Archives for January 2012

History Divison

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

<< 2001 Abstracts

Cultural and Critical Studies Division

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

<< 2001 Abstracts

Communication Theory and Methodology Division

Message Credibility and Congruence in First- and Third-Person Estimations • Julie Andsager, Washington State University and H. Allen White, Murray State University • This experiment explores how message characteristics such as perceived credibility and congruence with the reader’s attitude influence third-person and first-person perceptions. One of two versions of a persuasive message on abortion rights was presented to 158 subjects, who estimated the effect on their attitudes, most people’s and pro-choice and pro-life others. Message congruence did not directly affect attitudes, but related to credibility, which had a positive first-person effect. Social distance did not relate to estimations.

A Comparison of Target Publics’ and Expert Coders’ Perceptions of Alcoholic Beverage Advertising: A Receiver-Oriented Content Analysis • Erica Weintrub Austin, Petra Guerra, Stacey Hust, Amber Caral-Reaume Miller, and Bruce Pinkleton, Washington State University • Media scholars often warn against inferring effects by examining media content, because meaning exists within the receiver rather than in the message itself. Only to the extent receivers and experts perceive messages similarly can exposure-based studies assert that effects are attributable to particular content analyzed separately by experts. Accordingly, this study examined the extent to which traditional content analysis performed by trained experts concurred with the meaning in messages as reported by typical recipients of those messages. Results from a traditional content analysis of 73 print alcohol ads using two sets of expert coders were compared with results from a receiver-oriented content analysis, which used members of the target public as coders. College students (n =520) comprised the target public for the analysis of a random sample of 40 ads. Z scores indicated that receivers and coders largely agreed on manifest content but disagreed frequently – often dramatically – on latent content. More sensitive t -tests indicated significant differences existed on every content characteristic evaluated.

Media Literacy: A Review and Critical Assessment of its Diverse Literature • Stefne Lenzmeier Broz, Ohio State University • This paper attempts to unify the varied research in media literacy in order to make sense of this growing yet fragmentary movement and to organize the widely varied literature by the focus, objectives, and depth of the initiative. A critical assessment of the literature, theoretical links, and application to health messages are provided and will point to opportunities and challenges that can be met through healthy skepticism and a healthy dose of theory.

Counteracting the Biasing Effect of Unrepresentative Exemplification on News Readers’ Issue Perception • Hao-Chieh Chang, Chinese University of Hong Kong • Use of unrepresentative exemplification has been shown to mislead news recipients’ perceptions of majority/minority position featured in the base-rate information. This study examined the effects of vivid presentation and causal information in counteracting the biasing influence of unrepresentative exemplification. Results showed that 1) the vivid presentation of base-rate information increased recall of such information., 2) the presence of causal information increased the utilization of base rate information, 3) the observed effects sustained both in the issue of high relevance and low relevance to news readers.

Applying the Health Belief Model to Promote Healthy Lifestyles via Television in Poland • Fiona Chew, Syracuse University, Sushma Palmer, Center for Communications, Health and the Environment, Zofia Slonska, National Institute of Cardiology and Kalyani Subbiah, Syracuse • This study applied the framework of the health belief model (HBM) to examine the impact of a preventive health TV program series on health knowledge and behavior. Using data from a post-test control field experiment with 151 viewers and 146 nonviewers in Poland, hierarchical regression analysis showed stronger support for the HBM factors of efficacy, susceptibility, seriousness and salience in their contribution towards health behavior among TV viewers compared to nonviewers. Cues to action variables (including TV viewing) and health knowledge boosted efficacy among viewers. Without the advantage of receiving health information from the TV series, nonviewers relied on their basic disease fears on one hand, and interest in good health on the other to take steps towards becoming healthier. A preventive health TV series can increase health knowledge and enhance health beliefs which in turn contribute to healthy lifestyles.

A Communication “Mr. Fit?” Living with No Significant Difference • Fiona Chew, Syracuse University, Sushma Palmer, Center for Communications, Health and the Environment, and Kalyani Subbiah, Syracuse • This methodological report addresses internal validity problems including contamination and randomization. It profiles an empirical study and examines the methodological soundness of decisions made. Focusing on the science of research is as important as focusing on the theoretical constructs guiding research.

Racial Cues and Political Ideology: An Examination of Associative Priming • David Domke, University of Washington • This research theorizes that the presence or absence in political conversation of racial cues – that is, references by elites and news media to images commonly understood as tied to particular racial or ethnic groups – may substantially influence whether citizens’ racial cognitions contribute to their political judgments. In particular, such symbolic cues in discourse may activate an important linkage between an individual’s racial perceptions and political ideology, which some scholars suggest have become closely intertwined in the U.S. political environment. With this in mind, an experiment was conducted in which the news discourse about crime was systematically altered – as including racial cues or not – within controlled political information environments to examine how individuals process, interpret, and use issue information in forming political judgments. The findings suggest that racial cues not only “trigger” the association between racial perceptions and political ideology, but in turn may prompt individuals to become more ideologically distinct in their political evaluations.

The primes of our times?: An examination of the “power” of visual images • David Domke, David Perlmutter and Meg Spratt, University of Washington • Claims by political and news elites about the influence of visual images are far more common than actual evidence of such effects. This research attempts to gain insight into the “power” of visual images, specifically those that accompany lexical-verbal messages in the press. We argue that the widely held notion that vivid images often drive public opinion is overly simplistic; in contrast, we posit that images most often interact with individuals’ existing understandings of the world to shape information processing and judgments. With this in mind, we conducted an experiment in which news coverage was systematically altered – as including a famous photograph widely attributed great influence, or not – within otherwise constant information environments. Findings suggest that visual news images (a) influence people’s information processing in ways that can be understood only by taking into account individuals’ predispositions and values, and (b) at the same appear to have a particular ability to “trigger” considerations that spread through one’s mental framework to other evaluations.

Back To The Qualitative Drawing Board: Uses and Gratifications, Rap Music, and African American Teenagers • Tim Edwards, University of Arkansas • This study examined the uses and gratifications of rap music among African American teenagers using qualitative data. Results suggest that some African American teenagers listen to rap music for the beat as well as the lyrics. Teenagers involved in this study feel that rap artists speak directly to them, providing morality tales which can be useful in their (teenagers) own lives.

Ventriloquist or Dummy? A Model of How Sources Set the Investigative Agenda • Mark Feldstein, University of North Carolina • This conceptual paper proposes a new model of how sources set the investigative agenda. While the relationship between sources and beat reporters has been studied before, little work has been done about investigative reporters, who are ostensibly independent agenda-setters. However, the author’s “Dummy Model” posits that muckrakers are in fact often captives of their sources, deliberately concealing their hidden agendas from the public. This model suggests that investigative reporters may not really be an independent check on societal wrongdoing.

Emotional Television Viewing and Minority Perceptions of Television News: How Mexican Americans Process and Evaluate Television News about Mexican Americans • Yuki Fujioka, Georgia State University • This experiment examined the effects of emotional TV viewing on minority viewers processing and evaluation of TV news stories. Fifty-one Mexican American subjects viewed 12 emotional television news stories featuring Mexican Americans. They completed a cued recall test and evaluated recalled news stories. The study found a main effect of arousal, but not of valence, on viewers’ attention and memory. Negative messages were evaluated more negatively when they were arousing than when they were non-arousing.

INVOLVEMENT AND SELECTIVE ATTENTION TO POLITICAL NEWS • Joseph Graf and Sean Aday, George Washington University • Selective attention is a key concept in communication research despite equivocal supporting evidence. This paper advances selective attention research by (1) introducing unobtrusive measures of attention to on-line content, (2) finding consistent support for the selective attention hypothesis using these measures, and (3) finding support for the hypothesized interaction between involvement and selective attention. This hypothesis proposes that selective attention will increase as a subject’s involvement in an issue increases.

