Archives for January 2012

Media Ethics Division

Social Dimensions of Ethics Decisions in Newswork: A Comparison Across Ethical Situations • Dan Berkowitz, University of Iowa and Yehiel Limor, Tel-Aviv University • This paper studied decisions about ethical problems in newsgathering through five social dimensions: individual, small group, organizational, professional, and societal. Data were gathered through a mail survey of reporters in one Midwest state. Results found two broad response patterns, one basing decisions chiefly on professional autonomy and public interest, and another pattern that considered all five social dimensions more broadly. These patterns were most clearly distinguished by a reporter’s degree of professional experience.

The Ethics Agenda of the Mass Communication Professoriate • Jay Black, University of South Florida, Bruce Garrison, University of Miami, Fred Fedler, University of Central Florida, and Doug White, University of South Florida • This study reviews a growing body of faculty ethics literature and surveys one-third of the AEJMC membership about its attitudes toward 65 different issues. Forty-eight percent of the 775 people who received the mail questionnaire in late 2000 provided usable responses. They indicated that in many respects journalism and mass communications faculty are very similar to colleagues from other disciplines, but on many items, are far more sensitive to the welfare of students.

History, Hate and Hegemony: What’s a Journalist To Do? • Bonnie Brennen and Lee Wilkins, University of Missouri • This paper focuses on the distribution of a KKK flier in Columbia, Missouri, as a case study through which to explore the responsibility of journalists confronting the issue of hate speech. It draws on Antonio Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, which is contrasted with an ethically-based discussion of the societal impact of hate speech. In an effort to help journalists cover hate without furthering its ends, this paper concludes with some practical advice for journalists that is grounded in communitarian theory and the notion of journalism as a transformational activity.

The Role of Questions in TV News Coverage of the Ethics of Cloning • David A. Craig and Vladan Pantic, University of Oklahoma • This study is a qualitative analysis of how the ethics of cloning was portrayed in 36 network TV news pieces after the cloning of Dolly the sheep in 1997. It focuses on ethical questions, a prominent feature of most of the stories. All but a few questions pointed to issues of ethical duty or consequences, though often only in general terms. Responsible uses of questions are discussed, along with uses that distorted or sensationalized.

Characterizing Plagiarism: An Interdisciplinary Critical Analysis • Victoria Smith Ekstrand, University of North Carolina • This paper presents an interdisciplinary analysis of the literature on plagiarism in an effort to inform the discussion on plagiarism in journalism. It argues that characterizations of journalistic plagiarism as a recent trend work against solving the problem. It identifies three characterizations of plagiarism the behavioral, empirical and structuralist approaches – and argues that industry observers tend to see journalistic plagiarism through the behavioral lens and would benefit from a more comprehensive view.

The Fairness Factor: Exploring the Perception Gap Between Journalists and the Public • Deborah Gump, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Few moral frameworks as formed as early in life as fairness, and few are more difficult to define. While journalists focus on professional values of even-handed and dispassionate reporting as the basis of fairness, readers often include social values of compassion and respect. This paper offers a definition of fairness within the contexts of procedural and distributive justice and uses two surveys to find that journalists and the public hold different values for three of four selected elements of fairness: accuracy, balance, respect, and reporting expertise in a subject area. Journalists and the public are also found to be poor judges of how the other values the four elements.

WHAT WOULD THE EDITOR DO? A THREE-YEAR STUDY OF STUDENT- JOURNALISTS AND THE NAMING OF RAPE VICTIMS IN THE PRESS • Kim E. Karloff, California State University-Northridge • According to recent surveys, 80 percent of Americans say the news media “often invade people’s privacy,” 52 percent say they think the news media abuse the First Amendment, and 82 percent think reporters are insensitive to people’s pain. In the case of whether or not those in the press should name or not name the survivors of rape, journalism students – those who will be making these decisions in the future – have offered even more opinions, newsroom policy suggestions, and optimism. The purpose of this three-year, 140-student study was to examine how these future journalists might write/rewrite newsroom policy on naming names. Their responses include: a call to publish names, but only if the victim asks for or consents to identification; a charge to lessen the impact of the social stigma attached to the crime; and a request for the ethical treatment of rape victims and survivors.

Applying Sociological Theory to Statements on News Principles: Functionalist, Monopolist, and Public Service/Status Claims in Four Recent Journalism Ethics Codes • Susan Keith, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This paper examined four recently written or rewritten journalism ethics codes in light of functionalist, monopolist, and public service/status views of professional ethics described in the sociological literature. All three types of theoretical elements were present in the Gannett newspapers, Radio-Television News Directors Association, and Tampa Tribune codes. However, the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors code featured only monopolist elements. As predicted in Andrew Abbott’s work on professional ethics, the elements present in the codes corresponded roughly to the external pressures on the organizations that wrote them.

