Archives for January 2012

History Division

Working to Avoid War: Scripps-Howard’s Challenges and Efforts With Japan, 1924-1941 • Edward Adams and David Schreindl, Brigham Young • Roy Howard, president of Scripps-Howard, had an intriguing interest in Japan. Between 1924 and 1941 he communicated regularly with Japanese newspaper editors and government officials. He made several trips to Japan in an effort to gain a better understanding of the tensions between U.S. and Japan. Howard lobbied diligently against perceived anti-Japanese legislation and worked tirelessly to avoid war. The Scripps-Howard owned United Press increased their coverage of Asia and battled Japanese censors to publish factual stories.

Federated Press: An Independent Labor News Service • John Bekken, Suffolk • Federated Press was launched in 1919 to serve a diverse U.S. labor press, ranging from internal union newsletters to substantial dailies that articulated a more expansive working-class vision and reached far beyond the ranks of organized labor. For 37 years, Federated Press offered a daily news service committed to providing this labor press with “objective” coverage of the labor movement, before succumbing to the increased bureaucratization of the labor movement and to intensified red-baiting.

Our People Die Well: Death-Bed Scenes in Methodist Magazines in Eighteenth-Century Britain • Richard Bell, Harvard • John Wesley’s presentation of the death-bed trials of Methodists in his Arminian Magazine between 1778 and 1791 allows us to reconstruct the constitution of the Methodist framework of holy death. A complex interplay between the dying, their biographers, and the magazine editors created scenes/texts designed to provide ready proofs to wavering Methodist readers that they themselves would go to heaven if they followed the example of the holy dying.

1897: American Journalism’s Exceptional Year • W. Joseph Campbell, American • No abstract available.

Exhortation to Action: The Writings of Amy Jacques Garvey, Journalism and Black Nationalist • Jinx Coleman Broussard, Dillard and Louisiana State • This paper provides a textual analysis of themes in the writings of Amy Jacques Garvey, a largely unrecognized black woman journalist who was an associate editor and editorial writer for the Negro World, the official organ of the Garvey movement. Analysis of one hundred fifty editorials Jacques Garvey wrote between 1924 and 1927 found she stressed black productivity, self-reliance, self-determination and repatriation to Africa as a means economic empowerment and independence.

N.J. Frederick, Legendary Editor of a South Carolina Black Weekly, Establishes Legacy as Attorney for Victims of 1926 Triple Lynching • Kenneth Campbell, South Carolina • Attorney Nathaniel Jerome Frederick, the founding editor of The Palmetto Leader (1925-1959), a black weekly in Columbia, S.C., was called “the bravest man in South Carolina” and the NAACP cited his work in 1926 as one of its major accomplishments that year. Frederick convinced the South Carolina Supreme Court to give a new trial to three blacks accused of murdering a sheriff, but as he subsequently defended them they were lynched

The Black Press, The Black Metropolis and the Founding of the Negro Leagues • Brian Carroll, North Carolina • No abstract available.

Monotonous Tale: Legitimacy, Public Relations and the Shooting of a Public Enemy • Matthew Cecil, Oklahoma • On April 6, 1939, FBI agents shot and killed America’s “Public Enemy Number One” as he exited a St. Louis hamburger shop. Confronted by critics who questioned the legitimacy of the shooting, FBI officials in Washington worked with agents on the scene to concoct a version of events more amendable to the heroic media portrayals they preferred. This study explores the bureau’s behind-the-scenes work to legitimize the shooting and its use of the story as a public relations device demonstrating the bureau’s responsibility and utility.

Pricking the National Conscience: The Early Radio Career and Thematic Interests of Charles Kuralt • Johanna Cleary, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Charles Kuralt is remembered as one of television journalism’s unique voices, but it was radio that launched his broadcasting career. This paper examines Kuralt’s early writing for radio and focuses on commentaries he wrote from 1961 to 1968. While Kuralt’s television work is well-chronicled and documented, his radio scripts offer an important and largely unknown transitional step for one of the country’s preeminent broadcast journalists.

Cattle Barons v. Ink Slingers: The Decline and Fall of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association (1887-1894) • Ross F. Collins, North Dakota State • This article examines the relationship between the Wyoming Stock Growers Association and the press at the end of the Old West Long Drive Era (1867-1890). It considers not only the influence of Wyoming cattlemen on the press, but in particular the influence of the press on the frontier cattle business during the period when “Old West” was moving from frontier reality to American legend.

Freedom in the Age of Propaganda: History of an Idea Within Congress, 1900-1945 • Stacey Cone, Iowa • Debate in Congress over the meaning and significance of propaganda in a democratic society has been an important but undocumented aspect of media history. This paper describes and analyzes the history of the idea of propaganda within Congress in the first half of the twentieth century, documenting how congressional leaders joined in a national debate about propaganda’s compatibility with democratic morality.

Herbert Hoover’s Philosophy of the Public Service Standard in Broadcasting • J.M. Dempsey, North Texas • In the embryonic years of American broadcasting, the Secretary of Commerce under President Warren Harding and, later, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover – of course, later president himself- profoundly affected the development of American broadcasting. In particular, Hoover’s decisions and leadership strongly influenced the concept that broadcasters, receiving licenses to use the public airwaves for commercial purposes, should in return provide a measure of public service. In fact, Hoover was the first to articulate the public-service requirement of U.S. broadcasting.

The Farmer’s Wife (1891-1894): Building a Community of Sentiment in Kansas • Amy DeVault, Kansas State • The Farmer’s Wife, published in Topeka, Kansas, from 1891 to 1894, was a publication by and for women involved with the Farmer’s Alliance. In addition to Alliance and Populist news, The Farmer’s Wife promoted women’s rights, especially the 1894 referendum to amend the Kansas Constitution to allow women to vote in all elections. This study looks at how The Farmer’s Wife promoted women’s rights within the context of Populism and how The Farmer’s Wife created community among its audience.

My Rhodes Scholarship: Fred Friendly as Information Officer in the Second World War • Ralph Engelman, Long Island • This paper examines Fred Friendly’s heady experience as a master sergeant in the Information and Education Section of the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater during the Second World War, a laboratory for his post-war career. The paper focuses on Friendly’s reporting for the army newspaper CBI Roundup and his wire recordings of combat for the fledgling Armed Forces Radio Network. The paper draws upon interviews with wartime associates as well as Friendly’s correspondence with his mother and other material contained in Friendly’s private papers.

Secrets of the Grand Jury: Media Leaks, Prosecutors and Presidential Impeachment • Mark Feldstein, George Washington • In April, 1973, as the Watergate scandal began to implode, syndicated columnist Jack Anderson published verbatim transcripts of the secret grand jury investigating the affair. In response, Judge John Sirica ordered a criminal investigation to locate and prosecute the muckraker’s source. But in a dramatic last-minute showdown, a legal confrontation was avoided when both sides agreed to compromise.

From Discussion Leader to Consumer Guide: A Century of Theater Criticism in Chicago Newspapers • Scott Fosdick, Missouri • Two recent studies by this author examined the influence of theater critics working for Chicago newspapers at the beginning and toward the end of the twentieth century, finding very different critical environments. This study explores how Chicago criticism traversed the historical landscape from point A to point B, and finds a third major stage of development halfway between.

So Vivid a Crossroads: The FCC and Broadcast Allocation, 1934-1939 • James Foust, Bowling Green State • This paper examines the FCC’s evaluation of the broadcast allocation structure from 1934 to 1939. Specifically, it looks at the participation of non-commercial and commercial interest groups. It builds on NcChesney’s examination of how commercial interests “marched in lockstep” against non-commercial interests in broadcasting policy debates from 1928-1935. This study shows that later the commercial interests fractured into competing groups. But they were still able to establish the terms of the policymaking debate, leaving non-commercial interests marginalized.

The Newspaper Reporter as Fiction Writer: The Tale of Franklin W. Dixon • Marilyn Greenwald, Ohio • Canadian newspaperman Leslie McFarlane, like many of his contemporaries in the newsrooms of the mid 1920s, enjoyed his job, but longed for something more: he wanted to become a fulltime writer of adult fiction. One day, McFarlane answered a vague ad in Editor & Publisher for fiction writers. Little did he know that the ad would change his life in a way he could never have expected. McFarlane soon became “Franklin W. Dixon,” the author of the first 20 Hardy Boys books.

Propaganda v. Public Diplomacy: How 9/11 Gave New Life to a Cold War Debate • David Guth, Kansas • This paper explores the public debate over the use of U.S. propaganda during both the Cold War and the War on Terrorism. While there is broad consensus for communicating U.S. policies and values to foreign audiences, differences of opinion in the role, scope and administration of overseas information programs dominate the debate. The role the State Department plays in administering these programs, first raised during the Cold War, remain unresolved.

Margaret Goss: Pioneering Female Sportswriter and Sports Columnist of the 1920s • Dave Kaszuba, Susquehanna • Working for the New York Herald Tribune in 1924 and 1925, Margaret Goss broke down barriers that had generally kept the sports pages off limits to female writers. Most significantly, she contributed her “Women in Sport” column on a weekly – and eventually – daily basis, making her one of the first female sports writers to have her own, regularly appearing, bylined sports column.

The Influence of Coverage of Contemporary Political Environments on Media Coverage of Historical Events • John F. Kirch, Maryland • This paper explores whether news coverage of historical events is influenced by the contemporary political and social environment of the nation. It does this by analyzing newspaper coverage of two national commemorations: the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s journey to America, which was observed in 1992 at a time of renewed interest in the culture and historic suffering of Native Americans, and the upcoming 2000’ anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which is being celebrated at a moment when Americans are feeling renewed patriotism following the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Alcoholic Dogs and Glory for All: The Launch of New Communications for National Prohibition, 1913 • Margot Opdycke Lamme, Florida • In 1913, the Anti-Saloon League of America, a Midwestern, church-based, social reforem movement dedicated to the elimination of liquor traffic, declared its intention to pursue national prohibition. Although it continue to adhere to the principles of agitation (its term for the building and mobilizing of public sentiment) and political action, this shift from local and state politics to a national forum required additional communication methods.

Neither Drunkards nor Libertines: Portraying Grover Cleveland as a Threat to the Family in Political Cartoons During the 1885 Campaign • Harlen Makemson, Elon • The purpose of this paper is to examine more broadly cartoons against Grover Cleveland in the 1884 presidential campaign, exploring how artists attempted to portray the candidate and his personal and private behavior as scandalous. The paper will focus on cartoons in three anti-Cleveland publications: The Judge, which in 1884 established itself as a pro-Republican comic weekly to rival the Democratic-leaning Puck, Munsey’s Illustrated Weekly, a short-lived pro-GOP campaign magazine published by a young Frank Munsey; and The Wasp, a San Francisco satirical magazine that chose to support Blame in the campaign.

Woman as Machine: Representation of Female Clerical Workers in Interwar Magazines • Jane Marcellus, Oregon • This critical, qualitative paper looks at depictions of female clerical workers and telephone operators in magazines during the interwar period-an important time for employed women and expanding media influence. It seeks to identify common images and patterns of representation, exploring how femininity and machinery were interconnected in three mainstream magazines-The American Magazine, Ladies’ Home Journal and Forbes. It uses critical textual and visual analysis, plus historical research, to explore editorial copy and advertisements.

Making Room for Cultural History: A Historiographic Exploration of U.S. Radio History • Melissa Meade, Washington • The examination of social and cultural histories of U.S. radio is a growing area of research within communication studies. Indeed, scholars are looking at the historical meanings of the practice of radio, considerations of radio and social relationships, and radio culture itself. Our ways of teaching and discussing radio, however, have remained firmly within the traditional narratives of institutional and technological development; cultural histories remain ancillary to many curricula and general radio histories.

The Johnstown Tribune’s Coverage of the Johnstown Flood of 1889 • Patty Wharton Michael, Pennsylvania State • This paper reviews the first year of the Johnstown Tribune’s coverage of the Johnstown Flood of 1889. The paper examines the Tribune’s editor, George T. Swank, and how he used his paper to serve as a vital medium that not only reported the incident of the flood and its cause, but that continued on by informing the public of the information, resources, and procedures needed to assist Johnstown in becoming a prosperous city once again.