GLOBAL TRIADIZATION: A theoretical framework for global communication research • Shelton A. Gunaratne, Minnesota State University • A macro theory that recognizes the world’s three competing center-clusters and their respective hinterlands offers a realistic framework for global communication research. This study has used recent data on world trade, computers, Internet hosts and high-tech exports to map the triadization of the world in the Information Age. The original dependency theory and world-system theory perspectives emphasized the hierarchical linking of national societies to the capitalist world-economy in a center-periphery structure. The proposed global-triadization formulation looks at the center-periphery structure in terms of a capitalist world-economy dominated by three competing center economic clusters, each of which has a dependent hinterland comprising peripheral economic clusters. These clusters may not necessarily be geographically contiguous. Strong-weak relationships may exist within each center-cluster, as well as within each periphery-cluster, with one center-cluster occupying a hegemonic role. The rudimentary Information-Society Power Index, constructed for this study, can guide the researcher to test an abundance of hypotheses on the pattern of global communication and information flow with particular attention to source, message, channel, and receiver.

Presidential Agenda Setting: The Weekly Radio Addresses and Foreign Policy • Beverly Horvit, Winthrop University • This paper examines how presidents influence the media agenda with weekly radio addresses and if their ability is enhanced when discussing foreign policy or when the nation faces a military crisis. The radio addresses by Presidents Reagan and Clinton, as well as coverage in the New York Times, were examined for 1983 and 1993. Reagan was more successful than Clinton at attracting news coverage, and neither used the radio addresses to discuss a military crisis.

Cyber House Rules: A Path Model Examining How Convenience and Reliance on the Web Predict Online Credibility • Thomas Johnson, University of Southern Illinois, and Barbara Kaye, Valdosta State University • This study surveyed politically interested Web users online during the 2000 campaign to examine whether they view Internet sources as credible and whether reliance on the Web, reliance on traditional sources, Web, convenience, political and demographic variables predict credibility of online media. A greater percentage of respondents judged online media credible in 2000 than in the 1996 presidential campaign. Reliance on traditional media proved the best predictor of online credibility followed by political trust and convenience.

Interpersonal Discussion as a Moderator of News Framing Effects on Political Issue Interpretation • Heejo Keum, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Although numerous studies have examined the effects of news frames on the individuals’ interpretation of political issues, there has been no work looking at the role of interpersonal discussion in framing effects. Using an experimental manipulation, this study analyzes the interpersonal discussion as a moderator of news framing effects. The findings indicate that framing effects on issue interpretation are stronger among individuals having low level of interpersonal discussion than among people with high level of discussion.

THINK ABOUT IT THIS WAY: The attribute agenda-setting function of the press and the public’s evaluation of a local issue • Sei-Hill Kim, Dietram Scheufule, and James Shanahan, Cornell University • This study tested attribute agenda-setting function of the media, an extended version of agenda-setting hypothesis, which hypothesizes correspondence between the prominent issue attributes in the media and the agenda of attributes among audience members. Our opinion survey on a local issue, combined with content analysis of a local newspaper, revealed that mass media, by covering certain aspects of an issue prominently, can influence how salient these aspects are among audience members. We also found an important outcome of attribute agenda-setting, attribute priming effects. Our data analyses indicated that the issue attributes salient in the media were functioning significant dimensions of issue evaluation among audience members. We conclude that the media, by emphasizing certain attributes of an issue, tell us “how to think about” the issue as well as “what to think about.” We also discuss several conceptual and operational considerations for the attribute agenda-setting hypothesis.

Use of Online News Sites: Development of Habit and Automatic Procedural Processing • Maria Len-Rios and Clyde Bentley, University of Missouri • The “newspaper habit” is a U.S. cultural symbol, yet researchers of online media use are not sure how habits will develop and function online. This paper presents a theoretical perspective to examine habit and offers data from two surveys. Findings suggest that habit for online news may be more difficult to foster because habit appears less time-bound online, thus lessening the context stability for habit development.

The Learned Helplessness Effect of In effective Recommendation in Threat Messages • Yulian Li, University of Minnesota • no abstract

Political Advertising and The “Transaction Process” Model of Campaign Agenda Setting in The 2000 New York Senatorial Election • Joon-Soo Lim, University of Florida • no abstract

Online Use Activity and User Gratification-Expectations • Carolyn Lin, Cleveland State University • As a hybrid communication medium, the Internet optimizes communication channel functions in addition to serving as a rudimentary interactive encyclopedia of information content. The present study explores the relations between online access patterns for the most widely utilized online search categories and their use gratification-expectations. Data from a probability sample of Internet users suggests that entertainment, surveillance and habituality are the three most expected gratifications for online use. Few differences in usage patterns between novice and more experienced users were found.

Building a Health Promotion Agenda in Local Newspapers: Community Structural Pluralism and News about Breast Cancer • Beverly Martinson and Douglas Blanks Hindman, North Dakota State University • This study is an analysis of a four year, National Cancer Institute-funded study devoted to promoting mammography screening in a Northern Great Plains state. This study describes the agenda building techniques used by local volunteer health organizations that were part of the campaign. Findings show that community volunteers were more effective in obtaining coverage in smaller, less structurally pluralistic communities and in communities with weekly newspapers.

Mental Maps of Fear and Connectedness to the Communication Infrastructure: The Case of Son Los Angeles • Sorin Matei, Sandra Ball-Rokeach, and Jack Linchuan Qui, University of Southern California • Using Geographic information systems techniques fear of urban space is studied as an effect of people’s connections to their residential area “communication infrastructure.” Spatial-statistical analyses reveal that fear perceptions of Los Angeles urban space are associated with presence of non-White and non-Asian minorities. Respondents more strongly connected both to television and interpersonal communication channels are relatively more fearful of minorities than those who are less strongly connected to them.

Reflecting and connecting: Testing a Communication Mediation Model of Civic Participation • Jack M. McLeod, Jessica Zubric, Heejo Keum, Sameer Deshpande, Jaeho Cho, Susan E Stein, and Mark Heather, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This study tests a Communication Mediation model of civic participation that specifies the influence of three communication variables: informational use (newspapers, television news, Internet search), discussion of local issues, and the reflective integration (reflecting) as an information processing strategy. Evidence is from a probability sample telephone survey of 357 adults in a local community. All three communication processes mediate the effects of demographic and social-psychological variables on three forms of civic participation. Media effects on civic participation are mainly indirect through their influence on factual knowledge, cognitive complexity (connecting), and beliefs that average citizens can and should make a difference in acting on the local urban growth issue.

Latency to Respond to an Internet Survey as a Predictor of Bias Toward Socially Desirable Outcomes in Political Attitude and Behavior, and Media Use Questions • John Newhagen, University of Maryland • This study compares outcomes of survey questions with socially desirable outcomes to latency to respond data. The efficacy of the latency measure is examined by categorizing respondents’ answers to the question “Did you vote in the last presidential election?” Three categories were created, based on the idea that it takes more cognitive ~ and therefore more time, to lie than it does to tell the truth. They are “real voters,” “liars,” and those who said they did not vote. Results show that “real voters” had the highest political self efficacy, followed by “liars,” and those who said they did not vote. “Liars” reported using about the same amount of news media than “real voters” or those who said they did not vote, but took longer to do so. This suggests they may be over reporting media use. Latency, used as a measure of mental effort, also is compared to questions used in social desirability scales intended to lead respondents to answers that “fake good” outcomes. Those data show those misreporting their behavior on the voting question may also took longer to answer the social desirability questions, even though they might not have been lured into the “fake good” response. Overall the latency data bring self report to a full range of political attitude and behavior, and other questions with pro-social outcomes into question. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for political polling, where sample stratification to identify “likely voters” based on demographic information may only tangentially address the issue of respondent veracity. It further looks at the implications of the possibility that -a significant number of respondents may systematically over report certain kinds of media use and political participation.

MEYROWITZ, MCLUHAN, MEDIUM THEORY AND ME: Why medium theory needs to be taught alongside techniques for new communication technologies • Ronda Oosterhoff, Calvin College • At the 2000 ICA convention, a panel discussed nominees for a communications canon. Fully one-third of these were examples of medium theory, yet the only living author of the three medium theorists listed argues that this branch of thought is misunderstood and under-addressed (1996). This paper includes a brief overview of medium theory and its key theorists and an analysis of a month-long focus on medium theory in a communications class at a midwestern college. The paper concludes incorporates survey results into recommendations for teaching medium theory in the college classroom.

