Archives for January 2012

Qualitative Studies Division

Scratching the Surface: The New York Times Coverage of the Mothers of Plaza De Mayo, 1977-1997 • Carolina Acosta-Alzuru, University of Georgia • Scholars have looked at the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo from a historical, political, feminist and rhetorical perspective. But how have the media presented the Mothers? Through textual analysis, this paper examines The New York Times coverage of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo from 1977 until today exploring how the Mothers have been constructed in this major U.S. newspaper. This construction is consistent with previous research in the area of news coverage of women. It is superficial and tends to simplify and trivialize the Mothers and the issues involved, presenting them as either victims or demons while demeaning their importance as interlocutors of reality.

Al-Amiriya, February 13,1991 Ñ Broadcasting Standards of Violence in a Time of War • Geri M. Alumit, Michigan • British television news stations used graphic video during its coverage of the Al-Amiriya bombings in Baghdad, Iraq on February 13, 1991. This study uses oral histories, video archive footage and document research to recreate the news coverage on that day and to analyze why the level of violence depicted on TV did not insult Britain’s viewing audience.

Undercover Reporting, Hidden Cameras and the Ethical Decision-Making Process: A Refinement • James L. Aucoin, University of South Alabama • The controversy over the ABC-Food Lion undercover reporting case among media practitioners and the public emphasizes that the issue of whether such reporting is ethical remains unresolved. This paper argues that the ethical decision-making model suggested by many media ethicists and used by many journalists is flawed in that it is based on the assumption that undercover reporting and hidden cameras are primarily information gathering tools, when in fact they are better positioned as story-telling techniques. Once undercover reporting is repositioned in this way, the Principle of Generic Consistency as outlined by moral philosopher Alan Gewirth is adapted to offer a higher standard for deciding when to use hidden cameras and other deceptive reporting techniques. Gewirth’s principle offers a rational justification for arguing that in certain instances Ñ when public freedom and/or well-being is in danger Ñ deceptive reporting techniques are not unethical if reporters have gathered enough evidence that the target of the investigation has indeed violated a moral law.

The Construction of Social Space in an Alternative Radio Text: Resistant Praxis and Hegemonic Rhetoric at KUNM-FM, Albuquerque • Warren Bareiss, Shorter College • This paper is part of a larger ethnographic study that I have conducted on KUNM FM, a noncommercial radio station in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The fundamental issue of the overall study is how an imagined community is constructed through discourse occurring at the station. This paper examines a specific KUNM program to illustrate how discursive patterns not only construct New Mexican communal space, but also privilege an a priori social hierarchy which is contradictory to organizational principles of KUNM and other alternative media.

Between Critical Layers: Lessons From Theories Within Histories of Communication Study • Ralph J. Beliveau, University of Iowa • Histories of the communication study as it evolved since the 1950s often explain the field through biographies and flow charts of influence, but they rarely justify such an explanation. This critique of three other histories examines them for their justifications, and uses them to critically reflect on the field’s communication about itself, particularly on the uses of theory, the (dis)unity of an intellectual ground, and the relationship between communication and learning.

Polity and Identity: Scotland’s Struggle for Cultural Independence and the Lesson of Quebec • Douglas Bicket, University of Washington • This paper comparatively examines the positions of the arts and mass media in Scotland and Quebec. It argues that, in spite of marginally increased funding for domestic cultural industries in recent years, Scotland’s separate cultural identity remains under threat in the absence of an independent, or at least substantially autonomous, Scottish polity. The example of Quebec shows that strong political and cultural institutions are needed to preserve small cultures under threat from hegemonizing external forces.

American Myth, Literary Journalism and The Last Cowboy’s Henry Blanton • Susan Blue, University of St. Thomas • Commentary on American Western myth emerges from Jane Kramer’s The Last Cowboy. This paper traces landscape and language in this piece of literary journalism, examining the myth’s roots in early American rhetoric. This cultural exploration also reveals pertinent gender tensions. In revisiting the cowboy myth and its formation, it is possible to isolate the changes in Western myth that Kramer shows, and to explore the myth’s contemporary ramifications.

After the Second Wave: Toward an Interpretation of the American Feminist Antipornography Movement • Carolyn, Bronstein, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This paper analyzes how the first American feminist antipornography organization, Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media (WAVPM), constructed a discourse about pornography in the mid-1970s. I trace historical links between antipornography and nineteenth century social purity campaigns, and try to show how these campaigns reflected the political, social and cultural circumstances of their organizers. In the case of antipornography, I argue that the movement’s basic ideas about sex and sexuality grew out of the second wave critique of male sexual violence, disillusionment with the «sexual revolution» and the emergence of political lesbianism. I offer a thematic analysis of the WAVPM newsletter, NewsPage, published monthly from 1977 to 1983, and conclude that the organization’s campaign against pornography ultimately mirrored social purity by restricting the definition of acceptable female sexual behavior.

Newsrooms Under Siege: Crime Coverage, Public Policy and the Louisiana Pizza Kitchen Murders • Christopher P. Campbell • This paper is a textual analysis of coverage by The Times-Picayune and WWL-TV (New Orleans’ CBS affiliate) that followed the murder of three employees of a French Quarter restaurant. It views the coverage as a microcosm of a news process that provides shallow interpretations of events and leads to ineffective public policy. It argues that the news media’s interpretation of events routinely strips them of significant historical, social, cultural and political implications.

Reflections on the Project of (American) Cultural Studies • James W. Carey, Columbia University • This essay reviews and evaluates cultural studies as program of qualitative research in communications. It provides one rendition of cultural studies from an American perspective and explores the relationship between this work and its philosophical presuppositions and the parallel work in England, particularly at the Center for the Study of Contemporary Culture. It also examines some of the tensions between cultural studies and political economy and tries to provide an ethical/political justification for one particular outlook within this broad arena of scholarship.

Context and the Developed World: Newspaper Coverage of Crisis in Scotland and Belgium • Christian Christensen, University of Texas • This study is a qualitative analysis of 34 New York Times articles on massacres in both Scotland and Belgium in 1996. The study examines coverage of these developed countries within the context of previous academic works on the inadequacies of coverage from developing (Third World) nations. The results of the study, examined with issues of proximity in mind, indicate that the NYT provided contextualized and highly developed stories from the two nations.

Ready, Aiming, and Firing Blanks: The Office of Civilian Defense Targets African-Americans During World War II • Caryl Cooper, University of Alabama • By the time the United States entered World War II, public relations was well on its way to becoming an integral part of government relations with the public. This case study examines how the Office of Civilian Defense executed those elements deemed necessary for a successful campaign. This study also examines how race, discrimination and public opinion impacted the government’s attempts to communicate with a special public during a time of national crisis.

Organizational Rhetoric as Performance Art: A Dramatistic Study of Corporate Communication, Public Relations and Fund Raising • Margaret Duffy, Austin Peay State University • In a case study of the public relations, fund-raising, and organizational communication of a not-for-profit organization, this article uses symbolic convergence theory, an approach rarely deployed in examining these activities. The study examines internal and external communication processes as social constructions of reality and argues that the dramas and stories through which organizational members make sense of their organizational world are manifested in the communicative products and processes of the collectivity.

On the Relevance of Standpoint Epistemology to the Practice of Journalism: The Case for Strong Objectivity • Meenaksi Gigi Durham, University of Texas at Austin • This paper interrogates traditional notions of «objectivity» and its interpretation in conventional news reporting. I argue here that the underlying principles of objectivity devolve in practice to an epistemic relativism that fails to consider the validity of various truth claims. I propose an alternative of «strong objectivity» grounded in standpoint theory. I trace the arguments against scientific objectivity that parallel critiques of journalistic objectivity, then propose an alternative conception of praxis that could fulfill the liberatory goals of journalism.

Heroes, Villains and Twice-Told Tales: The Normative Effect of Journalism’s Worklore • Frank E. Fee Jr. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Organizational communication theory, rhetorical theory, and popular culture theory provide a new framework for examining occupational lore’s power to create and maintain work cultures in news organizations. Folk heroes and antiheroes model behaviors salient to journalists’ views of their work processes and operating assumptions. The professional culture of journalists, reflected in heroes and villains, and the local newsroom culture, where the stories are told, in turn reveal tensions and problems in the practice.

Decontextualization of Hirohito: Historical Memory Loss in Docudrama Hiroshima • Koji Fuse, University of Texas at Austin • This paper is a discourse analysis of Showtime miniseries «Hiroshima,» aired in August 1995, to explore how Hirohito was depicted to suit the dominant ideology in line with the traditional conservative historical account of him as a robotic pacifist in contrast with aggressive Japanese military. The revisionist view of Hirohito, however, presents a very different picture of his prewar political power, aggressiveness, and disrespect of non-Japanese Asians, which were totally ignored in «Hiroshima.»

He Never Had a Chance: The U.S. Media’s Portrayal of Ross Perot’s Exclusion from the 1996 Debates • Eileen Gilligan, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This paper examines how Ross Perot, his party, and his campaign were portrayed in the U.S. media, especially during his fight to gain entry to the 1996 presidential candidates debate. Using a sample of approximately 120 media news stories and qualitative analysis, this paper explores the media’s use of routine practices, marginalizing devices, and their focus on individuals as hegemonic methods for supporting the two-party electoral system or the status quo.

