Qualitative Studies 1997 Abstracts

Qualitative Studies Division

Scratching the Surface: The New York Times Coverage of the Mothers of Plaza De Mayo, 1977-1997 • Carolina Acosta-Alzuru, University of Georgia • Scholars have looked at the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo from a historical, political, feminist and rhetorical perspective. But how have the media presented the Mothers? Through textual analysis, this paper examines The New York Times coverage of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo from 1977 until today exploring how the Mothers have been constructed in this major U.S. newspaper. This construction is consistent with previous research in the area of news coverage of women. It is superficial and tends to simplify and trivialize the Mothers and the issues involved, presenting them as either victims or demons while demeaning their importance as interlocutors of reality.

Al-Amiriya, February 13,1991 Ñ Broadcasting Standards of Violence in a Time of War • Geri M. Alumit, Michigan • British television news stations used graphic video during its coverage of the Al-Amiriya bombings in Baghdad, Iraq on February 13, 1991. This study uses oral histories, video archive footage and document research to recreate the news coverage on that day and to analyze why the level of violence depicted on TV did not insult Britain’s viewing audience.

Undercover Reporting, Hidden Cameras and the Ethical Decision-Making Process: A Refinement • James L. Aucoin, University of South Alabama • The controversy over the ABC-Food Lion undercover reporting case among media practitioners and the public emphasizes that the issue of whether such reporting is ethical remains unresolved. This paper argues that the ethical decision-making model suggested by many media ethicists and used by many journalists is flawed in that it is based on the assumption that undercover reporting and hidden cameras are primarily information gathering tools, when in fact they are better positioned as story-telling techniques. Once undercover reporting is repositioned in this way, the Principle of Generic Consistency as outlined by moral philosopher Alan Gewirth is adapted to offer a higher standard for deciding when to use hidden cameras and other deceptive reporting techniques. Gewirth’s principle offers a rational justification for arguing that in certain instances Ñ when public freedom and/or well-being is in danger Ñ deceptive reporting techniques are not unethical if reporters have gathered enough evidence that the target of the investigation has indeed violated a moral law.

The Construction of Social Space in an Alternative Radio Text: Resistant Praxis and Hegemonic Rhetoric at KUNM-FM, Albuquerque • Warren Bareiss, Shorter College • This paper is part of a larger ethnographic study that I have conducted on KUNM FM, a noncommercial radio station in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The fundamental issue of the overall study is how an imagined community is constructed through discourse occurring at the station. This paper examines a specific KUNM program to illustrate how discursive patterns not only construct New Mexican communal space, but also privilege an a priori social hierarchy which is contradictory to organizational principles of KUNM and other alternative media.

Between Critical Layers: Lessons From Theories Within Histories of Communication Study • Ralph J. Beliveau, University of Iowa • Histories of the communication study as it evolved since the 1950s often explain the field through biographies and flow charts of influence, but they rarely justify such an explanation. This critique of three other histories examines them for their justifications, and uses them to critically reflect on the field’s communication about itself, particularly on the uses of theory, the (dis)unity of an intellectual ground, and the relationship between communication and learning.

Polity and Identity: Scotland’s Struggle for Cultural Independence and the Lesson of Quebec • Douglas Bicket, University of Washington • This paper comparatively examines the positions of the arts and mass media in Scotland and Quebec. It argues that, in spite of marginally increased funding for domestic cultural industries in recent years, Scotland’s separate cultural identity remains under threat in the absence of an independent, or at least substantially autonomous, Scottish polity. The example of Quebec shows that strong political and cultural institutions are needed to preserve small cultures under threat from hegemonizing external forces.

American Myth, Literary Journalism and The Last Cowboy’s Henry Blanton • Susan Blue, University of St. Thomas • Commentary on American Western myth emerges from Jane Kramer’s The Last Cowboy. This paper traces landscape and language in this piece of literary journalism, examining the myth’s roots in early American rhetoric. This cultural exploration also reveals pertinent gender tensions. In revisiting the cowboy myth and its formation, it is possible to isolate the changes in Western myth that Kramer shows, and to explore the myth’s contemporary ramifications.

After the Second Wave: Toward an Interpretation of the American Feminist Antipornography Movement • Carolyn, Bronstein, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This paper analyzes how the first American feminist antipornography organization, Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media (WAVPM), constructed a discourse about pornography in the mid-1970s. I trace historical links between antipornography and nineteenth century social purity campaigns, and try to show how these campaigns reflected the political, social and cultural circumstances of their organizers. In the case of antipornography, I argue that the movement’s basic ideas about sex and sexuality grew out of the second wave critique of male sexual violence, disillusionment with the «sexual revolution» and the emergence of political lesbianism. I offer a thematic analysis of the WAVPM newsletter, NewsPage, published monthly from 1977 to 1983, and conclude that the organization’s campaign against pornography ultimately mirrored social purity by restricting the definition of acceptable female sexual behavior.

Newsrooms Under Siege: Crime Coverage, Public Policy and the Louisiana Pizza Kitchen Murders • Christopher P. Campbell • This paper is a textual analysis of coverage by The Times-Picayune and WWL-TV (New Orleans’ CBS affiliate) that followed the murder of three employees of a French Quarter restaurant. It views the coverage as a microcosm of a news process that provides shallow interpretations of events and leads to ineffective public policy. It argues that the news media’s interpretation of events routinely strips them of significant historical, social, cultural and political implications.

Reflections on the Project of (American) Cultural Studies • James W. Carey, Columbia University • This essay reviews and evaluates cultural studies as program of qualitative research in communications. It provides one rendition of cultural studies from an American perspective and explores the relationship between this work and its philosophical presuppositions and the parallel work in England, particularly at the Center for the Study of Contemporary Culture. It also examines some of the tensions between cultural studies and political economy and tries to provide an ethical/political justification for one particular outlook within this broad arena of scholarship.

Context and the Developed World: Newspaper Coverage of Crisis in Scotland and Belgium • Christian Christensen, University of Texas • This study is a qualitative analysis of 34 New York Times articles on massacres in both Scotland and Belgium in 1996. The study examines coverage of these developed countries within the context of previous academic works on the inadequacies of coverage from developing (Third World) nations. The results of the study, examined with issues of proximity in mind, indicate that the NYT provided contextualized and highly developed stories from the two nations.

Ready, Aiming, and Firing Blanks: The Office of Civilian Defense Targets African-Americans During World War II • Caryl Cooper, University of Alabama • By the time the United States entered World War II, public relations was well on its way to becoming an integral part of government relations with the public. This case study examines how the Office of Civilian Defense executed those elements deemed necessary for a successful campaign. This study also examines how race, discrimination and public opinion impacted the government’s attempts to communicate with a special public during a time of national crisis.

Organizational Rhetoric as Performance Art: A Dramatistic Study of Corporate Communication, Public Relations and Fund Raising • Margaret Duffy, Austin Peay State University • In a case study of the public relations, fund-raising, and organizational communication of a not-for-profit organization, this article uses symbolic convergence theory, an approach rarely deployed in examining these activities. The study examines internal and external communication processes as social constructions of reality and argues that the dramas and stories through which organizational members make sense of their organizational world are manifested in the communicative products and processes of the collectivity.

On the Relevance of Standpoint Epistemology to the Practice of Journalism: The Case for Strong Objectivity • Meenaksi Gigi Durham, University of Texas at Austin • This paper interrogates traditional notions of «objectivity» and its interpretation in conventional news reporting. I argue here that the underlying principles of objectivity devolve in practice to an epistemic relativism that fails to consider the validity of various truth claims. I propose an alternative of «strong objectivity» grounded in standpoint theory. I trace the arguments against scientific objectivity that parallel critiques of journalistic objectivity, then propose an alternative conception of praxis that could fulfill the liberatory goals of journalism.

Heroes, Villains and Twice-Told Tales: The Normative Effect of Journalism’s Worklore • Frank E. Fee Jr. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Organizational communication theory, rhetorical theory, and popular culture theory provide a new framework for examining occupational lore’s power to create and maintain work cultures in news organizations. Folk heroes and antiheroes model behaviors salient to journalists’ views of their work processes and operating assumptions. The professional culture of journalists, reflected in heroes and villains, and the local newsroom culture, where the stories are told, in turn reveal tensions and problems in the practice.

Decontextualization of Hirohito: Historical Memory Loss in Docudrama Hiroshima • Koji Fuse, University of Texas at Austin • This paper is a discourse analysis of Showtime miniseries «Hiroshima,» aired in August 1995, to explore how Hirohito was depicted to suit the dominant ideology in line with the traditional conservative historical account of him as a robotic pacifist in contrast with aggressive Japanese military. The revisionist view of Hirohito, however, presents a very different picture of his prewar political power, aggressiveness, and disrespect of non-Japanese Asians, which were totally ignored in «Hiroshima.»

He Never Had a Chance: The U.S. Media’s Portrayal of Ross Perot’s Exclusion from the 1996 Debates • Eileen Gilligan, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This paper examines how Ross Perot, his party, and his campaign were portrayed in the U.S. media, especially during his fight to gain entry to the 1996 presidential candidates debate. Using a sample of approximately 120 media news stories and qualitative analysis, this paper explores the media’s use of routine practices, marginalizing devices, and their focus on individuals as hegemonic methods for supporting the two-party electoral system or the status quo.

Public Journalism and the Search for Democratic Ideals • Theodore L. Glasser, Stephanie Craft, Stanford University • Public journalism’s commitment to promoting and improving the quality of public life raises interesting and important questions about what this arguably new role for the press entails and what view of democracy it implies. This paper focuses on three areas where public journalism’s conception of the press and the press’s interest in self-governance appear to be most problematic. It concludes with a brief assessment of the prospects for a public purpose for a private press.

Anti-Drinking and Driving PSAs: Do They Have Any Meaning to Underage College Students? • Alyse R. Gotthoffer, University of Florida • This study qualitatively examines underage college students’ drinking behaviors and what meanings, if any, anti-drinking and driving public service announcements (PSAs) have to them. Results suggest many implications for PSA designers, including localization of PSAs, and the use of consequences more relevant to college students, such as being charged with a DUI.

Money Talks: The Television Promotional Text as Ideological Expression • Joseph Harry, Michigan State University • A rhetorical and political-economic analysis of 34 television promotional spots representing 18 different Fall primetime programs on the three major commercial broadcast networks shows how each promo is framed to project a certain storyline pertaining, to varying degrees, either to the nature of the upcoming program or to the nature of the network itself. The promo rhetoric reflects the political-economic interests of the network, thus each promo can be read as a form of ideological expression.

When the Numbers Don’t Add Up: The Framing of Proposition 187 Coverage in the Los Angeles Times • Peter Hart, Rutgers University • This paper examines coverage of California’s Proposition 187 ( 1994) in the Los Angeles Times by means of both the administrative and the critical research paradigms. In the end, the critical research methodology appears to be more thorough and intellectually satisfying, as it both offers and answers substantial questions concerning the Times coverage. The paper addresses the competing research methodologies in regard to both Proposition 187 and in a more general context.

Narrative Literary Journalism’s Historic and Gratuitous Resistance to Critical Closure • John Hartsock, Marist College • This paper examines how rhetorical concrete detail assures that narrative literary journalism will resist coming to critical closure. Even in the instance when they serve symbolic purposes their phenomenalist status will resist wholesale reification. Such tropes could be characterized as «subversively gratuitous.» But in particular, it is «flagrantly gratuitous» details that most forcefully resist critical closure, begging instead with unfulfilled meaning. The writings of Ernest Hemingway, Tom Wolfe, Edmund Wilson, and Erskine Caldwell are examined.

Oprah’s Book Club Radical Reading and Talk Show Literature • Ann Haugland, Middle Tennessee State University • Oprah Winfrey’s on-air book club has been a phenomenal success. Using transcripts, news articles about the club and theories of popular culture the paper identifies the ways that the book club challenges some established assumptions about books and reading in contemporary culture. The success of the club provides further evidence that the high/popular distinctions based on class or status of the consumers of culture or on the characteristics of the work are inadequate and seriously limit our understanding of the possibilities for books and reading. Oprah’s book club is remarkable because it suggests an alternative discourse about serious books and alternative uses for them.

Analysis of Physician Assisted Suicide in the New York Times From 1991-1996 • Robert K. Kalwinsky, University of Iowa • This research paper represents a first step toward contextualizing the study of Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) within the framework of mass communications. An impassioned topic among certain groups, the incidence of PAS is apparently more prevalent than one would suspect. Save for accounts of Jack Kevorkian’s activities and a few contested cases, the media were initially silent in this regard. After defining terms and detailing relevant background material, a research proposal is set forth that utilizes textual analysis to trace the threads of developing accounts. Specifically, coverage of PAS in the New York Times over the past six years is analyzed to glean organizing principles that create cultural meanings for the practice.

Reading Presidential Candidate: A Semiotic Analysis of Televised Political Advertising in Korea • Soobum Lee, University of Oklahoma • This study examines and interprets the combined structure and content of televised political advertisements during the 1992 Presidential election in Korea, using the semiotics method. Semiotics is the study of underlying mechanisms by which signs convey meaning. Such studies can be applied to the case of televised political advertisements. As a result of this analysis, Kim Daejung emphasized change, while Kim Youngsam emphasized gradual reform with ordinary people. Consequently, Kim Youngsam received wide support from the voters, who preferred gradual reform to abrupt change. In conclusion, Kim Youngsam’s advertising represents a more commodificated image of the middle class. This type of advertising thus indicates that a successful presidential campaign depends on good image-marketing.

The Troubled Waters of Communication Research: Scylla and Charybdis in the Postmodern Era • Larry Z. Leslie, University of South Florida • Facing tight budgets and limited resources, many universities are watching their communications programs. A few have been discontinued; some have merged with other disciplines. Some say that the work communication departments do is not central to the mission of a university. Additionally, observers note our research is not high quality, not «scholarly.» This article critically examines some of the problems surrounding communications research; places communication research in a theoretical modernist paradigm; and calls for changes in the way communication scholars do their work, changes suggested by a postmodern culture.

Facts, Stories and the Creation of Worlds: An Analysis of Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s News for Kids • Elizabeth Pauline Lester, Usha Raman, University of Georgia • While recent textual analyses have focused on portrayals of Others in media, little critical research has looked at the socializing role of children’s media. In this paper we analyze the News for Kids section of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a section that is targeted at children of upper-elementary through middle-school age. Our textual analysis uncovers five discursive strategies that NFK uses to construct images of Us (the preferred readers) and Other (different and marginalized groups, both international and local) in ways that sustain existing global and local socio-economic relationships and hierarchies.