Effects of Negative Political Decision-Making • Bruce Pinkleton, Nam-Hyun Um, and Erica Weintraub Austin • A total of 236 students participated in an experiment testing the effects of positive, negative and negative-comparative political advertising on key variables in the political decision-making process. Results showed that the more negative the advertising stimuli, the less useful participants found the ads. In addition, the more negative the stimuli, the more negativity participants reported toward political campaigns and the less efficacy they reported toward political participation. Comparative advertising stimuli, however, produced lower levels of cynicism, particularly when compared to negative advertising, which produced higher levels of cynicism. No effects on apathy were found. In terms of candidate evaluations and voting intention, the targeted candidate’s evaluations and voting intentions fell in response to the sponsor’s use of negative advertising. In the most negative advertising condition, the sponsor’s evaluations and voting intentions also fell, revealing a backlash effect. The findings suggest that negative advertising influences citizens’ candidate evaluations and voting intentions. While such advertising is perceived as negative and contributes to citizens’ disgust with campaigns, however, this strategy does not automatically increase citizens’ cynicism or apathy.

Educational, Entertaining, Integral or Irrelevant? Toward a Deeper Understanding of Mediated Environmental Communication • Wendy Worrall Redal and Joseph G. Champ, University of Colorado-Boulder • no abstract

FAITH-BASED INITIATIVE? Religion, Mass Media, and Political Participation in America • Dietam Scheufele, Matthew Nisbet, Eunjung Lee, Dominique Broossard, and Mark Chong, Cornell University • Recently, there has been a renewed focus on religious institutions and networks as important catalysts for political participation. All of these approaches share the assumption that religious networks promote among their members the essential components of political participation: motivation, recruitment, and ability. Using survey data from the 2000 National Election Survey, we examine the processes that link religious and secular networks, mass and interpersonal communication, and various indicators of democratic citizenship, including political participation. Our results show that the role of religious networks is limited, compared to more secular networks, which provide an ideal setting for citizens to gain and exchange information, increase feelings of efficacy, and most importantly engage in various forms of participation.

The Interplay of News Frames and Elite Cues: Conditional Influences on the Activation of Mental Models • Dhavan Shah, Jessica Zubric, Heejo Keum, Cory Armstrong, Michael Boyle, and Lauren Guggenheim, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Although numerous studies have examined the attitudinal and behavioral effects of news frames (i.e., organizing devices used to construct press accounts), little research has considered the possible interplay of such frames with elite cues (i.e., labels and terms used to identify issue domains and policy debates). Further, relatively few studies have examined framing and cueing effects on cognitive network variables such as common-sense mental models or lay theories regarding social phenomena. Using a 2X2 experimental manipulation concerning urban growth embedded within a broader survey, this study tested the interactive effects of news frames and elite cues on the activation of mental models concerning this issue. To do so, the experiment framed the problem of urban growth at the individual and the societal level and alternately embedded the cues of “urban sprawl” and “suburban development” in the news stories, all the while keeping other substantive features of a radio report constant. The findings indicate that frames and cues do interact to activate more or less complex cognitive models, with combination of individual frame/sprawl cue and societal frame/development cue generating the most complex lay theories about urban growth. Possible implications on learning and political behavior are given, as well as directions for future research.

Interactivity and Media Power: Will Online Delivery Erode the Gatekeeping and Agenda Setting Functions? • Dan Shaver, Michigan State University • Online news delivery differs from traditional delivery Systems in several significant ways, including the degree of audience/producer interactivity. This paper proposes a taxonomy for quantifying audience involvement within an individual medium. It then examines the impact of online delivery and interactivity on medium content compared to traditional newspaper products. It concludes that online audience influence appears likely to reduce the information worker’s degree of independent control over content, eroding the basis for social control.

U.S. and South Korean Television News Coverage of North Korea: Before and After the 2000 Korean Summit Meeting • Ju Yong Ha and Byong Ryul Shin, University of Southern Illinois • no abstract

The Role of Advertising in the Formation of Ideal Drinking Scenarios Among Underage Youth • Leslie B. Snyder and Mark A. Hamilton, University of Connecticut • no abstract

HOW INDIVIDUALS EXPLAIN SOCIAL PROBLEMS: THE INFLUENCES OF MEDIA USE • Mira Sotirovic, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign • This study examines the role of media use in individuals’ explanations of crime and welfare. Attribution theory and the information processing approach to media effects provide a theoretical framework for this research. Media effects on explanations of social problems are enhanced by individuals’ patterns of information processing. The study also shows that individualistic explanations of crime and welfare are related to support for the death penalty and to opposition toward welfare programs.

Titillation, Frustration, or just plain Orientation? Teasing out the “Tease Effect” of Slow Downloading • Shyam Sundar, Sriram Kalyanaraman, Penn State University, and Carson Wagner, University of Colorado • Prior research has shown that the slow-downloading version of a sexual image is more physiological arousing than the fast-loading version of the same image. It is not clear however whether this is due to titillation, frustration, or orienting response. This paper explores these three theoretical mechanisms for explaining the so-called “Tease effect” with two experimental studies. Results suggest that content arousability is critically important in inferring effects of download speed upon arousal and excitation transfer.

Innovativeness and Perceptions of Faculty innovation Champions on the Diffusion of World Wide Web Course Features • Patrick J. Sutherland, Bethany College and Ohio University • This study examined perceptions of faculty and administrators involved in courses with Web features diffusing at journalism and mass communication programs. This research considered the role of the innovation, champion and whether they found interpersonal communication to be most effective in explaining features to others. Innovativeness characteristics of administrators and faculty were measured. Two national surveys were conducted. Innovation champions scored higher on innovativeness and intrapersonal communication was most effective in explaining Web course features.

IMPLICIT ATTITUDES AND ANTI-DRUG PSAs: AUTOMATIC PROCESSES AND UNREASONED ACTION • Carson B Wagner, University of Colorado-Boulder • Historically, anti-drug PSA research has focused on explicit drug-related attitudes, but dual process models suggest that automatically-activated implicit attitudes may be more important for predicting behavior. Two within-participants experiments were run to test the relative ability of PSAs to change explicit (N = 13) and implicit (N = 26) attitudes. Results suggest anti-drug ads are better at changing explicit attitudes and implicit attitudes are harder to change than theory suggests. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications are discussed.

How does political commentary shape perceptions of political candidates? A quasi-experimental investigation of the 2000 Vice-Presidential Debate • Fang Wan and Patrick Meirick, University of Minnesota • no abstract

Going Negative on the Internet: How Presidential Candidates Used the World Wide Web During The 2000 Presidential Campaign • Robert Wicks, Souley Buobacar, and Kayla Johnson, University of Arkansas • This study examines the issues and topics that dominated the 2000 presidential campaign on Internet homepages of George W. Bush and Al Gore. It also investigated the extent to which the two major party candidates used negativity as strategy to strengthen their position and to weaken support for the opposing candidate. The content analysis of the presidential web sites performed reveals that much like contemporary political television advertising, web sites were rife with attacks on one’s opponent. Nearly three quarters of the information posted was negative in nature. About one quarter of the messages posed focused on education and social security.

“You’re No Jack Kennedy!” The Influence of Post-Debate Commentary on Candidate Evaluations • Jennifer Williams and Christina Fiebich, University of Minnesota • This paper presents the results of a natural experiment conducted during a vice-presidential debate that occurred during the 2000 Election Campaign. It examines the effect of post-debate commentary on the criteria that subjects use when evaluating candidates. Subjects were assigned to one of four conditions, “debate only,” “debate-plus CBS commentary,” “debate-plus ABC commentary” and “debate-plus NBC commentary.” After watching the debate, subjects completed a questionnaire which contained both close-ended and open-ended responses. This particular paper presents the results of an analysis conducted on the open-ended responses. The findings demonstrate that while post-debate commentaries influenced the criteria subjects used in their evaluations of the candidates at the categorical level (e.g., issue, trait or performance), they did not influence the specific issue, trait and performance dimensions (e.g., abortion, charisma, articulate). Additionally, although the findings regarding framing effects were only partially supported, the results provide important insight into the weight that subjects assigned to each category when comparing the two vice-presidential nominees.