Public Journalism and the Search for Democratic Ideals • Theodore L. Glasser, Stephanie Craft, Stanford University • Public journalism’s commitment to promoting and improving the quality of public life raises interesting and important questions about what this arguably new role for the press entails and what view of democracy it implies. This paper focuses on three areas where public journalism’s conception of the press and the press’s interest in self-governance appear to be most problematic. It concludes with a brief assessment of the prospects for a public purpose for a private press.

Anti-Drinking and Driving PSAs: Do They Have Any Meaning to Underage College Students? • Alyse R. Gotthoffer, University of Florida • This study qualitatively examines underage college students’ drinking behaviors and what meanings, if any, anti-drinking and driving public service announcements (PSAs) have to them. Results suggest many implications for PSA designers, including localization of PSAs, and the use of consequences more relevant to college students, such as being charged with a DUI.

Money Talks: The Television Promotional Text as Ideological Expression • Joseph Harry, Michigan State University • A rhetorical and political-economic analysis of 34 television promotional spots representing 18 different Fall primetime programs on the three major commercial broadcast networks shows how each promo is framed to project a certain storyline pertaining, to varying degrees, either to the nature of the upcoming program or to the nature of the network itself. The promo rhetoric reflects the political-economic interests of the network, thus each promo can be read as a form of ideological expression.

When the Numbers Don’t Add Up: The Framing of Proposition 187 Coverage in the Los Angeles Times • Peter Hart, Rutgers University • This paper examines coverage of California’s Proposition 187 ( 1994) in the Los Angeles Times by means of both the administrative and the critical research paradigms. In the end, the critical research methodology appears to be more thorough and intellectually satisfying, as it both offers and answers substantial questions concerning the Times coverage. The paper addresses the competing research methodologies in regard to both Proposition 187 and in a more general context.

Narrative Literary Journalism’s Historic and Gratuitous Resistance to Critical Closure • John Hartsock, Marist College • This paper examines how rhetorical concrete detail assures that narrative literary journalism will resist coming to critical closure. Even in the instance when they serve symbolic purposes their phenomenalist status will resist wholesale reification. Such tropes could be characterized as «subversively gratuitous.» But in particular, it is «flagrantly gratuitous» details that most forcefully resist critical closure, begging instead with unfulfilled meaning. The writings of Ernest Hemingway, Tom Wolfe, Edmund Wilson, and Erskine Caldwell are examined.

Oprah’s Book Club Radical Reading and Talk Show Literature • Ann Haugland, Middle Tennessee State University • Oprah Winfrey’s on-air book club has been a phenomenal success. Using transcripts, news articles about the club and theories of popular culture the paper identifies the ways that the book club challenges some established assumptions about books and reading in contemporary culture. The success of the club provides further evidence that the high/popular distinctions based on class or status of the consumers of culture or on the characteristics of the work are inadequate and seriously limit our understanding of the possibilities for books and reading. Oprah’s book club is remarkable because it suggests an alternative discourse about serious books and alternative uses for them.

Analysis of Physician Assisted Suicide in the New York Times From 1991-1996 • Robert K. Kalwinsky, University of Iowa • This research paper represents a first step toward contextualizing the study of Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) within the framework of mass communications. An impassioned topic among certain groups, the incidence of PAS is apparently more prevalent than one would suspect. Save for accounts of Jack Kevorkian’s activities and a few contested cases, the media were initially silent in this regard. After defining terms and detailing relevant background material, a research proposal is set forth that utilizes textual analysis to trace the threads of developing accounts. Specifically, coverage of PAS in the New York Times over the past six years is analyzed to glean organizing principles that create cultural meanings for the practice.

Reading Presidential Candidate: A Semiotic Analysis of Televised Political Advertising in Korea • Soobum Lee, University of Oklahoma • This study examines and interprets the combined structure and content of televised political advertisements during the 1992 Presidential election in Korea, using the semiotics method. Semiotics is the study of underlying mechanisms by which signs convey meaning. Such studies can be applied to the case of televised political advertisements. As a result of this analysis, Kim Daejung emphasized change, while Kim Youngsam emphasized gradual reform with ordinary people. Consequently, Kim Youngsam received wide support from the voters, who preferred gradual reform to abrupt change. In conclusion, Kim Youngsam’s advertising represents a more commodificated image of the middle class. This type of advertising thus indicates that a successful presidential campaign depends on good image-marketing.

The Troubled Waters of Communication Research: Scylla and Charybdis in the Postmodern Era • Larry Z. Leslie, University of South Florida • Facing tight budgets and limited resources, many universities are watching their communications programs. A few have been discontinued; some have merged with other disciplines. Some say that the work communication departments do is not central to the mission of a university. Additionally, observers note our research is not high quality, not «scholarly.» This article critically examines some of the problems surrounding communications research; places communication research in a theoretical modernist paradigm; and calls for changes in the way communication scholars do their work, changes suggested by a postmodern culture.

Facts, Stories and the Creation of Worlds: An Analysis of Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s News for Kids • Elizabeth Pauline Lester, Usha Raman, University of Georgia • While recent textual analyses have focused on portrayals of Others in media, little critical research has looked at the socializing role of children’s media. In this paper we analyze the News for Kids section of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a section that is targeted at children of upper-elementary through middle-school age. Our textual analysis uncovers five discursive strategies that NFK uses to construct images of Us (the preferred readers) and Other (different and marginalized groups, both international and local) in ways that sustain existing global and local socio-economic relationships and hierarchies.

News, Myth and Society: Mother Teresa as Exemplary Model • Jack Lule, Lehigh University • The purpose of this paper is to begin building a model that restores myth to a privileged place in studies of news and society. The paper first reviews the rich tradition that gave rise to comparisons of news and myth in the l950s and earlier. It briefly traces the strains of research that emerged from this tradition, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s. It offers reasons why this research seemingly has faltered in our times. And it proposes a perspective that might recapture and extend the insights provided by links between news and myth. Finally, the paper demonstrates the possibilities of the model by using myth to explore a case of news reporting, New York Times coverage of Mother Teresa.

Olympian Melodrama: The Excess of NBC’s 1996 Olympic Games • Christopher R. Martin, Bettina G. Fabos, University of Northern Iowa • This paper argues that with the decreasing relevance of the traditional geopolitical narratives in television Olympic coverage, Olympian melodrama had to be reinvented. Network storytelling thus turned to individuals and individual conflicts to increase the tension, drama and excitement of the Games. The authors critically analyze the 171.5 hours of NBC’s 1996 Atlanta Games coverage, and explain how the new melodramatic narrative polarized individuals Ñ oftentimes athletes from the same American team Ñ through a record number of «up close and personal» stories. The analysis also covers the pitfalls of NBC’s narrative strategy, and explains why so many watched the Olympics yet hated the coverage.

The Legacy of Popular Culture Movement: A Case of National Cinema in Korea • Eung-Jun Min, Rhode Island College • Korean National Cinema is a theoretical, politicized, and often underground cinematic practice and discourse that speaks out for people and provides a site for creating and experimenting new forms and contents. It has inspired many cinematic possibilities and opens the possibility of creating non-capitalist filmic practice. The whole process of national cinema, whether it is cinematic or non-cinematic practices, gives a new meaning to the viewing of films in general. This article discloses and closely examines the persistent series of binding interrelationships, continuities, and similarities that, alongside the breaks and differences, has made this movement a significant socio-political and cultural force in Korea.

A Show About Nothing?: Social Manners, Seinfeld and the Dense Web of American Civility • David P. Pierson, Pennsylvania State University • This paper examines how the popular TV series, Seinfeld reveals a deeply-held cultural ambivalence towards the changing social codes and manners of contemporary American society. Drawing on the works of Bourdieu, Bakhtin, and Elias, the paper argues that all societies have placed a great emphasis on social manners and customs. This paper also illustrates the benefits of analyzing popular cultural forms as interpretive sites for charting the evolving social manners that comprise American civility.

Paradoxes of the Information Age: Recasting the Book-Versus-Computer Debate • Judy Polumbaum, University of Iowa • This paper suggests that bipolar categorization Ñ e.g., bibliophiles vs. technophiles, traditionalists vs. futurists, optimists vs. pessimists Ñ is a poor way to order discussions about the nature and implications of new communications media. Through review and analysis of a selection of recent popular and scholarly literature related to the book, reading, knowledge and communication in the digital era, the paper pursues the notion that attitudes toward older and newer media are evolving conjointly, often on the basis of shared rather than divergent goals and priorities. Values discerned as important to both boosters and skeptics of new media Ñ comfort, communion, community and continuity Ñ are examined in terms of old and new media technologies.

Re-Covering the Homeless: Hindsights on the Joyce Brown Story • Jimmie L. Reeves, Texas Tech University • A reconsideration of what Morley Safer once called a moral fable for our time, this paper takes a radically-historical interpretive perspective to treat the Joyce Brown controversy as a significant moment in the flow of 246 television news reports broadcast between 1981 and 1988 that, collectively, gave expression to the Reagan-era homeless narrative.