News, Myth and Society: Mother Teresa as Exemplary Model • Jack Lule, Lehigh University • The purpose of this paper is to begin building a model that restores myth to a privileged place in studies of news and society. The paper first reviews the rich tradition that gave rise to comparisons of news and myth in the l950s and earlier. It briefly traces the strains of research that emerged from this tradition, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s. It offers reasons why this research seemingly has faltered in our times. And it proposes a perspective that might recapture and extend the insights provided by links between news and myth. Finally, the paper demonstrates the possibilities of the model by using myth to explore a case of news reporting, New York Times coverage of Mother Teresa.

Olympian Melodrama: The Excess of NBC’s 1996 Olympic Games • Christopher R. Martin, Bettina G. Fabos, University of Northern Iowa • This paper argues that with the decreasing relevance of the traditional geopolitical narratives in television Olympic coverage, Olympian melodrama had to be reinvented. Network storytelling thus turned to individuals and individual conflicts to increase the tension, drama and excitement of the Games. The authors critically analyze the 171.5 hours of NBC’s 1996 Atlanta Games coverage, and explain how the new melodramatic narrative polarized individuals Ñ oftentimes athletes from the same American team Ñ through a record number of «up close and personal» stories. The analysis also covers the pitfalls of NBC’s narrative strategy, and explains why so many watched the Olympics yet hated the coverage.

The Legacy of Popular Culture Movement: A Case of National Cinema in Korea • Eung-Jun Min, Rhode Island College • Korean National Cinema is a theoretical, politicized, and often underground cinematic practice and discourse that speaks out for people and provides a site for creating and experimenting new forms and contents. It has inspired many cinematic possibilities and opens the possibility of creating non-capitalist filmic practice. The whole process of national cinema, whether it is cinematic or non-cinematic practices, gives a new meaning to the viewing of films in general. This article discloses and closely examines the persistent series of binding interrelationships, continuities, and similarities that, alongside the breaks and differences, has made this movement a significant socio-political and cultural force in Korea.

A Show About Nothing?: Social Manners, Seinfeld and the Dense Web of American Civility • David P. Pierson, Pennsylvania State University • This paper examines how the popular TV series, Seinfeld reveals a deeply-held cultural ambivalence towards the changing social codes and manners of contemporary American society. Drawing on the works of Bourdieu, Bakhtin, and Elias, the paper argues that all societies have placed a great emphasis on social manners and customs. This paper also illustrates the benefits of analyzing popular cultural forms as interpretive sites for charting the evolving social manners that comprise American civility.

Paradoxes of the Information Age: Recasting the Book-Versus-Computer Debate • Judy Polumbaum, University of Iowa • This paper suggests that bipolar categorization Ñ e.g., bibliophiles vs. technophiles, traditionalists vs. futurists, optimists vs. pessimists Ñ is a poor way to order discussions about the nature and implications of new communications media. Through review and analysis of a selection of recent popular and scholarly literature related to the book, reading, knowledge and communication in the digital era, the paper pursues the notion that attitudes toward older and newer media are evolving conjointly, often on the basis of shared rather than divergent goals and priorities. Values discerned as important to both boosters and skeptics of new media Ñ comfort, communion, community and continuity Ñ are examined in terms of old and new media technologies.

Re-Covering the Homeless: Hindsights on the Joyce Brown Story • Jimmie L. Reeves, Texas Tech University • A reconsideration of what Morley Safer once called a moral fable for our time, this paper takes a radically-historical interpretive perspective to treat the Joyce Brown controversy as a significant moment in the flow of 246 television news reports broadcast between 1981 and 1988 that, collectively, gave expression to the Reagan-era homeless narrative.

Preaching to the Unseen Choir: African-American Elders Producing Public-Access Television • Karen Riggs, Robert Pondillo, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee • The authors interviewed five older African-Americans who have been involved in producing or appearing on public-access television shows in order to promote particular social causes. The study contends that religious identification, joined with a charismatic and purposeful personal style, motivated these elders to turn to public access as a pulpit for democracy. The authors conclude that public access is imperfect as an element of the public sphere but carries the potential for people to effect change in their communities.

A New Media Analysis Technique: An Ethical Analysis of Media Entertainment • Eileen R. Ringnalda, University of Iowa • This paper asserts the need for an ethical analysis of media entertainment texts and describes how it may be carried out. Just as other forms of media criticism are grounded in the disciplines of linguistics, psychology, and sociology, this media analysis technique is based on ethical principles and the evaluation of values communicated by media entertainment.

From Legitimacy Crisis to Opportunity: The Advertising Industry and the Art of Spin in the 1930s • Inger L. Stole, University of Wisconsin-Madison • The 1930s advertising industry faced a burgeoning consumer movement. This paper examines how the industry used public relations in order to contain criticism of advertising. The advertising industry constructed bogus pro-industry consumer groups and undermined the drive to provide critical consumer education in schools. The advertising industry effectively limited discussion about advertising, channeling all advertising criticism into forms that would not threaten advertising’s privileged position.

An Exploration of the Social, Political, Religious, and Economic Constraints to the Implementation of an Effective AIDS Prevention Program • Radhika Talwani, University of Florida • Until a cure for AIDS is found, prevention is the key, but health communication research states that effective AIDS/HIV prevention programs have not been implemented. Researchers and AIDS prevention program coordinators agree about what constitutes an effective AIDS prevention program. However, both groups discussed various obstacles to the implementation of such programs. This study found that the obstacles that are the most prevalent spring from the conservative movement that has been sweeping the nation since the 1980s.

Black, White and Read All Over: Racial Reasoning and the Construction of Public Reaction to the O.J. Simpson Criminal Trial Verdict • Lauren R. Tucker, University of South Carolina • This case study deconstructs the media frame of the racial divide used by the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Defender define the public reaction to the October 3, 1995 Simpson criminal verdict. This frame analysis identifies differences and similarities between two newspapers, one mainstream and one Black, as they define, interpret and evaluate the public reaction to the Simpson’s acquittal.

Television and the Politics of Values: The Case of M*A*S*H • James H. Wittebols, Niagara University • As a long running situation comedy, «M*A*S*H» is an ideal vehicle for examining television’s politics and values. Four value orientations are presented to look critically at how: 1.) television lags behind value shifts occurring in society, 2.) television’s imperatives produce a focus on commercial and universal values, 3.) oppositional or counter cultural values are rarely portrayed, even in a show regarded as innovative and provocative and 4.) television stays within safe boundaries while reflecting some social tensions and contradictions.

Rethinking the Unintended Consequences: The Pursuit of Individualism in America Primetime Television Advertising • Joyce M. Wolburg, Marquette University, Ronald E. Taylor, University of Tennessee • A long-standing, unresolved issue concerns whether advertising messages merely reflect existing cultural values or construct new values. To reconsider the issue, this study examined primetime television advertising for expressions of individualism, the most basic cultural value in American society. Using a document analysis approach, four types of main message strategy and eight contextual categories emerged as elements that express individualism. These expressions showed that advertising portrayals often misrepresent what we know of the culture from census data. Conclusions were offered regarding advertising’s ability to construct new values.

Spokesperson as Agenda Builder: Framing the Susan Smith Investigation • Lynn M. Zoch, Columbia, Erin A. Galloway, Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce • This paper analyzes the thematic frames used by Sheriff Howard Wells, the main police spokesman in the Susan Smith investigation. Three overlapping frames served to build the media coverage of the nine day investigation, keeping the focus of the media on efforts to achieve the safe return of the two missing children, and downplaying suspicions of Smith while police conducted parallel investigations. Wells’ characteristics as a successful source, and his use of strategic ambiguity in his statements are also noted.

<< 1997 Abstracts

Newspaper 1997 Abstracts

Newspaper Division

Net Gain? Online Newspapers Take Time From Their Cyber-stampede to Assess Benefits and Drawbacks of Electronic Editions • Mary Jane Alexander, St. Michael’s College • This paper examines New England newspapers’ assessment of the benefits, drawbacks and future of electronic publishing. Conclusions are based on a survey of the region’s 602 daily and weekly newspapers, conducted from November 1996-February 1997. Respondents cited several pluses and minuses of cybereditions. The survey found that many of the aspects of online publishing that have been lauded as revolutionary, the ability to provide immediate updates, deliver the news instantly and without regard to space limitations, are the same elements that are cited as drawbacks by some online publishers. As for the future? Although most respondents said online news would never replace the traditional newspaper, 13 papers (6.5 percent) surveyed say the Internet Ñ or some as-yet unimagined technology Ñ would eventually replace the print medium; four more (2 percent) said its demise was possible.

Changing Values in the Newsroom: A Survey of Daily Newspaper Editors and Reporters • M. David Arant, University of Memphis, Philip Meyer, University of North Carolina • This mail survey of U.S. daily newspaper editors and reporters suggests that ethical standards of rank-and-file journalists have not deteriorated during the last 14 years. Replicating several variables from a 1983 survey, the study found that journalists in 1997 showed as great or greater ethical sensitivity in their responses to questions dealing with conflict of interest, deception and privacy as did the journalists who responded to these questions in 1983.

The Characteristics of Market-Oriented Daily Newspapers • Randal A. Beam, Indiana University • Results of a survey of 406 senior editors at 182 newspapers indicate that newspapers with a strong market orientation do more readership research than newspapers with a weak market orientation. Also, market-oriented newspapers are as committed to traditional content and public-affairs content as other papers. They are more committed to special-interest content, to endorsing an adversarial role for journalists and to publishing an excellent journalistic product. Cross-departmental interaction is more frequent at market-oriented newspapers.

So-30-Doesn’t Mean the End. Media Temps Provide Helping Hands for Community Newspapers • Lori Bergen and Linda Gilmore, Kansas State University • Who helps out when personal tragedies strike in a community newspaper? Who could relieve the staff of small, often exclusively family-run news organizations who haven’t had time off in years for a vacation or family visit? This paper discusses several ways that university journalism units can institute a Media Temps program that uses university students and faculty to assist in the temporary production of community newspapers. The experience for students and faculty is meaningful and significant in a number of ways, which is illustrated through examples of four successful Media Temp programs run by the Huck Boyd Center for Community Journalism in the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Kansas State University. The paper concludes with specific plans for instituting programs at other institutions.

Self-Promotion and the Internet • Steve J. Collins, Syracuse University • Economic theory and historical evidence suggest a newspaper’s coverage is affected by its financial interests. It was hypothesized that newspapers online themselves would provide more coverage of the Internet (in their traditional publications) than newspapers not online. Based on a content analysis (using Nexis) of 30 newspapers, a statistically significant difference between the two groups was found for the average number of stories with Internet in the headline, but not for average story length.

Corporate News Structure and News Source Perceptions: Another Test of the Editorial Vigor Hypothesis • David Pearce Demers, Washington State University • A recent content analysis of newspaper editorial content has disputed 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). As hypothesized, the more a newspaper exhibits the characteristics of the corporate form of organization, the more these news sources perceive that paper as being critical of them and their institutions.

New Study Contradicts Medsger’s Winds of Change • Fred Fedler, Maria Cristina Santana, Arlen Carey, University of Central Florida, Tim Counts, University of South Florida • Medsger’s Winds of Change found that 17X % of journalism’s educators never worked full time as journalists. This study, with a higher response rate, found that the figure is 4.3%. Like Medsger, however, this study found that new faculty members have less professional experience. This study also compared faculty members in JMC’s largest specializations. Those who taught reporting/editing had fewer Ph.D.s and conducted less research. None said they had no professional experience, although 2.9% did not answer the question.

Journalism’s Status In Academia: A Candidate For Elimination? • Fred Fedler, Arlen Carey, University of Central Florida, Tim Counts, University of South Florida • To learn more about JMC’s ability to survive in this era of retrenchment, the authors surveyed more than 600 academicians from all disciplines and all types of colleges and universities. If their institutions were forced to cut some programs, the respondents would be most likely to eliminate hospitality management and home economics, followed by Judaic, women’s and African-American studies. Only 2.7% would eliminate journalism. However, 31.6% would eliminate (or merge) advertising/public relations and 26.2% broadcasting.

Fairness and Defamation in the Reporting of Local Issues • Frederick Fico, Todd Simon, Michael Drager, Michigan State University • Stories involving conflict and defamation during May 1994 in 16 mid-sized randomly sampled dailies from around the nation were content analyzed. The study examined the relationship of source type (government proceedings and documents, other activities and documents, and interviews) to fairness, balance and defamation in the reporting of conflict. Some 38 percent of the 620 stories involving conflict contained defamatory assertions. Contrary to expectations, stories relying on interview sources were not more fair and balanced than stories relying on government proceedings and documents. Also contrary to expectations, interview-based stories were twice as likely as stories emerging from government proceedings or documents to contain defamatory assertions. Stories containing defamatory assertions were also examined to assess legal risk.

Beyond Accuracy: The Effects of Direct Vs. Paraphrased Quotation in Multi-Sided News Reports on Issue Perception • Rhonda Gibson, University of Houston, Dolf Zillmann, University of Alabama • The ability of quotation in news reports to influence media consumers’ judgments of issues was examined. Five print news reports addressing the economic conditions of farms were created. All reports presented the issue as two-sided, one side blaming bankers and the government for the failure of farms and one crediting these people for farms’ successes. The conditions included one with no quotation, one with direct quotation from both sides of the issue, one with paraphrased quotation from both sides of the issue, one with direct from side one and paraphrased from side two, and one with direct from side two and paraphrased from side one. Respondents exposed to reports containing direct testimony from poor farmers produced higher estimates of the number of farms that fail and were more likely to blame bankers and the government than respondents who did not read direct personal testimony from poor farmers.

An Analysis of Online Sites Produced by U.S. Newspapers: Are the Critics Right? • Jon Gubman, Jennifer Greer, University of Nevada-Reno • A content analysis of 83 sites produced by U.S. newspapers was conducted to examine whether criticism directed at the industry for failing to adapt to new technology is well-founded. The research shows online newspapers making strides in placement of news and reader interaction. Online papers are not doing as well adapting to the digital environment in news content and presentation of news. Sites produced by large newspapers appear closer to the critics’ ideal than small newspapers.

Newsroom Topic Teams: Journalists’ Assessments of Effects on News Routines and Newspaper Quality • Kathleen A. Hansen, University of Minnesota, Mark Neuzil, University of St. Thomas, Jean Ward, University of Minnesota • This study examines the effects of newsroom topic on news routines and newspaper quality. It is based on a census survey of journalists at the Star Tribune (Minneapolis) and the St. Paul Pioneer Press, which both instituted topic teams within six months of each other. Survey results are supplemented by focus group and written comments from journalists in these two Newspaper Guild newsrooms. The study finds that the effects of the team system on the news process and news quality have been mixed, but predominantly negative, in the assessment of these journalists.

