Archives for January 2012

Newspaper Division

Newspaper Coverage of Medicine: A Survey of Editors and Cardiac Surgeons • Raymond N. Ankney, North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Richard A. Moore, Conemaugh’s Memorial Medical Center and Patricia Heilman, Indiana University-Pennsylvania • Forty-four newspapers offer health-science sections, and millions of Americans rely on newspapers as their number one source of medical information. Daily newspaper editors and cardiac surgeons were surveyed about newspaper coverage of medicine. Cardiac surgeons gave newspapers a much lower accuracy rating than editors (p=-.000). In conclusion, there are significant differences in perceptions between editors and cardiac surgeons about newspaper coverage of medicine.

50 Years Later: “What it Means to Miss the Paper” Berelson, Dependency Theory and Failed Newspaper Delivery • Clyde Bentley, Oregon • This study revisits a landmark investigation of newspaper readership published 50 years ago. Like the work of Bernard Berelson, it attempts to discover why regular newspaper readers “miss” their paper when they cannot receive it. This study uses individual stoppages cased by normal delivery problems at a daily newspaper in lieu of the strike originally studies. The study reviews the research on readership since the original project and suggests linkages to the media dependency theory.

Hobbes, Locke and Newt Gingrich: Enlightened or Biased Reporting? • Lee Bollinger, South Carolina • This paper asks the question, just who can we trust? The researcher content-analyzed coverage in the Atlanta Journal & Atlanta Constitution 1994-1995 and found manipulative language which suggests that journalism has stepped beyond the borders of merely enlightened opinion. Using the perspectives of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke on the subjects of social responsibility, social contract and government, the researcher attempts to answer the research question.

Triggering the First Amendment: Newsgathering Torts and Press Freedom • Matthew D. Bunker and Sheree Martin, Alabama and Sigman L. Splichal, Miami • The recent Food Lion case highlights attempts by those suing the press to short-circuit First Amendment protections by attacking how news is gathered rather than its publication. This paper examines recent cases illustrative of this trend. It then analyzes and critiques the current state of the law and suggests a new framework that provides protection for the press as it goes about the vital process of gathering news.

Information Pollution?: Labeling and Format of Advertorials in National Newspapers • Glen T. Cameron, Cox Institute for Newspaper Management Studies; Kuen-Hee Ju-Pak, California State University-Fullerton and Bong-Hyun Kim, Diamond Ad • Four hundred thirty advertorials found in three national newspapers over a ten year timespan were analyzed as possible contributors to information pollution, defined here as the blurred distinction between editorial and commercial messages. Blurring occurs when advertorials masquerade as editorial items. The content analysis suggests that most advertorials are not easily recognized, multi-page inserts. Further, advertorials could be better labeled and formatted to signal readers of the commercial nature of the item.

Parallels in Partisan Journalism: A Comparative Study of Party Newspapers of the Early American Republic and Those of Contemporary West Africa • W. Joseph Campbell, American University • Common features are both striking and abundant between the press of the early years of the American republic and that of contemporary sub-Saharan Africa. Both encountered financial difficulties that forced many newspapers to cease publication after only a few issues. Both faced uncertain access to newsprint and limited reading audiences. Both slowly evolved from weekly to daily publication. This study concludes that the parallels between the early U.S. partisan press and the contemporary partisan press in Africa are more substantial than superficial than merely curious.

Free Trade or Fair Trade?: The U.S. Auto Trade Policy and the Press • Kuang-Kuo Chang, Oregon • Conducting both quantitative and qualitative content analyses, this study shows that the auto elite set the agenda for the New York Times and Detroit News, both of which were inclined to have their news coverage of the auto trade conflicts between the U.S. and Japan biased toward the so-called fair trade, not free trade. Additionally, the News is more likely than the Times to be more biased, especially when the conflicts were mounting.

CD-ROMs in Metro Daily Newspapers • Lucinda D. Davenport, Michigan State University • The focus of this baseline study was to document the use of CD-ROMs in newspapers, something no other research has done. In particular, the study answers why newspapers have CD-ROMs, the number and types of CD-ROMs used most often, accessibility of CD-ROMs, and how they are used in the reporting processes. Results show that CD-ROMs are an important reporting tool at newspapers. Implications are that training seminars, workshops, university courses and textbooks need to include CD-ROM as part of their instruction.

Effect of Structural Pluralism and Corporate News Structure on News Source Perceptions of Critical Content • David K. Demers, Washington State University and Debra L. Merskin, University of Oregon • A recent content analysis of newspaper editorials and letters to the editor disputes the conventional wisdom that newspapers become less vigorous editorially as they acquire the characteristics of the corporate form of organization. However, many scholars remain skeptical. This study tested the editorial vigor hypothesis using an alternative methodology a national probability survey of mainstream news sources (mayors and police chiefs). The data show that the more structurally complex the newspaper, the more news sources perceived that paper as being critical of them and their institutions.

