Mass Communication and Society 2001 Abstracts

Mass Communication and Society Division

Marginalized Groups in Society: The “Coolie” Barrister: Mahatma Gandhi as a Leader of Racially and Socially Marginalized Groups in South Africa (1888-1914) • Debashis “Deb” Aikat, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) had an eventful career as a lawyer-turned politician-journalist working for racially and socially marginalized groups in South Africa By identifying the problems of socially marginalized groups, Gandhi fought against systematic oppression, reductions in social services for the needy, and other inequitable social trends. This paper documents the evolution of Gandhi as a journalist in South Africa and his early experience with the press from 1888 to 1914. While exploring the early journalistic career of Gandhi, this historical study focuses upon Gandhi’s introduction to newspapers and earliest writings; the political background of his entry into journalism, especially his struggle against racism m South Africa; his contributions as the guiding spirit of the Indian Opinion, the weekly newspaper he helped launch in South Africa in 1903; and the ethical issues raised by him, the very issues that were to become his primary concerns as an international leader of non-violence and socially marginalized groups.

Believability and Satisfaction: Media Credibility in a Midwestern Community • Christopher E. Beaudoin, Esther Thorson and George Kennedy, University of Missouri-Columbia • The current study explores media credibility in light of declines being experienced by both daily newspapers and television news programs. Credibility is operationalized in terms of media believability and satisfaction. Mass media use is measured, via 27 items, for the four main news media: newspapers, television, Internet, and radio. Contrary to previous research, the study finds few demographic antecedents to media believability and satisfaction. The study does, however, second prior studies by finding strong associations between mass media use and both believability and satisfaction. The study demonstrates that Internet news satisfaction levels are higher than the other media—but lower when it comes to believability. The findings rise from a telephone survey of adults in a Midwestern community.

Ugly for Life: Exposure to Sports Coverage of the Olympic Games, Sports Participation and Body Image Distortion in Women 18-75 • Kimberly L. Bissell, University of Alabama • Many studies offer clear evidence that exposure to TDP (thinness depicting and promoting) media leads to distorted body image perceptions in school-age females and college women. This study examined the relationship between sports media exposure during the Olympic Games and sports participation to body image attitudes in women between 18-75. Women in this age group were used in this study because most studies of this nature typically look at effects on college women or young girls. Age was directly related to sports participation and sports exposure, and more importantly, it was found that many older women were as unhappy with their body shape as younger women. Both sports media exposure and sports participation were predictors of body image attitudes, with exposure and participation in lean sports leading to more negative attitudes.

Web and Traditional Media Use in the 2000 Presidential Election • Thomas P. Boyle, Susquehanna University • This study focuses on the web and traditional media sources during the 2000 presidential campaign. A random telephone survey of Pennsylvania state residents (N=392) in the month before the general election indicated the televised debates and a visit to a candidate web site lead to greater knowledge about candidate issue positions. Visiting candidate web sites and attention to traditional sources were predictors of campaign interest while attention to radio increased likelihood to vote.

Media Participation: A Legitimizing Mechanism of Mass Democracy • Erik P. Bucy and Kimberly S. Gregson, Indiana University-Bloomington • This paper reconsiders civic involvement and citizen empowerment in light of interactive media and elaborates the concept of media participation. Departing from conventional notions of political activity that downplay the participatory opportunities inherent in communication media, we argue that new media/formats have, since 1992, made accessible to citizens a political system that had become highly orchestrated, professionalized, and exclusionary. A typology of active, passive, and inactive political involvement is presented to accurately distinguish civic involvement from political disengagement and to categorize the types of empowerment and rewards—both material and symbolic—that different modes of civic activity afford. Even if only symbolically empowering, civic engagement through new media serves as an important legitimizing mechanism of mass democracy.

Bridging the Gap Between Perception and Behavior: Psychological Distance in First-Person Perception • John Chapin, Penn State University • The third-person perception hypothesis posits that people believe others are more influenced by media messages than they are. The existing literature consistently documents that individuals make self vs. other distinctions when assessing media effects, but not how such distinctions are made. The current study sought to document the self/other distinction in third-person perception and to assess differences in how individuals separate their own personal risk from that of others. Findings of a survey of 180 urban minority youth conform the presence of third-person perception and significant self/other distinctions in media effects. A clear split between cognitive and social predictors emerged when assessing differences in self/other distinctions. Participants relied on cognitive factors when assessing their own risk, while relying more heavily on self-esteem when assessing the relative risk of others. Liking and trust of the media was the only shared correlate of self/other distinctions in third-person perception.

A Structural Analysis of the Mediated Civic Participation on Human Rights Issues: Comparing the Mainstream with the Alternative Newspapers in Korea • Bum Soo Chon, State University of New York at Buffalo, Yun Sook Song, Korean Press Foundation and Won Yong Jang, State University of New York at Buffalo • Using the network analysis, this paper examines how two newspapers, the mainstream and alternative, have represented interactions between civic organizations and various under-represented issues such as human rights in the news coverage. The results suggest that although most human rights issues and organizations were clustered at peripheral positions for the mainstream newspaper, they formed a dense cluster for the alternative newspaper. Simply, the alternative newspaper’s coverage of civic participation oil human rights issues represents the various discourses of civil society in a more connected way, while the mainstream newspaper tended to cover them separately.

Sports Exposure, Identification and Viewer Aggression • Steve Collins, University of Texas-Arlington • Survey data (n=624) were used to test the relationship between exposure to televised sports and viewer aggression. The results indicate there is a correlation between exposure to certain sports and viewer aggression. For example, professional wrestling exposure correlated with physical aggression for the entire sample and predicted verbal aggression among men. Consistent with social cognitive theory, one’s level of identification with athletes on television is among the strongest predictors of physical and verbal aggression.

Misrepresentations of the Race of Juvenile Criminals on Local Television News • Travis L. Dixon and Cristina Azocar, University of Michigan • A content analysis of a random sample of local television news programming in Los Angeles and Orange counties was conducted to assess representations of Black, Latino and White juvenile law-breakers. “Intergroup” comparisons of perpetrators (Black and Latino vs. white) revealed that Black and Latino juveniles are significantly more likely than White juveniles to be portrayed as law-breakers on television news. “Inter-reality” comparisons of law breakers (television news vs. crime reports from the California Department of Justice) revealed that Black juveniles are overrepresented, Latino juveniles are underrepresented and White juveniles were neither over- nor underrepresented as perpetrators on television news. Society’s understanding of public issues changes over time. Here, we use media indexes to systematically and reliably account for such change and to measure social context. We systematically represent the classification systems and subject headings the Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature uses to archive media coverage of poverty from 1929 – 1998 and test whether these representations replicate the findings of social historians regarding the development of American poverty policy and discourse. We believe this measure has value for scholars interested in agenda-setting, framing, the dynamics of public and media discourse, and public opinion.

In Search of the Zeitgeist: A Systematic Approach to Measuring Social Context• Jill A. Edy, Middle Tennessee State University, and Regina G. Lawrence, Portland State University • Society’s understanding of public issues changes over time. Here, we use media indexes to systematically and reliably account for such change and to measure social context. We systematically represent the classificiation systems and subject headings the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature uses to archive media coverage of poverty from 1929 to 1998 and test whether these representations replicate the findings of social historians regarding the development of American poverty policy and discourse. We believe this measure has value for scholars interested in agenda-setting, framing, the dynamics of public and media discourse, and public opinion.

Assessing Causality: A Panel Study of Motivations, Information Processing and Learning During Campaign 2000 • William P. Eveland, Jr., Ohio State University, Dhavan V. Shah, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Nojin Kwak, University of Michigan • This two-wave panel study was designed to test the causal claims of the cognitive mediation model. The data indicate strong support for these claims. Motivations influenced information processing, information processing influenced knowledge, and motivations influenced knowledge only indirectly through information processing. Additional analyses demonstrated that our theoretical variables are not related in a simple unidirectional causal pattern. Future research should consider the reciprocal nature of relationships between information processing and knowledge.

Learning from the News in Campaign 2000: An Experimental Comparison of TV News, Newspapers, and Online News • William P. Eveland, Jr., Mihye Seo and Krisztina Marton, Ohio State University • This study contributes to research on learning differences across media by extending television news versus newspaper comparisons to include online news and seeking to produce a more ecologically valid result from experimental findings. Results suggest that medium has only a limited direct impact on the amount of learning. Attention, however, is significantly influenced by characteristics of the medium and the experimental stimulus, and this in turn influences learning.

Media Ownership and ‘Bias:’ A Case Study of News Magazine Coverage of the 2000 Presidential Election Campaign • Craig Flournoy, Danielle Sarver and Nicole Smith, Louisiana State University • The hypothesis of this paper is that a publicly held media property-such as Newsweek or Time-will be more likely to display objectivity in its news coverage than a privately held media company such as U.S. News and World Report. To test this, the authors conducted a content analysis of the three major news magazines’ coverage of the 2000 presidential campaign. The results of the content analysis of the three magazines support the hypothesis.

Violence vs. Sex: Differences in Rap Lyrics by Male and Female Artists • Rhonda Gibson and Joe Bob Hester, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Popular rap songs were coded for artist gender, genre, female images, and violent themes. Female artists were more likely to perform “booty” rap, while male artists primarily performed “gangsta” rap. Lyrics often contained references to women as sex objects; however, female artists were more likely to refer to women as strong. Female artists were less likely to use violent themes. Gangsta rap was more likely than booty rap to contain violent themes. The authors argue that it is unwise to lump all rap artists together when criticizing lyrics for violent, sexual, and misogynous themes.

Mobilizing Information in Newspaper Editorial Pages: An Endangered Species? • Gary Gray and William F. Griswold, The University of Georgia • This study analyzes newspaper editorial pages from three newspapers in 1959, 1969, 1979, 1989 and 1999 to determine how much mobilizing information was offered to readers of these pages at different times. Results indicate that the level of mobilizing information in these pages, after rising from 1959 to 1969, has declined steadily since then. The authors suggest that this trend may be one factor contributing to a decline in civic participation in the United States.

Video Games and the Elusive Search for their Effects on Children: An Assessment of Twenty Years of Research • James D. Ivory, University of Wyoming • This paper assesses 20 years of research into the effects of video games on children. Studies reveal dispute over effects, with findings of negative effects disputed by other research. Further complicating the issue is the fact that the medium has rapidly evolved technologically, making problematic any comparisons of video game studies over time. The author concludes that a workable or precise model of video game effects on children seems unlikely in the near future.

DO NEWSPAPERS KEEP AUTONOMY IN TIMES OF NATIONAL CRISIS? : A CASE STUDY OF THE IMF CRISIS IN KOREA 1997-1999 • Irkwon Jeong, Ohio State University • This study investigated whether newspapers keep autonomy in times of national crises based on content analysis. Toward this, it examined the editorials concerning the IMF crisis in Korea that lasted from Nov. 1997 to Oct. 1999 in two Korean newspapers with different ideological positions. The content difference between the newspapers in the editorials relevant to the IMF crisis was in accordance with their ideological stance, which infers that newspapers keep autonomy in times of national crises.

Redefining homelessness: How Tucson recyclers resist the media’s stereotyping • Deborah Kaplan, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This paper is an ethnographic case study of how five homeless recyclers in Tucson experience, and possibly challenge or resist, the dominant discourse on homelessness. The study found that the informants struggled daily, both in their discourse and dumpster-diving routines, to redefine the terms that stigmatize them as the market’s “failures.” They redefined themselves in the process as self-sufficient, self-determining workers. As “survivors,” in a word.

A Web for All Reasons: Uses and Gratifications of Internet Resources for Political Information • Barbara K. Kaye, University of Tennessee and Thomas J. Johnson, Southern Illinois University • This study surveyed politically interested Internet users online during the 2000 presidential election to examine their motives for using Web, bulletin boards/electronic mailing lists and chat forums for political information and to determine whether political attitudes, Internet experience and personal characteristics predict Internet use motivations. The findings indicate that each Internet resource satisfies slightly different needs, which can be predicted by certain variables. Additionally, results from this study are compared to findings from an earlier study of politically interested Web users during the 1996 presidential election.

Internet Technology Empowers Marginalized Labor Movements in South Korea: A Case Study • Tae-hyun Kim, Washington State University • This study employed Resource Mobilization (RM) theory to study how the Internet provided a marginalized South Korean social movement organization (SMO) with a means to mobilize resources. The study found that unique transmission properties of the Internet, particularly with the World Wide Web feature, allowed an SMO to publish, contact, and interact with external audience at a reduced cost. In-depth interviews were conducted to provide accounts about how an SMO actually used the Internet to carry out strike activities and mobilize support from sympathetic international non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Better Informed, No Say: Internet News Use and Political Efficacy • Young Mie Kim, University of Illinois-Urbana, Champaign • At the apogee of the democracy, the decline of political efficacy is regarded as one of the most prominent problems. Given that the essence of democracy is citizens’ autonomous control over political decision making and trust in representative government, restoration of political efficacy is an urgent concern to both policymakers and academic researchers. Embracing normative concern, many scholars pay attention to the Internet as a new form of news media, expecting the Internet news use to play a role in restoring political efficacy. Yet, few studies have tapped the relationship between Internet use and political efficacy with earnest theory and method. By differentiating the sub-concepts of political efficacy, that is, internal and external political efficacy, and by looking at the distinctive features of the Internet as a new form of news media, the present paper explored the relationship between Internet news use and political efficacy. Using a survey data, the present study examined whether the Internet news use enhanced the internal and the external political efficacy. The study found that Internet news use uniquely contributed to increase of internal political efficacy, even after controlling for basic possible explanatory variables including tradition news media use. However, Internet use did not make a contribution to increase of external political efficacy. Implications of the results were discussed.

Agenda Setting & Attitudes: An Exploration of Political Figures During the 1996 Presidential Election • Spiro Kiousis, Iowa State University • The purpose of this study is to examine the attitudinal consequences of agenda setting on political figures during the 1996 presidential election. In particular, the analysis probes the relationships among media coverage, public salience, and the strength of public attitudes towards a set of 11 political figures. Using literature from agenda setting, attitude strength, and the Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion, we explore such relationships. Findings indicate that increased media attention to political figures is correlated with higher levels of public salience and attitude strength. Further, the data suggest that these linkages vary according to levels of audience motivation. Finally, the implications of the results are discussed.