Preaching to the Unseen Choir: African-American Elders Producing Public-Access Television • Karen Riggs, Robert Pondillo, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee • The authors interviewed five older African-Americans who have been involved in producing or appearing on public-access television shows in order to promote particular social causes. The study contends that religious identification, joined with a charismatic and purposeful personal style, motivated these elders to turn to public access as a pulpit for democracy. The authors conclude that public access is imperfect as an element of the public sphere but carries the potential for people to effect change in their communities.

A New Media Analysis Technique: An Ethical Analysis of Media Entertainment • Eileen R. Ringnalda, University of Iowa • This paper asserts the need for an ethical analysis of media entertainment texts and describes how it may be carried out. Just as other forms of media criticism are grounded in the disciplines of linguistics, psychology, and sociology, this media analysis technique is based on ethical principles and the evaluation of values communicated by media entertainment.

From Legitimacy Crisis to Opportunity: The Advertising Industry and the Art of Spin in the 1930s • Inger L. Stole, University of Wisconsin-Madison • The 1930s advertising industry faced a burgeoning consumer movement. This paper examines how the industry used public relations in order to contain criticism of advertising. The advertising industry constructed bogus pro-industry consumer groups and undermined the drive to provide critical consumer education in schools. The advertising industry effectively limited discussion about advertising, channeling all advertising criticism into forms that would not threaten advertising’s privileged position.

An Exploration of the Social, Political, Religious, and Economic Constraints to the Implementation of an Effective AIDS Prevention Program • Radhika Talwani, University of Florida • Until a cure for AIDS is found, prevention is the key, but health communication research states that effective AIDS/HIV prevention programs have not been implemented. Researchers and AIDS prevention program coordinators agree about what constitutes an effective AIDS prevention program. However, both groups discussed various obstacles to the implementation of such programs. This study found that the obstacles that are the most prevalent spring from the conservative movement that has been sweeping the nation since the 1980s.

Black, White and Read All Over: Racial Reasoning and the Construction of Public Reaction to the O.J. Simpson Criminal Trial Verdict • Lauren R. Tucker, University of South Carolina • This case study deconstructs the media frame of the racial divide used by the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Defender define the public reaction to the October 3, 1995 Simpson criminal verdict. This frame analysis identifies differences and similarities between two newspapers, one mainstream and one Black, as they define, interpret and evaluate the public reaction to the Simpson’s acquittal.

Television and the Politics of Values: The Case of M*A*S*H • James H. Wittebols, Niagara University • As a long running situation comedy, «M*A*S*H» is an ideal vehicle for examining television’s politics and values. Four value orientations are presented to look critically at how: 1.) television lags behind value shifts occurring in society, 2.) television’s imperatives produce a focus on commercial and universal values, 3.) oppositional or counter cultural values are rarely portrayed, even in a show regarded as innovative and provocative and 4.) television stays within safe boundaries while reflecting some social tensions and contradictions.

Rethinking the Unintended Consequences: The Pursuit of Individualism in America Primetime Television Advertising • Joyce M. Wolburg, Marquette University, Ronald E. Taylor, University of Tennessee • A long-standing, unresolved issue concerns whether advertising messages merely reflect existing cultural values or construct new values. To reconsider the issue, this study examined primetime television advertising for expressions of individualism, the most basic cultural value in American society. Using a document analysis approach, four types of main message strategy and eight contextual categories emerged as elements that express individualism. These expressions showed that advertising portrayals often misrepresent what we know of the culture from census data. Conclusions were offered regarding advertising’s ability to construct new values.

Spokesperson as Agenda Builder: Framing the Susan Smith Investigation • Lynn M. Zoch, Columbia, Erin A. Galloway, Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce • This paper analyzes the thematic frames used by Sheriff Howard Wells, the main police spokesman in the Susan Smith investigation. Three overlapping frames served to build the media coverage of the nine day investigation, keeping the focus of the media on efforts to achieve the safe return of the two missing children, and downplaying suspicions of Smith while police conducted parallel investigations. Wells’ characteristics as a successful source, and his use of strategic ambiguity in his statements are also noted.

<< 1997 Abstracts

Public Relations Division

Evaluating the Public Informations Function: How Media Agents Framed the Silicone Breast Implant Controversy • Julie Andsager, Leiott Smiley, Middle Tennessee State University • Public information officers work to develop and transmit policy actors’ frames through the media to the public. We examined their effectiveness during the 1991-92 silicone breast implant controversy, which involved a major corporation, the medical community, and citizens’ activist groups. After determining policy actor frames via press releases, we analyzed their occurrence in six major newspapers. Medical community’s frame occurred most frequently and centrally in news coverage, while activists remained on the margin of discourse.

Patterns and Constraints in Public Relations Campaign Measurement: The Role of Practitioner Orientations in Reliance on Source or Receiver-Oriented Measurement Practices • Erica Austin, Bruce Pinkleton, Washington State University • A mail survey of 299 public relations practitioners assesses role orientations, research orientations and perceived barriers to performing public relations research. The data show two distinct-but correlated groups of practitioner role orientations (managers and technicians) and two orthogonal groups of research orientations (source orientation and receiver orientation). Management-oriented practitioners are more receiver-oriented than technician-oriented practitioners, who tend to be more source oriented. Budget is considered to be more of a constraint for management-oriented practitioners, with time and training more of a problem for technician-oriented practitioners. Supervisor interest and training are motivators to research for those with a management orientation. Client interest has no positive or negative associations with the perceived ability to perform public relations research.

Practitioner Roles, PR Education and Professional Socialization: An Exploratory Study • Dan Berkowitz, Ilias Hristodoulakis, University of Iowa • This study considered how two key socialization factors Ñ public relations education and work experience Ñ are related to the roles that public relations practitioners see for themselves. Data came from an exploratory survey of students and practitioners in one PRSSA chapter and one PRSA chapter. Results showed no clear differences between students and practitioners regarding management and technician roles. Instead, differences were linked mainly to whether a person had taken public relations coursework.

Critical Conflict Issues in Public Relations Agency-Client Relationships • Pamela Bourland-Davis, Georgia Southern University • Little research hag been conducted to assess key issues in maintaining public relations agency-client relationships. This study investigated conflict issues considered significant to agencies and clients. Both sides tended to agree on conflict issues relevant to their relations, and recognized that neither gide wag above reproach. Factor analysis, however, pointed to an us-versus-them perspective with four Factors: Agency Work, Client Expectations, Client Communication and Client Financial Obligations.

Evaluation and Assessment of a Service Learning Component in Academia: A Case Study • Pamela G. Bourland-Davis, Lisa Fall, Georgia Southern University • Many faculty incorporate service learning projects into their classes, yet have no way to present this material in annual evaluations and assessment. With assessment becoming increasingly important, institutions of higher education must find assessment measures for service which may not typically get much attention. This case study relates one method for quantifying service learning using the analogy of an agency with billable hours to generate an economic impact statement for service learning projects. Interviews with students were also conducted to provide some measure of student outcomes relevant to the use of service learning projects as a form of pedagogy.

Wired to the World: A Preliminary Study of News Release Wire Services As Conduits for International Communication • Lois A. Boynton, University of North Carolina • This preliminary study examines the use of news release wire services as credible means for U.S. organizations to access international media outlets. This is studied within the context of public relations theoretical models and the need for effective media relations. This first-stage assessment revealed that these providers may be useful conduit to international media, but additional services including clipping services are needed to better identify the effectiveness of employing news release wire services.

A Coorientational Approach to Analyzing Obstacles to Negotiation Among Interest Groups • Cindy T. Christen, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Symmetric public relations models call for negotiated solutions to conflicts between an organization and external publics. However, such models provide little guidance in predicting the relationships and behaviors of external groups, identifying obstacles to negotiation, and developing communication strategies which encourage cooperation. In this paper, a strategic approach to initiating negotiations is proposed. The method is applied to the conflict over recreation use impacts at Sand Flats Recreation Area, and recommendations are made for refinement.

Modeling Public School Partnerships: Merging Corporate and Community Issues • Cynthia M. Clark, Dale A. Brill, Boston University • This paper describes a model that merges corporate community relations strategy and public relations pedagogy to accelerate the rate at which internet-based technologies are integrated into the public schools systems. The model provides internet-based training for a select group of Key Contacts drawn from a local middle school. Training is delivered by graduate students in Boston University’s public relations program who have completed courses in the school’s interactive media sequence. The Key Contacts are trained as change agents for their host schools and are provided with two mobile instructional units connected to the internet using ISDN lines. The Key Contacts use these resources to conduct in-service programs, supported by continuous contact with the public relations graduate students. The model, known as the Boston University Public School Partnership (PSP), introduces a mutually beneficial relationship between a corporate sponsor (specifically the NYNEX Foundation), public relations education and public schools.

Better Than Drinking Poison: Editors’ Perceptions of the Utility of Public Relations Information Subsidies in a Constrained Economic Climate • Patricia A. Curtin, University of North Carolina • Public relations practitioners provide information subsidies to the media on behalf of their clients to influence the media agenda and potentially affect public opinion. McManus (1994) states news media are using more subsidies to contain costs and increase profits. This study of editors’ perceptions of the phenomenon suggests increasing economic constraints have led to an increased use of these materials only in specific instances that often do not support the agenda building goals of the sponsoring organizations.