Is The Women’s Section an Anachronism? Affinity for and Ambivalence About the Chicago Tribune’s WomaNews • Melinda D. Hawley, University of Georgia • Analysis of interviews with staff of the Chicago Tribune’s WomaNews and reader focus groups suggests women’s sections can help to retain women readers and increase the visibility of women in newspapers. However, the study warned the women’s label undermines the section’s success by appearing to: • exclude men from coverage of substantive issues affecting women, • reinforce stereotypes of women, • create a women’s news ghetto, and • attract advertising that conflicts with editorial content, thereby alienating women readers.

Sisyphus or Synergy: Effects of TV-Newspaper Collaborations on Voter Knowledge • Jurgen Henn, University of North Carolina • This paper examines whether collaborations of television and newspapers produce a synergistic effect, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It is going to demonstrate that media partnerships affected the citizens’ knowledge of the presidential candidates’ positions in a study of 20 U.S. media-markets during the 1996 election. It will also show statistical indications of a limited amount of cross-promotional effect of newspaper television partnerships in these markets.

Reversal of Fortune for the Dominant Print Media: Social and Economic Determinants for the Differential Revenue Growth among China’s Newspapers • Chen Huailin, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Guo Zhongshi, Hong Kong Baptist University, Xing Rong, Chinese University of Hong Kong • This research explores the emerging pattern of differential revenue growth among various newspapers in China and analyzes its social and economic origins. guided by a framework of key concepts and using data from multiple sources, our analysis uncovered several characteristics common to the revenue gap, including timing, region, magnitude, and nature of occurrences. We established that the interactions between newspaper orientation and market maturity factors are the main forces underlying the enlargement of the gap.

Life and Death in Jackson’s America: Cultural Values as Memory in Historic Newspaper Obituaries • Janice Hume, University of Missouri • Andrew Jackson’s 1828 election to the presidency represents a political and cultural turning point in American history. The new nation experienced vast changes during the era, but perhaps the most striking trend was the strengthening of egalitarianism, the notion that America should be a nation of equality. Indeed, more men gained access to the political franchise, but did this new spirit of equality affect the lives of everyday citizens or increase their value in the democracy? This study uses the historic newspaper obituary, which distills and publishes for public consumption the remembered worth of an individual citizen’s life, as a tool to help answer this question.

Media’s Coverage of Itself: How Eight Major Newspapers Covered the Telecommunications Act of 1996 • L. Paul Husselbee, Ohio University • Given the magnitude of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and its potential impact on society, media consumers seemed to be grossly underinformed about the scope of the new law. Some media practitioners, including Washington Post columnist Tom Shales and Nightline’s Ted Koppel, were vocal about media’s failure to cover the act before it became law. This study analyzes coverage of the Telecommunication Act by eight major newspapers to determine whether they provided balanced reports on the provisions and implications of the act. It concludes that coverage was not balanced and that some aspects of the proposed act were highlighted while others were not discussed. Statistical analysis indicates that there may be an association between these findings.

The Effect of Rape Victim Identification on Readers’ Perceptions of Victims and News Stories • Michelle Johnson, Westfield State College • Journalists have been discussing whether or not to name rape victims in news stories for more than three decades, but they have yet to resolve the issue. This study took an experimental approach to the problem, testing whether the inclusion of rape victims’ names in stories affected readers’ interest in the story, sympathy for the victim or assignment of responsibility for the crime. It found that while the inclusion of victims’ names affects readers views in some cases, the effects are not universal, uniform or predictable.

Untangling the Web: Teaching Students How to Use Online Resources and Critically Evaluate Information • Stan Ketterer, University of Missouri • Former presidential Press Secretary Pierre Salinger inadvertently issued a wake-up call to journalists worldwide last year that taking information from the Internet can be hazardous when he alleged that a TWA jetliner was downed by friendly fire. Initially, Salinger’s reputation lent credibility to the information, but ultimately he damaged the credibility of the profession by failing to ensure accuracy. Salinger’s vulnerablity indicates that educators must teach students how to critically evaluate information on the Internet and ensure its accuracy. The researcher created a World Wide Web site of hypertext links divided into useful categories that students could use for daily journalism. Guidelines for use of Web information were drafted. Students in advanced reporting and copy editing classes, students were taught how to use the site and how to evaluate information critically. During the first month, the site was accessed more than 1,200 times. Initial results indicate that the site appears to be useful, but more research must be done.

Reader-Friendly Journalism’s Lasting Impact: A Study of Reporters and Editors Involved in Knight-Ridder’s 25/43 Project • Kris Kodrich, Indiana University • On Oct. 11, 1990, Knight-Ridder kicked off a grand journalistic experiment called the 25/43 Project at The Boca Raton News, a sleepy 25,000-circulation newspaper in South Florida. The company invested millions of dollars in a bold move to attract baby boomers to newspapers. This is a qualitative study of the attitudes of some of the journalists involved in the project. Today, many of the reporters involved in the 25/43 Project believe they damaged newspapers more than they helped them to survive. Many are predicting, at the very least, a smudged future for newspapers. Newspapers, in attempting to redefine themselves, have destroyed themselves, says former reporter Phil Scruton. But one of the strategists of the 25/43 Project says some reporters never quite understood what the project was all about, and still don’t.

Making the Picture: A Study of U.S. Media Coverage of Dissidents in China and South Korea, 1989-1996 • Yulian Li, Ohio University • This study content-analyzed news stories published in the New York Times and the Washington Post covering dissidents in China and South Korea between 1989 and 1996. It found that the papers consistently portrayed Chinese dissidents as human rights campaigners and often described South Korean dissidents as violent radicals. The study concluded that the media were influenced by the American ideology and adopted the U.S. government schemes of interpretation in covering international events.

Adult Learners’ Attitudes About Newspapers • Carol S. Lomicky, University of Nebraska at Kearney • This study identifies attitudes about newspapers among adult learners in literacy programs. The researcher performed a principle components factor analysis on data obtained from the Q sorts of 47 subjects from Adult Basic Education programs in Central Nebraska. Thirty-two subjects loaded significantly (p< 0.01) on a four factor solution. The factors were labeled (a) Good Citizens, (b) Gregarians, (c) Pragmatics, and (d) Pragmatic Skeptics. Demographic data also was used to describe subjects.

Newspaper Nonreadership: A Study of Motivations • Gina M. Masullo, Syracuse University • Despite decades of research on declining newspaper readership, the newspaper industry still does not know how to reverse this trend. This study draws on the uses and gratifications perspective to provide new insight into the link between motivation to seek information and time spent reading newspapers. This survey analysis confirms that newspaper nonreadership is not solely a function of demographics, but that the root of nonreadership is a lack of motivation to seek information.

The Chattanooga Times and NewsChannel 9: Working Together to Get the Scoop and the Implications for Journalism Educators • Peter Pringle, Luther Masingill, Betsy B. Alderman, University of Tennessee/Chattanooga • No Abstract available.

Newspaper Readership Choices of Young Adults • Carol Schlagheck, Eastern Michigan University • This study looks at trends in newspaper readership among the 18-to-34 age group and examines some of the choices young adults make when reading newspapers. Specifically, this study explores what types of newspapers young adults read, what stories they read in those papers and what information they would like newspapers to give them. Some suggestions are offered for changing newspapers to make their content more appealing to young adults.

A Big Enough Web for the Both of Us? Online Coverage of the 1996 Election by Denver’s Warring Newspapers • Jane B. Singer, Colorado State University • The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News have been fiercely at war for 100 years. Last fall, the two papers got their first shot at trying to outgun each other in online political coverage. This exploratory study analyzes the print and Web versions of the two papers during the campaign season to determine how they handled the opportunities and challenges of cyberspace; interviews with their online editors provide insight into why things were the way they were this time around.

Assessment of Lead Writing Practices in U.S. Newspapers • Gerald Stone, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale • Are U.S. newspaper journalists still adhering to the principle of writing short, active-voice leads? An assessment of leads in a large sample of staff written articles found that the average lead is about 24 words and that newspaper leads fall close to that average regardless of publication frequency, circulation size or whether the story is written on deadline. However, newspapers do deviate from the principle of using active voice leads.

Mainstream Newspapers’ Coverage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, 1991-1996 • Ana-Jimena Vargas, Ohio University • This study showed that there was a significant difference in the coverage of NAFTA by six mainstream newspapers during different phases of the agreement: negotiations, congressional approval and implementation. The coverage was indexed to what government officials and congressional members had to say about the accord, and focused primarily on the participants in the NAFTA debate and their arguments, rather than on the provisions and implications of the agreement.

Newspaper Editors’ Policies and Attitudes Toward Coverage of Domestic Assault • Wayne Wanta and Kimber Williams, University of Oregon • The attitudes and policies of newspaper editors regarding domestic violence were examined through a mail survey conducted in February 1995, during the O.J. Simpson trial. In general, few editors reported having formal policies to assist reporters covering domestic assault stories. Editors also felt that domestic assault presented more legal risks than other types of assault, but that the coverage of domestic violence did not pose ethical problems for their newspapers.

<< 1997 Abstracts

Media Management and Economics 1997 Abstracts

Media Management and Economics Division

Using Industry Trade Magazines as a Textbook for Media Management Courses • Edward E. Adams, Angelo State University • Weekly trade journals such as Editor & Publisher, Broadcasting Cable, and Advertising Age, can serve as texts for media management courses. Trade magazines provide a current context of management and economic issues for students, as well as exposure to industry publications. This paper discusses the advantages and limitations of utilizing trade magazines as a course textbook.

Network Affiliation Changes and Inheritance Effects • Marianne Barrett, Charles C. Brotherton, Arizona State University • The network affiliation changes and the challenges to viewing behavior that they present offer a unique opportunity to examine whether the traditional factors thought to impact audience duplication continue to do so. This study uses Nielsen ratings data for February 1994, 1995 and 1996 from sixty markets across the United States to assess the effect of the affiliation changes on audience duplication. The study finds that lead-in ratings continue to be the most important determinant of inheritance.

Rosse’s Model Revisited: Moving from Linearity to Concentric Circles to Explain Newspaper Competition • Janet A. Bridges and Barry Litman, Lamar W. Bridges • Competition in the newspaper industry is no longer explained by the linear umbrella model of competition proposed by Rosse in the 1970s. Changes in the newspaper industry suggest a more fluid model of concentric circles is appropriate. The proposed model retains the four Rosse layers, incorporates a fifth, and illustrates changing conditions in the newspaper industry that make suburban and satellite dailies more competitive.

Playing the Market: Diversification as a Management Strategy Among Publicly Traded Newspaper Companies Category: Media Management & Economics • John Carvalho, University of North Carolina • Many companies aggressively expand into new industries. Such strategies are promoted by management gurus, who claim that wise diversification enhances shareholder value. But what about newspaper companies? Are they following this strategy Ñ which often leads to larger debt and closing of unprofitable properties? Are they sticking to their core industries? This paper examines strategy at eleven publicly traded newspaper companies. The author found many companies are diversifying widely, while others continue to concentrate on newspapers.

The Radio Remote: A Model of Audience Feedback • Todd Chambers, Steven McClung, University of Tennessee • This exploratory study examined the processes involved in the radio remote. In particular, this study used a field observation method of 30 different radio remotes in six markets. The researchers found that the radio remote process involves a level of interdependence among the client, station and audience. Overall, the researchers concluded that remotes could be judged according to the presence of a client giveaway or special offer, station giveaways, station interaction with the audience and an activity for the audience. Based on these criteria, the researchers found that few remotes contained all four elements.

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Convergence: The Strategic Alliances of Broadcasting, Cable Television, and Telephone Services • Sylvia M.Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida • Convergence through mergers and acquisitions seems to provide the best opportunity for companies to accelerate the implementation of new technologies while at the same time, capture a developed customer base. This paper addressed the following research questions: 1) What is the trend of M&A in the broadcasting, cable TV, and telephone industries after the 1996 ownership deregulation? 2) What are the initial M&A strategies for broadcasting, cable TV, and telephone companies on the way to convergence? 3) Is the convergence being carried out by internal (within industry) M&A or cross-segment integrated strategic alliances?

Revisiting Corporate Newspaper Structure and Profit-Making: Was I Wrong? • David Demers, Washington State University • In a survey of newspapers conducted in 1993, I found that the more a newspaper exhibits the characteristics of the corporate form of organization, the less emphasis it places on profits as an organizational goal and the more emphasis it places on product quality and other non-profit goals. However, some data in a survey I conducted in the fall of 1996 failed to support the profit findings. This paper reports on the findings from another, more comprehensive survey conducted in February 1997 in an attempt to resolve the discrepancy.

A Profile of Potential High-Definition Television Adopters in the United States • Michel Dupagne, University of Miami • A telephone survey was conducted with 193 adults in a major U.S. metropolitan area to assess consumer predispositions toward high-definition television (HDTV) and profile potential adopters of this technology according to demographics, mass media use, ownership of home entertainment products, and importance of television attributes. Based on diffusion theory and communication technology adoption studies, this study hypothesized that male, younger, better educated, and higher-income respondents who are more frequently exposed to mass media channels and value television features more highly would be more aware of HDTV, express a greater interest in HDTV, and be more likely to purchase an HDTV set. Results indicated that HDTV awareness was positively related to education, income, gender (male), newspaper use, ownership of home entertainment products, and picture sharpness; HDTV interest was positively related to age (negative), income, gender (male), moviegoing, and picture sharpness; and HDTV purchase intent was positively related to screen size.

How Family-Owned Hubbard Broadcasting Pioneered Direct Satellite Broadcasting • Hal Foster, University of North Carolina • In 1994 direct satellite broadcasting became the biggest consumer electronics hit since the VCR, thanks to the vision and persistence of Stanley S. Hubbard, patriarch of St. Paul, Minnesota-based Hubbard Broadcasting. This case study looks at how a family-owned operation could beat well-heeled corporate giants to become the first company to launch satellite-to-TV-set service. It offers lessons to media companies hoping to increase their wealth by exploiting new technology.

Predicting the Future: How St. Louis Post-Dispatch Journalists Perceive a New Editor Will Affect Their Jobs • Peter Gade, Earnest L. Perry, James Coyle, University of Missouri-Columbia • Journalists at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch went through a turbulent year of change in 1996. Editor William Woo, Joseph Pulitzer’s hand-picked successor in 1986, was removed from the job in July. He was replaced by Cole Campbell, former editor of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. The week before Campbell began work at the Post-Dispatch, we conducted a survey of newsroom employees concerning their perceptions of how the change in editors may affect their jobs and the operation of the newsroom. The purpose of this study was to attempt to measure how employees perceived change before the change actually occurred. A review of literature of the newspaper industry indicates no other study of this nature has been done. The data in this study indicate the conditions under which Post-Dispatch journalists perceive they are most willing to accept change are similar to those for employees who have experienced change in other organizations. If the new editor uses effective communication, has adequate newsroom resources and strong news values, then the staff is more likely to accept him.

