Archives for January 2012

Law Division

Protecting the Public Policy Rationale of Copyright: Reconsidering Copyright Misuse • Victoria Smith Ekstrand, Bowling Green • This paper addresses the doctrine of copyright misuse, an affirmative defense to infringement. This analysis revealed that courts (1) have been reluctant to find in favor of defendants who claim copyright misuse and (2) have interpreted the doctrine narrowly on the basis of antitrust considerations. However, more recent decisions suggest a greater willingness to rule for defendants claiming misuse.

The Protection of an Author’s Work: Press Coverage of the Emergence of Copyright during the Mid-Nineteenth Century • Gary C. Guffey, University of Georgia • The Copyright Act of 1831 is considered the basis of modern U.S. copyright law. Although there was strong support for the law portrayed in the newspapers and magazines from 1820 to 1840, many writers found trouble with the ultimate effects of the law. According to the articles an author’s exclusive rights expanded to include greater domestic protection but failed to develop the financial structure necessary to support the creative talents.

Blocking the Sunshine: How the FOIA’s “Opaque” Deliberative-Process Exemption Obstructs Access to Government-Held Information • Martin E. Halstuk, Penn State University • This paper seeks to shed light on FOIA Exemption 5, which applies to “inter-agency or intra-agency” documents. The purpose of this exemption is to protect the government during litigation. Therefore, it embodies several common law privileges from discovery, mainly the deliberative-process privilege, the attorney work-product privilege and the attorney-client privilege. This research project focuses on the deliberative-process privilege because it is the most broadly worded and most often invoked of the Exemption 5’s privileges.

When Is an Invasion of Privacy Unwarranted Under the FOIA? An Analysis of The Supreme Court’s “Sufficient Reason” and “Presumption of Legitimacy” Standards • Martin E. Haistuk, Penn State University • This paper examines a 2004 Supreme Court decision, Favish v. National Archives Administration, which concerns a FOIA request for the death scene photos of former Clinton White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster, who committed suicide. The Court held that FOIA’s privacy exemptions extend to Foster’s family members and, therefore, the government could withhold the pictures. This paper concludes that the Court’s recognition of privacy rights for family members of the dead was not unreasonable.

Step Out of Line and the “Man” Will Come and Take You Away: Using “Speech Zones” to Control Public Discourse in 21″ Century America • Paul Haridakis and Amber Ferris, Kent State University • We review the use of Speech Zones in which narrowly prescribed areas are designated as acceptable places for expression, and large areas, regardless of whether they have been traditional public forums in the past are deemed off-limits for public discourse. We argue that the use and level of acceptance of speech zones to control public discourse in the 21st century provides a gauge of the current level of societal commitment to free speech.

Press Protection in the Blogsophere: Applying a Functional Definition of Press to News Web Logs • Laura J. Hendrickson • This paper discusses how a functional definition of “the press” might broaden the scope of who qualifies to include some news web logs. The author further discusses the implications of this for either increasing the number 01’ news outlets who qualify for press privileges or, in the event the press ultimately is indistinguishable as an institution, for diminishing special protections – such as shield laws or access to important news events – that the press traditionally has enjoyed.

Soldier Or Citizen In The Digital Age? How Access to Technology and the Embedded Media Program Effect First Amendment Protections for Speech and the Military’s Authority to Restrict it • Anaklara Hering, Florida • When defining First Amendment protections for military personnel, courts balance the need for a viable military against preservation of rights for those called to arms. Most often, national security wins at the expense of speech, however embedded war correspondents and sophisticated communication devices present challenges to these precedents. This article explains the rationale that holds service members as soldiers first and citizens second and proposes education before the press loses its access to the battlefield.

Telemarketing Regulation and the Commercial Speech Doctrine • R. Michael Hoefges, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Federal appeals courts have ruled constitutional both the federal ban on unsolicited telefax advertising and the national do-not-call registry under the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has declined requests to review these decisions. Thus, for the time being, these federal regulatory schemes stand as examples of constitutional limitations on telemarketing that preserve the rights of advertisers and marketers while protecting the concomitant right of consumers to receive – and not receive – these and other targeted communications.

Unconstitutional Review Board? Considering a First Amendment Challenge to IRB Regulation of Journalistic Research Methods • Robert L. Kerr, Oklahoma • This paper considers how IRB regulations on journalistic research methods might fare if subjected to the judicial scrutiny of a First Amendment challenge. Through analysis of relevant case law, this article considers the critical elements likely to be at issue and finds the regulation suspect on multiple constitutional grounds. Regardless whether the plaintiff in this hypothetical challenge could in fact prevail, however, the analysis offers substantial evidence that such regulations are glaringly at odds with American free-speech traditions and values.

A Multilevel Approach to Spam Regulation: Federal Preemption, State Enforcement, and CAN-SPAM • Martin G. Kuhn, North Carolina • Prior to the passage of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 thirty-six states had enacted their own anti-spam statutes. This paper asks how the preemption and enforcement provisions in the Act limit existing state legislation, shape emerging state statutes, and define a new role for the state attorneys general in anti-spam enforcement.

First Amendment and Libel in Emerging Democracies: Case Study of Kyrgyzstan • Svetlana Kulikova, Louisiana State University • This paper is an attempt to analyze the libel law application in the post-Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan (Central Asia). Comparative analysis of the Kyrgyz constitution and libel cases in light of the US First Amendment demonstrates that in a generally permissive legal environment and in the absence of public figure concept, public officials can effectively use the libel law to suppress criticism of the government, silence oppositional media and re-introduce self-censorship among journalists.

Non-Discriminatory Access and Compelled Speech: Drawing the Distinction in the Cable Open Access Debate • Nissa Laughner, University of Florida • This paper focuses on whether mandatory open access for competitive ISPs on cable broadband systems constitutes a form of compelled speech It reviews Supreme Court precedent relating to compelled speech; it also uses two district court decisions addressing the compelled speech question as case studies by which to identify relevant issues; it then proceeds with an analysis of whether open access is content-neutral or content-based, and whether gatekeeping concerns arise in the broadband context.

[Bleep], Lies and Videotape: Motion Pictures Edited for Content as a Window on the Control of Culture • Joshua Lewis, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge • The paper offers an analysis of the recent phenomenon, enabled largely by digital technology, of editing motion pictures to remove graphic violence, sexual situations and foul language for the home viewing market. The paper argues that, especially in the context of the increasing fortification of intellectual property laws, coupled with the concentration of media ownership in a handful of corporations, third-party editing should be found to be a non-infringing use of legally acquired media content.

“Son of Sam” Goes Incognito: Emerging Trends in Criminal Anti-Profit Statutes • Christina M. Locke, University of Florida • Laws preventing criminals from profiting from crimes, especially by telling their stories, exist in most states. Twenty-eight states have laws similar to the original “Son of Sam” law declared unconstitutional in 1991. However, a growing number of states have eliminated references to expressive materials from their anti-profit statutes. Analysis of procedural provisions of the laws reveals that the goals of preventing criminal profiteering and compensating victims are thwarted by the way the laws are administered.

File Sharing in Canada vs. The United States: A Laissez-Faire Alternative or a Different Path to the Same Place? • Bryce J. McNeil, Georgia State • Peer to peer (P2P) technology tests limitation of copyright law. This has caused significant debate in North America. This paper examines how differences between fair use (U.S.) and fair dealing (Canada) create two distinct copyright law environments. It is concluded that assuming Canada will remain the laxer of the two on P2P proprietors is presumptuous. Further observation of fair dealing in practice is needed to understand how and if Canada will differ on copyright stances.

Media Access to Juvenile Courts: The Argument for Uniform Access • Emily Metzgar Louisiana State • This paper advocates uniform media access to the nation’s juvenile courts, including both delinquency and dependency hearings, based on consideration of juveniles’ due process rights; Supreme Court decisions on media access to legal proceedings; the nature of the juvenile justice system; and the media’s role in raising awareness of public policy issues. Ultimately this paper recommends establishment of presumptive access policies for all juvenile courts and encourages more comprehensive media coverage of juvenile justice issues.

The Sky Is Not Falling: The Media Community Must Stop Automatically Crying “Trend” When A Court Rejects A Reporter’s Privilege Claim • Fabian James Mitchell, Louisiana State • Judith Miller’s 2004 jailing was met with protest and speculation about what repercussions this ruling could have on existing reporter’s privilege. The media’s coverage of her fight and their cries of “trend” are emblematic of the misinterpretation and mischaracterization of rulings this paper denounces. Reporters’ instinct to uphold their ethical standard of protecting sources is so deep-rooted in their professional thinking that they are prevented from thinking objectively outside of their own rights and neutrally assessing court rulings.

Social Norms and the Copyright law: An Analysis of Fan Web sites • Kathleen K. Olson, Lehigh • This paper examines online fan site authors’ attitudes toward copyright as revealed in survey responses and through content analysis of the sites themselves in order to determine how the authors use the copyrighted works of others in their sites and to discover the social norms regarding copyright that dominate the fan site culture online.

Publish at Your Peril: International Law Inconsistencies Present Legal Conundrums for Media Interests • Ashley Packard, University of Houston • Transnational cases involving conflicts over jurisdiction, choice of law and enforcement of foreign judgments indicate a disparity in approaches between the United States and other countries that courts cannot bridge. Governments will have to negotiate a solution. Attempts to reach consensus on an intergovernmental jurisdiction and judgments treaty through the Hague failed in 2001. However, developments within European Community and U.S. law signal that international agreement might be more attainable than only few years ago.

Narrow Lanes Ahead?: An Examination of Public Access to Information about the Transportation of Hazardous Materials in a Post-9/11 World • Amy Kristin Sanders, University of Florida • This paper discusses the public’s ability to access information about the transportation of hazardous materials with regard to changes in law and policy since the 2001 terrorist attacks. Central to this discussion is the implementation of the Critical Infrastructure Information Act of 2002 and its potential effect on the public’s ability to request information regarding HazMat transportation under federal FOI provisions. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security’s 2004 rule-making pertaining to critical infrastructure information will also be examined.

Out of the Closets and into the Courtroom • Holiday Shapiro University of Minnesota • Outing, the forced disclosure of a person’s lesbian, gay, bisexual or trangendered (LGBT) orientation, has practically since its introduction been a part of our case law. This paper analyzes the evolving law of outing. It discusses the avenues of redress available to outing targets, provides an overview of the case law, reviews the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2003 case Lawrence v. Texas, and reflects on how the Lawrence decision may change outing law.

Mandatory Internet Filtering in Public Libraries: The Disconnect Between Technology and Law • Barbara H. Smith, Kansas State University • In 2003, the Supreme Court upheld the Children’s Internet Protection Act, which mandates the installation of filtering technology in public schools and public libraries that accept certain types of federal funding for technology. However, filtering technology is incompatible with law, and most likely always will be, as human beings need to interpret and apply the law, something that technology will never be able to do.

Reporters Skating On Judge Posner’s Thin Ice in a Branzburg Maze • Samuel A. Terilli, University of Miami • Recent events and cases, from the outing of Valerie Plame to leaks about the anthrax investigation, are forcing a reexamination of reporter-source confidentiality and Branzburg v. Hayes. Judge Posner’s decision in McKevitt v. Pallasch and several other recent decisions have interpreted Branzburg narrowly, questioned the existence of any First Amendment privilege, and directed the press to other sources of law for protection. These decisions represent persuasive authority that the press should not ignore.