Media and Democracy: News Media’s Political Alienation Effect in Both Election and Non-Election Settings • Tien-tsung Lee, Washington State University • Many studies about news media’s alienation effects are limited to an election framework. One may wonder whether the news media politically alienate the general public during non-election times. Also, most political alienation studies rely on a relatively small local sample. In order to go beyond the limited paradigm of elections, as well as to provide a more representative sample, this study analyzes both a national political survey and a national consumer research data set. Contrary to what many other studies have suggested, our findings suggest that the news media do not lead to political alienation in either settings.

Exploring the Digital Divide: Internet Connectedness and Age • William E. Loges and Joo-Young Jung, University of Southern California • “Digital divide” is usually defined as access or lack of access to the Internet. This study demonstrates differences in Internet connectedness, a multi-dimensional concept that includes the scope and intensity of people’s Internet use. Age is shown to be significantly associated not just with access, but with a narrower range of personal goals and a smaller range of places for connecting to the Internet. Nonetheless, older respondents evaluate the Internet to be as central to their lives as younger people do.

Word People vs. Picture People: Normative Differences and Strategies for Control Over Work among Newsroom Subgroups • Wilson Lowrey, Mississippi State University • Tensions between “word journalists” and “picture journalists” support the notion that journalism is not a singular, monolithic occupation, but instead is subdivided into occupational subgroups, representing different areas of expertise. This study asks a number of questions: Which norms do members of occupational subgroups involved with news presentation observe and to what degree? By what strategies do subgroups attempt to gain greater legitimacy and control over their work? Interview findings suggest news workers follow three sets of norms in news presentation work: integrative norms, which represent the values of internal consistency and efficiency, journalistic norms and artistic norms.

Setting the Stage for the Hutchins Commission: Pre-1947 Government Restrictions on Free Expression • Jane S. McConnell, University of Oklahoma • This paper examines press criticism and First Amendment law in the first half of the twentieth century as significant parts of the cultural backdrop for the Hutchins Commission’s conclusion in 1947 that government control might be necessary to ensure press responsibility. It also demonstrates that government restrictions on free expression may have been an important influence on the way Americans – and the commission members in particular -viewed journalistic autonomy in a democracy.

The Effects of Campaign Advertising Coverage on Candidate Evaluation, Candidate Preference, and the Likelihood of Voting An Experimental Analysis • Young Min, University of Texas-Austin • Attending to the increase in campaign ad coverage, the present experimental study examines the joint effects of advertising and campaign news. More specifically, this study investigates the impacts of the tone of the ad under review and the tone of the news analysis of the ad in ad-watch reports on individuals’ candidate evaluations, their candidate preferences, and their likelihood of turning out to vote. Findings indicate that both advertising tone and news-analysis tone have significant effects on individuals’ evaluations of candidate credibility; the subjects exposed to a negative ad or a deflating tone of news analysis perceived the candidate sponsoring the ad as less honest and less believable than did those exposed to a positive ad or a reinforcing tone of news analysis. More importantly, the tone of the news analysis did significantly swing individuals’ likelihood of voting for the sponsoring candidate; a deflating tone of journalistic comments on a campaign ad substantially decreased the audiences’ preferences toward the sponsor. Furthermore, the data do not support an across-the-board “negativity-demobilizing” hypothesis; neither negative advertising nor deflating news analyses significantly depressed individuals’ participatory intentions.

Perception vs. Reality: Comparing actual newspaper coverage of lesbian and gay issues with readers’ impressions • Sheila T. Murphy and Leroy Aarons, University of Southern California • The present research used both surveys and focus groups to assess readers’ perceptions of the coverage of gay and lesbian-related issues by four major newspapers – The Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Los Angeles Times, The Saint Louis Post Dispatch, and The New York Times. In general, both gay and straight readers felt that coverage of gays and lesbians was extremely sparse, event-driven, conflictual in nature, did not provide a sufficient local context and, consequently, did not reflect their own lives. These reader perceptions were then contrasted against the results of a month-long content analysis of these same newspapers.

Newspapers & the Internet: A Comparative Assessment of News Credibility • Gregg A. Payne, David M. Dozier and Afsheen J. Nomai, San Diego State University • An experiment examined differences in credibility assigned to news stories read in paper form and an identical story read on a web site. Randomly assigned control and test groups exposed to six identical news stories assessed the credibility of the articles they using an established, reliable credibility index. News appearing on a web site was evaluated as less credible for all three categories of news, when compared to paper distribution. However, only two were statistically significant. Credibility judgments differed as a function of news topics.

Can Using Qualifiers Initiate Active Processing of Exemplars? • Stephen D. Perry, John Beesley, Dave Jorgensen, Dave Novak and Kari Catuara, Illinois State University • Studies of exemplification effects have regularly found that the distribution of exemplars can alter perceptions of opinion in news coverage. This study attempts to negate the impact of exemplars through using qualifying statements that suggest that either exemplars are non-representative, or that they represent things that are happening more and more. Results indicate that the impact of the distribution of exemplars is too strong to be overcome by using such statements.

From Wall Street to Main Street: An Analysis of Stock Market Recommendations on TV Business News Programs • Bruce L. Plopper and Anne F. Conaway, University of Arkansas-Little Rock • Mass media business news coverage grew significantly in the last 20 years, American stock ownership proliferated in the 1990s, and stock analysts’ recommendations in 2000 were overwhelmingly positive. Based on these facts, this study analyzed experts’ stock recommendations as presented on four highly popular and easily accessible TV business news programs during the last quarter of 2000. Although results showed differences among programs, an overall positive bias existed when programs were viewed as a whole.

The Importance of Receiver Interpretation Variables In Media Effects Experiments • W. James Potter and Tami K. Tomasello, Florida State University • In this study, we argue that conventional media effects experiments exhibit a major limitation that prevents their findings from being more useful. This limitation involves the disregard of receiver interpretation variables. We hypothesize that viewer judgments about violent program content will be explained less by the treatment condition and receiver attribute variables than by individual interpretations of the contextual factors in the presentations. Results from an experiment designed to include receiver interpretation variables support this hypothesis.

Raising another voice: Framing the civil rights movement through ads in The New York Times • Susan D. Ross, Washington State University • Framing and social movement theories and research find that news coverage critical to movement success tends to ignore, marginalize, or undermine social movements. This study examines twenty-six ads sponsored by civil rights groups in The New York Times between 1954 and 1970 to analyze advertising as a means of positive self-framing by the movement. Findings suggest the benefits of advertising framing may be limited by factionalism within the movement or deceptive advertising by movement opponents.

When no news is not good news, ignorance is not bliss, and your mama may not have told you: Female adolescent information holding and seeking about sexually transmitted diseases • Donna Rouner and Rebecca Lindsey, Colorado State University • Health researchers acknowledge a limited understanding of the social context of adolescents regarding their decision-making behaviors about serious health issues, such as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and pregnancy prevention, as well as other concerns. Communication research suggests inadequate knowledge about interpersonal and mediated communication patterns of adolescents, particularly on matters related to sexual decision making. This study looks at one adolescent subgroup, 18-year-old females, and explores their perceptions of themselves regarding their ability to make sound health decisions, their information holding and use about STDs, media and interpersonal communication channel use, their knowledge and perceived knowledge levels. Fifteen first-year college students from a Western university engaged in depth interviews. Findings suggested strong confidence, but weakly developed self-concepts relative to this subject area; low amounts and inaccurate information holding, difficulty finding information from mediated sources and limited interpersonal communication. Suggestions for pursuing this line of research are included.

“A Tale of Two Presidents”: Media Effects and Divergent Trends in Mass Evaluations of Clinton • Dhavan V. Shah, University of Wisconsin-Madison, David Domke, University of Washington and David P. Fan, University of Minnesota • Public opinion about Bill Clinton as President, particularly during his second term in office, was notable for two markedly divergent time trends: (a) remarkably high approval of his job performance, and (b) remarkably low evaluations of his honesty and trustworthiness. With these differing public opinion trends in mind, several pollsters, pundits, and scholars have argued that news coverage of the President must have been largely irrelevant, or influential in ways that are incongruent with traditional political communication models. We disagree. Specifically, we advance a theory that argues that citizens’ political preferences are influenced substantially by heuristics, particularly “cues” and “frames” provided by news media. To test our ideas, we draw upon two types of data: (a) a longitudinal content analysis of major news media January 1993 to January 2001, and (b) corresponding time-trends of opinion polls on the President’s job approval and his honesty. Analyses reveal that over-time news media emphasis upon and framing of certain issue domains coverage of the economy, presidential character, and the Monica Lewinsky scandal can explain changes in mass evaluations of Clinton’s approval and honesty throughout his presidency, including the marked divergence in these trends during the “Lewinsky period.”

The Effects of Warning Labels on Cellular Phones in Korea • Sung Wook Shim, University of Florida, and Jongmin Park, Pusan National University • The present study sought to determine the effectiveness of warning labels about cellular phones in different conditions. This study found a difference between high-credibility source and low-credibility source of the warning label. However, there were no significant differences between high-fear appeal and low-fear appeal and use time (low, medium, high). Even though there is no significant difference between high fear appeal and low fear appeal, high fear appeal might have an impact on the perception of subjects about warning labels in terms of mean score. Finally, source might be an important factor to make warning labels on the cellular phones in Korea. Also, using high credible source might have a positive impact on warning labels.

A Two-Way Interaction Channel with Voters or A New Political Marketing Tool?-The Role of Candidates’ Campaigning Websites in Taiwan’s 2000 Presidential Election • Tai-Li Wang, Shih-Hsin University • This study intended to understand how the presidential candidates used their campaign websites to communicate with their voters in Taiwan’s 2000 presidential election. An eight-week content analysis of the candidates’ websites, a series of in-depth interviews with the campaign managers, and an e-mail survey of the campaign website users, all together, helped to understand whether or not two-way interactive campaigns were undertook in this historical election. Results showed that the “interactivity” between presidential candidates and voters was more of an illusion in Taiwan’s 2000 campaign than a reality. Both the candidates and the voters seemed not ready for an “interactive communication model” promoted by advocates of “electronic democracy”. Discussions are offered to explain the findings, and suggestions are made for future studies.

Modern Gladiators: A Content Analysis of Televised Wrestling • Hyung-Jin Woo and Yeora Kim, University of Georgia • The purpose of this study is to explore how antisocial factors on televised wrestling are represented in match/non-match time and in the three different television time zones such as prime time, after midnight time, and weekend morning time. Based on previous violence studies, the antisocial factors (aggressive acts, desensitization of violated rules, and glamorization of violence) that need to evaluate televised wrestling are selected. The results indicate that the major and popular televised wrestling programs (WWF, WCW, and ECW) are more frequently showing antisocial factors than local-oriented ones (NWA & IWU). The antisocial factors are also frequently represented in non-match time as well as match times. There is no significant difference of frequency of antisocial representation among prime time, after midnight time, and weekend morning time zones so that this study infers that children might be exposed the similar amount of antisocial behaviors regardless of different time zones.

<< 2001 Abstracts

Law 2001 Abstracts

Law Division

To Rate or Not to Rate? A Comparison of Internet Rating Systems with the Television Industry’s Ratings • Chantal Francois Bailliet, Loyola University • The Internet industry created ratings for its content despite a Supreme Court ruling stating the medium merits the same level of First Amendment protection as print. The Internet is looking to regulate itself much like the television industry did when it adopted its ratings. The difficulty lies in that the Internet is very different from television and accordingly, rating its content brings different problems. In the end, there are more effective solutions than ratings.

New Protection for Speech Rights: Media Use of State Anti-SLAPP Legislation • Matthew D. Bunker, University of Alabama, and Paul H. Gates, Jr., Appalachian State University • “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation” (“SLAPPs”) have been defined as meritless lawsuits brought to silence opponents through intimidation rather than to vindicate genuine legal rights. As a number of states have created statutory means of countering such lawsuits, called anti-SLAPP statutes, it has become clear that at least some of these statutes can also be used by media defendants to defeat libel and related tort claims. This paper explores this new legal weapon and its use by the press.

The Effects of Desnick V. ABC: Setting Boundaries for Surreptitious Newsgathering • James V. D’Aleo, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • The 1994 decision in Desnick v. American Broadcasting Companies by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals was a shift from the way courts previously decided newsgathering cases. While literally adhering to the rule that the media must follow all generally applicable laws, the Desnick court protected ABC by using the limitations of the torts involved. This paper examines Desnick ‘s effect on newsgathering cases by investigating how later cases used the reasoning found in this case.

Drawing Swords After Feist: Efforts to Legislate the Database Pirate • Victoria Smith Ekstrand, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This paper examines the debate over database piracy after the Supreme Court case, Feist V. Rural Publications, Inc. It concludes that since Feist, appellate courts have struggled to define the constitutional requirement of originality to protect databases as compilations under copyright law and suggests that the adoption of the Altal abstraction test for software programs may offer some guidance to courts required to sort unprotectable ideas and facts of a database from protectable expression.

What Gives You the Right(s)?: Tasini V. New York Times Co. • Cindy J. Elmore, The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • There have been only three federal court rulings to interpret -01(c) of the 1976 Copyright Act as it applies to freelancers working for the publishers of collective works. Yet, the most recent decision did not fully address all of the arguments made in the two earlier opinions. This article examines the three opinions and the legal rules established by them, points out questions, omissions and inconsistencies left unresolved, and provides some guidelines for freelancers.

Updating SPJ’s Report on the Journalist’s Privilege: Three Years Later, Is the Privilege Truly Eroding? • Anthony L. Fargo, University of Rhode Island • The Society of Professional Journalists issued a report in 1997 called “The Erosion of the Reporter’s Privilege.” The report said that judicial support for the journalist’s privilege appeared to be wavering, citing recent cases and expert commentary. This study found that appeals and legislation had reversed the effects of many of the decisions cited. However, the report’s finding that the judiciary was becoming more hostile to journalists was supported by judges’ comments in recent cases.

The Journalist’s Privilege for Nonconfidential Information in States Without Shield Laws • Anthony L. Fargo, University of Rhode Island • Figures compiled by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press show that most news media subpoenas seek nonconfidential information. Journalists argue that all subpoenas infringe important First Amendment rights to a free flow of information and an independent press. While courts in most of the nineteen states without shield laws protect confidential sources, however, courts in only two states extend the privilege to nonconfidential information in both civil and criminal proceedings, this study found.

The Public Interest Be Damned: Lower Court Treatment of The Reporters Committee “Central Purpose” Reformulation • Martin E. Halstuk, Penn State University and Charles N. Davis, University of Missouri • This article addresses the U.S. Supreme Court’s “central purpose” formulation in Reporters Committee V. Department of Justice under the federal Freedom of Information Act. By examining all lower federal court opinions interpreting Reporters Committee and by analyzing the effects of the Court’s opinion on the implementation of the EFOIA, the paper finds that the Court’s opinion has greatly narrowed the scope of the FOIA and limited the power of EFOIA to democratize electronic information.