Keep and Use It for the Nation’s War Policy: The Office of Facts and Figures and Its Uses of the Japanese-Language Press From Pearl Harbor to Mass Internment • Takeya Mizuno, Bunkyo University, Japan • This study examines how the United States government treated the Japanese “enemy language” press during World War II by focusing on the policy of the Office of Facts and Figures (OFF), a federal agency that took responsibility for the management and mobilization of the domestic foreign language press during the first six months after Pearl Harbor. The OFF took a distinctively liberal but realistic approach.

The Decline of Live Radio Performance: A Case Study Perspective • Stephen D. Perry, Illinois State • The use of live entertainers for radio programming is well documented for networks, but not for local stations, especially those in rural America. This study examines the period of decline in the use of live entertainers starting in 1940, the pinnacle of live performance on WDZ, a rural independent broadcaster and the oldest continuously operated station in Illinois.

Sex and Censorship on Postwar American Television • Bob Pondillo, Middle Tennessee State • This research explores some of the major sexual programming discourses on postwar television. Considered, among others, are questions of how network censors negotiated representations of homosexuals, the female bosom, and “dirty dancing” on nascent American TV. The paper concludes that viewers of the era expected-even demanded-”protection” by network imposed censorship from an array of secular evils they claimed they witnessed on television.

The Atomic Bomb, the ‘Official Narrative’ and American Newspapers, 1945 • Robert A. Rabe, Wisconsin-Madison • This paper examines newspaper coverage of the atomic bombings of Japan at the end of World War Two. It compares the “official narrative,” a collection of press releases and documents issued by the government, with actual newspaper content and argues that the atomic bomb story, although shaped by government information, was not one dimensional. Given the circumstances, reporters and editors handled the story well.

Moral Guardians and the Origins of the Right of Privacy • Jeff Smith, Wisconsin-Milwaukee • Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis are habitually credited with creating the concept of a legal right of privacy. In 1890 the Harvard Law Review published their much-acclaimed article advocating tort liability for invasions of privacy by journalists. How original was their work? Writing in prestigious periodicals during the 1870s and 1880s, a number of the era’s public intellectuals dramatized a need for protecting people from the prying of the press.

A Stunt Journalist’s Last Hurrah: Nellie Bly Goes Ringside to Report on Jack Dempsey Winning the Heavyweight Boxing Championship • Mike Sowell, Oklahoma State • More than two decades after her departure from the newspaper business at the height of her career, Nellie Bly, the famous “stunt journalist” of the nineteenth century, attempted a comeback as a reporter for the New York Evening Journal in 1919. Bly’s second newspaper career lasted only three years, and she came nowhere near recapturing the glory of her youth.

Late Nineteenth-Century Discourse of Independence in Three Independent Partisan Newspapers • Dafnah Strauss, Haifa University, Israel • The paper explores the discourse of independence in American journalism during the Gilded Age as primarily a political discourse. The themes and metaphors of this discourse are analyzed by examining references to independence, neutrality and partisanship in four Midwestern newspapers dating between 1869 and 1888, with particular emphasis on three “independent-Republican” papers. The ways in which their editors sought to balance between an ideology of partisanship, professional journalistic standards and claims of independence within an environment of harsh competition will be pointed out.

The Pulitzer and the Klan: Horace Carter, The Pulitzer and How a Weekly Editor Stood up to the Klan and Won • Thomas T. Terry, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • A line of 29 cars, filled with 100 armed men all cloaked in the white robes and hoods of the Ku Klux Klan, snaked through the unpaved streets of Tabor City, North Carolina, one warm, July evening in 1950, winding toward “the bottom” where the black citizens lived. Stunned residents lined the streets in silence, including twenty-nine-year-old Horace Carter of the Tabor City Tribune. A reign of terror ensued throughout Horry County, South Carolina, and Columbus County, North Carolina.

The Communication Crisis During the Cold War: The Right to Know Movement • Kiyul Uhm, Daegu University , Korea • This paper has tried to examine the history of the right to know movement that started at the onset of the Cold War. Seeing the movement as an organized reaction against the Cold War culture of secrecy, this paper attempts to address the questions of how and why the movement was organized and initiated, and what implications and lessons can be drawn from the history of the movement and also doing a research on it.

Movie Ratings: New Technology, Research on Media Violence and the MPAA, 1968-1984 • Stephen Vaughn, Wisconsin-Madison • This paper uses new primary sources to examine how the American motion picture industry rates violence. Between the 1968 and 1984, a series of violent movies provoked a crisis in the Classification and Rating Administration (CARA) and forced the president of the Motion Pictures Association of America “AA), Jack Valenti, to create a new rating category known as PG-13. These films included The Exorcist (1973), Halloween (1978), Friday the 13” (1980), Dressed to Kill (1980), Blade Runner (1982), Poltergeist (1982), and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984).

They Had a Satellite and The Knew How to Use It: How Women Harnessed the Skies to Communicate Without the Media • Danna Walker, Maryland • In January 1975, Donna Allen, founder of the Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press, became one of the architects of the wording regarding media of the final recommendations by the National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year. As editor of the publication Media Report to Women, she may have known better than anyone the lengths women activists had gone to in challenging the existing media system and its misleading representation of women, as confirmed by the national commission.

The American Press Goes to War: The Drive for Patriotism by Mainstream and Black Newspapers in World War II • Mei-ling Yang, Utah • No abstract available.

The International Sources of Section 12 of the Radio Act of 1927 • Rita Zajacz, Indiana University • Situating the origins of foreign ownership regulations in their historical context allows us to connect them to radiotelegraphy rather than broadcasting. As a means of strategic international communications, point-to-point uses of radio technology were as important as broadcasting in this period. The analysis of the legislative history provided in this paper prompts us to reinterpret the Radio Act of 1927 as a hybrid legislation designed to address two different uses of the same technology.

Going Public Through Writing: Women Journalists and Gendered Journalistic Space in Early 20th Century China • Yong Zhang, Minnesota • The entry of women into public life and discourse is an important feature of modernity. This paper examines the emergence of women journalists in early twentieth-century China. It argues that the rise and the social acceptance of women journalists in China was tied more to nationalism than feminism. However, it was not a simple story of male intellectuals’ inclusion of women in their construction of modernity; women themselves were also historical subjects of the nationalist movement.

<< 2003 Abstracts

Cultural and Critical Studies Division

Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better!” Representing Gender in the Talk Show ¡Qué Mujeres! • Carolina Acosta-Alzuru, Georgia • Talk shows have become a “hot” topic, eliciting discussion in both the public and academic arenas. Drawing on feminist media studies and cultural studies, I examine ¡Qué Mujeres!, a show produced in Venezuela and broadcast in the U.S. on Univision, uncovering the ways in which gendered representations are immersed in the “conversation and confrontation” present in the show. ¡Qué Mujeres! is one battleground among many in which the struggle over the definition of “Venezuelan woman” is endlessly played.

Privatization of Radio and Media Hegemony in Turkey • Ece Algan, Iowa • This study analyzes media hegemony and the impact of media globalization and privatization on national-cultural identities in Turkey. Globalization is viewed as a complex process of global/local interaction where many contrasting elements, such as nationalism, ethnicity, regionalism, diversity, homogenization, imperialism, and domination are constantly contested and redefined. Using Turkish media as a case study with a special emphasis on radio and music, this study draws on the concept of hegemony to identify the ways in which the global is conceived, experienced, negotiated and transformed by the local.

Saying They’re Sorry: News Media Apologia Strategies •James Aucoin and Melva Kearney, South Alabama • Six prominent news media apologies offered between 1981 and 1998 are examined to determine strategies used. The apologiae are criticized using rhetorical theory. Reactions to each apologia are assessed. Sincerely admitting mistakes, showing regret for them, and correcting them because it is the right thing to do, and announcing long-term corrective actions to prevent reoccurrences are basic requirements for successful media apologia.

Competing for the Public Interest, 1920-1922: Amateurs and ‘Citizen Radio’ • Misook Baek, Iowa • The language of “the public interest” was first introduced in broadcasting by Herbert Hoover when the “broadcast boom” swept the nation. This paper examines the contestation over the meaning of the public interest between the government, radio corporations, and amateurs, with focus on the amateurs’ vision of “Citizen Radio.” This paper appreciates Citizen Radio as an actual process of developing the meaning of the public interest, while revealing how the project failed and corporate interests took over its meaning.

From Tin to Tourism: Nature for Sale in Phuket, Thailand • Margaret Duffy, Missouri • This research examines media coverage of the economic and environmental transitions from tin mining to tourism at Phuket Island, Thailand. The analysis focuses on two areas: 1) A discussion of the dominant news theme, a narrative that utilized the “goose that laid the golden egg” analogy both explicitly and implicitly. 2) An analysis of how news narratives reinforced assumptions that economic development and environmental protection can be achieved with the proper control of authorities accompanied by technological development.

Toward a Phenomenology of Media Reading: Theorizing the Embodied Subject, and the Text • Meenakshi Gigi Durham, Iowa • This paper offers a theory of media reading that uses phenomenology to reconcile Althusser’s concept of media “interpellations” of readers with psychoanalytic concepts of the subject. Using Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of subjectivity, in which identity stems from embodied experience, this paper theorizes the dialectical relationship of reader and text in a way that moves away from top-down “effects” models as well as valorizations of the “active audience” to posit a more complex and reiterative notion of identity formation and decoding.

Theoretical Approaches to International Health Communication Campaigns: A Critical Viewpoint from a Marginalized Space • Mohan J. Dutta-Bergman, Purdue • Based on the fundamental argument that silencing and marginalization of third-world voices lie at the core of miscommunication in international health campaigns, this paper offers a critical lens to inform the current scholarship and praxis of health campaigns. Questioning the ulterior motives situated behind the Western enterprise of health campaigns, it argues that international health campaigns seek to create docile bodies that would offer themselves to the support of the imperial powers of the developed world.

Triangulation: Layering Methods to Uncover Layers of Meaning • Heidi Hatfield Edwards, Pennsylvania State • This paper illustrates how the use of multiple qualitative methods enriches the study of social phenomenon by providing multidimensional perspectives of complex situations. It details the intricate case study design employed in a study investigating the audience role in shaping corporate involvement in social issues. The study is theoretically grounded in a rhetorical view of public relations and significantly influenced by a cultural studies tradition. The qualitative methodology reflects these perspectives.

From Information Highway to Commercial Highway: The Corporate Strategy to Wire America’s Schools • Bettina Fabos, Northern Iowa • The Internet was quietly privatized in 1995. That same year, the Clinton Administration and corporate America launched a campaign called the “Educational Challenge” which aimed to wire America’s schools by the year 2000. The intense PR blitz, lasting between 1995-1998 was accompanied by many slick ads, all loftily illustrating the internet’s learning potential. By 1998 most schools were wired and the Internet was, almost overnight, commercially viable. This paper examines how the “information highway” was cast as a commercial highway all along.

Popularizing Evangelicalism: Cultural Implications of Contemporary Christian Music • Eric Gormly, North Texas • American society has witnessed a dramatic growth in a musical genre known as Contemporary Christian Music. Ostensibly, the genre’s purpose is to evangelize to an emerging Evangelical youth culture through broader appeal. Evangelicals historically have used the media of popular culture and secular commercial practices for evangelizing vehicles. Using a range of cultural theory, however, the author argues that the movement toward religious messages in the form of popular music enables the subculture of Evangelical Christians to resist against a dominant secular society by taking possession of a cultural form and redefining it as their own, empowering them to effect an influential voice in the cultural discourse of American society.

‘Eat. Sleep. Watch Dawson’s Creek.’ Consuming Dawson’s Creek’s Teenage Experience • Amanda S. Hall, Georgia • Drawing on cultural studies, especially consumption, this study examines how a sample of the audience of Dawson’s Creek, a Warner Brothers’ Television show, interpret and relate to the show and whether they incorporate these meanings into their lives. Ten in-depth interviews were conducted with females aged 15- to 20-years-old. Findings suggest the way participants interpret the show establishes a way of life for them, serving a crucial role of support during the teenage years.