Caught In The Web: Newspaper Use of The Internet and Other Online Resources • Bruce Garrison, Miami • This paper reviews use of the World Wide Web and other online services by U. S. daily newspapers. The study analyzes general computer use, value placed on the Web as a news tool, preferred browsers, search tools, most widely used sites, site qualities and problems, and online successes and failures. General computer use is at 88% and online use is at 90%. Daily use has almost doubled and about 92% of newspapers use the Web. Furthermore, online research by reporters has increased to 48% from 25% two years earlier.

Use of Sources by Statehouse Newspaper Reporters: A Content Analysis • Eileen Gilligan, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This content analysis of 864 articles demonstrates how newspaper reporters in four states used sources based on political prominence. The prominence of governors was compared to that of legislators, lobbyists, ordinary citizens, and others. Newspaper circulation also was a variable. Results show that governors were not treated as more prominent than legislators; however, governors took precedence over non-government sources except when paired with ordinary citizens. Small newspapers used more quotations from governors than large newspapers.

Effects of Photographs in News Reports on Issue Perception • Rhonda Gibson, Texas Tech University; Dolf Zillmann and Stephanie Sargent, Alabama • The influence of photographs in news reports was investigated. Reports featured either no photograph, a photograph exemplifying one side of the issue under consideration, a photo exemplifying the opposite side of the issue, or two photographs exemplifying both sides. Issue perception was ascertained immediately or ten days later. Perception of issues was strongly influenced by the one-sided use of photographs. In the delay condition especially, assessments were biased in the direction suggested by the photographs.

Australian Newspaper Gatekeepers: Their Use Of Readership Research • Kerry Philip, University of Queensland • Australian gatekeepers enjoy limited use of readership research. Despite considerable research being done at the nation’s major newspapers, gatekeepers report limited access to the research but strong, interest in using it. The gatekeepers take a conservative approach to the news agenda and favor following the agenda, deferring to audience preferences, rather than setting the agenda. Australian newspapers, like newspapers around the world, are struggling, to reverse a national trend towards lower circulation.

Conflict, Consensus, & the Community Newspaper: Unearthing a Buried Counter-Thesis in Social-Structural News Media Theory • Joseph Harry Michigan State University • Tichenor, Donohue and Olein’s ‘social-structural’ thesis is that community structure strongly conditions newspaper coverage of social conflicts. Big-city newspaper coverage of conflict reflects the metropolis’ conflict-driven nature; conversely smaller-town newspapers reflect the consensus-oriented nature of their own communities by downplaying conflict. Evidence from source-use patterns in a small-town versus a big-city newspaper argues for the authors’ buried but under-explored counter-thesis: Sometimes, a small-town paper performs exactly opposite of what the authors’ central thesis would predict.

To Each According to Its Niche: A Resource Dependence Analysis of the Structural Segregation in China’s Newspaper Industries • Chen Huailin, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Guo Zhongshi, Hong Kong Baptist University • This article adopts a political economy of communication analysis of an emerging structural transformation in China’s print media. Through comparisons of old and new resource allocation patterns in the country’s newspapers, it argues that tensions between ideology and marketization facilitate a structural segregation that polarizes powerful party newspapers and popular mass appeal tabloids. The end result of such a divergent movement is that each group has secured its own niche in the market with a distinct configuration of resources.

Megan’s Law: Being Just in Coverage of Criminal Justice • Michelle Johnson, Westfield State College and William A. Babcock, University of Minnesota • In the 1990s, a growing number of states adopted community notification laws, requiring police to inform residents when sex offenders move in to their neighborhoods. In many states, journalists receive lists of high-risk sex offenders in their circulation areas. Journalists must decide how or if they will use this information in news stories, considering the risk offenders pose to their neighbors, the prospect of vigilantism against sex offenders, and the role of the media as a watchdog on the criminal justice system.

Online Newspapers: A Trend Study Of News Content And Technical Features • David Kamerer and Bonnie Bressers, Kansas State University • This is a content analysis of online newspapers in April and November 1997. Coders examined them for technical features, content, and advertising support. Online papers grew more sophisticated in each category over the six-month period. They also increased their use of links to other sites. In technical features, daily newspapers were the most sophisticated, followed by specialized newspapers and nondailies. In news content, dailies were most sophisticated, followed by nondailies and specialized newspapers.

Community Journalism At Work: Newspapers Putting More Emphasis on Importance of Local News • David Kaszuba and Bill Reader, Penn State University • In a content analysis of daily newspapers with circulations under 50,000, described as “community newspapers,” the authors found that, over the past 30 years, newspapers have increasingly devoted larger percentages of their front pages to the presentation of local news. The larger of these community newspapers appear more devoted to local news coverage, possibly as a result of having more resources available for such coverage than their smaller counterparts.