Sex, Professors, and the Internet: First Amendment Problems with the Fourth Circuit’s Ruling in Uroftskv V. Gilmore • Susan Keith, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit erred in several ways when it upheld a Virginia law that said state employees, including professors doing legitimate research, had to have agency approval before accessing sexually explicit material online with state-owned computers. The ruling in Urofskv V. Gilmore was based on faulty interpretations of Pickering and its progeny and neglected to seriously consider cases in which the U.S. Supreme Court recognized individual academic freedom.

Hyperlinks and the First Amendment: Toward a Hierarchy of Protection • Susan Keith, University of North Carolina • This paper seeks to determine whether hyperlinks have been viewed by courts as protected speech and outlines a proposed hierarchy of First Amendment protection for hyperlinks. It argues that courts have explicitly and implicitly recognized that hyperlinks deserve some First Amendment protection, though insufficient protection has been accorded to certain types of hyperlinks. The paper further suggests a four-level model that would give broad protection to unauthorized surface links to non-infringing content, unauthorized deep links, and links to infringing content but award less protection to some third-party hyperlinks, unauthorized inline links, and unauthorized framing hyperlinks.

In Pursuit of Undue Influence: Government Efforts to Justify Regulation of Corporate Political Speech Since Bellotti • Robert L. Kerr, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This study examines government efforts to establish compelling justification for regulating corporate political speech, which received constitutional protection in the 1978 First National Bank of Boston V. Bellotti decision. Courts have since rejected many government efforts to regulate corporate political speech, but have accepted narrowly drawn efforts to prevent quid pro quo corruption and to ensure that wealth amassed through the corporate form in the economic marketplace not be used to unfairly influence the political marketplace.

An “Unholy Alliance”: The Law of Media Ride-Alongs • Karen M. Markin, University of Rhode Island • This paper describes and analyzes legal claims arising from the increasingly common journalistic practice of the media accompanying authorized individuals who are performing official duties. Courts were generally sympathetic to plaintiffs when the media accompanied officials into a home or other traditionally private space. The author concludes that legal support for the ride-along is weak and that the practice is not supported by either the libertarian or social responsibility theories of the press.

Is the Public Interest Meaningless?: Levels of Meaning and Ambiguity in the Public Interest Standard • Philip M. Napoli, Fordham University • In light of recent statements by new FCC Chairman Michael Powell that the public interest standard in communications regulation is essentially meaningless, this paper revisits the long-running debate over the meaning – or lack thereof• of the public interest standard. This paper argues that the question of the meaning of the public interest standard actually contains three separate tiers of the analysis, as the public interest concept can be broken down into three separate levels of meaning: (a) the conceptual level; (b) the operational level; and (c) the applicational level. This paper illustrates that much of the ambiguity and inconsistency associated with the public interest standard resides within the operational and applicational levels. This paper then pinpoints the specific sources of ambiguity and inconsistency and suggests means by which greater definitional specificity and consistency can be brought to the public interest standard.

Copyright or Copy Wrong: An Analysis of University Claims to Faculty Work • Ashley Packard, University of Houston-Clear Lake • Most universities claim to own at least some faculty-created works. This paper explores ownership of faculty-created intellectual property by examining copyright cases that have touched on faculty ownership of their work, the teacher exception to the work for hire doctrine and its relationship to academic freedom, and university copyright policies. It concludes that faculty have little protection for their work other than university copyright policies that may not alter the traditional work for hire arrangement set up by the Copyright Act.

“Burning” News Sources and Media Liability: Cohen V. Cowles Media Co. Ten Years After • Joseph A. Russomanno and Kyu Ho Youm, Arizona State University • Identifying a news source who has been promised anonymity has been typically regarded as improper journalism ethically. Exactly 10 years ago, in Cohen v. Cowles Media Co., the U.S. Supreme Court largely invalidated the practice legally. But what has been the impact of the decision over the past decade? This paper takes a two-pronged approach, examining Cohen’s influence in American courts and newsrooms. The results: while news organizations are being more careful, courts are more accommodating to free press interests.

IS INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER IMMUNITY GROWING?: AN EXAMINATION OF IMMUNITY UNDER – 230 OF THE COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT AFTER ZERAN • Elizabeth Spainhour, The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • In 1997, the 4th Circuit decided Zeran V. AOL, the first test of Internet Service Provider (ISP) immunity offered by – 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Under – 230, ISPs are not liable for third-party content. This paper examines the 17 cases reported since Zeran that cited – 230 to determine how immunity for ISPs has grown. The paper also addresses the circumstances under which nontraditional ISPs could receive – 230 immunity.

SCHOOL VIOLENCE: GETTING THE RECORDS • Carol Wilcox Stiff, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • When violence involving students erupts at school, journalists generally are faced with obtaining important records to substantiate their stories. To do that, they must cope with privacy laws that protect student records from abuse, state laws that prohibit the release of information about juveniles involved in crime, and the sensitive nature of the records themselves. This research focuses on what scholars have said about the broad area of school violence and three cases in which students were the victims, in California, Pennsylvania, and Colorado. In all these cases, the press was forced to go to court to obtain records and to cope with accompanying delays.

THE CASE AS ARTIFACT: A (RE)READING OF HAZELWOOD V. KUHLMEIER • Andrew H. Utterback, Northern Arizona University • The purpose of the essay is to illustrate the potential critical power of treating case law as “text” or “cultural artifact.” Using Hazelwood V. Kuhlmeier, the paper presents a Critical Legal Studies reading of the case from a methodological perspective stemming from Cultural Studies. The thesis of the essay is that Hazelwood V. Kuhlmeier (1) defines Constitutional freedom outside the bounds of the legal and problematizes American identity in the process, (2) illustrates the ideological conflicts inherent between an everyday life of practice and an identity-laden perception of a Constitutional ideal, (3) allows the State to deny the semiotic process and to actively define and produce what is acceptable, and (4) points out a uniquely late twentieth-century tension between individual and social rights which may define a future theoretical direction in free speech theory and practice.

<< 2001 Abstracts

International Communication 2001 Abstracts

International Communication Division

Advertising And The Construction Of Beauty: The Impact Of Economic Liberalization And Globalization On Advertising Formats In India • Katyayani Balasubramanian and K. Viswanath, National Cancer Institute • no abstract

The Subversion In The Age Of Digital Information • Ivo Belohoubek, University of Arkansas-Fayetteville • Author examines the dynamic relationship between the new digital media and the discourse of contemporary global activism. He proposes that for global activism, characterized by intense communication and a for its particular discourse, shaped by the specific technological setting – the digital network, neither Marxism as an ideology, nor structuralism and semiology as a method, are sufficient explanatory tools. His analysis includes postmodern interpretation of Marshall McLuhan’s and Jean Baudrillard’s Medium theory as well as various inputs from poststructuralism. He concludes that the new media significantly change not only the means of subversive communication, but also an ideology and philosophy of global activism and relate directly to such phenomena, as the mass protests against economic globalization, which we could have witnessed the world over during the last decade.

Readers’ grievance columns as aids in the development of India • David W. Bulla, Indiana University • Citizens of India have a unique opportunity to participate in the development of democracy in their nation by giving feedback to the government and corporations through grievance columns in daily newspapers. These complaint columns – separate from letters to the editor – help make powerful institutions accountable for their actions and inactions. This paper examines public feedback and institutional response in three Indian dailies. Its major finding is that most complaints deal with communication and transportation issues, and that public responsiveness by government and corporations is minimal. It also maintains that grievance columns act as an instrument of a particularly Indian civic journalism since editors get story ideas from the complaints. In essence, readers’ grievances help determine newspapers’ agenda.

Revisiting the “Determinants of International News Coverage in the U.S. Media”: A Replication and Expansion of the 1987 Research on How the U.S. News Media Cover World Events • Kuang-Kuo Chang, Michigan State University and Tien-Tsung Lee, Washington State University • This paper is a replication of a significant study in international news coverage published in 1987 by Chang and colleagues which examined the selection criteria of world news events by the U.S. news media. With more recent data, the present study concludes that the once highly significant variable of normative deviance has diminished in its predicting power. U.S. involvement and threats to the U.S. became the two strongest predictors for coverage in both newspapers and TV network broadcasts. Press freedom has emerged as a strong predictor for TV news coverage. Additionally, an eventdriven perspective appears to be more important than context-driven perspective as world news determinants. The findings suggest a swift in how U.S. news media cover international events over time.

‘News aid’, the new aid: a case study of Cambodia • J.L. Clarke, Hong Kong Baptist University • Aid to the news media has recently become an important feature of aid programmes to formerly communist countries. This paper examines criticisms of aid in general and of media aid in particular and surveys the case of Cambodia. It finds that many criticisms are relevant but being dealt with. The underlying problem of whether the aid imposes a Western view of the world remains unresolved because there is little opportunity to experiment with other approaches.

THE DEATH OF DIANA: A MULTI-NATION STUDY OF NEWS VALUES AND PRACTICES • Anne Cooper-Chen, Ohio University • Princess Diana’s death, ranked as the top news story of 1997, presents a perfect case study for comparing various countries’ treatment of news. This study looked at front pages of two newspapers each from Brazil, Finland, Japan, New Zealand and the United States from Sept. 1 (the first day of coverage) to Sept. 7 (the day of the funeral). It found deviance but not geographic proximity to be a universal news value (distant Brazil’s coverage far outstripped nearby Finland’s). It argues that affinity between a nation’s culture and an event’s intrinsic nature can explain coverage.

In search of truth: The TRC and the South African press – a case study • Arnold S. de Beer and Johan Fouche, Potchefstroom University • The demise of apartheid and the first democratic elections in 1994 ushered in a new epoch making era in South African history. This paper deals with one element of these changes in the form of a case study: the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s media hearings, and more specifically, the issue of the Afrikaans press and its activities during the apartheid years (1960-1994). The circumstances preceding the media hearings, the hearings and the aftermath are discussed.

Images of the Other: A Cross-Cultural Content Analysis of Coverage of Muslims and Mormons in Bulgarian and United States’ Popular Newspapers, 1996-99. • Maria Deenitchina, Sofia University; Peter Kanev and Byron Scott, University of Missouri-Columbia • This content analysis uses the concept of “otherness” to delineate similarities and differences in media characterizations and stereotypes of Muslims and Mormons in newspapers of two nations. In Bulgaria, newspapers appeared to cover Muslims in a broader, more balanced manner than Mormons. Articles in U.S. newspapers over the same period showed opposite results. Historical, cultural and professional differences may account for the differing patterns of coverage, including audience familiarity/unfamiliarity with the two religions.

Perceptions of Advertising in the Newly Independent States: Kazakstan Students’ Beliefs About Advertising • Jami A. Fullerton and Tom Weir, Oklahoma State University • This study attempts to answer Andrews’ (1991) question, do perceptions of advertising in general vary cross-culturally? Eighty-two students from the former Soviet Union republic of Kazakstan were questioned about their beliefs about advertising. The analysis revealed predominantly negative feelings toward advertising in general. Findings indicate unfamiliarity or general distrust of advertising and uncertainty about the role and potential of advertising to improve the quality of life in the country. A discussion about advertising in Kazakstan’s emerging capitalist economy is also included.

Increasing Circulation? A Comparative News-Flow Study of the Montreal Gazette’s Hard-Copy and On-line Editions • Mike Gasher and Sandra Gabriele, Concordia University • International news-flow research has noted a significant imbalance in the global exchange of news. Drawing on this research tradition, this paper explores the way one daily newspaper, the Montreal Gazette, occupies the geography of the Internet with its on-line news operation. The paper will report on a six-week comparative news-flow study of the Gazette’s hard-copy and on-line editions to determine whether on-line publishing has allowed the Gazette to alter the boundaries of its coverage and its distribution.

Going Global: Choosing the Newspapers We’ll Need to Read in the Digital Age • Richard R. Gross, University of Missouri • Author reviewed surveys of elite newspapers and gathered new data from international journalists regarding which newspapers are regarded as the current “elite.” Respondents were queried regarding criteria for their choices. Respondents were also surveyed regarding the quality of online versions of newspapers and credibility of the medium in the first known survey of its kind. The findings reveal some shifts in newspaper preferences, large differences in criteria from landmark surveys and ambivalence toward online newspapers.

DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE BROADCASTING IN POST-COMMUNIST ESTONIA: 1991-1996 • Max V. Grubb, University of Southern Illinois-Carbondale • The world in the last decade experienced the collapse of the Soviet Union and the demise of communism in Eastern Europe. This research utilized a case study and historical approach to examine the development of independent broadcast media in post-communist Estonia. The implications drawn from this study are that post-Communist broadcast system transformations are complex, particularly when the developing private broadcast system has to compete with the public system for audiences, advertising revenue, and programming.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: A WORLD SYSTEM PERSPECTIVE • Shelton A. Gunaratne, Minnesota State University-Moorhead • The world system theory can provide a refreshingly different perspective of global press freedom. The starting point of assessing press freedom should be the world system, not the “atomistic” nation-state, because one cannot understand the part without knowing the whole, which is more than the sum of the parts. This essay proposes the application of a revised formulation of the world system theory-which presumes a capitalist world-economy dominated by three competing center-clusters each associated with a dependent hinterland of peripheral economic clusters-to examine global press freedom. It proposes a three-tiered typology for measuring press freedom at the world system, state, and individual levels. It suggests that press freedom indices should factor in the power of the center clusters, themselves led by a hegemon cluster, to flood the hinterlands technologically with a barrage of information-communication.

Propaganda in the U.S. and Russian Press: An Analysis of Coverage of the Kursk Submarine Disaster in American and Russian Wire Services • Elaine Hargrove-Simon, University of Minnesota• This paper examines U.S. and Russian coverage of the Kursk submarine disaster from the theoretical perspectives of framing and propaganda. The paper goes on to present a content analysis of Associated Press and ITAR/TASS coverage of the disaster in the weeks following the event. As hypothesized, the U.S. coverage was markedly more negative that the Russian coverage.

