Archives for January 2012

Commission on the Status of Women

ESPN SportsCenter and Coverage of Women’s Atheletics: “It’s a Boys Club” • Terry Adams and C. A. Tuggle, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Despite growing levels of participation by female athletes at all competition levels and documented fan interest in women’s athletics, media coverage of women’s sports remains inferior to that given male sports. This study is a replication of Tuggle’s original (1997) study to determine whether the existence of two women’s professional sports leagues has resulted in increased coverage of female athletics.

Broadcasting Gendered Sports Portrayals: The Effects of Watching Such Presentations on Attitudes of the Societal Role of Women • James R. Angelini, Indiana-Bloomington • This study examined the effects of viewing televised sports, with either positive or negative tactics used in commentating or production techniques, of both male and female sports, on individual opinions on the roles of women, as gauged on the Attitudes Toward Women Scale. Exposure to the positive female sports condition resulted in better attitudes for women’s role in society. Exposure to the other three conditions did not have an effect, either positively or negatively, on these beliefs.

Gender and Journal Productivity: A 15-Year Census on How Women are Doing • Ken Blake and John V. Bodle, Middle Tennessee State and Edward E. Adams, Brigham Young • A census of refereed articles (N=6,535) in 10 primary journalism and mass communication journals from 1986-2000 determined that women have over the time period produced 28.6 percent of the journal scholarship. In recent years (1996-2000) women have produced 38.5 percent of journal scholarship. Women were found to collaborate on research at rates similar to men. Among women, assistant professors produced the most journal scholarship. “Non-faculty” women produced more than either female associate or full professors.

Women Reporters and Managers Make A Difference in Korean Newspapers • Sooyoung Cho, Missouri-Columbia • This study is unprecedented in its objective to examine the effect women reporters and managers have on other journalists in the newsroom and on content in Korean newspapers. Results are that women managers and more women reporters make a difference in the better treatment of women journalists in the newsroom and in the improved coverage of women in newspapers. The study surveyed all the women journalists in Korea’s ten national newspapers and three business newspapers.

Coverage Of Female Athletes In Women’s Sports Magazines: A Content Analysis • Susan Francis, Ohio • The purpose of this thesis was to examine women’s sports magazines to see how female athletes would be portrayed. Historically, female athletes have been under-represented in the media and have been portrayed in traditional feminine roles. A content analysis was conducted examining the three women’s sports magazines, Conde Nast Women’s Sports & Fitness, Sports Illustrated for Women and Real Sports. The results of this study demonstrates that significant improvement in women’s sports coverage is still needed.

Still Photographs of Female Athletes Featured in Sports Illustrated Versus Sports Illustrated for Women • Lauren A. Gniazdowski and Bryan E. Denham, Clemson • This study examines how Sports Illustrated and Sports Illustrated for Women portray female athletes in still photography. The research builds on existing works that have shown male and female athletes most commonly photographed “in action” and “posing,” respectively (for reviews, see Duncan & Messner, 1998; Kane & Lenskyj, 1998). Although some scholars have analyzed gender-specific publications, existing media studies have focused largely on general sports magazines.

We Must, We Must, We Must Increase our Bust: How College Women negotiate the Media’s Ideal Breast Image • J. Robyn Goodman and Kim Walsh-Childers, Florida • Through focus group interviews, this study examined how college women negotiate exposure to media images of disproportionately large-breasted women. The results showed that media images influence women’s breast satisfaction directly and indirectly, through perceived effects on men’s breast size ideal. However, women’s beliefs did not always correspond to the dominant ideology equating beauty with disproportionately large breasts. Personal experiences, self-confidence, and interactions with men, family and friends influenced their views of the mediated ideology.

Newspapers Transition From Women’s to Style Pages: What were they thinking? • Dustin Harp, Texas-Austin • This research considers newspaper trade articles during the 1970s to determine how industry insiders viewed the termination of-women’s pages and introduction of style sections. Women who constructed these sections dominated the discourse, which focused on a section’s content rather than the name above that content. The discourse also indicates that newsroom constraints, and male editors, prevented women editors of these women’s/style sections from constructing the content they desired.