Almost Ten Years Later: An Analysis of Ethnic Inclusion in Public Relations Textbooks and Reference Books for the Years 1991 – 1997 as Compared to Kern-Foxworth’s Analysis of Books for the Years 1979 – 1988 • Sandra Wills Hannon, Maryland • A content analysis of 18 public relations textbooks published between the years 1991 – 1997 was conducted to determine the quality of minority inclusion. Of a total of 8,071 pages examined, 97 pages included minorities. The findings are not significantly different from those of Kern-Foxworth’s study of textbooks published between the gears 1979 and 1988. The author suggests textbooks should provide students with information about ethnic groups so students can design culturally competent communications campaigns and products.

Demonstrating Effectiveness in Public Relations: Goals, Objectives, and Evaluation • Linda Childers Hon, University of Florida • Public relations planning and evaluation were explored among 32 practitioners and 10 top executives. Practitioners said their goals reflect the priorities of their institution. The CEOs believed public relations’ ultimate aim is communicating the image of the organization. Responses showed many practitioners conduct informal evaluation while only a few conduct formal evaluation. This research suggests public relations planning and evaluation are becoming more systematic but are still constrained by lack of resources and difficulty.

Impacts of Political System and Activism on Public Relations, A Perspective from the Theory of Global Public Relations • Yi-Hui Huang, University of Maryland • This paper employs the theory of global public relations to examine the extent to which a political system and level of activism affect public relations practice in Taiwan. A case-study design and pattern-matching logic were employed for data collection and data analysis. The findings are produced to generalize to the relevant theory. Five theoretical propositions are generated: l) The authoritarian political system severely limited the practice of free press, and in turn, the extent of public relations development; 2) Political systems only could impact the models of public relations to some extent; 3) Activist groups can motivate an organization to employ Excellence principles of public relations; 4) Activist groups can drive an organization to adopt the symmetrical model of public relations; and 5) The transformation of a political system triggers the development of activism and, in turn, contributes to an organization’s better quality of public relations.

Women in Public Relations: How Their Career Path Decisions are Shaping the Future of the Profession • Mara Hynes Huberlie, Syracuse University • This study focuses on the lives and career path decisions of twenty-five female practitioners currently working in the public relations profession. It looks at the choices they have made, the paths they have chosen and the societal and organizational restraints that influenced their decisions. As the industry becomes more feminized, the study examines the impact of the different career patterns for women and also asks whether the public relations profession is facing a potential loss or underutilization of talent.

Getting Past the Impasse: Framing as a Tool for Public Relations • Myra Gregory Knight, University of North Carolina • J. Grunig, L. Grunig and Dozier (1995) have proposed a two-dimensional model of public relations that combined the two-way symmetrical and asymmetrical models. They also named strategies important for both public and organizational influence and called for research dealing with others. This paper proposes framing as such a strategy. To demonstrate the technique’s potential, the author employs framing to show how sex education can be promoted more effectively within public schools.

Interpersonal Dimensions in an Organizational-Public Relationship: Toward a Theory of Loyalty • John A. Ledingham, Stephen D. Bruning, Capital University • No Abstract available.

Fourth Generation Evaluation: Implications for Public Relations Education • Debra A. Miller, Florida International University • The topic of evaluating student learning outcomes continues to receive attention from public relations educators. Although quantitative approaches are still widely used, what has not been addressed is an effective way of qualitatively assessing the achievement of instructional objectives, student attitudes about course content and teaching effectiveness. This paper discusses results of a study which tests the use of a fourth generation evaluation method used during a semester length course entitled Multicultural Communications and suggests implications for public relations educators.

The Writing Activities of Public Relations Professionals: An Assessment for Curriculum Design and Adjustment • Philip M. Napoli, Gerald Powers, Boston University • Public relations writing curricula must accurately reflect the writing responsibilities of public relations practitioners. This study provides descriptive information on the types of writing tasks conducted by PR practitioners. The study also investigates whether the type of writing and overall time spent writing vary with years of experience. Survey results from 200 public relations practitioners indicate that, for the most part, the nature and quantity of writing tasks does not vary substantially with years of experience. However, the percentage of the day spent writing does decline with experience, indicating that higher levels of writing efficiency come with writing experience.

Conflict Resolution and Power for Public Relations • Kenneth D. Plowman, San Jose State University • The use of conflict resolution and mixed motives can empower public relations managers to become part of the decision-making group of an organization. The conclusions of this study were first, that public relations will become a part of the dominant coalition if it has experience in the new model of symmetry to include tactics of conflict resolution. Secondly, top management directly affects the practice of public relations to operate according to its own agenda Ñ in a two-way, mixed motive manner.

Pluralistic Ignorance and Educators in Public Relations: Underestimating Professionalism of Our Educator Peers and of Practitioners In the Field • Lynne M. Sallot, Glen T. Cameron, Yarbrough Public Relations Laboratory, Ruth Ann Weaver-Lariscy • Responding to a battery of 45 items, educators from across the nation erroneously judged the current state of professional standards in the field held by their peers and by practitioners. Educators held their peers in comparatively low esteem and practitioners in lower esteem, viewing others collectively as somewhat naive, unprofessional and unenlightened when compared to their own personal self-images. This state of affairs, described in coorientation theory as pluralistic ignorance, suggests that public relations educators may actually hold higher standards and greater confidence in standards than educators commonly attribute to their peers and to their professional colleagues.

Sexual Harassment and Public Relations: Confusion and the Need for Leadership in the Workplace • Shirley Serini, Ball State; Elizabeth Toth, Syracuse; Donald Wright, South Alabama; Arthur Emig, Ball State • Quantitative and qualitative results of the sexual harassment section of a survey are presented. Though in decline, sexual harassment is a problem for public relations practitioners. Most were uncertain about its magnitude/importance relative to other issues. Men and women expressed confusion, concern and fear. Women feel it and its consequences are larger problems than do men. Younger men are less likely to harass. Men showed respect for women and concern about eliminating sexual harassment.

Non-profit Service Organization Partnerships With University Communications Programs: Cultivating the Values of Community Service and Volunteerism • Laurie Wilson, Brigham Young University • Service-learning, an educational method characterized by active participation of students in experiential learning activities that meet actual community needs, offers important contributions to university public relations education. Community service is being recognized as a key component in an individual’s overall value system, as well as a basis for sound relationships with an organization’s publics. This paper quantitatively and qualitatively evaluates a university model of service learning, and its impact on the value priorities and community service behavior of public relations graduates. It also assesses the role of career mentors in shaping service behavior.

Examining Employee Perceptions of Internal Communication Effectiveness • Donald K. Wright, South Alabama • This paper examines the effectiveness of employee communication programs in nine major organizations through a survey sent to a large, stratified random sample of employees that was followed-up with focus groups. There were 8,647 respondents to the survey and 208 employees participated in focus groups. Results reveal a large majority of employees do not consider themselves well informed about what is happening in the organizations where they work. Findings also suggest face-to-face, two-way communication from immediate supervisors is the most preferred and credible source for internal communication. The supervisor also was the most frequently used employee communication source in seven of the nine organizations studied. Respondents also said supervisors were the most effective and the most useful of the employee communication sources available to them. Findings suggest employees who are not communicated with effectively by their supervisors are more likely to seek out information about the organization they work for from other employees, the grapevine and external mass media.

<< 1997 Abstracts

Newspaper Division

Net Gain? Online Newspapers Take Time From Their Cyber-stampede to Assess Benefits and Drawbacks of Electronic Editions • Mary Jane Alexander, St. Michael’s College • This paper examines New England newspapers’ assessment of the benefits, drawbacks and future of electronic publishing. Conclusions are based on a survey of the region’s 602 daily and weekly newspapers, conducted from November 1996-February 1997. Respondents cited several pluses and minuses of cybereditions. The survey found that many of the aspects of online publishing that have been lauded as revolutionary, the ability to provide immediate updates, deliver the news instantly and without regard to space limitations, are the same elements that are cited as drawbacks by some online publishers. As for the future? Although most respondents said online news would never replace the traditional newspaper, 13 papers (6.5 percent) surveyed say the Internet Ñ or some as-yet unimagined technology Ñ would eventually replace the print medium; four more (2 percent) said its demise was possible.

Changing Values in the Newsroom: A Survey of Daily Newspaper Editors and Reporters • M. David Arant, University of Memphis, Philip Meyer, University of North Carolina • This mail survey of U.S. daily newspaper editors and reporters suggests that ethical standards of rank-and-file journalists have not deteriorated during the last 14 years. Replicating several variables from a 1983 survey, the study found that journalists in 1997 showed as great or greater ethical sensitivity in their responses to questions dealing with conflict of interest, deception and privacy as did the journalists who responded to these questions in 1983.

The Characteristics of Market-Oriented Daily Newspapers • Randal A. Beam, Indiana University • Results of a survey of 406 senior editors at 182 newspapers indicate that newspapers with a strong market orientation do more readership research than newspapers with a weak market orientation. Also, market-oriented newspapers are as committed to traditional content and public-affairs content as other papers. They are more committed to special-interest content, to endorsing an adversarial role for journalists and to publishing an excellent journalistic product. Cross-departmental interaction is more frequent at market-oriented newspapers.