The First Amendment And Internet Filters: A Study Of Boston Area Public Libraries After Implementation Of The Children’s Internet Protection Act • Anne Trevethick and Dale Herbeck, Boston College • This paper reports the results of a study of 126 public libraries in the Boston area undertaken in an attempt to determine whether the adoption of the Children’s Internet Protection Act restricted adult access to protected expression. Among the notable findings, the study found that the CIPA produced a nominal increase in the number of libraries installing filters on all Internet-connect computers and that librarians were willing and able to disable filters for adult patrons.

Humanitarian Law Project v. Ashcroft – National Security in the Homeland vs. Human Rights elsewhere • Roxanne S. Watson University of Florida • In 1996 the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) was passed, making it a crime to provide assistance to terrorist groups. A group of citizens challenged the AEDPA as an infringement on First Amendment rights and argued that the system by which the terrorist groups were designated under the AEDPA violated due process. The author traces the court decisions, arguing that there is no constitutional right to associate with terrorists but the right to due process should be observed.

Vicarious Liability and the Private University Student Press • Nancy J. Whitmore, Butler University • The lack of a First Amendment prohibition regarding administrative interference with the student press leaves a private university open to legal liability from the content of student publications through the doctrine of vicarious liability. Given the trend in vicarious liability law, university policies that grant private university students the right to make all editorial decisions are not likely to protect a private university from liability for torts committed by its dependent student press.

Tile Clash Between U.S. and French Law it Cyberspace: Judicial Line-Drawing on First Amendment Boundaries • Kyu Ho Youm, University of Oregon • The notion of the borderless Internet is more often tested these days. The ongoing Yahoo! case is illustrative. It involved a French court’s order of 2000 to Yahoo! to ban display of Nazi insignia on its sites. On March 25, 2005, the entire Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments in the case. This paper examines the key issue underlying Yahoo!

<< 2005 Abstracts

International Communication Division

Monitoring the Other: An Assessment of South Africa’s Mail and Guardian’s Coverage and Analysis of the Conflict in Darfur, Western Sudan • Emmanuel C. Alozie, Governor’s State University • This study examined how the /Mail and Guardian/ (a.k.a. /Mail and Guardian Online/), a leading African news outlet, covered and analyzed the conflict in Darfur, Western Sudan. It used framing as its theoretical framework and methodological approach. Framing allowed the author to be holistic in his analysis by offering the historical perspective of the conflict through an exploration of the role of African mass media, presentation of factors that influenced African foreign policy and a discussion of Sudan‚Äôs profile and historical causes and implications of the crisis. The exploration produced five frames and two sub-frames: Genesis, resolution/intransigence, humanitarian (African cataclysm and world benevolence), international ambivalence and African impotence.

Slavery Framed: Coverage of Slavery in Sudan through the Sources of the New York Times and Washington Post 1986-2001 A Qualitative Approach • Maha Bashri, Roger Williams University • Sociologists contend that both media and the public are parts of the same cultural system. Therefore, “media agents use frames that are familiar and resonate with both themselves and the public” (Baylor, 1996). Since the outbreak of the second civil war in the Sudan in March 1983, the world has been witness to the country’s many atrocities–including slavery.

A New Newspaper with a New Formula Succeeds in Slovenia’s Emergent Democracy: A Case Study of Finance • Martine Robinson Beachboard and John C. Beachboard, Idaho State University • As post-communist societies emerge from Eastern Europe, journalists learn to cope with both political and financial pressures. The transition to market-driven print media evokes questions about the viability of quality journalism serving public interest and promoting democracy and plurality of voice. This paper investigates Slovenia’s post-independence start-up newspaper Finance and offers some provocative insights to the proposition that investment by foreign media conglomerates might provide independence from local political and advertiser influence.

Cultural Appropriateness of Music Video Clips in the Middle East • Ralph D. Berenger and Dalia El Nimr, The American University in Cairo • The advent of satellite television stations and the proliferation of transnational broadcasting in the 22-country Middle East region have spawned dozens of channels offering “glocalized” programming. Following the success of MTV in the US and elsewhere, Arabic music videos have become popular with Middle East young people, with resultant concerns about the effects on the conservative culture’s traditional view of female deportment. This exploratory study examines how females are portrayed in MTV-style video clips.

A Comparative Study of Naming Juveniles in Youth Crime Coverage in Japan and the U.S. • Tom Brislin, University of Hawaii and Yasuhiro Inoue, Hiroshima City University • This study examines the underlying values and practices in journalistic policies and decision-making between Japan and the United States on whether to identify youth offenders in serious, capital crimes. Benchmarks in youth crime coverage, particularly in Japan, are examined. Base-line comparative data is presented from a survey of U.S. and Japanese journalists on factors that might influence naming of youth offenders, and on opinions of the handling of specific youth crime cases.

Framing SARS: A Comparative Content Analysis of the Coverage of SARS by Two Major Chinese Newspapers • Yong Cao, Dennis T. Lowry, and Limin Zheng Southern Illinois University Carbondale • This study compared press coverage of SARS by two newspapers: the People’s Daily, and a leading commercialized newspaper, the Beijing Youth Daily. The study found both newspapers used a significant proportion of news sources attributed to government agencies, and positively portrayed government agencies. This study reveals the commercialized newspaper could not deviate significantly from the party line in covering SARS. The SARS case suggests even the commercialized press in China is far from an independent press.

Military Alliance, Media Difference: A Comparison of Framing Devices Implemented in UK versus US Press Coverage of Iraq War Protest • Frank E. Dardis, Penn State University • Even though the UK and US were staunch governmental and military allies in the Iraq War, differing sociopolitical milieus existed in the countries regarding the war. This cross-national content analysis compares stories on antiwar protest by leading newspapers in each country to determine if the differing political environments were reflected in press coverage.

A Tale of Two Wars: Framing Analysis of Online News Sites in Coalition Countries and the Arab World during the Iraq War • Daniela V. Dimitrova, Iowa State University and Colleen Connolly-Ahern, Pennsylvania State University • The Iraq War was a defining media event. This study used quantitative content analysis to explore the Web sites of prestige news media in the United States and the U.K. as well as Egypt and Qatar, examining both the frames employed by news media in their coverage of the conflict, as well as the voices heard – and unheard – throughout the coverage. The analysis showed that the “tale of war” was constructed differently by the different international media.

Framing Globalization: The Financial Times’ Coverage of the 1997 Thai Currency Crisis • Frank Durham, University of Iowa • Abstract not available.

Mapping the Geography of On-line News • Mike Gasher and Reisa Klein, Concordia University • This paper is part of a larger research project whose express purpose is to assess the Internet’s potential to foster a new communications geography on a global scale. It begins by theorizing the relationship between news and geography, then describes and analyzes the results of a news-flow study of the Web sites of three international newspapers with extensive on-line editions: The Times of London, Liberation of Paris and Ha ‘aretz of Tel Aviv.

Credibility Deficits: Why Some News Media Don’t Pay The Price • Cherian George, Nanyang Technological University • Conventional wisdom suggests that journalism benefits from the self-righting principle, such that newspapers that lack credibility will eventually fail in the marketplace of ideas. However, in some political contexts, newspapers may continue to thrive despite authoritarian controls, at the expense of more independent media. The case of Singapore illustrates this paradox, and suggests that astute authoritarian control of the press can subvert the self-righting principle, enabling unfree media to endure chronic credibility deficits.

A Comparison of The New York Times’ and Al Ahram’s Coverage of the War in Iraq • Salma I. Ghanem, University of Texas-Pan American & Marquette University • An examination of newspaper coverage in an American newspaper and an Arabic paper revealed that the coverage of the war in Iraq was framed differently in each newspaper. These differences lend credence to the idea that frames are ideologically based and that the war was seen differently in different parts of the world. Editorials were equally anti-war in both newspapers and the amount of coverage given to anti-war demonstrations was equivalent as well.

Romani Media in Post-1989 Eastern Europe: A Prolegomena to the Study of a Contemporary Phenomenon • Peter Gross, Oklahoma, Norman • Among the wealth of ethnic media outlets in Eastern Europe, the Romani media have grown faster than all others despite small audiences, and the poverty, illiteracy, and absence of social, political and linguistic cohesiveness of their natural constituency in the region. Yet, except for their potential symbolic value, the growth of the Romani media appear to defy the customary explanations of the functions, roles, and their effects in a region where the ethnic media aid minority identity, cultural preservation, and participation.

The Bright and Dark Side of Cyberspace: Internet Use and Internet Addiction among Taiwan’s Net-Generation • Anthony S. C. Huang, and Josephine T. C. Nio, Southern Taiwan University of Technology • This exploratory study examined the uses and misuses of the Internet among Taiwan’s Net generation (aged 13-24). A cross-sectional research design and a proportionate stratified random sampling were used, yielding 1, 119 completed questionnaires. Results found Internet use, Internet displacement and motives were significant predictors. High Internet use predicted Internet addiction and, greater affective gratifications predicted Internet addiction. Taiwan’s Net-Generation experienced both the “bright and dark” side of cyberspace.

The Role of the Latin American News Media in the Policymaking Process: A First Look • Sallie Hughes, University of Miami • This paper presents a first approximation of the role of the news media in the policymaking process in Latin America based on empirical comparative literature on media and policymaking, and observations of media behavior in Latin America. These roles include influence on the policy agenda, the pace and level of decision making, the symbolic or substantive nature of policy responses, the incentives for rent seeking, the legitimacy of the direct players and policy options considered, and the nature of evaluation of policies in operation.

Caught Between East And West? Portrayals Of Women And Gender In Bulgarian Television Advertisements • Elza Ibroscheva, Southern Illinois University • This study conducted a content analysis of Bulgarian television advertisements to examine the prevailing portrayals of women and gender in the media environment of the post-communist, market-driven and consumer-based Bulgarian society. This study aimed to examine whether Bulgarian woman’s identity is influenced by European or Oriental concepts of gender roles. The study found that gender stereotypes are still prevalent and highly biased against women’s strife towards equity in the social and economic realm.

Hostile Imagination At Work: American Opinion Makers’ Perceptions Of The Media Role In Stereotypes Of Russians And Eastern Europeans • Elza Ibroscheva, Southern Illinois University • This study looked at the stereotypical beliefs about and attitudes towards Russians and Eastern Europeans held by American opinion makers and the role of the mass media in creating these stereotypes. Using the theoretical framework of social construction of reality, this study proposed a model of relationships among factors determining stereotypes. The mass media were the major factors that can directly or indirectly influence the perceptions of opinion makers, and thus, have an impact on foreign policy.

The Impact of Liberalization on External Broadcasting in Eastern Europe: Changes, Contributing Factors, and Implications • Jang Hyun Kim and Junhao Hong, State University of New York at Buffalo • As studies about Eastern European external broadcastings are rare, exploring their transition may contribute to the discipline of mass communication. Liberalization of Eastern Europe affected the forms and contents of external broadcasting. The contents are more diversified and focused on economic issues, European community, and peculiar culture of each nation. However, content regulation and funding are still under significant influence of government, because its essential function as an instrument of international public relations have not been changed.