Jane Grant: “There Would Be No New Yorker Today If It Were Not For Her” • Susan Henry, California State-Northridge • Jane Grant co-founded The New Yorker with her husband, Harold Ross, playing a crucial role in the magazine’s conception, birth, post-partum struggles and early success. This paper describes Grant’s New Yorker work as well as a journalism career that included being the first woman general-assignment reporter at the New York Times. Also examined is her work as co-founder of the Lucy Stone League, which fought for married women’s right to keep their birth names as a sign of their equality with their husbands.

She May Be Fit, But She Must Be Fashionable: Women’s Sports and Fitness Marketing through the Lens of French Feminist Theory • Tara M. Kachgal, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Using French feminist theories, this essay seeks to add a more theoretically-informed perspective for analyzing how female specificity is configured in U.S. sports and fitness marketing to women. In examining whether the visual and rhetorical strategies used by Nike and Reebok can disrupt, or circumvent, patriarchal gender logic, I pay particular attention to higaray’s theories of subjectivity.

Margaret Goss: Pioneering Female Sportswriter and Sports Columnist of the 1920s • Dave Kaszuba, Susquehanna • No abstract available.

Gendered Radio News Discourse: A Social Border Guard • Aliza Lavie, Bar-Ilan University-Israel • Only 10% of all interviewees in radio news and current events programs are women. The exclusion of women as interviewees, the absence of their voices and the compartmentalization of the few female interviewees into pre-defined categories, highlight radio discourse as a social border guard. In the case of Israeli radio, despite diverse social changes, including feminization of the media, several factors identified by media professionals, operate in concert to counteract the effect of gender

Gender-Differentiated Media Coverage of Political Candidates: A Look at the Georgia 2002 Republican Primary for Governor • Rebecca I. Long, Kennesaw State • Women are typically seen as having a disadvantage in the political arena because of stereotypes. While these stereotypes are less prevalent now, these beliefs are apparent in print media coverage. A content analysis of 146 articles from six newspapers indicated that coverage of the Georgia 2002 Republican Gubernatorial Primary differed along gender lines. Given media’s importance, it is critical to examine this differentiation to understand the gender factor in media coverage of statewide politics.

To American Eyes: Cultural Feminist Analysis of an Alternative Representation of Islamic Womanhood • Therese L. Lueck, Akron • This textual analysis examines the widely circulated Muslim magazines Islamic Horizons, and its construction of Islamic womanhood in the two years surrounding September 11, 2001. Informed by cultural feminist theory, this analysis locates sex separation as a conversion strategy. The magazine’s representation of Islamic womanhood mirrored a nostalgic American femininity characterized by modesty and moral superiority, modernizing it with contemporary acknowledgement of diversity and intellectual individualism. Its portrayal of Islamic womanhood did not shift markedly after the September 11 attacks.

Snatched: Gender, Class And Media Constructions Of “The Summer Of Child Abductions” • Leigh Moscowitz, Indiana • This study examines how the news media used assumptions about gender and class identities to construct the major “epidemic” of child kidnappings during the summer of 2002. Through a textual analysis of articles that appeared in USA Today and Newsweek magazine, this paper shows how media coverage of kidnappings reflects societal constructions of family, childhood and sexuality. In doing so, the media play off of-and contribute to-constructions of vulnerability in girlhood, and sexual deviance and violence in masculinity.

Aging Women and TV News • Suzanne Nelson, Minnesota • This research takes a close-up look at women television news reporters and then examines what it is like for women reporters to age in TV. The images of women television news reporters from two periods, 1986 and 2000, are examined and career women reporters are surveyed, revealing their personal experiences with management, audiences, and consultants regarding appearance (one reporter was told, in effect, that it would be good if she were taller) and regarding age.

Perfect Little Feminists: Resistance, Femininity, and Violence in the “Powerpuff Girls” • Spring-Serenity O’Neal, Indiana • This textual analysis explores how the Powerpuff Girls cartoon offers opportunities for resistance reading. Although the text contains violence, there are numerous instances where the three lead female characters gain empowerment through positive social messages from peers and each other. In depicting strong female characters engaging in unusual activities, the Powerpuff Girls offers an alternative view of the “perfect girl” that scholars have found in many Disney productions.