GROWING UP IN POST-COMMUNIST POLAND: THE ROLE OF COMMUNICATION IN DEVELOPING POLITICAL ATTITUDES • Edward M. Horowitz, University of Oklahoma • Since the fall of communism researchers have viewed Central and Eastern Europe as a natural laboratory to see how young people develop the political attitudes, knowledge, and behavior to fully participate in democratic society. Corning out of a 40-year communist legacy and with the variability of the current political and socio-economic conditions, there have been concerns that young people would not develop democratic attitudes. In addition, changing mass media conditions have led to an explosion of broadcasting channels, as well as a wide variety of periodicals. A survey of Polish adolescents (N=1480) finds evidence that certain aspects of political socialization are occurring in Poland: adolescents’ political knowledge is high, increasing with age, and influenced by news sources. Intention to vote is similarly high. The role of the media is seen to be an important part of this socialization process. Implications for the future of Poland’s democracy are discussed.

Redefining Local News: How Daily Newspapers Reflect Their Communities’ International Connections • Beverly Horvit, Winthrop University • Because more than 10 percent of those living n the United States were born elsewhere, one might think it easy to show readers how international news affects their lives. This content analysis examines the cover-to-cover content of 10 newspapers from June 29-July 26, 1998, to determine if the content reflects their communities’ global ties. On average, the newspapers ran less than one international-related story a day that offered readers information on their community’s global connections.

Media, Popular Writings and the Rise of Chinese Nationalism in the 1990s • Yu Huang, Hong Kong Baptist University • The media in mainland China today has found itself in a winning position. Whilst still required to deliver to Party authority it has created an illusion of a more liberal and investigative media through altering its style to become increasingly populist, influential and commercially attractive in an expanding market environment. Much of this can be explain by the media and popular journalistic writings’ increasing adoption of a nationalist news frame; an allegiance with the unifying theme of nationalism that has become perhaps the most important officially-endorsed political development in China throughout the 1990s. This study attempts to trace the developments of this phenomenon, from the media’s pro-westernist stance during the 1980s to its anti-westernist position in the 1990s. Through the detailed analysis of the various media-adopted nationalist themes during the 1990s this study identifies (theorizes) a number of different patterns and strategies that have been endorsed by the media to project its news-frame through a nationalist framework.

WHAT IS THE STATE OE THE EMPEROR’S CLOTHES? AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CHINESE NEWS AS THE MOUTHPIECE OF THE PARTY AND GOVERNMENT • John Jirik, The University Of Texas-Austin • This paper investigates the CCTV (China Central Television) English news and determines that this example of the Chinese media cannot be considered a simple policy transmission instrument of the communist party and government. This problematizes the assumption that the Chinese media play a mouthpiece role. The paper draws on original research conducted throughout 1999 in an ethnography of the CCTV English newsroom, coupled with content analysis of output.

Attitudes toward Democracy among Journalism Students in Kazakstan • Stanley Ketterer and Maureen J. Nemecek, Oklahoma State University • Since the country’s independence in 1991, Kazakstan’s journalism has followed a jagged course of reversal from a relatively free atmosphere to a near consolidation of state control of information and the suppression of independent media. In this survey of Kazakstani journalism students, they reported they used traditional media, mainly broadcast, the most. They perceived individual human rights, free and fair elections, rule of law, and free speech and assembly as most important in a democracy. About half as many students strongly agreed that these principles were evident in Kazakstan.

National Interest or Global Perspectives? International News in the Korean Television Networks • Hun Shik Kim, University of Missouri-Columbia • This attitudinal study explores the perceptions of Korean television journalists toward international news and examines their selection criteria. Q factor analysis of 38 Korean broadcasters from television networks produced three factors: Realist Traditionalists, Reform Facilitators and Global Communicators. The results show that Korean journalists are driven by national interest concerns, and tend to select stories that reflect Korea’s close ties with certain countries. Apart from demonstrating an awareness of the imbalanced global news flow, the Korean broadcasters are also strongly opposed to media control by government and corporate advertisers.

Kicking off the New Millennium: News Frame Analysis on Korea and Japan’s Co-Hosting of the World Cup 2002 • Kihan Kim, University of Missouri-Columbia, and Jongmin Park, Pusan National University • On May 31, 1996, the Federation International de Football Association (FIFA) announced that the World Cup 2002 will be co-hosted by Japan and the Republic of Korea. This will be the first World Cup hosted by more than one country and also the first to be held in Asia. Newspaper coverage of World Cup 2002 by Japan’s and Korea’s most prominent newspapers, The Daily Yomiuri and Chosun Ilbo, is analyzed quantitatively to understand their frames. This analysis eventually revealed the fact that both countries’ newspapers showed different frames of news based upon their own “national interest,” even in the absence of significant statistical difference in certain topic areas. Both Japan’s and Korea’s newspapers showed a negative attitude toward their counterpart’s “nationality.” However, each country’s news coverage dealt positively with its counterpart’s “preparation” for the World Cup 2002. In addition, each country’s newspaper highlighted issues that had more influence upon its own country. For example, Korea emphasized economic issues and Japan emphasized Japan’s soccer team, which is a reflection of the current issues and matters of concerns of each country: the economic crisis in Korea and the lack of World Cup experience and the diminishing interest in soccer in Japan.

REVEALING AND REPENTING SOUTH KOREA’S VIETNAM MASSACRE: A FRAME ANALYSIS OF A KOREAN NEWS WEEKLY’S ENGAGEMENT IN PUBLIC DELIBERATION • Nam-Doo Kim, University of Texas-Austin • A Korean weekly Hankyoreh21 ran an apology campaign after it uncovered South Korean army’s civilian killings in Vietnam War. This paper compares between the anti-campaign public discourse and the weekly’s media discourse through frame analysis. Based on a distinction between a core theme and criterion sub-themes, I identified the opposition between core themes of dishonored veterans and victims’ eyes. Specifically, a set of duels between the sub-themes anchored in specific value criteria were found. Further considerations to the symbolic resources employed and their implications are given.

Echoes in Cyberspace: Searching for Civic Minded Participation in the Online Forums of BBC Mundo, Chosun Ilbo, and the New York Times • Maria E. Len-Rios, Jaeyung Park, and Dharma Adhikari, University of Missouri-Columbia • This paper examines whether media-sponsored online discussion forums contribute to civic-minded participation, utilization of personal and community knowledge, and whether participation is related to the structure of the forum and interactivity. Content analysis of The New York Time’s Abuzz (U.S.A.) forum, BBC MUNDO’s “Foros” (U.K.) and the Chosun Ilbo’s Forum Chosun (South Korea) showed that participation is related to the structure of the forum, and that media-sponsored online forums do not appear to contribute to civic-minded participation, or to the utilization of common knowledge.

Supreme Court Obscenity Decisions in Japan and the United States: Cultural Values in the Interpretation of Free Speech • Yuri Obata and Robert Trager, The University of Colorado-Boulder • Although U.S. and Japanese constitutions guarantee freedom speech, obscenity is not protected in either country. However, how the two countries’ courts define “obscenity” and the values the use to decide if sexually explicit material is protected differ markedly. This paper discusses the differences in obscenity decisions between the U.S. and Japan, focusing on the Japanese cultural context, to consider how societal traditions influence, create and become manifest in different interpretations of freedom of expression.

Mirror or Lamp: Ethnic Media Use by Korean Immigrants in the U.S. • Hye K. Pae, George State University • This study uncovers factors influencing adaptation in relation to media use. Korean immigrants showed successful adaptation to the American society in terms of structural conglomeration by penetrating into the White residential area, and at the same time they showed high degree of ethnic attachment. A path analysis indicated that length of residence, host communication competence, and education were important factors influencing Korean immigrants’ adaptation. To the contrary, heavy viewing of Korean videotape and high degree of ethnic attachment served as negative factors in the course of adaptation.

Looking East, Looking West: International News Flow into Turkey via the Daily Press. • Yorgo Pasadeos, University of Alabama • no abstract available

The Use of Inoculation in International Political Campaigns-2000 Presidential Election in Taiwan • (Dennis) Weng-Jeng Peng, National Taiwan University and (Wayne) Wei-Kuo Lin, Chinese Culture University • Inoculation theory posits that through cognitive processing the likelihood of resistance to attitude change can be enhanced by applying inoculation treatments containing threat components that motivate individuals to generate counter arguments. The study employed inoculation strategies with a method of field experiment in an international context to examine the efficacy of inoculation. Major hypotheses of this study were supported by empirical data. People received inoculation pretreatments conferred more resistance to attitude change following exposure to a political attack message. Moreover, people who have higher strength of support for candidates are more resistant to counterattitudianl attacks. The nuances of inoculation theory and applications were further assessed and discussed.

Criss-Crossing Perspectives: Assessing Press Freedom and Press Responsibility in Germany and the United States • Horst Pottker, University of Dortmund and Kenneth Starck, The University of Iowa • This paper presents views of two media scholars—one from Germany, one from the United States—on press freedom and press responsibility. The goal was to make an assessment of their own press systems but also to attempt to learn from the other. The German perspective argues for more press freedom in Germany; the North American perspective maintains the need for more press responsibility in the United States. Authors conclude that insights about one’s own press system can be gained from considering factors in other systems.

The Private and Government Sides of Tanzanian Journalists • Jyotika Ramaprasad, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale • Against the backdrop of the evolution of Tanzania’s political and economic systems from the controlled to the liberal, this paper presents the concomitant evolution of Tanzania’s media from colonial and indigenous government control to private ownership. Using type of ownership (private, party or government) as a classifying variable, the paper then captures Tanzanian journalists’ current demographic, work related, and opinion profile with regard to the importance of their jobs, their journalistic freedom, and private and government media traits. The historical influences on Tanzanian media are apparent particularly in journalists attribution of traits to government and private media: the former will unify and develop the country, the latter will develop an informed citizenry but also be sensationalistic and unethical. Interestingly, the traits ascribed to government and private media were related to ownership of place of employment of the respondents.

Rooted in nations, blossoming in Globalization? A fresh look at the discourse of an alternative news agency in the age of interdependence • Jennifer Rauch, Indiana University – Bloomington• This paper compares, through qualitative methods, the discourse produced by Inter Press Service and the Associated Press on two globalization issues. The IPS mission of balancing international news flows is placed in the context of both interdependency and previous studies of wire service content. The finding of this study that these IPS texts differ meaningfully from the dominant agency’s – is discussed in relation to the larger challenge of informing the North of events in the South.

The Shrinking World of Network News • Daniel Riffe and Arianne Budianto, Ohio University • Analysis of 1970-2000 international news on ABC, CBS and NBC nightly news. Using four constructed weeks per year and the Television News Index and Abstracts, the study coded 24,794 news items. Trend analysis (Spearman’s rho) demonstrated that all three networks exhibited significant trends toward: fewer discrete news items per newscast, decreased international coverage, increases in “soft” and “bad” international news, decreased attention to developing countries, but increases in bad news from those countries.

Who Controls “Crtl + C”: A Study of the Effects of Media Ownership and Media Type in China • Lu Shi and Xueyi Chen, Syracuse University • This project is aimed at examining the influence of media ownership (state-owned media vs. privately-owned media) and media type (traditional media vs.on-line media) on media degree of conformity to official Party ideology in China. A content analysis of four media -the Bejing Youth Daily, 21dnn.com, Phoenix Satellite TV, and sina.com—shows that neither media ownership nor media type had any independent effect on media’s degree of conformity; only the interaction effect between these two variables was found significant. Meanwhile, sina.com, a privately-owned on-line medium, was shown to be significantly more deviant from official Party ideology than the other three media. The distribution of news sources and that of deviant news in relation to news type in all the four media were also investigated. Results suggest that by strategically and selectively using “CtrI+C” citing sources other than the Party’s mouthpiece and covering local news, where state control is more relaxed, sina.com achieved a higher level of deviation. The findings are also discussed within the framework of the symbiotic relation between the state and the business elite in China.

Cyber-Globalization: Media Framing on Short-Term Global Capital • Young Jun Son, Indiana University-Bloomington • Seven prestigious newspapers of four countries were content analyzed focusing on their news frames on short-term global capital flow. The newspapers of the United States and Singapore, in which financial policies are highly free and largely unrestricted, dominantly framed for free flow of speculative capital and great openness in global financial markets. However, the newspapers of Thailand and South Korea, in which financial policies are moderately free and which have both suffered recent economic crises, are more concerned about the control for speculative capital than those of the United States and Singapore.

Not another Chernobyl: Evidence of Russian candor during the sinking of the submarine Kursk • Stacy Spaulding, American University • In the confusion surrounding the sinking of the Russian submarine Kursk, many U.S. newspapers were quick to declare a return to Soviet-era standards of secrecy because of conflicting and sometimes false information. But by examining coverage of the accident in three leading U.S. newspapers, this study found evidence that there was more openness than U.S. journalists recognized In particular, Russian sources figured more Prominently than U.S. sources in breaking news stories. Page one stories were also more likely to quote Russian sources than U.S. sources, and named Russian sources were quoted more often than named U.S. Sources, anonymous U.S. sources or anonymous Russian sources. This study examines the implications of these findings, drawing on a comparison to the Chernobyl disaster, and calls for a more nuanced understanding of contemporary Russian communication.

International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy • Joseph D. Straubhaar, University of Texas-Austin and Douglas A. Boyd, University of Kentucky • From the 1920s until 2001 international broadcasting has expanded to include television, not just the traditional form of long-distance electronic communication: mediumwave and shortwave radio. Traditionally done by governments and public corporations, international radio, and especially satellite-delivered television are increasingly commercial ventures, with CNN International and the BBC’s World being the most well known examples. This paper traces the evolution of international electronic communication in light of its present-day role in public diplomacy.

The Global News and the Pictures in Their Heads: A Comparative Analysis of U.S. and Foreign Media Coverage • Zixue Tai and Tsan-Kuo Chang, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities • News as a special kind of social product requires something to have taken place in the first place, to be captured by news people and published by the media, and ultimately to be consumed by the audience. Every stage is crucial for the news manufacturing process. This is especially true in international communication. This study examines the triangular relationship among what editors think as important news, what the audience likes, and what the U:S. and foreign media actually cover. The convergence and divergence of opinions from the audiences and the editors found in this study and media performance in coverage of some specific types of stories in the global context have important implications for better understanding of the processes and structure of international communication in society.

Press Freedom in Jamaica: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Government and Media Debates, 1990-2000 • Grace Virtue, Howard University • The Jamaican media industry has undergone profound changes in the past decade with growth in radio, television and print. With an often-fractious socio-political climate and traditions framed by slavery, colonialism and poverty, there is ongoing debate over how the society is being impacted by the media. This study is an attempt to determine how freedom of the press is conceptualized in Jamaica. A qualitative content analysis of newspaper articles and government documents were used for the study.

