Archives for January 2012

Visual Communication Division

The Limits of Copyright Protection for the Use of Visual Works in Motion Pictures, Print Media and Pop Art in the 1990s • Andy Bechtel and Arati Korwar, Louisiana State University • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

Creating Visual Metaphors of the Internet • Walter M. Bortz, William R. Davie and Jung-Sook Lee, Southwestern Louisiana • This study examined visual metaphors of the Internet created by college students. The authors applied an Interaction theory to their data from a series of in-depth interviews and classified visual metaphors into metaphoric types. They identified 23 types of visual metaphors, including challenge, navigation, food, privacy, flowing, knowledge and information, and powerful force. They also discussed implications of metaphoric research for communication theory and practice by focusing on the nature of projective or similarity-creating metaphors.

Perceptions of Graphics Versus No Graphics on Web Sites • Rebecca J. Chamberlin, Ohio University • An experiment was conducted to better understanding how the design of a web site affects the viewers’ perceptions of it. High-graphic and low-graphic versions of web sites were compared by five groups of viewers. There was no difference in how difficult the viewers felt it was to find information on the sites. However, different demographic groups had different perceptions of attractiveness and different preference for content or graphics.

Design Characteristics of Public Journalism: Integrating Visual and Verbal Meaning • Renita Coleman, Missouri-Columbia • Public journalists argue that the content of stories generated through public journalism is different from that generated by traditional reporting methods. This prompts the question: If the content of stories generated through public journalism methods is different, and design is driven by content, doesn’t it follow that design for public journalism will be different than design for non-public journalism? Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, this study used the principles of design to explore how public journalism projects have been visually communicated in newspapers practicing the public journalism genre, and how it differs from the visual communication of non-public journalism.

Influencing Creativity in Newsrooms: A Survey of Newspaper, Magazine, and Web Designers • Renita Coleman and Jan Colbert, Missouri-Columbia • Editorial designers (newspaper, magazine and web) are an intrical part of the creative process in the newsroom, yet no research has been done in this area. This study provides insight into what influences the creative abilities of designers by analyzing their personality characteristics and thinking strategies as well as independent variables relevant to their working conditions. Understanding how to foster creativity in design will help newspapers and magazines stay competitive, and help web designers understand more about their nascent medium.

The Development of Standard and Alternative Forms of Photojournalism • Timothy Roy Gleason, Bowling Green State University • By the mid-1950s standard photojournalism practices were established which excluded alternative practices. The paper explores their development from the 1930s through the 1950s. Standards of journalistic objectivity and an emphasis on the denotative qualities of photography were propagated by editors and reporters. This style of photojournalism is presented in contrast to the work of Robert Frank. His photography was not accepted in journalism because of his subjective style.

Visual Design for the World Wide Web: What Does the User Want? • Deborah M. Gross, Florida • This paper examines interface design for the World Wide Web. The author designed a Website and conducted five focus groups to determine issues that were important to potential users. This study indicates that users will play a large role in the evolution of Web design standards. As more media options become available, users’ needs must be gratified. World Wide Web sites should be fast, fresh, exciting and interactive. Further implications for Web design are discussed.

Afterthoughts on the Representational Strategies of the FSA Documentary • Edgar Shaohua Huang, Indiana University • This paper analyzed the truth strategies of documentary photography from the positivist, social constructivist, Marxist, and postmodern perspectives in an attempt to find out what caused the decline of documentary photography and whether traditional documentary can reinvented. The analysis focused on the FSA works (especially on Arthur Rothstein’s famous Skull picture), which have been regarded by photographic communities as classical documentary photography.

Who Gets Named?: Nationality, Race and Gender in New York Times Photograph Cutlines • John M. King, Louisiana State University • This research examined 986 New York Times images to asses the impact of nationality, race and gender on named individuals in cutlines. Chi-square tests, significant at less than .001, showed that Americans were named more often than non-Americans. Caucasians were named more often than Hispanics, Asians and Middle easterners, but less often than people of African descent. Males were named more often than females. Two hypotheses were still supported after controlling for nine story types.

Altered Plates: Photo Manipulation and the Search for News Value in the Early and Late Twentieth Century • Wilson Lowrey, Georgia • Recent cases of news photo manipulation have editors and photo directors up in arms over the dangers of digital technology. Photo manipulation, however, was not born in the digital world • it is only nurtured there. Artists and photographers have been altering and staging photos since the invention of photography in the 19th century. And the period from 1910 to the 1930s, immediately following the perfection of the halftone technique, was perhaps the heyday for news photo manipulation.

The Rhetorical Structure of California Reich: Exploring the Strengths and Dilemmas of Guiding Audience Response in Classical Documentary Filmed in Cinema Verite • Kate Madden, SUNY Brockport • California Reich is a classical documentary filmed in cinema verite style which explores the Neo-Nazi movement in California in the mid-1970s. First aired in 1976, the hour-long film continues in video distribution today and shares space in the “war” section of some video stores. As classical documentary, California Reich fits into a tradition which clearly defines documentary as a rhetorical text which consciously attempts to persuade audiences to a particular point of view about its subject matter.

Effects of Novelty in News Photographs on Attention and Memory • Andrew Mendelson, Southern University-Edwardsville • Two experiments are reported that examined the effects of novelty in terms of preferences for viewing, viewing time, recall memory, and interest ratings, in an attempt to isolate how atypical news photographs are processed. This research separated the two concepts of content and compositional novelty. Both experiments showed that more novel news photographs attracted attention, were looked at longer, were rated as more interesting, and were better remembered.

When Mona Lisa and Madison Avenue Dance • Kimberly Paul, Texas-Austin • At the International Advertising Festival in Cannes, the success of an advertising campaign is measured not by its effectiveness but by its artfulness, its creativity. No matter that the top award is the Grand Prix. The real reward • and what most of the entrants are hoping for • is recognition that what they are doing is art. However, like Shakespeare’s two houses divided, the cultural families of art and advertising disagree over whether advertising can be a legitimate art form.