A Victory of the Internet over Mass Media?: Examining the effects of online media on political attitudes in the most wired country around the world • Daekyung Kim and Thomas J. Johnson, Southern Illinois University Carbondale • This study employed an online survey of 249 politically interested Internet users during the 2004 national Assembly election in Korea to examine if reliance on online news media for political news and information influences political attitudes after controlling for demographics and use of the traditional media. Reliance on independent Web-based newspapers appeared stronger predictors than traditional media and their online counterparts. Based on the findings, a media power shift in Korea was discussed.

Bridging The Digital Divide In South Africa: Using Community Radio To Extend Information And Communication Technology Benefits To Rural Communities. • Eronini R. Megwa, California State University, Bakersfield Antelope Valley Campus • This study explored the potential of community radio to extend information and communication technology benefits to rural communities in South Africa. Using face-to-face interviews, document analysis, observation method and community conversations, the study examined community radio stations in ten rural communities in South Africa and found that they are popular, accessible and affordable, and enjoy the support of their owner-communities, but lack the human and material resources necessary for extending ICT benefits to rural communities.

Democracy Delivery: How do the New York Times and the Arab News frame American policy of promoting democracy in the Middle East? • Smeeta Mishra, University of Texas at Austin • This study compares framing of the American policy of promoting democracy in the Middle East in the New York Times and the Arab News, the oldest English language daily of Saudi Arabia. Results show that the New York Times framed the issue assuming the intrinsic rightness of American declarations of democracy promotion and often limited its debate to strategies and feasibility of the project.

The Liberal Struggle For Press Freedom • Kirsten Mogensen, Roskilde University • In this paper, the public debate following the religion-motivated assassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in November 2004 is examined. The paper aims at describing religious as well as secular positions in the Danish debate about freedom of speech and press in relation to religious issues. Historically, the concept of press freedom was linked to a fight for religious freedom in London, as described by Siebert.

Voice of America’s Kinyarwanda/Kirundi Service As an Example of Peace Journalism in Rwanda • Carol Pauli, Marist College • Hate radio was employed to orchestrate the Rwandan genocide of 1994. In subsequent years, several Western governments and non-governmental organizations have attempted to use radio in Rwanda to promote peace and reconciliation. This paper takes a preliminary look at Voice of America’s service to Rwanda, as reflected by its staff members and VOA documents, and compares it to five types of media intervention that have been outlined by practitioners in the emerging field of “peace journalism.”

Build it and they will use IT…: Framing E-government in India’s Silicon Valley • Veena V. Raman, Pennsylvania State University • This study examined framing of e-government initiatives in Bangalore, India’s information capital, through content analysis of three local newspapers. Citizens’ frames for c-government initiatives were examined through 23 in-depth interviews. Analysis suggests media frames are event based and episodic rather than thematic, with very little critical assessment of e-government initiatives. Journalists depend on sources from elite power structure that influences their framing of e-government stories. There is marginal correspondence between media frames and audience frames.

Journalism as if the People Mattered: Addressing HIV/AIDS in East Africa • Jyotika Ramaprasad, Southern Illinois University • Within the context of two relatively new concepts, public journalism and social capital, this study assessed perceptions of Ugandan, Kenyan, Tanzanian and Malawian journalists about their role in addressing the HIV/AIDS problem in their respective countries. The journalists perceived a large role for themselves in both the information dissemination and the impact creation, including creating social capital, aspects of public journalism.

Who’s Covering Sustainable Development? Cross-national Differences in the Media Coverage of a Multilateral U.N. Conference. • Jennifer A. Robinson, University of Florida • Civil society groups, including nongovernment organizations, are increasingly important to multilateral policy formation such as the 2002 Earth Summit on Sustainable Development. A content analysis of media coverage in four countries assessed the relative priority given to various groups. The results indicate regional differences in coverage prior to the Summit, sources quoted and the type of stories written. Implications of media coverage for the effectiveness of civil society groups on multilateral issues are discussed.

Does the Internet Affect Attitudes? Comparing Democratic Values Of U. S. Journalism Students With Those in Post-Soviet Nations • Byron T. Scott, Anya Litvak and Irma Guseva, University of Missouri – Columbia and Stanley Ketterer, Oklahoma State University • Two hundred and seventy-eight second-year journalism students in the United States, Russia, Bulgaria, and Albania were given a structured questionnaire identical to that used in a 2001 study of students in Kazakhstan. Focusing on media usage and democratic attitudes, this pilot analysis pays particular attention to differences that might be related to Internet usage between U.S. subjects and the youth of post-Soviet societies.

Obtaining “Better News” Through Better Internal Management – A Survey of First-Line Managerial Competencies in South African Mainstream Media Newsrooms • Elanie Steyn, TFJ (Derik) Steyn, North-West University (Potchefstroorn campus) South Africa and Arnold S de Beer, Stellenbosch University • Changes in the post-apartheid South African mainstream media landscape have far-reaching implications for human resources management. The six managerial competencies found in general management theory (communication; planning and administration; teamwork; strategic action; global awareness; and self-management) were applied on a national sample of first-line news managers and reporters. The central theoretical argument was that first-line news managers might be better equipped to address the human aspects of news management should they implement these six managerial competencies more effectively.

Media Transformation, Press Freedom and Fragmented Authoritarianism: Towards a New Theoretical Perspective in Understanding Chinese Press System in the Reform Era • Zixue Tai, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville • Decades of market-oriented reform have led to an expansion of free space enjoyed by the Chinese media, and the once propagandist press has taken on new audience-pleasing roles in Chinese society. Meanwhile, there still exists state control in various manifestations and at different levels. While this contradictory nature of the current Chinese press system has been a major focus of scholarship, what lacks is the theoretical thrust and explanatory power of a viable conceptual framework.

Framing the SARS Outbreak: A Comparative Study of Press Coverage in the People’s Daily and the New York Times • Song Tian and William R. Davie, University of Louisiana at Lafayette • This study focuses on the SARS coverage combines two conceptual frameworks: framing theory and risk communication to compare how the elite press of China and the United States-the People’s Daily and the New York Times–framed the SARS outbreak and its potential risks for public health. This study showed that there were some similarities but considerable differences in news frames and sources used by the two newspapers.

Misleading Advertising: How it is Regulated in China and in the United States • Yuan Zhang, University of Florida • This study compares legal challenges to misleading advertising in China and the United States. Using the Petty and Kopp framework, the study examines similarities and differences between Chinese and American regulations in the five stages of legal challenges to misleading advertising, namely, initiation, interpretation, deception, verification, and remediation. The analysis indicates that significant differences exist in the initiation, interpretation, and deception stages while convergences seem to be occurring in the verification and remediation stages.

Frames Reshaped A Textual Analysis of China’s Image in the New York Times, 1966-1976 • Jianchuan “Henry” Zhou, University of Georgia • This study is a textual analysis of the New York Times coverage on China from 1966 to 1976. Contrast to the wide- held “persistent patterns” concept of framing theory, the analysis demonstrates some changes of the frame in which China was portrayed. The frame was of an “isolated China” in the 1960s, while in the 1970s it was reshaped as a more serious, rational international player.

STUDENT

Media Frames and Foreign Policy: The New York Times’ Editorial Framing of India and Pakistan Before and After the September 1l Terrorist Attacks • Ashish Kumar, Iowa State University • This exploratory study analyzed the New York Times’ editorial coverage of India and Pakistan before and after 9/11 and compared it to the US policies towards the two countries. The study found that a distinct change in US policy and relations with Pakistan were mirrored by a distinct and profound change in the Times’ editorial coverage of the country. US policy towards India did not change and neither did the editorial portrayal of the county.

O, Say, Can You Read? U.S. and Brazilian Online News and Print Media Coverage of U.S. Military Involvement in Post-war Iraqi • Tania H. Cantrell, University of Texas at Austin • This exploratory analysis considers U.S. and Brazilian online newspaper along with U.S. and Brazilian print magazine coverage of the time period marking the one-year anniversary of the War in Iraq. Using a Narrative Paradigm Theory approach, the U.S. themes of Reverence for the U.S. Dead, the American Value of Persistence and Rebuilding Iraq emerge, while the Brazilian topics of Reverence for Life, Powerful Language and Attitude Toward Pres. Bush surface.

News Frames As Meta-Narratives: The Case Of CNN And Al Jazeera’s Coverage Of The Kidnappings In Iraq • Aziz Douai, Penn State University • This paper identifies the dominant news frames (“meta-narrative” frames) in both al Jazeera’s and CNN’s coverage of the kidnappings of Americans and other foreigners in Iraq. I argue that news frames generated in the coverage of international conflict incidents form a “meta-narrative” frame that comments on the frame itself and the nature of the conflict. It concludes that meta-narrative frames in the global media’s coverage of international conflict still remain local.

A Content Analysis of Newspaper Coverage on the Sept 11 Attacks, Bali Bombing and Madrid Train Bombing Tan Li Hoeng Joann, Yang Yanni and Jamaliah Bte Othman, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore • A content analysis of 312 articles from 13 newspapers on the Sept. 11 attacks, Bali bombing and Madrid train bombing was conducted. The study examined which news frames were dominant, and integrated international news flow and framing analysis. Across all events, “threat to political climate” and “coverage of victims and potential victims” were dominant. For Sept. 11, trade and casualty count were significant predictors, of “threat to economy” and “coverage of victims and potential victims” frames respectively.

Antecedents and Impacts of the Internet Activity Scope on Political Engagements: A Case of South Korean Adolescents • Kyun Soo Kim, University of Alabama • This study explores the relationships between political motivations, the Internet activity scope, and political engagements such as political knowledge and political participation among adolescents in South Korea. The results reveal the role of the Internet in satisfying adolescents’ needs. Uses of the Internet for information-related activity such as reading bulletin boards and online newspapers, which are positively related to the guidance and social utility motivations, is a strong and positive predictor of adolescents’ political knowledge.

Framing differences in news coverage of disaster situations: A content analysis of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and South Asian tsunami • Alison Kohler, Shannon Krueger, Jatin Srivastava, and Zin Zin Ting, Kansas State University • This study investigated framing differences in news coverage of disaster situations in the Days following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the South Asian tsunami through content analysis of news stories in online archives. Results reflected that news originating from affected regions used episodic framing more frequently, while news from unaffected regions used thematic framing more frequently.

A Comparative Study of Chiang Mai, Nan, and Pattani Community Radio Stations, Thailand • Chalisa Magpanthong, Ohio University • The Thai Constitution states people’s organizations should operate community radio stations (CRS). Since this has not been operationalized, various groups managed unlicensed CRS. This survey explored audience perceptions of CRS with different owners and locations. Findings suggested that setting and culture mattered in the perception that CRS catered to minorities and provided local connectivity and information. They recommended programming that was based on local culture and research to attract new audiences and maintain old audiences.

The Reception of Japanese Television Programming by Taiwanese Audiences: Examining the Impact of Cultural Proximity in the Regionalization of Television • Goro Oba, University of Florida • This paper explores the applicability of cultural proximity theory to intra-regional television programming trade, taking Japanese programming in Taiwan as case study. A focus group was conducted to address the question of what cultural proximity was found in Japanese programs by Taiwanese viewers and what impact the proximity had on their viewing. The study found that Taiwanese youth might find cultural proximity associated with modernization, such as similar lifestyles and consumption patterns, in Japanese programming.