News Bias and the Sandinistas: A Content Analysis of Coverage by The New York Times And The Miami Herald of The 1990 And 1996 Nicaraguan Elections • Kris Kaszuba, Indiana University • This article finds evidence of news bias in the coverage of the 1990 and 1996 Nicaraguan elections by the New York Times and the Miami Herald. The bias is reflected in amount of coverage, prominence of stories and sources used. Both newspaper took at least some cues from the U.S. government. For example, when the U.S. government had a more active role in opposing the Sandinistas, the two newspapers also relied more on anti-Sandinista sources. This study illustrates that the U.S. media even in a relatively free system operate under some formal and informal government and social controls.

The Impact of Beat Competition on City Hall Coverage • Stephen Lacy and Charles St. Cyr, Michigan State University and David C. Coulson, Nevada-Reno • The study used a survey of 232 newspaper city hall beat reporters about the impact of newspaper and television competition on their coverage. Newspaper competition was more likely to affect content than television competition, but television did have an impact on some reporters, especially in the absence of newspaper competition. The most interesting results were the relationship between competition and reporter-editor interaction and the strong impact of this interaction on reporters’ perceptions of content changes.

Sources in New York Times’ Coverage of China Before and After June 4th, 1989: A Content Analysis Focusing on Influence of Crisis Situation On Sourcing Patterns of US Media in World News Coverage • Guoli Li, Ohio University • This is a study of the New York Times’ coverage of the students’ movement in China in 1989 and focuses on the influence of this political incident on the sourcing patterns of the New York Times when covering China. By comparing the New York Times’ coverage of China in four time periods both before and after the students’ demonstration, the author finds that the crisis situation impacted the sourcing patterns of the New York Times both during and after the event and has a lingering effect.

Record Newspapers, Legal Notice Laws and Digital Technology Solutions • Shannon E. Martin, Rutgers University • Record newspapers have served for decades as official bulletin boards in communities across the United States. Many of these newspapers, designated by state statutes, are now providing online, digital format news products that do not meet statutory guidelines for public notice functions. The research reported here examines the adjustments to existing legal language necessary so that digitally delivered newspapers may serve the informational function intended by public notice that has been traditionally provided in record newspapers.

The Reporting of Survey Data in Newspapers: Do Readers Get the Complete Story? • Paul McCreath, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • In the first edition of Precision Journalism, Phil Meyer stated that news stories should include seven items such as the sample size and margin of error when reporting the results of public opinion polls. A content analysis was done to determine compliance with the suggested standards. The paper concludes that newspaper stories are good at including a basic level of information concerning survey data, but those conducting the research should stress the importance of including ancillary information which gives a truly complete picture.

Analyzing Bias in Press Coverage of State Policymaking for Higher Education • Michael K. McLendon and Marvin W. Peterson, Michigan • Theoretically-grounded analysis of press coverage that examines what news accounts convey about the interactions of higher education institutions during periods of tremendous legislative conflict is virtually non-existent. This study utilized a theory of news construction to predict and to analyze patterns of press coverage of legislative conflict between two nationally-prominent universities. The chief finding is that newspapers with competing political interests give preferential treatment to their “local” universities, producing “biased” news coverage of critical state policy episodes.

Effects of Novel News Photographs On Readers’ Interest in and Memory for Newspaper Content • Andrew Mendelson, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville • The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of novelty in content and composition of news photographs on newspaper readers attention and memory for the photographs and the accompanying stories. An experiment showed that the different novelty conditions had no effect on story interest story rank or story recall, even when people judged the photographs as different from each other in novelty. Only specific news topics affected story interest and recall.

The Economics of Online Newspapers • Donica Mensing, Nevada-Reno • Little is known about the economics of online news sites. A survey of online editors at U.S. newspapers with daily updated Web sites revealed that few papers are covering costs for their Web sites. Display advertising is the single largest source of revenue, followed by Internet access fees and classified advertisements. The outlook for Web profitability is murky, with revenue strategies problematic because of technological limitations, audience size, consumer demand and intense competition.

Measuring Recall of Linear And Non-Linear Online News Stories • Donica Mensing, Jennifer Greer, Jon Gubman, Sumita Louis, Nevada-Reno • Online newspapers are seeking to tell stories differently to take advantage of the medium’s unique characteristics. This study examines whether information recall is affected by online news presentation style. No differences were found in recall between subjects reading linear news articles that required scrolling down multiple screens and subjects reading the same information in a non-linear, linked format. Additionally, no significant differences emerged in examining story type and its interaction with subjects’ computer comfort levels.

Sources of the Decline in Newspaper Reading: Examining Long-Term Changes by Means of Nonlinear Trend Decomposition • Wolfram Peiser University, St Mainz • In many Western countries, newspaper reading has declined in the past decades. Intercohort differences apparently play a role, younger birth cohorts reading less frequently. Applying a new method of trend decomposition, this research investigates how much of the decline in U.S. and German newspaper readership during the past 25 years was due to cohort succession (in conjunction with intercohort differences). Results indicate that cohort succession contributed substantially to past declines and works towards future declines.

