Archives for January 2012

Scholastic Journalism Division

What I Know, What I Think, and How I Feel: High School Journalism Experience, High School G.P.A. and Self-Efficacy as Predictors of Success in Newswriting Courses • Kimberly L. Bissell, Southern Illinois and Steve J. Collins, Texas-Arlington • This study identified variables that predicted achievement among students enrolled in introductory media writing courses at two universities (SIU and UTA). Self-efficacy was significantly correlated with writing ability at SIU and with performance on a grammar pretest at UTA. UTA students who wrote for a high school yearbook performed significantly better on the writing and grammar tests than did their counterparts. High school g.p.a. predicted success on the writing test at UTA and on the grammar test at both schools.

Teaching Interviewing Skills Through Multimedia Modules: A Case Study from an Undergraduate Mass Media Writing Course • Julie E. Dodd, Judy L. Robinson and Judy H. Tipton, Florida • The process of planning, designing, and developing a CD-ROM for teaching in an introductory course in writing for mass communication can be a daunting process. The case study shows the stages involved in planning, designing and developing one module on interviewing for the CD. The needed elements for success involve time, technological resources, funding, and teamwork as illustrated by the case study that chronicles the evolution from conception to development.

Nation’s High School Newspapers: Still Widely Censored • Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver, Florida International University and J. William Click, Winthrop • It has been slightly more than a decade since the 1988 Supreme Court Hazelwood decision which reaffirmed the right of high school principals to censor stories in the student newspaper. That ruling caused advisers, principals and students to reevaluate the operation of those publications. This study investigates press freedom in high school newspapers at the end of the century. The findings paint a clear picture of a high school student press that is not free, that is controlled mostly by advisers, but also by principals, and that views editing of the paper by the faculty adviser as the norm.

Student Publications Experience of Journalism and Mass Communication Educators • Lyle D. Olson, South Dakota State • This paper presents the results of a random e-mail survey of college and university journalism and mass communication educators about their high school and college student publications experience. The study found that 61.5 percent of the educators had high school experience and 72.4 percent had college experience. In addition, 40.9 percent of the respondents decided to pursue journalism and mass communication as a career before or during high school.

Freedom of Expression Laws and the College Press: Lessons Learned from the High Schools • Mark Paxton, Southwest Missouri State • This paper examines two recent attempts to enact state freedom of expression laws for public college and university students and discusses the prospects for such laws in the context of state scholastic freedom of expression laws in six states. Based on research questioning the effectiveness of those state scholastic freedom of expression laws, it appears to be unlikely that similar laws protecting the First Amendment rights of college students will be as effective as proponents might expect.

Twenty-Five Years of the Fuzzy Factor: Fuzzy Logic, the Courts, and Student Press Law • Bruce L. Plopper and Lauralee McCool, Arkansas-Little Rock • This study applies the science of fuzzy logic, a fairly modern development in mathematical set theory, to court opinions concerning non-university, public school student publications, from 1975-1999. It examines case outcomes as a function of fuzzy logic, and it evaluates interactions between fuzzy logic and the following factors: court level materials involved, administrative action taken, and chronology of decision. Findings show that in general, courts using fuzzy logic favor administrators, while courts avoiding fuzzy logic favor students.

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Radio-TV Journalism Division

Local Television News and Viewer Empowerment: Why the Public’s Main Source of News Falls Short • Denise Barkis-Richter, Palo Alto College • A content analysis of local television news revealed that only one out of four stories contained empowering information. Through participant observation at a local television news station and in-depth interviews with local television newsworkers, three principal reasons emerged why empowering information was excluded: l) the absence of the station’s commitment to provide empowering information; 2) newsworkers’ lack of enterprise; and 3) the newsworkers’ perception of viewers and what their viewers want.

A Tale of Two Cities: How National Network Television Framed Hate Crimes in Jasper, Texas, and Laramie, Wyoming • Larry Elliott, L. Paul Husselbee, O’Brien Stanley and Mary Alice Baker, Lamar University • Sensational hate crimes in the small cities of Jasper, Texas and Laramie, Wyoming, drew the blinding spotlight of network television in 1998. Television journalists “framed” national images of Jasper and Laramie after an African-American was dragged to death behind a pickup truck in Texas and a homosexual man was beaten, tied to a fence and left to die in Wyoming. Despite residents’ fears that they would be tarred by the national media, the most dominant network television “frame” was favorableÑan emphasis on healing after the crimes.

Learning Ethics: On the Job or In the Classroom? • Gary Hanson, Kent State • Training in ethics is an important component of journalism education. Students are taught to think critically when confronted with ethical dilemmas and to follow an accepted set of professional journalism standards. This preliminary study suggests there are significant differences in the way television news directors and students in journalism classes view ethics instruction and in the possible topics that may raise ethical questions once a student enters the journalism workforce.

Constructing Class & Race in Local TV News • Don Heider, Texas at Austin and Koji Fuse, Pittsburg State • Using participant observation and content analysis, the researchers looked at one local television newsroom to examine what role class and race played in news decision making. Because of journalists’ own position, inhabiting positions in the middle- and upper-middle classes, and because of phenomena such as targeted story selection and story avoidance, the authors’ found that news coverage of the poor specifically and of the lower classes in general was significantly lacking.

Going Digital: An Exploratory Study of Nonlinear Editing Technology in Southeastern Television Newsrooms • Seok Kang, George L. Daniels, Tanya Auguston and Alyson Belatti, Georgia • The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has mandated that all broadcasters convert to a digital standard by 2006. This exploratory study of a stratified sample of large, medium and small market television newsrooms in the southeastern U.S. examined the progress toward converting to nonlinear editing. The findings show conventional wisdom may not apply to the way stations are making the shift to the digital standard. Instead, cost is probably a bigger indicator who will be the “innovators” and “laggards” in going digital.