Coverage of International Elections in the U.S.: A Path Analysis Model of International News Flow • Wayne Wanta, University of Missouri-Columbia, and Guy Golan, University of Florida • A path analysis examined filters that may influence media coverage of international elections in the U.S. Western industrialized nations and U.N. Security Council members formed a core that received more coverage than peripheral nations. International interactions – trade with the U.S. and number of ancestors in the U.S. -transformed some nations into “semi-peripheral” nations, which received more coverage than other countries. Finally, international attributes – e.g., presence of nuclear weapons and gross domestic product – led some peripheral nations to receive coverage.

Cultural Differences in the Responses towards Offensive Advertising: A Comparison of Koreans, Korea-Americans, and Americans • Tae-Il Yoon, University of Missouri-Columbia and Kyoungtae Nam, University of Tennessee-Knoxville • This research reports on a cross-cultural study about the cultural differences in the affective responses toward offensive advertising. The research examined the issue by testing the reactions toward the controversial Benetton ads among three different groups (Korean, Korean-Americans, and Americans). The empirical data demonstrated that there were significantly cultural differences for non-offensive ad as well as for offensive ads. The results suggested that affective responses to advertising might be more culturally bounded than as expected. Its theoretical and managerial implications were discussed.

Four Effects in the Professionalization Process: A Study of Chinese Journalists in the Reform Era • Yong Zhang, University of Minnesota • Analyzing data from a nation-wide survey (n=1 ,649), this paper examines professional orientations of Chinese journalists in the reform era. Four major factors are found to influence the emergence of journalistic professionalism. They are historical experience represented by age cohort, communist party membership, one’s career path and experiences in professional improvement. Among these competing influences, journalists’ experience in professional improvement is found to be the most powerful predictor of accepting the general ideas of professionalism. The results are interpreted in light of the changing political, economic, and cultural milieu in China’s media reforms.

<< 2001 Abstracts

History 2001 Abstracts

History Divison

The Cold War as front-page news: The Truman Doctrine and the headlines, 1947 • Edward Alwood, Temple University • This paper analyzes how President Harry S Truman’s announcement of the Truman Doctrine translated into headline news at the beginning of the Cold War. It compared Truman’s alarmist rhetoric with newspaper headlines to determine the degree to which coverage of the speech reflected Truman’s characterization of Soviet aggression. Though critics have criticized newspapers during this era for serving as conduits for manipulative politicians, this study found that nearly half of the fourteen newspapers examined used Truman’s secondary theme involving the cost of the program in their headlines rather than the president’s alarmist rhetoric concerning Communist aggression.

Everyone’s Child: The Kathy Fiscus story as a defining event in television news • Terry Anzur, University of Southern California • This article examines the first live television coverage from the scene of a breaking news story to reach an audience of significant size: the 1949 attempted rescue of 3-year-old Kathy Fiscus from an abandoned well near Los Angeles, California. The KTLA-TV telecast is reconstructed through newspaper articles, eyewitness accounts and interviews with surviving participants. This broadcast transformed public perception of commercial television as an essential source of information and defined audience expectations of live TV news.

“Still the Manager… in Letter and Spirit”: Absentee Ownership and the East Oregonian • Jon Arakaki, University of Oregon • This study examines sixty-nine letters written from 1902-1906, between a newspaper owner in Portland, Oregon and his circulation manager in Pendleton Oregon. The letters provide a unique perspective on the business of newspapers: the changing role of a small town newspaper owner to an absentee majority owner who communicated primarily through letters. The narrative in the letters also reflect a newspaper caught in the changing business climate, transforming from small town, frontier newspaper to a product of the modern press.

Fearing witches: Anita Whitney and free speech in the Jazz Age • Diane L. Borden, San Diego State University • Among all the First Amendment cases to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 20th century, only a handful have involved women plaintiffs. At the center of one of the most significant was social activist Anita Whitney, whose conviction for speaking out under California’s anti-communism law was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1927. This paper argues that while communism was the witch that men feared in the early decades of the 20th century, Whitney was the woman they tied to the stake.

The World, The State, and Local Newspapers’ Editorial Reaction to a South Carolina Triple Lynching in 1926 • Kenneth Campbell, University of South Carolina • Press coverage of lynchings during the later half of the 19th century and the early 20th century is a much overlooked topic. This paper examines state and local editorial reaction to how The New York World covered a triple lynching in South Carolina in 1926. Five themes emerge including considerable local resistance to The New York World spotlighting “South Carolina’s shame” while ignoring crime and corruption in its own back yard, as some local papers put it.

Mixing Protest and Accommodation: The Response of Oklahoma’s Black Town Newspaper Editors to Race Relations, 1891-1915 • Mary M. Cronin, Bridgewater State University • Oklahoma’s black editors’ responses to African American settlers’ financial, social, and political conditions demonstrates that they used both vigorous protest and aspects of accommodationist policies. Their editorial philosophies must be evaluated in terms of the context of African American life in the Great Plains. While its true that many of the editors’ publications were booster sheets and there was a strong editorial interest in town site promotion, such promotion was only one factor in the use of both protest and accommodation philosophies. Most of Oklahoma’s black town editors protested vigorously to maintain political and civil rights guaranteed by the U. S. Constitution.

Public School Muckraker of the 1890s: A Reinterpretation of Joseph M. Rice • Doug Cumming, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Joseph M. Rice, a pediatrician and school reformer of the 1890s, wrote a nine-part magazine exposé of the mechanical methods of teaching used in urban school systems in 36 cities. He has been treated by education historians as a pioneer of educational measurement, child-centered pedagogy, or administrative efficiency. This paper argues that he should be reconsidered a precursor of the muckrakers and the first modern education reporter.

The Farmer’s Wife: Creating a Sense of Community Among Kansas Women • Amy J. Devault, Kansas State University • The Farmer’s Wife, published in Kansas from 1891 to 1894, promoted the Farmer’s Alliance, Populism, and woman suffrage. Geared to rural/farm women, the publication worked to change the identity of women, raise consciousness concerning the suffrage movement, and encourage men and women to work for the suffrage cause. This study suggests that suffrage rhetoric became more significant and direct over the three years of publication, leading up to a vote on a state constitution suffrage amendment.

A Heated News Debate: Origins of the Hot News Doctrine • Victoria Smith Ekstrand, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This paper examines the history of the “hot news doctrine” and its roots in the 1918 Supreme Court case, AP v. INS. It argues that the doctrine, which is still good law, is based on outdated copyright principles and was a calculated move by the Associated Press to protect its investments in news.

“Sidewalks and Rooftops Are Black for Blocks Around” D.L. Moody Evangelizes Gilded Age Brooklyn • Bruce Evenson, DePaul University • This paper examines the historic intersection of mass media and mass revival in modern America through the work of D.L. Moody in Brooklyn during the fall of 1875. Moody had a business man’s understanding of the power of publicity and organization in making a sale. With the help of cooperating newspapers, he mounted civic spectacles of unprecedented proportions across Gilded Age America. This makes Moody’s mission to “the city of churches” a case study in the rise of celebrity evangelism in an age of growing “religious indifference.”

Citizen Hearst vs. Citizen Kane: The Battle Fought Behind the Release of One of the Greatest Cinematic Pictures of All Time • Chris Faidley, Drake University • While “Citizen Kane” has been studied at length, Hearst’s reaction to it has not. Historians have asserted that Hearst opposed release of the film, but none have treated the subject to a close, scholarly study. Here, mentions of the film in Reader’s Guide-indexed magazines, theatrical periodicals, and newspapers of the era are located and used to provide a clear picture of Hearst’s attempts to suppress the film and punish its makers—a media tycoon ruthlessly restricting freedom of expression and setting the agenda not only for his own media but for many others.

Reconnecting With the Body Politic: Toward Disconnecting Muckrakers and Public Journalists • Frank E. Fee Jr., University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • In the early 1900s, muckrakers unleashed aggressive journalism seeking better government for citizens, and themes inherent in their work and motivation continue to echo in modern journalism. At century’s end, public journalists likewise adopted activist roles to remedy political and social malaise. Although public journalists proclaimed theirs a unique approach to journalism, some scholars link muckraking and public journalism. This paper argues that despite commonalities, the two movements differ in fundamental and largely unexplored ways.

The Jailing of a Journalist: U.S. v. Les Whitten (1973) • Mark Feldstein, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • An examination of the Nixon Administration’s jailing of a journalist who criticized the government. Although U.S. v. Les Whitten was overshadowed by more famous Watergate court decisions; it was an important press victory at a time when First Amendment rights were under siege – and would eventually affect other landmark media cases. By stopping a particularly egregious government attempt to criminalize investigative reporting, it had a little-examined impact that is arguably still being felt today.

Re-Thinking Canadian Journalism History: The Case of the Stunt Girl • Sandra Gabriele, Concordia University • This paper examines how the Canadian stunt girl came to be in the late l9th century. The first part of the paper examines the current literature on English-language journalism in Canada, raising the problems of gender and journalism. Combining articulation theory and feminist historiography as alternate models, the second half of this paper examines these women’s writings in order to discuss the strategies they were using to contain the risks they posed to understandings of journalism and femininity.

Ruth Hale: From “The Better Newspaperman” to Uncredited Collaborator • Susan Henry, California State University, Northridge • Ruth Hale was a journalist, feminist, activist and unacknowledged collaborator with her husband, Heywood Broun, a prolific writer and extraordinarily popular newspaper columnist in the 1920s and 30s. This paper examines Hale’s successful journalism career before her marriage and its sharp decline afterwards, her essential role in the work for which Broun received sole credit and much acclaim, the couple’s problematic marriage, and her fierce fight for a woman’s right to keep her birth name after she married – even as her contribution to Broun’s work was obscured by his byline.

‘London Calling?’ Covert British Propaganda and News Distribution, 1948-1953 • John Jenks, Dominican University • British government propaganda had a substantial presence around the world in the early Cold War, but few historians have examined how Britain’s main propaganda agency, the Information Research Department, tried to influence the world’s news media. I will show in this paper how this agency packaged hard-to-get facts in ways that were consistently negative to the Soviet Union and its friends • downplaying positive interpretations • then offered that pre-packaged reality to journalists.

Tacking Against the Wind: Placing the Recent Debate Over Corporate Speech In a Dialectic Between Civic Virtue and Commercial Energy • Robert L. Kerr, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • The debate between public (the Common good) and private (economic) interests – or as it has been conceptualized by intellectual historians, between Civic virtue and commercial energy – has resonated so enduringly in American political discourse since the colonial era that it represents a dialectic vital to understanding the course of U.S. history. This study asserts that dialectic as a framework for placing the issue of government regulation of corporate speech into historical context.

“All for Each and, Each for All” The Woman’s Press Club of Cincinnati, 1888-1988 • Paulette D. Kilmer, University of Toledo • This paper analyzes the rise and fall of the Woman’s Press Club (WPC) of Cincinnati, a blip on the radar screen of eternity that, like a lot of women’s history, usually is forgotten. Although loyalty to the past doomed the WPC, members’ experiences provide an essential link in understanding women’s history. The WPC illustrates how solidarity both breathes life into a group and, when taken too far, slowly suffocates it.

Fact or Friction: The Research Battle behind Advertising’s Creative Revolution, 1958-1972 • Patricia M. Kinneer, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This study explores the role of advertising research during the Creative Revolution of the sixties – a time when “creatives” ruled the shop and research departments “were washed to sea.” The ebb and flow between the two has remained a constant theme, with the popularity of one agency arm signaling the decline of the other. Insight is offered to advertising researchers and agency management who may face similar issues during today’s “second Creative Revolution”

A Conspiracy of Silence: Mainstream Sportswriters Provide Aid and Comfort to Professional Baseball’s color Line • Chris Lamb, College of Charleston • This paper argues that American sportswriters participated in a conspiracy of silence on the issue of segregation in baseball. By banning blacks from the Baseball Writers Association, using racist stereotypes when referring to black athletes, and remaining silent when others clamored for integration, the nation’s sportswriters provided aid and comfort to the color line. Sportswriters—like all journalists—need to be judged according to their times. But they also should be held accountable for perpetuating society’s sins. From

“True Temperance” to the Talter Advertising messages of Anheuser-Busch in the early years of Prohibition • Margot Opdyke Lamme, University of Alabama • Using the context of Anheuser-Busch’s pre-Prohibition advertising tradition, this paper examines the messages of the Tatler, a monthly sales promotion magazine Anheuser-Busch published for its field agents between 1919 and 1924. The magazine provided consistency between Anheuser-Busch’s advertising messages and those delivered to consumers via Tatler readers. Furthermore, the author concludes that it served as a transition piece, linking pre-Prohibition messages with Prohibition products while cultivating ideas that later contributed to the company’s marketing mix.

McClureÕs: The Significance of 1906-1912 on Willa Cather and Her Artistic Growth • Pamela C. Laucella, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Willa Cather’s journalism has received little scholarly attention, especially works published in McClure’s. While Cather classified her journalistic years as those of experimentation and dismissed works prior to 0 Pioneers! from her canon, she admitted her experiences at McClure’s helped formulate ideas on writing and art. This research strives to place Cather’s works in the historical context of nineteenth and early twentieth century journalism and seeks to elucidate the significance of Cather’s contributions to McClure’s.

Attacking the messenger: The cartoon campaign against Harper’s Weekly in the Election of 1884 • Harlen Makemson, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Scholars have asserted that pro-Republican political cartooning was ineffective during the presidential campaign of 1884, but they have not offered convincing evidence. An examination of two pro-Republican comic weeklies – The Judge and Munsey’s Illustrated Weekly – suggests that the problem may have been one of focus. Republican comic weeklies spent almost as much ink discrediting Harper’s Weekly, which had refused to support James Blaine in this campaign, as they did attacking Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland.

The Story of Ruth: The Exodus to Palestine As Told Through the Dispatches of a Jewish-American Journalist • Beverly G. Merrick, New Mexico State University • Ruth Gruber is the journalist who inspired the CBS miniseries Haven, based on a true-life account titled Haven: The Unknown Story of 1,000 World War II Refugees. Gruber also inspired the novel and movie The Exodus, based on another true-life account titled Destination Palestine: The Story of the Haganah Ship Exodus 1947. As a foreign correspondent, Gruber covered stories about displaced populations during post-World War II. She reported on Israel’s early years of development. The research was carried out through a special grant; the paper includes an interview with the aging Gruber.

Suppression of Speech and the Press in the War for Four Freedoms Censorship in Japanese American Assembly Camps During World War II • Takeya Mizuno, Bunkyo University • This article investigates how the United States government conducted censorship of speech and the press in Japanese American “assembly centers” during World War II. Using the archival documents of concerned governmental agencies, this study demonstrates that camp officials strictly prohibited the use of the Japanese language and that they also imposed prior censorship on English-language evacuee newspapers. Within those temporary assembly camps, Japanese American evacuees’ constitutional guarantees of free speech and the press went into void.