So-30-Doesn’t Mean the End. Media Temps Provide Helping Hands for Community Newspapers • Lori Bergen and Linda Gilmore, Kansas State University • Who helps out when personal tragedies strike in a community newspaper? Who could relieve the staff of small, often exclusively family-run news organizations who haven’t had time off in years for a vacation or family visit? This paper discusses several ways that university journalism units can institute a Media Temps program that uses university students and faculty to assist in the temporary production of community newspapers. The experience for students and faculty is meaningful and significant in a number of ways, which is illustrated through examples of four successful Media Temp programs run by the Huck Boyd Center for Community Journalism in the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Kansas State University. The paper concludes with specific plans for instituting programs at other institutions.

Self-Promotion and the Internet • Steve J. Collins, Syracuse University • Economic theory and historical evidence suggest a newspaper’s coverage is affected by its financial interests. It was hypothesized that newspapers online themselves would provide more coverage of the Internet (in their traditional publications) than newspapers not online. Based on a content analysis (using Nexis) of 30 newspapers, a statistically significant difference between the two groups was found for the average number of stories with Internet in the headline, but not for average story length.

Corporate News Structure and News Source Perceptions: Another Test of the Editorial Vigor Hypothesis • David Pearce Demers, Washington State University • A recent content analysis of newspaper editorial content has disputed the conventional wisdom that newspapers become less vigorous editorially as they acquire the characteristics of the corporate form of organization. However, many scholars remain skeptical. This study tested the editorial vigor hypothesis using an alternative methodology, a national probability survey of mainstream news sources (mayors and police chiefs). As hypothesized, the more a newspaper exhibits the characteristics of the corporate form of organization, the more these news sources perceive that paper as being critical of them and their institutions.

New Study Contradicts Medsger’s Winds of Change • Fred Fedler, Maria Cristina Santana, Arlen Carey, University of Central Florida, Tim Counts, University of South Florida • Medsger’s Winds of Change found that 17X % of journalism’s educators never worked full time as journalists. This study, with a higher response rate, found that the figure is 4.3%. Like Medsger, however, this study found that new faculty members have less professional experience. This study also compared faculty members in JMC’s largest specializations. Those who taught reporting/editing had fewer Ph.D.s and conducted less research. None said they had no professional experience, although 2.9% did not answer the question.

Journalism’s Status In Academia: A Candidate For Elimination? • Fred Fedler, Arlen Carey, University of Central Florida, Tim Counts, University of South Florida • To learn more about JMC’s ability to survive in this era of retrenchment, the authors surveyed more than 600 academicians from all disciplines and all types of colleges and universities. If their institutions were forced to cut some programs, the respondents would be most likely to eliminate hospitality management and home economics, followed by Judaic, women’s and African-American studies. Only 2.7% would eliminate journalism. However, 31.6% would eliminate (or merge) advertising/public relations and 26.2% broadcasting.

Fairness and Defamation in the Reporting of Local Issues • Frederick Fico, Todd Simon, Michael Drager, Michigan State University • Stories involving conflict and defamation during May 1994 in 16 mid-sized randomly sampled dailies from around the nation were content analyzed. The study examined the relationship of source type (government proceedings and documents, other activities and documents, and interviews) to fairness, balance and defamation in the reporting of conflict. Some 38 percent of the 620 stories involving conflict contained defamatory assertions. Contrary to expectations, stories relying on interview sources were not more fair and balanced than stories relying on government proceedings and documents. Also contrary to expectations, interview-based stories were twice as likely as stories emerging from government proceedings or documents to contain defamatory assertions. Stories containing defamatory assertions were also examined to assess legal risk.

Beyond Accuracy: The Effects of Direct Vs. Paraphrased Quotation in Multi-Sided News Reports on Issue Perception • Rhonda Gibson, University of Houston, Dolf Zillmann, University of Alabama • The ability of quotation in news reports to influence media consumers’ judgments of issues was examined. Five print news reports addressing the economic conditions of farms were created. All reports presented the issue as two-sided, one side blaming bankers and the government for the failure of farms and one crediting these people for farms’ successes. The conditions included one with no quotation, one with direct quotation from both sides of the issue, one with paraphrased quotation from both sides of the issue, one with direct from side one and paraphrased from side two, and one with direct from side two and paraphrased from side one. Respondents exposed to reports containing direct testimony from poor farmers produced higher estimates of the number of farms that fail and were more likely to blame bankers and the government than respondents who did not read direct personal testimony from poor farmers.

An Analysis of Online Sites Produced by U.S. Newspapers: Are the Critics Right? • Jon Gubman, Jennifer Greer, University of Nevada-Reno • A content analysis of 83 sites produced by U.S. newspapers was conducted to examine whether criticism directed at the industry for failing to adapt to new technology is well-founded. The research shows online newspapers making strides in placement of news and reader interaction. Online papers are not doing as well adapting to the digital environment in news content and presentation of news. Sites produced by large newspapers appear closer to the critics’ ideal than small newspapers.

Newsroom Topic Teams: Journalists’ Assessments of Effects on News Routines and Newspaper Quality • Kathleen A. Hansen, University of Minnesota, Mark Neuzil, University of St. Thomas, Jean Ward, University of Minnesota • This study examines the effects of newsroom topic on news routines and newspaper quality. It is based on a census survey of journalists at the Star Tribune (Minneapolis) and the St. Paul Pioneer Press, which both instituted topic teams within six months of each other. Survey results are supplemented by focus group and written comments from journalists in these two Newspaper Guild newsrooms. The study finds that the effects of the team system on the news process and news quality have been mixed, but predominantly negative, in the assessment of these journalists.

Is The Women’s Section an Anachronism? Affinity for and Ambivalence About the Chicago Tribune’s WomaNews • Melinda D. Hawley, University of Georgia • Analysis of interviews with staff of the Chicago Tribune’s WomaNews and reader focus groups suggests women’s sections can help to retain women readers and increase the visibility of women in newspapers. However, the study warned the women’s label undermines the section’s success by appearing to: • exclude men from coverage of substantive issues affecting women, • reinforce stereotypes of women, • create a women’s news ghetto, and • attract advertising that conflicts with editorial content, thereby alienating women readers.

Sisyphus or Synergy: Effects of TV-Newspaper Collaborations on Voter Knowledge • Jurgen Henn, University of North Carolina • This paper examines whether collaborations of television and newspapers produce a synergistic effect, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It is going to demonstrate that media partnerships affected the citizens’ knowledge of the presidential candidates’ positions in a study of 20 U.S. media-markets during the 1996 election. It will also show statistical indications of a limited amount of cross-promotional effect of newspaper television partnerships in these markets.

Reversal of Fortune for the Dominant Print Media: Social and Economic Determinants for the Differential Revenue Growth among China’s Newspapers • Chen Huailin, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Guo Zhongshi, Hong Kong Baptist University, Xing Rong, Chinese University of Hong Kong • This research explores the emerging pattern of differential revenue growth among various newspapers in China and analyzes its social and economic origins. guided by a framework of key concepts and using data from multiple sources, our analysis uncovered several characteristics common to the revenue gap, including timing, region, magnitude, and nature of occurrences. We established that the interactions between newspaper orientation and market maturity factors are the main forces underlying the enlargement of the gap.

Life and Death in Jackson’s America: Cultural Values as Memory in Historic Newspaper Obituaries • Janice Hume, University of Missouri • Andrew Jackson’s 1828 election to the presidency represents a political and cultural turning point in American history. The new nation experienced vast changes during the era, but perhaps the most striking trend was the strengthening of egalitarianism, the notion that America should be a nation of equality. Indeed, more men gained access to the political franchise, but did this new spirit of equality affect the lives of everyday citizens or increase their value in the democracy? This study uses the historic newspaper obituary, which distills and publishes for public consumption the remembered worth of an individual citizen’s life, as a tool to help answer this question.

Media’s Coverage of Itself: How Eight Major Newspapers Covered the Telecommunications Act of 1996 • L. Paul Husselbee, Ohio University • Given the magnitude of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and its potential impact on society, media consumers seemed to be grossly underinformed about the scope of the new law. Some media practitioners, including Washington Post columnist Tom Shales and Nightline’s Ted Koppel, were vocal about media’s failure to cover the act before it became law. This study analyzes coverage of the Telecommunication Act by eight major newspapers to determine whether they provided balanced reports on the provisions and implications of the act. It concludes that coverage was not balanced and that some aspects of the proposed act were highlighted while others were not discussed. Statistical analysis indicates that there may be an association between these findings.

The Effect of Rape Victim Identification on Readers’ Perceptions of Victims and News Stories • Michelle Johnson, Westfield State College • Journalists have been discussing whether or not to name rape victims in news stories for more than three decades, but they have yet to resolve the issue. This study took an experimental approach to the problem, testing whether the inclusion of rape victims’ names in stories affected readers’ interest in the story, sympathy for the victim or assignment of responsibility for the crime. It found that while the inclusion of victims’ names affects readers views in some cases, the effects are not universal, uniform or predictable.

Untangling the Web: Teaching Students How to Use Online Resources and Critically Evaluate Information • Stan Ketterer, University of Missouri • Former presidential Press Secretary Pierre Salinger inadvertently issued a wake-up call to journalists worldwide last year that taking information from the Internet can be hazardous when he alleged that a TWA jetliner was downed by friendly fire. Initially, Salinger’s reputation lent credibility to the information, but ultimately he damaged the credibility of the profession by failing to ensure accuracy. Salinger’s vulnerablity indicates that educators must teach students how to critically evaluate information on the Internet and ensure its accuracy. The researcher created a World Wide Web site of hypertext links divided into useful categories that students could use for daily journalism. Guidelines for use of Web information were drafted. Students in advanced reporting and copy editing classes, students were taught how to use the site and how to evaluate information critically. During the first month, the site was accessed more than 1,200 times. Initial results indicate that the site appears to be useful, but more research must be done.