Cultivating the “Violent America” in the Minds of Koreans: The Potential Effects of American Television Programming on Korean People’s Crime Estimates in America • Jin Seong Park, Hyeri Choi, University of Florida and Jeong Mm Yoon, Korea University • Applying cultivation theory to the context of international communication, this study revealed that Korean students’ exposure to American television programming is positively associated with their higher estimates of the prevalence of violent crimes in America. The study also found that Korean students’ life experiences, particularly their experience of staying in America, moderate the cultivation processes. Specifically, the positive relationship between exposure and crime estimates was stronger for those who had an experience of staying in the U.S.

Hegemonic Framing: A Study of U.S. Newsmagazine Coverage of the 1997 Asian Economic Crisis • Takuya Sakurai, University of Oklahoma • This study examines the U.S. media’s hegemonic framing practices in international news, through an assessment of the U.S. newsmagazines’ coverage of the 1997 Asian economic crisis. Close reading of the texts finds that U.S. newsmagazines reported the economic crisis with the three recurrent clusters of media frames: “disease,” “threat,” and “Asia.” This particular analysis also unveils that dual perspectives play a significant role in framing a home country hegemonically in international reporting.

Exporting Racial Images and U.S. Media Exposure: Perceptions of African Americans in Romania • Adina Schneeweis, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities • This research explored perceptions of African Americans held in Romania, in the context of global media flows exposing cultures to unfamiliar racial images. Exposure to American television programming was expected to shape Romanians’ perceptions of African Americans. The findings suggest that the surveyed Romanian sample holds U.S. stereotypes of blacks, yet a relationship between such racial perceptions and exposure to American television content is problematic to draw at this point.

Hong Kong Cultural Identity in Jackie Chan’s Hong Kong and Hollywood Movies • Jun Wang, University of Minnesota • By studying Jackie Chan’s four movies, two from Hong Kong (Project A and Who Am I?) and two from Hollywood (Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon), this article attempts to compare how Hong Kong cultural identity is represented differently in Hong Kong movies with that in Hollywood movies. The method of framing analysis is used arid seven frames are identified. They are: insignificance of cultural origin, exoticness, uptightness, subservience, ignorance, disrespect and downplaying heroism.

Intermedia Analysis of Foreign News: A Longitudinal Study of The New York Times and NBC Nightly News: 1974-2004 • Miao Zhang, Ohio University • This study examines ways that NBC Nightly News sourced The New York Times for its foreign news coverage. Findings show that the amount of television news quoting the lead newspaper declined over time. Among the several ways of quotations, scoops of the newspaper are most often used. Quotations for foreign news are less than those for domestic news. Most often quoted news topics deal with foreign relations, crime or military.

Mass Media Use and Interpersonal Communication in the Acculturation of International Students • Nan Zheng and Claudia Rojo, University of Texas • Results of an e-mail survey on international students showed: (1) a significant correlation between prior exposure to American mass media content and attitudes toward American culture, (2) a correlation between the type of TV show watched (news and talk shows) and views of American culture, (3) a higher level of interpersonal communication corresponds with a higher degree of acculturation on a behavioral level, and (4) a collective effect of interpersonal contacts and TV viewing on acculturation.

<< 2005 Abstracts

History Division

How much is that Wireless in the Window? Department Stores and Radio Retailing in the 1920s • Noah Arceneaux, University of Georgia • During the 1920s, radio receivers transformed from unsightly, home-made contraptions into stylish pieces of furniture that broadcast entertainment into American homes. While some attention has been paid to this change in radio design, the specific retailing techniques used to sell these devices has not been examined. This study fills a gap in scholarship by focusing on department stores, institutions whose role in the social construction of American broadcasting has been previously overlooked.

A Tsunami of Social Change: Media in The Eye of the Reform Storm • Jeanni Atkins, University of Mississippi • Today critics urging media reform are reminiscent of the ‘60s and ‘70s when alternative papers and broadcast outlets, journalism reviews and citizen pressure groups urged media reforms. This paper examines the social forces giving rise to the calls for change in the ‘60s and ‘70s which contributed to a climate of media challenge on several fronts, describes the forms these challenges took, and discusses the perceived failures of mainstream media which prompted calls for media reforms.

Framing of Police Brutality and Racism: Historical Perspectives on Mainstream and Minority Newspapers • Sean Baker, Towson University • A frame analysis was conducted on mainstream and minority newspaper coverage of a 1938 police brutality case in Seattle. A “status quo” frame was found for the mainstream press, focusing on official responses without critical analysis. An “advocacy” frame was found for the black press that criticized official responses, supported the civil right, and highlighted racism within the Seattle police department. News frames and their relationship to the social construction of race are discussed.

The Dust Bowl Representative In The Communist Party Press: Woody Guthrie’s People’s Daily World Column • Matthew Blake, Florida • This paper examines the newspaper column written by songwriter Woody Guthrie during a two-year period at the close of the Depression (1939-1940). Appearing regularly in the Communist Party’s People’s Daily World, Guthrie’s column used unique spellings to match oral pronunciation in addressing three main themes: The experience of the Dust Bowl migrant, the impact of financial institutions on common Americans and a criticism of the California popular press.

Propaganda and Prestige: Principal Foundations for a Canadian Film Industry, 1939-1945 • Bryan Cardinale-Powell, Georgia State University • Determined to produce films worthy of national attention and despite formidable obstacles-Canadian National Film Board (NFB) staff members produced newsreels, sing-alongs, and other films for commercial and non-commercial distribution during the World War II era. According to government reports and small-town newspaper articles, NFB successes included the dissemination of war news, the development of a Canadian national identity, and the demonstration of a viable alternative to the primarily profit-driven model of Hollywood film production.

The “Arkansas Quijote’s” Tilt Against Pentagon Propaganda: Senator J. W. Fulbrights’s Challenge to the Rise of Militarism in America •Stacey Cone, University of Iowa • Fulbright’s publication of the book, The Pentagon Propaganda Machine, 1970 was a capstone effort in a much longer history of personal effort to warn the public about the danger to democracy from the military opinion engineers. This paper argues the Fulbright’s challenges to Pentagon’s propaganda between 1959 and 1974 received scant attention primarily because marketplace of ideas theory assumptions had captured the American imagination.

An Honorable and Recognized Profession “Bill Tilden and the USLTA’s Ban of Tennis Player-Journalists • John Carvaiho, Auburn University • In 1924, the United States Lawn Tennis Association announced that any amateur tennis player would be banned from competition if he or she accepted money from newspapers for writing about their sport. Bill Tilden, who was a journalist before he became the world’s No. 1 tennis player, precipitated a major controversy when he announced that he would retire from tennis rather than give up his profession.

News “From Yankeedom”: Southern Newspaper Coverage of the Presidential Election of 1864 • Eric David, and Nicole Elise Smith, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill • The 1864 presidential election was marked by war, fear, and a country so bitterly divided that it was nearly impossible to imagine unity. This study explored how a selection of Southern newspapers covered the election. In general, the coverage fell into three categories: election results and “horse race” coverage, the effect of the election on the end of the war and the status of slavery, and commentary on the strengths and weaknesses of both candidates.

Covering a Mississippi Murder Trial: The Emmett Till Lynching • Craig Flournoy, Southern Methodist University • This paper examines coverage of the 1955 Emmett Till case by the white press (Life, Look and New York Times) and black press (Birmingham World and Jet) to determine which news organizations provided the best coverage. This researcher defines best as those publications that quoted a diversity of sources, provided historical context and identified the central problem while following accepted journalistic practices such as attribution and balance. The evidence suggests black-oriented publications provided more accomplished coverage.

Henry Luce’s Anti-Communist Legacy: An Analysis of U.S. News Magazines’ Coverage Of China’s Cultural Revolution • Daniel M. Haygood, University of Tennessee • Critics have long accused Henry Luce, a fervent anti-Communist, of using his stable of Time, Incorporated media vehicles to promote causes and governments with which he supported. In the mid 1960s, Luce stepped away from his official duties at Time, Incorporated. This paper analyzes coverage of the initial intense period of the Chinese “Cultural Revolution” by the three United States news magazines to determine if Luce’ s anti-Communist legacy remained once he officially left the organization.

Made to Order Faces: A Historical Analysis of Cosmetic Surgery and the Press, 1914-1950 • Lisa Hebert, University of Georgia • This article traces the history of cosmetic surgery from 1914-1950 as it was covered in newspapers and magazines. This studies purpose is not to argue that the press had a direct effect on the way beauty was defined within the emerging cultural landscape of the early twentieth century but to examine the changing portrayals of plastic surgeries purpose which shifted from reconstructing the faces of war-maimed soldiers in World War I to beautifying ordinary citizens.

Rebuffing Refugee Journalists: The Profession’s Failure to Help Jews Persecuted by Nazi Germany • Laurel Leff, Northeastern University • When Nazi Germany forced thousands of Jewish scholars and professionals to flee in the 1930s and early 1940s, many disciplines found homes for refugee intellectuals in the United States. The profession of journalism did not The nation’s accredited journalism schools did not add a single displaced European scholar to their faculties, and they rebuffed pleas to re-educate foreign journalists, sometimes offering blatantly anti-Semitic rationales. The journalism profession was, if anything, less hospitable than the journalism schools.

Manipulation of the Media Misrepresentations, Indiscretions & Fleet Sightings • David W. London, Central Michigan University • On 15 April 1797, at the height of the French Revolution and amid a flurry of invasion scares, the Channel Fleet of the Royal Navy mutinied. The news dominated newspapers for months. Politicians recklessly used it to further their ambitions, to influence public opinion and to force a resolution to the crisis. This paper examines those efforts and considers how newspapers still managed to both keep an eye on government and keep the public informed.

Oregon Was a Klan State • Kimberley Mangun, University of Oregon • Scholars who have studied the Ku Klux Klan in Oregon have minimized the fact that Klansmen terrorized African Americans between 1922 and 1924. This qualitative study examines articles and editorials in The Advocate (Portland, Ore.) and the state’s white press, NAACP records, Klan documents, and comments by officials in order to illuminate the atrocities that were committed and illustrate that the white press should have been more critical of the Oregon Klan and its actions.

Policing Authority: Photography and Police Power In Time and Newsweek 1950-1980 • Nicole J. Maurantonio, University of Pennsylvania, • Examining visual images printed within Time and Newsweek this paper maps the contours of police representation through an analysis of visual coverage of police and police authority between 1950 and 1980, a period not only of contestation within police departments nationwide regarding the “proper” role of the police within society but also of social, political, and cultural transformation within the United States.

Racial Discourse and Censorship on NBC-TV, 1948-1960 • Bob Pondillo, Middle Tennessee State University • This research explores postwar racial discourse in television programming at the National Broadcasting Company (NBC-TV). It analyzes the era vis-à-vis actions taken by Stockton Helffrich, director of NBC-TV’s Continuity Acceptance (i.e., censorship) Department from 1948-60. The work concludes Helfftich’s politically progressive notions were significant in altering television’s complicated race negotiations after the Second World War-a period of transition between an inequitable system of racial hierarchy and a more culturally liberal postwar order.

Keeping Step to the Music of the Drums: Editor & Publisher and the Problems of Journalism in the War Years and Beyond, 1914-1923 • Ronald R. Rodgers, The University of Florida • This study of the newspaper trade journal Editor & Publisher’s editorial page discussion of World War I and its aftermath revealed that this time raised several problems for the newspaper industry. These included censorship, suppression of news, propaganda, the wartime information machine, and the rise of public relations. In addition, in the journal’s call for “educating public opinion” to promote democracy could be heard early soundings of press nationalism.