Symbolic Racism in Television News • David Kurpius, Louisiana State • This research project examines the construction of symbolic racism in television news. Symbolic racism in television news is the combination of two non-racist elements that creates a negative racial stereotype. The researcher assumes these creations are unintended, but still extremely damaging. The purpose of this study is to see if symbolic racism exists in local television news and whether minority hiring and a formal race policy including dialogue about race helps diminish symbolic racist constructions.

Deregulation and Commercial Radio Network News: A Qualitative Analysis • Richard Landesberg, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • The once vibrant and vital business of commercial radio network news is now a declining industry controlled by just two companies. Yet, radio remains a main source of information for many Americans. This study analyzes the consolidation and decline in commercial radio network news and the role of regulation in that decline. It approaches the subject using qualitative methodology to explore the views of network news radio professionals, both journalists and managers.

Stealing the Show: How Individual Issues Dominate the Nightly Network News • Brad Love, Florida • As major stories develop, the media often overwhelm the audience with coverage. Certain issues can dominate and force other stories out of sight all together. This paper examines nightly network newscasts to see exactly what topics lose air time when a non-routine story takes over, as well as looking at the common contention that all three networks cover the same issues in the same proportions.

For the Ear to Hear: Conversational Writing on the Network Television News Magazines • C.A. Tuggle, Suzanne Huffman and Dana Rosengard, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This study examines the level of adherence to conversational writing style and the rules of grammar by correspondents and producers for network television news magazines on the three primary over-the-air networks. The researchers document differences between networks, but point out that writers for all shows in the sample could do a better job of writing short sentences, using common words, and following the rules of grammar. The researchers employ the Flesch readability scale and devised a second scale to measure additional elements of conversational writing.

Synergy Bias: Conglomerates and News Content • Dmitri Williams, Michigan • The “church-state” division between the editorial and business departments of a news organization is threatened by corporations who promote cooperation between and among divisions (“synergy”). A content analysis tested the hypotheses that the influence of parent companies on news content produces an increase in the quantity and quality of company related materials mentioned on the news. The results showed that such biases did occur, but not evenly and more often in the vertically integrated corporations.

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Public Relations Division

Research
“Check Out Our Web Site at … “ The Public Relations Content Characteristics of Fortune 500 Companies • Debashis (Deb) Aikat, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This study content analyzed 264 randomly selected Web sites from the 1999 Fortune 500 list of companies to identify eight public relations content characteristics of Fortune 500 companies. They are: (a) effective promotion with widespread reach at low cost, (b) reliable product information and customer support round-the-clock, (c) graphically rich content with significant shift from text to visuals, (d) failure to project corporate identity on the Web, (e) little interactivity, few features for information exchange, evaluation and feedback.

Making Health Communications Meaningful for Women: Factors that Influence Involvement and the Situational Theory of Publics • Linda Aldoory, Maryland • Focus groups and interviews were held with women from various ethnic, class, education and sexual backgrounds to explore antecedent factors that may characterize involvement, a key variable in the situational theory of publics. Findings revealed that a consciousness of everyday life, media source credibility, self-identity, a consciousness of personal health, and cognitive analyses of message content influenced involvement with health messages. Public relations practitioners can use findings to better tailor health messages to specific needs and lifestyles of different women.

Using Grunig’s PR Models to Evaluate Strategic Philanthropy: An Exploratory Study • Joel Andren, Washington State • An investigation of strategic philanthropy campaigns and their evaluation yielded insight into the perceived public relations value of philanthropy. In a survey of philanthropy programs in a Northwest city, it was found that corporations are more likely to operate their philanthropy efforts based on a one-way, rather than two-way, model. If public relations departments were involved more in the selection, implementation, and evaluation of philanthropy campaigns, they could quantify the value of such philanthropic efforts.

Private Issues and Public Policy: Locating the Corporate Agenda in Agenda-Setting Theory • Bruce K. Berger, Alabama • This research examines attempts by The Business Roundtable (BRT) to influence policy agendas regarding four private issues, i.e., policy issues not salient on media and public agendas. BRT’s information subsidies are studied, along with media coverage, public opinion, and policy agenda developments. Results suggest BRT uses information subsidies to control the scope of issue conflict, and these subsidies influenced the policy agenda for study issues. Corporate influence on private issues alters the traditional agenda-setting process, and an alternative, elitist model is proposed.

Do PRT Practitioners Have a PR Problem?: The Effect of Associating a Source with Public Relations and Client-Negative News on Audience Perception of Credibility • Coy Callison, Alabama • Through a 2 X 2 factorial experiment (N=141), information source type (PR Spokesperson or Generic Spokesperson) and message topic (Client-Neukal and Client-Negative) were varied to determine how both affect audience perception of source credibility. Results suggest public relations and the organizations they represent are perceived as less credible than unidentified sources and their employers. Also, sources and their sponsors communicating organization negative news are perceived as less credible than those communicating client-neutral information.

Talk the Talk, Walk the Walk: Advancing Measurement in Public Relations • Yuhmiin Chang, Fritz Cropp and Glen T. Cameron, Missouri • Lindenmann found that public relations research is talked about much more than it is done. To help assess why this might be hold true, we track the steps in an extensive evaluation of a public relations campaign. Following Grunig’s exemplification of the use of focus group research in public relations (1992), this case study offers a guide to the use of a quasi-experimental design with control group for evaluating public relations efforts.

Examining Factors that Influence Pharmacists’ Willingness to Participate in a National Health Campaign • Cynthia-Lou Coleman-Sillars, Georgia • A national study of pharmacists asked whether they would feel equipped to participate in a health campaign aimed at reducing antimicrobial resistance. While most pharmacists agreed that their role in educating patients is important, several barriers to communication were noted. The volume of prescriptions filled, constraints of time, worry over relationships with physicians and unfamiliarity with judicious antibiotic use were some of the barriers.