The First Person Effect in Mass Communications: Reaction to “The Man Against the Tanks” of Tiananmen • David D. Perlmutter, Louisiana State University • This paper suggests a phenomenon called the “first-person effect,” a useful way to explain how discourse elites, politicians, pundits, journalists, and scholars of visual culture, affect the news pictures that they comment upon. Using the famous image of the man who stood against the tanks neat Tiananmen Square in spring 1989, I examine to what extent a news image actually has the “power” to shock, outrage or change the opinion of the public and the policy makers.

Imperial Imaginary: Photography and the Invention of the British Raj • Shakuntala Rao, SUNY Plattsburgh • This paper attempts to make a connection between photography and the British rule in India. It specifically discusses the work of Samuel Bourne who traveled and photographed the subcontinent extensively from 1863-70. Analysis reveals that Bourne aided in, what refer to, as the “imperial imaginary” of the Raj primarily in his photography of Himalayan landscapes and ancient Indian architecture. Having arrived in India right after the sepoy mutiny, Bourne also faced aesthetic and political dilemmas when confronted with the vastness and variety of the land.

Errors and Inaccuracies in Iowa’s Local Newspaper Information Graphics • Lulu Rodriguez, Iowa State University • This content analysis explores the accuracy with which data are presented in charts in a select sample of community newspapers in Iowa. It examined 187 information graphics contained in 268 issues of 28 community newspapers. Results indicate the dearth of charts in many newspapers. Majority of the charts depicted international, local business and infrastructure development topics. Locator maps were the most predominantly used followed by line graphs and bar graphs. Violations of chart making conventions, misrepresentation of data using percentages, non-comparability of data, inappropriateness of chart, overdressed graphs, and the absence of text-graphic correspondence were the most common mistakes observed.

<< 1998 Abstracts

Scholastic Journalism Division

Education for Scholastic Journalism Revisited: Are We Doing Enough? • Tom Dickson and Mark Paxton, Southwest Missouri State University • The Journalism Education Association in 1987 said high school journalism programs were at risk. We surveyed all colleges and universities in the country with communications-related programs to try to determine to what extent they were preparing future and current scholastic journalism teachers. We concluded that few journalism and mass communication programs were involved in scholastic journalism education and that those that were involved weren’t doing enough.

Job Descriptions and Responsibilities of Scholastic Press Association Directors • Julie E. Dodd, Florida • A 25-item questionnaire was e-mailed to directors or presidents of 40 state, regional and national scholastic press associations, with 26 (65% responding). Of the 16 state SPA directors who were university employees, five were in tenure-track positions, and only two said they were expected to conduct scholarly research. The SPA directors reported the most enjoyable and most difficult part of their SPA work was working with the teachers in the association. The second most difficult part of the job was their overall workload.

Look Who’s Reading Newspapers: The Impact of a Citywide High School Newspaper on Student Media Use • Elinor Kelley Grusin and M. David Arant, Memphis • In fall 1997 the University of Memphis began publishing a monthly citywide high school newspaper, a joint effort with the Memphis daily newspaper, The Commercial Appeal, and the Memphis City Schools. This paper reports the launch of The Teen Appeal, its first year of operation and the results of a survey designed to measure high school student media use and the impact of the citywide high school newspaper.

Factors Affecting the Degree to Which the Student Press of Michigan is Subjected to Prior Review and/or Prior Restraint • Kimberly A. Lauffer, Florida • A 55-item questionnaire was sent to 350 randomly selected high school publications advisors in Michigan. The response rate was 55 percent after the third wave. While an adviser’s experience was not significantly correlated with incidence of censorship, an adviser’s perception of administration as likely to censer was. Size of school was significantly correlated with how advisers perceived administrators’ views of prior review as was size of school and whether that school had an editorial policy regarding student publications.

Learning to Do the Right Thing: Assessing Knowledge of Media Ethics of Leading High School Journalism Students in Louisiana • Joseph A. Mirando, Southeastern Louisiana University • The study is composed of an assessment of journalism students’ knowledge of media ethics. Results of an achievement test administered to 116 of Louisiana’s top-rated journalism students showed that students were able to recognize general moral concepts but demonstrated little sensitivity concerning issues of media ethics. School administrators and curriculum planners in school districts in Louisiana are urged to carefully study the results and re-evaluate state-mandated lesson plans on ethics.

Student Internet Rights • Megan Moriarty, Wisconsin-Milwaukee • What rights do students have to use school computers and related computer networks to access the Internet? What right do they have during such computer use? The is little to understanding of the Internet at schools, which is likely to lead to rash decisions by school officials to protect students. To comprehend student Internet rights, a clear understanding of the following is necessary: Internet, analogies for the Internet, constitutional rights about these analogies, and students’ rights with regard to these analogies.

Incorporating Media Studies in the High School Social Science Curriculum: Perspectives of South Florida Teachers • C.A. Tuggle, Florida International University; Don Sneed and K. Tim Wulfemeyer, San Diego State University • This study reports the results of a mail survey of high school social science educators. Respondents gave their views on the need for systematic study of the media at the high school level. The teachers in the nation’s fifth-largest school district also offered their views on where in the curriculum media studies might most appropriately be placed, whether they consider themselves adequately prepared to teach about the media, and which types of media and/or media-related industries should be studied.

<< 1998 Abstracts

Radio-TV Journalism Division

Local Television Journalism: Developing Ethics through Discussion • Chris W. Allen, Jeremy H. Lipschultz and Michael L. Hilt, Nebraska-Omaha • The purpose of this paper is to examine the views of local television news producers about ethical policies and situations they face, and to see if their political orientation makes a difference. A majority of respondents agreed that it was important for a television newsroom to have a code of ethics or discussion of ethics in the newsroom. Most often producers perceived that their newsrooms were involved in discussions of fairness, balance, and objectivity; allocating airtime to opposing interest groups or political candidates; and, providing right of reply to criticism.

Network Television News Coverage of the Environment and the Impact of the Electronic Newsletter Greenwire • Claudette Guzan Artwick, Washington and Lee University • This study examines the role of the electronic newsletter Greenwire in setting the environmental agenda for network television news. A content analysis found that networks that subscribe to Greenwire covered more environmental news than the network that did not subscribe. It also found differences in the types of environmental stories covered. Interviews with news personnel suggest that Greenwire plays an indirect agenda-setting role for its network subscribers. Greenwire appears to highlight the environmental news agenda, while events drive what network television news reports on the environment.