Analyzing the ages of the Journalist in Popular Culture: a Unique Method of Studying the Public’s Perception of Its Journalists and the News Media • Joe Saltzman, Southern California • By analyzing the images of the journalist in popular culture over the centuries, the researcher can offer a new perspective on the history of journalism as well as the delicate relationship between the public and its news media. The anger and lack of confidence most of the public has in the news media today is partly based on real-life examples they have seen and heard.

“Perverts” on the Potomac Homosexuals Enter the News Arena • Professor Rodger Streitmatter, American University • This study documents that many American publications first began covering homosexuality as a news topic in 1950 with their reporting on a public hearing conducted by a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate. Further, this paper examines the content of some fifty newspaper and magazine articles to identify some of the messages about homosexuals that the coverage communicated to the nation’s readers.

To Plead Our Own Cause: Two Black Newspapers Oppose the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina • Thomas C. Terry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This paper examines the coverage of two black North Carolina newspapers-the Carolinian of Raleigh and the Carolina Times of Durham-during the Ku Klux Klan’s resurgence in 1950-1952. Their coverage emphasized federal involvement in the absence of local, county, and state action. The agenda-setting role of the black press in the civil rights era is also mentioned. Virtually all the articles on the Klan “uprising” were placed on the front page.

Visions of Jubilee Looking at Emancipation and Beyond in the Pacific Appeal 1862-1863 • Thomas C. Terry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • The purpose of this paper is to examine the abolition, slavery, and Civil War coverage of a black newspaper, the Pacific Appeal, published on the rim of the United States in California, and at a distance from the battles of the Civil War. The study period was from April 1862, when the newspaper began, through January 1863, when Lincoln’s “Emancipation Proclamation” came into force.

When the Great Migration Met the Great Depression • Brian Thornton, Northern Illinois University • This article examines discussions of race relations contained in letters to the editor in 10 African-American and 10 white newspapers at the start of the Great Depression. Specifically, this research examines 1,159 letters and 3,124 editorials published in 20 newspapers from across the country from Oct. 29 to Nov. 30, 1929. The purpose is to discover published reaction when the Great Migration of African-Americans from the rural South to the urban North met the Great Depression.

The Origins of Political Broadcasting Policy in American Governmental Institutions • Tim P. Vos, Seton Hall University • This paper constructs an institutional explanation for America’s unique political broadcasting policy that emerged in the 1920s and early 1930s. Using the theoretical lens of historical institutionalism, governmental institutions are cast in a lead role, challenging the literature that touts American (capitalist) exceptionalism. An institutional explanation also challenges realist explanations of policy that privilege the agency of individual actors and that fail to account for how the emergent political broadcasting policy was an unintended outcome.

Marcus Garvey’s Trial For Seditious Libel in Jamaica • Roxanne S. Watson, University of Florida • In the period after his return to Jamaica from the United States, Jamaica’s first national hero and civil rights leader Marcus Garvey was consistently hounded by the authorities who were afraid of his popularity among the masses. On January 30, 1930 Garvey was charged and prosecuted and convicted of seditious libel.

Squeezing The ‘Exotic Bug’: Madrid Press Criticizes Hearst’s Coverage Of A Cuban Revolutionary • Carol Wilcox, Virginia State University • In 1896, the Spanish government imprisoned Cuban patriot Evangelina Cisneros in Havana. In 1897, William Randolph Hearst sent a reporter to free her from jail and sensationalized the story. The Madrid press, unlike the U.S. press, saw Evangelina, not as a Cuban heroine, but as a traitor. Evangelina symbolized Spain’s wish to retain Cuba as its last colony in the Americas. Spain’s loss of Evangelina has become a metaphor for Spain’s loss of Cuba.

<< 2005 Abstracts

Cultural and Critical Studies Division

“Stoke The Joke” and his “Self-Appointed White Critics:” A Clash of Values on Network Television News 1966-1970 • Mary Blue, Loyola University and Vanessa Murphree, University of South Alabama • The three television networks framed the events of the civil rights movement and offered them to a nation seeking understanding. With Stokely Carmichael, news coverage changed. Carmichael threatened established values and challenged the moderate movement. This paper is about a clash of ideologies and the values upon which they are based – black power versus television. It examines the network television news coverage of Carmichael from 1966 – 1970, focusing on the struggle for hegemony.

The Salt River Ticket Democratic Discourse and Nineteenth Century American Politics • Dr. Mark Brewin, University of Tulsa • The topic of the paper is genre of nineteenth century campaign communication called Salt River Tickets. The tickets, which mocked the opposing side through caricature and irony, were passed out to those who supported the losing candidates in the days following Presidential elections.

Rebirth of a Nation: Race, Myth and the News 2005 • Rockell A. Brown, Xavier University of Louisiana, Kim LeDuff, Hampton University and Christopher Campbell, Ithaca College • This paper revisits a 1995 study that found local television news to perpetuate racist myths about people of color. The authors examined 17 hours of local news recorded in nine American cities in January 2005. Their textual analysis argues that local TV journalism continues to reify the attitudes of contemporary racism. The authors also describe the growing body of work in Critical Race Theory and its implications for the study of race and media.

Amusing Ourselves to Death or Some Young Voters’ New Subculture – The Phenomena of The Daily Show During the 2004 Presidential Election • Ying-Ying Chen, University of Texas at Austin • The Daily Show, a news satire, became a regular news source for some well-educated young voters during the 2004 U.S. presidential election. This study found a new model of political communication challenges the paradigm of mainstream news media. A subculture of young people is looming through its shared values of the show. These young people identify more dissatisfaction with political discourse than others.

The Author, the Text and the Genre: A Genre Analysis of Qiong Yao’s Huanzhu Gege • ShaoChun Cheng, Ohio University • In the Chinese world, Taiwan’s cultural worker Qiong Yao is a household name, and her popularity has long been built on her romantic novels, film adaptations, and TV drama productions. Her most popular work so far is definitely the TV drama series Huanzhu Gege (Huanzhu Princess). In this paper, I try to make sense of the popularity of Huanzhu Gege in the Chinese communities through analysis of the genre.

May the Circle Stay Unbroken: Friends and the “Presence of Absence” as a Rhetorical Reinforcement of Whiteness • Phil Chidester, Illinois State University • Whiteness has been largely conceived as a subject position that is discursively negotiated, yet rarely explicitly addressed in the social discourse. Friends demonstrates how media texts as forms of visual rhetoric may reinforce notions of racial identity without speaking race. Presenting the closed circle as a visual metaphor, Friends turns to “the presence of absence” to perpetuate whiteness as a subjectivity that claims an exclusive racial position while maintaining its “purity” through active exclusion of the Other.

The New Civil (Liberties) War: John Ashcroft’s use of the Mythic Hero Abraham Lincoln to Legitimize Government Secrecy and Reduced Civil Liberties • David Cuillier, Washington State University, • This critical discourse analysis examines the strategic and hegemonic use of a U.S. mythic hero, Abraham Lincoln, in the speeches of former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to justify reduced civil liberties, empowering the dominant political and social structures. This study identified four mythic hero actions that provide a source of legitimacy for U.S. policy, suggesting that using mythic national heroes in political speeches is a powerful discursive strategy to favor the powerful and subjugate the disadvantaged.

When Pictures Get Legs: The Search for Meaning in Iconic Images from Conventional and Unconventional News Sources in Iraq • Dennis Dunleavy, San Jose State University • This study evaluates news images, created from divergent sources, signifying visually prescribed norms in society. Semiotic analysis is used to tease out the normative function of media images. In this analysis, an image depicting a hooded Iraqi prisoner made by a combatant and an image made by embedded journalist of a soldier smoking a cigarette after battle are evaluated. Ultimately, this paper argues that news photographs confer meaning through reinforcing prescribed social, moral and cultural values.

Communicating Values: The Influence of Corporate Sponsorship of the 3-Day Walk for Breast Cancer • Heidi Hatfield Edwards, Penn State University • Between 1998 and 2002, Avon, the cosmetics company, sponsored a series of extreme fundraising events to raise money for breast cancer.’ The scope of the Avon 3-Day Breast Cancer Walks was massive, including thousands of participants, contributors, and spectators. In four years, more than 58,000 participants walked in the three-day, 60-mile event in cities throughout America.

C-SPAN, See White: A Critical Analysis of Washington Journal’s Guests • Chinedu (Ocek) Eke, Elon University • This study critically examines C-SPAN’s Washington Journal for the month of June 2004. By having an overwhelming number of white males as guests on the show, CSPAN legitimizes this group while marginalizing non-whites and women. Using cultivation analysis as a theoretical framework, this author proposes that the lack of minority or women experts on television relegates them to old stereotypes that suggest they have little or nothing to offer. This research challenges that notion.

Unraveling The Knot: Hegemony, Gender, and Weddings in Mass Media • Erika Engstrom, University of Nevada, Las Vegas • This paper examines the hegemonic messages about weddings and women disseminated by The Knot, the “#1 wedding website with brand extensions in magazines, books, and, with the cable outlet Oxygen, the reality television program Real Weddings from the Knot. The author unravels the various cross-over alliances of the Knot and analyzes the program’s content in terms of its promotion of wedding consumerism and a hegemony of femininity which emphasizes female beauty and role as consumer.

“What Is Your Favorite Word?” Celebrity, Orality, And Memory Inside The Actors Studio • Kevin Esch, University of Iowa • The talk show Inside the Actors Studio aspires to transcend its genre in an American media landscape dominated by banal, disposable celebrification. The show’s central contradiction, operating on multiple levels, is between its earnest, sophisticated discussions of the craft of acting and the commodification of the talk show format and film and television celebrities. How the show and its host negotiate this conflict becomes itself a kind of historiography of American acting culture.

“Anti-Aging” Magazine Advertising and the War on Nature • Kim Golombisky, University of South Florida • This essay examines “anti-aging” skincare advertising in women’s magazines to wonder about the representational politics of midlife women. If culture defines beauty as a woman’s greatest asset and defines beauty by youth, then it is no surprise that anti-aging advertising consists of a battle cry to wage a high-tech war on aging.

A Saidian Interpretation of Hi International • Clay Guinn, University of Houston • This study uses Edward Said’s theories to explore the cultural imperialism of Hi International, a glossy teen magazine funded by the U.S. State Department as an instrument of public diplomacy in the Middle East. While the publication’s goal is to expose its audience to American cultural exports, this literary analysis suggests that its language echoes a hegemonic Orientalism. Hi casts the Muslim world as an “Other” that desperately needs Western education and acculturation.

Manly Phil-osophy, Womanly Television; Hegemonic Masculinity and Dr. Phil’s “Tell It Like It Is” Talk Therapy • Lori Henson and Radhika Parameswaran, Indiana University • This paper analyzes Dr. Philip McGraw and his popular self-help talk show, Dr. Phil, to show the discursive ways in which television’s representations of therapeutic empowerment contribute to the production of hegemonic masculinity in post-Sept. 11 America. Conducting a textual analysis of McGraw’s media performance and episodes from the talk show, we argue that Dr. Phil offers a new version of masculinity that appears to incorporate sensitivity and responsibility.