Reader-Friendly Journalism’s Lasting Impact: A Study of Reporters and Editors Involved in Knight-Ridder’s 25/43 Project • Kris Kodrich, Indiana University • On Oct. 11, 1990, Knight-Ridder kicked off a grand journalistic experiment called the 25/43 Project at The Boca Raton News, a sleepy 25,000-circulation newspaper in South Florida. The company invested millions of dollars in a bold move to attract baby boomers to newspapers. This is a qualitative study of the attitudes of some of the journalists involved in the project. Today, many of the reporters involved in the 25/43 Project believe they damaged newspapers more than they helped them to survive. Many are predicting, at the very least, a smudged future for newspapers. Newspapers, in attempting to redefine themselves, have destroyed themselves, says former reporter Phil Scruton. But one of the strategists of the 25/43 Project says some reporters never quite understood what the project was all about, and still don’t.

Making the Picture: A Study of U.S. Media Coverage of Dissidents in China and South Korea, 1989-1996 • Yulian Li, Ohio University • This study content-analyzed news stories published in the New York Times and the Washington Post covering dissidents in China and South Korea between 1989 and 1996. It found that the papers consistently portrayed Chinese dissidents as human rights campaigners and often described South Korean dissidents as violent radicals. The study concluded that the media were influenced by the American ideology and adopted the U.S. government schemes of interpretation in covering international events.

Adult Learners’ Attitudes About Newspapers • Carol S. Lomicky, University of Nebraska at Kearney • This study identifies attitudes about newspapers among adult learners in literacy programs. The researcher performed a principle components factor analysis on data obtained from the Q sorts of 47 subjects from Adult Basic Education programs in Central Nebraska. Thirty-two subjects loaded significantly (p< 0.01) on a four factor solution. The factors were labeled (a) Good Citizens, (b) Gregarians, (c) Pragmatics, and (d) Pragmatic Skeptics. Demographic data also was used to describe subjects.

Newspaper Nonreadership: A Study of Motivations • Gina M. Masullo, Syracuse University • Despite decades of research on declining newspaper readership, the newspaper industry still does not know how to reverse this trend. This study draws on the uses and gratifications perspective to provide new insight into the link between motivation to seek information and time spent reading newspapers. This survey analysis confirms that newspaper nonreadership is not solely a function of demographics, but that the root of nonreadership is a lack of motivation to seek information.

The Chattanooga Times and NewsChannel 9: Working Together to Get the Scoop and the Implications for Journalism Educators • Peter Pringle, Luther Masingill, Betsy B. Alderman, University of Tennessee/Chattanooga • No Abstract available.

Newspaper Readership Choices of Young Adults • Carol Schlagheck, Eastern Michigan University • This study looks at trends in newspaper readership among the 18-to-34 age group and examines some of the choices young adults make when reading newspapers. Specifically, this study explores what types of newspapers young adults read, what stories they read in those papers and what information they would like newspapers to give them. Some suggestions are offered for changing newspapers to make their content more appealing to young adults.

A Big Enough Web for the Both of Us? Online Coverage of the 1996 Election by Denver’s Warring Newspapers • Jane B. Singer, Colorado State University • The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News have been fiercely at war for 100 years. Last fall, the two papers got their first shot at trying to outgun each other in online political coverage. This exploratory study analyzes the print and Web versions of the two papers during the campaign season to determine how they handled the opportunities and challenges of cyberspace; interviews with their online editors provide insight into why things were the way they were this time around.

Assessment of Lead Writing Practices in U.S. Newspapers • Gerald Stone, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale • Are U.S. newspaper journalists still adhering to the principle of writing short, active-voice leads? An assessment of leads in a large sample of staff written articles found that the average lead is about 24 words and that newspaper leads fall close to that average regardless of publication frequency, circulation size or whether the story is written on deadline. However, newspapers do deviate from the principle of using active voice leads.

Mainstream Newspapers’ Coverage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, 1991-1996 • Ana-Jimena Vargas, Ohio University • This study showed that there was a significant difference in the coverage of NAFTA by six mainstream newspapers during different phases of the agreement: negotiations, congressional approval and implementation. The coverage was indexed to what government officials and congressional members had to say about the accord, and focused primarily on the participants in the NAFTA debate and their arguments, rather than on the provisions and implications of the agreement.

Newspaper Editors’ Policies and Attitudes Toward Coverage of Domestic Assault • Wayne Wanta and Kimber Williams, University of Oregon • The attitudes and policies of newspaper editors regarding domestic violence were examined through a mail survey conducted in February 1995, during the O.J. Simpson trial. In general, few editors reported having formal policies to assist reporters covering domestic assault stories. Editors also felt that domestic assault presented more legal risks than other types of assault, but that the coverage of domestic violence did not pose ethical problems for their newspapers.

<< 1997 Abstracts

Minorities and Communication Division

Racial Differences in Responding to Occupational Portrayals by Models on Television • Osei Appiah, Stanford University • This study examined the differences in how black and white viewers process messages based on the race of television models representing five occupations. Findings from 54 black and white college students suggest that the race of the model has no impact on the amount of information white viewers remember from television models. In contrast, black viewers remember significantly more information from black television models than they do from white television models. The results imply that when designing campaign messages, particularly health messages, planners should make use of black models in order for black viewers to best remember those messages.

Framing Minority Image: A Case Study of Korean Americans Before and After the 1992 Los Angeles Riots • Hyun Ban, The University of Texas at Austin • This study examined and compared how the Los Angeles Times framed Korean Americans before and after the 1992 Los Angeles riots, according to four framing dimensions: substantive, affective, stylistic, and stereotypical. The results indicated that Times’ efforts to cover the Korean Americans more frequently and with a greater variety of aspects were successful. Nevertheless, their image in the Times did not significantly improve after the riots, in terms of favorability and depth.

Tolerance for First Amendment Rights in a Southern California Vietnamese Community • Jeff Brody, Tony Rimmer, California State-Fullerton • What are the dimensions of tolerance for civil liberties in immigrant communities? Models developed in large-scale surveys of the general American population have found education, liberal political ideologies, and newspaper reliance to be positively associated with tolerance, while religion, age and TV reliance are negative predictors. Closer inspection of these data, however, show radically different opinions may be held by subgroups. Some religious communities, for example, do report tolerant attitudes. The present study considers tolerance for speech and press rights in the Vietnamese community, a subgroup whose migrating circumstances over the last two decades suggest alternative tolerance models. We argue that the recent political history of the Vietnamese and their unique cultural and religious heritage will find the received general tolerance model wanting. Religious and media use measures (TV news rather than newspaper use) did play a positive role here in predicting tolerant attitudes towards the speech and press rights of others. Our attempt to incorporate historic circumstances into the model was not successful.

Newspapers’ Coverage of the Immigration Issue During the 1996 Presidential Campaign • Yu-li Chang, Ohio • This study about newspapers’ coverage of the immigration issue during the 1996 presidential campaign found that Hispanics and Asians were the immigrant groups most frequently covered and that immigrants were presented in a negative light. This study also found that papers published in cities with large immigrant populations and having large circulations were aware of the ethnic diversity among their readers since they contained more coverage and diversity of topics on the immigration issue.

Use of Asian American History in the News Media: The Discourse of Model Minority • Chiung Hwang Chen and Ethan Yorgason, University of Iowa • This paper focuses on the use of history in the American press’s model minority discourse between the 1960s and the 1980s. It looks at how the mainstream media constructed an Asian American past to justify the discourse of the model minority. It then addresses the political and ideological implications of this stereotype. It concludes by arguing that journalists ought to incorporate a deconstructive impulse in using history and writing about minorities.

They Just Keep Rolling Along: Images of Blacks in Film Versions of Show Boat • Douglass K. Daniel, Kansas State University • The four filmed versions of the venerable American musical Show Boat, dating from 1929 to 1989, significantly altered their depictions of blacks while telling the same story. Racial slurs and stereotypes diminished with each version. Yet the most popular film, the 1951 Technicolor extravaganza, responded to changing attitudes about black portrayals in film by virtually eliminating characters and subplots. The 1989 version filmed for television demonstrated an enlightened production of a racially flawed story.

White Viewers’ Perceptions of Black Television Images • Chontrese M. Doswell, University of Maryland at College Park, Carolyn A. Stroman, Howard University • The general foundation of the present study was the socializing influence the media have upon audience perceptions resulting from televised images. The specific aim was to examine whether media depiction of Black people shaped White audience members’ perceptions of Black people in the real world. Findings showed divergent opinions exist about viewer perceptions of White and Black people. White images on television were held more closely representative of White culture than Black images. Results of the study indicate that (1) there is a weak relationship between television images of Black people and White viewer perceptions of Black people in the real world, (2) in addition to television, music videos, magazines and firsthand experiences are predictors of knowledge about Black people among White people; and (3) weekly TV exposure is the strongest predictor of perceptions about Black people. This perceived reality study showed that White adult viewers perceived White and Black people differently. Traditionally, research in this area has only used children. Further research using adults should be done to fully determine the relationship between television exposure and subsequent perceptions.

