Archives for January 2012

Media and Disability Interest Group

The Disabled and Promoting Census 2000: A Key Target or Lost in the Crowd? • Louella Benson-Garcia, Pepperdine • A successful Census 2000 could raise the number of disabled counted from 20 percent of the population to 25 percent or more. This study aimed to determine to what extent, if any, did the United States Bureau of the Census targeted the disabled population in its media relations efforts for Census 2000. None of the 136 press releases, 29 media advisories, 10 webcasts, or six public service announcements — and only one of the 25 fact sheets — referred to the disabled.

Hoddle’s Twaddle: Defining Disability through British Sports Coverage • Beth Haller, Towson and Sue Ralph, University of Manchester • In this study of British news media, we undertook a qualitative assessment of the discourse surrounding negative comments about disabled people made by the English national soccer coach in 1999. These comments by Coach Glenn Hoddle led to a five-day media frenzy and his subsequent resignation as national soccer coach. This analysis investigates the news narratives about disabled people that arise in British society when these narratives intersect with the British national sport, soccer.

Missing in Action? Images of Disability in Sports Illustrated for Kids • Marie Hardin, Florida Southern College, Brent Hardin and Susan Lynn, Florida State and Kristi Walsdorf, Valdosta State • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

Technology and the Knowledge Gap: Two Barriers to Distance Education for the Person with a Disability • Jeffrey A. John, Wright State • This paper discusses two accessibility problems for the student with a disability in utilizing distance education: First, technical problems related to course design create barriers or negate assistive technology used by persons with disabilities. Second, problems related to the social environment from which the student with a disability encounters distance education programs create a social barrier. This paper argues that access to distance education programs will be in fact more affected by issues of social rights than by issues of technical access, and that the Knowledge Gap Hypothesis offers a framework for analysis of this issue.

Expanding Journalism Students” Notions of “Diversity”: Inclusion of Disability Issues in News Reporting Textbooks • Ann E. Preston, Quincy and Marie Hardin Florida Southern • This exploratory content analysis seeks to discover where and how disability issues are addressed in top selling reporting textbooks. These texts devote less than a tenth of their length to instruction on covering multiple cultures. Only half of the books included people with disabilities within their units on multicultural reporting and writing. Two texts offered fairly comprehensive advice on multicultural coverage consistent with guidelines developed by or with disability advocates.

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Internship and Careers Interest Group

Emotional Intelligence at Work: Three Internship Stories • Michael L. Maynard, Temple • The paper discusses the thesis of emotional intelligence (EI), applying its principles to the internship work site. Three internship stories are presented, problem situations are described and EI solutions are offered. It is proposed that the internship advisor’s knowledge of EI can lead toward successful internship outcomes. Appendix includes brief EI self-quiz, characteristics of persons with high/low EI, and list of EI web sites.

Mid-Career Interning: Faculty Going From Classroom to Newsroom • Dana Rosengard, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Every year, thousands of college students head to television newsrooms to work as interns to learn from the professionals. Back on campus, they sit in classes and listen to professors who, many times, have not been in a television newsroom themselves for years and years. This research looks at faculty internships. In this pilot-study, the television news directors in North Carolina were surveyed to learn if they would welcome such interns into their newsroom, what they would allow them to do, how they see the college or university faculty intern as both a challenge and a risk.

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Graduate Education Interest Group

Malaysia’s Broadcasting Industry in Transition: Effect of New Competitions on Traditional Television Channels • Tee-Tuan Foo, Ohio • Between July 1995 and December 1996, three new competitors • Metrovision, a private television station; Mega TV, a cable television; and ASTRO, a satellite television • entered the Malaysian television scene. This study seeks to answer the question how would the emergence of these new competition change (1) the total airtime, (2) the language of broadcast, (3) and types of program during the peak hour slots of the three traditional television channels: RTM 1, 2 and TV 3.

The Emergence and Transformation of Alternative Radio in Taiwan: from Underground Radio to Community Radio • Shun-Chih Ke, University of Birmingham, UK • This paper provides an example of how an alternative radio section emerged from a society Taiwan in this case, and the impact which it has. This paper uses four community radio stations which were underground radio station as a case study to examine the processes of transformation of alternative radio, and argues that the state, economic market and station identity are the key factors in determining the development of alternative radio.

Convergence of the Internet Websites by Newspaper, Broadcast, and Internet Organizations? • Sang Hee Kweon, Southern Illinois-Carbondale • This paper examines nine news websites, including those of three different media organizations, which have converged into Internet websites. The websites of the news organizations are compared with newspaper, TV broadcasting, and Internet only websites. The compared units are frame factors: pictures, news contributors, and interactivity. Newspaper websites presented more news items than both TV broadcasting and Internet organization websites, whereas TV websites made greater use of both photos and graphics.