Coping With Change: The Reaction of St. Louis Post-Dispatch Journalists to Changes in the Newsroom • Earnest L. Perry and Peter Gade, Missouri • Cole C. Campbell became the editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1996, a turbulent year of change at one of the nation’s most respected newspaper. The former editor of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, Campbell replaced William Woo, who had been Joseph Pulitzer III’s hand-picked successor a decade earlier. Picked for his “journalistic skills, business acumen, leadership and vision,” Campbell’s track record showed him to be a proponent of change in the newspaper industry.

Generation X: Is Its Meaning Understood? • Paula M. Poindexter and Dominic L. Lasorsa, Texas-Austin • Although newspapers and other mass media increasingly have been using the term “Generation X” to refer to young adults, little is known about what the public thinks about this label A random sample of 489 Austin, Texas, area residents in 1997 found that an unexpectedly large number of people, almost one in three-was unfamiliar with the term and that of those familiar with the term, fewer than 14 percent considered it to be a label with a positive connotation and nearly 40 percent said it was a negative term.

Lux Libertas: Open Records and Open Meetings at the University • Patricia A. Richardson, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This study analyzes 24 North Carolina newspapers’ coverage of proposed changes in the state’s open records and open meetings laws over a five-month period in 1997. At issue was the definition of public body as it applied to the state university system. Analyses according to objectivity and equal presentation of viewpoint showed the media did not act as a forum for open exchange, nor were they objective in reporting on the issue.

“Reality” as it Appears in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch: A Content Analysis • Shelly Rodgers, Michael Antecol and Esther Thorson, Missouri • This study finds that ethnic, gender and age groups are portrayed in biased and stereotypical ways in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Adult, white, male characters dominated all topics except juvenile crime, education and health. Stories that ran in the Front and Business sections generally were more negative than other sections, and the Business section tended to frame “blame” in terms of the institution. Overall, stories tended to take a liberal slant. Suggestions for improving news coverage are discussed.

Digital Formats for the Future: The Web vs. Paper vs. a Vertical-Screen, Page-Based Design • Carl Schierhorn, Stanley T. Wearden, Ann B. Schierhorn, Pamela S. Tabar and Scott C. Andrews, Kent State University • Newspapers are moving rapidly into the digital age, but little research exists to guide them on consumer preferences. Web sites, read primarily on horizontal computer screens and requiring scrolling to read an entire page are state of the art, but some have argued for a lightweight Portable Document Viewer (electronic tablet) with a vertical touch screen. This study tests subjects’ preferences for a traditional newspaper vs. a Web site with the same contents vs. a vertical-screen, page-based design suitable for display on a PDV.

Superstars or Second-Class Citizens?: Management and Staffing Issues Affecting Newspapers’ Online Journalists • Jane B. Singer, Martha P. Tharp, Amon Haruta, Colorado State University • This paper reports preliminary findings from a survey of online and print editors at 466 U.S. newspapers, designed to identify key online staffing issues such as salary and experience levels, job classifications and benefits. The results indicate that online newspaper staffs remain small, with salaries and benefits roughly commensurate with those paid to print employees in comparable jobs. Online editors express concerns about the pressure to turn a profit, as well as about the perception that they and their staffs are seen as second-class citizens by many of their print colleagues.

Newspaper Ombudsmanship As Viewed by Ombudsmen and their Editors• Kenneth Starck and Julie Eisele, Iowa • Declining readership and growing cynicism among Americans has caught the attention of newspaper professionals across the country. The newspaper ombudsman position has been identified by media experts as a potential tool for enhancing credibility. This study, stimulated by American Society of Newspaper Editors concerns about credibility, surveyed editors and ombudsmen at newspapers where ombudsmen are on staff. Responses indicate that ombudsmanship enhances the newspapers efforts to be fair and accurate and, in the process, to promote accountability and credibility.

A Shifting Attention Agenda: A Study of Travel-Related Articles in the New York Times From 1950 To 1989 • Barbara R. Shoemake Southern Mississippi and Huiuk Yi, College of Commerce and Economics-S. Korea • This paper examines 40 years of travel articles from the New York Times and compares them to Americans’ international travel data. Scholars of tourism studies stress the importance of information sources in the development of destination images. Tourism advertising and tourists’ information-seeking strategies have been the focus of heavy research. However, travel articles and editorial content of columns have not been heavily reviewed as to their importance in determining tourists’ images of destinations.

Local Press Coverage of Environmental Conflict: A Content Analysis of the Daily Review, 1985-1994 • Claire E. Taylor, Jung-Sook Lee and William R. Davie, Southwestern Louisiana • An examination of 600 items in the local press coverage of environmental conflict over a ten-year period showed that a community daily in a small, but heterogeneous system (l) did indeed favor government/industry sources rather than activists/citizens through all five stages of the conflict; (2) supported local industry in editorials and staff opinion columns in only two stages (Mobilization and Confrontation); and (3) legitimized local industry and marginalized its opponents through all five stages.