The Relationship of Affiliation Change to Changes in Television News Ratings • Marianne Barrett, Arizona State University • This study uses Nielsen ratings data from February 1994, 1995 and 1996 to examine the relationship between network affiliation change and changes in ratings for local and network television news. The key finding is that, contrary to what was expected, there is a significant negative relationship between a change in local news ratings and affiliation change, particularly a change to Fox, but that no such relationship exists for network news programs.

Advertising’s Influence on Broadcast News Content: A Study of Student Attitudes • Hubert W. Brown and Beth E. Barnes, Syracuse University • Much has been written in both the trade and popular press regarding advertising’s influence on new content. Virtually all of the discussion around the issue is from the news point of view. The present study presents both the news and advertising perspectives through results of a survey of broadcast journalism and advertising students. Students were asked to indicate their relative agreement with a range of statements on the issue of advertising’s influence on news content.

Constructing International Spectacle on Television: CCTV News and China’s Window on the World, 1992-1996 • Tsan-Kuo Chang, Minnesota and Chen Yanru, Nanyang Technological University • Using the perspective of social construction of reality as a framework, the purpose of this paper is threefold: First, to examine the form and content of China’s national TV news in different settings (foreign news vs. foreign policy news); second, to determine the changes, if any, of its reporting of international sepctacle over time; and third, to identify the fundamental pattern of its window on the world through an analysis of network of countries that have persistently attracted China’s news attention and are presented accordingly.

Albert M. Primo: Creator of the “Eyewitness” Television News Format • Marie Curkan-Flanagan, Tennessee-Knoxville • Albert Primo is far from a household name but what he set in motion 30 years ago, in the field of broadcast news, set the standard and style for future generations of broadcast journalists. This study focuses on the man who began his career as a mailroom attendant, and quickly scaled the ladder as copy writer, reporter, film editor, and finally, news producer. Finally in 1968 he was given the news director’s job at WABC, in New York City.

A Content Analysis of Dateline NBC and NBC Nightly News: The Infiltration of the Youformation Story into News Magazines and Mainstream News • Jeff Demas, Ohio University • Recent criticism of “mainstream” news includes charges that the lines between it and “magazine-style” programs have become more blurred. Critics say that mainstream news includes more tabloid-style reporting and celebrity news than hard news. Through content analysis of NBC Nightly News and Dateline NBC, this study researches those charges. The study also researches a particular genre of “Could this happen to you?” type stories, called youformation by the researcher. Results indicate that from 1992 to 1997, Nightly News content begins to look more like Dateline, and not vice versa.

Priming Reporters: A Study on How the Willie Horton Case Altered the Portrayal of Criminals • James Devitt, Pennsylvania • This paper reports that after the William Horton case became prominent, network new altered visual depictions of black and white criminals. Black criminals increasingly appeared in visual similar to those that depicted Horton while white criminals were shown in different ways. These findings are evidence of visual framing. As an explanation for visual framing, this paper suggests the concept of visual priming, a process by which the news media alter the visual portrayal of issues or phenomena to reflect a salient incident.

Legal Concerns in TV Newsrooms: A National Survey of Local Television News Directors • Paul D. Driscoll, Sigman L. Splichal and Leonardo Ferreira, Miami • A mail survey of 360 local television news directors was conducted to measure concerns about media law issues and the extent to which legal considerations may affect news decision. Respondents answered a series of questions about their experiences and concerns regarding a variety of legal issues, including libel, invasion of privacy, trespass while newsgathering, and station news policies. Responses to the survey were compared with one conducted in 1995.

Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Nationwide Survey of Television Newsrooms • Sonya Forte Duhe, South Carolina • This study, reveals that computer-assisted reporting is employed only in its most basic form • use of the Internet. Fewer than half of the respondents said their newsroom uses spreadsheet, database manager, statistical and mapping software. However, data indicate that at least eight of ten newsrooms have the necessary hardware and software for information analysis.

Learned Helplessness in Local Television News: A 12-Year Update • Grace F. Levine, Quinnipiac College • Local newscasts of three major market network owned stations were found to focus on themes of helplessness in 68.3% of the time devoted to news. Helplessness was most often experienced by the general public. It’s causes were more likely: to be attributed to environmental factors, and described as generalizing across time frames and situations. After a 12 year period, the nature of helplessness in New York local newscasts remained virtually the same.

They’d Rather Be in Pictures, or Would They?: A Content Analysis of Video Bite Bias During TV Network News Coverage of the 1992 and 1996 Presidential Campaigns • Jon A. Shidler, Dennis T. Lowry and Charles Kingsley, Southern Illinois University • In this study bias was evaluated in terms of total air time for each candidate; positive, neutral, and negative presentation of the candidates and their wives; and crown reactions. The overall conclusions were that network coverage of the campaigns dropped by more than 50% in 1996 in terms of number of stories, video bites, and total seconds of air time; video coverage by political candidates was not balanced; the liberal bias hypothesis was supported in both elections in terms of positive coverage.

Women in Television News Management: Do They Make A Difference? • Laura K. Smith and John W. Wright II, Florida • The present study investigated whether females in small, medium, and large market local television news operations make news decisions differently than their male counterparts. The study also investigated perceptions of television news stories produced by males and females. As the proportion of women in local news management increases, the degree of interest females have in the station’s stories increases. As the proportion of women in local news management increases, the proportion of women included as sources in news stories increases.

Youth Voters in 1996: Searching for Political Information From Television News • Karon R. Speckman, Truman State University • Turnout for youth in 1996 was only 33% compared with 37% in 1988 and 38% in 1992. This paper explores the role of television in providing information to young voter. News abstracts from ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN were examined from September 1, 1996, to November 9, 1996, for coverage and ties to youth voters. Issues of importance to youth were not covered well, nor were stories tied to them as voters. Youths also were not used as sources.