The Superstar Labor Market in Television • Joseph Graf, Stanford University • Using literature from labor economics, this paper argues that the labor market in television is a «superstar» market in which a few collect large salaries and a large number of applicants vie for jobs. This is because of imperfect substitution among sellers in the market and the inability of applicants to accurately assess their chances of success. It suggests the effects of a labor market on individual behavior and continuing low salaries for new television journalists.

The Case Method and Telecommunication Management Education: A Classroom Trial • Anne Hoag, Ron Rizzuto, Rex Martin, The Pennsylvania State University, University of Denver • The efficacy of the case method is well known but only sometimes used in media management education. Now, as the convergence of media technologies and industries accelerates, there is a growing need for media management courses that teach across a broader array of technologies and management functions. The case method is particularly tuned to this kind of integrative experience-based learning. This paper, intended as a practical resource for educators, reviews case method literature and relates the results of a recent classroom trial in which complex telecommunication management cases were used with encouraging results.

The National Program Service: A New Beginning? • Matt Jackson, Indiana University • In 1992, PBS replaced the Station Program Cooperative (SPC) with the National Program Service (NPS). This paper compares programming and funding trends under both systems to determine if centralized decision-making has brought about the desired changes. The results suggest that NPS has had some impact, but that these changes are mostly due to cost-cutting measures. Corporate underwriting and station fees have not grown as hoped. Local autonomy and limited funding have prevented NPS from creating a network identity for the PBS program service.

State Influence on Public Television: A Case Study of Indiana and Kentucky • Matt Jackson, Indiana University • This study compares public television stations in Indiana and Kentucky to explore how different levels of state involvement affect public television. The results suggest that each station adjusts its mission according to its major source of funding. The Indiana stations, dependent on viewer donations, rely heavily on PBS programs. Kentucky Educational Television (KET), supported by the Kentucky legislature, focuses on classroom programming. Although state involvement affects their priorities, all stations rely on national programming because of the economics of program production.

Cable Subscribers’ Service Expectations • Randy Jacobs, University of Hartford • This paper reports data collected on cable subscribers’ expectations and preferences for installation, repair, and service representative availability. The data were gathered in 607 telephone interviews and analyzed using a performance elasticity approach that incorporated three expectations standards. The results reveal the range of performance expectations consumers hold for cable service and compare these standards with actual system performance in light of service satisfaction evaluations. Implications for research and cable system management are discussed.

Effect of VCR on Mass Media Markets in Korea, 1961-1993: The principle of Relative Constancy Reapplied • Sung Tae Kim, Indiana University • This study extends prior consumer mass media expenditure research by employing two different methods, regression analysis and market scale analysis. Research questions for this study are Does the PRC exist in mass media markets in Korea from 1961 to 1993 and How much impact does VCR have on previous mass media markets? The conclusion of this study indicated that mass media markets have been slightly positive trend and the PRC failed to be supported in regression analysis and in market scale analysis, VCR brought the rapid enlargement of the mass media markets in Korea during last three decades.

Job Satisfaction Among Journalists at Daily Newspapers: Does Size of Organization Make a Difference? • Kris P. Kodrich and Randal A. Beam, Indiana University • This study examines the relationship between job satisfaction of journalists at daily newspapers and organizational size. Past studies have shown that the size of an organization may play a role in job satisfaction. A secondary analysis of data from a survey of 636 daily newspaper journalists shows that while journalists at newspapers of different sizes are satisfied with their jobs for mainly the same reasons, a few differences do surface. This multiple-regression analysis shows the strongest overall predictor of job satisfaction is whether journalists think their organization is doing a good job of informing the public.

Use of the Industrial Organization Model in Examining TV Economics in the Asia Pacific Region • Tuen-yu Lau, Indosiar Visual Mandiri Indonesia, Penghwa Ang, Nanyang Technological University-Singapore • This paper seeks to employ the Industrial Organization Model (IOM) in examining TV economics in the Asia Pacific region. The IOM argues that the structure of the economic market affects the conduct and performance of participants. This structure-conduct-performance paradigm offers a conceptual framework to dissect the market components. This paper will discuss only the market structure, including these variables: concentration of sellers and buyers, product differentiation, barriers to entry and vertical integration. Three Asian markets, namely Hong Kong, Singapore and Indonesia, are used as case studies. By analyzing the interactive forces shaping the TV economics in these markets, the paper suggests that the application of the IOM in exploring TV developments in Asia can start with the definition of a market. This is an important conceptual and practical issue for TV managers, especially satellite TV planners.

Newspaper Stocks And Stock Market Indicators: A Comparison and Analysis of Means of Tracking Performance • Regina Lewis, University of Alabama, Robert G. Picard, California State University, Fullerton • The paper explores the nature of newspaper stocks and market indicators and compares the performance of newspaper stocks and newspaper stock indicators against broader market indicators. It finds that the Newspaper Stocks Report indicators avoid some of the problems of mixing different industries in stock indicators and that newspapers stocks overall followed stocks overall as shown in broad indicators such as the Wilshire 5000. The study identified differences among newspaper stocks performance during the period that can not be explained by general stock performance and deserve further research.

It’s a Small Publishing World After All: Media Monopolization of the Children’s Book Market • James L. McQuivey, Megan K. McQuivey, Syracuse University • This study considers how the current environment of media conglomeratization is affecting the little-studied industry that provides books to millions of children each year. Two hypotheses are proposed that test different aspects of competitive market theory. Hypothesis two is supported: children’s books that have ties with other media products sell more copies than books that have no such ties. The implications of the theoretical discussion and the supported hypothesis are discussed.

Teaching Lessons About Team Work, Goal Setting, Problem Solving, and Leadership Using the Reservoir City Game • Robert G. Picard, California State University, Fullerton • The author introduces the use of a new game designed to help overcome passive approaches to teaching managerial issues involved in team work, goal setting, problem solving, and leadership. The paper discusses how and why games and simulations are important to learning. It explores how to use «Reservoir City,» when it is effective, and lessons that can be learned from the game

Entrepreneurship and Economics: Essentials of the Media Management Course • Mary Alice Shaver, The University of North Carolina • Teaching students to understand the decision processes and constraints and to solve the problems inherent in the management role is essential. A series of three assignments including a start-up, a financial report and development of an original case involves students in realistic situations while teaching key concepts.

Wage Stabilization and the Daily Newspaper Commission in World War II • Mary Alice Shaver and Anthony Hatcher, University of North Carolina • This paper examines the role of the Daily Newspaper Printing and Publishing Commission in industry wage stabilization during World War II. The Commission was created in recognition of the essential nature of the newspaper industry to the war effort. During its 32 month existence, the Commission handled nearly 7000 voluntary and 243 disputed cases. Although the work was praised for bringing wage inefficiencies to light, much of the compliance was an artifact of war.

Mixed Wine in an Old Bottle? Media Market with Socialist Characteristics in Communist China • To Yiu-ming, Leonard L. Chu, Hong Kong Baptist University • No Abstract available.

Do Employee Ethical Beliefs Affect Advertising Clearance Decisions at Commercial Television Stations? • Jan LeBlanc Wicks, University of Arkansas, Avery Abernethy, Auburn University • Advertising clearance (or deciding whether to reject ads) has become more important because of the FTC chairman’s call for improved clearance and the airing of liquor advertisements. A national mail survey was conducted, with responses from over 350 stations, to discover whether employees who consider ethical beliefs important exhibit different clearance behaviors than employees who consider beliefs to be of lesser importance. Findings suggest that certain beliefs are associated with more stringent ad clearance decisions.

<< 1997 Abstracts

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

Communication Theory and Methodology 1997 Abstracts

Communication Theory and Methodology Division

Finding Common Ground: Quantitative and Qualitative Mass Communications Research Methods and Feminist Epistemology • Linda Aldoory, Syracuse University • There has been an ongoing debate over quantitative versus qualitative research methods for mass communications and feminist scholarship. A gulf exists between the two, with qualitative research considered more appropriate for feminist work. This paper first outlines some prevailing characteristics considered relevant for feminist research in mass communications. It then uses these characteristics as guides for examining common quantitative and qualitative methods in mass communications research. Finally, some alternative epistemological approaches are suggested.

Learning From Television: Parasocial Interaction and Affective Learning • Michael Antecol, University of Missouri • No Abstract available.

Long-Term Television Effects: Beginning a New Paradigm Based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion • Michael Antecol, University of Missouri • No Abstract available.

The Roles of Media Use and Media Content Evaluations in the Development of Political Disaffection • Erica Weintraub Austin and Bruce E. Pinkleton, Washington State University • A random-digit-dialing survey of (592) Washington state voters during the month prior to the 1996 presidential election assessed registered voters’ levels of media use, involvement, confidence in the media representations of reality, and political disaffection. Perceptions of incompleteness tended to amplify feelings of anger/cynicism and depress newspaper and television use, but content perceptions had no effects on use of radio. Perceptions of oversimplification associated with increased involvement. Use of newspapers decreased cynicism/anger and use of radio talk shows associated with decreased negativism. Use of television had no relationship to political disaffection as measured in this study. The results suggest that media use and media perceptions may affect cynicism but not negativism, that media with more interactivity and more depth of content have larger effects, and that perceptions of oversimplification in the news is more damaging than unrepresentativeness.

Invisible Defamation Plaintiffs: A Methodological Critique of Gender and the Legal Research Process • Diane L. Borden, George Mason University • This paper offers a feminist critique of the legal research process, based on a historical study of gender and defamation, that body of law that concerns itself with reputational harm. The paper suggests that new methods of analysis, when used in conjunction with traditional methods, such as empiricism, description and explanation, can reveal powerful insights into both the system of law and the culture with which it is entwined.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It: Attention and Memory for Deviant and Imagistic Headlines • Jennifer Borse, Prabu David, David Dent, Annie Lang, Rob Potter, Paul Bolls, Shuhua Zhou, Nancy Schwartz and Gail Trout, Indiana University • This study examines subjects’ attention to, and memory for news headlines presented on a computer screen. Four types of messages were selected from among the following combinations; high deviance/low imagery, high deviance/high imagery, low deviance/low imagery, and low deviance/high imagery as defined by David ( 1996). Heart rate was measured in order to determine whether or not subjects had orienting responses to the stimuli that were presented, and a recognition test was used to determine subjects’ memory for stimuli. Results from this study indicate that people do not have orienting responses to news headlines presented in this manner. However, results did replicate previous research findings which showed that there is better memory for deviant and imagistic headlines than for non-deviant and non-imagistic headlines.

Interacting with Thin Media Images: Mass Communication Theories Predict Adolescent Girls Body Image Disturbance and the Internalization of a Thin Ideal • Renee A. Botta, University of Wisconsin-Madison • The impact of media images on adolescents’ body image disturbance and formation of an unrealistically thin ideal has been consistently asserted in the body image literature, yet has remained inadequately tested. With a sample of 100 high school girls, this paper tests Social Learning, Social Comparison, cognitive processing and Cultivation theories in predicting adolescents’ body image disturbance and formation of an unrealistically thin ideal with processing and consumption of media images. Media variables predicted a combined 26% of variance for Drive for Thinness, 21% for Body Dissatisfaction, 13% for Bulimic Behaviors, and 40% for Endorsing a thin ideal.

New Media Use as Political Participation • Erik P. Bucy, University of Maryland, Paul D’Angelo, Temple University, John E. Newhagen, University of Maryland • This paper reexamines the contention that mass media have been a primary cause of the erosion of civic life and that increased media reliance, especially on television, has led to a decrease in social capital or citizen engagement in community affairs. Data are presented from two election-year surveys of suburban Maryland residents showing that political audiences regard several forms of new media including political talk radio, computer discussion groups, and call-in television, as well as traditional network news, as civically useful and politically important. Call-in shows in particular predict a significant amount of interest in politics. Consistent with these findings, the study concludes that use of the new media, especially political talk shows and the Internet, is an emergent form of civic participation for an increasing number of voters. Rather than destroying civic life, as the social erosion thesis maintains, certain media channels appear to be engaging the electorate and building a new base of mediated civic activity that may rival conventional forms of participation.

The Newspaper as an Agent of Political Socialization in Schools: Effects of El Diario en la Escuela in Argentina • Steven Chaffee, Stanford University, Roxana Morduchowicz, ADIRA (Buenos Aires), Hernan Galperin, Stanford University • This study demonstrates effects of newspaper-based teaching on political socialization of 6-7th graders in Argentina. Students using newspapers in class exceeded a control group in political tolerance, support for democracy, expressing political opinions, discussing politics, and reading newspapers at home. Each effect was stronger among students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Teaching about the free press system enhanced these kinds of effects, as did assigning students to write essays on controversial issues in the newspaper.

All Countries Not Created Equal to Be News: World System and International Communication • Tsan-Kuo Chang • No Abstract available.

The Determinants of Ethical Values Among Communication Researchers in Academia and Industry: A Case of Practice Informing Theory • Fiona Chew and Hao-Chieh Chang, Syracuse University • This study proposed to identify factors predicting core ethical values (beneficence, role conflict, integrity and confidentiality) among communication researchers in academia and industry. A survey of these two groups (395 vs 241) was conducted. The influence of path coefficients predicting ethical values was assessed using a regression model. Findings suggest that while the overearching determinants of ethical values were similar across groups, work conditions and practice led to differences. Beneficence was influenced by confidentiality mediated by integrity and role conflict.

Media Priming Effects: Accessibility, Association, and Activation • David Domke, Dhavan V. Shah, and Daniel B. Wackman, University of Minnesota • In studying priming effects the process by which activated mental constructs can influence how individuals evaluate apparently unrelated concepts and ideas political communication scholars have focused primarily on the frequency and recency of construct use in the accessibility, of specific cognitions; less attention has been given to the spread of activation among associated cognitions. Drawing from both of these research interests, we argue that media framing of issues in moral or ethical terms can prime voters (l) to make attributions about candidate integrity, and/or (2) to evaluate other political issues in ethical terms. To examine these relationships, this research utilized the same experimental design with two sub-populations evangelical Christians and university undergraduate students expected to differ in the centrality of core values and the inter-connectedness of those values with political attitudes. A single issue, which varied in the types of values in conflict, was systematically altered across four otherwise constant issue environments to examine priming effects. Findings suggest that future research should conceptualize priming more broadly to include considerations of both accessibility, of cognitions in short-term memory and the associations among information in long-term memory.