Readers’ Response to Digital News Stories Presented in Layers and Links • Karen Vargo, Carl Schierhorn, Stanley T. Wearden, Ann B. Schierhorn, Fred F. Endres and Pamela S. Tabar, Kent State University • This study of 162 students compared their preferences on ways of hyperlinking news stories to related material and their preferences on the format of links. It compared the traditional World Wide Web underline, eight- to 10-word headlines, headlines plus a deck and headlines plus a 40- to 80-word abstract. It found that these readers, by a substantial margin, preferred longer links • both from an original screen to an entire story and from the story to a sidebar.

Complementing the Alternative: Newspaper Sourcing of Complementary and Alternative Medicine • Brian Vastag, Stephanie Dube, Lisa Brown, Scott McMahan and Kristie Alley Swain, Texas A&M University • Interest in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is growing among doctors, researchers, and health care consumers. By examining sources used in CAM articles in nine elite newspapers from the U.S. and overseas between 1992 and 1997, this study set out to address the question: Who gets a say in the CAM debate? An analysis of 259 articles found CAM coverage to be overwhelmingly positive. Conventional health care sources were used more frequently than CAM sources.

Innovators or News Hounds? A Study of Early Adopters of the Electronic Newspaper • Tom Weir, Oklahoma State University • The study looks at a sample of early adopters of an electronic newspaper and compares them with a random telephone sample across personality characteristics and demographic categories to assess the usefulness of several hypothesized predictors of adoption. The research finds that general experience within the product category is not particularly important. Opinion leadership is demonstrated to be significant, but greater innovativeness is not, highlighting a unique situation with media as an information utility.

Portrait vs. Landscape: Potential Users’ Preferences for Screen Orientation • Stanley T. Wearden, Roger Fidler, Ann B. Schierhorn and Carl Schierhorn, Kent State University • Little research has been done to establish consumers’ preferences when reading from screens, and no research, prior to this study, has established whether consumers prefer a portrait (vertical) or landscape (horizontal) screen orientation. Using a mockup of a Portable Document Viewer, the researchers tested the screen-orientation preferences of a random sample of 201 consumers in a mall-intercept survey. There was a strong preference for a portrait screen orientation for reading a newspaper.

Handling Hate: A Content Analysis of Washington State’s Newspaper Coverage of Hate Crimes and White Supremacists • Virginia Whitehouse, Whitworth College • Washington’s newspapers aggressively cover white supremacist hate groups and do a fair job of reporting hate crimes. Hate crimes were best covered, and sometimes only covered, when committed by hate groups. Violent crimes, particularly assault, tend to be downplayed. This creates an inaccurate community portrait of local hate crimes. Because media coverage in large part shapes public opinion, communities may fail to respond to the true nature of hate in their midst.

‘Powerful’ Attributive Verbs and ‘Body-Language’ Statements Revisited • Sherrie L. Wilson, Nebraska-Omaha • This paper reports the results of an experiment to determine the impact of “stronger” attributive verbs than said (“insisted,” “contended,” “exclaimed”) and “body-language” statements (“waving a stack of petitions,” “pounding her fist on the table”) on the readers of news stories. The study was modeled after earlier research by Cole and Shaw.

<< 1998 Abstracts

Minorities and Communication Division

Examining Kwanzaa’s Mainstream Media Coverage and Special Event Marketing Appeal • Gail F. Baker and Marilyn S. Roberts, Florida • To date, studies on African Americans and media coverage primarily have focused on blacks in magazine and newspaper stories. Little attention has been given to African American events that are not considered hard news. The current study examines the level and nature of Kwanzaa coverage by mainstream or general population newspapers. Five exploratory research questions form the basic parameters of this work. The sample contained 78 articles, which appeared in 22 different news sources from 1987 to 1995.

The Race Story Begins: Newspaper Coverage of the Landmark Brown v. Board of Education Decision • Sharon Bramlett-Solomon and Eileen Baston Arizona State University • Prior to the May 17, 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas Supreme Court decision, which made segregation in public schools unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment, there was near-total neglect of the black community unless the story dramatized some sensational aspect such as crime. As news coverage of the Brown desegregation decision arguable marked the beginning of the “race story” in American journalism, it would seem important to examine how the press treated the court order.

An Analysis of Political Violence Toward The Vietnamese-American Press • Jeffrey Brody, California State University-Fullerton • The Vietnamese-American press has been beset by political violence. Sine 1981, five Vietnamese-immigrant journalists in communities across the United States have been murdered. These and other attacks against the Vietnamese-American press have created a climate of fear and intimidation that has silenced free speech.