Did Women Listen To News? A Critical Examination Of Landmark Radio Audience Research (1935-1948) • Stacy Spaulding, Maryland • This paper critically analyzes the generalizations researchers made about women’s program preferences and the quantitative data used to support these assumptions. This research suggests that in analyzing their own data, researchers were blinded by pre-conceived notions of what programs women preferred. In particular, early research published in 1935 in The Psychology of Radio boldly called discrimination against women’s voices a product of societal prejudice, but failed to break with conventional wisdom about what programs women actually enjoyed listening to.

The C-Cup Norm: Exposure to Media Ideals and Desire for Larger Breasts Among College Women • Kim Walsh-Childers and Robyn Goodman, Florida • This study examined the relationship between exposure to media images of large-breasted women and women’s breast dissatisfaction. Female undergraduates viewed images representing women with small, medium or large breasts. Exposure to larger-breasted images was more likely to increase women’s ideal breast size, ideal cup size, perceptions of men’s ideal breast size, acceptance of a large-breast norm and likelihood of using artificial means, other than implant surgery, to increase breast size or make their breasts appear larger.

Black Womanhood: A Content Analysis of Essence and its Treatment of Stereotypical Images of Black Women • Jennifer Bailey Woodard, Indiana State-Bloomington and Teresa Mastin, Middle Tennessee State • This content analysis examines whether or not Essence works as a feminist text that dispels stereotypical images of Black women. We hypothesize that (a) there will be more evidence to dispel the stereotypes than to perpetuate them and (b) that of the four major African American women stereotypes – mammy, matriarch, sexual siren, and welfare mother/queen – the matriarch and sexual siren stereotypes will be dispelled more frequently. Results support hypothesis (a) entirely and hypothesis (b) partially.

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Science Communication Interest Group

Playing the Information Game: A Survey of Credibility and Health Information on the World Wide Web • Heather A. Black, Syracuse • In their search for health information, consumers use mass media sources (newspapers, television, radio, and the World Wide Web), interpersonal sources (family and friends), and professional sources (physicians). This online survey used credibility theory to investigate consumers’ perceptions of mass media channels for health information. The results suggest that consumers view mass media channels similarly, and they may not employ traditional credibility cues to evaluate the World Wide Web sites they use for health information.

Credibility and Online Health Information Consumers • Camille S. Broadway, Florida • This study examines consumer credibility perceptions of the Internet and online health information. The study draws on the literature and perspective of source credibility and media credibility studies. Respondents to a 34-question online questionnaire scored the Internet as above average on measures of reliability, ease of use and credibility. The Internet, the most popular source of health information for participants, also scored higher on a trustworthiness measure than traditional media.

Accent on the POZitive: A Content Analysis of Biomedical AIDS Stories in POZ Magazine • William P. Cassidy, Wisconsin-Whitewater • This study examines biomedical AIDS stories published in POZ, a magazine targeted at HIV-positive men and women in the United States, during 1996-2000. A monthly stratified sample of 12 issues was content analyzed. Results show that the overall tone of coverage was .94 on a scale of 0 to 2 (0=negative, 2=positive) and that medical or scientific (non-governmental sources), unaffiliated HIV-positive sources and AIDS activist sources figured most prominently in coverage.

The Framing of an Agricultural Controversy: Constructing News About Food Irradiation • Hong-Lim Choi, Iowa • This study aimed to look how journalists construct a version of scientific reality in their media coverage of a scientific controversy. The content analysis focused on the sources cited, the appeals used by these sources to convince the public of their positions regarding the issue, the factors that influenced the nature of this coverage and the framing strategies that have been applied to inform the public about scientific innovation.

Primary Sources of Health Information: Comparisons in the Domain of Health Attitudes, Health Cognitions and Health Behaviors • Mohan J. Dutta-Bergman, Purdue • The recent growth in consumer autonomy in health care accompanied by the surge in the use of new media for health information gathering has led to an increasing scholarly interest in understanding the consumer health information search construct. This paper explores consumer health information seeking in the realm of the primary sources of health information used by consumers.

Question of Trust: The Effects of Knowledge and Public Accountability on Risk and Benefit • Tracy Irani, Florida and Janas Sinclair, Florida International • Public accountability, based on information about the commitment of an organization, was examined as a construct distinct from social trust. Subjects read material communicating either strong or weak government accountability for regulating plant biotechnology. The results provided support for extending the interpersonal accountability framework to a public context: perceptions of government responsibility and determination for regulating plant biotechnology were greater when accountability was strong rather than weak.