Television News Stand-Up Reports: A Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Market Case Study • Patrick J. Sutherland, Ohio University • A content analysis was done of packages containing stand-up reports of 105 six p.m. newscasts. Interviews about uses of stand-ups were conducted with reporters and executives. Results showed significant difference in stand-upper lengths and styles. #1 KDKA’s packages averaged longer than competitors’ and featured in-depth anchor/reporter exchanges. WTAE’s reports averaged under 90 seconds with little time on-camera for reporters. Most of WPXI’s stand-up reports lasted between 90 seconds and two minutes with little anchor/reporter interaction.

Promise Keepers and TV News Coverage of the Stand in the Gap Rally: Conservative Protestants as an Audience and Public • Hillary Warren, Texas-Austin • Interviews with 22 conservative Protestant families who were members of Promise Keepers, the evangelical men’s movement, were analyzed in conjunction with news media criticism by Christian authors at the time of the Fall 1997 Stand in the Gap Washington, D.C. rally. This paper demonstrates that conservative Protestants operate as both an audience and a public and use their understanding of news frames to challenge the media and reinforce their alignment with their evangelical culture.

<< 1998 Abstracts

Qualitative Studies Division

Grounded Moral Theory: A Feminist Way of Doing (Media) Ethics • Cindy M. Brown, South Florida • In this paper, I articulate the fundamentals of a bottom-up method of ethical inquiry that I refer to as grounded moral theory. Grounded moral theory, which consists of listening to people’s real-life concerns, generating recommendations to deal with these concerns, and extrapolating from recommendations and concerns to ethical theory, is placed into the context of feminist ethics. The method is based on philosophical ideals from an ethic of care and methodological notions about building theory from the ground up (Glaser and Strauss, 1967).

Vilification as a Rhetorical Strategy in Social Movements: A Comparison of Environmental and Wise Use Rhetoric • Cindy T. Christen, Wisconsin-Madison • This paper uses the controversy surrounding natural resource management in the U.S. to examine vilification as a rhetorical strategy in social movements. Using the framework proposed by Vanderford (1989), examples of the vilification practices of wise use advocates and environmentalists are identified and compared. Based on the analysis, implications are drawn regarding the functions of vilification in the confrontation between environmental and wise use movements.

Hegemony and the Re-Creation of Dominant Culture: A Critique of Hollywood’s Cinematic Distortion of Women of Color and Their Stories • Brenda Cooper, Utah State • An investigation of male directors’ film translations of three texts written by women of color • Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, and Tina Turner’s I, Tina • explicates how marginalization and omission function as hegemonic devices to renarrate the women’s writings. The result is depoliticized film narratives that minimize, or mute altogether, pivotal elements of the women’s texts and lives, including their complex voices and unconventional beliefs regarding the role of gender, race, and spiritualism, thus demonstrating the semiotic power of film to construct cultural meanings and to perpetuate society’s existing dominant ideological ideals.

Memory and Record: Evocations of the Past in Newspapers • Stephanie Craft, Stanford • This paper explores how history is evoked and invoked in journalistic writing, and the implications of different conceptualizations of “history” for the study of collective memory and news. The paper examines how other scholars have traced the contours of history and memory and attempts to find a space for journalism within that discussion. Second, this paper offers a preliminary attempt to apply those concepts to news stories and identify questions for further examination.

A Critical Assessment of News Coverage of the Ethical Implications of Genetic Testing • David Craig, Oklahoma • Using ethical theory as an analytical lens, this paper assesses news coverage of the ethical implications of genetic testing through an in-depth textual analysis of 31 broadcast and print stories by major news organizations in 1995 and 1996. Consequentialist concerns, especially avoidance of harm, were prominent in most stories, but deontological references were often lacking. Ethical themes, sometimes emerging as direct questions to readers, underlined the choices facing individuals and society.

On the Possibility of Communicating: Critical Theory, Feminism, and Social Position • Fabienne Darling-Wolf, Iowa • This paper is an investigation of the epistemological significance of social position. Starting with early critical communication research, I explore the development of this concept in feminist scholarship, particularly feminist cultural studies. I argue that looking back at critical communication research might provide useful insights on some of the most pressing theoretical dilemmas of contemporary feminist thought, and help take the identity politics debate beyond academic discourse into politically grounded everyday practices.

Community Radio and the Development of Empowering Institutions: The Case of CKRZ and the Six Nations Reserve • Charles Fairchild, SUNY-Buffalo • CKRZ-FM was created to serve the needs of the Six Nations and New Credit Reserves. The station has so far succeeded in pursing its goals because it is an example of empowering community development. The station was created and is controlled by community members and it has evolved within a framework of values that has long been in place in these communities and which remains a vital force in the social lives of residents.

Social Movement Organization Collective Action Frames and Press Receptivity: A Case Study of Land Use Activism in a Maryland County • Brian B. Feeney, Temple University • In this study focus groups were used to interview members of social movement organization (SMO), real estate developers and the local newspaper editor in a case study of land use politics in a suburbanizing Maryland county. The study found that SMOs have a greater barrier to entry to the newsnet to overcome, requiring them to act as surrogate reporters. Also, both groups complained of poor reporting due to the newspaper’s use of inexperienced reporters.

Being There: Using Ethnographic Methodology in the Study of Electronic Communities • Mark Geise, Houston and Bette Kauffman, Northeast Louisiana University • The authors explore issues of ethnography as applied to two Internet newsgroups. Historical and theoretical constructions most applicable to adapting the methodology to cmc are examined. Modifications and implementations, including a description of the text-based Internet communication and gaining entry to the alt.cyberpunk community are discussed. It examines problems encountered in soliciting informants and how an acceptable “look” is constructed. It speculated about “being there” in a cmc environment and future applications of “electronic ethnography.”

Essential & Constructed: Community and Identity in an Online Television Fandom • Cinda Gillilan, Colorado • Television zine fans create community based on identification with media-mediated images/stories online, and as internet use increases there communities grow larger, more diverse and more intimately connected. The paper examines how one online fan community manipulates material and symbolic discourses to produce belonging and meaning for its participants. The ability to define our lives/values is not a release from hegemony, patriarchy, heterosexism, etc., but it is a matter of (em)power(ment).