‘Trailer-Park Trash’: News, Ideology & Depictions of the American Underclass • Joseph C. Harry, Slippery Rock • A textual analysis, using social-semiotic and Marxist theoretical perspectives, of newspaper articles was conducted to analyze how class is depicted in stories about life in “trailer parks.” The analysis finds that class perspectives conflict, as higher-class journalists routinely depict a “lower class” segment as “white trash.” In this way, class functions as an invisible meta-sign, providing journalists an ironic, stereotypical means of ridiculing and, in some ways, celebrating “white trash” as a cultural marker, while sustaining economic class differences.

The Columbine Tragedy and Collective Identity: Local Reactions and a Sense of ‘Us’ • Lee Hood, Colorado • The shootings at Columbine High School in 1999 put Columbine and the suburb of Littleton, Colorado, into a glaring international spotlight. But in the Denver area, the story was a local tragedy. Using in-depth interviews, this study examines how a sense of collective local identity emerged around the event. The research is situated within cultural studies, as well as sense of place literature, both from media studies and from other areas such as sociology and cultural geography.

The Contemporary Korean Film Industry: State Cultural Policy under Neoliberal Globalization, 1988-2002 • Dal Yong Jin, Illinois • This paper draws systematic attention to the reconfiguration of the Korean film industry. It attempts to clarify the cause of the changes and discusses the Korean film industry with a special focus on state cultural policy toward cinema. The paper, in particular, examines the main role of the Korean government in the film industry’s decline until the mid-1990s, as well as its rise in recent years.

The Political Economy of the Reagan-era Prime Time Soap Opera • Chris Jordan, Pennsylvania State • Prime time soap operas of the 1980s arose from an intensification of television production’s historically oligopolistic structure under Reaganomics and deregulation. While regulatory reforms undertaken on behalf of the public interest broadened access to prime time television for independent producers during the 1970s, Reagan’s implementation of tax reforms and deregulatory initiatives concentrated control over prime time television in the hands of Hollywood’s largest producers and syndicators during the1980s. The one-hour evening soap opera facilitated these companies’ domination of prime time network access and foreign syndication sales by allowing them to use access to a nationwide audience to engage economies of scale in television production.

American Journalism Goes to War, 1898-2001: A Manifesto on Media and Empire • Richard Kaplan, California-Santa Barbara • Considers the role that the “imagined community” of the nation plays in the organization of journalism – in its narratives, in its professional ideals, and as an institution. Three theoretical maneuvers help explicate this centrality of nation to journalism. First, journalism’s narratives must be largely understood as a rite of the community. In its plots, the press thematizes the life and values of the group. Second, this community has, since 1776, been defined as the democratic nation.

Civilization, Christianity, and Cherokeeness: The Three Layers of Elitism in the Writings of Cherokee Editor Elias Boudinot • Kevin R. Kemper, Missouri-Columbia • Cherokee Elias Boudinot was the first Native American editor of the first Native American newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix. An ideological critique examines Boudinot’s writings and considers literature from other disciplines to reveal Boudinot as an elitist who saw himself as a civilized, Christian Cherokee. The complex journalist saw others as lost or saved, white or Cherokee, ignorant or educated. That elitism may have led to his support of removal of the Cherokee from ancestral lands.

The Agency: Naturalizing Terrorism • Sue Lawrence, Marist College • CBS’ The Agency is coded to exert a powerful effect on the perceptions of the audience around a discourse on terrorism. Episodes depicting depict foreign attacks on US soil naturalize terrorism, making terrorist acts on the US seem common, horrifying and inevitable. The Agency reflects the ideology of the US government at a time when the country is engaged in a war on terrorism, embracing stereotypes and underlining the need for a strong intelligence agency.

War and Its Metaphors: News Language and the Prelude to War in Iraq, 2003 • Jack Lule, Lehigh • Metaphors can kill, said George Lakoff in response to official justifications for war in the Persian Gulf. This paper studies metaphor in news coverage during the prelude to the 2003 war with Iraq. The paper outlines a methodology for study of metaphor and applies the method to six weeks of coverage by NBC Nightly News, the top-rated U.S. evening newscast. The paper identifies metaphors in NBC coverage, examines implications of those metaphors, and finally considers the role of metaphor and news language in the conception and construction of war.

Examining Diversity in Cable Television: A Proposal for Linking Diversity of Content to Diversity of Ownership • Siho Nam, Pennsylvania State • Originally developed as a means of retransmitting and boosting broadcast signals, cable television has grown as a main component of contemporary media culture. In view of that, this paper first seeks to examine various conceptions of and views toward diversity, proceeds to argue for the need to consider diversity of content in connection with diversity of ownership, and then finally discusses implications of diversity in cable TV with respect to both political and cultural democracy.

The ‘Devil’s Bargain’: A Natural History of a Prison Newspaper • Eleanor Novek, Monmouth • A free press is necessary for a healthy democracy, but how can an imprisoned journalist speak the truth to power? This paper traces the development of an inmate newspaper at a state prison for women, contrasting the routines of prison journalism with those of the commercial press. A prison newspaper is a paradoxical “devil’s bargain” – on one hand, a control mechanism employed by prison administrators, and on the other, a potentially empowering aspect of prison culture for inmates.

Labor of Love? Media, Myth, and the Political Economy of Marriage in Wendt v. Wendt • Sarah Burke Odland, Iowa • This paper explores how the news discourse surrounding the high-profile divorce trial of Gary and Lorna Wendt—a high-paid executive and his homemaker wife—interpreted and constructed cultural conceptions of gender roles within the institution of marriage. Drawing on theories of gender identity, political economy, and myth, the analysis demonstrates how the news discourses functioned as a myth-maker, naturalizing and normalizing the devaluation of domestic work.

The Story of Depression: An Investigation into the Discourse of Depression as Constructed in Direct-to-Consumer Antidepressants Advertising • JinSeong Park, Marquette • This paper discusses how direct-to-consumer (DTC) antidepressant advertising frames depression and depicts men and women. The findings suggest that DTC advertising bio-chemically frames depression and depicts men as more stable and women as more vulnerable. The social implication of the findings is that by naturalizing the view that depression is a female problem, DTC advertising may reinforce social stereotypes of women and hide the socio-cultural conditions that possibly induce female depression.

Political Regulation on Cinema in Korea • Seung Hyun Park and Jinman Han, Hallyum University & Kangwon National University • Political regulation on cinema has been the greatest barrier to the development of Korean cinema since its inception in the early twentieth century. Especially in the period from 1961 to 1979, authoritarian rule, which often involved martial law and emergency measures to silence diverse voices in basic human rights of the Korean people, elaborately designed the film industry to follow the official aesthetic doctrine defined by state agencies.

Global Queens, National Celebrities: Tales of Feminine Triumph in the Textual Imagery • Radhika Parameswaran, Indiana • Joining the tide of ethnic multiculturalism in global popular culture, a parade of Indian beauty queens’ conquests at Miss World and Miss Universe contests over the past decade have begun to pose a serious challenge to Latin America’s record of victories at these contests. Using textual analysis, this article examines media narratives on six Indian global beauty queens to reveal the complex ways in which hegemonic constructions of gender, nation, and class structure popular representations of the modern Indian woman’s agency.

Television News and Gender-relevant Visual Frames: How Election Stories Both Empower and Exclude Women Viewers • Kimmerly S. Piper-Aiken, Michigan State • This study involved the analysis of 30 news stories focused on “the importance or value of the women’s vote” or “the gender gap” from the 1996, 1992, 1988, and 1984 elections. This study found dramatic evidence of gender-relevant framing in television news video in three categories: visual imaging, visual clichés, and visual stereotypes. In terms of women’s involvement in politics, there was evidence that television news messages have been both empowering and exclusionary.

Ted Turner as Postmodern Legend: From Mouth of the South to Maverick on a Mission • Jimmie Reeves, Texas Tech • Like the “great man” narratives of other prominent figures in mass media history, the legend of Robert Edward (Ted) Turner III has been carefully cultivated and is largely the product of self-promotion. In exploring the continuities, contradictions, and contrivances of the Ted Turner story, this paper focuses on a period that begins in 1963 with Turner taking control of the family business and ends in 1991 with Turner being named Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year.”

The Road to War: Breaking the Code • Denise St. Clair and Atsushi Takjima, Wisconsin-Madison • This paper evaluates six newspaper articles from six newspapers around the world to assess through the use of framing analysis whether the coverage of President Bush’s September 13, 2002 speech to the United Nations urging the world to go to war with Iraq represents the dominant ideology of the country in which the paper is produced. This study builds on Entman’s work on framing, specifically in regard to the reliance on official sources.

‘Tama Mesquakies Battle to Save the School’; Hegemony and Change at a Community Newspaper • Sara Struckman and Frank D. Durham, Iowa • This study interprets newspaper coverage involving a conflict between the Mesquakie tribe of Iowa and the local white community over the proposed closing of the Native Americans’ school in 1968-69. The focus is the interaction of the two newspapers, the regional Des Moines Register and the local Tama News-Herald. As a result of the textual analysis, we have understood more about the nature of media hegemony and social change.

Undisciplined Reading: An Ethnographic Study of Social-Silent Readers in a Mega-Bookstore Cafe • K. D. Trager, Indiana • This article explores the ways that the “social-silent” readers in may case study established rules for themselves and others that tamed the “undisciplined” atmosphere of one Borders bookstore café in the Midwest. Their actions are read as a “mild protest” against the forms of sociability constructed by the store and the deprivatization the store offers. This paper also examines the quiet struggle between the different types of readers to define the café reading space.

Feeding the Public’s Hunger for Sensation: Discourses on Dog-eating • Christopher Vaughan, Rutgers • The consumption of dog has served as a cultural dividing line in Western discourses demarcating civilized and “uncivilized” societies. The case of Igorot tribes in the northern Philippines, whose canine repasts generated much sensationalist journalism and popular cultural comment, served in the early 20th century to provide a false case for the unsuitability for self-government of Filipinos writ large. The journalistic tradition continues in coverage of such minority practices in the Philippines and South Korea.

Are the Opinion Pages a Forum for Public Participation? A Comparison of Danish and British Models • Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, Cardiff University • This paper compares the potential for public participation in the opinion pages of Danish and British quality newspapers, which have radically different models for these pages. The paper is based on an examination of op-ed and editorial pages in the three largest circulation Danish dailies, as well as in the British papers, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and The Times, during a randomly selected two-week period in the autumn of 2002. The paper draws on deliberative democratic theory as its normative framework.

<< 2003 Abstracts

Communication Theory and Methodology Divisions

Similarities and Differences in College-Age Men’s and Women’s Responses to Alcohol Advertisements in Men’s and Women’s Magazines • Erica Weintraub Austin, Autumn Miller, Ryan Sain, Kenneth Andersen, Alina Ryabovolova, Lynne Barber, Angela Johnson, Katie Severance, Toby Beal and Cicely Clinkenbeard, Washington State • A receiver-oriented content analysis (N=321) explored the perceptions of men and women regarding advertisements for alcohol contained in the most popular men’s and women’s magazines. Each individual rated four randomly selected ads (2 from men’s magazines and 2 from women’s magazines), with a total of 32 ads rated by participants. Men found the ads targeting them more appealing while women reported the ads in men’s magazines as more offensive.

Criticism or Praise? The Impact Of Verbal Versus Text-Only Computer Feedback On Social Presence, Intrinsic Motivation, And Recall • Cheryl Campanella Bracken, Leo W. Jeffres, and Kimberly A. Neuendorf, Cleveland State • The Computers are Social Actors (CASA) paradigm asserts that human computer users interact socially with computers, and has provided extensive evidence that this is the case. In this experiment, (N= 134) participants received either praise or criticism from a computer. Independent variables were the feedback (praise or criticism), and voice (verbal or text-only). Dependent variables measured via a computer-based questionnaire were recall, perceived ability, intrinsic motivation, and perceptions of the computer as a social entity.