Women’s Thoughts and Information Management Women Searching the World Wide Web for Health Information: Exploring Thoughts and Information Management • Maria E. Len-Rios and Frances Gorman, Kansas • This study uses think aloud protocols to explore the thought processes of women (N=12) as they search the World Wide Web for information about leading healthier lifestyles. We use the normative management of information and self-efficacy as our theoretical approach. Analysis of 231 health-specific thoughts shows that women seek information that will provide them hope for improving their health. It also suggests that self-efficacy, source credibility and self-identity play important roles in women’s involvement with health information.

An Entertainment-Education Video as a Tool to Influence Mammography Compliance Behavior in Latinas • Gail D. Love, California State-Fullerton • The purpose of the study is to gain a greater understanding of the relationship between culturally sensitive health-related messages and screening behavior among Latinas. A communication intervention in the form of a two-minute, Spanish-language, entertainment-education video was field-tested in conjunction with a reinforcement interview one week after respondents viewed the video. Implications are increased knowledge and diffusion of information may not necessarily lead to short-term attitudinal and behavioral change, particularly when unpleasant consequences may result.

Environmental Hazards, Cancer Risk Judgment and Media Use in Appalachia • Daniel Riffe, Ohio • Phone survey (N=469) examined cancer risk judgments among Appalachian Ohioans, exploring how concern over local cancer-related environmental health hazards is related to those judgments and to media use, particularly medical and health-related news. Personal risk was related to seriousness of local environmental hazards, with subjects demonstrating biased optimism about risk to others. Use of health-related and medical-related news was also related to seriousness of local hazards, but not with perceived personal risk.

New York Times and National Magazine Coverage of Project Chariot, 1958 to 1962 • Ron Rodgers, Ohio • This study reviews The New York Times’ and magazine coverage from 1958 to 1962 of Project Chariot • an Atomic Energy Commission plan to blast out a harbor in northwest Alaska with four nuclear bombs. And in doing so, this study traces the four-year debate among scientists, government agencies and environmental activists that was largely played out in the media and ultimately led to the first stirrings of the modern environmental movement in the United States.

The Impact of Risk Communication on the Acceptance of Irradiated Food • Lulu Rodriguez, Iowa State • This study used a quasi-experimental design to assess the impact of pro- and anti-food irradiation messages on consumer opinions, and to understand the process of opinion formation regarding the diffusion of information about this controversial technology. The data came from a longitudinal panel of 223 adults in Minneapolis, MN., who completed three successive questionnaires. One group received a packet containing information materials; another did not.

Perceptions of Media Coverage of Conflicts of Interest within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Advisory Committees • Leah Simone and Katherine McComas, Maryland • Using the theories of agenda-setting, framing and those that explain perceptions of bias in the media and media influence on the public, we explored the U.S. FDA officials’ perception of the media coverage of conflicts of interest within the FDA’s advisory committees. Informants attributed what they perceived as unfairly negative stories to various constraints faced by modern-day media, journalists’ own ideological considerations and the FDA’s reluctance to rebut unfavorable coverage.

Agenda-Building, Source Selection and Health News at Local Television Stations: The First Nationwide Survey of Local Television Health Reporters • Andrea H. Tanner, South Carolina • This study was the first nationwide examination of local television news health reports looking at health and medical newsgathering from the reporters’ perspective. Data from this study revealed significant insight into how these health reporters receive ideas for their health stories and what influences a health reporter to cover a particular topic. The findings suggest a theoretical link between agenda-building and health reporting, suggesting a health reporter’s reliance on sources is exacerbated by the technical nature of health and medial news.

Promise or Peril: How Newspapers Frame Stem Cell Research • Kimberly R. Taylor, Florida • Newspapers have long been the public’s dominant source of scientific knowledge. In recent times, biotechnology issues have been featured with growing frequency. The purpose of this study was to examine how issues surrounding stem cell research have been portrayed in two major newspapers. A textual analysis was performed on 49 articles published from August 2000 through September 2001, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The analysis found that a frame of uncertainty dominated coverage.