Acculturation, Cultivation, and Daytime TV Talk Shows • Hyung-Jin Woo and Joseph R. Dominick, University of Georgia • This study is to explore how acculturation and cultivation effects of daytime TV talk shows affect international students’ attitudes and perceptions toward human relationships among primary groups in the U.S. Because daytime TV talk shows overrepresent vulgar, somewhat bizarre, and deviant behaviors about everyday life, heavy exposure to these shows may affect international students in distorted way. Furthermore, depending on different acculturation level with host society of international students, negative stereotypes toward American and American society of international students may be pronounced. The results of this study indicate that lack of information (language & experience) with host country should result in media orientations different from those who are more acculturated into the host society and should, in turn, affect cultivation in a unique manner.

Reassessing the Impact of Recession News: A Time-Series Analysis of Economic Communication in Japan, 1988-1999 • H. Denis Wu, Louisiana State University, Michael McCraken, University of Missouri, and Shinichi Saito, Tokyo Women’s Christian University • This study investigated three critical variables in economic communication the state of the economy, recession coverage, and consumer confidence. These time-series were found to be cointegrated with one another during the time period. The economic condition that affected how the three variables interacted in the last U.S. recession did not generate a similar effect on the Japanese counterpart. The newspapers’ coverage of recession in Japan followed the economy and the public’s sentiment at different lags. The Japanese’s confidence level was influenced by the economic indicator but not by the recession coverage regardless of the economic condition. The study also discovered no substantial media effect and discussed several factors that might have contributed to the phenomenon.

Teens as the Vulnerable Surfers: The Third-Person Perception and Commercial Web Sites Censorship • Seounmi Youn, North Dakota, Fan Wang and Ron Faber, University of Minnesota • The third-person perception states that when confronted with negatively perceived message, people tend to overestimate the message’s effect on others compared to one’s-self. It is also suggested that this perceptual bias motivate people to take action against such message. To explore this possible relationship, this study examined the perceived effects on self and others •other adults and teenagers • for commercial web sites. The results found the perceptual disparity between the estimated impacts on self and others for commercial web sites and further demonstrated that this third-person perception explains pro-censorship attitudes toward these web sites, even after controlling for potential confounding variables.

<< 2001 Abstracts

Communication Technology and Policy Division

Bring in the Outs: Toward Inclusivity in Democracy • Debashis “Deb” Akat • no abstract.

Visual Disabilities & Web Access • Julie Bellamy, Tina Ejtemai-Chapa, Aneta Genova, Bita Kianimanesh, Suria Santana, Ioana Suciu and Wendy Wirth, The American University • Until the late 1980s, computers were almost as easy for disabled people to use as for the nondisabled. The advent of the mouse made computer use more difficult for the blind because they could not see the icons necessary to operate point and click software. This paper examines the laws regulating Web accessibility for the visually-impaired, assesses the accessibility of eighteen federal agency Web sites, and evaluates several software programs designed to improve accessibility.

Breaking Up News•An Investment in the Future? Correlations among hypertext comfort, user satisfaction and perceived credibility • Stephanie Berger, University of Florida • no abstract

The Profiling of Cable Modem Broadband Subscribers: Characteristics, Perceptions, and Satisfaction Korean College Students’ Internet Use and Dependency • Sylvia Chan-Olmsted and Jack C.C. Li, University of Florida • no abstract

Investigating Korean College StudentsÕ Internet Use Patterns and Motivations, and Exploring Vulnerability of Internet Dependency • Yong Jun Choi, University of Southern Mississippi, Mary G. “Jorji” Jarzabrk, Louisiana State University-Shreveport, Jong-Gil Song, Korean Broadcasting Institute, and Do-Sam La, Seoul Development Institute • This in-depth study examines the patterns of and motivations for Internet use by Korean college students. The research focus is to determine tendencies toward and pattern indicators of Internet dependence. Data reveal that college students’ motivations for using the Internet may lead to dependence on this medium for social interaction. Students may be at risk for spending too much time ‘logging on” to the web. Excessive use is cited as a precursor to Internet addiction.

CYBERNEWSERS, DESERTERS AND INCLUDERS: An Analysis of Internet News Users and the Effect on Traditional News Media Use • Mike Conway, University of Texas-Austin • no abstract

PREDICTING ONLINE SHOPPING BEHAVIOR • Michael G. Elasmar, Kumiko Aoki and Kathryn Bennett, Boston University • This article explores the demographic, attitudinal, and behavioral factors that affect an Internet user’s decision to make an online purchase. Years of Internet experience, influence of friends on shopping behavior, comfort with the security of online transactions, the perception that online shopping is less expensive than traditional shopping, and the perception that shopping online would be enjoyable positively affected their intention to shop online in the future.

The Pros and Cons of Using a Media Web Site to Publish Subpoenaed Information • Anthony Fargo, University of Rhode Island • no abstract

Enhanced Television Viewing with Digital Video Recorders (DVRs): Audience Satisfaction in an Asynchronous Television Environment • Douglas Ferguson, College of Charleston and Elizabeth M. Perse, University of Delaware • This paper explores how early adopters of DVRs are using them as functional. replacements for VCRs and as tools for enhanced viewing of live television. A national sample of 121 users completed an online survey that measured TV uses and gratifications, viewing satisfaction, and attitudes toward DVR functions. DVR owners reported watching television, live and recorded, with more enjoyment and greater control. All but one of the DVR functions was linked to a measure of viewing satisfaction.

Improving Student Writing Using A Web-Based Targeted Approach to Grammar System (TAGS) • Bruce Henderson, University of Colorado-Boulder • A Targeted Approach to Grammar System (TAGS) that highlights only the 20 most common grammar problems may be more effective than bulky, integrated word processor grammar checkers for improving student writing. The author creates initial pieces of such a Web-based computer program and compares student newspaper writing with and without the use of the program. Using TAGS, errors for the targeted grammar problems declined instantly and, in two full editions of the student newspaper, were eliminated.

Power of Perception: The Effect of Course Evaluations Perceptions on Traditional and Non-Traditional Student’s Performance in a Distance Education Course • Traci Irani, Christi Scherler, Michael Harrington, and Ricky Telg • University of Florida • Distance education has made great strides toward enfranchising non-traditional learners These non-traditional students are innately different, in terms of experiences, background and life circumstances, than traditional-aged students, yet many distance classes increasingly include both on- and off-campus students. Few studies have looked at how these differences affect course perceptions and performance. Results of a study of a videoconferencing course indicated that student perceptions of the level of social interaction, as well as of the instructional techniques used, differed between on- and off-campus students, and that these perceptions significantly affected their performance.

Beyond the “digital divide”: Internet Connectedness and Inequality • Joo-Young Jung, Jack Linchuan Qiu and Yong-Chan Kim • University of Southern California • This manuscript presents the Internet Connectedness Index (ICI), a measure for monitoring long4erm inequalities in the quality of Internet connections among users, especially in terms of whether Internet connections will enhance the chances of people’s upward mobility. This index is preferable to more established digital divide measures (e.g., gadgetry ownership or time online) for research on how the Internet is being incorporated into a world of structural inequalities. The ICI utilizes conventional time, history, and context measures, but goes beyond them to capture the scope and centrality of Internet incorporation into the everyday lives of diverse social groups. The validity and robustness of ICI vis-a-vis conventional ownership and time online measures are demonstrated in this manuscript. In. addition, we discuss theoretical, methodological and policy implications based on our results. The analytical data are drawn from the Communication Technology and Community Program’s “Metamorphosis” Project, an inquiry into the communication infrastructures of seven ethnically-marked residential areas in Los Angeles.

Technology or Tradition: Exploring Relative Persuasive Appeals of Animation, Endorser Credibility, and Argument Strength in Web Advertising • Sriram Kalyanaraman and Mary Beth Oliver, Penn State University • Recent developments indicate that with the novelty effect of the Web wearing off, user-interfaces need to incorporate traditional message elements along with technological variables. This paper explores the relative persuasive appeals of animation, endorser credibility, and argument strength in online advertisements by employing a completely balanced, mixed-design experiment. Findings suggest that technological elements must be presented in conjunction with more traditional variables. The results are discussed within the framework of the Heuristic Systematic Model.