Interior Design Magazines as Neurotica • Kim Golombisky, South Florida • Interior design magazines equate home with leisure, a fantasy for female readers with jobs and families. Women’s magazines typically compel women to become neurotic about housekeeping and family. But decorating magazines represent neurotica, an erotic ideal of home wiped clean of the family who makes housework. However, this resistant version of home still encourages domesticity by erasing not only the family but also the reader’s labor that keeps the home so attractive.

Self as Panoptician: The X-Files, Spectatorship, and Discipline • John M. Groves, Oregon • Cultural studies research on television has often taken the form of textual or reception analysis that examines the television production as if it were a written text. This paper looks at the serial plot of the X-Files, but places that plot within the non-diegetic context of the viewing experience. The cinematic ‘look’ of the show creates a coherent ‘spectator’ position, calling for application of psychoanalytic film theory. This effect works with the conspiracy-oriented plot to create a viewer/text interaction which inverts subjective relations to discipline.

An Alternative to “Alternative Media” • James Hamilton, SUNY Geneseo • This study argues that traditionally conceived “mass” media are inherently incapable of playing a significant role in assisting alternative social and political movements, due to the necessary professionalization of their practice and the resulting separation of media workers from the people for whom they write. It concludes by suggesting an alternative basis for a theory and the practice of alternative media that may better fit the realities of political movements today.

Literary Journalism as an Epistemological Moving Target Within a Larger “Quantum Narrative” • John C. Hartsock, SUNY Cortland • The discourse of “literary journalism,” among other names, has proved difficult to define and identify. This paper suggests that such a circumstance is due to its being a kind of epistemological moving target and thus difficult to classify. It explores evidence of this, characterizes the form as a “narrative of the inconclusive present,” and ultimately locates it as a moving epistemological target within a larger “quantum narrative.”

Building a Heartline to America: Quiz Shows and the Ideal of Audience Participation in Early Broadcasting • Olaf Hoerschelmann, North Texas • This article investigates the development of quiz shows as experimental forms to explore the relationship between broadcast institutions, media texts, and audiences. During this period of instability in the broadcast industry, quiz shows create a particularly close and involved relationship with radio and television audiences. While early quiz shows thus offer unusual forms of interaction and participation for the audience, the stabilization of the network system in the early fifties changed the form and meaning of the genre and limited the audience to a more restricted viewing position.

Searching for a Voice of Authority: Journalism Between the Modern and Postmodern • Rick Jackson, Washington • Journalism, buffeted by hostility from the outside and by crumbling confidence from within, appears to be experiencing a crisis of cultural authority. This crisis emerges amid a complex set of tensions, what James Carey calls “between the modern and postmodern.” Though these tensions erode journalism’s epistemological confidence, the emergence of new models of journalism (public journalism) and professional conventions (narrative writing techniques) suggest ways in which journalism can begin to repair its cultural authority.

I Love Lucy and Ethel Mertz: An Expression of Internal Conflict and Pre-Feminist Solidarity • Darlene Jirikowic, Wisconsin-Milwaukee • While feminist literature has clearly documented both the pre-feminist and hegemonic influence in post-war comedies such as I Love Lucy, this paper intends to illustrate the importance of a supporting character such as Ethel Mertz. The internal conflict that marked women’s lives sometimes took the shape of feminine discourse between a key comedic character and secondary female character. It is through that dialogue, the interplay between the two women, that the complexity of postwar tension becomes apparent.

The Cadaverous Bad Boy As Dream-Shadow Trickster: Why Freddy Krueger Won’t Let Teens Rest In Peace • Paulette D. Kilmer, Toledo • The slasher films in the Nightmare on Elm Street series gained popularity about twenty years ago by featuring campy dialogue, a rogue anti-hero and a new dimension for terror: sleep. The villain, Freddy Krueger, quickly became a pop-cultural celebrity with his own TV show and line of merchandise. The paper examines that guru of gore in Jungian terms to place him in the ongoing process of myth making that defines humanity. The Freddy Krueger films embody parables about coming of age in a scary, technological world.

Messing: Information, Liminality, Dread • Nathaniel Kohn, Georgia • Written as a screenplay. A series of scenes. Known in Hollywood as a sequence. With/out con/sequences. Moving across borders. Thresholding. From conscious to unconscious. From mediated to permeated. In the second person, between first and third. Dialogic. Unsettling. Destablizing. In/form/ation, overloading, assualting. The dread, consuming. Autoethnography. Scenes from a. A so-called. Get a. Driving without a. Etc.

‘Brokaw on the Holodeck:’ The Future of the News Story in Cyberspace • Jack Lule, Lehigh University • In early 1997, Janet H. Murray, Senior Research Scientist in MIT’s Center for Educational Computing Initiatives, published a remarkable book, Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. Murray offered a vision of the computer as a spellbinding storyteller. She identified the aesthetics of digital narrative • it characteristic means of capturing beauty and giving pleasure. And she suggested rich paths for the future of narrative in a digital age. The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications of Hamlet on the Holodeck for the future of the news story.

Table for One: TV Screen as Eating Companion in a Public Space • Michael L. Maynard, Temple • This pilot study reports how students who eat in a campus food court that includes a large television screen configure themselves so as to face the screen. Based on qualitative analysis of how the screen interacts with students who are alone or in groups, the following roles were coded: screen as attention-getter, scene dominator, time marker, hypnotist, distracting element, eating companion, sleep inducing agent, seducer, ice breaker, time-filler, agent of conformity, non-demanding companion and keeper of social rhythm.

They’re Ba-ack: “Ghost Mate Movies” As Expressions of Mass Dreams and Cultural Norms • Patrick Meirick, Marquette University • This paper explores how “ghost mate movies” • movies in which a dead lover returns to the bereaved partner as a ghost • reflect both cultural norms about bereavement and group fantasies about recovering the lost mate. The movies fill an information void left by the death taboo. British and American ghost mate movies reinforce norms about detaching from the dead and moving on with life, but a Brazilian one suggests detaching from the dead isn’t necessary.

Earth First! and the Boundaries of Postmodern Environmental Journalism • Rick Clifton Moore, Boise State University • Modernistic assumptions have long been fundamental to journalistic practice. As those assumptions are increasingly questioned, scholars should consider the implications of alternative foundations, especially as they relate to communicating about important social issues. In this paper the author offers a theoretical discussion and brief qualitative analysis to better understand what postmodern communication (most visibly on the internet) might look like and the difficulties ahead for environment groups if they adopt anti-foundational and anti-narrative communication patterns.