The Communication Needs and Behaviors of Iowa Apple Growers and Cider Producers • Andrew Zehr, Iowa State • This study determined how Iowa apple and cider producers gather and disseminate food safety information. A questionnaire asked about their media use and trust in information sources. A test of third-person effects of media on perceptions of public worry about food safety issues found evidence only on topics of food irradiation and genetically modified crops. The findings suggest a combination of media and interpersonal sources to efficiently communicate with this group.

Communicating Forest Management Science and Practices through Visualized and Animated Media Approaches to Community Presentations: An Exploration and Assessment • Donald Zimmerman, Carol Akerelrea, Garrett O’Keefe, Colorado State and Jane Kapler Smith, U.S.D.A. Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station • Natural resource managers have used a variety of computer-mediated presentation methods to communicate management practices to diverse publics. We explored the effects of visualizing and animating computerized presentations in explaining forest succession, fire behavior, management options, and mathematical models. In an experimental design using purposive samples, rural mountain, town and student groups appeared to have gained substantial information from the presentations with inter-group differences depending on presentation mode.

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Religion and Media Interest Group

A Structural Equation Model of Religiosities Effect on Mass Media Use and Civic Participation • Greg G. Armfield, Missouri-Columbia • This research looks at the relationship of mass media, religion, and secularization theory with regard to civic participation. A structural equation model was created and successfully tested to test the structural interactions of religion, secularism, and mass media in relation to civic participation. Findings show current mass media use by religious individuals is driven by secularization theory (Buddenbaum, 1986; Buddenbaum & Stout 1996).

Appalling Sin or Despicable Crime: An Exploration of Media Frames Surrounding the Catholic Church Priest Sexual Abuse Scandal • Lois A. Boynton and Dulcie M. Straughan, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This paper examines newspaper coverage of revelations about Father John Geoghan’s sexual abuse of boys and the Church’s cover-up attempts. The study employs quantitative and qualitative analysis of stories to examine the scope of scandal coverage, sources used by reporters, and whether stories provided an analysis of the crisis or focused on the events. Furthermore, the paper identifies and analyzes frames used to describe the scandal and the issue of assignment of blame for events.

Religion News and Cultural Categories: The Intersection of Religion, Media, and Culture in Journalism • Cheryl Casey, New York University• This paper considers how religion is covered in contemporary newspapers. Using the framework of analysis developed by Silk, the paper identifies the topoi, or common cultural categories, which help journalists make sense of the multitude of beliefs, faith groups, and modes of spirituality characterizing American religiosity. Examples of news coverage of the death of Mother Teresa are used to uncover dominant topoi and illumine the relationship of religion, media, and the culture at large.

Following The Party Line: Xinhua News Agency’s Coverage Of The Falun Gong Movement • Chiung Hwang Chen, Brigham Young University-Hawaii • This study examines the relationship between government and news media in China through analyzing the media’s coverage of the government’s crackdown against Falun Gong. I argue that although the economic reforms since the 1980s might have financially disrupted the news media’s reliance on the government, the press, especially government-owned news organizations, still functions as propaganda agents for the Chinese Communist Party as journalists uncritically follow the party line in reporting on the Falun Gong movement.

Religious Socialization and the Media: A Qualitative Study of How Baby Boomers View the Entertainment Media as a Cultural Resource for Parenting • Lynn Schofield Clark, Colorado • Employing perspectives from cultural studies and developments in the ethnographic study of religion, this paper explores six themes that emerged in the discursive strategies of U.S. “baby Boomer” parents when they were asked about what they hoped to teach their children about religion. The paper examines how and under what circumstances parental approaches to religious socialization cultivate a view of the entertainment media as a threat or as a possible aid to religious socialization.

Created in Whose Image? Examining Network TV’s Treatment of Religion • Scott H. Clarke, Michigan State • 39 fictional network television programs were analyzed for content relating to religious characters. Results suggest that television characters’ religiosity is not an important consideration for television producers as a whole. However, programs produced by Paxson Communications and Viacom; as well as those airing on the PAX network, have significantly more religious characters than average. This finding supports both gatekeeping theory and Paxson’s stated goal of increasing the amount of spirituality on network TV.