Beyond Sex: The Political Gender Gap in the 1996 Presidential Election • B. Carol Eaton, Syracuse University • A telephone survey of Syracuse, New York, residents was conducted in October/November 1996 to test the study’s hypotheses regarding the political gender gap and media sources utilized to obtain political information. The fact that this study’s results failed to replicate previous political gender gap findings is significant. Findings demonstrate that the historical distinction between traditionally male and female political issues may be changing in today’s political climate. This analysis also successfully developed a reliable gender scale which extends conventional telephone survey research methodology.

Television Portrayals and African American Stereotypes: Examination of Television Effects When Direct Contact is Lacking • Yuki Fujioka, Washington State University• A self-administered survey questionnaire distributed to Japanese international (n = 83) and White (n = 166) students measured stereotypes of African Americans and vicarious contact (television) variables. Results supported process-oriented learning model of behavior, but not cumulative model of cultivation. The study demonstrated that the media could affect one’s impression of other races, and further suggested that effects of mass media are more significant when direct information is limited. Implications of an influential role of television in stereotype formation were also discussed.

Public Opinion and Ideological Center in Media Coverage: the Center-Seeking Mechanism in Electoral Politics • Anthony Y.H. Fung, University of Minnesota and Tien-tsung Lee, University of Oregon • This paper, from a micro politico-economic perspective examines the relationship between (l) public opinion, (2) media coverage of candidates and (3) election outcomes in political campaigns. An analysis of five American electoral campaigns in 1994 and the data of the National Election Studies reveals that (l) those who were portrayed by the media as one occupying the central position in the ideological spectrum are mostly likely the elected, and that there is a correspondence between the ideological center portrayed by media and the majority public opinion (measured in the NES). The results helps rebuild the simple effect model of media and public opinion on voting results into a two-step model. We suggest that the formation of the majority opinion is the consequence of the voters’ exposure of the framed ideological center in the media, and thus the mediated ideological center indirectly influences the voters choices and hence the election outcomes.

Cognitive Processing and Cultivation Effects: Integration of Several Trends in Theory and Evidence • Eileen Gilligan, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This paper tries to expand beyond Kellerman’s (1985) use of memory paradigms to integrate recent paradigms of memory and cognitive processing of cultivation effects research. Connectionism, the embodiment framework, and implicit/explicit memory are discussed in light of recent evidence from Shrum & O’Guinn (1993, 1996) on the importance of repetition in cultivation effects and Devine’s (1989) evidence for cognitive processing of stereotypes. The embodiment framework is viewed as the overarching cognitive processing structure that may best explain cultivation effects.

Refining a Uses and Gratification Scale for Television Viewing • Jennifer Greer, Cyndi Frisby and David Harris Halpern • To create a more sensitive instrument for testing uses and gratifications, Conway and Rubin’s 1991 general television viewing scale was refined and tested with 289 subjects who completed the scale for 10 different program types. Researchers found that the six dimensions identified for television viewing in general did not hold across various program types. The research produces refined scales that could better test the gratifications being met for each program type as opposed to the medium as a whole.

Effects of News Slant and Base Rate Information on Public Opinion Inferences • Albert C. Gunther, Cindy T. Christen, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This paper examines the hypothesis that people infer public opinion based on subjective assessments of media content and the presumed effects of such content on others. Experimental results support the hypothesis of a persuasive press inference, even when content includes base rate information that contradicts story slant.

Television and Commodity Culture: A Research Proposal for the Multi-Level Analysis of Commodification in Children’s TV Shows and Ads • Joseph Harry, Michigan State University • Commodification, the theoretical notion that human and commercial values are increasingly hard to distinguish in a mass-mediated capitalist society, is conceptualized. The concept is linked with Baudrillard’s semiotic theory of language, and a general research proposal is offered as a way of incorporating commodification within mass media theory. The research proposal offered here is directed at children’s television programs and accompanying ads, but is broad enough to be applied to television programming in general.

The Third-Person Effect of Election News: The Synthesis of Contingent Factors into A Causal Model • Yu-Wei Hu, National Taiwan Normal University, Yi-Chen Wu, Catholic Fu-Jen University • This study examines a causal model on the third-person effect of election news. A number of contingent factors on the third-person phenomenon are integrated into the model to demonstrate the process of the third-person effect. The solutions to the path diagrams support the theoretical thinking underlying the model. The results suggest that higher educational level and greater involvement with an election campaign may stimulate the individual to seek more information about the campaign through mass media and interpersonal channels. The communication behaviors may increase the self-perceived knowledge on the campaign issues, and the self-expertise may then strengthen the third-person effect of election news. Future studies can elaborate the model to see whether the third-person effect of election news could result in the bandwagon effect when most of the news suggest that one or some candidates have greater chances to win the election than the other candidates do.

The Impact of Motivated Information Processing Goals and Political Expertise on Candidate Information Search, Decision-Making Strategies, and Recall • Li-Ning Huang and Vincent Price, University of Michigan • An experiment was conducted to investigate how impression-driven on-line (systematic/evaluative) processing, impression-driven shallow (non-systematic/evaluative) processing, memorization (systematic/non-evaluative) processing, and careless (non-systematic/non-evaluative) processing influenced people’s candidate information search depth and patterns, decision-making strategies, and recall. The results showed that while systematic information processing led to a deeper and within-candidate information search, a preference for a non-compensatory decision strategy, and a better recall, evaluative processing resulted in a shallower and across-candidate information search and a preference for a non-compensatory decision rule.

Information Task Equivocality and Media Richness: Implications for Health Information on the World Wide Web • Tracy Irani, Tom Kelleher, University of Florida • This experiment examines the effects of health-related information task equivocality on media choice. Equivocality is the ambiguity, or lack of clarity, of information. Media choice is based on perceived richness, a medium’s tendency to convey rich or lean information. Experiment data collected from 88 college students suggest that individuals facing a high-equivocality information-seeking task will choose a richer World Wide Web site over leaner media, and that individual media choice in low-equivocality situations may be based on perceived self-efficacy with the Web.

Unobtrusive Issues and the Agendas of the President, the Press, and the Public: The Case of the Environment, 1987-1994 • Patrick M. Jablonski, Shannon Crosby, Erica Bridges, John Daniele, Betsy Gray, Lisa Mills, University of Central Florida • This study examines the relationship among the agendas of the mass media, the president, and the public regarding the issue of the environment in the United States from 1987 to 1994. ARIMA time-series analysis is used in an attempt to assess which factors drive the environmental issue agenda: 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 content analysis of the frequency of coverage of the environment issue in The New York Times. 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 negatively correlated with the press agenda. No significant agenda setting relationship was detected involving the public.

Mediating the Media: Frames, Attribution of Responsibility, and Individual Media Use • Ben Kilpatrick, Robert Wayne Leweke, University of North Carolina • Following the research of Shanto Iyengar, this study examines how episodic and thematic framing in television and print media relate to public attribution of responsibility for poverty, racial inequality and violent crime. In the methodological tradition of Agenda Setting, it couples computer-assisted content analysis with survey data. It extends the analysis in the uses and gratifications tradition by including media use style as an independent variable. The study finds limited but significant results.

The Role of Involvement and A Conceptual Model for Optimal Health Communication Strategies • Yungwook Kim, University of Florida • This study is the incipient stage for formulating a respondent-oriented conceptual model for optimal health communication strategies. As the prevailing theory in involvement research, the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) is discussed. Also weaknesses of the ELM and other perspectives for involvement research are investigated. As moderators of the health communication process, involvement is divided into enduring and situational involvement. Based on the review of the literature, a new health communication model and optimal strategies are proposed. The new model has two dimensions (enduring involvement and situational involvement) and four strategies: an affect-evoking, an information-oriented, a cue-emphasizing, and a balanced argument strategy. For the empirical research, a 2 x 2 experiment with 143 undergraduate students was conducted. Generally, the moderating effects of both enduring involvement and situational involvement are supported. Regardless of some deviations from the proposed model, optimal strategies fit into the designated involvement level. Compared to the ELM, this proposed model accounts for all cases of involvement and also explains the inconsistent cases of enduring and situational involvement. As for the health behavior, this proposed model has more explanatory power than the ELM.

Cognitive-Affective and Behavior-Affective Dimensions: A Comparative Analysis of Participatory and Diffusion Approaches in the Destigmatization of Leprosy: A Case Study in Gwalior, India • Pradeep K. Krishnatray, and Srinivas R. Melkote, Bowling Green State • This was an experimental study designed to determine the relative effectiveness of diffusion and participatory strategies in (health campaigns) and the effect of caste on the dependent variables of knowledge, perception of risk, and behavioral involvement that were conceptualized as contributing to leprosy destigmatization in Madhya Pradesh state, India. Multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) procedure found significant difference between the communication treatments on the dependent variables. The discriminant analysis procedure was used to locate the source of difference. This procedure identified two significant discriminant functions: cognitive affective and behavior-affective dimensions. The participatory treatment showed higher knowledge and lower perception of risk on the cognitive-affective dimension, and higher behavioral involvement on the behavior-affective dimension, but the diffusion treatment showed only lower self-perception of risk on the behavior-affective dimension. The study concluded that participatory strategies promoting dialogue, interaction and incorporating people’s knowledge and action component result in increased knowledge, lower perception of risk, higher behavioral involvement, and hence, destigmatization.

Exploring Potential Predictors of Personal Computer Adoption • Carolyn A. Lin, Cleveland State University • Today’s personal computers are equipped with the capability to function as a communication medium when used in a multimedia networking environment. The larger issue concerning the adoption of computer technology, then, is ultimately more a cultural than an economic one. This study visits that question by examining personal computer adoption rate and its relation to likely adoption factors, media use patterns, technology ownership and social locators. It also tests the validity of five adopter categories, based upon Roger’s (1995) work on diffusion of innovations, within the present study time frame. Even though the study only provided an exploratory examination of the different components in the proposed model, the findings did offer a reasonable level of support for the theoretical framework outlined. It also succeeded to a moderate degree in verifying a theoretical adoption rate model.

The Process of Political Thinking Examining Predictors of Conceptual Knowledge During the 1996 Presidential Campaign • Jack M. McLeod, Dietram A. Scheufele, William P. Eveland, Jr., Patricia Moy, Edward M. Horowitz, Seungchan Yang, Gi-woong Yun, Eileen Gilligan, Mengbai Zhong, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This paper extends current research in the area of political knowledge by incorporating different types of knowledge into one framework. More specifically, it examines the role of newspaper use, motivations, and information processing as they relate to what we label «political thinking». Our analyses are based on a telephone survey of 307 adults in XXXXXXX, XX and its contiguous cities, townships, and villages during the 1996 campaign. Measures for the dimensions of political thinking are obtained by coding tape-recorded responses to open-ended questions. Multiple regression and structural equation are used to examine predictors of knowledge and the process of political thinking.

Fearing the Mean World: Exploring the Victim-Offender Relationship’s Influence on Fear of Violent Crime • James McQuivey, Syracuse University • Current cultivation research is expanded to include a distinction among different types of violent crime and their potential cultivation impact. It is theorized that there are cognitive reasons for a difference in how mean people feel the world is when exposed to crime-filled media content. It is hypothesized that the crime type people are most significantly impacted by is stranger-perpetrated violent crime which is more likely to arouse fear than acquaintance-perpetrated crime.

The Same Old Pie? The Constancy Hypothesis Revisited • Xabier Meilan-Pita, PROEL, Haoming Denis Wu, North Carolina • The constancy hypothesis, which purports that the percentage of income spent on mass communications remains fixed over time, does not hold true with data collected from 1959 to 1993. This hypothesis, first operationalized by McCombs, was supported with data garnered in the period 1929-1968. The boom of expenditures on audiovisual media and new technologies in the last decade, with a faster growth rate than the economy, is the major factor that breaks the assumed pattern of media consumption. In addition, at the personal level of media use, this study finds no significant relationship between traditional media use and new media use Ñ indicating that people’s time and money allocated to various media is not constant either.

Changing Epistemological Foundations in Journalism and Their Implications for Environmental News • Rick Clifton Moore, Boise State University • In recent years the social sciences have witnessed a shift away from positivism and toward postmodernism. There is some evidence to suggest that pressures will grow for the press to make such a move also. In this paper the author examines the rationale for such a change and examines the consequences therein. Special attention is paid to the consequences that might lie ahead for environmental journalism if a postmodernism perspective is wholly adopted.

Affirmative Action and Racial Identity in the O.J. Simpson Case • Kimberly A. Neuendorf, David Atkin, Leo Jeffres, Alicia Williams, Theresa Loszak, Cleveland State University • In a continuing project designed to explore the role of racial identity in determining reactions to racially-charged, highly salient obstrusive events, a structural equation model is developed around the construct of perceive innocence of O.J. Simpson. We built a robust, multifaceted framework that acknowledges the power of attitudes, regardless of racial identity, in provoking such reactions. The study identifies factors that media the impact of (a) race and (b) media exposure patterns on perceptions of the guilt or innocence of O.J. Simpson attitudes toward Affirmative Action, the perceived reality of television, and perceptions of a mean world. We have shuffled the race card with a slim deck of alternative factors, eliminating race as a strong, direct causal agent. And, we have identified a number of ways in which media exposure serves as an important, yet indirect, predictor of attitudes toward the O.J. Simpson case.

What Makes an Active Citizen? Do the Media Play a Role? • Ekaterina Ognianova, Esther Thorson, Andrew Mendelson, University of Missouri-Columbia, Lewis Friedland, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This study explores the question of whether people’s civic participation makes them seek knowledge from the media or their knowledge makes them involved in civic affairs. These two alternative models were tested via path analyses from data collected in surveys of four cities throughout the US, all of which were sites of civic journalism projects in the last few years. The study sought to establish the direction of the association between exposure to and awareness of the civic journalism projects and variables that have been implicated in the likelihood that a citizen will participate in the democratic process, such as concern for community issues, knowledge of these issues, belonging to civic networks and voting. The data consistently support a model of media stimulation: exposure to and awareness of the civic journalism projects led to concern for community issues and knowledge, which in turn led to belonging to civic networks and voting.

Citizens’ Policy Reasoning and Media Influences: The Health Care Reform Case • Zhongdang Pan, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Gerald M. Kosicki, The Ohio State University • This study examines the case of the health care reform debate to test the ideas of citizens’ policy reasoning and media influences in the reasoning process. It follows the line of research that attempts to integrate the theoretical work on news discourse and the cognitive research on how citizens process and incorporate media representations into their cognition to derive their policy preferences. By analyzing the 1993 and 1994 NES panel and cross-sectional survey data, this study shows that citizens’ policy reasoning can be modeled as a causal chain reflecting a logical deductive process. Information-oriented news media use is found.