A National Survey of Public Relations Internship Programs at Mass Communication Programs Accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (ACEJMC) • Janice Davis and Mary-Lou Galician, Arizona State • To compile a national profile of public relations internship programs • thereby filling a research gap, the researchers conducted a national mail survey of all 108 ACEJMC-accredited colleges and universities in the United States in February and March, 2000. To-date (3/22/00), the response rate was 54%, with additional returns expected before the 4/1/00 cut-off. In addition to statistical summaries and survey verbatims, exemplary collateral materials provided by respondents will be available for examination at this session.

Viva la Vacation: An Examination of Personal Values, Information Sources, and Pleasure Travel • Lisa T. Fall, Michigan State • Public relations researchers continually strive to advance methods for predicting consumer behavior as related to successful message consumption. Of noted importance is the increased worth consumers are placing on “individualism.” The overarching question, “What • personally • is in it for me?” must be answered every time an organization develops a message for its intended audiences. One successful way to personalize the message is by tapping into a consumer’s core values system.

“Integrated Relationship Management” as a Reforming Paradigm of Thai Corporations during the Post-Crisis: The Case Study and the [Re]construction of Social Values • Peeraya (Pepe) Hanpongp and, Iowa • In order to cope with the problems related to globalization, this paper advocates an integration of integrated marketing communications (IMC) and relationship management (RM). For that purpose, the notion of integrated relationship management (IRM) is developed in this paper. In this paper, the case of the Lemon Farm Cooperative, a corporation of Thailand is explored to show how the notion of global/local relationship was played out in the Thai culture and how a Thai value-based approach to relationship building has cultivated the concept of IRM as proposed in this paper.

Advertising and the News: Does Advertising Campaign Information in News Stories Improve the Memory of Subsequent Advertisement • Hyun Seung Jin, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • The purpose of this study is to examine whether previous exposure to advertising campaign information presented in news stories (publicity) boosts the audience’s memory for the subsequent advertisements. In the experiment, subjects in the experimental group were exposed to a print version of newspaper article about the Super Bowl ads on Friday before the Sunday night Super Bowl game, whereas subjects in the control group read a news article with no mention of the Super Bowl ads.

Ego-Involvement and Practitioners’ Attitudes Toward Integrated Marketing Communication • Amanda Jones and Amy Sanders, Truman State • This survey of Public Relations Society of America practitioners uses the Ordered Alternatives Questionnaire to analyze practitioners’ attitudes toward integrated marketing communication and the impact of professional ego-involvement on those attitudes. Results indicated communication professionals strongly support the integrated marketing communication concept, but differ as to the appropriate degree of integration. Those who identified with the public relations profession were more likely to prefer maintaining distinctions among the various communication professions.

Public Relations Roles and Media Choice • Tom Kelleher, Hawaii at Manoa • A national survey of PRSA members (n = 267) was conducted to examine the relationship between public relations roles and media choice based on the integration of PR theory and media richness theory. Respondents were identified as either PR managers or technicians using confirmatory factor analysis, corroborating previous research. Managers reported spending more time in oral communication than technicians, while technicians spend more time using written communication. E-mail use in PR and related communities is also discussed.

An Exploration of Integration of the Public Relations Function in International Business Operations • Juan Carlos Molleda, South Carolina • The paper introduces three cases that describe the types of coordination (formalization, centralization, and socialization) and communication tools (e.g., annual report, corporate intranet, and web sites) used by the public relations function in international businesses to achieve normative integration. That is, global efficiency, worldwide learning, and national responsiveness through enhancing interdependence and inter-unit communication. The cases are put into context by summarizing relevant literature from international management. Recommendations for theory building and research are provided.

Determining Message Objectives: An Analysis of Public Relations Strategy Use in Press Releases • Kelly Garnette Page, Florida • This study attempts to identify public relations strategies used in the press releases distributed by organizations. A content analysis of 100 press releases randomly selected from the PRNewswire web site was performed. Results indicate that the taxonomy of public relations strategies proposed by Hazleton (1992) is a valid conceptualization of public relations strategy use in organizations and that these strategies can be identified in the press releases distributed by organizations.

Mythic Battles: Examining the Lawyer-Public Relations Counselor Dynamic • Bryan H. Reber and Glenn T. Cameron, Missouri-Columbia • Long considered adversarial, relationships between public relations practitioners and lawyers were analyzed via Q methodology and depth interviews. Subjective attitudes were measured regarding strategies in dealing with publics in times of organizational crisis and how the subjects viewed their professional counterparts. Analysis employed concepts central to coorientation theory. Lawyers more accurately projected the PR response than vice versa. Relationships seem to be all-important. And, the proverbial law/PR conflict may have taken on nearly mythic proportions.

Comparative Approaches to Segmenting Publics in Agricultural Information Campaigns • Robin Shepard and Garrett ‘ÕKeefe, Wisconsin • Governmental agencies, educational institutions, not-for-profit environmental interest groups, and corporations regularly conduct public information campaigns aimed at promoting their own special interests and needs with respect to the natural environment. In this analysis we will compare approaches to segmenting and targeting agricultural producers • for informational campaigns. Results suggests that informational campaigns based on single medium delivery will not be effective at changing behavior in the studied watershed.

Employee Communications and Community: An Exploratory Study • Andi Stein, Oregon • This paper explores the relationship between employee communications and the process of community building within an organization. Using a survey approach, the paper focuses on PeaceHealth, a healthcare system in the Pacific Northwest with locations in six different regions in three different states. The paper evaluates PeaceHealth employees’ perceptions of the effectiveness of various communication tools in helping to establish a sense of community at three different levels of the organization • departmental, regional, and organizational.