An Investigation of Colorism of Black Women in News • Lillie M. Fears, University of Missouri-Columbia • Most studies of colorism in advertising have concluded that typically Eurocentric-looking models are more popular than typically Afrocentric-looking models. This study differs in that it examines whether news editorial photographs reveal the Eurocentric black woman’s life advantages over that of the Afrocentric black woman. Results indicate an overwhelming representation of Afrocentric-looking women, a finding that supports the notion that news, unlike advertising, presents a far more realistic view of the way Black America really looks.

Racism, Hegemony, and Local TV News: An Ethnographic Study of News Practice • Don Heider, University of Texas at Austin • Using theoretical frames of hegemony and everyday racism, this ethnographic study examines news practice in two local television newsrooms. News philosophy and coverage decision-making are examined, as well as where news room power resides. With the help of community leaders and informants within the newsrooms themselves, the author finds that news practice remains a process that routinely excludes coverage of people of color and naturalizes the process wherein Anglo values continue to control the daily news product.

Japan’s Challenge to America’s Game: Hideo Nomo’s First Season with the Los Angeles Dodgers • Tsutomu Kanayama, Ohio University, Joseph Bernt, Ohio University • Study of Hideo Nomo’s first season as a Japanese player in the major leagues content analyzed 229 stories covering games in which Nomo pitched. Stories represented the entire universe of such stories from USA Today and 14 metropolitan papers from the cities with National League franchises. Race-labeled description, photographic treatment, length of story, paper, and date of coverage were recorded to determine subtle evidence of biased reporting using a method similar to Washburn’s 1981 study of coverage of Robinson’s first season with the Dodgers. Coverage varied by time of season, type of paper, location of paper and game.

HIV/AIDS Video Programming for Latino Youth • Hilary N. Karasz, University of Washington • The purpose of this study is to provide guidelines for improving programming about HIV/AIDS for a specific population of Latino adolescents. A set of programming recommendations was developed from the literature and tested in a series of focus group discussions with Latino teenagers from a San Francisco outreach center. The findings show that teenagers prefer and recommend explicit, detailed information about HIV/AIDS, presented with particular attention to realistic characterization and the male/female relationship.

Like the Sun Piercing the Clouds: Native American Tribal Newspapers and Their Functions • Teresa Trumbly Lamsam, University of Missouri • In a content analysis of news content, three Native American tribal newspapers were examined for the functions of surveillance, correlation, transmission of culture and entertainment. For these three cases, the findings indicate that these tribal newspapers seldom perform an interpretive or propaganda function. Instead, the analysis shows that nearly 90 percent of the time, the common goal of the three newspapers was to keep tribal members informed of activities of the tribal government, elected tribal officials and tribal members.

A Survey of Asian American Journalists: A Look at Their Job-Related Experiences Due to Ethnicity, and a Look at Their Perceptions of Media Coverage of Asian Americans • Virginia Mansfield-Richardson, Penn State • This paper is a survey of 520 members of the Asian American Journalists Association asking about negative and positive experiences they have had as print, radio and television journalists, which they attribute to their ethnic status as Asian Americans. The survey also asks their opinions of how Asian Americans and issues affecting Asian Americans are being covered in the media today. The answers reveal a great deal of anger, passion, resentment, and bitterness, as well as many positive attitudes that there are advantages to being an Asian American in the news business today.

White and Whiter: Television’s Impediments to Inter-Racial Trust • Andrew Rojecki, Indiana • This paper argues that entertainment television erodes social trust between blacks and whites by constricting the range of inter-racial involvement and intimacy. It does so in two ways: structurally by putting blacks and whites in hierarchical relationships that diminish involvement beyond formal role requirements, and symbolically by stripping blacks of a full-range of human emotion by making them allegorical vessels of white virtue. The project uses the concept of social capital, most recently developed by Robert Putnam, to argue that the store of inter-racial trust depends on horizontal relationships that encourage candor and involvement.

No Racism Here: News Coverage of the Desegregation of the University of Alabama • Jim Sernoe, Midwestern State University • Autherine J. Lucy was one of the first students to enroll at a previously all-white university. Her enrollment at the University of Alabama in February 1956 was very controversial, and after a series of riots and administrative obstacles, Lucy was suspended. Using textual analysis, this paper examines news coverage in the New York Times from February 1956 through March 1957 to determine the frames and themes found in the coverage, concluding that although stereotypes were largely absent, the Times failed to see whites’ racism and blamed most of the problems on Autherine Lucy.

From Yellow Peril through Model Minority to Renewed Yellow Peril • Doobo Shim, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This study is a historical analysis of Asian American portrayals in entertainment media and a contextualization of their meaning in society. The general nature of Asian stereotypes and the racial formation projected in those stereotypes are determined. With the knowledge of this history, the contemporary era’s renewed propensity to depict Asians as illegalists will be understood more clearly.

<< 1997 Abstracts

Media Management and Economics Division

Using Industry Trade Magazines as a Textbook for Media Management Courses • Edward E. Adams, Angelo State University • Weekly trade journals such as Editor & Publisher, Broadcasting Cable, and Advertising Age, can serve as texts for media management courses. Trade magazines provide a current context of management and economic issues for students, as well as exposure to industry publications. This paper discusses the advantages and limitations of utilizing trade magazines as a course textbook.

Network Affiliation Changes and Inheritance Effects • Marianne Barrett, Charles C. Brotherton, Arizona State University • The network affiliation changes and the challenges to viewing behavior that they present offer a unique opportunity to examine whether the traditional factors thought to impact audience duplication continue to do so. This study uses Nielsen ratings data for February 1994, 1995 and 1996 from sixty markets across the United States to assess the effect of the affiliation changes on audience duplication. The study finds that lead-in ratings continue to be the most important determinant of inheritance.

Rosse’s Model Revisited: Moving from Linearity to Concentric Circles to Explain Newspaper Competition • Janet A. Bridges and Barry Litman, Lamar W. Bridges • Competition in the newspaper industry is no longer explained by the linear umbrella model of competition proposed by Rosse in the 1970s. Changes in the newspaper industry suggest a more fluid model of concentric circles is appropriate. The proposed model retains the four Rosse layers, incorporates a fifth, and illustrates changing conditions in the newspaper industry that make suburban and satellite dailies more competitive.

Playing the Market: Diversification as a Management Strategy Among Publicly Traded Newspaper Companies Category: Media Management & Economics • John Carvalho, University of North Carolina • Many companies aggressively expand into new industries. Such strategies are promoted by management gurus, who claim that wise diversification enhances shareholder value. But what about newspaper companies? Are they following this strategy Ñ which often leads to larger debt and closing of unprofitable properties? Are they sticking to their core industries? This paper examines strategy at eleven publicly traded newspaper companies. The author found many companies are diversifying widely, while others continue to concentrate on newspapers.

The Radio Remote: A Model of Audience Feedback • Todd Chambers, Steven McClung, University of Tennessee • This exploratory study examined the processes involved in the radio remote. In particular, this study used a field observation method of 30 different radio remotes in six markets. The researchers found that the radio remote process involves a level of interdependence among the client, station and audience. Overall, the researchers concluded that remotes could be judged according to the presence of a client giveaway or special offer, station giveaways, station interaction with the audience and an activity for the audience. Based on these criteria, the researchers found that few remotes contained all four elements.

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Convergence: The Strategic Alliances of Broadcasting, Cable Television, and Telephone Services • Sylvia M.Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida • Convergence through mergers and acquisitions seems to provide the best opportunity for companies to accelerate the implementation of new technologies while at the same time, capture a developed customer base. This paper addressed the following research questions: 1) What is the trend of M&A in the broadcasting, cable TV, and telephone industries after the 1996 ownership deregulation? 2) What are the initial M&A strategies for broadcasting, cable TV, and telephone companies on the way to convergence? 3) Is the convergence being carried out by internal (within industry) M&A or cross-segment integrated strategic alliances?

Revisiting Corporate Newspaper Structure and Profit-Making: Was I Wrong? • David Demers, Washington State University • In a survey of newspapers conducted in 1993, I found that the more a newspaper exhibits the characteristics of the corporate form of organization, the less emphasis it places on profits as an organizational goal and the more emphasis it places on product quality and other non-profit goals. However, some data in a survey I conducted in the fall of 1996 failed to support the profit findings. This paper reports on the findings from another, more comprehensive survey conducted in February 1997 in an attempt to resolve the discrepancy.

A Profile of Potential High-Definition Television Adopters in the United States • Michel Dupagne, University of Miami • A telephone survey was conducted with 193 adults in a major U.S. metropolitan area to assess consumer predispositions toward high-definition television (HDTV) and profile potential adopters of this technology according to demographics, mass media use, ownership of home entertainment products, and importance of television attributes. Based on diffusion theory and communication technology adoption studies, this study hypothesized that male, younger, better educated, and higher-income respondents who are more frequently exposed to mass media channels and value television features more highly would be more aware of HDTV, express a greater interest in HDTV, and be more likely to purchase an HDTV set. Results indicated that HDTV awareness was positively related to education, income, gender (male), newspaper use, ownership of home entertainment products, and picture sharpness; HDTV interest was positively related to age (negative), income, gender (male), moviegoing, and picture sharpness; and HDTV purchase intent was positively related to screen size.