Normative Aims for Journalistic Art Criticism • Thomas Hove, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This paper explores political and intellectual reasons for what Elkins (2003) calls “the flight from judgment” in journalistic criticism about the visual arts. Journalists are educated and trained according to a sociological perspective that regards artistic values and aesthetic experiences with suspicion. The author argues that if future journalists are not trained to make informed judgments about artworks and to articulate subjective aesthetic responses, journalism will continue to disregard the private and social benefits of art.

Images and Sounds as Representation in Print Media: Locating Power and Identity in Image-Sound Relationships • Katy June-Friesen, University of Missouri-Columbia • This paper explores how print media reflects and produces identities through relationships of images, sounds, and printed language. Visual and sonic representations are employed in media to construct concepts of race, gender, and class through social practices of seeing and hearing. Bringing together visual theories and theories of sound in culture, I argue we should look more closely at print media representations of visual and sonic culture as sites of power and inter-textual meaning making.

Habitus and Symbolic Power: Media representations of Africa’s AIDS and medication Issue • Euichul Jung, Rutgers University and Joo-ah Ahn, Dongshin University • This study critiques how Africa’s AIDS and medication issue is portrayed in different types of newspapers. It looks into the interconnection between the political economy of intellectual property and the AIDS crisis in Africa. As Bourdieu (1984; 1998) argues, the media’s symbolic power is essential in the confirmation of differences between social groups and classes.

Feminist Discourse and The Hegemonic Role of Mass Media: A Study of Newspaper Discourse About Two South Korean Television Dramas • Sumi Kim, University of Minnesota • With various social changes, there has been a notable cultural trend in which feminist concerns have been conveyed through many popular culture texts in South Korea since the early 1990s. In response to popular feminism, many different social groups and organizations have been engaged in the formation of feminist discourse, among them the mainstream media.

Reporting on “A Grieving Army of Americans”: The Symbolic Role of the Ordinary Citizen in News Coverage of Ronald Reagan’s Death • Carolyn Kitch, Temple University • For a week following Ronald Reagan’s death in June 2004, a series of official and vernacular rituals dominated American journalism. Through a rhetorical and narrative analysis of nearly 1,000 reports from the nation’s leading news organizations, this study explores how this coverage escalated and shifted from historical summary to nostalgia -becoming a story that focused not on the dead former President, but on “ordinary mourners” who turned out by the thousands to talk to reporters about the meaning of America.

Bollywood and the diaspora: The flip side of globalization and Hybridity in the construction of identities. • Anup Kumar, University of Iowa • Bollywood movies are just symptomatic of a larger phenomenon of media organizations, from India, China, and the Arab countries, reaching out to émigré audiences in the West. The paper suggests that in a way this has flipped the binary dialectic of global/local to local/global. An in the process is constructing deterritorialized-imagined communities’ and ‘hybrid identities’, in a post-national context of globalization, free of the geography of nation-states.

Face-to-face Sexual BZranding: Female Employees Discuss Erotic Codes Used in Promotional Activities • Jacqueline Lambiase, Texas Tech University • This study analyzes the codes of sexualized dress, entertainment environments, and flirtatious behavior expected by mainstream corporations for some promotional work. Narrative interviewing of female workers, coupled with theme analysis and with theory on sexual scripts, reveals the powerful hidden directives that management issued to sexualize commercial spaces. Women became objectified employees, and sexual appeals were intentionally used hand-in-hand with more traditional, sanctioned selling behaviors to build brands and to attract attention.

Sensationalism, Race and the Decline of Objectivity in the Wen Ho Lee Affair • J. Patrick McGrail, Susquehanna University • Two trends – the consolidation of media companies into fewer hands, with the resultant need to extract more profit from their news divisions, and the concomitant decline of newspaper readership forced newspapers in the 1990s to rely on entertainment values, especially sensationalism, that are anathematic to the ethical value of objectivity. In the case of falsely accused scientist Wen Ho Lee, this may have taken the form of shoddy reporting and race-baiting, even by the New York Times.

Members of the Club: Drawing a Boundary of Whiteness around the ASNE • Gwyneth Mellinger, Baker University • This paper performs a discourse analysis of the way in which membership criteria inadvertently fashioned the American Society of Newspaper Editors into a racially segregated organization. Using the theoretical framework of whiteness, this project also demonstrates how this exclusionary mechanism was maintained over time and helped to preserve the ASNE as an all-white, and later as a predominately white, organization, despite the ASNE’s own efforts to diversify the newspaper industry.

(Dis)Empowerment in Sex and the City • Fernando Paragas, Ohio University • This textual analysis explored femininity as a social construct as portrayed in Sex and the City, and concluded that despite outward appearances of empowerment, the show’s characters were ultimately disempowered individuals who, even as they found strength from each other, continued to be pawns to patriarchy. It contributes to the literature on postmodern feminism, or on how women must realize that their purported exercise of power against the patriarchy could actually serve to strengthen it.

The Impact of Big-Budget Cinema Production on the Aotearoal New Zealand Film Industry: a Historical-Contemporary Discussion • Robert Peaslee, University of Colorado, • This paper examines the Aoteroaf New Zealand film industry, which has recently experienced a tremendous influx of attention, capital, and praise, due in large part to the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the resulting “Frodo” Economy. By examining historical periods in which similar booms have occurred, and addressing the history of biculturalism in the AJNZ national cinema, the discussion raises many questions about governmental attempts to capitalize on the industry’s newfound notoriety through various acts of cultural policy and financing.

The Blindspot in the Political Economy Versus Cultural Studies Debate • Janice Peck, University of Colorado at Boulder • This paper revisits the “cultural studies vs. political economy” debate between Nicholas Garnham and Lawrence Grossberg and argues that neither perspective has resolved the core question dividing them-how to think the relationship between “the cultural” and “the economic”-because both conceive these as distinct areas of human activity. I propose the way beyond this dualism lies in a materialist theory of signification found in the work of Raymond Williams, Maurice Godelier and Jean-Paul Sartre.

“If This Were All I Knew… How Alternative-Media Users Imagine the Mainstream Audience • Jennifer Rauch, Long Island University • This discourse analysis examines how two audience groups-activists who used alternative media and non-engaged students who consumed mainstream news-constructed disparate interpretations of a network TV news program. Focused interviews revealed that unlike the students, the activists consciously recognized the polysemy of news texts. The active, resistant readers played games of interpretation such as role-playing, inventing dialogue and using conditionals contrary to fact (e.g. “if’). They distanced their own interpretations from those of imagined normal viewers-a strategy demonstrating the third-person effect.

Statewide Public Affairs Television: Developing an Ideal Type • Karen M. Rowley, Louisiana State University • Statewide public affairs television systems now exist in 20 states. These systems provide coverage of their respective legislatures in much the same way that C-SPAN covers the U.S. Congress. However, funding mechanisms, structures, and programming vary among these systems. Using information gathered as part of previous research, this project re-examines the data pertaining to funding, structure, and programming in an effort to determine the most effective operational model for these systems.

Imagining Contemporaries: The Emergence of a Global Identity • Adina Schneeweis, University of Minnesota • This study explores the way a global identity is imagined by individuals, independent of national or regional identities. Using Romanians as a case study, in-depth interviews were conducted to determine how and why these Romanians, living in their home country or abroad, come to form a global identity, if any.

The Media Framing of the ‘Mean Girl’: Implications of the Race, Gender, and Class Constructions of Mean Girls as Explored in the Glenbrook North Hazing Incident • Shayla Thiel, DePaul University • The influx of literature about “mean girls” that culminated in a popular film of the same name has done much to further stereotypes about race, gender, and class within popular culture. This paper focuses on the infamous Glenbrook North High School shown worldwide on videotape.

Invisible Cycle of Scapegoating: U.S. Media Coverage of Immigration “Panics” 1929-1994 • Christopher N. Williams, University of Texas at Austin • This study analyzes media coverage of four 20th century immigration “panics,” in which undocumented immigrants served as convenient scapegoats for larger social ills. The study argues that a significant and under-researched aspect of these events was the role played by the major U.S. mainstream media – including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, US. News and World Report and the Saturday Evening Post – in perpetuating this scapegoating process.

<< 2005 Abstracts

Communication Theory and Methodology Division

Adolescents and the Interactions with Music Media: Self-Concept and Gender Attitudes from a Symbolic Interactionist Perspective • Michelle Arganbright, Washington State • Two hundred eighteen eighth-graders completed questionnaires addressing self-concept, gender attitudes, and involvement with music media: parasocial interaction, identification, desirability, and understanding of persuasive intent. Greater identification, desirability, and parasocial interaction related to lower self-evaluations of physical appearance and self-worth for girls, but not for boys. Media figures may become “significant others,” shaping adolescent self-concept. Therefore, media literacy education may not only mediate behavioral outcomes, but also the cognitive processes which define one’s sense of self.

A New Approach to Television Debate Research: on the Relationship Between Viewing and Voters’ Decision-Making Time • Young-Min Baek, Seoul National • This research divided voters into two groups: early decision-makers who decide on their preferred candidate before television debate season and late decision-makers who make their decisions during television debate season. In addition, the researcher used longitudinal data analysis method to consider the voters’ decision-making time. The result shows that television debates viewing of late decision-makers expedite their decision-making process. This means that late decision-makers decide on their preferred candidate after watching debates.

Wag The Blog? An Analysis of the Frames Used on the 2004 Presidential Candidate Websites • Shannon Bichard, Texas Tech • This study investigates the framing used by candidates in the 2004 presidential election. The analysis specifically focused on the official blog content posted for both George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry. Content analysis was used as an unobtrusive measure to record the time, space, and tone attributes used in the blog text for the 64 days prior to the election. An analysis of each candidate’s distribution of framing content was provided.

The Influence of Individual and Routine Level Gate Keeping Forces on the Professional Role Conceptions of Print and Online Newspaper Journalists • William P. Cassidy, Wisconsin-Whitewater • Utilizing a framework combining gatekeeping theory with Shoemaker and Reese’s (1996) hierarchical model of news influences, this study examined the influence of individual and routine gatekeeping forces on the professional role conceptions of print and online newspaper journalists. Data from a national survey of journalists (N=655) representing 271 daily newspapers found that routine level forces exerted more influence that individual level forces, thus supporting Shoemaker and Reese’s (1996) model.

Open Global Networks, Closed International Flows: World System and Political Economy of Links in Cyberspace • Tsan-Kuo Chang, Itai Himelboim, Adina Schneeweis, Mohamad Elmasry, George Anghelcev, Dong Dong, Sumi Kim, Madhavi Murty, Sela Sar and William Yimbo, Minnesota-Twin Cities • The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to propose a conceptual framework incorporating various theoretical perspectives in sociology and mass communication to identify the determinants of international flow and links of foreign news in cyberspace and second, to test this model using preliminary data collected from online news media in eleven countries. Against the backdrop of the world system theory, three specific hypotheses were tested.

Presidential Approval and Media Agenda Setting: A Test Of Media as Political Institution Model • Young Jae Choi, Hallym • This research tested a ‘media as political institution’ model in the context of the wartime presidency of President George W. Bush (February, 2001 — August, 2003). Employing time series regression analysis, we traced factors impacting the Washington Post coverage on four primary issues — war, economy, domestic and foreign issues. Our data revealed that the prestige paper rallied around the war mood by covering the war issue when it was in accordance with public support for the president.