Into the Field: A Narrative Account of Doing Audience Ethnography • Patrick D. Murphy, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville • This paper is a narrative account of the early stages of an ethongraphy of television viewers in central Mexico. The narrative details the events that shaped the direction of the inquiry, acknowledges the visibility and self-interest of the ethnographer, and describes the selection of and movements within the audiences represented in the study. The account demonstrates how the methodology which was developed was not based on a systematic design for finding a research “sample,” but rather the result of emerging relationships and contextual processes.

Reframing a House of Mirrors: Communication and Empowerment in a Community Leadership Program • Eleanor Novek, Monmouth University • Scholars assert that communities strengthen themselves by bringing residents together and mobilizing them to solve local problems. How does this happen? What communication practices enable individuals to act together for the common good? This paper explores the development and implementation of a community leadership program in the northeastern United States from a communication perspective, in order to help grassroots practitioners maximize the application of meaning production and discursive reframing as communication strategies for empowerment.

“Can We Be Excellent and Equal Too?” Cultural Capital, Silent Sponsors and Early PBS • Laurie Ouellette, Rutgers • Drawing from Bourdieu’s theory of class reproduction, this article examines cultural and economic contradictions underscoring early conceptions of PBS as an equalizing educational force. Comparing the debut of Sesame Street and Civilisation, I show how the goal of improving the lot of disadvantaged children ran counter to the motives of “silent sponsors” seeking to reach upscale consumers. This tension was compounded by class hierarchies constructed around PBS in the popular press and in station program guides.

“Gotcha!”: Sensationalism, Discourse and Public Affairs • Peter Parisi, Hunter College • Although sensationalism is typically equated with lurid, frivolous subject matter, research suggests it can also heighten public affairs expos s. Using discourse analysis, this paper examines these possibilities in a New York tabloid newspaper’s stories on Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s harassment of a gadfly who exposed an illicit traffic trap. Examining reporting, columns, editorials and headlines, it shows how sensationalism mutes and suppresses key public interest issues. The paper concludes exploring the possibility of counter-hegmonic sensationalism.

The Mythos of Cyberspace: Acceptable Use Policies and the Ideology of the Internet • Randall Patnode, North Carolina The rhetoric of the Internet suggests that the new medium will provide a host of benefits to society, including more democratic participation and grater economic prosperity. Beneath the rhetoric, however, is an ideology that often runs counter to these ideals. This paper argues that the underlying ideology of the Internet can be seen in the content of acceptable use policies used by public libraries and K-12 schools.

Korean Rap at the Cusp: A Proposal for Analyzing Relations of Power Soon-Chul Shin and Elizabeth P. Lester, Georgia • Among the many cultural products, pop music plays a uniquely significant role in terms of everyday life practices. One of the most distinctive characteristics of pop music is its “transnationality.” This paper focuses on the relationship between the pop music genres, rock and rap, and an issue of identity in Korean teen culture. U.S. rock and rap have been successfully articulated in the Korean pop field, and the Korean “teen bloc” has positively negotiated with the transnationality of U.S. pop culture.

The Cable Collective as Public Space: “New Directions for Women” • Linda Steiner, Rutgers University • Assuming that something like the public sphere is indispensable to democratic political practice, the question addressed here is whether the work of a collective that produces “feminist television programs” can be seen as representing agency in the public sphere. This paper highlights the efforts of group that produces, under the aegis of the National Organization of Women, a series called “New Directions for Women.” The programming is cablecast on cable television public access channels in three states.

Communications Policy Through Thick and Thin: Thick Descriptions as a Methodology for Democracy • Brad Thompson, Pennsylvania State University • This paper proposes the use of anthropologist Clifford Geertz’s “thick description” as a methodology for communications policy research. Ethnographies employing thick description would give voice to the concerns of ordinary citizens. They also would help make policy more accessible so the public could participate more meaningfully in policy making, thus enhancing prospects for democracy. A literature review found no instances of authors explicitly employing thick description in mass communications policy research.

Parental Support in an Information Age: Lessons from Parental Mediation of Rental Videos • Ron Warren, Arkansas • The onset of an “Information Age” poses new questions for parents’ control over children’s media use. This paper notes the increasing frequency with which parents rely on the physical environment of their home and media mix to help control children’s media habits. Through qualitative interviews of four families about their use of rental videotapes, the author concludes that there are important elements to be considered in future studies of new technology in the home.

Negotiated Fun? Audience Responses to TV Nation • Rita Zajacz, Indiana University • A racially mixed and two all white focus groups provided polyvalent interpretations of two TV Nation segments, which used humor and documentary techniques to get their strong political point across. While the racially mixed group discusses racism and the participants connected the topic to their lives, the all white groups provided an oppositional reading by attacking the motivation of the director and by attacking the structure of the segment they disagreed with.

<< 1998 Abstracts

Public Relations Division

Research
Public Relations and Consumer Decisions: Effectively Managing the Relationships that Impact Consumer Behavior • Steven D. Bruning and John A. Ledingham, Capital University • Within the business environment, public relations traditionally has been conceptualized as focused on enhancing the organization’s image and helping the public the see the organization as a “good corporate citizen.” This investigation sought to examine the impact that consumer perceptions of the organization-public relationship, consumer attitudes about price, and consumer attitudes about a particular product feature have on consumer behavior the findings indicate that the relationship that exists between the consumer and the organization differentiates those who are loyal to the organization from those who are not.

Women in the Public Relations Trade Press: A Content Analysis of Tide and Public Relations Journal (1940s through 1960s) • Patricia A. Curtin, North Carolina and Karen S. Miller, Georgia • A quantitative and qualitative content analysis of all editorial content by or about women in Tide and Public Relations Journal from the 1940s through the 1960s reveals women in a variety of roles: public relations professionals, working women, target audiences, and cheesecake. Coverage between the two magazines was markedly different, with Tide presenting a more varied depiction of women’s lives and work. Trends over time include the increasing marginalization of women within the field.