Loyalty in Public Relations: When Is It Raw Material for Virtue and when is it Raw Material for Some Vices? • Kevin Stoker, Brigham Young and Curtis Carter, Georgia Pacific Corporation • This paper addresses the practical and moral ramifications of organizational deterioration on public relations professionals. First, the concepts of exit and voice and their relationship to public relations practice will be explained. Next, the paper will consider loyalty, its definition, its limits, and its effect on public relations practice. The paper will then delineate between loyalty as a raw material for virtue or vice before proposing a model to guide public relations practice.

Use of World Wide Web Sites Marketing and Promotions Tools: A Pilot Study of University Journalism/Mass Communication Programs in Texas • Thirty-one Texas college and university journalism/ mass communication World Wide Web sites were analyzed, and faculty/ administrator interviews were conducted to address five research questions about the use of Web sites as marketing and promotions tools. Sites were scored for visual, operational, and informational enhancements. Site administrators discussed site launch, design, maintenance, management and future trends issues. Sizeable differences were found in levels of site visual, operational, and informational enhancement.

Teaching
Preparing Public Relations and Advertising Students for the 21st Century: A Case Study • Robert Carroll, Southern Indiana • In 1993, the Task Force on Integrated Communications reported that public relations and advertising students would better be prepared to enter a changing communications industry through an “integrated” curriculum. This paper is a case study of how one university has attempted to meet that challenge. The work has resulted in the development of an “Integrated Marketing Communications” class for advertising, public relations, and marketing seniors.

The Internet and Public Relations Curricula: Fitting “a jet engine to a horse-drawn carriage” • Karla Gower and Jung-Yul Cho, Alabama • The Internet is changing the way business does business. It is also changing public relations, opening new opportunities for the field. This study presents the findings from an email survey of public relations agencies that attempted to determine how agencies are using the Internet for public relations and what skills they consider important. The purpose of the survey was to discovery how public relations educators could best prepare graduates for the demands of the profession.

Using Private Consulting as a Teaching Tool • Candace White, Tennessee • This paper explains how private consulting was used to provide on-going instruction and examples of public relations strategies and tactics in a public relations writing course. Students were able to see immediate, real-time implementation and how problems were addressed in a real life context. A survey of the students showed the teaching method was well received, increased understanding and knowledge of how public relations tactics are implemented, and proved relevant to the course material.

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Newspaper Division

Reliance and Science Knowledge: Do People Learn Science Information from the Media the Same Way they Learn Political Information • Raymond N. Ankney, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This paper examines how reliance on newspapers and television news affects science knowledge. The newspaper-reliant group averaged 41.1 on the science knowledge test, compared with 38.5 for the television-news reliant group (t = -4.48, df = 346.75, p = .001). Moreover, the higher the respondents’ newspaper use, the higher their science knowledge (Std. beta = .104, p < .001). Gender and education also played important roles in predicting the respondents’ science knowledge.

Online Media Ethics: A Survey of U.S. Daily Newspaper Editors • M. David Arant, Memphis and Janna Quitney Anderson, Elon College • In this paper, 203 online editors at U.S. daily newspapers report their practices, problems and ethics in doing online journalism. All but four percent are publishing news online at least daily, with nearly a third updating more than once a day. Among their concerns about publishing online are the immediacy of Web publication, corrections procedures, linking to other sites, monitoring reader chat rooms and online news staff size.

Influences on a Daily Newspaper’s Market Orientation • Randal A. Beam, Indiana • A national study involving 183 daily newspapers found that organizational goals and ownership characteristics were the most significant influences on the degree to which a newspaper newsroom was “market oriented” or “market driven.” Newspapers that emphasized high profitability or that emphasized editorial excellence tended to have a strong market orientation, as did newspapers that belonged to large groups or that were part of a privately owned company.

Internet Use and Media Preferences of College Students • Bonnie Bressers and Lori Bergen, Kansas State • A survey of 400 at a midwest university shows students are frequent readers of their campus newspaper, but are unlikely to access any online newspaper. Students are likely to use the Internet for e-mail, information searches or reference and research materials, and spend an average of 92 minutes per day online. They seek information and use the Internet as replacement for the library, postal service and telephone. Recommendations for online newspapers include enhancing their local franchise online, bringing greater interactivity to their editorial and advertising content, and providing seamless access to their archives.

How Yellow Journalism Lives On: An Analysis of Newspaper Content Across 100 Years • W. Joseph Campbell, American University • Woven subtly into the literature of American journalism history is a thread that maintains that yellow journalism lives on, that defining features of the nineteenth century genre endure through widespread adoption and adaptation. The literature, however, reveals no systematic attempt to test such claims. This paper discusses such a study, a systematic content analysis of the front pages of seven leading U.S. newspapers, examined at ten-year intervals from 1899 to 1999.

Computer-Assisted Reporting in Michigan Daily Newspapers: More than a Decade of Adoption • Lucida D. Davenport, Fred Fico and Mary Detwiler, Michigan State • This study is a follow-up to previous studies, conducted in 1986 and 1994, and surveys all Michigan daily newspapers on their adoption and use of seven different computerized information sources. It also acts as a part of a longitudinal study on the adoption rate of computer-assisted reporting. Particularly important findings are that 47 of the 48 state dailies now use one or more computerized sources to obtain information for news stories.

Journalism Education: Weathering the Storm • Tom Dickson, Southwest Missouri State • The author surveyed members of the Newspaper Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and a random sample of daily newspaper editors to determine whether they agreed about the emphases and practices of college journalism programs and the types of knowledge and skills that were important for beginning newspaper journalists at the end of the 20th century.