What Makes Deliberation Possible? Structural Equation Models of Online and Face-to-Face Deliberation Process • Yun Jung Choi and Hyo Jung Kim, Syracuse • This paper identifies factors that influence the deliberation process by proposing a deliberation model. Six ideas, reciprocity, reasoned discourse, freedom of expression, open-mindedness, empathy and public interest were recognized as concepts that compose deliberation construct, and deliberation was measured based on the six concepts.

Building the Media’s Agenda: A Theoretical Model of Influences • Rita F. Colistra, North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This paper argues that a consistent framework is needed when studying influences on media content. Three approaches that have been used to study this area are examined: the hierarchical model, agenda building, and framing. Facets from each approach are incorporated into a new theoretical model of influences on media content (IOMC) that provides a strong framework for researchers interested in who is telling the media what to think about and possibly how to think about it.

Demand Characteristics in Assessment of Body Image Media Effects: Pervasive-Media, Seeming-Naïve, and the Good Subject Characteristics • Prabu David, Tom German and Natalie Guinsler, Ohio State • The purpose of this study was to examine effects of exposure to thin media ideals on perceived effects on satisfaction with weight and attractiveness. Female participants evaluated perceived effects on self, on female friends and female students on campus. In the control condition when respondents where asked about media in general, without priming with any exemplars of fashion models, participants implicated the media for dissatisfaction with ideal body weight and attractiveness.

The Role of Media in Childhood Obesity: A Look Mass Communication Perspectives • Ying Du, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Recent years have witnessed the rapid increase in obesity among American children. Obesity research has been done mostly by scholars in health-related fields. Although there is a wealth of studies regarding the role of media in childhood obesity, most of the address only one or two aspects of the relationships and none has given a panorama to the issues. Moreover, few studies are guided ny media effects theories.

Is it Thinking, Talking, or Both? A Lagged Dependent Variable Model of Discussion Effects on Political Knowledge • William P. Eveland Jr. and Tiffany Thomson, Ohio State • This study extends existing research on political discussion’s influence on political knowledge in two ways. First, it expands the measures of discussion-related cognition to include discussion elaboration and perspective taking. Second, it employs panel data, which permit stronger causal inferences than cross-sectional studies. Our findings indicate that, even controlling for prior knowledge, interest, news use and news elaboration, political discussion frequency and discussion elaboration are positively related to political knowledge.

A Test of Competing Models of the Non-Additive Effects of Political Discussion and News Media Use on Political Knowledge • William P. Eveland Jr., Ohio State and Dietram A. Scheufele, Wisconsin-Madison • We test competing hypotheses put forth in previous research regarding the moderating role of political discussion on the news use to political knowledge relationship. The communication confusion model predicts that discussion attenuates news effects, whereas the differential gains model predicts that discussion amplifies news effects. We report nine separate studies, including both cross-sectional and panel surveys and a laboratory experiment.

Partisan and Structural Balance in Newspaper Coverage of U.S. Senate Races in 2004 with Female Nominees • Frederick Fico, Eric Freedman and Brad Love, Michigan State • Nine newspapers covering U.S. Senate races in 2004 were mostly even-handed in the space and prominence given candidates. Reporter gender, newsroom diversity and newspaper size were associated with partisan imbalance giving more favorable treatment to Democrats. The partisanship of a story’s lead predicted the story’s structural imbalance, regardless of the party the imbalance favored. However, story partisan and structural imbalances were negligibly related, suggesting that news processing conventions rather than journalistic partisanship produced the imbalance.

Learning to Hate Americans In Singapore: A Test of Defleur and Defleur’s Master Theory of Effects of Mass Communicated Entertainment • Jami A. Fullerton, Oklahoma State and Matthew Hamilton, Oklahoma City • This study investigates the relationship between attitudes toward Americans and exposure to U.S.-produced entertainment media among a sample of 328 Singaporean college students. While overall attitudes toward Americans are negative, findings reveal a significant positive relationship between attitude toward Americans and using U.S.-produced media. This finding contradicts DeFleur and DeFleur’s Master Theory of Effects of Mass Communicated Entertainment and suggests that American popular culture may be a positive factor in views toward Americans worldwide.

The Columbia Shuttle Breakup: News Diffusion Comparison of a Local and Distant Phenomenon • Jack Glascock, Illinois State and Larry J. King, Stephen F. Austin State • This study examines the news diffusion process during the 2003 Columbia shuttle tragedy. Subjects in two locations, one local and one distant were surveyed during the week following the breakup. One difference was the prevalence of the telephone for the local group in first hearing about the breakup versus either face-to-face and television for the distant group.

Can Efficacy Manipulation Increase Political Participation? An Experimental Study on a Actual and Persuasory Political Efficacy • Jong Won Ha, Sun Moon University and Jong Hyuk Lee, Syracuse University • This study examined the effect of two types of political efficacy – actual efficacy and persuasory efficacy) experiment was designed and the intention of six different types of political participation were measured. 221 university students participated in this experiment.

Who Accepts News? Nonlinearity in Media Effects Susceptibility • Sungtae Ha, Texas • In this project, voters’ attribute priming susceptibility presidential campaign news was scrutinized for its relationship with one of the most researched variables in political psychology: information processing ability. A nonlinear model of media effectiveness in political communication was developed to test such a curvilinear relationship between attribute priming susceptibility and processing ability. This study found that voters with moderate processing ability were most susceptible to the media effect.

The Effects of Government Censorship of Media Coverage on Interest in the Censored Coverage: A Comparison of Theoretical Explanations • Andrew F. Hayes and Jason B. Reineke, Ohio State • The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush continues the implementation of a policy from the George H. W. Bush administration that forbids journalist access to photographs of caskets containing the U.S. military personnel killed in action returning to U.S. soil. Using experimental and correctional data from a survey conducted just after the 2004 Presidential election, we tested competing predictions from reactance and balance theories on the effects of government censorship of journalist coverage on interest in viewing such images.

The Agenda-Setting Function of National Vs. Local Media: A Time-Series Analysis for the Issue of Same-Sex Marriage • Joe Bob Hester and Rhonda Gibson, North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This study compares the agenda-setting effects of national and local media on public salience in a market where an issue was both local and national with the effects in a market where it was primarily national. A new measure of public salience is also introduced. Results indicate that agenda-setting effects of local and national media are very different, with local media exerting a stronger agenda-setting influence when the issue is both local and national.

Mired in Ire, Engrossed in Gross? The Effects of Negative Emotions on News Readers’ Memory for Information • Elliott Hillback, Wisconsin-Madison • This paper presents a two-study examination of the impact of negative emotions on memory for information during news reading. A newspaper story about a local sewage backup provided content, while quotations by affected residents were varied to provide anger, fear, or disgust stimuli. Overall, readers’ feelings of anger and disgust were generally confounded, even when they correctly identified the emotional tenor of the affected residents.

The Spiral of Silence: Comparing Psychological Antecedents and Opinion Expression in Face-To-Face and Computer-Mediated Discussion • Shirley Soo-Yee Ho, Wisconsin-Madison • Since it was introduced by Noelle-Neumann (1974), spiral of silence theory has been examined extensively in the context of traditional face-to-face communication, but its applicability to computer-mediated communication has been left relatively unexplored. This study examines a key issue in spiral of silence research: whether the nature of the communication setting (i.e., face-to-face discussion versus online chat-room discussion) in which individuals are asked to express opinions affects their willingness to do so.

Among the Youngest and Poorest: A Real-Life Civics Lesson in Baltimore, Maryland and the Political Socialization of 16- and 17-Year-Olds • Edward M. Horowitz, Cleveland State and Michel M. Haigh and Johan Wanstrom, Oklahoma and Kimberly Ann Parker Ivanov, Georgetown College • Research in the political socialization of children, teenagers, and young adults over the past 40 years has also shown that political cognition, attitudes, and behaviors are not only formed at a young age, but are influenced by parents, schools, peers, and the media. Due to a series of unlikely events, sixteen- and seventeen-year-old youth were able to vote in the September 2003 mayoral and city council primary elections in the city of Baltimore, Maryland.

Who’s Listening: Newspaper Coverage of the Presidents’ Weekly Radio Addresses During Times of Crisis • Beverly Horvit and Dave Ferman, Texas Christian • This study examines coverage of the presidents’ 1997-2004 weekly radio addresses in The New York Times and Houston Chronicle. Bush received significantly less coverage in the Times than Clinton; the Houston paper treated the presidents similarly. Foreign-policy speeches received less coverage than domestic speeches but were more likely to be on the front page. Of the seven crises studied, only the 1998 embassy bombings and Sept. 11, 2001, attacks resulted in more coverage of the radio addresses.

Perceived Influence of DTC Prescription Drug Advertising: Do the General Public and the Expert Think Differently? • Jisu Huh and Rita Langteau, Minnesota-Twin Cities • Abstract not available.

Presidential Debate Viewing and Post-debate News Analysis: Effects of Reflective Activation and Preflective Priming on Voting Intentions • Hyunseo Hwang, Seungahn Nah, Melissa Gotlieb and Doug M. McLeod, Wisconsin-Madison • Research on media priming effects examines how certain message features influence subsequent audience reactions by triggering particular frameworks for understanding. Typically, priming is seen as a process that affects future events. However, priming may also operate retrospectively. That is, news content may prompt reflection on a past event. In this paper, we identify two retrospective processes that are outcomes of priming: reflective activation and reflective priming.

Contributions of Personal Norms on the Integrated Framework of College Students’ Alcohol Consumption Behavior • Taejin Jung, Megan Fitzgerald and Xiao Wang, Florida State • The traditional behavioral predictive attempt of Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior and its’ application on the health arena named of integrative model of behavioral prediction has been under critique on the lack of comprehensiveness in that it overlooked “an individual’s internalized moral rules” which contradict with perceived norm construct. This study tried to investigate whether the separate addition of measures of personal norms in evaluating FSU alcohol campaign may substantially improve prediction of individual intentions on drinking.

Communication and Democratic Participation: A Critical Review and Synthesis • Ellen Kanervo, Weiwu Zhang and Caroline Sawyer, Austin Peay State • The past decade has seen the flourishing of scholarly work on citizen participation since Putnam’s provocative thesis that the number of Americans coming together in community organizations for the civic good is declining. However, conclusions concerning citizen participation and media’s role in it are often conflicting and contradictory, and comprehensive assessments of the participation literature are scarce.

Generational Differences in the Connections of Media Use, Civic Participation and Consumption Activities • Heejo Keum, Texas at San Antonio • This study investigates how the media effects on civic participation and consumption activities vary by generational groups. A secondary analysis of the 2000 DDB Life Style Survey data indicated that the effects of the Internet were smaller in the Civic Generation than in the other generational groups whereas the effects of traditional media appeared to be strongest in the Civic Generation. Finally, the inter-relationships between participation and consumption did not differ significantly depending on generation.

TV as a Gap Equalizer in Health Knowledge & Behavior: Effects of Media and Self-Efficacy on Diabetes Knowledge and Behavior Gaps • Jangyul Robert Kim and Youjin Choi, Florida • Using the knowledge-gap hypothesis, this study attempted to investigate the moderating effects of the media use for health information on people with different education level, age, and self-efficacy. Through an analysis of two linked mail surveys conducted among a representative groups of US adults (N=4,397), this study identified the potential of TV programs as a gap equalizer in the context of diabetes-related knowledge. While TV use reduced education-based and self-efficacy-based knowledge gaps, it increased age-based gaps.