Processing AIDS/HIV Prevention Messages: Arousing Content, Production Pacing, and Sexual Experience • Samuel D. Bradley, James R. Angelini, Zheng Wang, and Annie Lang, Indiana • Designing effective public service announcements promoting safe-sex behavior is a challenging task. Due to the arousing, risky nature of sex, research suggests that viewers are likely to process these messages differently than other messages. An experiment was conducted wherein 75 college students were shown AIDS/HIV prevention messages. Results suggest that, as with other messages, fast production pacing increased valence. Rather than increasing self-reported arousal, however, pacing decreased the self-reported arousal.

Democratic Realism, Neoconservativism, and the Normative Underpinnings of Political Communication Research • Erik P. Bucy, Indiana and Paul D’Angelo, Albany • This paper traces the development and diffusion of four basic, normative assumptions in the political communication literature identified by Chaffee and Hochheimer (1985). We first examine how these assumptions were brought into the field by Paul Lazarsfeld and his Columbia school colleagues under the guiding principles of democratic realism, and then analyze how they continue to operate in the literature today.

Coefficient of Co-Termination • Li Cai, Ohio State • The assessment of intercoder agreement in the unitizing phase of content analyses has long been overlooked. In particular, little attention has been paid to the issue of co-termination. Although multiple-coder kappa can be used for the purpose of summarizing the agreement of co-termination, its conservativeness often results in gross underestimates. A new family of coefficients based on Multi-response Randomized Blocks Permutation procedure is presented here and numerical examples are given.

Community Level Determinants of Knowledge and Participation: Extending Knowledge Gap to Participation Gap • Jaeho Cho and Douglas M. McLeod, Wisconsin-Madison • This paper investigates the relationships between community characteristics and knowledge and participation levels examined at both the individual and community levels. This research extends knowledge gap to a parallel phenomenon, participation gag. Results from the Social Capital Benchmark Survey 2000 showed that community density, education, and cohesion were significant positive predictors of knowledge but less consistent predictors of participation at the individual level. At the community level, relationships were even stronger, though inconsistent in direction.

Pacing and Arousing Content Effects on Personal Impact, Third Person Effects and Reverse Third Person Effects of Anti-Smoking PSAs for Smokers and Non-Smokers • T. Makana Chock, Julia R. Fox, James R. Angelini, Seungjo Lee and Annie Lang, Indiana • This study found third-person effects of anti-smoking radio PSAs for smokers but reverse third-person effects for non-smokers. For smokers and non-smokers, these effects diminished with increased message pacing, as both rated others more similar to themselves in response to fast-paced PSAs compared to slow-paced PSAs. Increased message pacing resulted in greater perceived effects on self for smokers and non-smokers, although this effect was more pronounced for smokers. Fast-paced, arousing messages had the greatest personal impact.

News Values of Sports Coverage: A test of the Newsworthiness Model on the World Cup Coverage • Yun Jung Choi, Jong Hyuk Lee and Cheolhan Lee, Missouri at Columbia • The purpose of this study is to test the international newsworthiness model of Shoemaker, Danielian, and Brendlinger (1991) in sports coverage. The World Cup held in Korea and Japan was selected as the topic. To test the hypothesis, significance and deviance points of the World Cup matches were operationally defined based on the FIFA ranking points, William Hill betting points, and CNN power ranking, and then these statistics were compared with the coverage.

Using Computerized Content Analysis to Measure Affective Tone: An Amplification of “Sensationalism” by Comparing the Tonal Values of the New York Times to the New York Post Using Whissell’s Dictionary of Affect in Language • Paul Crandon and John Lombardi, North Alabama • This study introduces an innovation content analysis method that incorporates both computerized database processing and traditional semantic differential scaling. The researchers looked for evidence of sensationalism by examining headlines and leads from the New York Times and the New York Post. The two newspapers were compared using Whissell’s Dictionary of Affect in Language and an accompanying software system. Results found significant differences between the two sources, establishing further validation of the instrument itself.

Completeness, Web Use Motivation, and Credibility • Mohan J. Dutta-Bergman, Purdue • Recent articles on the quality of health information on the Internet reveal two critical criteria: completeness and credibility. This paper investigates the effect of web use motivation on the relationship between completeness and credibility. Based on a 2×3 experiment conducted with 246 respondents, the paper demonstrates that the extent of completeness of health information on the Internet impacts consumer assessment of source and website credibility.

Understanding the Relationship Between News Use and Political Knowledge: A Model-Comparison Approach Using Panel Data • William P. Eveland, Jr., Ohio State; Andrew F. Hayes; Dhavan V. Shah, Wisconsin-Madison and Nojin Kwak, Michigan • The purpose of this study was to examine more closely the assumptions of causality in research on learning from news. We collected panel data on a national sample in June and November 2000. We employed a model comparison approach to identify the best fitting model among alternatives that included models of unidirectional and reciprocal causality. The data are most consistent with a model of causality that is unidirectional running from T2 news use to T2 political knowledge.

Minority TV Portrayals, Regional Factors & Opinions on Affirmative Actions: An Affective Model of Policy Reasoning • Yuki Fujioka, Georgia State and Alexis S. Tan, Washington State • The self-administered survey of 360 white respondents in South East (n=360) and 237 white respondents in North West examined (a) regional differences in racial attitudes; and (b) influence of news media on African American stereotypes and opinions on affirmative action. Based upon the power-threat hypothesis and contact hypothesis, the study hypothesized and found that whites in South had more negative racial attitudes than whites in North West.

Cognitive Access to New and Traditional Media: Evidence from Different Strata or the Social Order • Maria Elizabeth Grabe, Indiana • The study reported here experimentally investigated the cognitive access and emotional responses of news consumers across demographic (low and high education groups) and media channel (newspaper, television, and the Web) variables. Contrary to what most channel studies have reported, television, not newspapers, emerged as the most user-friendly medium with the highest probability of providing cognitive access to news information, particularly to subjects in the lower education group.

Responding to Banner Animation: An Application of the Visual Search Paradigm • Nokon Heo, Central Arkansas • This study investigates the effect of banner animation on search-reaction time. All subjects (N = 29) in a 2 (Animation Type) x 3 (Banner Type) x 4 (Distractor Number) within-subjects factorial experiment were participated in a Web banner search task. Each subject completed a total of 72 trials. In each trial, the subject was shown a target banner and asked to search the target in the mist of distractors that were arrayed in a subsequent display.

Inside or Outside of Democracy? Political Socialization of Adolescents Within The Culture of Poverty • Edward M. Horowitz, Johan Wanstrom and Kimberly Parker, Oklahoma • This study investigates political socialization among adolescents in poor inner city communities. These adolescents live in a distinct culture different from the politically dominant upper and middle class cultures. Results indicate that these adolescents are dependent on the educational level of their parents (which often is low) and what they learn from the official school curriculum. The specific environment gives these adolescents few opportunities to learn the cultural capital necessary to understand and function in the political process.

Community and Civic Values, Communication, and Social Capital “Bowling Alone” as a Product of Values and Communication • Leo W. Jeffres, Jae-won Lee, Kimberly Neuendorf and David Atkin, Cleveland State • When Putman (1995) focused attention on a decline in organizational involvement, he renewed interest in community activities and their consequences for civic life. Since civic involvement occurs at the most “local” level, the community and neighborhood have emerged as contexts for examining “social capita” and processes involved in its decline or direction. This paper examines relationships between civic and community values, communication variables and community variable that include social capital, community attachment and identity, using data from a survey conducted in a Midwest metro area in the summer of 2001.

Perceived Interactivity and Cognitive Involvement: A Protocol Analysis of User Experience on A Web Portal with Multimedia Features • Yan Jin and Glen T. Cameron, Missouri-Columbia • This protocol analysis investigates how the most recent developed conceptualization and dimensional definition of perceived interactivity may move beyond advertising effectiveness and fit into Web portal with multimedia features. Portal users’ thoughts on active control, two-way communication, synchronicity as well as vividness were observed and categorized into different cognitive involvement levels. As a result, synchronicity turned out to be the most weighted dimensions, followed by vividness and active control. Two-way communication seemed not a strong indicator of portal interactivity.

The World Wide Web of Sports: A Path Model Examining How Online Gratifications and Reliance Predict Credibility of Online Sports Information • Thomas J. Johnson, Southern Illinois and Barbara K. Kaye, Tennessee • This study surveyed sports enthusiasts online to examine the impact of Internet gratifications and other factors on judgments of online credibility. Being motivated to go online for information and for entertainment were the strongest predictors of credibility of online sports sources. Reliance on traditional media and age were the only other consistent predictors of online credibility, with young, heavy media users rating the Internet as a credible source of sports information.

Gateways, Billboards, Communities, Niches, or Brands: A Concept Explication of Web Portals for Communication Research • Sriram Kalyanaraman and S.Shyam Sundar, Penn State • Web portals are increasing in their presence as well as importance, yet suffer from lack of conceptual clarity. In explicating the concept of portals from a number of disciplinary frameworks, this paper discovers five different, but inter-related, metaphorical conceptions—gateways, billboards, communities, niches, and brands—which, in turn, suggest five dominant features of portal sites — customization, content, control, community, and commerce—for empirical examination as variables in future research on uses and effects of portals.

News Framing of Civic Liberties Restrictions: Conditional Effects on Security Concerns and Tolerance Judgments • Heejo Keum, Elliott Hillback, Hernando Rojas, Tom Hove, Homero Gil de Zuniga, Abhiyan Humane, Mark Heather, Dhavan V. Shah and Douglas M. McLeod, Wisconsin-Madison • We examine framing effects on political tolerance. Using an online survey experiment, we presented alternative versions of a news story concerning government restrictions on an activist group. We manipulated whether the activists backed a cause supported or opposed by the respondent and whether the story framed civil liberties restrictions at the individual or group level. We find individual story frames polarize responses, leading to less support for least-liked groups and more support for most-liked groups.

Deindividuated Individuals?: Ethnographic Study of A Virtual Community • Junghyun Kim, Michigan State • This is a study about how two unique characteristics of virtual communities – the lack of social context cues and group environments – may affect the individuals’ interpersonal interaction as well as collective behaviors in virtual communities. From an ethnographic study, this paper found out that individuals in virtual communities behaved in congruent with their unique community norms with extreme loyalty toward their communities, and that they had hyperpersonal interactions with ingroup members.

Thrilling News, Factors Generating Suspense During News Exposure • Silvia Knobloch, Dmitri Williams, Michigan and Caterina Keplinger, Dresden University of Technology • Hypotheses on reactions to news were derived from Zillmann’s model of fictional drama. German participants read news stories manipulated for affective disposition toward actors and likelihood of negative outcome. Measures of suspense, reading appreciation, lingering interest, information evaluation, and mood were collected. A positive disposition toward protagonists and a perceived high likelihood of a negative outcome increased suspense while attending to news. A positive disposition led to higher reading appreciation, more interest, and better information evaluations.

Talking Politics and Engaging Politics: An Examination of The Interactive Relationships Between Structural Features of Political Talk and Discussion Engagement • Nojin Kwak, Ann Williams, Xiaoru Wang, Hoon Lee, Michigan • This study takes a process-oriented approach to understand the current status of political discussion research and identifies discussion engagement-discussion attention and integrative discussion-as an unexplored, but important, facet of political discussion. We find that discussion engagement enhances the impact that interpersonal talk has on politics, beyond what frequently employed measures of structural features of discussion network-size, frequency, and heterogeneity-yield.

Relationship between Sensation Seeking Tendency and Substance Use: Refining the Measure of Rebelliousness for Substance Use Research • Moon J. Lee, Washington State • This study reviewed a history of developing a theoretical framework of sensation-seeking tendency and addressed the critical issues involved in substance use research in regard to the sensation-seeking scale (SSS). An attempt was made to examine the existing sensation-seeking scale to better capture Disinhibition, one of the four factors in SSS that exhibit a high correlation with substance use. An exploratory factor analysis of the existing items with newly added items indicates one factor solution.

Interaction As A Unit Of Analysis For Interactive Media Research: A Conceptualization • Joo-Hyun Lee and Hairong Li, Michigan State • This conceptual paper proposes interaction as a unit of analysis in interactive media research. Ambiguity of interactivity as a core concept has been identified. With a delineation of the similarities and differences among interactivity, reaction, and interaction, this paper presents a new definition of interaction. The superiority of the interaction concept over interactivity is explained, along with the antecedents and consequences. Research propositions and hypotheses are proposed for use of interaction in future interactive media research.