Setting the News story Agenda: candidates and commentators in News coverage of a Governor’s Race • Frederick Fico and Eric Freedman, Michigan State • In coverage of the 1998 Michigan gubernatorial campaign, candidates and their supporters dominated coverage in the state’s nine largest dailies more than did “horse race” experts and issue experts who might have competed with those partisans to define the election. However, to a significant degree, reporters’ subjective leads competed with the candidates for such election-defining power.

Small Town Murder, Big Time Headlines: The Jasper Newsboy and the Texas Dragging Death • Barbara Friedman, Missouri • Jasper, Texas, became the focus of worldwide attention in June 1998, when a black man was dragged to his death behind a truck driven by three white men. Reporters, from as far away as Tokyo and Germany, called it a modern-day lynching and Jasper “more Deep South than Lone Star.” This study is the first to examine the role of the local newspaper, The Jasper Newsboy. Using textual analysis and personal interviews, this project considers editors’ perceived responsibilities to the community and how that was manifested in newspaper content.

Leadership, Values and Cultural Change: A Three-Year Case Study of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch • Peter Gade and Earnest L. Perry, Oklahoma • When Cole C. Campbell was introduced as the editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in August 1996 it signaled a change in direction for a newspaper steeped in the Pulitzer tradition and long considered a member of this country’s “prestige press”. This three-year case study has measured newsroom employees’ perceptions of Campbell and the changes he has brought to the Post-Dispatch. Surveys were administered to employees in the autumns of 1996-98.

Online Information Use in Newsrooms: A Longitudinal Diffusion Study • Bruce Garrison, Miami • This study examined adoption of online information resources in newsrooms at U.S. daily newspapers from 1994 to 1999. Since the general public and news media began to embrace the Internet and World Wide Web in 1994, a process of adoption of this new interactive innovation by newspapers has occurred. The longitudinal survey data reveal that use of interactive information-gathering technologies in newsrooms has reached a critical mass for (a) general computer use, (b) online research in newsrooms, (c) non-specialist content searching, and (d) daily frequency of online use.

Second-Level Agenda-Setting in the New Hampshire Primary: A Comparison of Coverage in Three Newspapers and Public Perceptions of Candidates • Guy Golan and Wayne Wanta, Florida • Second-level agenda-setting was examined during the New Hampshire primary through a comparison of Gallup poll responses and coverage in three newspapers in the region. Results show that John McCain was covered much more positively than George W. Bush. The findings also show that respondents linked four of six cognitive attributes (issues, personal characteristics) to candidates in direct proportion to media coverage. The results show less support for media influence on the affective (positive) attributes individuals linked to candidates.

Diversity Efforts at the Los Angeles Times: Are Journalists and the Community on the Same Page? • Richard Gross, Stephanie Craft and Glen T. Cameron, Missouri and Michael Antecol, Stanord Center for Research in Disease Prevention • Survey data from Los Angeles Times editorial employees and residents of Los Angeles County were gathered to determine respondents’ views of the newspaper’s efforts to increase minority coverage, specifically with regard to the “market-driven” nature of those efforts. How respondents perceive market-driven journalism and the extent to which newsroom and community perceptions of it are similar were specifically addressed. Results suggest that people, whether journalists or readers, neither dismiss nor embrace market-driven journalism outright.

Reader Mindset and Bias: A Closer Look at the People Who Say We Skew the News • Deborah Gump, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Reader perception of media bias has been found in several studies going back many years. A reader has at least two routes to reach a perception of bias: the actual existence of bias, or a reinforcing predisposition within himself to believe bias exists. This study is a secondary analysis of the raw data in the American Society of Newspaper Editors 1999 survey to consider the second route. Do readers who think daily newspapers are biased have a particular mindset that helps them arrive at that opinion?

Looking Beyond Hate: How National and Regional Newspapers Framed Hate Crimes in Jasper, Texas, and Laramie, Wyoming • L. Paul Husselbee, Larry Elliott, ‘ÕBrien Stanley and Mary Alice Baker, Lamar • Journalists frame issues by choosing to emphasize some issues over others, affecting news consumers’ awareness and perception of public problems and concerns. Journalistic credibility suffers from public perception that reporters do not show respect for the communities they cover and that they chase “sensational” stories because they sell newspapers or grab the attention of viewers. This study analyzes national and regional newspaper coverage of two “sensational” hate crimes to determine how reporters framed the communities of Jasper, Texas, and Laramie, Wyoming, in the wake of two brutal murders.

Talking the Talk: Expressions of Social Responsibility in Public Newspaper Groups • Diana Knott, North Carolina and Ginny Carroll, Northwestern and Philip Meyer, North Carolina • This study examines the ratio of social responsibility and profit-oriented language in publicly owned newspaper groups’ annual report letters to shareholders through the use of content analysis software. In addition, the educational and professional backgrounds of these companies’ CEOs are compared, and the corporate cultures of the companies scoring the highest and lowest on social responsibility language are discussed.

Public Journalism and the Use of Nonelite Sources and Actors • Seow Ting Lee, Missouri • This study focuses on the impact of public journalism as a practice on a paper’s use of nonelite sources and actors. In a content analysis, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a public journalism paper, is compared to the traditional, non-public journalism Washington Post The findings revealed that contrary to belief, public journalism has a limited impact on nonelite sourcing and the use of ordinary citizens as actors in news. Although more nonelite actors were used than elite actors, the coverage devoted to nonelite actors was dominated by crime victims and criminals • voiceless, passive ordinary citizens.

Web Design and Efficiency of News Retrieval: A Content Analysis of Five U.S. Internet Newspapers • Xigen Li, Louisiana State • A content analysis of five U.S. Internet newspapers found that the newspaper that earned the highest efficiency score provides a high level of immediate access to news information, and a smooth news flow. The findings regarding efficiency of information retrieval of Internet newspapers confirm that news readers are gaining more control in the hypermedia environment as the concern with user-centered efficiency of news retrieval is integrated into the Web design of the Internet newspapers.