A White World of the Information Economy: A Content Analysis of Dot.com Magazine Advertising • Tomoko Kanayama, Ohio University • This study examines the representation of people in dot-com magazine advertising A content analysis of 671 dot-corn advertisements shows that minorities are considerably underrepresented in the dot-corn advertisements. The study found that the digital divide is far larger in dot-corn advertisements than in the actual U.S. economy. The results of the study imply that the marketing strategy of dot-coms is reinforcing a popular view of who is an information economy user, worker; and customer.

Applications of the Theory of Planned Behavior • Jae-Won Kang, University of Florida • no abstract

The Factors and Barriers of Global Internet Diffusion • Hocheon Kwon, State University of New York-Buffalo • no abstract

Communication in Virtual Community • Jae-Shin Lee, Cornell University • Although research has been conducted on the characteristics of virtual communities, empirical studies examining actual building process of virtual communities are rare. This paper examines theoretical requirements of virtual communities and applies them to an existing online service. Social network analysis was conducted using messages posted to electronic bulletin boards. This paper concludes that a small topic-based CMC group in a BBS service could be classified as a virtual community.

Internet Use and Political Efficacy • Kwan Min Lee, Stanford University • This study examines the relationship between three types of Internet use (information, entertainment, and interactive contacts) and two types of political efficacy (external and internal) among college students. Information related Internet use and interactive contacts with public sector agencies predict college students’ internal political efficacy. An unexpected finding was that visiting public agency sites negatively influenced college students’ external political efficacy. This implies that the quality of current public sites (e.g., government sites) is below the expectation of college students and that respondents who visited those sites might develop political cynicism or perceive government non-responsiveness to their needs. Finally, this study reveals that online news sites are the primary news source for college students.

Can Police Track Your Wireless Calls? Call Location Information and Privacy Law • Laurie Thomas Lee, University of Nebraska-Lincoln • By October 1, 2001, cellular service providers in the U.S. must begin providing location-based information that can pinpoint the location of a wireless phone making a 911 emergency call. Call location information will certainly prove invaluable to law enforcement, not only in assisting citizens calling 911, but also in tracking drug dealers and locating stolen vehicles and escaped felons. But just as Americans have come to enjoy the freedom of movement associated with cell phones, they may find their own phones have effectively become ankle bracelets. While location tracking capabilities offer considerable public safety protections, the information available also presents greater opportunities for unsupervised government monitoring and misuse. As law enforcement agencies take advantage of this efficient investigative opportunity, Americans will realize less personal privacy, tilting the delicate constitutional balance between liberty and law enforcement. To what extent is call location privacy protected? Is there a constitutional right to location privacy? Do existing statutory laws limit government access and protect callers from unrestrained law enforcement monitoring? This paper discusses the technology associated with call location information and the FCC’s e91 1 requirements for location disclosures. It then examines the state of the existing law by first exploring call location privacy rights under the U.S. Constitution. Existing statutory law is then scrutinized for its applicability to call location privacy interests and the extent to which law enforcement may monitor and seize location call data. Finally, legislative solutions are offered, clarifying and bolstering call location privacy rights.

Interactive Cable Television Services and their Adopters: Examining the Factors Influencing the Adoption of Interactive Cable Television Services in Taiwan • Shu-Chu Sarrina Li, National Chiao Tung University • The main purpose of the study was to examine the factors that influence the adoption of interactive cable television services in Taiwan. The literature review identified five factors, innovation attributes, technology ownership, innovativeness, demographic composition, and mass media use, as having significant effects on the adoption of interactive cable television services. A telephone survey with 1012 valid interviews was used to collect data for this study. Data analysis shows that age, relative advantages, technology ownership, and newspaper reading were significantly related with the adoption of interactive cable television services. More detailed findings were discussed in the paper.

CONVERGENCE: ITS MEANING AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TELECOMMUNICATIONS REGULATION • Sanghyun Moon, Ohio State University,• The popular view of convergence that underscores its technological elements and subsequent market adjustment tends to decontextualize convergence as a political, economic, and social phenomenon. Moreover, this view tends implicitly to serve the interests of the powerful groups by suggesting a particular course of technological, market, and policy development. This paper argues that convergence needs to be understood in a broader context wherein various political, economic, social, and technological factors overdetermine a course of policy development at a particular time.

Old Radio/New Radio: Convergence and Missed Opportunities: In the Wake of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 • Randy Nichols and Alan G. Stavitsky, University of Oregon • Shifts in regulatory policy brought by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 have drastically altered the U.S radio industry. This paper examines structural changes in the industry in the wake of the 1996 act, as well as the industry’s adoption • and failure to adopt, in many cases •new digital technologies Prospects for audio streaming over the Internet and satellite broadcasting direct to home or car are considered.

INVESTIGATING DIALOGIC COMMUNICATION: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF TOP CHINESE CORPORATE WEB PAGES • Shu Peng, University of Louisiana-Lafayette • no abstract

Untangling the Ties that Bind: Non-Recursive Models of Internet Use and Engagement in Public Life • Dhavan Shah, Michael Schmierbach, Joshua Hawkins, Rodolfo Espino, Janet Donovan, and Soo-Wan Chung, University of Wisconsin-Madison • There has been more speculation than research on the implications of Internet use for social interaction and civic engagement. Although some have extended arguments about television to suggest that Internet use may erode involvement in social civic life, a growing body of literature indicates that informational uses of the Internet, the most common Internet behaviors (Nie & Erbring, 2000), may actually foster social and civic participation. To examine this possibility, we test a series of non-recursive models using the 1999 Life Style Study, a national survey of nearly 3400 respondents conducted by DDB-Chicago. We use this data to examine the effect of frequency of Internet use (i.e., hours per day) on three sets of social behaviors: informal social interaction, attendance at public events, and participation in civic volunteerism (i.e., annual frequency). Specifically, two stage least square regressions were performed to simultaneously test the reciprocal relationship between Internet-use and public engagement variables. Using these approach, we are able to ascertain the strength and direction of the ties between Internet use and social interaction absent the biases endemic to extant research on this topic. Results indicate that frequency of Internet use has a positive relationship with both public attendance and civic volunteerism.

Role of Teacher Attitudes and Perceptions Toward Computers in the Implementation of an Educational Innovation in Trinidad and Tobago • Prahalad Sooknanan, University of New York-Potsdam, Srinivas R. Melkote and Ewart C. Skinner, Bowling Green State University • Communication technologies have been lauded for their development potentials. New communication technologies, such as computers, are particularly beneficial to several development initiatives including education. In an attempt to ascertain the feasibility of successfully implementing computers in the classroom in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), this study examined the relationship between the independent variables of teachers’ attitudes toward computers and perceived innovation characteristics and the dependent variables of teacher satisfaction and utilization. Based on previous research, 10 hypotheses were formulated to examine the relationship between the variables. A self-administered questionnaire was administered to a convenience sample of 142 elementary school teachers. The results underscored the importance of attitudinal and perceptual factors to the successful implementation of computers in the classroom. Specifically, the findings have policy-making implications regarding the government’s campaign to implement educational computing throughout the educational system in T&T.

Diffusion of Courses with World Wide Web Features: Perceptions of Journalism and Mass Communications Program Administrators • Patrick J. Sutherland, Ohio University • no abstract

Communicating about Mass Communication: A National Study of the Content, Functionality and Value of University Mass Communication Program World Web Sites • Douglas J. Swanson, University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse • The study was undertaken to assess college and university mass communication program World Wide Web site content, functionality, and value, and to gauge faculty members’ opinions related to Web site creation and maintenance. Descriptive statistics, analysis of variance and t-tests were used to address three hypotheses relating to Web site use by academic programs and related perceptions of social order by faculty. Most programs had an operational Web site. Site enhancements varied widely while most faculty members’ opinions were thematically consistent.