Population Validity and Subject Selection Bias in Eight Marketing and Mass Communication Journals: A Critical Review • Dennis T. Lowry and Katherine H. Sundararaman, Southern Illinois Carbondale • A probability sample of 508 empirical articles from four prestigious marketing journals and four prestigious mass communication journals from 1991 through 2000 were evaluated to determine the population validity and subject selection bias of the studies. Both disciplines used a preponderance (59.3%) of non-probability samples, and one-third of the articles did not report sufficient sampling procedures to permit replication. A majority of studies did not report sampling completion rates; only 3.4% of the studies reported margin of error information.

How General Principles of Organization Theory Explain Gatekeeping Decisions About News: A Revised View of the Field• Hugh J. Martin, Georgia • Mass communication hypotheses about gatekeeping do not provide a coherent explanation of organizational influences. General theories define organizations as collections of individuals working toward a common goal. This view focuses on the processes that organizations develop, and the internal and external variables that influence the outcome of those processes. These principles are used to develop alternative models of news selection. New propositions about news selection are derived from these models.

Self-Esteem, Self-Affirmation And Threats To Self-Worth: Testing A Motivational Explanation For The Third-Person Effect • Patrick C. Meirick, Oklahoma • The self-enhancement explanation for third-person effects argues that perceiving oneself as resistant to media messages enhances one’s self-esteem. The need to self-enhance can be increased by threats to self-worth or reduced by self-affirmation (Steele, 1988). In Study One, third-person effects did not vary by threat condition or by self-esteem, although those high in self-esteem perceived smaller effects on themselves and others. In Study Two, third-person effects were smaller among those whose self-worth was affirmed.

Understanding Consumer Intention to Shop Online: A Comparison of Three Intention-Based Models • Jae-Jin Park and Glen T. Cameron, Missouri-Columbia • By using a sample of 733 consumers, this study employed path analysis to compare three intention-based models (i.e., the theory of reasoned action, the theory of planned behavior, and the technology acceptance model) in terms of the extent to which each can be used to predict and understand the consumer’s online-shopping intention. This study found that the theory of planned behavior provides a more robust theoretical basis for the study of online shopping than does the theory of reasoned action.

A Cross-Nationally Comparative Look At Agenda-Setting-The Occurrence Of Agenda-Setting Depends On The Nature Of Elite Opinion • Jochen Peter, Amsterdam • Agenda-setting research has rarely studied less frequently covered issues and seldom taken a cross-nationally comparative perspective. Focusing on the issue of European integration, this study investigated whether the amount of EU coverage in television news affected the extent to which EU citizens perceived European integration to be important. More importantly, it was studied whether the nature of elite opinion about European integration moderated the occurrence of agenda-setting effects.

None of the Above: Creating Mass Deliberation Without Discussion • Ray Pingree, Wisconsin-Madison • Deliberative democracy has been plagued by questions of implementation, due to a failure to distinguish between discussion and the more general concept of many-to-many communication. To demonstrate that this theoretical distinction is both possible and important, this paper introduces an example of an Internet-based many-to-many communication system designed to achieve deliberation’s outcomes without discussion. A broader deliberative theory is proposed, to encompass the concept of non-conversational deliberation as part of a more attainable public sphere.

Towards a Network Approach of Human Action, Theoretical concepts and empirical observations in media organizations • Thorsten Quandt, Technical University Ilmenau, Germany • This paper argues that network approaches can be helpful in describing phenomena in the media. It presents data from an empirical observation study in the newsrooms of German online media. We found surprising similarities in the coded material from this observation. This leads us to the conclusion that there are associations and sequences in human action which can be analyzed on the basis of network theory. We therefore develop a relational theory of human action.

Two Suggestions for Better Mass Communication Measurement: Remember Unidimensionality, Forget Little Jiffy • John D. Richardson and Frederick Fico, Michigan State • A review of leading mass communication journals indicates that studies introducing measures of latent constructs rarely considered unidimensionality, a critical element of construct validity. Drawing on psychometric literature, it is demonstrated that procedures commonly used to assess/develop mass communication measures, particularly Cronbach’s alpha and exploratory factor analysis, do not examine whether a measure is unidimensional. Moreover, the review of prior studies also suggests widespread use of Kaiser’s “Little Jiffy,” a contraindicated combination of exploratory factor analytic techniques.

Are People Still Learning from the Media? A Review of Social Learning Theory in Mass Communication Research, 1990-2001 • Jennifer A. Robinson, Alabama • This state of the art review analyzed mass media research which utilized social learning concepts for a theoretical base. Four major research categories were revealed: direct media effects, mediators of vicarious learning, social diffusion (indirect effects), and media oriented theoretical developments. Although health campaigns and media portrayals dominate the research, there are relatively unexplored opportunities for mass media researchers to investigate mediating variables and develop new models utilizing key social cognitive theory concepts.

Emotional Intelligence, Communication, and Civic Engagement: Exploring Possibilities for Civic Renewal • Hernando Rojas, Wisconsin-Madison • This paper integrates emotional intelligence (EI), an ability to recognize and regulate emotions, in a model that predicts civic engagement, both directly and indirectly through various communication variables. In particular, the relationship of EI with media use, interpersonal discussion, and political efficacy are explored. Hypotheses where examined across two studies. Findings suggest that EI is positively related with civic engagement, news use, discussion network size, and political efficacy.

Is Herpes Entertaining? An Application Of Entertainment-Education To Text Information Processing Concerning STDs Among Adolescents • Donna Rouner and Ralf Kracke-Berndorff, Colorado State • This study examined the impact of entertainment-education strategies on audience’s (N=137) information processing regarding sexual health. The hypothesis, that higher involved audience members exposed to a statistical message would show a higher message evaluation than those exposed to an anecdotal message, was partially supported. Also, “framing” the same anecdotal message as either intended for promotion or entertainment purposes, controlling for involvement, found higher message evaluation by respondents exposed to the entertainment message.

Comparison of Computerized and Traditional Content Analysis Techniques: A Case Study of the Texas Democratic Gubernatorial Primary • Cindy Royal, Texas at Austin • In Spring 2002, a graduate seminar at a large southwestern university embarked on a project to analyze the images of political candidates in the Texas Democratic Gubernatorial Primary as found in the Austin American-Statesman. While part of the class used traditional coding techniques, other students utilized the computerized content analysis tool VBPro to analyze the same series of data. This provided a unique opportunity to compare and contrast strategies and results.

News framing of Arctic drilling and its impact on attributes salience and issue attitudes • Fuyuan Shen, Penn State • This paper explores whether news framing can alter the salience of issue attributes, and opinions. Participants were exposed to newspaper articles framing the issue of oil drilling by emphasizing its environmental consequences or economic benefits. Results indicated that news frames had a significant impact on the perceived salience of frame relevant issue attributes. Subjects reported more frame relevant thoughts and perceived frame relevant issue attributes more important.

Modeling Micro And Macro: A Multilevel Model To Predict Memory For Television Content • Brian G. Southwell, Minnesota • Whenever a study engages an array of variables that should involve different units of analysis, the risk of misleading results lurks. Questions about memory for media content, for example, invite investigation of not only variables describing individuals, but also (relatively speaking) macro-level constructs concerning content. This paper uses multilevel modeling techniques to avoid basic pitfalls and predict memory for electronic media content using data from U.S. adolescents and data regarding nationally available health campaign advertisements.

The Need For Cognition As A Moderator In The Association Between News Media Skepticism • Yariv Tsfati, University of Haifa, Israel and Joseph N. Cappella, Pennsylvania • Prior research has found only modest associations between news media trust and exposure. Many news skeptics report moderate to high levels of mainstream news exposure, despite their mistrust of mainstream news. Why do people watch news they do not trust? This study investigates the moderating role played by the psychological construct of “the need for cognition” in this association. A need for cognition by media skepticism interaction is hypothesized and tested on survey data (n = 424).

Attributions of Advertising Influence and Negative Stereotypes Among First-and Third –Person Perceptions • Don Umphery and Tom Robinson, Southern Methodist • Recent high school graduates and university seniors both judged the influence of four magazine advertisements aimed at different age groups on each other, on people in their mid-40s, and on people in their 70s. Both samples demonstrated first-person findings with advertisements for products aimed at younger people and third-person perceptions for people in their mid-40s and 70s with advertisements for products aimed at older individuals.

The Automatic Activation of Drug Attitudes: Anti-Drug Ad Viewing Styles and Strength of Association • Carson B Wagner, Texas at Austin and S. Shyam Sundar, Pennsylvania State • Strength of association (SOA) measures convey the likelihood that attitudes will activate automatically to guide behavior. Prior anti-drug ad research has shown the difficulty in demonstrating effects on SOA, but theory suggests consuming drug ads passively as opposed to scrutinizing them may result in stronger negative associations. Herein, a between-participants experiment (N = 57) explores this possibility and indicates that viewing ads less actively yields significantly more negative SOA as compared to watching effortfully.

Message Framing and Measuring Emotional Response to Islam and Terrorism: A Comparison Between Christians, Jews and Muslims • Robert H. Wicks, Arkansas • Religion, like politics and economics, has an enormous impact on the evolution of peoples, societies and nations. This study considers how members of different religions perceive and respond emotionally to televised news reports about Islam and terrorism that the media frame in various ways. The study employs emotional response procedures that are similar to Mehrabian scaling techniques. The results indicate news reports with high relevancy to members of various faiths produce feelings of hostility, anger and outrage.

Agenda-Setting Effects in the Digital Age- Refining “Need for Orientation” with “Effort Required to Attend to the Message” • Chan Yun Yoo and Gunho Lee, Texas at Austin • This study attempted (1) to examine the agenda-setting function in the new media environment, (2) to redefine the concept of need for orientation, and (3) to empirically investigate the effects of need for orientation in the agenda-setting process. By conducting an experimental study, the authors revealed that all three new sub-dimensions of need for orientation – personal involvement, knowledge, and effort required to attend to the message – played a significant role in the agenda-setting process, and especially, individual’s effort required to attend to the message moderated the agenda-setting effects.

<< 2003 Abstracts

Communication Technology and Policy Division

U.S. and Local Commercial Television Broadcast Stations of the World Wide Web • Pi-Yun An, Southern Mississippi • The purpose of this study is to investigate how the U.S. local commercial television broadcast stations have established their identity and deliver content in cyberspace and how they respond to improving Internet technology. By examining the content and mechanisms of current local broadcasters’ Web sites, this study allows for comparison with previous research and provides a basis for future comparison studies of trends.

Why They Chat: Predicting Adoption and the Use of Chatrooms • David J. Atkin, Leo W. Jeffres, Kimberly Neuendorf, and Ryan Lange, Cleveland State and Paul Skalski, Michigan State • The present study profiles the users of online chat rooms and other online services, focusing on social locators, media use behaviors and communication needs associated participation in community activities. Data were collected from a probability sample of over 300 respondents in a major metropolitan market located within the Midwest. Findings generally fail to confirm the upscale, heavy media-use, technology adopter profile posited by diffusion theory.

Corporate Monopolies and the Making of American Broadcasting, 1920-27 • Misook Baek, Iowa • This paper examines the role of the public interest in dealing with compounding relations between the antidemocratic political pressure of corporate monopolies and the rationale of technological progress, and how the public interest is constituted in those relations. In this examination, particular attention will be placed on alternative policy proposals of a noncommercial sector, which were drawn from a grassroots interpretation of the public interest based on the public utility nature of radio broadcasting.

Consumer Awareness and Adoption of Digital Television: Exploring the Audience Knowledge, Perceptions, and Factors Affecting the Adoption of Terrestrial DTV • Sylvia M. Chan-Olmstead and Byeng- Hee Chang, Florida • This study investigates the levels of consumer awareness and knowledge of digital television (DTV) in the United States. It also explores the consumer perceptions of DTV characteristics, benefits, and importance. Various consumer characteristics and DTV perceptions were examined to assess their influence in the adoption of DTV. It was found that the consumers have many misconceptions of DTV, and their DTV knowledge level is most related to personality traits and Internet usage/tenure.