Aid Workers or Evangelists, Charity or Conspiracy: Framing of Missionary Activity as a Function of International Political Alliances • David N. Dixon, Azusa Pacific • In 2001, Christian aid workers were arrested by the Taliban in Afghanistan on charges of proselytizing. A year later, Baptist hospital workers were gunned down in Yemen. In one case, the country was an enemy of the United States; in the other, an ally. The way in which the proselytizing and the national government was portrayed changed from one set of coverage to the other, suggesting that political interests, not religious ones, drive news coverage.

Press Freedom and Religion: Measuring an Association Between Press Freedom and Religious Composition • Guy Golan, Louisiana State and Colleen Connolly-Ahern, Florida • The current exploratory study argues for the inclusion of religious composition variables as possible measures of press freedom. An analysis of press freedom and religious composition measures in 190 nations along with correlation measures reveal highly significant associations between the religious composition of nations and their level of press freedom. The study calls upon future studies to further examine the association between religion and press freedom and argues for the inclusion of religious variables in future studies on press freedom.

Religious Beliefs, Media Use, and Wishful Thinking in the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election • Barry Hollander, Georgia • A long-documented link exists between vote intention and a prediction of who will win a political campaign, described in some research as wishful thinking. A number of factors are thought to enhance the effect, such as selective exposure to media content and similar others, and moderate the effect,- such as exposure to public opinion polls and knowledge about politics. Religious factors were found to increase wishful thinking, an impact moderated to a small degree by exposure to the news media.

Preferred Shades of Green: Religion as a Factor in News Framing of Environmental Advocacy • Rick Clifton Moore, Boise State • Are religious groups portrayed more negatively in the media than are secular groups? This study addresses this question by measuring portrayal of two groups engaged in similar environmental advocacy campaigns. One group was clearly evangelical, the other a-religious. Using a research method similar to that used by Kerr and Moy (2002) I found news stories about the groups were not significantly different, but articles by weekly columnists did present the religious group significantly more negatively.

Presentation of Media Practice: Dramaturgical Analysis of Religious Accounts of Media •Jin Kyu Park, Colorado-Boulder • This paper attempts to apply Erving Goffman’s “dramaturgical approach” to the analysis of the interview contexts as well as “accounts of media” articulated during the interview by the media audience. Especially, the interest of this paper lies in how religious meanings and identities of audiences are employed in their presentation of self in terms of media practice.

The Economic Response of Religious Television Stations to Digital Implementation • Brad Schultz, Mississippi • A theoretical model of organizational behavior (Oliver, 1991) was applied to religious television stations in the U.S. to assess their economic responses to the digital television conversion. Results showed that religious stations are more likely to abandon or reduce operations, but have strong resistance toward selling and would like to explore new revenue opportunities. Because of this dilemma, religious broadcasters viewed the conversion as a burden, not a benefit.

Authenticating the Religious Experience: A Textual Analysis of the Construct of History and Religion at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah • David Scott • Using a textual analysis as suggested by Stuart Hall in his introduction to Paper Voices, this author examines the manifest and latent discourse present in the marketing, tours, and historic presentations of Temple Square in Salt Lake City. This study demonstrates how these elements rhetorically perpetuate theological constructs by emphasizing particular historic artifacts and bounding religious discourse within the discursive construct of “museumness” and the mythology of the “pioneer.”

Religious Community on the Internet: An Exploratory Analysis of Mormon Websites • Daniel A. Stout, Brigham Young • In light of considerable speculation about the impact of the Internet on religiosity, this exploratory study evaluates actual religious websites in terms of what they contribute to various dimensions of community. An analysis of three Mormon websites reveals that while some features promote service and diversity, cultural values unique to the religion encourage more restricted network interactions than those described in general studies of Internet and community.

Use Of On-Line Bulletin Boards By Churches – An Exploratory Study • Amanda Sturgill, Carly Engibous, Megan Holmes, Pattama Jongsuwanwattana and Prachi Purohit, Baylor • This paper considers the use of an electronic bulletin board or forum as a part of a church site through detailed examination of 20 of the boards. Through examination of individual messages, the authors develop a coding scheme for bulletin board messages and found that the messages serve either an announcement purpose or a community-building purpose.