Beyond War Stories: Clifford G. Christians’ influence on the teaching of media ethics, 1976-1984 • Lee Anne Peck, Ohio University • Clifford Glenn Christians’ work in the area of media ethics education from 1976 through 1984 has influenced the way media ethics is taught to many college students today. This time period includes, among other accomplishments, Christians’ work on the Hastings Center monograph Teaching Ethics in Journalism Education and his creation in 1983 of the book Media Ethics: Cases and Moral Reasoning, a textbook that is still used today.

A “Legion of Decency” for 1950s TV? The Catholic Morality Code that didn’t happen • Bob Pondillo, Middle Tennessee University • In the mid- 1930s and lasting over three decades the Catholic Legion of Decency had the power to control the content of American movies. With the coming of 1950’s network television, these same moral guardians sought to extend their powers of censorship to TV. By reviewing key documents, this work considers how close the church came to creating a Catholic Morality Code for TV – a Legion of Decency for television – and explains why it didn’t happen.

Should “A Citizen” Have His Say? A historical argument for the publication of unsigned commentary in “Letters to the Editor” forums • Bill Reader, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee • The paper offers a historical argument for newspapers to relax policies against publishing unsigned commentary from the public in “letters to the editor” columns and call-in forums. “Must sign” policies are a product of the middle to late 20th century; for much of the press’s history, anonymous commentary was published frequently and prominently. The author argues that must sign” policies may be antithetical to editors’ goals to provide open forums for all readers.

HARRY S. ASHMORE: ON THE WAY TO EVERYWHERE • Nathania Sawyer, University of Little Rock Arkansas • Harry S. Ashmore, a legendary figure in journalism circles, is best remembered as a Pulitzer-Prize-winning editor and prolific book author. Yet, little detail has been published about his life and career. This historical research paper explores his youth, education, and early career and provides insight into the life of a man who rose above his traditional Southern roots to become a voice of reason during the 1957 desegregation of Little Rock’s Central High School.

Bee So Near Thereto: A History of Toledo Newspaper Co. v. United States • Thomas A. Schwartz, Ohio State University • In the tradition of many such First Amendment case biographies, this paper tells the story of Toledo Newspaper Co. V. United States, a 1918 United States Supreme Court decision that upheld the right of federal courts summarily to punish press critics of the judiciary, a form of seditious libel law. The precedent, although overturned in 1940, suggested a significant gap between press freedom theory and journalism practice during the Progressive period.

A Woman in a Man’s World: An Analysis of “Annie Laurie” As One of America’s First Sports Writers • Mike Sowell, Oklahoma State University • Winifred Black, who wrote for William Randolph Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner under the by-line “Annie Laurie,” infiltrated an all-men’s club in 1892 to become the first woman to cover a prize fight for an American newspaper. This article is an analysis of Black’s coverage of sports for the Examiner, and how it compared to the unique brand of journalism known as “sports writing” that was just coming into being in the 1880s and 1890s.

Rising and shining: Benjamin Day and His New York Sun Before 1836 • Susan Thompson, University of Alabama • From his arrival in New York until the publication of the Moon Hoax in 1835, Benjamin Day worked to establish the New York Sun as the first successful penny daily. This paper examines reasons for Day’s success, editorial and ethical differences of Day and co-owner George Wisner, circumstances surrounding Wisner’s departure and those surrounding the perpetration of Richard A. Locke’s famous Moon Hoax, and the phenomenal growth of the Sun in the early years.

Afflicting the Afflicted: How Eight U.S. Newspaper Editorial Pages Responded to the 1942 Japanese Internment • Brian Thornton, Northern Illinois University • This paper examines how eight daily newspapers in the U.S. responded on their editorial pages – with editorials and letters to the editor – to the imprisonment of some 120,000 Japanese-Americans in 1942. This study focuses on the period of March through June of 1942. Seven West Coast newspapers are studied: the Los Angeles Times, the Sacramento Bee, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, the San Francisco News, the Seattle Post- Intelligencer, and the Seattle Times. The New York Times is also examined.

<< 2001 Abstracts

Cultural and Critical Studies 2001 Abstracts

Cultural and Critical Studies Division

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

<< 2001 Abstracts

Science Communication 2002 Abstracts

Science Communication Interest Group

Media Production In The Science Classroom: A Literature Review Of Media Literacy, Science Literacy, And Student-Authored Hypermedia • Timothy Bajkiewicz, Southern Florida • Media literacy and science literacy have, individually, been recognized as crucial educational components in furthering a citizenry properly prepared for the hypermediated and technologically complex 21st century. This paper examines the relevant literature in media and science literacy efforts and applies them together to a relatively new area of research, student-authored science hypermedia (e.g., student-created science Internet sites). The potential of student-authored hypermedia could bridge the similar and complimentary efforts of media and science literacy.

Book Reviewers’ Recognition of Environmental Ethics In Aldo Leopold’s “A Sand County Almanac” • James Carstens, North Carolina, Chapel Hill • Aldo Leopold, who wrote his seminal work, “A Sand County Almanac” in 1949, is now credited with formulating and articulating some of the basic ethical and philosophical tenets that lead to the development of biology conservation, land ethics, biocentrism, deep ecology, and biodiversity. Analysis of the initial treatment and reception of the book by reviewers shows that only one reviewer, Hal Borland, recognized and emphasized the important ethical questions and concerns that Leopold raised regarding man’s relationship to nature.

The Web and E-Mail in Science Communication: Results of In-Depth Interviews • Rebecca Dumlao, Eastern Carolina and Shearlean Duke, Western Washington • Using open-ended interviews, researchers identified 12 themes concerning web and e-mail use by science writers. The web and e-mail “speeds information” between sources, reporters, editors, and audiences. “Skepticism” about information quality leads science writers to urge practices of “good judgment” by web users. A diagram illustrates ways “speeds information” is changing journalistic work. Suggestions concerning future research on diffusion of information are offered.

Idiocentrism, Issue Involvement, & Health Communication: A Social Psychological Framework • Mohan Dutta-Bergman, Purdue • Existing research demonstrates that audience members demonstrate systematic differences in the messages they respond to. The social psychological model of human behavior suggests that a person’s disposition interacts with his/her situation to produce a communicative response. Idiocentrism/allocentrism is one of the few personality factors that has received a great deal of attention in the realm of audience response to health messages. Issue involvement is a situational dimension that has been extensively researched in the information processing literature.

Source Credibility And Global Warming: A Content Analysis Of Environmental Groups • Terry Flynn, Syracuse • The purpose of this study was to determine how environmental journalists rate the credibility of environmental groups as sources of information on the global warming debate. A self-administered survey questionnaire, based on the Meyer’s Credibility Index, and a quantitative content analysis was used to test the credibility and coverage of environmental groups involved in the global warming debate over the last two years.

Use of Quasi-Scientific Explanations in U.S. Media Coverage of the Stem Cell Debate • Jennifer Hutt, Kristie Swain, Jennifer Richter, Li Jin, and Ping Wang, Texas A&M • Science writing curricula often stress the importance of using explanations to make a story understandable to readers. This study examines the use of explanation in U.S. stem cell media coverage, through a content analysis of news stories appearing in three newspapers, three newsweekly magazines, and three network television news websites from 1994 to 2001. Two-thirds of explanations were definitions. Consistent with previous research, the use of explanation in these stories was highest in specialized science sections and did not vary according to story length.

The Effect of Labeling Genetically Modified Food on Perception of Accountability • Tracy Irani, and Janas Sinclair, Florida International • This experiment examined the impact of various types of genetically modified GMO food labels. Labeling was expected to affect perceptions of government and industry accountability, which in turn was expected to impact attitude toward purchase and global attitudes toward plant biotechnology. The findings provided evidence for this two-step model. Further, global attitude was more favorable than attitude toward purchasing the GM product, and attitude toward purchase was lower when the product contained GM ingredients.

Framing the Environmental Agenda: A Qualitative Comparison of 1970 Nixon Speeches and Time Magazine • Diana Knott, Ohio University • This study compares the rhetorical frames employed by President Richard Nixon and Time magazine’s reporting in 1970 to gain a better understanding of early mainstream environmental references. The frame Nixon used most often was that of the need for a collective, unified effort to address the nation’s environmental problems. By contrast, the frame used most often by Time was that of the economy and quality of life versus the environment.

Media Coverage of Conflicts of Interest in Science • Katherine McComas, Leah Simone, Maryland • There is a growing concern among scientists that media attention to conflicts of interest in science threaten the public’s belief in the integrity of the field. To examine media coverage of conflicts of interest in science, we conducted a 10-year content analysis of stories from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and USA Today. The results suggest a steady stream of stories highlighting the negative aspects of conflicts of interest in science.

The ‘Trust Gap’ Hypothesis: Predicting Support for Biotechnology Across National Cultures as a Function of Trust in Actors • Susanna Hornig Priest, Texas A&M, Heinz Bonfadelli, University of Zurich, Switzerland and Maria Rusanen, University of Kuopio, Finland • Using results from the 1999 Eurobarometer survey and a parallel telephone survey done in the United States in 2000, this study explored the relationship between levels of knowledge, educational levels, and degrees of encouragement for biotechnology. We found only weak relationships among these variables, calling into question the common assumption that science literacy produces acceptance. Differences between European and U.S. reactions to biotechnology appear to stem from different patterns of trust in institutions.

Context In Print And Online Environmental Articles • Ryan Randazzo, Jennifer Greer, Nevada-Reno • A content analysis of environmental articles in leading U.S. dailies revealed that few of nine types of context examined were included in the printed version of the articles. None of the newspapers were using the potential of the Internet consistently to add more context to their environmental articles online. In fact, fewer contextual elements appeared online than in the print versions.

Environmental Threats, Information Sources and Optimistic Bias: Environmental Risk in Appalachia • Daniel Riffe, Jan Knight, Ohio University • Telephone survey of 405 adults in Appalachian Ohio counties examined general and detailed environmental risk perception; evaluation of environmental information sources (government, companies and businesses, and local media); and “optimistic bias” (belief that others are more likely to suffer negative events than you) about environment-related health risks. General optimistic bias confirmed, but varied with number of specific threats where one lives. Local media best source, but source evaluations vary with perceived seriousness of environmental threats.

Motives To Seek Threatened And Endangered Species Information For Land-Use Decisions • Janas Sinclair, Florida International, Frank Mazzotti and Jocie Graham, Florida • The theory of planned behavior was used to survey land-use planners and regulators in South Florida. Past behavior, attitude toward act, and social norms predicted 42% of the variance in intention to seek information about threatened and endangered species, such as the Multi-Species Recovery Plan (MSRP), in land-use decisions. Communications for this audience should also address relatively low levels of past behavior, knowledge of the MSRP, information exposure, and external perceived behavioral control.

Relationships Among Important Outcomes Of Science Campaigns Aimed At The General Public • Debbie Treise, Michael F. Weigold, Kim Walsh-Childers and Meredith Friedman, Florida • In recent years many science organizations have found it increasingly important to target message campaigns at the general public, or at least that portion of the general public that is interested in science. This study was intended to increase our understanding of the relationships among key aspects of the public’s attitudes and beliefs about science. For this study, 301 undergraduate students answered questions about their attitudes toward, support for, and knowledge of science and read a science website story and answered questions about it.

Forecasting the Future: How Television Weathercasters’ Attitudes and Beliefs about Climate Change Affect Their Cognitive Knowledge on the Science • Kris Wilson, Texas-Austin • The topic of climate change has recently resurfaced on many news agendas, but increasingly the scientific and political issues mix. Previous research has noted that even though the public relies primarily on television news as a source of climate change information, broadcasting has few environment and/or science reporters to cover the topic. This study considers another potential source — television weathercasters.

<< 2002 Abstracts

Radio-TV Journalism 2002 Abstracts

Radio-TV Journalism Division

The Real Ted Baxter: The Rise of the Celebrity Anchorman • Terry Anzur, WPEC-TV • This book chapter traces the rise of the celebrity anchorman in local TV news. The debate over the role of the anchor is symbolized by the two real-life newsmen in Los Angeles who were the models for the character of Ted Baxter, the fictional TV news anchor on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Local audiences and the increasing complexity of TV newscasts favored news readers like Jerry Dunphy over opinionated personalities like George Putnam.

Cable and Network TV News: Narrowing International Knowledge Gaps related to Education & International Experience • Christopher E. Beaudoin, Indiana-Bloomington • The current study examines the basic antecedents of international knowledge and tests two forms of the knowledge gap hypothesis. Hierarchical regression analyses are conducted on data from a 2001 national telephone survey. Positive associations are found between international knowledge and education, international experience, and international news attention. Also, international news attention — especially for network TV and cable TV news — appears to narrow gaps in international knowledge between people with lesser and higher levels of education and international experience.

The Mentor-mentee Relationship: A Co-orientation Perspective of National Public Radio Training Projects • Michelle Betz, University of Central Florida and Teresa Mastin, Middle Tennessee State University • This study examines the shared perceptions of a group of mentors (i.e., communication professionals) and mentees (i.e., college students) who participated in several short, intensive radio training projects. Though most participants were on the same page regarding the project’s goal, mentors and mentees expressed the need for more guidance in the area of project expectations. Future studies surrounding this topic should compare traditional and less traditional mentor-mentee programs across disciplines to uncover mentoring program qualities that provide beneficial experiences for both mentors and mentees, especially as related to traditionally marginalized groups.

Language and Cultural Sensitivity in Broadcasting Reforms Toward Commercialism and Pluralism: The Case of Private Radio in Ghana • Isaac Abeku Blankson, Southern Illinois-Edwardsville • Since 1995, Ghana’s radio broadcasting environment has been transformed from public broadcast monopoly to a more vibrant commercial and plural system. However, some of the emerging character of commercial radio has called cultural critics to question whether private radio could help promote Ghana’s culture, languages and local programs. This paper examines emerging cultural issues and concerns surrounding the predominant use of English language by the private radio stations to the neglect of local languages as envisaged and the mimicking of foreign American and Caribbean accents by radio presenters, news readers and DJs (termed LAFA in Ghana) in Ghana.