Interactivity as a Cognitive Process • Mark Tremayne and Sharon Dunwoody, University of Wisconsin • no abstract

The Effects of Interactivity on Web Campaigning in Taiwan’s 2000 Presidential Election •Tai-Li Wang, Shih-Hsin University • Taiwan’s 2000 presidential election is a milestone for the Internet to be a campaign medium in a nation-wide election. By conducting field experiments during the campaign period, this study intended to find out the effects of web interactivity on campaign communication. It is assumed that, by adding human-to-online media or human-to-human interaction, the more interactive campaign websites will generate more campaigning effects. Results showed that the interactive level of a candidate website might not linearly contribute to positive web campaigning effects. In some cases, moderate interactivity may produce better effects than higher interactivity. In other cases, it may be voters’ political interest in election campaigns that predominantly determine online campaigning effects.

The Policy Debate over Exclusive Cable Television Franchising in Light of Citizen and Consumer Welfare: Compare Monopolistic with Competitive Cable Television Markets in Taipei, Taiwan • Ting-Yu Tiffany Wang, Yuan-Ze University • Whether arguing for municipal exclusive franchise or multiple franchises, prior research either limited its attention to economic efficiency or assumed the fulfillment of social values coming in the wake of consumer welfare. To overcome this “analytic asymmetry”, our research is a modest first attempt to examine both citizen and consumer welfare effects of exclusive versus multiple systems. We conducted a cross-sectional random-digit-dialing telephone survey of subscribers in Baytow (one operator) and Chungsan (three operators) cable communities in Taipei, Taiwan during the last two weeks of December, 1999. Consistent with previous research findings, greater consumer welfare in terms of service quality was found to be perceived by subscribers in the triopoly cable television community than those in the monopoly community. Significant perceived differences in several dimensions of media content quality were found between monopoly and triopoly. That is, greater diversity of channel types and lower prices were perceived by subscribers in the competitive market. In addition to availability of programming options and services based on cable systems data, the ratios – the prices in comparison with consumer perception of and satisfaction at content and service quality after exposure – can serve as empirical foundation for cable rate regulation. As expected, no significant difference in citizen welfare was found between monopoly and triopoly. The policy implications were explored.

DIGITAL DIFFERENCES: ATTITUDES AMONG MAJOR CAMPUS TAKEHOLDERS ON TECHNOLOGY IMPLEMENTATION – AN EMPIRICAL STUDY • Hilary Warren, Denison University and Nerissa Nelson, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point • Incorporating communication technology in higher education has fostered increased investment and training in addition to debate over appropriate curricular use. This debate over the use and implementation has occurred not only in the field of mass communication, but across disciplines. This study looks at four campus stakeholders: students, faculty, administrators and the information technology staff at a regional midwestern campus. The results suggest that a key challenge is a long-running debate over the role of higher education in a diverse economy and society.

Heuristics in Guessing and Remembering URLs: Implications for Effective URL Design • Jeffrey S. Wilkinson and Vivian Sheer, Hong Kong Baptist University • It is important for companies to understand how people find Web sites. Advertising, search engines, and guessing (mental heuristics) are the most common means. This exploratory study focused on identifying common guessing strategies that people use to find Web sites. A survey questionnaire was distributed to adult professionals in Hong Kong. Results confirmed some generalizations about this common behavior. Actual company Web sites are discussed within the context of existing policies regarding URL registration and selection.

The Third-Person Effect and Internet Censorship: A Comparative Study in Singapore and the United States • Wei Wu, National University of Singapore; Shuhua Shou, University of Alabama and Jancie Koo, Singapore Telecommunicaitons Limited • no abstract.

<< 2001 Abstracts

Advertising Division

RESEARCH
Click Here to Personalize a Friend of Barbie Doll: Metaphors and Promotional Appeals in Online Advertisements for Children • Debashis Aikat, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Based on theories related to metaphors in advertisements, cognitive comprehension by children, promotional appeals, and presentation techniques, the research for this study comprised a content analysis of 1,063 online banner advertisements with reference to use of metaphors, promotional appeals, promotional content and selling techniques. This paper argues that the impact and content of the Internet as a new advertising medium are distinctly different from traditional characteristics of television and print.

How Ads Work: Identifying Psychological Mechanisms that Make Emotional and Rational Appeals Successful • Cynthia M. Frisby, University of Missouri • An experiment was conducted to determine if two personality variables might be used to describe and explain individual differences in attraction to advertising appeals. Data collected in the study suggests that people concerned with creating and/or maintaining a particular image like advertising copy that focuses on image and physical appearance. Conversely, data revealed that people driven by inner values, attitudes, and feelings, prefer advertisements that provide information about a product’s quality.

Selling the Estate: An Analysis of Advertising Slogans for News Organizations • Salma I. Ghanem and Jacqueline S. Nirenberg, University of Texas-Pan American • This study explores the use of slogans in promoting news. It not only provides benchmark data from which to track changes in the use of slogans, but also a snapshot of the current state of slogans in the news business. News organizations scored low on brand identification, use of literary techniques, and hard-sell messages. While there was frequent use of precise messages, there was also a surprisingly high incidence of superlatives.

Effectiveness of Humorous versus Non-Humorous Commercials in Happy versus San Program Environments • Manish Gupta, Ginger Park, Christie Vanover and Lori Bergen, Kansas State University • A 2 x 2 factorial experiment was conducted to examine effects of mood congruency and mood intensity on effectiveness of humorous and non-humorous commercials in happy and sad program environments using dependent variables of recall, likeability and purchase intent. Humorous commercials performed better than non-humorous commercials in recall and attitude toward the ad. Non-humorous commercials performed better on attitude toward the brand and purchase intent.

The Impact of Cultural Distance and Linguistic Difference on Standardization of Global Corporate Communications through the World Wide Web: A Content Analysis of the US Global Brands’ International Web Pages • Kyoo-Hoon Han and Glen T. Cameron, University of Missouri-Columbia • This study attempts to examine how cultural distance and linguistic difference are associated with global brands’ corporate communications for foreign markets through their international Web pages. A total of 25 US global brands were sampled and their US and international Web pages for the selected four countries • the UK, France, Hong Kong, and South Korea • were analyzed. The results indicate that greater cultural distance between the countries leads to more differences in information cues and structural features between the US global brands’ US Web page and the respective international Web pages.

Wait! Why is it not Moving? Attractive and Distractive Ocular Responses to Web Ads • Nokon Heo, S. Shyam Sundar and Smita Chaturvedi, Penn State University • Participants (N = 46) in a 2x2x2 within-participants factorial experiment manipulating animation (animated, static), position (top, bottom), and product-involvement (high, low) of banner ads were exposed to eight online news pages. Their ocular responses (i.e., horizontal and vertical eye movements) were measures during their browsing. Results indicate that static ads and top ads tend to distract from news reading, and it takes a high-involvement product to attract visual attention toward animated and bottom ads.

Online Newspapers: A Content Analysis of Ad Formats and Rates • Joe Bob Hester, Texas Tech University • A content analysis of online rate information for the newspaper Web sites associated with the Top 50 largest U.S. Newspapers revealed that these sites offer few advertising options. On average, CPM impressions advertising rates for full banners range widely and are more expensive than on other sites; however, steep discounts are available. The findings suggest that as an industry, online newspapers have failed to agree on the value of their product.

Applying Expectancy-Value Theory to the Consumer’s Search for a Restaurant • E. Dennis Hinde, South Dakota State University • This paper compares the role of paid advertising for restaurants and that of informal, word-of-mouth communications on the same subject. It is a test of expectancy-value theory. Expectancy is defined as consumer beliefs about various media choices. Value is the worth a person attaches to the outcome of the search for a product. The instrument for this research was a telephone survey of 199 restaurant patrons.

Characteristics of Shoppers: Television; Catalog/Direct Mail/Department Store; Internet Shoppers • Mira Lee, University of Minnesota • The ability of marketers and advertisers to develop successful marketing and advertising strategies depends on an understanding of shoppers’ characteristics. In this paper, we discussed differences of demographic, psychological, motivational, attitudinal, and behavioral characteristics between shoppers and non-shoppers of three different types: television, catalog/direct mail/department store, and Internet shopper. The results indicated that each type of shopper has some unique characteristics, as well as similar characteristics across all three types of shoppers.