Impartial Spectator in the Marketplace of Ideas: The Principles of Adam Smith as an Ethical Basis for Regulation of Corporate Speech • Robert L. Kerr, The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This integrative essay offers an ethical basis justifying regulation of corporate speech, based on the neglected moral and political theories of Adam Smith. His essential tenets on free markets are applied to the First Amendment marketplace of ideas concept that has been prominent in developing corporate free-speech rights. It is argued that regulation of corporate speech cam actually enable more ideas to flourish in the political marketplace – advancing utilitarian ideals of the common good.

Privacy and the pack: Ethical considerations faced by local papers covering the JFK Jr. plane crash • Mark W. Mulcahy, University of Missouri-Columbia • Local journalists covering the deaths of John F. Kennedy Jr., Carolyn Kennedy and Lauren Bessette primarily dealt with three ethical dilemmas. The first issue was the invasion of the Kennedys’ privacy through photographs. Second, reporters had to consider privacy, accuracy and credibility in their use of unnamed sources. The third issue was how increased competition affected the journalists’ ethical decision-making. This case study examines the link between those dilemmas and local journalists’ behavior.

Leaks: How Do Codes of Ethics Address Them? • Taegyu Son, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This paper is to analyze how journalistic codes of ethics wrestle with the matter of leaks. Leaks are an important means for the government to control the media. In order to maintain their competitiveness, journalists become the government’s managerial tool, often ignoring fundamental precepts of journalism ethics – independence and the fourth estate function. Codes of ethics have been the most widely used mechanism for journalistic accountability. None of the 41 codes analyzed explicitly mentions leaks.

<< 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

Magazine Division

UNION MAGAZINES’ COVERAGE OF THE NAFTA CONTROVERSY BEFORE CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL • Eric Freedman, Michigan State University • The 1993 congressional consideration of NAFTA drew intense labor lobbying. Simultaneously, union magazines served as advocacy tools, attacking the pact and urging members to take political action. Coverage focused on job-related critiques, especially predictions of a job drain to Mexico and potentially lower wages for U.S. workers. Much less attention went to environmental and other perceived flaws of NAFTA. Language in those articles was frequently more heated, even inflammatory, than in the mainstream media.

Mirroring Mediated Images of Women: The Influence of Media Images of Thin Women on Their Eating Disorder-Related Behaviors and Body Image • J. Robyn Goodman, University of Florida • This paper used an experiment to investigate whether images of excessively thin women in the media have negative effects on women. It was hypothesized that varying amounts of thin and “plus-size” models in women’s magazines might influence body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness, and difference between perceived and actual body size. The experiment revealed a significant main effect and significant group differences for drive for thinness only. The mostly thin model group had the lowest drive for thinness followed by the all thin model group and the few thin model group.

Hot Flashes, Mood Swings, and Miracle Babies: Magazine Framing of Menopause • Stacy J.T. Hust and Julie L. Andsager, Washington State University • Women over the age of 40 are largely absent from media imagery This study examined how magazines have framed menopause over the past two decades, as an increasing number of women have entered the phase. Using two content-analysis methods, we analyzed author and source gender, topics, frames, and photographs in menopause articles in seven news and women’s magazines. Women’s magazines provided a broad range of topics, focusing on helping women prepare and cope; news magazines reported scientific developments, particularly in fertility. More frames, including more graphic descriptions of symptoms and effects, occurred in women’s magazines. Female authors included menopausal women as sources, males did not. White women were pictured as subjects in photos, but photos of menopausal women appeared in a small portion of articles. Though some findings of this study are consistent with coverage of other women’s issues, menopause appears to differ somewhat, perhaps due to stereotypes of menopause.

Getting Personal: A Framing Analysis of Microcomputers in Magazines, 1969-1981 • Jean P. Kelly, Ohio University • Using both framing and diffusion theory, this study considers at how magazines defined the characteristics of microcomputers that aided the technology’s diffusion soon after its introduction, from 1969 to 1981. Among the findings was that a once-threatening war-time technology was reframed into a “personal” medium of expression and social autonomy. Later a “computer literacy” frame prompted parents to buy computers for children. No longer were computers threatening when controlling the machine and controlling one’s life became entwined.

U.S. Magazine Coverage of Forest Conservation, 1901-1909 • Jan Knight, Ohio University • This study explores how popular magazines covered forest conservation during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency. Roosevelt appreciated forests for their aesthetic as well as economic values, but his administration – which included Gifford Pinchot, the “father of U.S. forestry” – took a solidly utilitarian approach to forest resources. This study shows that magazines largely parroted the federal line, but they also struggled with the topic, presenting forests as places where individuals could find solace as well as places where the United States could demonstrate its technological prowess. It concludes that magazines sometimes blurred the lines between the preservation and conservation philosophies that emerged before and during the Progressive era, perhaps as a result of Roosevelt’s own waffling on the topic as well as a result of the nation reflecting with shock and perhaps some sadness at the rampant use and destruction of U.S. forest resources during the 1800s.