Media, Terrorism, and Emotionality: Affective Dimensions of News Content and Effects after September 11 • Jaeho Cho, Michael P. Boyle, Heejo Keum, Mark Shevy, Douglas M. McLeod and Dhavan V. Shah, Wisconsin-Madison • This study extends medium theory by combining content analysis and survey research to examine differences in emotional responses to the September 11 terrorist attacks. This paper demonstrates that the language used in television news is consistently more emotional than print news for indicators such as motion, tenacity, praise, blame, and satisfaction. In addition, this study used a RDD survey to demonstrate that use of television news was more strongly related to both positive and negative emotional responses to the attacks than use of print news.

Visual Bias and Other Factors Affecting Voting Behavior of TV News Viewers in a Presidential Election • Renita Coleman, Louisiana State University and Donald Granberg, Missouri-Columbia • This study supports the findings of past studies of nonverbal bias in political campaigns in showing that ordinary TV viewers can and do perceive biases in the facial expressions of television newscasters. Two of the five newscasters studied exhibited significantly more positive facial expressions when they mentioned one presidential candidate than the other in coverage of the 1996 election. This is the third study to produce the same results in three different elections.

The Myth of the Five-day Forecast: A Study of Television Weather Accuracy and Audience Perceptions of Accuracy in Columbus, Ohio • Jeffrey M. Demas, Otterbein College • Television weather has not been studied in a communication journal since 1982, despite technological advances and a reliance on forecasts by a transient public. This study measured accuracy of weather forecasts in central Ohio and found that stations were very accurate in predicting within 48 hours, but extended forecasts were quite inaccurate. Telephone interviews with 315 central Ohio residents revealed that they not only rely on the five-day forecasts, but believe them to be accurate.

Stories in Dark Places: David Isay and the New Radio Documentary • Matthew C. Ehrlich, Illinois at Urbana-Champaign • David Isay is one of America’s most honored broadcast journalists, although relatively few have heard of him. This paper provides a critical/cultural analysis of Isay’s radio stories within the context of contemporary scholarly critiques of journalism. It explores whether his stories appeal to social understanding or merely to voyeurism, whether he presents an alternative model of journalistic storytelling, and whether his work signals a new direction in radio’s use as a news medium.

Network and Local Coverage of the Year 2000 Presidential Elections • Frederick Fico and Geri Alumit Zeldes, Michigan State • A content analysis of network and local stories broadcasted during the 2000 presidential election shows that individual stories tended to be unfair and imbalanced, favoring either Bush or Gore, but the news segment tended to be more fair and balanced. Overall, a Bush source was more likely to be the first source presented, but Gore sources received more airtime. Comparisons between networks and local coverage show that the networks coverage was more fair and balanced.

Measuring Newscast Accuracy: Applying a Newspaper Model to Television • Gary Hanson and Stanley T. Wearden, Kent State • Measuring accuracy has been a part of academic literature since the mid-1930s. Most accuracy surveys, even those for television, send printed stories to sources for their evaluation. This study develops a workable design to measure television news accuracy by sending video copies to sources. It also adopts a questionnaire from the newspaper literature for use in television. The research method was used to assess the accuracy of local television in Cleveland.

On Print, Politics & the Public: “Sesame Street’s” Impact Beyond Television • Stephanie Hay, Ohio • In 1966, Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett brainstormed about the future of children’s television programming. Two years later, “Sesame Street” debuted on National Educational Television as the product of their discussion with generous public, private and governmental contributions. This historical analysis describes “Sesame Street” from its inception in 1966 through the end of its third season in 1972. It details how media, public and political responses to “Sesame Street” influenced revisions in the non-commercial program’s format.

Local TV News and Sense of Place: Viewers’ Connections to the News They Love to Hate • Lee Hood, Colorado • Local television news is the U.S. public’s most-used information source. This study examines the meaning local news holds for viewers, arguing that such meaning must be understood apart from viewers’ evaluations of the news programs themselves. Contrasting with notions of global homogenization, the study explores ways in which local news may be implicated in individuals’ conceptions of locality and sense of place. It argues that news is one of the windows through which people experience their locale, and that the connection is particularly vivid with television news.

News Diffusion and Emotional Response to the September 11 Attacks • Stacey Frank Kanihan, University of St. Thomas and Kendra L. Gale, Colorado-Boulder • This study examines the news diffusion process during the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The findings validate other research regarding the rapid diffusion of highly salient information through broadcast media channels in the early diffusion but interpersonal communication quickly becoming the dominant source of information as people begin to talk with others about the events. We also find media coverage in the first days following the attacks made people angry, not more emotionally upset.

Pacing in Television Newscasts: Does Target Audience Make A Difference? • Mark Kelley, Syracuse • Researchers link the pace of television news, i.e., how rapidly the images or shots change, to how well viewers comprehend and remember or learn the information. This study examines the pacing of two television newscasts produced specifically for use as part of the instructional curriculum of primary and secondary schools, to determine if producers utilize pacing that is conducive to learning by children and adolescents.

“Soft” News and “Hard” News — A Reflection of Gender or Culture? • Aliza Lavie, Bar-Ilan University, Israel • In light of the current feminization of the media, we ask if the traditional identity of “soft news” = feminine ad “hard news” = masculine still holds In the treatment of news each gender employs gender-typical modes of operation In dealing with “soft” issues, men inject their typical, objective and disassociated style of reporting. Women, when reporting “hard” news, render salient those specific aspects which are consistent with “feminine” values.

Television Breaking News & the Invalid Application of aUtilitarian Justification: A Practical Plan for Consequential Ethical Dialogue BEFORE Breaking News Occurs • Andrea Miller, Missouri • The common journalistic justification “the people’s right to know” is a basic utilitarian concept. This study argues this old philosophical framework of utilitarianism cannot be applied to the new genre of television breaking news because of the lack of consideration of consequences. When technology brings news to the viewer live, there are an endless number of unexpected situations. Couple the former with the lack of time for adequate consequential consideration (because of technological, competitive and economical pressures) and the result is a complete breakdown of the concept.

Do Sweeps Really Affect A Local News Program? An Analysis of KTVU Evening News During the 2001 May sweeps • Yonghoi Song, Missouri-Columbia • This study was conducted to examine the impact of the sweeps – the period during which viewing rate is measured – on the news programs in a local television station. The findings show that the sweeps do not always increase the proportion of soft news. The results of this study indicate that commercial pressure of the sweeps on the local television newsroom is mitigated by the characteristics of the audience market and the professional tradition of the newsroom.

AWRT and Edy the Meserand: Preparing Women Professionals to Achieve as Individuals • Stacy Spaulding, Maryland • Whether journalism is a profession or an occupation has been the subject of much debate, however the formation of American Women in Radio and Television (AWRT) in 1951 is evidence of attempts at professionalization on behalf of female broadcasters. In this case, however, the process perhaps helped legitimize women’s roles in an industry that they helped pioneer, but faced widespread discrimination and prejudice in.

Live News Reporting: How a Young Demographic Views It • C. A. Tuggle, North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Suzanne Huffman, Texas Christian University and Dana Scott Rosengard, Memphis • Researchers surveyed more than 500 young adults (ages 18-24) to assess their general views about live television news reporting. Findings show that viewers generally do not base their news viewing on the live reporting tendency of stations. Respondents indicated several positive and negative aspects of the tendency of local news operations to go live. They indicate they like the “real feel” of live reporting, but indicate that it is often overdone. There were market-based differences in viewers’ responses.

The Chromakey Ceiling: An Examination of Television Weathercasting and Why the Gender Gap Persists • Kris M. Wilson, Texas-Austin • Consultants advise that weather is the most important part of the local newscast. Yet, a dearth of scholarly research exists on the television weather. In this survey of more than 200 TV weathercasters, baseline data is analyzed to better understand how this group of specialists’ work. Among the findings is the historically low numbers of women employed as TV weathercasters. Despite significant strides in other areas of television news, women remain a small minority of weathercasters and are most often isolated to weekend newscasts.

Media in a Crisis Situation Involving National Interest: A Content Analysis of the TV Networks Coverage of The 9/11 Incident during the First Eight Hours • Xigen Li, Laura F. Lindsay, and Kirsten Mogensen, Louisiana State University • A content analysis of coverage of 9/11 incident during the first 8 hours examined how five television networks framed the news coverage as events unfolded. Media performed their function in a crisis basically as they were expected and coverage and issues do not vary significantly among the networks. This study found variety of sources was used and the influence of government officials was not as great as in the coverage of a crisis with less involvement of U.S. national interest.

Chinese-Language Television News in the U.S.A.: A Cross-Cultural Examination of News Formats and Sources • Yih Ling Liu and Tony Rimmer, California State University-Fullerton • To study the effects of culture on ethnic news content, hypotheses were proposed based on how several cultural dimensions might influence news format and source of U.S., Taiwanese, and Chinese TV news materials broadcast to the southern California Chinese community. Cultural variables used in the hypotheses were power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, high and low context, and mono and polychronic.

<< 2002 Abstracts

Minorities and Communication 2002 Abstracts

Minorities and Communication Division

FACULTY COMPETITION
Representations, Constructions Of Cultural Spaces And Marking Racial Difference: The Discourse of Urban-Suburban Dialectic as an Exilic Narrative • Linus Abraham, Iowa State University of Science and Technology • This paper examines the manifestation of the urban-suburban dialectic in the media. It suggests the dialectic serves as a hyper-ritualized narrative, linked to the dominant racial ideology, which by essentializing the nature of cultural spaces on the basis of race (suburban = white, urban = black) promotes myths of racial superiority and inferiority. The dialectic functions as a regime for staging and marking racial difference in the culture.

Racial And Regional Differences in Readers’ Evaluations of the Credibility of Political Columnists by Race and Sex • Julie L. Andsager, Washington State University • The purpose of this study, an experiment, was to determine how- race and gender of columnist and reader interact to influence readers’ perceptions of the credibility of the opinion column. Further, we examined whether regional differences would relate to credibility. This experiment was conducted using 594 students from two universities 2,500 miles apart. No differences in credibility appeared by race or gender of the columnist until region and race of the subjects interacted.

Americans Online: Differences in Surfing and Evaluating Race-Targeted Web Sites by Black and White Users • Osei Appiah, Iowa State University • Two hundred three black and white subjects navigated through either a black- or white-targeted professionally designed web site. It was expected that race-targeted web sites would not affect white viewers’ browsing and evaluation of a web site. Race-targeted web sites were, however, expected to influence black viewers’ responses to a site. As expected, whites displayed no difference in their overall navigation time on a site and displayed no difference in their evaluation of a site based on the racial target of the web site.

Starkly Different Views: A Historical Examination of Letters to the Editor Responding to the Lynching of Three Blacks in Aiken, S.C., 1926 • Kenneth Campbell, South Carolina • This study examines letters to the editor of several newspapers written in response to a triple lynching in Aiken, S.C. in 1926. While it does not suggest that the letter writers are a mirror of public opinion, it does point to the value of their ongoing conversation as a part of the historical record that should be considered in accounts of the tragedy.

Language Preference Issues Related to the Entry of a Local Hispanic Television Newscast • Todd Chambers, Texas Tech University • This paper examines the language preference issues related to entry of a local Hispanic television newscast. As the Hispanic population continues to grow, local media outlets will attempt to meet that need. One of the acculturation issues related to Spanish language media is the issue of language preference. Using a telephone survey method of Hispanics in a local television market in the Southwest, this study found a large demand among Hispanics for a newscast targeted to their population.

The Race Card and Ethical Reasoning: The Importance of Race to Journalistic Decision Making • Renita Coleman, Louisiana State University • A controlled experiment is used to investigate the effects of race of news subjects on journalists’ ethical reasoning. In this study as well as in two previous studies reported here, the race of the people in the dilemmas had a highly significant effect on ethical reasoning. When participants knew the race because they saw photographs, their ethical reasoning scores were higher when the people in the ethical dilemmas were white than when they were African American.

The Linguistic Intergroup Bias In Interpretations of a Race-Related Crime Story • Bradley W. Gorman and Eileen N. Gilligan, Syracuse University • Social psychologists argue that language can subtly reflect the structure of our thinking, especially in situations involving groups. This paper examines the linguistic intergroup bias in the context of people’s interpretations of a race-related television news story. The LIB suggests that people use more abstract language to describe members of outgroups performing negative behaviors compared to those same behaviors performed by ingroup members.

Black Ink and the New Red Power: Native Newspapers and Tribal Sovereignty • Patty Loew, and Kelly Mella, Wisconsin-Madison • This paper examines the relationship between Native American newspapers and tribal sovereignty and how this relationship informs community dialogue over environmental issues. “Black Ink and the New Red Power: Native Newspapers and Tribal Sovereignty” uses both quantitative and qualitative methodology. It includes a content analysis of more than a thousand environmental stories in four tribal newspapers in Wisconsin over a five-year period (1995-1999), interviews with Native American journalists, and discussions with Indian focus groups.

We Want In: The African American Press’ Negotiation for a White House Correspondent • Earnest L. Parry Jr., Texas Christian University • Almost 60 years ago, Harry S. McAlpin shook the hand of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and held a brief conversation with him after a White House press conference. It marked the first time an African American reporter had participated at a White House press conference as an official correspondent. Though African American editors and publishers had been pressuring the White House to allow a journalist to represent them since the beginning of Roosevelt’s administration, the most concerted efforts did not occur until just before and during America’s involvement in World War II.

Color Blindsided in the Booth: An Examination of the Descriptions of College Athletes During Televised Games • James A. Rada, Rowan University and K. Tim Wulfemeyer, San Diego State University • During televised sporting events, African American athletes often are characterized as purely physical specimens on the field or court and they are the recipients of negative references to their off-field activities. In contrast, White athletes more often are the recipients of a broader and more positive set of descriptors. This research tested for the presence of racial bias in televised coverage of men’s collegiate sports. Results showed that while African Americans have made some progress, biased coverage still exists.

Economic News Coverage in Puerto Rico and the Contradictions of Dependent Development • Ilia Rodriguez, St. Cloud State University • The purpose of research was explore how an elite Puerto Rican newspaper mediated the political tensions surrounding the implementation of the economic development policy promoted on the island by the Puerto Rican and U.S. governments between 1947 and 1963. More specifically, the analysis focused on the framing strategies utilized by the daily El Mundo to cover those aspects of Operation Bootstrap that became the subject of debate and revealed some of the tensions and contradictions of industrialization in a colonial context.

At War At Home And Abroad: The Pittsburgh Courier Columns of George S. Schuyler In Roosevelt’s America • Earnest Wiggins, South Carolina • A review of the writings of George S. Schuyler suggests that the ‘30s and ‘40s were the most productive decades of his life, during which he published journalism, commentary, essays and novels. This study focuses on his journalistic product, the work that has garnered the least attention from scholars. This researcher contends that his political and social philosophies were solidified during the second and third Roosevelt Administrations, periods of national challenge and change.