The Engine’s in the Front, But its Heart’s in the Same Place: A Study of the Use of Nostalgia in Advertising • Oren Meyers, University of Pennsylvania • Through the incorporation of critical studies of advertising and collective memory theory the paper suggests that advertising refers to the past through the construction of commodities as “memory sites.” The study then probes this assumption by focusing on three advertising campaigns that link consumers to their existing or invented shared pasts. Finally the study relates its findings to the current emphasis of American advertisers and marketers on targeting and segmenting strategies.

Influence of Film Critic Quotations in Motion Picture Advertising on Audience Attitudes • Michael A. Mitrook and Trenton C. Seltzer, University of Central Florida • In this study the value of film critic quotations is being questioned. Respondents were shown print advertisements for a hypothetical film in which two variables were manipulated: credibility of the critics (high, low, or mixed), and valence of the original raw quotations (positive or negative) from which the quotes were excised. Results show participants in the mixed critic credibility condition assessed attendance likelihood and purchase intention significantly higher than participants in the low critic credibility condition.

The Role Of Advertisements and Performance or Learning Goals In Product Selection Decisions • Catherine Ilse Pfeifer, University of Kansas and Jacqueline Hitchon, University of Wisconsin Madison • This is the first study to examine the effects of goal-oriented media messages on the selection of products by consumers and to apply psychological goal theory to mass communication. This experiment crossed learning or performance goals with the subjects’ perceived task abilities. They then viewed ads and selected a product (relationship seminar) with either a performance, learning, or humiliation-avoidance goal. Results mostly showed that subjects made their selections in alignment with the previously observed goal.

Seniors’ Perceptions Of Seniors In Magazine Advertisements: A Q Analysis • Tom Robinson, Southern Methodist University, Mark Popovich, Robert Gustafson, and Cliff Fraser, Ball State University • These days the “credo in advertising is that 1849 rules” (Taylor, 1995, p.40). This market segment is attractive to marketers because it represents a large number of individuals who are making changes, trying new products, and spending their money. Mike Neavill, director of corporate advertising for AT&T explains: Advertisers identity a target audience they believe serve as the best prospect for the products or services they have to sell.

Effects of Issue Ads on Candidate Evaluation and Voting Preference: Does Sponsorship Matter? • Fuyuan Shen, Pennsylvania State University and H. Denis Wu, Louisiana State University • This empirical study assessed the effects of attack and advocacy issue ads on candidate evaluations and voting preference in a hypothetical two-way, state senate race. It also examined the effects of sponsorship of ads on candidate evaluations and voting preferences. Subjects were exposed to either attack or advocacy print ads sponsored by either candidates or PACs/interest groups. Results indicated that while attack ads have significant effects on candidate evaluation and voting preference, advocacy political ads do not generate significant impact on subjects.

Advertising Gets Entertaining: A Case Study of Soap Advertisements in The 1930s • Juliann Sivulka, University of South Carolina • This case study analyzes soap advertisements during the 1930s. To create copy and illustrations that would appeal to American audience, admakers tried to more closely associate entertainment value with the product to gain attention. Admakers developed new ads forms that incorporated emotive appeals and such formulaic elements as dramatic photographs, motion picture themes, the comics, as well as daytime soap operas. The success of advertising lay in its ability to entertain, as well as inform and persuade.

Taking It Outside In Kansas: Effects Of An Integrated Communications Health Campaign And Its Echo • Esther Thorson and Doyle Yoon, University of Missouri • Take It Outside (TIO) is a multimedia integrated communications campaign designed and evaluated from the point of view of a specific theoretical stance. The topic of the campaign is second hand or environmental tobacco smoke. The goals of the campaign were to increase the number of people who report understanding the harmful effects of second hand smoke, and to reduce the number of smokers who smoke around others, particularly children.

The Role Of Aad As Mediator In The Effects Of Child And Adult Voiceovers In A Children’s Health Campaign • Esther Thorson and Doyle Yoon, University of Missouri • Attempts were made in this study to examine the effect of child voiceover on adults’ beliefs and behavioral changes, and mediating effects of Aad the dependent variables in a children’s health campaign. Results show that both child and adult voiceovers have an impact on Aad beliefs. In addition, child voiceovers have an impact on interpersonal communication, and adult voiceovers affect behaviors. However, Aad mediated those impacts. Implication of this result is discussed.

Do Free Offers Really Work: A College Student’s Experimental Survey Study • Alex Wang, University of Texas at Austin • This study examined the strength of the relationship between the willingness to accept the free offers online and the average involvement regarding three product categories: entertainment, clothing and healthcare. The findings suggested respondents would not accept free offers in the high-involvement product categories, while they would accept free offers in the low-involvement product categories. Implications for advertisers and the direction of future research were also presented.

An Exploratory Study: The Information Content of Deceptive Infomercials • Jan LeBlanc Wicks and Ron Warren, University of Arkansas • The information content of nine infomercials (or 16.98% of the 53 infomercials) that were identified as deceptive by the Federal Trade Commission is compared to non-deceptive infomercials studied in previous research using the Resnik and Stern (1977) approach. The deceptive infomercials averaged 7.66 information cues while the non-deceptive infomercials averaged 5.8 cues (Tom 1995/1996; Elliott & Lockard 1996). Deceptive infomercials appear more likely to present misleading product safety information and research results in order to make a sale.

Optimal Aad-Ab-PI Measures in the Journal of Advertising: 1991 through 2000 • ChongMoo Woo, University of Florida • The first objective of this study is to assess the items, scales, source, authors, reliability, and frequency of single-item scales and multi-item scales involving Aad-Ab-PI measures in the 1990s journal of advertising. The second objective is to use the aggregated Aad-Ab-PI measures to investigate the robustness of a mediation hypothesis and to assess the strength of specific paths in the model.

SPECIAL TOPICS
Advertising and the consumer movement of the 1960s and 70s • Sue Westcott Alessandri, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and Mary Alice Shaver, Michigan State University • no abstract

Processing Ads in a Competitive Context • Chingching Chang, National Chengchi University • This study documents the interference from the ads of competing brands in the viewing context on evaluations of target ads/brands. It also shows that for the target brand promoting a relatively unique attribute is more effective than promoting a shared attribute. It further explains that consumers cope with persuasive messages by making attributions. These attributional thoughts not only affect their ad evaluations, but also impact brand evaluations via influence on ad liking and ad persuasiveness.

Actions Not Words: What The Handling Of Cross-Border Advertising Disputes Tells Us About The Interests Shaping Advertising In The European Union • Anne Cunningham, Louisiana State University • Working within the critical paradigm, this study seeks to identity the ideology supported by officials most involved in shaping European advertising self-regulation. As Europe moves toward unification, the advertising industry and its regulators have been charged with devising a system to handle international disputes. There can be little doubt that conflicts do and will continue to arise in the international transmission of advertising; but these are only surface-level conflicts.

Changing Direction: Assessing Student Thoughts and Feelings About a New Program in Strategic Communication • Cynthia M. Frisby, Bryan H. Reber, and Glen T. Cameron, Missouri School of Journalism • A number of recent studies have examined integration of advertising and public relations but none reports what students think. Over three semesters students in an Introduction to Strategic Communication course were asked to assess an integrated public relations and advertising curriculum. Students supported integration and viewed a focus on new technology, having a toolkit of integrated communication methods, and understanding the basics of relationship building as paramount.

Making the Invisible Visible Through Media Literacy: The Pinesol Lady and the Ghost of Aunt Jemima • Lorraine Fuller, University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff • Although many of the negative and stereotypical portrayals of Blacks in advertising have faded into oblivion, some still find their way into television commercials. These portrayals are of concern because they can have an impact on others’ social construction of reality about blacks. For years, the “happy mammy” symbol was used to market Aunt Jemima pancakes. The image came to an end in 1989 when the Quaker Oats company gave Aunt Jemima a new more modern look.