When The Shooting Stops: A Comparison Of Local, Regional And National Newspaper Coverage Of 1990s School Shootings • Michael McCluskey, Washington • Newspapers in smaller communities have been shown to focus less on conflict than the press in larger communities, but this research looked primarily at events of local interest. This study examined frames employed by local, regional and national newspapers in coverage of five small-town school shootings in the 1990s, events of broader interest. Results showed the local newspapers focused the least and national newspapers the most on blaming societal ills, especially guns, for the shooting.

A Functional Analysis of New Hampshire Presidential Primary Debates and Accompanying Newspaper Coverage • Bryan Reber, Missouri • Texts from one Republican and one Democratic 2000 presidential primary debate were analyzed using functional theory. Acclaims, attacks, defenses, policy and character issues, and defense strategies were coded. Candidates offered acclaims over attacks during the debates. Policy issues were dominant. Fifty-one newspaper articles about the debates were coded using the same categories Coverage focused on attacks more than acclaims, policy more than character. Newspapers focused on conflict in debates and gave unproportional coverage to pithy statements

Changing Faces: Diversity of Local News Sources in the Los Angeles Times • Shelly Rodgers and Esther Thorson, Missouri • Editors and publishers across the country are attempting fundamental changes in the news process. At the Times, reporters are being asked to seek out more local women and minority sources. Whether this effort has resulted in a greater diversity of local news sources is the topic of the current study. Overall, our findings revealed a disparity between local demographics and the demographics of local news sources among most subgroups examined. In addition, some stereotyping patterns were found, but not always in the way we expected.

Pagination and the Copyeditor: Have Things Changed? • John Russial, Oregon • This study, based on a national random sample of copyeditors and supervisors, reexamines the impact of pagination on copyeditors to see whether conditions found in several earlier studies have changed. Workload, largely the result of the shifting or production tasks into newsrooms, is perceived as higher after pagination, and length of experience with pagination does not appear to diminish the impact. The ambivalence noted in earlier studies was confirmed, but it appears that individuals tend to be either positive or negative about pagination’s impact, not both, as an earlier study suggested.

Information and Interaction: Online Newspaper Coverage of the 2000 Iowa Caucus • Jane B. Singer, Iowa • By the time of the 2000 Iowa caucus, there were an estimated 70 million active Internet users in the United States alone, at least 5,000 Web sites devoted to U.S. politics • and five Iowa newspapers willing to tackle the challenges of providing online coverage of an event that, in a more traditional media world, had always been “their” big story. This exploratory study examines these papers’ efforts to use the attributes of the online medium to go beyond “shovelware.”

Reporting of Public Opinion Polls in American Newspapers: The Case of the 1998 U.S. Senate Race • Young Jun Son and Rasha Kamhawi, Indiana • Published poll results can be misleading if they are not accompanied by methodological information that explains how the results were obtained. This study investigates whether metropolitan daily newspapers provide their readers with sufficient information to evaluate poll stories. Using the guidelines of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) for reporting surveys and polls, a content analysis was conducted. The amount of information disclosed is still far from accurate. National newspapers did worse than state newspapers.

Kincaid v. Gibson: Turning Back a Page to Harsher Times for the Collegiate Press? • Sigman L. Splichal and Lynn D. Carrillo, Miami • For more than 30 years, since Dickey v. Alabama State Board of Education, courts have afforded journalists at state colleges and universities broad First Amendment rights. Collegiate editors enjoyed virtually unfettered freedoms so long as they did not materially disrupt their institutions. In 1999, the 6th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a decision by a federal district court in Kentucky that called into question those rights, applying to college publications legal reasoning previously limited to high school expression.

To Quell The Quarrels • Examining The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Israeli/Palestinian Coverage • Judith Sylvester and J. Denis Wu, Louisiana State • The Philadelphia Inquirer has been receiving criticism from both the Jewish and Palestinian communities concerning the paper’s Mideast coverage. In response, a content analysis was conducted to examine the coverage. Results revealed that the Inquirer provided its audience with a great deal of information about the conflict. This study found that the paper provided a balanced coverage of both political entities. Weakness in coverage rested mainly in heavy reliance on Israeli sources compared with Palestinian sources.

Online Newspapers: Collating Banner Advertising with Editorial Content • David R. Thompson, ON-TRAC Consulting • More and more online newspapers are becoming self-sustaining profit centers. Effective online advertising is one element in the success of online ventures. This paper reports a content analysis of online newspaper practice regarding delivering appropriate advertising messages to an audience by collating editorial content and banner ads. For example, a banner ad for ordering tickets to St. Louis Cardinals games may appear on the same “page” as a sports story about Mark McGwire’s latest home run streak.

Truth, Moral Force, and Public Service: What Newspaper Letters to the Editor and Editorials Said About Journalistic Ethics in 1835 • Brian Thornton, Northern Illinois • This research examines published editorials and letters to the editor at the time of one of the first and most bizarre newspaper frauds in this country – the infamous moon hoax of 1835, perpetuated by the New York Sun and reporter Richard Adams Locke. The purpose is not simply to recount details of this colorful journalistic lie with its quasi-scientific revelations of man-like creatures living on the moon.

Two Topic Teams and how They Grew: Education and Public Life at The Virginian-Pilot • Leslie-Jean Thornton, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • It was projected in 1999 that by 2000 forty-two percent of U.S. daily newspapers with circulation above 25,000 would be using teams in their newsroom as part of a management structure that has grown in popularity since the early 1990s. The largest of the few papers to inaugurate teams in 1991 was The Virginian-Pilot. This paper explores the growth of the Pilot’s first two successful topic teams, which cover education and public life.