Hire and Higher: An Analysis of the Relationship Between Numbers of Asian-American Editors and Coverage of Local Chinese by The Oregonian in Portland, Oregon • Herman B. Chiu, Missouri • This study found a strong relationship between the hiring of Asian-American editors at The Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and coverage of the city’s Chinese community. Issues of the paper from the 1970s, before it employed any Asian-American editors, the 1980s, when it employed two, and the 1990s, when it employed three, were compared. Samples showed a dramatic increase in the number of stories about local Chinese after two Asian-American editors joined the news staff.

What’s Wrong with this “Representative Picture?” African American Perspectives on the Portrayals of Blacks in Television News • Lorraine Fuller, Southeast Missouri State University • Over fifty years ago the Commission on Freedom of the Press, headed by Robert M. Hutchins, developed five standards of performance that were required of a free and responsible press. One of the five standards required that the press provide a “representative picture” of the constituent groups of society. This requirement would have the press accurately depict the various social groups and show concern for balance and fairness in the gathering and dissemination of news.

At the Heart of It Is the People: Reservation Newspapers and Western Settlement • Lucy A. Ganje, North Dakota • Too often the histories of reservation, small-town newspapers, and the people who worked long hours to produce them, are forgotten. This paper documents a Dakotah and Japanese American couple who published a newspaper on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation for 35 years. It relates their experiences while attempting to place those encounters in a broader, historical context. Corporate greed, the U.S. government and religious organizations all served to colonize the West.

Sensing, Valuation, and the Portrayal of African American TV Newsmakers • Camilla Gant, State University of West Georgia and John Dimmick, Ohio State University • In content analysis after content analysis, media analysts have documented that African Americans are rarely seen and heard as TV newsmakers, and the roles and news story topics in which they appear lack diversity. Any attempt of parity will require media analysts to simultaneously analyze content and the decision making process that produces content. Hence, TV news decision making research is a theoretical framework from which to explain how often TV newsmakers will be seen and heard, and in what roles and news story topics they will appear.

Sex Without Consequence: The Sexual and Reproductive Health Content of Latino Magazines • Melissa A. John, North Carolina State University • This study investigated the sexual and reproductive health content of Latino women’s and teen magazines distributed in the United States. Three hundred and twenty-eight articles and items from 160 issues of 16 magazines were analyzed. Sexual activity comprised 42% of the sexual and reproductive health content in women’s magazines and 64% in teen magazines. Receiving less attention were pregnancy, contraception, abortion, HIV/AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases. Emergency contraception received none.

Reaffirming the Need for Journalism Diversity: Lessons From a Yearlong Review • Ronald B. Kelley and Michael Antecol, Missouri-Columbia • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

The Minority Press Goes to Bat Against Segregated Baseball • Chris Lamb, College of Charleston • During a radio interview on July 29, 1938, New York Yankee outfielder Jake Powell said he worked as a policeman in the off-season and kept in shape by cracking “niggers” over the head with his nightstick. Powell was immediately suspended for 10 days. The “Jake Powell Incident” provided the catalyst to challenge segregation in baseball mobilizing pressure from black activists, journalists, and others who wanted to integrate baseball. This article examines how this story was covered by mainstream dailies, black weeklies, and the Daily Worker, a Communist daily published in New York City.

Strategies for Surveying Small, Urban Publications on Patterns of Writing Staff Racial Diversity • Yvonne Laurenty, Kingsborough Community College (CUNY) • This study pre-tests the design of a questionnaire customized to survey racial diversity among writing staffs at 50 small Brooklyn and metropolitan New York City publications unreported by the print media’s annual national diversity census. The survey’s 42 percent initial response supports the feasibility of expanding the scope of inquiry to managers’ attitudes toward diversity. Evaluation of design strategies, which offers “best practice” guidelines for probing sensitive, race-based issues within the industry, anticipates a more comprehensive future study.

The Lone Ranger Rides Again: Black Press Editorial Stands on the Vietnam War During the Johnson Administration • William J. Leonhirth, Florida Institute of Technology • The mainstream black press faced numerous challenges during the Vietnam War. A review of editorial topics in these newspapers during the Johnson administration shows disagreement on support for black military service abroad, on whether war funding reduced support for domestic programs, and on whether war issues diverted attention from the civil rights movement. These newspapers attempted to maintain and build their support for President Johnson’s civil rights policies, while questioning his war policies.

A Sort of Compassion: The Washington Post Explains the “Crisis in Urban America” • Peter Parisi, Hunter College • In recent years, prestige papers have published a number of in-depth series on life in urban African-American neighborhoods. These stories appear to address calls by a wide range of media critics for more compassionate, contextual coverage of minority life, executed in depth and by minority journalists. The present study examines the most celebrated of these series Leon Dash’s Pulitzer Prize-winning, “Rosa Lee’s Story: Poverty and Survival in Washington,” published in the Washington Post.