STUDENT COMPETITION
Media Effect on Race and Immigration: Testing the Link • Cleo Joffrion Allen, Louisiana State University • Martin Gilens concludes in his book Why Americans Hate Welfare (1999) that racial stereotypes play a central role in whites’ attitudes about welfare, crime, and immigration. His content analysis suggests a link between the “darkening” of poverty in news and public perceptions, but fails to empirically connect the two. I test the putative link between race and immigration using 2000 NES data -specifically, whether media use is positively correlated to racial attitudes and attitudes about immigration spending.

A Fall from Grace: The Framing of Imam Fawaz Damra by The Cleveland Plain Dealer • Yolanda D. Campbell, Akron • This paper reveals how the September 11th terrorist attacks, committed by men of the Islamic religion, may have influenced the news coverage of a significant national Islamic leader. Through a qualitative content analysis, the researcher examines The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s news coverage of Imam Fawaz Damra, current Islamic leader of the Islamic Center of Greater Cleveland mosque in Parma, Ohio and nationally known Islamic leader. Findings indicate that before September 11th, the newspaper consistently anointed Damra as a “spiritual leader.”

The Black Press and the Integration of Baseball: A Content Analysis of Changes in Coverage • Brian Carroll, North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This study analyzes black press coverage of both the Negro leagues and major league baseball before and after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in April 1947. The study employs a content analysis of columns and articles before integration and after Robinson’s signing. The results are meant to contribute to an understanding of the role of the black press in achieving integration and the newspapers’ conflicted relationship with Negro league baseball.

News Media, Racial Profiling, and September 11: Implications for Driving While Black • Philip Garland, David Domke, Andre Billeaudeaux and John Hutcheson, Washington • Study of news coverage before and after September 11 illuminates how discourse changed with respect to voices used as sources and their respective degree of support for racial profiling. Journalists and individual citizens increased as sources in post September 11 news, despite recent scholarship suggestive of overwhelming media reliance on elites and government officials. Examination of source’s race pinpoints which racial groups drive increased support for racial profiling, revealing white American sources’ significant belief shifts.

Silencing the Voice of the Minority • Minjeong Kim, North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This paper compares coverage of two newspapers — the Los Angeles Times in the United States and the Chosun Ilbo in South Korea — about the civil disturbance following the Rodney King verdicts in Los Angeles in 1992 to explore whether the media kept Korean-American views out of the marketplace of ideas by portraying events in ways that did not include Korean-American voices. It shows that Korean-Americans’ voices were limited in the Los Angeles Times.

Jesse Owens, a Black Pearl Amidst an Ocean of Fury: A Case Study of Press Coverage on Jesse Owens in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games • Pamela C. Laucella, North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This research examines the mainstream and black press’s coverage of 1936 Olympic gold medallist Jesse Owns. It compares Grantland Rice’s articles with journalists at New Your Amsterdam News to elucidate the interplay between journalists, media content, and 1920s culture. While all recognized Owens’s talent and gracious deportment, Rice’s evasive, descriptive, and stylistic approach focused on surrounding scenes and racial stereotypes. Amsterdam News’ journalists remained passive yet resolute in emphasizing Owens’s place in history while denouncing Adolph Hitler.

Cultural Diversity under Deregulation: Minority Ownership in Broadcast and Cable after the 1996 Telecommunications Act • Seung Kwan Ryu, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale • This study examines the consequences of cultural diversity in terms of the status of minority ownership in broadcast media and cable after deregulation: How has deregulation affected minority ownership and programming in the cable industry, including the ownership of broadcast media? First, this study discusses the FCC’s minority preference policy. Second, it explores the current status of minority ownership in broadcast media and cable, focusing on period after the 1996 Act.

Hispanics in the Heartland: Are New Members of Iowa Communities Getting Appropriate Coverage in Local Newspapers? • Ellen Thompson, Drake University • As Hispanic populations increase in small communities, what are the community newspapers doing to provide community-wide, equitable coverage? This study examines 129 Iowa newspapers and compares percentage increases (if any) of Hispanic coverage with actual percentage increases of Hispanic people in the community. In 2000, 63 newspapers had 143 Hispanic-related stories in 8 of 14 news categories, the largest being 41 in Education, Classic Arts, and Religion.

<< 2002 Abstracts

Media Ethics 2002 Abstracts

Media Ethics Division

Moral Language in Newspaper Commentary: A Kohlbergian Analysis • Wendy Barger, Oregon • This study begins with the question of whether the news media are conveying messages that help us as individuals grow morally. Using a Kohlbergian model, the study begins to explore the question by analyzing the moral language in commentaries and letters to the editor within three Oregon newspapers. The study’s content analysis reveals that most arguments presented in the opinion section of the three papers are done so at either Kohlberg’s pre-conventional or conventional levels.

Ethics as a Cross-Cultural and Cross-Boundary Bridge: American and Israeli Journalists’ Views of Ethical Issues • Dan Berkowitz, Iowa; Yehiel Limor, Tel-Aviv University and Jane Singer, Iowa • This study explores how social dimensions of a reporter’s world shape ethical decisions through a survey of reporters in Israel and one state in the Midwestern U. S. We found that personal backgrounds and journalistic socialization were not closely related to ethical decisions, but the broader cultural dimension stood out. The context of specific ethical situations was also important, as was a reporter’s ethical orientation toward the public interest.

The Effects of Visuals on Ethical Reasoning: What’s a Photograph Worth to Journalists Making Moral Decisions? • Renita Coleman, Louisiana State University • Two experiments are used to explore the effects of photographs on ethical decision making in the journalism domain. Both studies found that photographs did have the ability to change participants’ ethical reasoning for the better. Also, both identified mental elaboration as significant in that process; thinking about the people affected by an ethical situation helped improve ethical reasoning. Involvement was also important; when participants were not very involved with the dilemmas, having photographs significantly improved their ethical reasoning.

The Promise and Peril of Anecdotes in News Coverage: An Ethical Analysis • David A. Craig, Oklahoma • This analytical essay assesses the use of anecdotes in news coverage on ethical grounds, pointing both to their promise and to their potential dangers. The argument draws on Craig’s framework for analyzing news coverage of ethics, on Christians et al.’s communitarian ethic, and on Gilligan’s relationship-oriented ethic. Examples from news stories illustrate the ethical complexity of anecdotes. The essay also suggests how journalists can choose anecdotes more critically and points to an adaptation of the anecdotal form that is ethically more supportable.

Covering Kids: Are Journalists Guilty of Exploiting Children? • Romayne Smith Fullerton, Western Ontario, Canada • Social researchers have a well-established body of literature and clear protocols that assist them in their interactions with children. Journalists do not. This paper applies some of the ethical considerations from social research to press practice. Using several recent Canadian cases involving coverage of children, I explore a wide range of ethical concerns that may confront a journalist interacting with and writing about minors. While the examples are drawn from the Canadian media scene, the observations are valid across North American newsrooms and the implications for this discussion are universal.

Ethics and Eloquence in Journalism: A Study of the Demands of Press Accountability • Theodore L. Glasser, Stanford University and James S. Ettema, Northwestern University • This study of ethics in journalism equates ethics with accountability. It argues that the problem of ethics in journalism is not the inability of journalists to know right from wrong but their inability to talk, reflexively and articulately, about it. Our “being ethical-means-being-accountable” theme draws from, but is not entirely wedded to, the model of discourse ethics developed in recent years by Jurgen Habermas.

A Masochist’s Teapot: Where to Put the Handle in Media Ethics • Thomas W. Hickey, South Florida • The task of defining ethics in mass communications can be aided by an interface with religion. The four guiding principles of the Society of Professional Journalists express ethical tension that can be viewed as a conflict between the metaphysical concepts of the one and the many. The doctrine of the Trinity resolves this conflict by uniting both concepts instead of pitting them as opposites. Following this model, a grid can be developed for plotting ethical journalism.

Stalker-razzi and Sump-pump Hoses: The Role of the Media in the Death of Princess Diana • Elizabeth Blanks Hindman, North Dakota State University • This case study examines mainstream newspaper editorials’ discussion of the role, responsibility and ethics of the media in the death of the Princess of Wales. Using attribution theory, it concludes that the newspapers dealt with criticism of the media in the case in several ways. First, they distanced themselves from the photographers who chased her car before it crashed; second, they blamed those outside the media, including Diana herself; and third, they acknowledged some responsibility.

Rwanda, News Media, And Genocide: Toward a Research Agenda for Reviewing the Ethics and Professional Standards of Journalists Covering Conflict • Kevin R. Kemper and Michael Jonathan Grinfeld, Missouri-Columbia • The ongoing United Nations war crimes tribunals for journalists accused of inciting genocide in Rwanda provide the backdrop for a discussion about reviewing the ethics and professional standards of journalists covering conflict. The authors argue that journalists and ethicists – regardless of epistemologies or methodologies – need to frame an ethical paradigm for journalists covering conflict. Possible concepts for study may include autonomy, objectivity, conflict theory, nationalism, intergenerational racism and ethnic hatred and technology, among others.

Generation Y’s Ethical Judgments of Sexual and Fear Appeals in Print Advertising • Jeffrey J. Maciejewski, Creighton University • This study reports the results of an empirical investigation into the ethical beliefs of Generation Y, in particular their moral assessments of sexual and fear appeals in print advertising. The study offers empirical support for the measuring of ethical ideologies, but found that such measures may have limited value in assessing levels of Machiavellianism among individuals. More importantly, the results from this study strongly suggest that the moral appraisals of Gen Y may be significantly differently than other individuals.

Radical Leadership and Debate in the Ethics of Naming Rape Victims • Richard J. Riski, Memphis • The status quo for a majority of newspapers is to not publish a rape victim’s name. Only a handful of publications defy this rule. Since the legal right to publish is established, the question for the media is how to create an ethical policy, or consistent practice, of deciding when — if at all — to name rape victims. This paper explores the ethical reasoning behind the six points of significant debate that separate those who do — and those who do not — publish victims’ names.

Entertaining Media Entertainment Ethics: Prospects for Development • Lawrence A. Wenner, Loyola Marymount University • This paper seeks to answer foundational questions about media entertainment ethics as distinguishable from the broader field of media ethics. The analysis explores the developmental predispositions of a journalism-centered media ethics. Reasons for the limited consideration of media entertainment in the context of media ethics are assessed. A review and critique of three significant works centered in media entertainment ethics aims to inform developmental foundations for a research agenda.

Nelson Mandela and South African Apartheid: The Media as Deconstructive Agent • Alisa White, Texas at Arlington and Vardaman White, Birmingham • The purpose of this paper is to describe deconstruction according to the goals and strategies of Jacques Derrida, examine his essay, “The Laws of Reflection: Nelson Mandela, in Admiration,” and examine the media’s role in the deconstruction process. Derrida seeks to separate the sign from the signified. For him, there is no inherent meaning within the language, rather, meaning emerges through the play of the words.

<< 2002 Abstracts

Civic Journalism 2003 Abstracts

Civic Journalism Interest Group

A Public Journalism Model for the Middle East and North Africa: Effectiveness of Media-NGO Relationships in Partial Autocracies • David C. Coulson, Nevada-Reno and Leonard, R. Teel, Georgia State • This study examines how the media and non-governmental organizations might work together with each other to develop a model of public journalism in partial autocracies in the Middle East and North Africa. We found that a form of public journalism can be practiced in the region. It appears that despite working in partial autocracies where media are generally owned or controlled by government, journalists cooperating with NGOs can represent the needs and concerns of civil society.

Exploring Radio Public Service as Civic Journalism • Tony R. DeMars, Sam Houston State • This paper seeks to begin a discussion of radio public affairs programming as an outlet for topics within a civic journalism model. Dominant music-format radio stations in a major radio market were surveyed to determine their scheduling of and attitude toward programming public affairs on the station. Simultaneously, a sample of potential radio listeners was surveyed to measure uses of radio and attitudes toward public affairs type programming.

Narrative Definers? Storytelling as a channel to public discussion • Risto Kunelius, and Mika Renvall University of Tampere-Finland • News journalism’s reality constructions are structurally dependent on institutionalized, power routine sources, the “primary definers”. The paper illustrates (by means of an analysis of a case study from Finland), how this constant fact of journalism research can partly be challenged by use of “narrative definers”, by opening the journalistic public sphere to ordinary people’s storytelling about their experiences concerning common problems.

Tracing the Effects of Public Journalism on Civil Society: 1994 –2002 • Sandy Nichols, Lewis A. Friedland, Jaeho Cho, Hernando Rojas and Dhavan Shah, Wisconsin-Madison • This study examines 561 cases of public journalism, published between 1994-2002, to address previously identified methodological shortcomings in the existing public journalism research literature. Using hierarchical multiple regression analyses, the study traces the effects of organizational features, particular projects, story frames and roles played by citizens on improvements in citizenship, political processes and volunteerism. Specific effects on civil society are discussed, study limitations are addressed, and insights for future research and practice are offered.

Civic Journalism and Objectivity: A Philosophical Resuscitation •Henry Overduin, McNeese State • The purpose of this paper is to show that civic journalism – however much it rejects the traditional views of objectivity – still requires the concepts of ontological and epistemic objectivity because those ideas are essential for the possibility of communication and truth in journalism. Building on arguments from Nicholas Rescher, this paper restates the case for objectivity and replies to its critics.

When Schools Fail to Act Ethically: The Vital Role of Civic Journalism • Janis, T. Page, Missouri-Columbia • In summer 2001, a small town in Illinois experienced an incomprehensible series of traumas, thrust into the center of a national crisis involving toxic mold contamination, an infected school, and an intractable school board. Assertive coverage by the local press not only provided substantial investigative reporting, but gave voice to an oppressed public. Written from personal experience, this auto-ethnography documents the vital role of civic journalism in promoting good citizenship when public servants fail.

Elite And Non-Elite Sourceing In Civic And Traditional Journalism News Projects • Jennifer Roush, West Virginia • This project was broken into two studies to analyze the use of “elite,” media-savvy, and “non-elite,” non-media savvy, sources in civic and traditional journalism. In the first study, four newspaper series about mining and aging were used to show the use of sources in the practice of civic journalism. The Charleston Gazette’s “Mining the Mountains” traditional journalism series, and The Herald-Dispatch’s “West Virginia After Coal” civic journalism series, both with six stories each, were chosen to explore the idea of whether civic journalism uses more non-elites as sources.

<< 2003 Abstracts