“Others” in the Era of Multiculturalism: An Examination of Interweaving Portrayals of Gender, Race, and Age in TV Commercials • Jongbae Hong, University of Southern Illinois-Carbondale • This study interrogated the ways in which complex gender, race and age relations are depicted in TV commercials. By examining the systematic ways that advertising depicts complex and interdependent relations between gender, race and age, this study attempted to find the ways by which TV commercials marginalize cultural “others” such as women, minorities, and the aged. The findings of this study showed that the relations between gender and race are heavily influenced by age, and that Euro-centric perspective prevails in advertising industry.

Re-inventing ‘Tricky Dick’: The selling of Richard M. Nixon in 1968 • Melissa McElroy, University of Alabama • In his race for the American presidency in 1968, Richard Nixon became one of the first presidential candidates to put together a group of people solely charged with changing his public image through the medium of television. This paper analyzes four of Nixon’s television commercials from that race using concepts related to the “star system” and to the idea of repositioning the candidate in the minds of the American public.

Advertisers Got Game: Examining Effectiveness of Product Placements in New Media • Michelle R. Nelson, University of Wisconsin-Madison • no abstract

A Semiotic Exegesis Of World Wide Web Advertising: The Search For A Contextual Understanding Of Digital Design • William Pritchard, Elizabethtown College • Via a semiotic reading of 100 Web advertisements, this study composes a culturally astute understanding of on-line advertising. Web advertisements are analyzed within, and against, the larger cultures of digital and traditional representation. Findings point to the inherent limitations of on-line design in comparison to traditional print design, and present the workings of a new culture of advertising defined by a universal equity among large and small advertisers and a palatable straying from traditional professional advertising codes.

Balance Theory and Advertising: A History, Review and Critical Perspective • Don Umphrey, University of Texas-Austin • Heider’s Balance Theory continues to have relevancy for advertising researchers today, even though has been more than 50 years since it was first introduced. This paper traces the roots of the theory and distinguishes it from other cognitive consistency theories. Further, the paper demonstrates correct and incorrect uses of the theory in advertising and in communication theory with advertising implications. Finally, recommendations are made as to how the theory might be used to probe advertising-related issues in the future.

TEACHING
Preparing the entry-level advertising portfolio: Pointing creative students in the right direction • Sheri Broyles, University of North Texas • A national survey of educators in advertising creative classes focused on what makes a good portfolio in terms of concept and presentation. The questions asked academics mirrored those asked of a national survey of creative directors in Slayden, Broyles, and Kendrick (1998). Results showed that academics and creative directors generally agreed on content and approaches, although academics were more likely to accept logos for copywriters and radio/TV for art directors than were professionals.

Rating Creativity: A Comparison of Judgments of Advertising Professionals and Educators • Alisa White Coleman, University of Texas -Arlington, Bruce L. Smith, Southwest Texas State University and Fuyuan Shen University of South Dakota • Advertising educators prepare students for jobs in the advertising industry. This paper examined one aspect of the industry-creativity-to determine the extent to which educators and agency professionals agree in judging creativity. Educators with a lot of industry experience gave much lower ratings than did professionals or less experienced educators. Educators and professionals tended to agree on the appropriateness of the ads and how well crafted they were.

Educators and Practitioners Look at the Advertising Curriculum • Alan D. Fletcher, Louisiana State University • In 1988 AEJMC established a Task Force on the Future of Journalism and Mass Communication Education. The Advertising Division’s contribution to the project was a survey of advertising educators and advertising practitioners, to measure the degree to which educators and practitioners agreed on the components of a strong advertising curriculum. The current study is a replication of the 1988 study. The study, which employed samples of Advertising Division members and corporate members of the American Advertising Federation, produced results that are very similar to the results of the earlier study.

An Analysis of Attitudes Toward Statistics: Gender Differences Among Advertising Majors • Jami A. Fullerton, Oklahoma State University and Don Umphrey, Southern Methodist University • This study measured advertising students’ attitudes toward statistics. 275 Undergraduate advertising students from two southwestern U.S universities completed a questionnaire used to gauge students’ attitudes toward statistics by measuring six underlying factors: (1) Students’ interest and future applicability; (2) relationship and impact of the instructor; (3) attitude toward statistical tools; (4) self-confidence; (5) parental influence; and (6) initiative and extra effort in learning statistics. Overall findings revealed that advertising students have a negative attitude toward statistics and the introductory statistics.

What’s the Big Idea? Using Socratic Seminars in Advertising Courses • Sandy King and Fritz Cropp, University of Missouri • Advertising students often have difficulty learning to identity, understand and apply creative concepts, or the “big idea.” Analyzing and discussing ads can help, provided the discussion extends beyond reactions and opinions. The Socratic seminar format can be applied in advertising creative concepts to provide a framework for making discussions more productive. This format not only helps students build a more meaningful discussion, it also develops critical thinking and speaking skills particularly valuable to advertising students.

STUDENTS
Effects of Web Site and Advertiser Credibility on Consumer Evaluation of Banner Ad, Brand, and Purchase Intent • Sejung Marins Choi, Michigan State University • The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of consumers’ credibility perceptions of a Web site and of an advertiser on their evaluations of the banner ad and the advertised brand and purchase intention. The impact of relevance or a match between the advertised product category and the content of the Web site was also examined. The results suggest a structural model with significant relationships among relevance, Web site credibility, advertiser credibility, and ad/brand-related concepts.

A Typology of Online Positioning Strategies Among Creative Programs • W. Glenn Griffin, University of Texas-Austin • Among the schools that train advertising creatives, competition for students is fierce. A handful of programs, both trade and academic, supply the industry with the top job candidates every year. Internet technology offers creative programs a new method for positioning themselves among competitors and for student recruitment. This paper proposes a typology of the strategies employed by creative programs taking advantage of the technology. Four distinct strategies are identified in the Online Positioning Strategy Model.

Emotional vs. Cognitive Purchase-Decision Involvement: Comparison of Brand Name and Product-Feature Decisions • Jooyoung Kim, University of Florida • Purchase-decision involvement has been thought to be an important concept in understanding consumers’ involvement in purchasing decisions. In addition, consumers have been viewed as having both cognitive and emotional involvements. To date however, there has been relatively little research that combines the purchase-decision and emotional/cognitive involvement. In this current research, a revised purchase-decision involvement scale was developed to measure both the cognitive and emotional involvement in selected situations involving product features and brand names.

Perceived Risk and Risk Relievers in Online Auctions • Hanjun Ko, University of Florida • This study examines the perceived risk of consumers about online auctions and to determine the preferences for different levels of risk reductions methods when purchasing a product at online auctions. Results show that the perceived risk is higher for those who have not used online auctions than online auction users because they perceived a higher level of risk in terms of financial, time, and psychological risks.

Consequences of Commercial Web Presence: An Exploratory Study of Korean Business Adopters of Web Sites • Jung-Gyo Lee and Jae-Jin Park, University of Missouri-Columbia • A key research issue to the present study is to explore how marketers who have already presented on the Web perceive the World Wide Web as a marketing communications tool. The research focus is on examining what organizational benefits are recognized and how such benefits are associated with organizational features, attitudes toward the Web presence and overall satisfaction with the Web presence.

Internet Communication Benefits and Marketing Competitiveness: An Exploratory Analysis of Senior U.S. Advertising Executives’ Perceptions • Padmini Patwardhan and Hemant Patwardhan, University of Southern Illinois-Carbondale • Using an email survey, this study empirically examined current perceptions of Internet capabilities for marketing and marketing communications among 145 senior advertising agency executives in the Unites States. Generally, opinions about the benefits of Internet use in marketing were highly positive. Factor analysis revealed six specific Internet benefit dimensions: Cost/Time Efficiency, Customer Orientation, Customer Interactivity, Promotional Use, Personal Contact Replacement, and a more general benefit • Overall Value of Internet in Marketing.

An Empirical Examination of the Factors Affecting Attitude Toward the Site • Chan Yun Yoo, University of Texas-Austin • The purpose of this study was to empirically examine the factors affecting attitude toward the site, and to explore the relative importance of those factors. The study employed a within-group experimental design using an online survey. Four different predictor variables (i.e., product involvement, Internet skill, users’ interactivity with the site, and attitude toward the front page) have been tested in relation to attitude toward the site.

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