<< 1997 Abstracts

Advertising 1997 Abstracts

Advertising Division

Applying Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy to Strategic Market Planning: Implications for the Role of Communications in Building and Maintaining Brand Equity • Saravudh Anantachart, Florida • This article links the integrated marketing communications (IMC) concept to the planning process in marketing. As the integration of messages and media, IMC strategy is applied to an established strategic market planning model, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG)’s growth-share matrix. Alternative portfolio strategies are identified from the product portfolio analysis. The view may also be thought as the on-going process of building and maintaining consumer brand equity. Conceptual findings are expected to help marketers think more strategically as they plan IMC programs for their products and services.

Frequency Levels and Activity Level Portrayals of the Mature Market: A Content Analysis of Magazine Advertising • Cecelia Baldwin, Girard Burke, San Jose State University • Social gerontology theories, semiotic theory related to advertising, activity studies in gerontology, and research of the mature market in advertising provided the framework for this study of the frequency of the mature market and of activity level portrayals of the mature market in national, high circulation magazines. The hypothesis that no increase in activity level would occur in the fifteen year time period was examined and upheld, as independent t-tests showed no significant change in activity level between 1980 and 1995.

Offering a Creative Track in the Advertising Major: A Case History • Beth Barnes and Carla Lloyd, Syracuse University • Many undergraduate advertising programs struggle with the question of how best to deal with students interested in a career on the creative side of the advertising industry, particularly since these students may have different curricular needs than students preparing for managerial careers. This paper describes an accredited undergraduate advertising program’s experience in phasing in a two-track major, with different course requirements for creative and management students.

Preparing Campaigns Students for Groupwork • Fred Beard, University of Oklahoma • Most educators who teach the advertising campaigns course require students to work as groups. A review of the cooperative learning and group dynamics literatures suggests that unless students are systematically prepared for groupwork, instructional goals will be difficult to achieve. This paper describes how pre-training activities in group skills can be adapted to prepare students for the demands of groupwork, provides a theoretical and pedagogical framework for their use, and reports the results of an assessment of the outcomes.

Sociocultural Influences on Advertising Seen From Gender-Role Portrayals: A Content Analysis of Chinese and U.S. Television Commercials From 1996 • Hong Cheng, Bradley University • Seeing advertising as a social actor and cultural artifact, this paper content analyzed gender roles portrayed in a total of 667 Chinese and U.S. television commercials from 1996. Results show that advertising in both countries portrayed more men in occupational roles and more women in non-occupational ones, and depicted men in recreational activities more frequently and women decoratively more often. Chinese advertising was found reinforcing even more stereotypes than its U.S. counterpart. Other major differences included the styles of dresses worn by female models and the number of models portrayed. Gender-role portrayals were also found related to product categories advertised.

Developing Integrated Marketing Communications Message Delivery Strategies: Challenges and Opportunities Associated with the Brand Contact Concept • Denise E. DeLorme, University of Central Florida, Glen J. Nowak, University of Georgia • The emergence and evolution of integrated marketing communications has facilitated conceptual and operational changes in many advertising functions. In the case of advertising media planning, IMC has brought forth the «brand contact» concept to media planning. This broader, more consumer-oriented approach to media planning has generated much practitioner interest, thanks in part to its decreased reliance on measured and traditional media. While the brand contact perspective appears to have much potential, there have been few, if any, critical examinations of its applicability and value. This paper addresses this void by overviewing the brand contact concept, identifying and discussing the major challenges and opportunities associated with its use, and putting forth recommendations for more effectively utilizing brand contacts for integrated marketing communications. Overall, the brand contact approach brings forth many opportunities that can increase advertising effectiveness and efficiency, but significant operational barriers may limit wider use and application.

Comparative Analysis of Advertising Information in U.S. and Mexico Editions of a Mens Magazine • Louis K. Falk, Florida International University Robert W. Jones, Independent Media Consultant Dawn E. Foster, Precision Response Corporation Sharaf Rehman, Islamic Information Services • The information content of Mexican and the U.S. advertisements is assessed to determine the relative levels of information content. This study undertakes an examination of a year’s worth of the international and domestic editions of Playboy magazine. Using a 14 point information cue criteria it was found that Mexican magazine advertisements are more informative than those of the U.S. Additional findings indicate that information cues are markedly different with respect to frequency within the advertisements of the two countries.

A New Federalism: National and State Cooperation in the Regulating of Green Advertising . . . and Beyond • Thomas Gould, University of North Carolina • The purpose of this paper is to outline the boundaries of a New Federalism, describe how its dynamics may function, and suggest how it will be applied in the future relations in the area of advertising regulations between the national and state governments. To accomplish this, the author will examine how the national and state commercial speech regulators developed a new relationship between 1987 and 1992 in the area of the regulating of green advertising.

Teaching Advertising Copywriting in a PC World: Changes and Developments in University Programs • Thomas Gould, University of North Carolina • Teaching advertising copywriting has changed in the past 10 years. New methods are developed; new information becomes available; new criteria are set. Today, an advertising educator is likely to talk less about teaching «copywriting» and more about teaching «concepts.» This is the best times and the worst of times to be teaching advertising copywriting. This paper examines how advertising curricula have changed in recent years. Specifically, how have the trade schools influenced these changes?

Calvin Klein’s Kiddie Porn Campaign, What’s the Fuss? A Q-sort of Student Attitudes Toward Objectionable Advertising • Robert L. Gustafson, Mark N. Popovich, Ball State University, Johan C. Yssel, The University of Southern Mississippi • The 1995 CK Jeans’ campaign created an unprecedented furor among parents, media companies and advertising practitioners over Calvin Klein’s portrayal of child-like models in sexually provocative settings. In addition to consumer and media boycotts, the Federal Bureau of Investigation explored possible violations of child pornography laws. This study employs a Q-sort methodology and personal interviews to investigate how college students, a segment of the CK Jeans’ target audience, view the CK Jeans’ campaign in comparison to other recent objectionable advertising campaigns. It also questions the ethicality of using shock techniques and sexual themes in advertising.

The Current Constitutional Landscape for Commercial Speech: Implications for Color and Imagery in Tobacco Advertising • R. Michael Hoefges, Florida • Recently enacted Food and Drug Administration regulations ban color and imagery in most tobacco advertising. Reducing underage use of tobacco is a laudable goal, but restricting advertising raises serious First Amendment concerns. The U.S. Supreme Court, in recent decisions, invigorated constitutional protection for advertising. The tobacco regulations raise issues not fully addressed by the Court’s current commercial speech jurisprudence. This paper explores these issues and the potential constitutional fate of the controversial tobacco advertising regulations.

Gender Response to Sexual Appeals in Ads Featuring Male Models • Lisa Hynd, Patricia Stout, Joan Schleuder, University of Texas • This study investigates how gender (male/female) and level of male nudity (low, medium, and high) in print advertisements influence viewers’ attitude towards the ad, attitude towards the brand, purchase intentions and tension, pleasure, and arousal levels. Results indicate that gender significantly affects each of these variables across all levels of male nudity, while level of male nudity affects Aad, Abr, PI, and pleasure but not tension and arousal independent of gender.

My Brother’s Keeper?: Publisher Liability and the Regulations of the Fair Housing Act on Discriminatory Housing Advertising • Robert Meeds, University of Missouri • Recent court interpretations and legal actions involving publisher liability for discriminatory housing advertising under the Fair Housing Act (FHA) are discussed with respect to the Central Hudson four part criteria for governmental regulation of commercial speech. Implications for newspapers and other advertising publishers are drawn and recommendations aimed at improving publishers’ levels of compliance with FHA regulations are made.

Campaign Up In Flames: Negative Advertising Backfires and Damages a Young Democrat • Maggie Jones Patterson, Anitra Budd, Kristin R. Veatch, Duquesne University • Dan Cohen, Pittsburgh City Councilman, challenged 15-year-incumbent Congressman Bill Coyne in the spring 1996 Democratic primary election. After successfully fund-raising with a positive campaign based on economic development and a pledge to be a more aggressive voice for the district, Cohen hired a crew of Washington consultants who advised him to toss out his positive themes and instead attack the Congressman in a blistering series of television, radio, and direct mail advertisements. The negative campaign backfired, Cohen’s support dwindled, and his own campaign treasurer publicly denounced him. The campaign serves as a case study here to examine how the rise of consultants and the diminishment of political parties have affected political advertising and whether the democratic process has been enhanced or hindered.

Effects of Alignment Advertisements: Brand Ads Containing Mention of Social Issues • Toni Schmidt, Jacqueline C. Hitchon, University of Wisconsin – Madison • Product ads are increasingly incorporating social issues in their messages. This study explores the effects of these hybrid messages, alignment ads, on viewers. Based on a literature review regarding the impact of congruency of information in a brand message and the evaluation of media channels, a pretest and two experiments test whether alignment ads are evaluated differently than brand ads. Findings indicate that placing an issue in an ad offers important advantages for advertisers, and that the congruency of the issue with the product further affects these results. Congruent issue information elicited more positive message evaluations than incongruent issue information.

Censorship of Political Advertising: A Third-Person Effect • Dhavan V. Shah, Ronald J. Faber, Seounmi HanYoun, and Hernando Rojas, University of Minnesota • No Abstract available.

Warning Signs on the Information Highway: An Assessment of Privacy Concerns of On-Line Consumers • Kim Bartel Sheehan and Mariea Grubbs Hoy, The University of Tennessee-Knoxville • As consumer usage of the Internet increases, advertisers are finding the Internet a valuable tool to gather information about on-line users. These users, however, are becoming aware of some of these practices and polls indicate that consumer concern with new technology is increasing. This study uses an electronic mail survey to investigate on-line user concerns. Results indicate that privacy concerns in an on-line environment are somewhat different from privacy concerns in other marketing contexts. For example, the findings of the study indicate that the traditional, two-dimensional model of privacy (control of collection and usage of information) may explain only part of what causes consumer concern. Consumer concern on-line may be effected by at five different factors: control of collection, control of usage, familiarity with entity, compensation, and type of information.

Get Hooked on Collecting A Qualitative Exploration of the Relationship Between the Hallmark Brand and Hallmark Collectors • Jan Slater, Syracuse University • More and more brands are becoming collectible, and more and more manufacturers are building lines of collectible merchandise. One of the most prominent brands to move into this category in the last twenty years is Hallmark Cards. Hallmark has become the leader in collectible Christmas ornaments and manage a collector’s club with more than 275,000 members. This study explores this relationship between the brand and the collector. Via this collecting activity, Hallmark has enhanced brand loyalty, while creating an emotional tie between the collector and the brand, as well as the ornaments collected.

Animation and Priming Effects in Online Advertising • S. Shyam Sundar, George Otto, Lisa Pisciotta, Karen Schlag, Pennsylvania State University • This study investigates effects of animated versus still presentation of online advertising in primed versus unprimed conditions within the context of the World Wide Web. All subjects (N = 41) in a factorial between-subjects experiment were asked to view online news and advertising material on a website. They were then tested for their memory of the ad, asked to provide an evaluation of the ad content and report their general level of emotional arousal. Analyses revealed significant relationships between priming and ad memory, animation and subjective evaluations of ad material, and interaction effects between priming and animation on the arousal measure.

Messages of Individualism in French, Spanish, and American Television Advertising • Ronald E. Taylor, University of Tennessee, Joyce Wolburg, Marquette University • Individualism is a central value in French, Spanish, and American cultures. However, what it means to be an individual and how this is expressed varies among cultures. This study explores the ways that television advertising reflects individualism in French, Spanish, and American cultures and identifies six main advertising message strategies across the three cultures.

Protecting the Children: A Comparative Analysis Of French and American Advertising Self-Regulation • Ronald E. Taylor, Anne Cunningham, University of Tennessee • This paper compares advertising self-regulations designed to protect children in the United States and France. The findings suggest that French children enjoy greater protection, and the authors question whether American children should not be entitled to the same level of protection.

Emerging Lifestyles in China and Consequences for Perception of Advertising, Buying Behavior and Preferences for Consumption: An Exploratory Study • Ran Wei, The Chinese University of Hong Kong • This study segments consumers in China into five groups based on six empirically-tested lifestyles: Traditionalists, Status-quo, Modern, Transitioners and Generation Xers. Marked by old age, poor education and poverty, Traditionalists lead an old-fashioned life and resist to change. Demographically similar to Traditionalists, the Status-quo segment, however, has not reached a stage where life goes around established routines. Ill-educated with low income, Transitioners are much younger and open to change. The Modem segment is the most affluent, well-educated, pursing a fashionable and materialistic life. Generation Xers, born after the Cultural Revolution, are best-educated; they show disrespect for routines and tradition and worry little about money.

A Study of the Underrepresentation of Women in Advertising Agency Creative Departments • Larry Weisberg and Brett Robbs, University of Colorado • A survey conducted by the authors indicates that although women make up 60% of account service departments, they remain vastly underrepresented in creative departments. Interviews were conducted to determine if there were aspects of the job or the creative culture that might account for this. A number of factors were identified. The two with the greatest impact were the conflict between professional and family roles and the sexism found in certain aspects of the culture.

An Investigation of Three Cultural Values in American Advertising: The Role of the Individual, The Depiction of Time, and the Configuration of Space • Joyce M. Wolburg, Marquette University and Ronald E. Taylor, University of Tennessee • Interest in the study of cultural values in advertising has continued to increase in the last two decades; however, previous studies have not fully explored the complexity of these values. Using a document analysis approach, this study explicates the ways in which three core values in American culture appear in network primetime television advertising. A number of main message strategies and contextual categories are described, which provide a better understanding for use in international advertising and offer insight into creative strategy for domestic advertising.

Clutter and Serial Order Redefined and Retested • Xinshu Zhao, University of Minnesota/University of North Carolina • Due to the deficiencies in the concepts of clutter and serial order as they have been traditionally defined, the author argues that the position effects may be better defined in terms of two components, i.e., proaction from preceding ads and retroaction from succeeding ads. The traditionally defined clutter and serial order effects can be seen as results of interaction between proaction and retroaction. The author also argues for a need to distinguish pod clutter from program clutter. Further, a holistic theory of position effects on memory and liking is proposed. The redefined concepts and the holistic theory were applied in a naturalistic quasiexperiment. More than 1,000 randomly selected residents of Orange County, North Carolina were interviewed via telephone after the 1992-1994 Super Bowl games. The results suggest that preceding ads have negative effects on brand recall, brand recognition, and advertisement liking; and succeeding ads have a negative effect on brand recognition.

The Effect of Brand Placement Type and a Disclaimer on Memory for Brand Placements in Movies • Mary R. Zimmer, University of Georgia, Denise E. DeLorme, University of Central Florida • An experiment was conducted to determine the effect of placement type and a disclaimer on recall, recognition, and attitude toward brand placements in movies. Results showed: l) a positive effect on memory for placements that were verbal, in the foreground, that used humor, or that involved character usage; 2) that a disclaimer heightened recall and recognition in some instances; and 3) that participants had positive attitudes toward placements but negative attitudes toward disclaimers. Brand placement appears to be an effective form of marketing communication but requiring disclaimers is not recommended.