The Press, President, and Presidential Popularity during Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs • Hyo-Seong Lee, Southern Illinois • This study tested a path model of agenda-building examining the relationships among the press, president, and presidential popularity rating during the Reagan administration in the 1980s. This study found that as presidential emphasis on the drug issue increased, so did the press coverage of the drug issue. Also, as the press coverage of the drug issue increased, so did presidential emphasis about the drug issue.

The Transparency of Culture and Politics in Economic Discourse • Jennie Rupertus, Texas-Austin • Global expansion and the interconnection of commercial markets have made it increasingly difficult to contest that economic structure influence our social realities. Likewise, it is equally problematic to discuss economics without also referencing issues of culture and politics. Yet an overwhelming proportion of today’s popular media mask the cultural and political values embedded in economic discourse as value-free ‘common sense.’

The Impact and Relationship of Policy and Competition on the Program Diversity in Cable TV • Seung Kwan Ryu, Southern Illinois • This study explores the impact of deregulation on program diversity in U.S. cable television, and the relationship of governmental policy and competition on program diversity. It examines whether there was more program diversity before or after the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, by comparing two time periods: 1992-1995 (from the enactment of the Cable Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992 to the Telecommunications Act of 1996) and 1996-to the present (after the enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 up to now).

Does Graduate Work Matter? Characteristics of Journalists Who Went to Grad School • Tanjev Schultz, University of Bremen, Germany • This paper reports a secondary analysis which compares characteristics of graduate school-trained journalists to those with only college-education. It also considers differences between studies in and outside the communication field. Besides demographics and job characteristics, assumed differences in perceived influences of education, in and to support an interpretative role, journalistic role concepts and audience perceptions were tested. Overall, the analysis revealed few differences. But journalists with graduate education were found to be more likely than college-educated journalists to work for larger news organizations.

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Civic Journalism Interest Group

Engaging the Literature: A Civic Approach • Kathryn B. Campbell, Southern Oregon • Traditional civic journalism literature reviews are static, laced with separations that divorce issues from one another, divide theorists from researchers, sever academic writing from the popular press, or break publications into categories based on their bindings. These divisions simply don’t capture the unique dialogue of civic journalism. A more intriguing concept is a new model, envisioned as clusters of work through which the movement of ideas can be traced as a dialogue among academics, journalists, and other citizens.

Resolving Public Conflict Civic Journalism and Civil Society • Kathryn B. Campbell, Southern Oregon • Practitioners in civic journalism and public conflict resolution are independently experimenting with ways to facilitate communication and mediate conflict. Civic journalism can provide the public sphere in which conflict resolution can move from individual rights-based models toward public judgment models, where “the good life” might be realized. For journalists, public conflict resolution models offer a complementary philosophy and practical guides to mediation processes. Together, these transformative models of professional practice have great potential for enriching civil society.

Civic Journalism on the Right Side of the Brain: How Photographers and Graphic Designers Visually Communicate the Principles of Civic Journalism • Renita Coleman, Missouri • As the most hotly debated subject of the decade within the field of journalism, there has been an enormous amount written about civic or public journalism. Yet, the focus of that discussion has invariably left out an entire side of the newsroom – the visual. Nearly all the debate centers around the “verbal” with the “visual” – represented by the work of graphic designers and photographers – excluded from the conversation. This study aims to address this void by giving voice to visual journalists practicing civic journalism.

Public Journalism and Criticism of the Press • Guido Frantzen and William F. Griswold, Georgia • This paper suggests that in order to help revive public discourse and political participation • among the main tenets of civic journalism • the media should engage in thoughtful evaluative criticism of each other and of themselves. Analysis of the content of the Charlotte Observer in 1989, before the newspaper publicly embraced civic journalism, and 1993, after its adoption, finds the amount of media criticism virtually unchanged. The authors argue that these findings suggest an important opportunity is being missed.

Educating For A More Public Journalism: Public Journalism and Its Challenges to Journalism Education • Tanni Haas, Brooklyn College and Christopher J. Schroll, Wayne State • Given the increasing influence of public journalism on the daily routines of newspapers across the United States, students need to be taught how to find a workable balance between consulting and reporting on conventional information sources and consulting and reporting on the perspectives provided by ordinary citizens. In this paper we discuss ways in which one of the most widely celebrated public journalism campaigns, the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal’s Pulitzer Prize winning race-relations project “A Question of Color,” can serve as inspiration for actual journalism pedagogy.

A Tale of Two Cities: Do Small-Town Dailies Practice Public Journalism Without Knowing It? • David Loomis, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Yes, this case study of two small-town North Carolina dailies concludes. But in one case, the variant of public journalism should more accurately be labeled civic journalism, because of an institutionalized and professionalized emphasis on the community’s civic life and a de-emphasis of its public, or political, life. In the case of the other less-vigorous paper, the civic journalism variant is personalized but not institutionalized or professionalized.