Daily Newspaper Use of Web Addresses: Longitudinal Analysis of New Content Form • Jean M. Trumbo and Craig W. Trumbo, Wisconsin • This analysis assesses the frequency and characteristics of URLs featured in newspapers. Using a sample from 35 daily newspapers, we show that attention to the Web has grown steadily since 1994, as has the inclusion of URLs in such content. Most URLs are in the .com domain, and almost all are external to the newspaper. Other results examine where in the newspaper Web addresses appear, and look at the rate of dead URLs across time.

Weekly Newspapers and Problems with Attracting Young Journalists: A Survey of South Carolina Newspaper Management and Journalism Students • Jennifer Wood, South Carolina • The problems South Carolina weekly newspaper management was having in attracting and retaining young journalists was this paper’s focus. Through a mail survey with a 65 percent response rate, much was learned about newsroom managers’ attitudes in regards to hiring journalism students and whether hiring and retention was a problem at South Carolina weekly newspapers. Through the journalism students’ survey results, editors were able to get a glimpse of what these students expect from future employers.

<< 2000 Abstracts

Minorities and Communication Division

Faculty Competition
Diversity in Local Television News: A Clogged Pipeline? • Terry Anzur, Sheila Murphy and Mieke Schechter, Southern California • The article presents a survey of television news directors in markets ranked between 100th and 150th nationally in terms of size, where aspiring TV news anchors and reporters get their first jobs. Entry-level hiring is done primarily by white males and reflects their perceptions of the local audience, the perceived difficulty of finding qualified applicants and the low priority placed on diversity. Women and minorities are under-represented among actual hires, contributing to an industry-wide shortage of diverse on-air talent.

Crime and Ethnic Group Coverage: Media Exposure and Audience Perceptions • Christopher E. Beaudoin and Esther Thorson, Missouri-Columbia • This study examines connections among media exposure and audience perceptions of ethnicity and crime coverage — in light of the continuing decline of newspaper readership. Relying on a telephone survey, it demonstrated that different ethnic groups view coverage in different ways and that newspaper readership was positively correlated with perceptions of coverage. The opposite was true for local broadcast news. Via structural equation modeling, the study suggests that perception determines media use • and, thus, that low credibility may undermine readership.

Copycats, Conspirators and Bigots: Themes in Southern, Northern and Western Newspaper Editorial Portrayals of the Black Church-burning Crisis • Sharon Bramlett-Solomon, Arizona State • Between January 1, 1995 and December 1997 at least 142 black churches were set on fire through arson, bombings or attempted bombings. Examination of all church burnings’ editorials appearing in the Lexis Nexis database and Editorials on File over this two-year period, yielded 109 editorials for content analysis. Findings in this preliminary study call into question the assumption of some media critics and scholars who suggest that regional differences exist in southern and northern newspaper portrayals of racial conflicts.

Media Correlates of a Protest in a Minority Community: Southern California’s Vietnamese Americans and the Hi-Tek Video Store Incident • Jeffrey Brody, Tony Rimmer & Edgar P. Trotter • California State-Fullerton — This paper explores correlates of participation in a protest in an immigrant community. Participation was assumed to be inversely associated with acculturation, political tolerance, and perceptions of English and Vietnamese-language media. Bivariate analyses of a 41 8-respondent survey showed no discrimination between protesters and nonprotesters on demographic variables, some discrimination on acculturation measures (on two attitudinal but not on three language proficiency indices), and significant discrimination on measures of media use and assessment of coverage of the incident.

Constructing Blackness: Media Coverage of African American Support for President Clinton • Dwight E. Brooks, Georgia and James A. Rada, Rowan • African American support for President Clinton. Nearly 40 broadcast, newspaper and magazine stories produce explanations that were placed into five discursive themes: morality, political pragmatism, distrust of the criminal justice system, forgiveness/redemption, and Clinton’s rapport with African Americans. The media not only contribute to the social construction of Blackness in intriguing ways, but its failure to explain White support (or lack of) for the President reinforces the invisibility of Whiteness as the norm.

Black in White: A Historical Inquiry into the Afro-Caribbean Press in the U.K. • James P. Danky, State Historical Society of Wisconsin and David Henning, Wisconsin • This paper, the initial part of a larger project on Afro-Caribbean and Diasporic journalism, asks the question “what do academic journalism histories say about the press by and for British blacks?” This paper begins with an overview of British journalism historiography from the nineteenth century to the present, looks at publications by and for British blacks, and treatments of that journalism by the academy. This paper is also a contribution to black British historical studies.

A Myth Analysis of Race and Beauty in Teen Magazines • Meenakshi Gigi Durham, Texas at Austin • This paper examines how race and beauty are interpreted by popular media targeted to teenage girls, in the context of the contemporary politics of diversity. This research employed myth analysis (Barthes, 1972) to uncover the ideological themes underpinning the discourses of racialized beauty in four top-circulating teen magazines. The analysis revealed a construction of beauty in which race was used as a device to orient girls toward consumerism by glossing over its political, historical, and cultural moorings and reinscribing categorical racial boundaries.

Black Like Me: How Idealized Images of Caucasian Women Affect Body Esteem and Mood States of African-American Females • Cynthia M. Frisby, Missouri • Using the theory of social comparison, the present research explores how exposure to idealized images of physically attractive Caucasian women affects and changes the self reported esteem levels of African-American women. Though research reveals that the number of portrayals of African-Americans in ads is growing, little if any research has explored how images and advertisements influence behaviors and attitudes toward advertising images and messages. A sample of African-American females was surveyed on body esteem and other self-perception variables.

What A Difference A Channel Makes: Commercial Images In General Market V. Spanish Language Television • Jami Armstrong Fullerton, Oklahoma State and Alice Kendrick, Southern Methodist • Analysis of prime time commercials on NBC and Univision revealed the occurrence of significantly fewer commercials on Univision as well as significantly more inventory devoted to public service announcements. Commercials on the networks were also found to focus on different products and services. Roles of primary characters on NBC revealed a strong professional male presence on the general market network, contrasted with the prevalence of female characters on Univision.