Journalism in Service to the Church • Martin Yina and Tony Rimmer, California State-Fullerton • This paper examines Catholic diocesan newspapers from the perspectives of the editors and reporters who work for them. The goal of the study was to better understand what it means to work as a journalist in such newspapers. The study applied the qualitative tradition of phenomenology. Interviews were conducted with journalists at diocesan newspapers in the Midwest, the West and the South.

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Media and Disability Interest Group

Promoting Disability-Friendly Campuses To Prospective Students: An Analysis Of University Recruitment Materials • Beth A. Haller, Towson • Estimates are that currently about 9 percent of students on college campuses have some form of disability, up from 3 percent in 1978. This study investigates what universities are and are not providing in their general recruitment materials about disability-related topics as well as what campus disability services materials are providing. The analysis of these materials will illuminate how universities are approaching current recruitment issues related to students with disabilities.

The Trend Toward Hyper-Marginalization: Images of Disability on Prime Time Television • Jennifer Jacobs Henderson, Trinity • In prime time broadcast television, people with disabilities were either nonexistent or hidden behind able-bodied leads. People with disabilities were almost three times more likely to be men than women, and twice as likely to be African American than Caucasian. Forty percent of the disabled characters had been hyper-marginalized -given two traits of minority populations such as blind and African American- and therefore presented in the far margins of both society and discourse.

Running with Ritalin: Magazine Portrayals of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder • Tiffany S. Johnson and Bryan E. Denham, Clemson • This study examines how Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report have portrayed attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Magazine text was content analyzed for article length, description of the symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, sources quoted in the text, treatment methods suggested, and content co1ceivahly leading to a biased understanding of the disorder. The study finds that news magazine coverage has increased dramatically over the past 14 years, with medicinal treatments such as Ritalin most commonly suggested.

Portrayal of people with disabilities in prime-time TV dramas in Japan • Shinichi Saito, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University-Japan and Reiko Ishiyama, Seijo University-Japan • This study examined the depiction of disabled persons in Japanese prime-time TV dramas. The results showed that no more than one percent of the characters analyzed was disabled, indicating that disabled persons were underrepresented. We also found that most of the disabled persons were young; elderly people with disabilities were virtually nonexistent. The analysis revealed that TV dramas rarely depict certain disabilities, such as internal disorders. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Don’t Label Me: The Stigmatizing Portrayal of Mental Illness on U.S. Television • Mija Shin, Seungjo Lee and Annie Lang, Indiana • This paper content analyzed a sample drawn from a week (24 hours for seven days) of television programming from various channels in order to examine how mental illness is currently being portrayed on television. About 13,5 hours or 8 percent of the total programming contained information related to mental illness. The emotional tone of the messages about mental illness was in general very negative and the illness was portrayed as chronic more frequently than curable.

Invisible, Unnoticed or Idolized: Disability Education Coverage in McCall’s and Good Housekeeping • Alexis Walters, Drake • This article examines coverage of disability education in years leading up to and after passage of PL 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. In McCall’s and Good Housekeeping, throughout the period examined, coverage was limited to what Clogston characterized as “supercrips.” Given the failure of mainstream magazines on this issue, it is not surprising that the late years of the 20th century saw a rise in magazines specifically for parents of children with disabilities.

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Internship and Careers Interest Group

An Application of Message Sidedness: Encouraging Undergraduate Participation in Internship Programs • JoAnn L. Roznowski and Brenda J. Wrigley, Michigan State • The Heuristic Systematic Model of persuasion and message sidedness theory is used to investigate communications with undergraduate students about internship participation. An experimental design tested three message formats relative to message credibility, beliefs about internships, and behavior intentions, and investigated the role of prior thought and intent. Study results do not confirm previous message sidedness research., but do support the significant role of prior thought and intent. Practical implications and future research directions are offered.

Preparing for a Career in the Unknown: What Convergent Newsroom Managers Need and Want • Lynn M. Zoch and Erik L. Collins, South Carolina • The findings of research discussed in this paper focus on issues related to hiring and educating journalists for careers in multiple-media newsgathering. True convergence will require commitment by management to full equality of all media partners, a seamless integration of news gathering and dissemination, and an agreement on the education and training necessary for the journalists who will work in multiple-media news operations.

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