Tuskegee Airmen, Censorship and the Black Press in World War II • Michael S. Sweeney, Utah State University • This paper examines the conflict between the black press and the Office of Censorship. In 1942-45, American media were urged to comply with censorship guidelines that limited news about troops that might aid the enemy. Black papers, however, wanted to publicize the Tuskegee Airmen. The Chicago Defender and other media inadvertently violated the censorship code. The conflict ended with the press following the code, and censors giving black journalists no special treatment or punishment.

The Influence of Television Use and Parental Communication on Educational Aspirations of Hispanic Children • Alexis Tan, Yuki Fujioka, Dennis Bautista, Rachel Maldonado, Larry Wright and Gerdean Tan, Washington State University • This study provides evidence that frequent viewing of American television and positive parental communication lead to higher educational aspirations among Hispanic children. The influence of American television may be to provide a contextual foundation for learning (e.g., general familiarity with the predominant culture) in American schools which goes beyond the learning and adoption of Anglo American values. The findings that positive parental communication leads to higher aspirations suggests that biculturalism may indeed be the mediating factor between television use and aspirations.

<< 1998 Abstracts

Media Management and Economics Division

The Representation of Financial Institutions on the Boards of Directors of Publicly-Traded Newspaper Companies • Soontae An and Hyun Seung Jin, North Carolina-Chapel • This study examined the representation of financial institutions on the boards of directors of 17 publicly-held newspaper companies to find its relation with the company’s financial status. The ownership and financial data were collected using Compact Disclosure, and the data regarding boards of directors were gathered from Proxy and Annual Report. Standard & Poor’s Register of Corporations, Directors and Executives was used to cross-check the information about the directors and identify financial institutions.

Not the Same Story: Differences in Sexual Harassment of Women Who Work as Newspaper and Television Journalists • Lori Bergen, Kansas State University • In a replication of a national study of newspaper women, which examined sexual harassment, this survey of 103 women included journalists from newspaper and television newsrooms from one Midwestern state. Results showed that newspaper journalists were significantly more likely to report sexual harassment perpetrated by news sources than television journalists, who were more likely to report sexual harassment by their co-workers. Forty-four percent thought sexual harassment is at least somewhat a problem for women journalists, and more than one-quarter said it had been so for them personally.

Values and Alcohol Advertising: The Influence of Values on Radio Station Managers’ Clearance of Alcohol-related Advertisements • A. Joseph Borrell, Pennsylvania • This study finds that a general manager’s age, belief in professional values and college major predicted his or her willingness to accept advertisements for alcohol-related products and businesses. The most powerful variable in explaining the differences in clearance of these controversial advertisements was found to be the personal ethical values of the manager, including his or her concern for the audience.

Brand Management in Today’s Broadcast Television Market: An Exploratory Analysis • Sylvia M. Chan-Olmsted and Yungwook Kim, Florida • This study explored the perceptions and current practices of branding among the general managers of commercial television stations. The authors found that these TV broadcasters generally have a very high awareness of the branding concept, believe that branding plays an important long-term strategic role to the success of a station. Nevertheless, the managers perceived branding to be more associated with news and promotion rather than management and practiced branding mainly as tactical operations.

Creative Ownership Transition Strategies for Community Newspapers • Dane Claussen, Georgia • This paper first briefly reviews the latest economic, legal, and industry developments some of which are positive developments but most of which continue or create problems affecting the selling of community newspaper publishing companies. It then critiques the “patronage” sale concept as described and essentially advocated by Pilgrim (1994). Its contribution is to suggest and describe numerous alternative sale mechanisms, and then suggesting several management transition strategies in the absence of a sale.

Parent Company Influence on Local Market Competition in Cellular Telephone • Hugh S. Fullerton, Radford University • The duopoly market structure of the cellular telephone industry provides conditions under which competition can occur. However,. large telephone companies own multiple cellular systems. To determine the extent to which these companies influence competition on the local level, four indicators of competitive behavior were compared over a seven-year period in the first 30 markets. The study concludes that cellular affiliates owned by the same company tend to use similar competitive strategies. Different companies, however, utilize differing competitive strategies at the local level.

The Impact of Horizontal Mergers and Acquisitions on Corporate Concentration in the U.S. Book Publishing Industry: 1989-1994 • Albert N. Greco, Fordham University • Using data on market shares, revenues, and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, I analyze the impact U.S. book industry horizontal mergers and acquisitions had on corporate concentration in this industry between 1989-1994. I define the book market and outline the principle arguments regarding the creation of a “media monopoly” in this industry. Data are analyzed using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (with C4 and C8 ratios) to ascertain whether Department of Justice antitrust guidelines were violated because of these mergers and acquisitions.

A New Entry in the Television Broadcasting Industry and Program Diversity: In the Case of the Emergence of SBS-TV in Korea • Myung-Hyun Kang, Michigan State University • This paper investigates the relationship between the program format diversity and network competition caused by an addition of the new network, using Herfindahl-Hirschman Index. Based on the oligopoly theory and its relevant research, this study hypothesizes that networks competition encourages their program diversity. Consistent with the oligopoly theory, the findings of this study supported the hypothesis. More specifically, this study first showed the existing networks maintained limited program formats until they observed the new rivalry.