Bridges Across the Digital Divide: An Exploratory Study of AHANA and Women’s Websites on the Internet • Dennis W. Jeffers, Central Michigan • This paper reports the results of an exploratory study which examined content of websites targeted at African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans and women (AHANA/W), as well as the content of OneNetNow.com: a recently launched website designed to bridge the digital divide. The study focused on a large number of “demographic” and “content” variables previously used to document the digital divide. The results suggest that there is a great deal of similarity between websites not specifically designed to bridge the digital divide (existing AHANA/W sites) and OneNetNow.com.

Race and the Praxis of Crime Reporting: A Narrative Paradigm for Portrayals of Deviance • Craig Maier and Maggie Patterson, Duquesne • Social science studies present conflicting evidence of the effects of crime and race news coverage on audience and lead to a seemingly intractable debate. This essay suggests that narrative analysis may be a more useful tool. Using the content of an original study done in City X a mid-sized, mid-Atlantic city, and previously published social scientific research as a point of departure, this paper explores how narrative theory reconfigures race, crime news, and public opinion.

Do Skin Tones Matter When Judging the Guilt of Accused African Americans Pictured in News Crime Stories? • Dwyane Proctor, University of Connecticut Health Center and L.B. Snyder, Connecticut • Pundits’ claim that darkening complexions of African Americans accused of crimes in news photographs influence readers to prejudge the accused as guilty. Potential jurors (N = 421) read one of three news articles about a man arrested for murder. Two articles contained a photo of the accused; he was shown as African American with light or dark colored skin. The third article contained no photo or ethnic description of the accused.

What a Difference a Year Makes: A Content Analysis Before and After the Start of a Latino Initiative • Shelly Rodgers and Esther Thorson, Missouri-Columbia • In an attempt to connect with and maintain readers, the Los Angeles Times launched a Latino initiative in the fall of 1998. The goal of the initiative was to seek out more Latino sources across a wider variety of topics. Although the Latino initiative is still on-going at the Times we wanted to see whether changes in the numbers and representations of Latinos were noticeable after one year of the initiative’s start date. Our findings suggest improvements in the representation of Latinos.

The University of North Dakota’s Fighting Sioux Logo • Raul Tovares, North Dakota • Taking a Gramscian perspective, this paper interrogates an official document addressing the University of North Dakota’s Fighting Sioux logo. Prior to the late 1960s the dominance of the UND campus by white students, faculty, and administrators created a climate in which the appropriation of Native American images and symbols for fun and sport went largely unquestioned. The debates that have developed around the Fighting Sioux logo reflect the struggles of different groups to define the parameters of acceptable and unacceptable forms of communication.

Student Competition
Media Messages and the Thin Standard: Are African-American Women Receiving the Same Messages? • Laura I. Collier, Houston • A content analysis of three African-American and three Caucasian women’s magazines (72 issues) for the year 1997 was conducted to ascertain if African-American women receive the same thinness-depicting messages characteristically observed in the Caucasian media. In addition, body measurements of models found in Ebony and Ladies’ Home Journal from 1945-1998 were conducted. Results revealed African-American magazines place less emphasis on content dealing with body/shape/size. However, body measurements of African-American models follow similar thinness trends to Caucasian models.

Television Network Diversity Deals and Citizen Group Action in 21st Century Broadcasting Policy • George Daniels, Georgia • This paper provides an analysis of recent efforts by the NAACP and other ethnic groups to negotiate diversity agreements for employment and programming at the four major broadcast networks. The calls for diversity issued in 1999 are compared to the work of citizen action groups that influenced broadcasting policy in the 1960s and 1970s. With varying mechanisms for network accountability and monitoring of diversity, the agreements amounted mostly to a victory in the “court of public opinion.”

Building Identification with Hispanic Voters via the Web • Maria Len-Rios, Missouri-Columbia • This is the one of the first studies to examine presidential campaign messages targeting Hispanic voters during the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. A case study, employing textual analysis guided by using Kenneth Burke’s concept of identification, is used to determine how Bush and Gore identified with Hispanic voters through (l) common experiences/association, (2) antithesis, and (3) subtlety or cunning. Results reveal that Bush invested more in his “En Espanol” Web site.

Pointing Fingers: Victim Blaming and News Coverage of African-Americans, Health and Public Policy in Two Major Metropolitan Newspapers • Nicole Mikel-Brumfield, Florida • The presence of victim blaming of African-Americans and their health issues, as it relates to public policy, was examined through the content analysis of two newspapers, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the New Orleans Times Picayune, from November 1997 to November 1998. Overall, the Times Picayune published more victim blaming articles than the Plain Dealer. Also, male reporters did more victim blaming as was more blatant than their female counterparts.

Justifying the FCC’s Minority Preference Policies • Seung Kwan Ryu, Southern Illinois-Carbondale • This study investigates how courts have used empirical evidence in justifying the standard review they applied as their rationale in FCC’s minority preference and equal protection policies. The study suggests that courts should adopt not only evidence of historical and societal discrimination but also empirical evidence as their rationale, since in previous studies empirical evidence has already shown a positive correlation between minority ownership and program diversity in broadcasting.

Gender Stereotypes and Race in Music Videos: Cultivating Unreality • Helena K. Sarkio, Minnesota • Cultivation research examines the extent to which television shapes its audience’s perception of reality. The objective of this study was to contribute to the understanding of how exposure to the total pattern of music videos can cultivate their viewers’ conceptions of Caucasian and African-American women and men. Through a content analysis of music videos on BET, MTV and VH1, significant differences between the four groups were uncovered.

<< 2000 Abstracts