages contribute to a dimunition of the relevance of nature and environmentalism. It will be argued that advertising constructs the “natural” in two primary ways: as a curiosity to visit and as an accessory to collect. With the literatures of cultural geography and travel and tourism forming a backdrop, and grounded in critical media studies, with evidence drawn from print (magazine) advertising, the research will show that nature forms a ubiquitous framework for evoking open responses that are capable of maintaining and advancing the integrity of the ad’s preferred meaning across a wide variety of social blocs.

Shaping Social Discourse through Strategic Information and News Narrative: A Case Study of Two Anti-Hate Education Campaigns • Meg Spratt, University of Washington • no abstract

Colonialism and Censorship: The Case of Tsui Hark’s Dangerous Encounter -1st Kind • See Kam Tan and Annette Aw, Nanyang Technological University • This paper examines censorship with respect to colonialism. It specifically seeks to understand the operation of such prohibitive powers, their vigilance and failure, through a disursive analysis of Tsui Hark’s feature, Dangerous Encounter – 1st Kind (1980). Three interrelated questions guide the analysis: Is censorship all-powerful? How is censorship dealt with at the site of production? Can censorship engender an creative impetus of its own, beyond its initial debilitating capacity?

An Historical Inquiry on Collective Media Ownership: The Formation of the Iowa Co-Operative Publishing Company • James F. Tracy, University of Iowa • This paper is an historical examination of the creation and development of the Iowa Co-Operative Publishing Company in Dubuque, Iowa in 1935. The company published the Dubuque Leader labor newspaper and was one of the very few incorporated under state law as a cooperative owned by working class individuals. The participatory nature of the company contributed to the LeaderÕs role as a powerful and independent editorial voice and political force for Dubuque’s working class.

The Normative-Economic Justification for Public Discourse: Letters to the Editor as a “Wide Open” Forum • Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, Cardiff University • This paper investigates how editors speak about the letters section • perhaps the newspaper feature that best encapsulates ideals of public participation. The paper shows that editors celebrate the section’s democratic potential. But the letters section is also seen as a “customer service” feature that boosts newspapers’ financial success. The co-existence of the two models gives rise a “normative-economic justification” for public discourse, which captures the idea that what is good for democracy is also good for business.

The journalist as a spy: Hidden cameras, surveillance, and democracy • Silvio Waisbord, Rutgers University • This paper analyzes the place of hidden-camera reporting within contemporary journalism. The use of hidden camera in television investigative journalism needs to be understood in the context of the incorporation of surveillance technologies in journalism and in society at large. Whereas the expansion of surveillance technologies has raised various concerns, journalism defends their use based on the principles of facticity, veracity, and transparency. The analysis examines the criticisms of hidden-camera reporting and the epistemological principles that underlie undercover television journalism. Journalism’s effort to offer “unmediated reality” seems a losing proposition. It is grounded in weak foundations and inevitably subjected to suspicion. It is ingenuous, at best, to assume that visual technology resolve this complicated matter and further assist in accomplishing the goals of transparency and accountability.

“American Life Is Rich in Lunacy”: The Unsettling Social Commentary of “The Beverly Hillbillies” • Jan Whitt, University of Colorado • Relying upon characteristics from Old Southwestern humor (1830-60) and “Li’l Abner” (1934-77), this study suggests ways in which “The Beverly Hillbillies” functioned as surprisingly deft and often doubled-edged social commentary. Creator Paul Henning might well have agreed with cartoonist Al Capp when Capp said that he found humor “wherever there is lunacy, and American life is rich in lunacy everywhere you look.”

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