Bridging Connections: Refining Measurements of the Involvement Construct • Dixie Shipp Evatt, Texas-Austin • This paper offers theoretical refinement of Grunig’s situational theory of publics by explicating and testing the involvement construct. Zaichkowsky’s Personal Involvement Inventory (PII) is shown to be a reliable measure of the construct when applied to public policy issues and problems. Data reduction through a factor analysis shows that the involvement construct may have four distinct elements. In addition, level of involvement seeking behavior.

Public Relations’ Potential Contribution to Effective Healthcare Management • Chandra Grosse Gordon, Davis Partners, Lafayette, LA, and Kathleen S. Kelly, Southwestern Louisiana • A national survey of 191 heads of public relations departments in hospitals measured the department’s expertise or knowledge to practice excellent public relations, as defined by recent research. Utilizing two scales original to the study, correlations showed strong and significant relationships between organizational effectiveness and departments with high potential to practice the two-way symmetrical model, enact the manager role, and participate in strategic planning. Findings can be used by hospitals to help resolve the current healthcare crisis.

No Virginia, It’s Not True What They Say About Publicity’s ‘Implied Third-Party Endorsement’ Effect • Kirk Hallahan, Colorado State • This review essay examines “implied third-party endorsement” as an explanation of publicity effectiveness. In lieu of a the traditional view that publicity’s superiority can be attributed to conscious decisions by media workers to devote coverage to a particular topic, the author argues that publicity’s superiority can be explained, at best, as an inferred endorsement. The author argues that effects commonly attributed to third-party endorsements actually stem from biased audience processing that favors news and disfavors advertising.

Learning to Swim Skillfully in Uncharted Waters: Doris E. Fleischman • Susan Henry, California State-Northridge • Between 1913 and 1922, public relations began to be established as a profession and the life of one of its previously unacknowledged pioneers, Doris E. Fleischman, changed in remarkable ways. This paper charts Fleischman’s early career as a newspaper reporter and then as the first employee hired by Edward L. Bernays. It describes some of their early campaigns and the growing collaboration between them until 1922, when she became an equal partner in the firm of Edward L. Bernays, Counsel on Public Relations.

Fess Up or Stonewall? An Experimental Test of Prior Reputation and Response Style in the Face of Negative News Coverage • Lisa Lyon and Glen T. Cameron, Georgia • A fully counterbalanced, within-subjects experiment addressed fundamental questions about the value of corporate reputation. The 2 (good vs. bad reputation) x 2 (apologetic vs. defensive) design also compared apologetic and defensive responses to negative news about a company. Reputation profoundly affected memory attitude and behavioral intentions, bearing our platitudes about bottom-line importance of reputation management. Conversely, response style was nor particularly robust as a factor affecting cognitive, affective and behavioral measures. Interaction effects of the two factors ran counter to common wisdom abjuring the stonewall response.

Reaching Publics on the Web During the 1996 Presidential Campaign • Carol Anne McKeown and Kenneth D. Plowman, San Jose State • This case study explored how the 1996 Democrat and Republican parties’ presidential candidates used the World Wide Web to communicate to voters during the general election. The study found that the campaigns were able to present more in-depth issue information through this new communication medium than traditional medial channels. Results also indicated that the campaigns did not use this new technology to increase interaction between voters and candidates.

Dealing With The Feminization of the Field: Attitudes and Aptitudes of College Women in Public Relations • Michael A. Mitrook, Central Florida; Kimberly V. Wilkes and Glen Cameron, Georgia • A survey of nearly 700 students in introductory public relations classes found that stereotypes of public relations could be one reason women are drawn to public relations and men are not drawn to public relations. Men in the sample saw less opportunity for management and rated the field as both feminine and masculine. Women in the sample saw public relations a job valuable to society.

The World Wide Web as a Public Relations Medium: The Use of Research, Planning, and Evaluation by Web Site Decision-Makers • Candace White and Niranjan Raman, Tennessee • The World Wide Web is viewed as a new medium for public relations by many organizations. Given the evolving nature of the Web and the mixed findings about commercial successes of Web sites, little is known about the managerial aspects of Web site research, planning, and evaluation. This study found that in many cases, Web site planning is done by trail and error based on subjective knowledge and intuition, with little to no formal research and evaluation.

Public Relations Strategies and Organization-Public Relationships: A Path Analysis • Yi-Hui Huang, National Chen-chih University • The purpose of this study was to explore two focal concepts and especially their casual relationships: public relations strategies and organization-public relationships. I chose Taipei as the locale for the study and delimited my research scope to examining executive-legislative relations. A self-administered questionnaire sent to legislators and their assistants in Taiwan was the primary method of data collection. This study contributes to the development of public relations theory in the following ways: 1) introducing a new measure of public relations effects, 2) providing a reconceptualization of models of public relations.

Integrating Intercultural Communication and International Public Relations: An “In-Awareness” Model • R.S. Zaharna, American • This paper addresses what Hugh Culbertson (1996) called the “hot topic” • international public relations. The literature review examines parallel trends within international public relations and intercultural communication. Examples from a Fulbright project are presented, each highlighting a cultural aspect. The examples provide a cultural base for constructing a theoretical model by synthesizing research from intercultural communication and international public relations. The model asks three key questions: What is feasible? What is involved? What is effective?

Teaching
Teaching Public Relations Campaigns: The Current State of the Art • Vincent L. Benigni and Glen T. Cameron, Georgia • A national survey of campaigns professors was conducted to provide public relations faculty with helpful pedagogical information about the public relations campaigns course and to provide the current Commission on Public Relations Education with an empirical basis for setting curricular guidelines. Results indicated that while the great majority of campaigns classes incorporate research elements, many are not grounded in theory, a crucial criterion for “excellent” public relations. Responses also indicated a glaring absence of “real-world” strategies and tactics in the course and inconsistencies regarding the agency-style setup.

High Tech vs. High Concepts: A Survey of Technology Integration in U.S. Public Relations Curricula • Patricia A. Curtin, Elizabeth M. Witherspoon and Dulcie M. Straughan, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • A perennial issue in the journalism and mass communication professions is whether students are acquiring the skills they need to enter and thrive in an ever-changing work environment. This paper reports the results of an electronic mail survey of public relations educators about how they integrate new technology use and instruction into their curricula. The second phase of the study will survey public relations practitioners about technology skills they require of entry-level employees.