Refocusing the Issues in the Legal Protection of Databases: The Application of Economic Characteristics of Databases • Byeng-Hee Chang and Seueng-Eun Lee, Florida • This paper tries to provide a new framework which can refocus the issues surrounding the legal protection of databases from an economic perspective. The authors assume that databases have economic values and are exchanged by providers (sellers) and users (buyers) in a market. Using the economic properties of databases as criteria, this paper reviews previous legal cases and suggested database protection bills.

The State of Convergence Journalism: United States Media and University Study • Carrie Anna Criado and Camille Kraeplin, Southern Methodist • This study’s focus is exploratory: to determine the extent to which U.S. media companies and university journalism schools have embraced convergence journalism, defined as the sharing of content and/or staff. Survey data show that the majority of both newspapers and TV stations have forged convergence partnerships – nine in 10 newspapers and eight in 10 TV stations. Likewise, just under nine in 10 of the college administrators surveyed had incorporated convergence training into their curriculum.

Conceptualizing the Convergence Craze: A Three-Dimensional Model of Multimedia Curriculum Reform • George Daniels, Alabama • No abstract available.

Web Publishing Confronts International Jurisdiction in Defamation Cases: Implications of Dow Jones v. Gutnick • Constance K. Davis, Purdue • The Dow Jones company is defending itself in defamation actions in Australia and Great Britain, where libel laws favor plaintiffs, because of articles that were available on Web sites in those countries. This paper examines the implications of United States publishers who fight libel cases in countries where their Web sites can be viewed and the recourse those publishers have should they lose, then compares it to similar jurisdictional questions in the United States.

Determinants of Global Internet Diffusion: An Exploratory Study • Daniela Dimitrova, Iowa State and Richard P. Beilock, Florida • There is an increasing digital divide around the world, yet little is known about the factors that affect Internet diffusion on a global level. In this study, a model was developed and estimated to explain global inter-country differences in Internet usage rates (IUR), as measured by Internet users per capita. Income was found to be the most important determinant. Two other important determinants were the openness of a society and infrastructure, using telephone and personal computer densities as proxies.

Consumer Judgements of Source Credibility in an Online Environment: A Functional Approach • Mohan J. Dutta-Bergman, Purdue • Recently, experts have become increasingly concerned about the quality of health information on the Internet. One of the critical concerns related to quality focuses on the credibility of online health information. Of particular emphasis is the role of the source in determining the quality of information received by the consumer. An important question, therefore, is: How do consumers go about evaluating the credibility of the source? Based on the 1999 HealthStyles data, this paper compares users and non-users of the Internet.

Internet Regulation – An Oxymoron? • Maria Fontenot, Tennessee • Several Congressional attempts to protect children from obscenity on the Internet have been dismissed by the courts. This paper focuses on two of those attempts: the Communications Decency Act of 1996 and the Child Online Protection Act of 1998. It examines and analyzes Supreme Court cases and decisions related to the two statutes and the First Amendment implications of regulating the Internet and World Wide Web. It also identifies regulatory patterns and addresses what lies ahead for cyberspace regulation.

The Interplay of Old and New Media: How the Traditional News Agenda Affected Web Searches Before and After September 11, 2001 • Cary Roberts Frith and Debashis “Deb” Aikat, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • The focusing events of September 11 led to the melding of the traditional media agenda and online agenda, as defined by Web search trends. Based on several multi-faceted theories related to agenda setting, this paper examined Web search trends before and after the September 11 attacks by analyzing actual keywords entered by Google search engine users in August, September, and October 2001. In subsequent analyses, the top search queries were compared with television and print media coverage of the same issues.

Liberating Friendships through IM? Examining the Relationship between Instant Messaging and Intimacy • Yifeng Hu, Vivian Smith, Nalova Westbrook and Jackie Fowler Wood, Penn State • This study explores the relationship between Instant Messenger use and intimacy between friends. Results showed IM use was positively associated not only with affective intimacy, but also with verbal and social intimacy. Findings are consistent with the Relationship Liberated perspective of Computer-Mediated-Communication, and suggest that IM promotes rather than hinders intimacy. Moreover, frequent conversation via IM actually encourages the desire to meet face-to-face. Theoretical as well as practical implications of the results are discussed.

Bridging Newsrooms and Classrooms: Preparing the Next Generation of Journalists for Converged Media • Edgar Huang, Karen Davison, Twila Davis, Anita Nair, Stephanie Shreve and Elizabeth Bettendorf, South Florida-St. Petersburg • This study has provided empirical evidence that will help journalism educators make informed decisions about how to teach media convergence. A national survey was conducted among college professors, news professionals, and news editors. The study found strong support for training generalists and teaching new technology while continuing to emphasize critical thinking in journalism schools. It concludes that dealing with media convergence in college journalism education is an urgent necessity.

Facing the Challenges of Convergence: Media Professionals’ Concerns of Working Across Media Platforms • Edgar Huang, Karen Davison, Stephanie Shreve, Twila Davis, Elizabeth Bettendorf and Anita Nair, South Florida-St. Petersburg • This paper examined some top concerns in the media industry brought up by media convergence including the need to update news staff, production quality, compensation for multiplatform productions and the legitimacy of media convergence. An online national survey was conducted both among merged and non-merged daily newspapers and commercial TV stations to find out to what extent such concerns were shared by editors/news directors and news professionals and what their answers were to such concerns.

Bridging the Digital Divide? A National Survey of the Integration of Internet-based Technologies in Undergraduate Journalism and Mass Communication Classes • Cassandra Imfeld and Koang- Hyub Kim, North Carolina • As one of the first national studies surveying the technological landscape of undergraduate classes in journalism and mass communication programs in the 2l’ century, this research presents an encouraging picture of professors’ integration of Internet-based technologies into their classrooms. In addition, this study examines the motivations behind professors’ rejection or adoption of such innovations. Based on several statistically significant relationships, the authors propose an exploratory model that predicts professors’ integration of Internet-based technologies into their classrooms.

Universal Service: Expanding the ‘possibility space’ of Policy Discourse • Krishna P. Jayakar, Penn State and Harmeet Sawhney, Indiana • A number of proposals have been put forward to reform universal service and make it compatible with the new competitive telecommunications environment in the United States. The diversity and apparent contradictions between these proposals makes the public policy dialog scattered and confused. This paper introduces the idea of a ‘possibility space’ delineated by two dimensions – ‘intervention’ and ‘locus’ – that lays out the contours of the emerging intellectual landscape by placing past practices as well as present proposals on the same conceptual plane.

Flow as a Determinant of Online Purchasing Intention: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach • Jaw-Won Kang and Chang-Hoan Cho, Florida • The recent exponential growth rate of online shopping suggests that the Web has already been an important new medium for commerce. The purpose of this study is to reveal whether there exists the relation between “flow” and purchasing intention on the Web, and how the flow impacts the intention to purchase on the Web under a theoretically based model. To achieve the purpose, this study made an effort to integrate the theory of flow with the more traditional theory of planned behavior through a structural equation modeling approach.

To Broadband or Not to Broadband: The Impact of High-speed Internet on Knowledge and Participation • Nojin Kwak, Marko Skoric, Ann Williams and Nathaniel Poor, Michigan • This study investigates the impact of high-speed Internet on political and civic engagement. More specifically, we aim to examine the added value of broadband over dial-up connection with respect to individuals’ knowledge about current affairs, offline interpersonal-political and social-recreational—engagement, and community participation. Furthermore, we investigate the similarities and dissimilarities between early Internet and broadband adopters in terms of political and civic benefits that the respective technology has brought to early users.

Web Traffic Analysis Using Social Network Approach • Jae-Shin Lee and Geri Gay, Cornell; Cho Hichang, National University of Singapore • The focus of this study is to examine Web traffic patterns using the social network perspective. Social network analysis examines relationships among entities and helps find structural patterns of relationships. In this study, we recorded students’ Web surfing behaviors in log files and their Web surfing patterns were visualized using social network diagrams. With social network diagrams, we were able to display how traffic to different Web sites were interrelated.

Effects on Course Materials Available on the Web on Students’ Learning Attitude and Outcome • Xigen Li, Louisiana State • A survey of students in a large state university found use of Web-enhanced course materials was not associated with positive attitude toward attending classes. However, use of Web-enhanced course materials was found partly associated with both perceived positive learning process and learning outcome. Two thirds of the students accessed course materials on the Web quite often. The course materials on the Web that the students wanted the most were lecture notes.

Coming of Age in the E-Generation: A Qualitative Exploration of How Young People Use Communication Technology for Identity Building and Social Interaction • Sally J. McMillian and Margaret Morrison, Tennessee • Analyzing autobiographical essays written by 72 young adult college students, this study investigates how coming of age concurrently with interactive technologies has influenced their identity building and social interaction. Using a grounded theory approach, four axial themes (defining self, defining community, social interaction within the family, and social interaction with others) and two selective coding categories (duality and dependence) emerged to offer some insight into what it means to grow up in the E – generation.

Determinants of Instant Messaging Use • Namkee Park, Southern California • Instant messaging is a technological innovation featuring near-real-time communication and interactivity between users, which also exhibits network effects in its diffusion. This study identifies a profile of instant messaging users and empirically tests the prediction of network effects. The study results indicate that technological innovativeness is the only significant factor in predicting instant messaging use. It was also found that network effects play a critical role for the users to choose a specific service.

Both Sides of the Digital Divide in Appalachia: Uses and Perceived Benefits of Internet Access • Daniel Riffe, Ohio • No abstract available.

Antecedents and Consequences of Online Trust: Explaining Support for Censorship and Filtering of Internet Content • Mike Schmierback, Jaeho Cho, Heejo Keum, Hernado Rojas, Dhavan V. Shah, Wisconsin-Madison and William P. Eveland Jr., Ohio State • Trust has traditionally been important in understanding social exchanges and social capital. Online, trust may facilitate these or other processes. We test the relationship between two forms of online trust – interpersonal and privacy – and online participation, comfort and efficacy. We also consider how these variables predict support for online censorship and filtering software. Comfort and efficacy generally predict online trust, while those who are more trusting are less likely to support online restrictions.

Political Talk and Political Messaging: Models of Mediated Information Effects on Civic Engagement • Dhavan V. Shah, and Jaeho Cho, Wisconsin-Madison; William P. Eveland Jr., Ohio State and Nojin Kwak, Michigan • We examine the effects of informational use of traditional media and the Internet on civic engagement. Using a two-wave panel survey data, we find information effects on civic engagement are largely mediated through interpersonal political discussion and interactive political messaging. Most notably, online information seeking and interactive political messaging -use of the Web as a resource and a forum – strongly influence civic engagement, often more so than do uses of traditional print and broadcast media.

The Transition to Digital Television: Are We There Yet? • James A. Wall, Southern Illinois • This paper discusses the current transition from analog to digital television (DTV) and considers the advantages, capabilities, and limitations of DTV from the perspective of both broadcasters and consumers. In addition to high-definition television (HDTV), the impending DTV transition brings to the forefront new technological uses and capabilities for broadcast television including multicasting, datacasting, and enhanced TV.

Massively Multiplayer Mayhem: Aggression in an Online Game • Dimitri Williams and Marko M. Skoric, Michigan • Research on violent video games suggests that play leads to aggressive behavior. The first longitudinal study of an online violent video game with a control group tested for changes in several aggression measures and for cultivation effects. The findings did not support the assertion that a violent game will cause substantial increases in real-world aggression, but cultivation effects were found. The findings are presented and discussed, along with their implications for research and policy.

The TV that Watches You: Privacy Concerns Involving TiVo • Kevin D. Williams, Georgia • This paper focuses on privacy concerns related to TiVo’s collection of data from individual subscribers. The author contends that TiVo’s privacy policy and collection of data do not violate any current statutes. Although no law specifically regulates TiVo, the author believes legislation will be constructed based on three pre-existing statutes: The Stored Communications Act, the Cable TV Privacy Act, and the Video Privacy Protection Act.