<< 1997 Abstracts

Science Communication 1998 Abstracts

Science Communication Interest Group

Risk Perception and Information Management Responses to a Predicted Earthquake: Was the Optimism Unrealistic? • L. Erwin Atwood, Pennsylvania State University • Management of threatening information is one means by which individuals respond to perceived risks from predicted disasters. Analysis of correlates of unrealistic optimism, pessimism, and realism indicate that responses to threats of death or injury differ from those regarding threats of property damage. Pessimists are clearly differentiated from optimists and realists by perceived risk perceive effects of news media and discussions with family and friends, and by gender and age.

Evaluating Assertions About Science Writing, Reporting and News Selection: A Content Analysis of the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times • Robert A. Logan, Peng Zengjun and Nancy Fraser Wilson, Missouri-Columbia • In this study, science news in the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times within biennial periods from 1989-1995 is analyzed to explore seven research questions about science reporting, writing and news selection. Among the findings are: the percentage of issue oriented stories in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times was higher than suggested within the literature. The percent of stories in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times that embedded educational-informative content was higher than suggested with the literature.

Setting the National News Agenda from New York: When the Times Changed the Dioxin Heath Risk Frame • Glynn R. Wilson, Tennessee-Knoxville • New York Times dioxin coverage from 1989 to 1994 is studied utilizing agenda-setting, framing and gatekeeping theory, with traditional and computer-assisted content analysis techniques. A major health risk frame changed in 1991, when a front page story compared the risks to sunbathing. The story was picked up by other news outlets, potentially leading to public confusion. The combined theory and methods employed here codify in the news frames and address implications for media agenda-setting.

Historical Survey of Media Coverage of Biotechnology in the United States 1970 to 1996 • Bruce V. Lewenstein, Tracy Allaman and Shobita Parthasarathy, Cornell University • Media coverage of biotechnology has played a crucial role in carrying debates about the science, technology, economic, and ethical issues of biotechnology from halls of academe, business, and government to a broader audience. The basic pattern of such coverage has been characterized as a shift from criticism of “genetic engineering” in the 1970s through a more promotional tone on “biotechnology” in the 1980s, and a more nuanced but nonetheless positive tone in the 1990s.

The Role of Attribution and Framing in Rationalizing About Risk Estimates • LeeAnn Kahlor and Sharon Dunwoody, Wisconsin-Madison and Robert J. Griffin, Marquette University • This study looked at factors that may be related to the ways in which people make sense of quantitative risk estimated. The concepts of framing, attribution and informal reasoning aid in this endeavor. Analyses of open-ended comments in a survey about the risk of getting sick from a waterborne parasite indicate that people’s explanations of their level of risk are consistent with predictions made by attribution theory, but are only weakly related to interpretive frames that they may have encountered in the media and other channels.

The Mars Meteorite: A Case Study in Controls on Dissemination of Science News • Vincent Kiernan, Maryland • Through interviews with participants and analysis of media reports, this paper reconstructs preparations by NASA and the American Association for the Advancement of Science regarding discovery of fossilized bacteria in a meteorite from Mars in 1996. The agencies attempted to manipulate the timing and manner of press coverage to serve their own ends. Contrary to the agencies’ stated rationale for embargoes on science news, premature disclosure of the paper in the media did not produce inaccurate media reports.

Newspaper Source Use on the Environmental Beat: A Comparative Case Study • Stephen Lacy, Michigan State University and David C. Coulson, Nevada-Reno • The purpose of this study is to determine whether reporters covering the environmental beat used more diverse sources than are relied on under a traditional beat system. Even though newspapers have Broadened their beat systems to include a greater diversity of topics, the inclusion of a greater diversity of sources has not necessarily followed. In this study of six large and prestigious dailies, the traditional bureaucratic types of sources continue their dominance in shaping the news.

Mass Communication and Public Understanding of Environmental Problems: The Case of Global Warming • Fiona Clark, Keith R. Stamm and Paula Reynolds-Eblascas, Washington • Public understanding of environmental problems is treated here as an example of mass communication problem that has yet to be adequately solved. A survey of metropolitan area residents found that although people are aware of global warming in a general sense, understanding of causes, possible consequences, and solutions is limited. Print media and radio appear to make a difference in both understanding and the number of actions taken by respondents to address this problem.

Objectivity as Independence: Creating the Society of Environmental Journalists, 1989-1997 • John Palen, Central Michigan University • The Society of Environmental Journalists started in 1989 and quickly became the largest organization of environmental journalists in the nation. It grew despite renouncing growth possibilities on behalf of the journalistic virtue of independence. SEJ’s membership restrictions were controversial. In working through the controversies, SEJ clarified its definition of “environmental journalist,” while demonstrating the continuing strong hold on journalists of the ideal of objectivity.

Alternative Medicine Portrayal in Elite Newspapers: Cure or Quackery? • Lisa M. Brown, Brian H. Vastag, Stephanie L. Dube, Scott C. McMahan and Kristie A. Swain, Texas A&M University • This content analysis examined alternative medicine coverage in 259 articles appearing in nine elite newspapers in five countries. Stories were analyzed for alternative medical topics and primary health problems, and alternative medical topics were compared against newspaper and year. Overall, alternative medical coverage was positive between 1992 and 1997.

<< 1998 Abstracts

Radio-TV Journalism 1998 Abstracts

Radio-TV Journalism Division

Local Television Journalism: Developing Ethics through Discussion • Chris W. Allen, Jeremy H. Lipschultz and Michael L. Hilt, Nebraska-Omaha • The purpose of this paper is to examine the views of local television news producers about ethical policies and situations they face, and to see if their political orientation makes a difference. A majority of respondents agreed that it was important for a television newsroom to have a code of ethics or discussion of ethics in the newsroom. Most often producers perceived that their newsrooms were involved in discussions of fairness, balance, and objectivity; allocating airtime to opposing interest groups or political candidates; and, providing right of reply to criticism.

Network Television News Coverage of the Environment and the Impact of the Electronic Newsletter Greenwire • Claudette Guzan Artwick, Washington and Lee University • This study examines the role of the electronic newsletter Greenwire in setting the environmental agenda for network television news. A content analysis found that networks that subscribe to Greenwire covered more environmental news than the network that did not subscribe. It also found differences in the types of environmental stories covered. Interviews with news personnel suggest that Greenwire plays an indirect agenda-setting role for its network subscribers. Greenwire appears to highlight the environmental news agenda, while events drive what network television news reports on the environment.

The Relationship of Affiliation Change to Changes in Television News Ratings • Marianne Barrett, Arizona State University • This study uses Nielsen ratings data from February 1994, 1995 and 1996 to examine the relationship between network affiliation change and changes in ratings for local and network television news. The key finding is that, contrary to what was expected, there is a significant negative relationship between a change in local news ratings and affiliation change, particularly a change to Fox, but that no such relationship exists for network news programs.

Advertising’s Influence on Broadcast News Content: A Study of Student Attitudes • Hubert W. Brown and Beth E. Barnes, Syracuse University • Much has been written in both the trade and popular press regarding advertising’s influence on new content. Virtually all of the discussion around the issue is from the news point of view. The present study presents both the news and advertising perspectives through results of a survey of broadcast journalism and advertising students. Students were asked to indicate their relative agreement with a range of statements on the issue of advertising’s influence on news content.

Constructing International Spectacle on Television: CCTV News and China’s Window on the World, 1992-1996 • Tsan-Kuo Chang, Minnesota and Chen Yanru, Nanyang Technological University • Using the perspective of social construction of reality as a framework, the purpose of this paper is threefold: First, to examine the form and content of China’s national TV news in different settings (foreign news vs. foreign policy news); second, to determine the changes, if any, of its reporting of international sepctacle over time; and third, to identify the fundamental pattern of its window on the world through an analysis of network of countries that have persistently attracted China’s news attention and are presented accordingly.

Albert M. Primo: Creator of the “Eyewitness” Television News Format • Marie Curkan-Flanagan, Tennessee-Knoxville • Albert Primo is far from a household name but what he set in motion 30 years ago, in the field of broadcast news, set the standard and style for future generations of broadcast journalists. This study focuses on the man who began his career as a mailroom attendant, and quickly scaled the ladder as copy writer, reporter, film editor, and finally, news producer. Finally in 1968 he was given the news director’s job at WABC, in New York City.

A Content Analysis of Dateline NBC and NBC Nightly News: The Infiltration of the Youformation Story into News Magazines and Mainstream News • Jeff Demas, Ohio University • Recent criticism of “mainstream” news includes charges that the lines between it and “magazine-style” programs have become more blurred. Critics say that mainstream news includes more tabloid-style reporting and celebrity news than hard news. Through content analysis of NBC Nightly News and Dateline NBC, this study researches those charges. The study also researches a particular genre of “Could this happen to you?” type stories, called youformation by the researcher. Results indicate that from 1992 to 1997, Nightly News content begins to look more like Dateline, and not vice versa.

Priming Reporters: A Study on How the Willie Horton Case Altered the Portrayal of Criminals • James Devitt, Pennsylvania • This paper reports that after the William Horton case became prominent, network new altered visual depictions of black and white criminals. Black criminals increasingly appeared in visual similar to those that depicted Horton while white criminals were shown in different ways. These findings are evidence of visual framing. As an explanation for visual framing, this paper suggests the concept of visual priming, a process by which the news media alter the visual portrayal of issues or phenomena to reflect a salient incident.

Legal Concerns in TV Newsrooms: A National Survey of Local Television News Directors • Paul D. Driscoll, Sigman L. Splichal and Leonardo Ferreira, Miami • A mail survey of 360 local television news directors was conducted to measure concerns about media law issues and the extent to which legal considerations may affect news decision. Respondents answered a series of questions about their experiences and concerns regarding a variety of legal issues, including libel, invasion of privacy, trespass while newsgathering, and station news policies. Responses to the survey were compared with one conducted in 1995.

Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Nationwide Survey of Television Newsrooms • Sonya Forte Duhe, South Carolina • This study, reveals that computer-assisted reporting is employed only in its most basic form • use of the Internet. Fewer than half of the respondents said their newsroom uses spreadsheet, database manager, statistical and mapping software. However, data indicate that at least eight of ten newsrooms have the necessary hardware and software for information analysis.

Learned Helplessness in Local Television News: A 12-Year Update • Grace F. Levine, Quinnipiac College • Local newscasts of three major market network owned stations were found to focus on themes of helplessness in 68.3% of the time devoted to news. Helplessness was most often experienced by the general public. It’s causes were more likely: to be attributed to environmental factors, and described as generalizing across time frames and situations. After a 12 year period, the nature of helplessness in New York local newscasts remained virtually the same.

They’d Rather Be in Pictures, or Would They?: A Content Analysis of Video Bite Bias During TV Network News Coverage of the 1992 and 1996 Presidential Campaigns • Jon A. Shidler, Dennis T. Lowry and Charles Kingsley, Southern Illinois University • In this study bias was evaluated in terms of total air time for each candidate; positive, neutral, and negative presentation of the candidates and their wives; and crown reactions. The overall conclusions were that network coverage of the campaigns dropped by more than 50% in 1996 in terms of number of stories, video bites, and total seconds of air time; video coverage by political candidates was not balanced; the liberal bias hypothesis was supported in both elections in terms of positive coverage.

Women in Television News Management: Do They Make A Difference? • Laura K. Smith and John W. Wright II, Florida • The present study investigated whether females in small, medium, and large market local television news operations make news decisions differently than their male counterparts. The study also investigated perceptions of television news stories produced by males and females. As the proportion of women in local news management increases, the degree of interest females have in the station’s stories increases. As the proportion of women in local news management increases, the proportion of women included as sources in news stories increases.

Youth Voters in 1996: Searching for Political Information From Television News • Karon R. Speckman, Truman State University • Turnout for youth in 1996 was only 33% compared with 37% in 1988 and 38% in 1992. This paper explores the role of television in providing information to young voter. News abstracts from ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN were examined from September 1, 1996, to November 9, 1996, for coverage and ties to youth voters. Issues of importance to youth were not covered well, nor were stories tied to them as voters. Youths also were not used as sources.

Television News Stand-Up Reports: A Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Market Case Study • Patrick J. Sutherland, Ohio University • A content analysis was done of packages containing stand-up reports of 105 six p.m. newscasts. Interviews about uses of stand-ups were conducted with reporters and executives. Results showed significant difference in stand-upper lengths and styles. #1 KDKA’s packages averaged longer than competitors’ and featured in-depth anchor/reporter exchanges. WTAE’s reports averaged under 90 seconds with little time on-camera for reporters. Most of WPXI’s stand-up reports lasted between 90 seconds and two minutes with little anchor/reporter interaction.

Promise Keepers and TV News Coverage of the Stand in the Gap Rally: Conservative Protestants as an Audience and Public • Hillary Warren, Texas-Austin • Interviews with 22 conservative Protestant families who were members of Promise Keepers, the evangelical men’s movement, were analyzed in conjunction with news media criticism by Christian authors at the time of the Fall 1997 Stand in the Gap Washington, D.C. rally. This paper demonstrates that conservative Protestants operate as both an audience and a public and use their understanding of news frames to challenge the media and reinforce their alignment with their evangelical culture.

<< 1998 Abstracts

Qualitative Studies 1998 Abstracts

Qualitative Studies Division

Grounded Moral Theory: A Feminist Way of Doing (Media) Ethics • Cindy M. Brown, South Florida • In this paper, I articulate the fundamentals of a bottom-up method of ethical inquiry that I refer to as grounded moral theory. Grounded moral theory, which consists of listening to people’s real-life concerns, generating recommendations to deal with these concerns, and extrapolating from recommendations and concerns to ethical theory, is placed into the context of feminist ethics. The method is based on philosophical ideals from an ethic of care and methodological notions about building theory from the ground up (Glaser and Strauss, 1967).

Vilification as a Rhetorical Strategy in Social Movements: A Comparison of Environmental and Wise Use Rhetoric • Cindy T. Christen, Wisconsin-Madison • This paper uses the controversy surrounding natural resource management in the U.S. to examine vilification as a rhetorical strategy in social movements. Using the framework proposed by Vanderford (1989), examples of the vilification practices of wise use advocates and environmentalists are identified and compared. Based on the analysis, implications are drawn regarding the functions of vilification in the confrontation between environmental and wise use movements.