Feel Like Learning? an Analysis of the Political Implications of Late Night Talk Shows in the 2004 Presidential Election • Nojin Kwak, Lauren Guggenheim, Xiaoru Wang and Brad Jones, Michigan • Findings of this study demonstrate that late night talk shows mattered for young Americans in the 2004 election. Overall, findings suggest that the impact of late night talk shows on electoral participation is weaker than its role in informing young voter. Notably, among all predictor variables examined, watching candidates on talk shows seems more helpful in getting campaign information among viewers.

A Multilevel Approach to Social Capital • Chul-joo Lee, Wisconsin-Madison • Research on social capital is overshadowed by theoretical and empirical confusions. It is quite natural that the problems prevalent in the conceptual definition of social capital bring about operational problems, making social capital studies fragmented and preventing them from developing into a coherent communication theory. In this paper, I aim to come up with a process model of social capital, which enables us to combine fragmented and disordered approaches to social capital studies under the larger theoretical model.

Framing and Cue Convergence: Moderating Roles of Political Knowledge and Partisanship • Nam-Jin Lee, Wisconsin-Madison • This paper examines the moderating role of political knowledge and partisanship on the effects of news frames and cues on social tolerance and attitudes toward national security and civil liberties. These moderating variables conjoin to exert a complex influence on the framing and cueing process. In this experiment, alternative versions of news stories about government surveillance of Arab groups under the authority of the USA Patriot Act were embedded within a Web-based survey.

Effects of Ideologies and Values on Media Choices: An Examination of Consumers of Conservative Media • Tien-Tsung Lee, Washington State • The increasing popularity of conservative media such as Fox News suggests that many consumers choose news sources that reflect their political views. Utilizing Uses & Gratifications and Hostile Media Perceptions as the theoretical framework, and employing alternative measures, this study is an in-depth analysis of audiences’ ideologies and values. It examines whether and how ideologies and values influence audiences’ media choices and political behavior.

Indexing Hypothesis and Discourse Analysis: A Case Study of the Impeachment of South Korean President • Jeongsub Lim, Missouri-Columbia • This study conducted a case study of the relationship between U.S. foreign policy and the three major U.S. newspapers’ foreign news coverage. The case was the impeachment of South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun on March 12, 2004. This study analyzed a content of four policy statements and 17 news stories regarding the impeachment crisis. Furthermore, thematic and rhetorical structures were qualitatively analyzed.

Using a Split-Ballot Survey to Explore the Robustness of the “M.I.P.” Question in Agenda-Setting Research: A Methodological Study • Young Min, Kyun Hee and Dixie Shipp Evatt, Syracuse and Salma I. Ghanem, Marquette and Spiro Kiousis, Florida and Maxwell McCombs, Texas and Toshio Takeshita, Meiji • Three aspects of the “most important problem” question used in agenda-setting setting research to measure issue salience among the public were examined. A split-ballot design in a state wide survey compared versions of the public agenda with a social frame of reference versus a personal frame of reference, versions using the traditional term “problem” versus “issue,” and the effects of question order. High correlations were found in all three sets of comparisons.

Children’s TV Viewing and Consumption of Unhealthy Foods • Anne M. Ochsenhirt and Sei-Hill Kim, Auburn • Analyzing data from a survey of fifth through seventh graders, this study examined whether television viewing might promote children’s unhealthy eating habits. The overall amount of television viewing was associated with greater consumption of unhealthy foods. Children’s attention to food advertisements also had a significant effect, indicating that food commercials might be responsible, at least in part, for producing the unhealthy consequence of television viewing. More importantly, our data indicated that food commercials might influence children’s conceptions about food.

The Role of Apathy, Complacency and Media Perceptions in Political Decision Making • Bruce E. Pinkleton, Yi-Chun Chen, Myiah Hutchens Hively, Rebecca Van de Vord, Ming Wang, Erica Weintraub Austin and David Cuillier, Washington State • A probability based telephone survey of registered voters in Washington state was conducted the week before the 2004 presidential election to examine citizens’ political decision making. Results showed that some citizens may not participate in public affairs because they are complacent rather than apathetic. These two variables–which separated into two factors in a factor analysis–operated in some ways that were similar and in some ways that were different in citizens’ political decision-making.

Gatekeeping Theory: An Evolution • Chris Roberts, South Carolina • Gatekeeping theory, one of the original theories to come from mass communication research, has remained important since its debut shortly after World War II. While not necessarily the most interesting or controversial of mass communication theories, a series of scholars has advanced it during the past decades. The foremost gatekeeping scholar today says the theory remains relevant, and the emergence of “weblogs” has returned gatekeeping to the forefront of research considerations.

Political Talk and Social Tolerance • Hernando Rojas, Rosanne Scholl, Lucy Atkinson, Seungahn Nah, Alexandra Vilela and Seung Hyun Lee, Wisconsin-Madison and Heejo Keum, Texas-San Antonio and Douglas M. McLeod and Dhavan V. Shah, Wisconsin-Madison • This study investigates the influence of political talk on tolerance in post-9/11 America. We argue that certain features of individuals’ political discussion networks increase tolerance. Three experiments sharing a similar focus — civil liberties — and format — experiment embedded in a Web-based survey — show that people who discuss politics more often are also more likely to support the rights of certain groups. This increased tolerance is extended to groups one is predisposed to dislike or that media have portrayed as extremists.

The Fourth Estate in the Digital Age: Formulating A New Role for Journalists Based in Theories of Civic Discourse • Jack Rosenberry, St. John Fisher College • Ideas drawn from theories of cyber-democracy, or use of the Internet’s interactive nature to foster political discourse, can be used to define new ways in which online journalists can become facilitators of that discourse.

Effects of Mood on Responses to Detective and Preventive Health Behavior Messages • Sela Sar and George Anghelcev, Minnesota-Twin Cities • This study examined the effects of positive and negative on behavioral intentions in response to preventive and detective health messages. We hypothesize that people in a positive mood will be more likely to adopt behaviors recommended in preventive health messages than behaviors recommended in detective health messages. However, people in a negative mood will be more likely to adopt behaviors recommended in detective health messages than behaviors recommended in preventive health messages.

My Friend’s Enemy: How Split-Screen Debate Coverage Influences Evaluation of Presidential Debates • Dietram A. Scheufele, Eunkyung Kim, Dominique Brossard, Wisconsin-Madison • Leading up to the 2004 presidential debates, there was considerable discussion about the mode of presentation of television, i.e., debate coverage with simultaneous reaction shots of the opponent while a candidate was speaking or coverage with isolated shorts of each candidate only. In fact, many commentators argued that split-screen coverage of Bush’s reactions to Kerry’s statements hurt the President during the first debate.

Taking Games Seriously: How Explication and Theory can Improve Video Game Research • Mike Schmierback, College of Charleston • Although mass communication scholars have begun to assess video games, this work lacks coherence in its theorizing and measurement. This paper suggests ways to improve research on video games. First, it presents a typology of potential gaming variables, focusing on the content, context, and technology of gaming. Second, it describes some of the existing literature on games, highlighting ways mass communication theory has been or could be used to improve and coordinate this research.

Constructing Contentiousness: Presidential Debate Modality, Political Talk, and Judgments of News Credibility • Dhavan V. Shah, Jaeho Cho, Seungahn Nah and Dominique Brossard, Wisconsin-Madison • Recent research has found that the levels of incivility in televised debate exchanges adversely affect political legitimacy, particularly when the appearance of contentiousness is intensified through the use of broadcast production of techniques such as close-up camera perspectives (Mutz & Reeves, 2005).

Tracking Presidential Campaign Websites: Similarities and Differences Between 2000 and 2004 • Boubacar Souley and Robert H. Wicks, Arkansas • This study analyzed the content of news releases posted on the presidential candidate websites during the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns. Findings suggest topics such as education and social security that received significant attention in 2000 were supplanted by other topics such as terrorism and the Iraq War in 2004. Only three of the topics included among the top ten addressed in 2000 appeared in the top ten in 2004.

Internet Communication and its Relationship to Well-Being: Identifying Some Underlying Mechanisms • Patti M. Valkenburg and Jochen Peter, Amsterdam • The aim of this study was to improve our insight into the relationship between Internet communication and well-being. Drawing on a survey of 816 adolescents, we initially found that Internet communication was negatively related to well-being. However, when adolescents’ (a) closeness to friends and (b) their tendency to talk with strangers online were included in our Structural Equations Model, an entirely different pattern of results emerged.

Can You Hear Me Now? Evaluating Online Consultation in Singapore • Kevin Y. Wang, Washington • This paper evaluates the practice of online civic consultation in Singapore with a conceptual framework drawn from liberal democratic theories. The author surveys Singapore’s online consultation portal as well as the content of two selected discussion threads. The study found that while the discourse demonstrates characteristics of strong democratic deliberation, the quality of this communication is hampered by the lack of administrative moderation and the failure to adequately prepare participants before consultation process begins.

The Third-Person Effects of Political Attack Ads in the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election • Ran Wei, South Carolina and Ven-hwei, National Chengchi • This study examines the indirect effects of extensive negative political attack ads in the 2004 presidential election from a third-person effects perspective. Results of a survey using a probability sample of 496 college students indicate that they believe attack ads harm others more than themselves. Moreover, the respondents tended to perceive attack ads in traditional media to have a greater harmful effect on self and others than attack ads on the Internet.

Evaluating Self and Others: Systematic Processing vs. Heuristics in the Third-Person Effect • H. Allen White, Murray State and Julie L. Andsager, Iowa • An experiment tested whether systematic reasoning and heuristic cues resulted in perceived third-person influence. A third-person effect was found in that subjects thought “others” would be more influenced by heuristic cues and process information heuristically. Conversely, subjects reported that the “self” was more influenced by systematic arguments and systematic processing. Discussed are implications for the third-person effect hypothesis as it relates to celebrities as sources in persuasive messages and the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion.

Underlying Mechanisms of Indirect Effects of Mood on Attitude: Cognitive vs. Motivation Mediation • JungAe Yang, Indiana • This study investigated the mechanisms of indirect effects of mood on persuasion processes by testing two competing hypotheses, i.e. motivational vs. cognitive hypothese. Consistent with motivational hypotheses, positive mood participants showed reduced processing, compared to those in the other two conditions; their attitudes and thought favorability were not different across strong and week argument groups. For those in the neutral and the negative moods, reading strong arguments produced more positive attitudes and more favorable thoughts.

The Impact of Source Types on Perceived Bias of Online News Sources • Li Zeng, Arkansas State and Walter B. Jaehnig, Southern Illinois-Carbondale • This study examines whether different types of sources quoted within online news stories affect individuals’ perception of source bias. One hundred and five college students participated in an experimental setting. The findings provide evidence for the applicability of the Elaboration Likelihood Model in an online news environment. When exposed to stories arousing a high level of motivation, participants reported that official sources were more biased than individuals affiliated with non-government organizations.

Exploring People’s Conceptions of Privacy in the Virtual World • Lara Zwarun, Texas-Arlington and Mike Z. Yao, California-Santa Barbara • This study uses Q-methodology to explore whether five dimensions of privacy identified from extant literature are meaningful ways of organizing people’s subjective concerns about online privacy. Results indicate that a majority of people display a similar pattern when asked to organize the statements based on spatial and psychological views of privacy, but not on the informational, rights, and boundary management perspectives, suggesting that interpretation of privacy can be subjective and requires more examination.

<< 2005 Abstracts