News on the Web: How Much Print and Broadcast Top News Converge in New Media • Jin Xu and A.J. Baltes, Bowling Green State • This study examines how print and broadcast sites converge with respect to top story updating and story depth. Samples consisted of all the real time updates in twenty randomly selected 24-hour periods collected simultaneously from seven print and four broadcast websites by an automated procedure. Analysis focused on front-page updating, individual story updating, times of updating, distinct story output, and story length.

Perceived Motives for Clicking on Multimedia Features on News Web Sites: An Exploratory Study • Amy Zerba, Florida • The purpose of this research is to explore readers’ perceived motives for clicking on multimedia features on news sites. Findings suggest that technology difficulties are slowing the advancement of multimedia features on news sites, yet a fast connection and story interest could override these factors. The study also showed a significant positive relationship between increased exposure to news sites and the motive statement “I learn better with audio/video.”

<< 2003 Abstracts

Advertising Division

Stereotyping the ‘Model Minority’: A Longitudinal Analysis of Primetime Network Commercials, Comparing Asian Female and Male Characters to Themselves and Others • Dennis J. Ganahl, Liang Ge, and Kwangok Kim, Southern Illinois-Carbondale • Their population growth rate and purchasing power have made Asians a strong consumer market in the U.S. The longitudinal content analysis of primetime network commercials examined how Asians were portrayed in U.S. television commercials. Comparison analyses of All Asians to All Characters, Asian Females to All Females, Asian Males to All Males, and Asian Females to Asian Males were made for numerical representation, acting roles, products and age.

Is it Segmentation or Segregation? Exploring the Unintended Social Consequence of Targeting Minority Audiences with Advertising Placements Outside of Mainstream Media • Karie L. Hollerbach, Southeast Missouri State • An emphasis on segmenting audiences as a function of targeted marketing could lead to possible audience separation or even isolation for some audience members. This study examines the numerical representation and presence of African Americans relative to Caucasians in advertisements placed in primetime television programs found in the Nielsen African American Audience Index and the Nielsen General Audience Index.

A Propaganda Analysis of the Shared Values Initiative: The First US Advertising Campaign to the Muslim World • Alice Kendrick, Southern Methodist and Jamie Armstrong Fullerton, Oklahoma State • Former advertising executive Charlotte Beers, appointed Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, made propaganda history by implementing the first television “advertising” campaign to predominantly Muslim countries in 2002. Using the Jowett and O’Donnell 10-point propaganda analysis framework, this paper chronicles the events leading up to the creating of the controversial “Shared Values Initiative” as well as the reaction of various audiences to the campaign.

College Students’ Perceptions of ‘Creative Circumvention’ Beer Commercials • Lara G. Zwarun, Arlington • College students were shown beer commercials that “creatively circumvent” a self-regulatory advertising guideline, and asked what they believed they saw in the ads. Results indicate that some beer ads imply that dangerous activities are being combined with drinking, although the extent to which subjects perceive this varies by ad. Characteristics of beer ads that might contribute to these perceptions are considered; these findings could be used by beer advertisers to create more responsible ads.

RESEARCH
Perceptions and Purchasing of the Phrase “God Bless America” • John V. Bodle, and Larry Burriss, Middle Tennessee State • This study probes how meaningful the phrase “God bless America” is and whether it translates into purchases of consumer goods. The phrase is meaningful to two-thirds of Americans especially those calling themselves “born again” or “evangelicals.” Greater than one-fourth purchase consumer items with the phrase; it is particularly endearing to those with household income below $40,000óespecially when a high school diploma is the highest education level.

Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Interactivity on Corporate Websites: U.S., U.K., Japan and Korea • Chang-Hoan Cho and Hongsik Cheon, Florida • This study is a cross cultural examination of interactivity on U.S., U.K., Japanese and Korean corporate websites. Utilizing cultural difference criteria of high vs. low context, power distance and individualism-collectivism, this study compares three dimensions of interactivity on each country’s top 50 advertisers’ websites. Our findings indicate that western websites tend to emphasize consumer-message and consumer-advertiser interactivity, while eastern websites highlight consumer-consumer interactivity.

Who are the “Others”? Third-person Effects of Idealized Body Image in Magazine Advertisements • Yoonhyeung Choi and Glenn Leshner • Missouri-Columbia • This study examined the third-person effects of idealized body images in magazine advertisements by proposing the importance of gender-based “other” (male vs. female). Based on literature from reflected appraisal theory and third-person effects literature, we hypothesized that exposure to idea! body images would create larger third-person perceptions when the “others” were males. Findings confirmed that when “others” were defined based on gender, significant third-person perceptions occurred.

An Historical Analysis of Journalists’ Attitudes Toward Advertisers and Advertising’s Influence • Denise DeLorme and Fred Fedler, Central Florida • Journalists often seem to have contradictory attitudes toward advertisers and advertising’s influence. The relationship is necessary but complicated and no studies have investigated its historic roots. Thus, this paper explores the perspective of “journalism’s early insiders,” through an historical analysis of autobiographies, biographies, and magazine articles written by and about early U.S. newspaper reporters and editors. Results reveal eight interrelated factors contributing to the origins of these attitudes. The paper concludes with implications and future research recommendations.

The Demographic and Psychographic Antecedents of Attitude toward Advertising • Mohan Dutta-Bergman, Purdue • Attitude toward advertising has been widely researched in the last few decades. Its ubiquitous effect on the advertising industry manifests itself in the domain of consumer purchasing behavior and in the freedom of the industry in placing its messages in media outlets. Although the relationship of demographic variables with attitude toward advertising has been explored in past research, psychographic variables have not been looked at in the context of their effect on the construct.

Cultivation Effects of Television Viewing: A Study of Relationships Among Viewing, Materialism and Attitudes Towards Commercials • Dennis Ganahl, Hongwei Yang and Jie Lui, Southern Illinois-Carbondale • A survey of 358 college students in the U.S. examined the relationships among television viewing, materialism and the respondents attitudes toward television commercials. Television viewing was significantly correlated with materialism. This finding suggests that television viewing cultivates college students’ materialistic values. Viewing was also positively correlated with positive attitudes about commercials such as the identification with similar values as those represented in television commercials, the believability of television commercials and the identification of television commercials as a primary source for product information.

Consumer Recognition of Sports Event Sponsors: The Impact of Advertising, Ambushers, and Audience Factors • Kyoo-Hoon Han, Yongjun Sung, Spencer Tinkham, Georgia • Considering rapid changes in sports marketing environments and growing interest in sports event sponsorship, the present study examines what factors might affect consumer recognition of the official sponsors for a recent global sports event: the 2002 FIFA World Cup. Based upon marketing literature and prior empirical findings, five factors ó ambusher presence, advertising expenditure, country of origin, sports event involvement, and gender ó are predicted to influence the consumersí level of sponsor recognition.

Strategies for the Super Bowl of Advertising: An Analysis of Message and Creative Strategies for Commercials and Related Web Sites • Juran Kim, Jang-Sun Hwang and Sally McMillan, Tennessee-Knoxville • Super Bowl advertising provides an ideal venue for exploring message and creative strategies in commercials and related Web sites. This study found television commercials more often use transformational strategies while Web sites are more informational. Message strategies were generally more consistent across media than were creative strategies. Some unexpected relationships were found between message and creative strategies, but these and other findings point to the importance of tailoring messages to meet technological capabilities of media.

Proactive and Retroactive Position Effects And a System for Evaluating Pod Positions (SEPP) • Koanghyub Kim, W. Joann Wong, Xinshu Zhao, North Carolina at Chapel Hill • no abstract available.

Do Sport Sponsorship Announcements Influence Firm Stock Prices? The Wall Street Journal Effect • Lance Kinney and Gregg Bell, Alabama • Event sponsorship is among the fastest growing areas of marketing communication. Sponsorship funds exceeded the 2001 expenditures for cable television, syndicated television, national newspaper, outdoor, national spot radio, Sunday magazines and network radio combined. However, measuring the value of sports sponsorship is a consistent problem for event producers and event sponsors. Event study methodology allows event and sponsoring brand managers to assess the impact of sports sponsorship announcements on financial markets.

When Patients Influence Physicians: Empowerment of Fine-Print Readers by Direct-To-Consumer Drug Advertising and Implications to the Two-Step Flow Model • Annisa Lee, North Carolina • “The Large Print Giveth, and the Small Print Taketh Away” is a common expression to describe the deceptiveness and uselessness of product ads and fine print in general. The situation is completely different in drug ads. This paper will show that for drug ads, “The Large Print Giveth, and the Small Print Giveth even more.” A survey of 1081 participants indicates that fine print reading of drug ads affects changes in attitudinal and behavioral aspects in patients.

Public Attitudes toward Advertising: Trends and Predictors • Tien-tsung Lee, Washington State and Martin Horm, DDB Worldwide • Using a series of surveys conducted annually between 1975 and 2002, changes of public attitudes toward advertising were analyzed. Contrary to the findings of recent studies, the present research shows that American consumers hold increasingly positive attitudes toward advertising over the past few decades. In addition, predictors of such attitudes were identified using a 2001 survey.

Academic Institutional Television Commercials: A Comparison of Universities • Brian Parker and Gail Baker, Florida • This study cataloged the application of academic institutional advertisements and provided empirical documentation of 153 executional items. A content analysis of commercials from AAU leading research universities and other large non-AAU universities demonstrated significant variations in benefits communicated, commercial tone, image based claims, and the utilization of a spokesperson. In general, academic institutional advertisements combine a general message about the university reputation while promoting the product/service offered by the institution to prospective audiences.

From Information Retrieval to Actual Purchase: A Path Analysis of the Online Purchase Decision Making Process Among U.S. and Indian Consumers • Padmini Patwardhan • Texas Tech and Jyotika Ramaprasad, Southern Illinois • Drawing from theories of consumer decision making that posit hierarchies and exploiting their match with the components of online purchasing, this study first proposes a path model of online purchase decision making and then empirically examines it for U.S. and Indian consumers. The model integrates two stages-knowledge and behavior-of the rational consumer behavior hierarchy with a two-stage beliefs-action hierarchy.

Advertising in Bulgaria: Prospects and Challenges in this Struggling Democracy • John Schweitzer, Bradley • The main objective of this study was to explore the history and evolution of advertising in Bulgaria. It begins with an overview of the country’s history and society and then examines the variables that affect its advertising industry: geography, transportation and population; the historical and cultural context of the country; the political and legal environment; the social and economic context and the state of the media.

An Empirical Investigation of the Relationship of Television Program and Advertising Delivery • June-Young Song and Kuen- Hee Ju-Pak, California State University-Fullerton • The present study investigated the relationship between program and advertising delivery by examining the people meter data of AC Nielsen Korea. Results indicate a large gap between the two types of delivery, which questions the current practice of equating the program delivery with the delivery for an ad inserted in the program. The relationship between the two measures was found to be moderated by various audience-related and communication context factors.

Anti-Drug Ads: Do Traditional Attitude Measures Exaggerate Their Effectiveness? • Carson B Wagner, Texas-Austin • Due to their obtrusiveness, the sensitive nature of illicit drugs, and research situation demands, self-report attitude measures used in anti- drug ad studies may produce exaggerated estimates of message effectiveness. To explore this possibility, a between-participants experiment (N = 25) was run to compare traditional self-report measures with newly-emerging, less obtrusive response latency attitude measures. Results indicate that self-report measures tend to magnify drug ad effects as compared to response latency measures.

You’re so Vain! The Influence of Personal Vanity in the Perception of Magazine Advertising • Tom Weir, and Roy Kelsey, Oklahoma State • This study attempts to fill a void in advertising literature by assessing the role of personal vanity in the perception of advertising. Subjects were rated for vanity on the scales of Netemeyer, Burton and Lichtenstein (1995), and subsequently asked to rate their perception of magazine ads. Results indicate that parts of the scale are more predictive than others. Regression analyses reveal that the more important parts of vanity are internal for men, and external for women.