How Family-Owned Hubbard Broadcasting Pioneered Direct Satellite Broadcasting • Hal Foster, University of North Carolina • In 1994 direct satellite broadcasting became the biggest consumer electronics hit since the VCR, thanks to the vision and persistence of Stanley S. Hubbard, patriarch of St. Paul, Minnesota-based Hubbard Broadcasting. This case study looks at how a family-owned operation could beat well-heeled corporate giants to become the first company to launch satellite-to-TV-set service. It offers lessons to media companies hoping to increase their wealth by exploiting new technology.

Predicting the Future: How St. Louis Post-Dispatch Journalists Perceive a New Editor Will Affect Their Jobs • Peter Gade, Earnest L. Perry, James Coyle, University of Missouri-Columbia • Journalists at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch went through a turbulent year of change in 1996. Editor William Woo, Joseph Pulitzer’s hand-picked successor in 1986, was removed from the job in July. He was replaced by Cole Campbell, former editor of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. The week before Campbell began work at the Post-Dispatch, we conducted a survey of newsroom employees concerning their perceptions of how the change in editors may affect their jobs and the operation of the newsroom. The purpose of this study was to attempt to measure how employees perceived change before the change actually occurred. A review of literature of the newspaper industry indicates no other study of this nature has been done. The data in this study indicate the conditions under which Post-Dispatch journalists perceive they are most willing to accept change are similar to those for employees who have experienced change in other organizations. If the new editor uses effective communication, has adequate newsroom resources and strong news values, then the staff is more likely to accept him.

The Superstar Labor Market in Television • Joseph Graf, Stanford University • Using literature from labor economics, this paper argues that the labor market in television is a «superstar» market in which a few collect large salaries and a large number of applicants vie for jobs. This is because of imperfect substitution among sellers in the market and the inability of applicants to accurately assess their chances of success. It suggests the effects of a labor market on individual behavior and continuing low salaries for new television journalists.

The Case Method and Telecommunication Management Education: A Classroom Trial • Anne Hoag, Ron Rizzuto, Rex Martin, The Pennsylvania State University, University of Denver • The efficacy of the case method is well known but only sometimes used in media management education. Now, as the convergence of media technologies and industries accelerates, there is a growing need for media management courses that teach across a broader array of technologies and management functions. The case method is particularly tuned to this kind of integrative experience-based learning. This paper, intended as a practical resource for educators, reviews case method literature and relates the results of a recent classroom trial in which complex telecommunication management cases were used with encouraging results.

The National Program Service: A New Beginning? • Matt Jackson, Indiana University • In 1992, PBS replaced the Station Program Cooperative (SPC) with the National Program Service (NPS). This paper compares programming and funding trends under both systems to determine if centralized decision-making has brought about the desired changes. The results suggest that NPS has had some impact, but that these changes are mostly due to cost-cutting measures. Corporate underwriting and station fees have not grown as hoped. Local autonomy and limited funding have prevented NPS from creating a network identity for the PBS program service.

State Influence on Public Television: A Case Study of Indiana and Kentucky • Matt Jackson, Indiana University • This study compares public television stations in Indiana and Kentucky to explore how different levels of state involvement affect public television. The results suggest that each station adjusts its mission according to its major source of funding. The Indiana stations, dependent on viewer donations, rely heavily on PBS programs. Kentucky Educational Television (KET), supported by the Kentucky legislature, focuses on classroom programming. Although state involvement affects their priorities, all stations rely on national programming because of the economics of program production.

Cable Subscribers’ Service Expectations • Randy Jacobs, University of Hartford • This paper reports data collected on cable subscribers’ expectations and preferences for installation, repair, and service representative availability. The data were gathered in 607 telephone interviews and analyzed using a performance elasticity approach that incorporated three expectations standards. The results reveal the range of performance expectations consumers hold for cable service and compare these standards with actual system performance in light of service satisfaction evaluations. Implications for research and cable system management are discussed.

Effect of VCR on Mass Media Markets in Korea, 1961-1993: The principle of Relative Constancy Reapplied • Sung Tae Kim, Indiana University • This study extends prior consumer mass media expenditure research by employing two different methods, regression analysis and market scale analysis. Research questions for this study are Does the PRC exist in mass media markets in Korea from 1961 to 1993 and How much impact does VCR have on previous mass media markets? The conclusion of this study indicated that mass media markets have been slightly positive trend and the PRC failed to be supported in regression analysis and in market scale analysis, VCR brought the rapid enlargement of the mass media markets in Korea during last three decades.

Job Satisfaction Among Journalists at Daily Newspapers: Does Size of Organization Make a Difference? • Kris P. Kodrich and Randal A. Beam, Indiana University • This study examines the relationship between job satisfaction of journalists at daily newspapers and organizational size. Past studies have shown that the size of an organization may play a role in job satisfaction. A secondary analysis of data from a survey of 636 daily newspaper journalists shows that while journalists at newspapers of different sizes are satisfied with their jobs for mainly the same reasons, a few differences do surface. This multiple-regression analysis shows the strongest overall predictor of job satisfaction is whether journalists think their organization is doing a good job of informing the public.

Use of the Industrial Organization Model in Examining TV Economics in the Asia Pacific Region • Tuen-yu Lau, Indosiar Visual Mandiri Indonesia, Penghwa Ang, Nanyang Technological University-Singapore • This paper seeks to employ the Industrial Organization Model (IOM) in examining TV economics in the Asia Pacific region. The IOM argues that the structure of the economic market affects the conduct and performance of participants. This structure-conduct-performance paradigm offers a conceptual framework to dissect the market components. This paper will discuss only the market structure, including these variables: concentration of sellers and buyers, product differentiation, barriers to entry and vertical integration. Three Asian markets, namely Hong Kong, Singapore and Indonesia, are used as case studies. By analyzing the interactive forces shaping the TV economics in these markets, the paper suggests that the application of the IOM in exploring TV developments in Asia can start with the definition of a market. This is an important conceptual and practical issue for TV managers, especially satellite TV planners.

Newspaper Stocks And Stock Market Indicators: A Comparison and Analysis of Means of Tracking Performance • Regina Lewis, University of Alabama, Robert G. Picard, California State University, Fullerton • The paper explores the nature of newspaper stocks and market indicators and compares the performance of newspaper stocks and newspaper stock indicators against broader market indicators. It finds that the Newspaper Stocks Report indicators avoid some of the problems of mixing different industries in stock indicators and that newspapers stocks overall followed stocks overall as shown in broad indicators such as the Wilshire 5000. The study identified differences among newspaper stocks performance during the period that can not be explained by general stock performance and deserve further research.

It’s a Small Publishing World After All: Media Monopolization of the Children’s Book Market • James L. McQuivey, Megan K. McQuivey, Syracuse University • This study considers how the current environment of media conglomeratization is affecting the little-studied industry that provides books to millions of children each year. Two hypotheses are proposed that test different aspects of competitive market theory. Hypothesis two is supported: children’s books that have ties with other media products sell more copies than books that have no such ties. The implications of the theoretical discussion and the supported hypothesis are discussed.

Teaching Lessons About Team Work, Goal Setting, Problem Solving, and Leadership Using the Reservoir City Game • Robert G. Picard, California State University, Fullerton • The author introduces the use of a new game designed to help overcome passive approaches to teaching managerial issues involved in team work, goal setting, problem solving, and leadership. The paper discusses how and why games and simulations are important to learning. It explores how to use «Reservoir City,» when it is effective, and lessons that can be learned from the game

Entrepreneurship and Economics: Essentials of the Media Management Course • Mary Alice Shaver, The University of North Carolina • Teaching students to understand the decision processes and constraints and to solve the problems inherent in the management role is essential. A series of three assignments including a start-up, a financial report and development of an original case involves students in realistic situations while teaching key concepts.

Wage Stabilization and the Daily Newspaper Commission in World War II • Mary Alice Shaver and Anthony Hatcher, University of North Carolina • This paper examines the role of the Daily Newspaper Printing and Publishing Commission in industry wage stabilization during World War II. The Commission was created in recognition of the essential nature of the newspaper industry to the war effort. During its 32 month existence, the Commission handled nearly 7000 voluntary and 243 disputed cases. Although the work was praised for bringing wage inefficiencies to light, much of the compliance was an artifact of war.

Mixed Wine in an Old Bottle? Media Market with Socialist Characteristics in Communist China • To Yiu-ming, Leonard L. Chu, Hong Kong Baptist University • No Abstract available.

Do Employee Ethical Beliefs Affect Advertising Clearance Decisions at Commercial Television Stations? • Jan LeBlanc Wicks, University of Arkansas, Avery Abernethy, Auburn University • Advertising clearance (or deciding whether to reject ads) has become more important because of the FTC chairman’s call for improved clearance and the airing of liquor advertisements. A national mail survey was conducted, with responses from over 350 stations, to discover whether employees who consider ethical beliefs important exhibit different clearance behaviors than employees who consider beliefs to be of lesser importance. Findings suggest that certain beliefs are associated with more stringent ad clearance decisions.

<< 1997 Abstracts