Hegemony and the Re-Creation of Dominant Culture: A Critique of Hollywood’s Cinematic Distortion of Women of Color and Their Stories • Brenda Cooper, Utah State • An investigation of male directors’ film translations of three texts written by women of color • Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, and Tina Turner’s I, Tina • explicates how marginalization and omission function as hegemonic devices to renarrate the women’s writings. The result is depoliticized film narratives that minimize, or mute altogether, pivotal elements of the women’s texts and lives, including their complex voices and unconventional beliefs regarding the role of gender, race, and spiritualism, thus demonstrating the semiotic power of film to construct cultural meanings and to perpetuate society’s existing dominant ideological ideals.

Memory and Record: Evocations of the Past in Newspapers • Stephanie Craft, Stanford • This paper explores how history is evoked and invoked in journalistic writing, and the implications of different conceptualizations of “history” for the study of collective memory and news. The paper examines how other scholars have traced the contours of history and memory and attempts to find a space for journalism within that discussion. Second, this paper offers a preliminary attempt to apply those concepts to news stories and identify questions for further examination.

A Critical Assessment of News Coverage of the Ethical Implications of Genetic Testing • David Craig, Oklahoma • Using ethical theory as an analytical lens, this paper assesses news coverage of the ethical implications of genetic testing through an in-depth textual analysis of 31 broadcast and print stories by major news organizations in 1995 and 1996. Consequentialist concerns, especially avoidance of harm, were prominent in most stories, but deontological references were often lacking. Ethical themes, sometimes emerging as direct questions to readers, underlined the choices facing individuals and society.

On the Possibility of Communicating: Critical Theory, Feminism, and Social Position • Fabienne Darling-Wolf, Iowa • This paper is an investigation of the epistemological significance of social position. Starting with early critical communication research, I explore the development of this concept in feminist scholarship, particularly feminist cultural studies. I argue that looking back at critical communication research might provide useful insights on some of the most pressing theoretical dilemmas of contemporary feminist thought, and help take the identity politics debate beyond academic discourse into politically grounded everyday practices.

Community Radio and the Development of Empowering Institutions: The Case of CKRZ and the Six Nations Reserve • Charles Fairchild, SUNY-Buffalo • CKRZ-FM was created to serve the needs of the Six Nations and New Credit Reserves. The station has so far succeeded in pursing its goals because it is an example of empowering community development. The station was created and is controlled by community members and it has evolved within a framework of values that has long been in place in these communities and which remains a vital force in the social lives of residents.

Social Movement Organization Collective Action Frames and Press Receptivity: A Case Study of Land Use Activism in a Maryland County • Brian B. Feeney, Temple University • In this study focus groups were used to interview members of social movement organization (SMO), real estate developers and the local newspaper editor in a case study of land use politics in a suburbanizing Maryland county. The study found that SMOs have a greater barrier to entry to the newsnet to overcome, requiring them to act as surrogate reporters. Also, both groups complained of poor reporting due to the newspaper’s use of inexperienced reporters.

Being There: Using Ethnographic Methodology in the Study of Electronic Communities • Mark Geise, Houston and Bette Kauffman, Northeast Louisiana University • The authors explore issues of ethnography as applied to two Internet newsgroups. Historical and theoretical constructions most applicable to adapting the methodology to cmc are examined. Modifications and implementations, including a description of the text-based Internet communication and gaining entry to the alt.cyberpunk community are discussed. It examines problems encountered in soliciting informants and how an acceptable “look” is constructed. It speculated about “being there” in a cmc environment and future applications of “electronic ethnography.”

Essential & Constructed: Community and Identity in an Online Television Fandom • Cinda Gillilan, Colorado • Television zine fans create community based on identification with media-mediated images/stories online, and as internet use increases there communities grow larger, more diverse and more intimately connected. The paper examines how one online fan community manipulates material and symbolic discourses to produce belonging and meaning for its participants. The ability to define our lives/values is not a release from hegemony, patriarchy, heterosexism, etc., but it is a matter of (em)power(ment).

Interior Design Magazines as Neurotica • Kim Golombisky, South Florida • Interior design magazines equate home with leisure, a fantasy for female readers with jobs and families. Women’s magazines typically compel women to become neurotic about housekeeping and family. But decorating magazines represent neurotica, an erotic ideal of home wiped clean of the family who makes housework. However, this resistant version of home still encourages domesticity by erasing not only the family but also the reader’s labor that keeps the home so attractive.

Self as Panoptician: The X-Files, Spectatorship, and Discipline • John M. Groves, Oregon • Cultural studies research on television has often taken the form of textual or reception analysis that examines the television production as if it were a written text. This paper looks at the serial plot of the X-Files, but places that plot within the non-diegetic context of the viewing experience. The cinematic ‘look’ of the show creates a coherent ‘spectator’ position, calling for application of psychoanalytic film theory. This effect works with the conspiracy-oriented plot to create a viewer/text interaction which inverts subjective relations to discipline.

An Alternative to “Alternative Media” • James Hamilton, SUNY Geneseo • This study argues that traditionally conceived “mass” media are inherently incapable of playing a significant role in assisting alternative social and political movements, due to the necessary professionalization of their practice and the resulting separation of media workers from the people for whom they write. It concludes by suggesting an alternative basis for a theory and the practice of alternative media that may better fit the realities of political movements today.

Literary Journalism as an Epistemological Moving Target Within a Larger “Quantum Narrative” • John C. Hartsock, SUNY Cortland • The discourse of “literary journalism,” among other names, has proved difficult to define and identify. This paper suggests that such a circumstance is due to its being a kind of epistemological moving target and thus difficult to classify. It explores evidence of this, characterizes the form as a “narrative of the inconclusive present,” and ultimately locates it as a moving epistemological target within a larger “quantum narrative.”

Building a Heartline to America: Quiz Shows and the Ideal of Audience Participation in Early Broadcasting • Olaf Hoerschelmann, North Texas • This article investigates the development of quiz shows as experimental forms to explore the relationship between broadcast institutions, media texts, and audiences. During this period of instability in the broadcast industry, quiz shows create a particularly close and involved relationship with radio and television audiences. While early quiz shows thus offer unusual forms of interaction and participation for the audience, the stabilization of the network system in the early fifties changed the form and meaning of the genre and limited the audience to a more restricted viewing position.

Searching for a Voice of Authority: Journalism Between the Modern and Postmodern • Rick Jackson, Washington • Journalism, buffeted by hostility from the outside and by crumbling confidence from within, appears to be experiencing a crisis of cultural authority. This crisis emerges amid a complex set of tensions, what James Carey calls “between the modern and postmodern.” Though these tensions erode journalism’s epistemological confidence, the emergence of new models of journalism (public journalism) and professional conventions (narrative writing techniques) suggest ways in which journalism can begin to repair its cultural authority.

I Love Lucy and Ethel Mertz: An Expression of Internal Conflict and Pre-Feminist Solidarity • Darlene Jirikowic, Wisconsin-Milwaukee • While feminist literature has clearly documented both the pre-feminist and hegemonic influence in post-war comedies such as I Love Lucy, this paper intends to illustrate the importance of a supporting character such as Ethel Mertz. The internal conflict that marked women’s lives sometimes took the shape of feminine discourse between a key comedic character and secondary female character. It is through that dialogue, the interplay between the two women, that the complexity of postwar tension becomes apparent.

The Cadaverous Bad Boy As Dream-Shadow Trickster: Why Freddy Krueger Won’t Let Teens Rest In Peace • Paulette D. Kilmer, Toledo • The slasher films in the Nightmare on Elm Street series gained popularity about twenty years ago by featuring campy dialogue, a rogue anti-hero and a new dimension for terror: sleep. The villain, Freddy Krueger, quickly became a pop-cultural celebrity with his own TV show and line of merchandise. The paper examines that guru of gore in Jungian terms to place him in the ongoing process of myth making that defines humanity. The Freddy Krueger films embody parables about coming of age in a scary, technological world.

Messing: Information, Liminality, Dread • Nathaniel Kohn, Georgia • Written as a screenplay. A series of scenes. Known in Hollywood as a sequence. With/out con/sequences. Moving across borders. Thresholding. From conscious to unconscious. From mediated to permeated. In the second person, between first and third. Dialogic. Unsettling. Destablizing. In/form/ation, overloading, assualting. The dread, consuming. Autoethnography. Scenes from a. A so-called. Get a. Driving without a. Etc.

‘Brokaw on the Holodeck:’ The Future of the News Story in Cyberspace • Jack Lule, Lehigh University • In early 1997, Janet H. Murray, Senior Research Scientist in MIT’s Center for Educational Computing Initiatives, published a remarkable book, Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. Murray offered a vision of the computer as a spellbinding storyteller. She identified the aesthetics of digital narrative • it characteristic means of capturing beauty and giving pleasure. And she suggested rich paths for the future of narrative in a digital age. The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications of Hamlet on the Holodeck for the future of the news story.

Table for One: TV Screen as Eating Companion in a Public Space • Michael L. Maynard, Temple • This pilot study reports how students who eat in a campus food court that includes a large television screen configure themselves so as to face the screen. Based on qualitative analysis of how the screen interacts with students who are alone or in groups, the following roles were coded: screen as attention-getter, scene dominator, time marker, hypnotist, distracting element, eating companion, sleep inducing agent, seducer, ice breaker, time-filler, agent of conformity, non-demanding companion and keeper of social rhythm.

They’re Ba-ack: “Ghost Mate Movies” As Expressions of Mass Dreams and Cultural Norms • Patrick Meirick, Marquette University • This paper explores how “ghost mate movies” • movies in which a dead lover returns to the bereaved partner as a ghost • reflect both cultural norms about bereavement and group fantasies about recovering the lost mate. The movies fill an information void left by the death taboo. British and American ghost mate movies reinforce norms about detaching from the dead and moving on with life, but a Brazilian one suggests detaching from the dead isn’t necessary.

Earth First! and the Boundaries of Postmodern Environmental Journalism • Rick Clifton Moore, Boise State University • Modernistic assumptions have long been fundamental to journalistic practice. As those assumptions are increasingly questioned, scholars should consider the implications of alternative foundations, especially as they relate to communicating about important social issues. In this paper the author offers a theoretical discussion and brief qualitative analysis to better understand what postmodern communication (most visibly on the internet) might look like and the difficulties ahead for environment groups if they adopt anti-foundational and anti-narrative communication patterns.

Into the Field: A Narrative Account of Doing Audience Ethnography • Patrick D. Murphy, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville • This paper is a narrative account of the early stages of an ethongraphy of television viewers in central Mexico. The narrative details the events that shaped the direction of the inquiry, acknowledges the visibility and self-interest of the ethnographer, and describes the selection of and movements within the audiences represented in the study. The account demonstrates how the methodology which was developed was not based on a systematic design for finding a research “sample,” but rather the result of emerging relationships and contextual processes.

Reframing a House of Mirrors: Communication and Empowerment in a Community Leadership Program • Eleanor Novek, Monmouth University • Scholars assert that communities strengthen themselves by bringing residents together and mobilizing them to solve local problems. How does this happen? What communication practices enable individuals to act together for the common good? This paper explores the development and implementation of a community leadership program in the northeastern United States from a communication perspective, in order to help grassroots practitioners maximize the application of meaning production and discursive reframing as communication strategies for empowerment.

“Can We Be Excellent and Equal Too?” Cultural Capital, Silent Sponsors and Early PBS • Laurie Ouellette, Rutgers • Drawing from Bourdieu’s theory of class reproduction, this article examines cultural and economic contradictions underscoring early conceptions of PBS as an equalizing educational force. Comparing the debut of Sesame Street and Civilisation, I show how the goal of improving the lot of disadvantaged children ran counter to the motives of “silent sponsors” seeking to reach upscale consumers. This tension was compounded by class hierarchies constructed around PBS in the popular press and in station program guides.

“Gotcha!”: Sensationalism, Discourse and Public Affairs • Peter Parisi, Hunter College • Although sensationalism is typically equated with lurid, frivolous subject matter, research suggests it can also heighten public affairs expos s. Using discourse analysis, this paper examines these possibilities in a New York tabloid newspaper’s stories on Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s harassment of a gadfly who exposed an illicit traffic trap. Examining reporting, columns, editorials and headlines, it shows how sensationalism mutes and suppresses key public interest issues. The paper concludes exploring the possibility of counter-hegmonic sensationalism.

The Mythos of Cyberspace: Acceptable Use Policies and the Ideology of the Internet • Randall Patnode, North Carolina The rhetoric of the Internet suggests that the new medium will provide a host of benefits to society, including more democratic participation and grater economic prosperity. Beneath the rhetoric, however, is an ideology that often runs counter to these ideals. This paper argues that the underlying ideology of the Internet can be seen in the content of acceptable use policies used by public libraries and K-12 schools.

Korean Rap at the Cusp: A Proposal for Analyzing Relations of Power Soon-Chul Shin and Elizabeth P. Lester, Georgia • Among the many cultural products, pop music plays a uniquely significant role in terms of everyday life practices. One of the most distinctive characteristics of pop music is its “transnationality.” This paper focuses on the relationship between the pop music genres, rock and rap, and an issue of identity in Korean teen culture. U.S. rock and rap have been successfully articulated in the Korean pop field, and the Korean “teen bloc” has positively negotiated with the transnationality of U.S. pop culture.

The Cable Collective as Public Space: “New Directions for Women” • Linda Steiner, Rutgers University • Assuming that something like the public sphere is indispensable to democratic political practice, the question addressed here is whether the work of a collective that produces “feminist television programs” can be seen as representing agency in the public sphere. This paper highlights the efforts of group that produces, under the aegis of the National Organization of Women, a series called “New Directions for Women.” The programming is cablecast on cable television public access channels in three states.

Communications Policy Through Thick and Thin: Thick Descriptions as a Methodology for Democracy • Brad Thompson, Pennsylvania State University • This paper proposes the use of anthropologist Clifford Geertz’s “thick description” as a methodology for communications policy research. Ethnographies employing thick description would give voice to the concerns of ordinary citizens. They also would help make policy more accessible so the public could participate more meaningfully in policy making, thus enhancing prospects for democracy. A literature review found no instances of authors explicitly employing thick description in mass communications policy research.

Parental Support in an Information Age: Lessons from Parental Mediation of Rental Videos • Ron Warren, Arkansas • The onset of an “Information Age” poses new questions for parents’ control over children’s media use. This paper notes the increasing frequency with which parents rely on the physical environment of their home and media mix to help control children’s media habits. Through qualitative interviews of four families about their use of rental videotapes, the author concludes that there are important elements to be considered in future studies of new technology in the home.

Negotiated Fun? Audience Responses to TV Nation • Rita Zajacz, Indiana University • A racially mixed and two all white focus groups provided polyvalent interpretations of two TV Nation segments, which used humor and documentary techniques to get their strong political point across. While the racially mixed group discusses racism and the participants connected the topic to their lives, the all white groups provided an oppositional reading by attacking the motivation of the director and by attacking the structure of the segment they disagreed with.

<< 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.

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