Do the Number and Type of Sources Used to Appear to be Related to Infomerical Success? An Exploratory Study • Jan Wicks, Katy Widder and Robert Brady • Arkansas • This preliminary study examined whether infomercials having a greater than average or modal number of sources were more successful, using an industry measure of success, than those using fewer sources. Sources that past research suggested were persuasive were coded as present or absent (e.g. celebrity, expert) and summed to create a total number of sources in each infomerical. Results suggest that infomercials having more sources are more successful in generating sales.

The Test of the Effectiveness of Product Placements in Video Games: Comparing Explicit and Implicit Memory for Grand Names • Moonhee Yang, Lucian Dinu and David Roskos-Ewoldsen, Alabama • Given the increasing practice of brand and product placements in video games, this study examined the effects of placed brands on the game playersí memory. Both implicit and explicit memory for brands placed in two sports games were tested using a word fragment test, and a recognition task, respectively. The results indicated that although the players did not perform well on explicit memory (recognition test), they showed implicit memory (word-fragment test) for the brand names placed in video games.

SPECIAL TOPICS
Product Placement from Lumiere to E.T.: The Development of Advertising in Motion Pictures • Jay Newell, Iowa State and Charles Salmon, Michigan State• The practice of inserting trademarked products into popular entertainment in order to stimulate consumption, variously called “product placement” and “brand placement,” has been an integral part of advertising long before “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” followed a trail of Reeceís Pieces out of the woods. Using internal documents from motion picture studios, advertising agencies and public relations firms, this paper traces the development of product placement from its beginnings with Sunlight Soap in the Lumiere films of the mid-1890s through the success of E.T. and Reece’s Pieces in 1982.

An Assessment of Consumer Attitudes toward Direct Marketing Channels: A Comparison between Unsolicited E-Mail and Postal Direct Mail • Susan Chang, Mariko Morimoto, Michigan State • An examination of consumer attitudes towards two major direct marketing methods, unsolicited e-mail and postal direct mail, Psychological Reactance Theory was used to determine what factors might influence consumers’ attitudes toward each communication method. Focus groups were conducted to discover the common themes and to identify the influential factors. The results of this study indicated that in comparison, unsolicited e-mails were more problematic than postal direct mail due to the inconvenience that spam presented to consumers.

Advertising Theory Beyond the Context of Advertising: Taylor’s Six-Segment Message Strategy Wheel Offers an Integrated Model of Political Science Theory • Anne Cunningham and Eric Jenner, Louisiana State • In an effort to integrate several decades of research on voter behavior this paper turns to four decades of consumer behavior research, culminating in two advertising planning models: FCB Grid and Six-Segment Message Strategy Wheel. After outlining the debate over the rationality of voting behavior and political involvement, we suggest that much of the political science research can be integrated if examined through Taylor’s Strategy Wheel. In seeking to integrate current findings in advertising and political science, this paper offers a contribution to both fields of inquiry.

Latino Consumer Behavior and Acculturation: A Communication Model • Olaf Werder, New Mexico and Frank G. Perez, Texas at El Paso • The fastest growing and largest consumer segment in the U.S. is the Latino market with a combined buying power of $630 billion. Given that several variables affect the consumer behavior of individuals and that Latino consumers are in a state of cultural flux, a variety of misperceptions exist that prevent successful advertising communication to U.S. Latino audiences. The goal of this study is to introduce a decision making model as it relates to Latino consumer behavior.

Hard-Sell Killers and Soft-Sell Poets: Modern Advertising’s Enduring Message Strategy Debate • Fred K. Beard, Oklahoma • The historical study of the advertising trade literature reported in this paper sought to describe and explain the nature of the enduring debate between advocates of hard- and soft-sell advertising. Data consisted of works published primarily in Printers’ Ink, supplemented with contemporary professional thought identified in advertising and marketing trade journals. The findings of the study are consistent, overall, with what many might consider to be the “received view” of modern advertising.

Exporting the “Fun, Fearless Female”: Cosmopolitan Magazine as a Case Study of a Global Media Brand • Michelle R. Nelson, Wisconsin-Madison and Hye-Jin Paek, Wisconsin-Madison• This case study is the first to examine branding for an international media brand. We compare Cosmopolitan magazine packaging (look and feel), editorial content, and advertising across Brazil, France, India, South Korea, Thailand, United Kingdom, and USA. Descriptive content analyses, in-depth examinations, and an interview with a local editor are used to explore strategies. Results intimate that while Cosmopolitan aims to create a standardized brand, the nature of the medium suggests some localization is necessary.

First- and Third-Person Perceptions of Advertising Images and Stereotyping:
An Inter-Generational Perspective • Tom Robinson, Brigham Young and Don Umphery, Southern Methodist • This study examines the relationship between third-person perceptions and stereotypes by determining on what basis older people and younger people perceive each other. More specifically, when individuals look at positive or negative images in advertisements what will be their perception of the effects those images will have on others. The results indicate that a third- and first- person perception does exist and that young people are influenced by stereotypes when making decisions about older people.

Warning Signals, Wind Speeds and What Next: A Pilot Project for Disaster Preparedness Among Residents of Central Vietnam’s Lagoons • Jyotika Ramaprasad, Southern Illinois • This paper describes a pilot disaster risk communication campaign that was designed and is in its final stages of implementation in Central Vietnam. Central Vietnam is highly prone to water related disasters, which cause enormous loss of lives and livelihood and make sustainable development almost impossible. Residents in the lagoons of Central Vietnam, who are particularly vulnerable because of their proximity to water, were the target audience for this project.

STUDENT
Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising on Television: A Pilot Study • Juhee Cho, Arkansas • The goal of this pilot study is to see whether Direct-to-Consumer TV ads contain adequate information for consumers. This study analyzed eleven DTC prescription drug ads for the most heavily advertised drugs between 1999-2000. The results shows that information in DTC ads is not balanced and informative for consumers, suggesting the FDA should regulate DTC TV ads more closely to ensure public health.

Gender, Ethnicity and Ethnicity/Gender Relations Represented in Advertising Claims: An Analysis of Persuasive Techniques in Primetime TV Commercials Across 18 Channels • Jongbae Hong, Eunseon Kwon, Jeongseon Kwon and Suijeong Kim, Southern Illinois-Carbondale • This study investigates the reciprocal relationships between gender, ethnicity, and ethnicity/gender relations and persuasive advertising techniques, portrayed in primetime TV commercials across 18 channels. The findings of this study suggest that although men, white, and white men tended to use deceptive pseudo-verbal techniques most frequently, white men’s prestige were protected by their most frequest appearance in the use of extremely sophisticated visual techniques, resulting in the victimization of other cultural groups or as a result of other cultural groups’ victimization.

The Portrayal of Older People in Television Advertisements: A Cross-Cultural Content Analysis of the United States and South Korea • Byongkwan Lee, Michigan State and Bong-Chul Kim, Korea Broadcasting Advertising Corporation • A cross-cultural content analysis of 2,295 prime-time television ads ó 859 ads from the United States and 1,436 ads from South Korea ó was conducted to examine the differences in the portrayal of older people between U.S. and Korean ads. In two countries, the underrepresentation of older people in ads was found in terms of proportions of the actual population.

To Vary or Not? Research Implications of Ad Variation in Web Advertising • Sang Yeal Lee, Pennsylvania State • The tremendous growth of the World Wide Web has attracted many advertisers who want to take advantage of the medium. However, as the novelty of the Web disappears and users become experts of the Web, declining advertising effectiveness has become an important issue for advertisers. This article explores the potential impact of ad variation to maintain or increase advertising effectiveness in Web context.

A Content Analysis of Print Advertising Appeals in Times of Crisis • Alexander Muk, Southern Mississippi • The basic element associated with an advertising strategy is the choice of advertising appeals. Advertising appeals are commonly categorized into two broad types of appeal: rational and emotional. The purpose of this paper is to use content analysis procedure empirically examining the impact of September 11 on service advertising in magazines. In times of crises, what kinds of advertising appeal are highly utilized in print advertising?

Perceptual Antecedents to Attitudes toward Internet Advertising in General • Xiaoli Nam, Minnesota • Based on Pollay and Mittalís (1993) 7-factor advertising belief model and Fishbein and Ajzenís (1975) attitude theory, which posits that beliefs are mediators of attitude formation/change, this study investigates beliefs toward Internet advertising as perceptual antecedents to attitudes toward Internet advertising in general. A survey was administrated to 192 college students.

Understanding Celebrity Endorsers in a Cross-Cultural Context: An Exploratory Analysis of South Korean and U.S. Advertising • Hye-Jin Paek, Wisconsin-Madison • This study links McCraken’s “cultural meaning transfer” model (1989) with Hofstede’s cultural typology, to understand cultural meanings of celebrity endorsers in cross-cultural advertising. The content analysis of South Korean and US newspaper ads finds that ads in a high uncertainty avoidance and power distance culture employ a greater number of celebrity endorses and that there is some possibility for international advertisers to use standardized celebrity endorser strategy. Implications and directions for future studies are discussed.

Fighting to the Finish: Advertising and Public Opinion at the End of World War II • Robert A. Rabe, Wisconsin-Madison • This paper examines twar-related advertising at the end of World War II and efforts by the War Advertising Council and other groups to urge Americans to refocus their attention on the Pacific War in the final months of conflict. It discusses the debate within the industry over reconversion and advertising postwar consumer products and the role that advertising played in shaping Americans’ attitudes about the end of the war.

Gender Role Stereotyping in Children’s Television Advertising, 2003: A Cross-Cultural Study of the United States and South Korea • Eun-Jung Roh, Ohio • This study examined gender role portrayals in a sample of 212 television advertisements featuring children in programming aimed at children in the United States and South Korea. The results of the study showed that the recent tendency to increase the proportion of girl’s characters and their independent interaction in the samples of both nations supports that gender portrayals in TV commercials have less stereotyped content than had been indicated by previous research.

Congruity Effect Hypothesis: Attentional Focus and Commercial Effectiveness • Sela Sar, Minnesota • The purpose of this study was to investigate congruity effect. The congruity between subject’s attentional focus and commercial content was studied. Subjects were randomly assigned to either cognitive and/or affective attentional focus conditions. Subjects in both conditions were told to watch one television program segment. Attentional focus was directly manipulated. Subject’s attentional focus was manipulated through instructions and a television program segment.

TEACHING
Account Planning and Underground Education: Preparing Strategic Thinkers • Kendra Gale and Brett Robbs, Colorado-Boulder • Based on depth interviews with senior planners and planning directors from major U.S. agencies, this paper identifies the skills advertising agencies look for in entry level account planners as well as typical responsibilities of junior planners. While business and research understanding are vital areas of knowledge, interviewees repeatedly stressed the value of integrative thinking skills. Potential implications for curriculum development are discussed.

Attitudes Toward Grades Among Advertising Students: Creative Orientation, GPA, Gender and Other Factors • Don Umphrey and Jami A. Fullerton, Southern Methodist • Attitudes toward grades were measured among advertising majors at two universities. More favorable attitudes toward grades were found among underclass students, while more advanced students were more jaundiced in their attitudes. Findings indicated that female students were more favorably disposed toward grades, but perhaps this was a reflection of their higher GPAs. Those interested in the creative aspects of advertising demonstrated ambivalence. Attitudes toward professors were not necessarily tied to attitudes toward grades.

Legal Obligations to Students with Invisible Disabilities: What Advertising Teachers Need to Know about Working with Learning-Disabled Students in Team-based Classes • Debbie Treise, Elaine Wagner, Lindsay Minter and Linda Correll, Florida • This study investigates accommodation of learning-disabled (LD) students in team-based classes, such as Advertising Campaigns, from the perspective of deans of students, university general counsels and faculty attorneys. Four themes emerged, that could be important for faculty when LD students identify themselves: be proactive about disabilities guidelines, communicate with disabilities offices and to the student; set up and define rules in the syllabus by which students can assess progress; and share responsibilities with disabilities officers.

Applications of Q Methodology to In-class Advertising Research Projects • Douglas Blanks Hindman, Washington State • Audience research can help guide the development of a creative strategy by suggesting target audiences and advertising themes that would be particularly appealing to those audiences. This paper describes how Q methodology can be used as an alternative to survey research and focus group studies for in-class advertising research projects. The paper provides examples of how the technique has been used by students to develop creative strategies and evaluate existing campaigns.

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