Racial Cover-up 1996-2000: Who Is the Face on Today’s Fashion Magazine? • Lindsey Kressin, Trinity University • The covers of three popular fashion magazines were examined to determine whether strides have been made in eradicating racial stereotypes of the past. Every issue of Glamour, Cosmopolitan and Vogue from 1996 through 2000 was studied to determine the ethnicity of women depicted on the cover. Of 180 magazine covers studied, 87.5% of the covers featured one white model. Hispanics were featured on 6.6% of the covers, blacks 3.6%, and the racial identity of the model was unidentifiable 2.4% of the time. No Asians were featured on the covers studied.

The Heroic Leader and The Hapless Counselor: Were Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and William Rogers Really the Men News Magazines Reported Them to Be? • Carolyn Ringer Lepre, California State University-Chico • During Richard Nixon’s term of office, he had two very different men as his primary advisers on foreign policy. In this study, news magazine articles covering Rogers and Kissinger were examined, in an effort to determine whether an inequality of coverage may exist, what effect this has on current day perceptions of these two men, and how we can learn from the past to be critical media consumers regarding press coverage of current and future politicians.

The Visual Representation of Quantitative Data In Two U.S. News Magazines • Matthew M. Reavy, University of Scranton • This paper examines the use of graphics in two major U.S. news magazines. Two research questions, drawn from literature in the field, are addressed: 1) are graphical errors widespread in the nation’s two largest news magazines; and 2) if errors exist, do they tend to exaggerate rather than minimize differences in the data. The study found that errors were indeed pervasive in both Time and Newsweek. However, many of the errors fell into the study’s two most controversial categories. With regard to the question of whether or not magazine graphics tended to exaggerate differences, the results were mixed.

Art, Ideology and Americanization in post-war Dutch Journalism •Hans Renders, University of Groningen, Netherlands • In post-war Netherlands the aim was to restore politics in art criticism. The authoritative US publication The New Yorker functioned as a fig leaf. I intend to test whether this aim was achieved by embarking on a case study of Mandril, an opinion-shaping monthly magazine that was edited from the Netherlands between 1948 and 1953. It also projected a modern transparency in its political commentary. At the same time, however, the editors seemed to reject artistic renewal.

Reporter at Large: Morris Markey’s Literary Journalism in The New Yorker • Les Sillars, University of Texas-Austin • Although frequently mentioned in histories of The New Yorker, Morris Markey (1899-1950) has not received due credit for his work in maintaining a tradition of literary journalism in the U.S. in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Markey, who started at The New Yorker a few months after its 1925 founding, foreshadowed the New Journalism of the 1960s with his literary techniques, his tone, voice, and choice of topics.

Sixty-Four Years of Life: What did its 2,128 Covers cover? • David Sumner, Ball State University • The purpose of this research is to analyze the 2,128 cover images of Life between its first Nov. 23, 1936, issue and its last May 2000 issue to determine whether the magazine’s editors viewed its cover as a “cultural artifact” or a “marketing tool.” The cultural artifact model, which looks at magazines as a reflection of cultural demography, measures how accurately they reflect gender, racial and other social norms. The marketing tool model assumes that covers are simply a marketing decision and are chosen on the basis of what editors believe will sell the most copies. Cover content was analyzed according to type and theme of image. Seven hypotheses related to cover type and theme were tested to determine whether Life followed the cultural artifact or marketing tool model. The study concludes that Life covers reflected the marketing tool model during its early years between 1936 and 1959. After 1960, they were more likely to mirror cultural norms than before, but these results were mixed. The most surprising finding was that Life had more covers with women than men on them prior to 1960, but more covers with men on them after 1960. Covers with African-Americans on them were rare except during the 1960s.

The Very Fabric of Modern Life: Social and Political Issues in Scientific American in the 1960s • Mary Carol Zuegner, Creighton University • The publisher and editor of Scientific American ventured into social science to publish what they called socio-political articles in the 1960s because of their belief that science was “the very fabric of modern life.” Using science and the authority of science to explain non-scientific problems or to offer an analysis of a political problem with its roots in science enabled them to add credibility and scientific resonance to essential issues. An examination of each monthly issue of Scientific American in the 1960s and oral histories with publisher Gerard Piel and editor Dennis Flanagan reveal a wide scope with stories on race, poverty, LSD, war and environmental issues.

<< 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 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.

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