Advising the Bateman Case Study Competition: A Help or Hindrance to the Academic Career • Emma Louise Daugherty, California State University-Long Beach • Many faculty in public relations advise students in competitions that provide hands-on experience. The benefits of student participation are well documented, but rewards systems evaluate faculty on teaching, research, and service. Most universities place the greatest importance on research and then teaching. This study examines whether advising student competitions, particularly the Bateman Case Study Competition, helps or hinders an academic career. Fifty-five advisors of the 1997 Bateman Case Study Competition responded to a survey that measured the importance of their advising in decisions on tenure, promotion, and merit bonuses.

Enlightened Self Interest • An Ethical Baseline for Teaching Corporate Public Relations • Patricia T. Whalen, Michigan State • Despite the current unpopularity of “enlightened self interest” as an ethical baseline for teaching public relations, this paper suggests that it may be a practical way to bridge the discrepancy between the personal ethics approach to corporate decision-making favored by public relations educators and the fiduciary responsibility approach favored by corporate executives. The paper explores a number of studies that indicate that such a discrepancy does, indeed, exist and suggests that as long as it does, it will keep public relations practitioners from playing a significant role in corporate decision-making.

Student Papers
Public Relations or Private Controls? The Growth of “Private” Public Relations • Bruce K. Berger, Kentucky • This exploratory research examines the changing nature of public relations sites. It is theorized that new technologies allow corporations to bypass media screens and increase control over message and message environment at emergent sites. A typology of public relations sites is created as a basis for examining control and public/private aspects. Two hypotheses are then tested through a telephone survey of senior public relations executives at 35 of the Fortune 500 companies and through an analysis of actual expenditures in sites during the 1990s.

Crises on the Cyberspace: Applying Agenda Setting Theory to On-line Crisis Management • Tzong-Horng Dzwo (Dustin), Florida • With rapid advancement of new communication technologies, people currently can freely and actively express their own opinions in the new media. As a result, public relations professionals encounter a harder challenge when a crisis hits their organizations. This paper proposes a crisis communication model by integrating Sturges’ (1994) public opinion model of crisis management with the agenda-setting theoretical framework. Hopefully this model will provide greater insights into how to effectively manage public opinion and control the crisis to the advantage of the corporations.

Searching for Excellence in Public Relations: An Analysis of the Public Relations Efforts of Five Forestry Companies in the U.S. • Kimberly Gill, Florida • This preliminary study was designed to gauge the use of public relations and to provide a baseline evaluation of the public relations programs of five forestry companies according to J. Grunig’s 17 factors of excellent public relations (1992). Companies were chosen because of their prominence in the industry and availability of information. Data was collected from the web sites of each company, employee interviews and various public relations materials produced by each company.

Organizations and Public Relations: Institutional Isomorphism • Hyun Seung Jin, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Research on the effects of environmental forces in determining organizational structure and practice has supplied public relations researchers with framework. However, previous studies have not shown a strong relationship between types of organizations and public relation practices. Thus, this study asks “why are organizations not practicing public relations very differently?” Using the literature of institutionalization of organizational practices, the study develops a theoretical explanation and alternative hypotheses.

Exploring an IMC Evaluation Model: The Integration of Public Relations and Advertising Effects • Yungwook Kim, Florida • This paper is trying to establish the relationships among variables in corporate communications, especially between public relations and advertising, and to establish an evaluation model for integrating the effects of communication activities in the context of integrated marketing communication (IMC). This paper deals with the categorization of IMC evaluation by integrating public relations and advertising and advertising evaluation. And the weakness and need of IMC evaluation are delineated. For testing, a new approach for integrating effects of communication activities is introduced and the IMC evaluation model is specified.

Conflict Resolution: The Relationship Between Air Force Public Affairs and Legal Functions • James William Law, Florida • This research examines the relationship between Air Force public affairs and legal functions to find out what conflict exists, how often it occurs, how it is resolved, what the results are for the Air Force as a whole, and what can be done to improve the relationship. The study is based on conflict resolution theory and examines the relationship in terms of win-win, win-lose and lose-lose scenarios.

Paychex Public Relations: Does it Contradict the Excellence Study? • Andrea C. Martino, Monroe Community College • According to the International Association of Business Communicators Excellence Study, centralizing the public relations function and having the department represented by the top communicator in the dominant coalition contribute to an organization’s excellence. But neither qualification is true in the case of Paychex, Inc., a multi-million-payroll processing company in Rochester, N.Y. Can such an organization be considered excellent by IABC standards? And if so, can it continue?

Public Relations and the Web: Measuring the Effect of Interactivity, Information, and Access to Information in Web Sites • Michelle O’Malley and Tracy Irani, Florida • This study’s purpose is to develop research which examines targeted publics’ attitudes and behaviors with respect to interactivity, information, and access to information in Web sites. Using TORA, this study examined whether perceived interactivity, information, access to information or any combination thereof, would be the best predictor of intention. Results showed that a combination of information and interactivity would be the best predictor of intending to revisit a Web site.

Hospital Public Relations and Its Relationship to Crisis Management • Melissa Ratherdale, Florida • This study qualitatively explores hospital public relations practitioners to implement effective crisis management. In-depth interviews with hospital public relations practitioners revealed that the current organizational climate does not allow for effective crisis management. The climate does allow for practitioners to educate their CEOs about strategic public relations. By doing this, practitioners potentially can move themselves into the necessary roles to effectively manage crises.

Intercultural Public Relations: Exploring Cultural Identity as a Means of Segmenting Publics • Bey-Ling Sha, Maryland • Framed by literature on public relations management, societal culture, and cultural identity, this study found that differences in identification with a cultural group predicts differences in the variables of the situational theory of publics. Non-Caucasian survey respondents were significantly more likely to recognize, feel involved with, process information about, and seek information about racioethnic problems. Canonical correlation showed a “minority public” arising around racioethnic and gender issues and a “youth public” arising around alcohol abuse and academic dishonesty.

<< 1998 Abstracts