The Making and Unmaking of Civic Journalists: Influences of Classroom and Newsroom Socialization • Michael McDevitt, Bob Gassaway, and Frank Perez, New Mexico • This study explores the origins of civic journalism values as a function of professional socialization. Findings are derived from a survey of college students and professional journalists. Results suggest a progression of socialization that begins with students supporting civic journalism. However, in leaving the classroom for the newsroom, the unmaking of civic journalists might occur as journalists develop a stronger sense of autonomy. Findings highlight the need for instruction to encourage a broader conception of autonomy.

Citizen-Based Journalism: A Study of Attitudes toward Audience Interaction in Journalism • John L. Morris, Adams State College • The growth of the Internet, the publicÕs preoccupation with interactivity, social construction of meaning theories and convergence of media raise questions that the traditional mass communications paradigm cannot answer. This paper focuses on the following: l) What are the attitudes of reporters toward audience interaction? 2) What are the attitudes of news consumers toward audience interaction? 3) What are the news values of reporters and news consumers? 4) Are there any significant demographic attributes of reporters and news consumers?

Civic Journalism: One Possible Tool for Building New Democracies and Civil Society • Janice Windborne, Ohio • Some U.S. journalists have embraced public journalism as a tool that can reinforce citizen participation in the democratic process. In many countries where the national media system is in the process of evolution to a more independent, stable, privatized media, media’s participation in the building of civil society and democracy would seem the more important. However, although the principles of public journalism make sense for these societies, certain practical constraints interfere.

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Visual Communication Division

Breach of Confidentiality: When Photographers Do Not Keep Their Promises to News Subjects • Laurence B. Alexander, Florida • This paper examines the issues of legal liability for breaking promises and violating assurances that are made by photojournalists to the subjects they photograph. By presenting and analyzing the case law in this area, the paper synthesizes the most significant bases for recovery for the news photographer’s failure to honor his or her word. It discusses how these photographers can avoid or limit their exposure on the various theories of recovery.

Visual “Super Quotes”: The Effects of Extracted Quotation in News Stories on Issue Perception • Rhonda Gibson, Joe Bob Hester and Shannon Stewart, Texas Tech • In a study designed to measure the persuasive influence of extracted quotations, four versions of a two-sided news story were created. One version contained no extracted quotes, one contained an extracted quote favoring one side of the issue, one contained an extracted quote favoring the other side of the issue, and one contained balanced extracted quotes. After reading the news report, respondents were asked their opinion about the news issue.

Reporting the World to America: Pulitzer Photographs 1942-1999 • Hun Shik Kim, Missouri-Columbia • News photographs of international events serve as a visual medium for Americans to understand the peoples and diverse cultures. However, a content analysis of the Pulitzer Prize photographs between 1942 and 1999 reveals that the major visual themes of prize-winning photographs depicting international news events are predominantly about war, coup, political upheaval whereas the award-winning photographs describing American scenes represent more diverse themes and subjects. As in other news media, the most important news determinants of international news photography are violence and conflict.

Digital Photography and its Impact on Photojournalists’ Job Satisfaction • Janet E. Roehl and Carlos Moreno, Eastern New Mexico • This study explores the relationship between digita1 photography and newspaper photojournalists’ job satisfaction A questionnaire using a multi-dimensional evaluation and general affective questions to gauge job satisfaction levels was employed. Respondents were divided into three categories: non-digital photojournalists, digital photojournalists, and photojournalists who use digital cameras for 80% to 100% of their work. Results indicted that overall satisfaction levels of both groups of digital photojournalists are more satisfied in their jobs than their film-based counterparts.

John-John’s Salute: How a Photographic Icon Influenced Journalistic Construction of Reality • Meg Spratt, Washington • Medium theory research has often focused on electronic media, ignoring the significant role still photography plays in constructing journalistic discourse. In a case study of photographic imagery and breaking news, this study analyzes how journalists used the 1963 iconic image of John F. Kennedy Jr. saluting his father’s coffin in telling the story of “John-John’s” death in 1999. Analysis shows that the photograph was used not just to relay factual information during a breaking news story, but to activate collective memories, construct a story of an American child-hero, and to perpetuate symbols of American social ideals.

The Rock and Roll Hall of fame and the Three-Dimensional Trademark • Jack Zibluk, Arkansas State • In 1996, North Olmstead, Ohio, commercial photographer Charles Gentile shot and distributed a poster of Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the museum sought • and was granted • a preliminary injunction halting the sale of the poster. The museum claimed the image on the poster, an exterior picture of the building framed by a sunset taken from a public place, represented trademark infringement. The following paper traces the development of the case and discusses the implications for a new limit on commercial speech.

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