Modeling Strategy for Mass Media: A Resource-Based Approach • Hugh J. Martin, Michigan State University • The resource-based view of strategy argues firms gain a competitive advantage by assembling bundles of valuable, difficult to imitate resources. This paper integrates the resource-based view with Industrial Organization research on advertiser-supported media. The paper argues media firms with a reputation for producing quality content can attract stable audiences and gain a competitive advantage. Factors that contribute to a reputation for quality are discussed, and propositions are developed to describe sources of competitive advantage.

The Impact of the Expansion in the Aftermarket on Network Prime Time Programs • Sora K. Park, Northwestern University • Utilizing the intertemporal intermedia flow model of television programs, this study explores how the growth in the syndication market has affected the network prime time programming decisions. The regression results show that as the market for syndication grows the initial budget for network primetime shows have also grown as well as the deficits. Other factors that contribute to a program’s “syndicatability” were also related to the size of initial budget and deficit level of network programs.

The Community and Physician Relations Department at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital: A Case Study in Media Management • Kenneth D. Plowman and Erika H. Powelson, San Jose State University • The purpose of this case study was to explain the current communications management in the Community and Physician Relations Department (CPRD) at Lucile Salter Packard Children’s hospital at Stanford (LPCH), California. The management style of the CPRD, led by Terry O’Grady, definitely leaned towards the participative theory, but resorted to the authoritative style on certain occasions. in a mixed motive manner. Two-way symmetrical and two-way asymmetrical communications also were in evidence.

The 90’s Experience: A Demand Approach to Measuring Diversity in Broadcast Television Program Options for African Americans • James A. Ramos, Michigan State University • Addressing the limitations of traditional supply side methods used to study the issue of diversity in broadcast television programming, this paper proposes a demand side approach employing television ratings. Testing this alternative methodology, it was hypothesized that diversity in programming choices for African American households increased on commercial broadcast television as competition in the industry increased through the growth of Fox and the arrival of new networks in the 1990’s.

Preprints Versus Display Advertising: Which is More Profitable for Nondaily Newspapers? • Ken Smith, Wyoming • This study examines the differences in the profitably to nondaily newspapers resulting from preprint and display advertising. Whether the measure is overall profits, profit per column inch, or a comparison of a full page of display advertising to an 8-page tabloid preprint, display advertising is more profitable. Differences in the profit margin between display ads and preprints are not nearly as great as the differences in other measures of profit.

Managing Single-Market Radio Clusters • Greg Stefaniak, Arkansas-Little Rock • This study indicated that managing a cluster of radio stations is very different from managing a single radio station. Cluster managers have a greater need and use of a wide variety of skills, attributes and information. The study suggested that this new and very different group of managers could be helped by the establishment of special workshops, seminars, literature, and organizational support systems.

<< 1998 Abstracts

Mass Communication and Society Division

Voter’s Election Involvement and Media Attention: Intention to Vote Commitment to a Candidate, and Partisanship • Soontae An, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

Newspaper Consumption and Beliefs about Canada and Quebec • Michael Antecol and James W. Endersby, Missouri • This research examines the linkage between types of newspapers read by Canadians and individual feelings toward Quebec and Canada. A regression model, controlling for demographic characteristics and socioeconomic indicators, reveals that consumers of French language newspapers have significantly more positive feelings toward the province of Quebec and more negative assessments of the nation of Canada. Reader of (English-language) nationally-oriented papers, however, have more favorable views of Quebec that other Canadians.

Taking Liberties: Crystal Eastman, Media Ethics and the Exercise of a Free Press • Amy Beth Aronson, New York • Crystal Eastman (1881-1928) was a labor attorney, peace attorney, peace activist, radical organizer, and journalist whose work engaged virtually every major social movement of the twentieth century feminism, antimilitarism, socialism, and civil rights. Although less famous than her editor brother, the radical Max Eastman, Crystal Eastman drafted New York State’s first worker’s compensation law in 1910, was a founder of the American Union Against Militarism in 1914, was president of the Women’s Peace Party of New York in 1917, was co-owner and Managing Editor of the radical magazine, The Liberator (1918-24), and was instrumental in founder the Civil Liberties Bureau, which in 1920 became the ACLU.

Marketing A Movement: Media Relations Strategies of the Gay and Lesbian Movement • Jane R. Ballinger, California State Polytechnic University-Pomona • This study documents via content analysis changes in news media coverage of gay and lesbian marches on Washington, D.C. in 1987 and 1993. Interviews with movement leaders reveal that increased prioritization of and sophistication in the movement’s media relations strategies in the time period between the marches contributed to improved news media coverage of the movement. The study also considers additional factors that may have contributed to improvements in news coverage of the movement over time.

Talk Radio as Forum and Companion: Listener Attitudes and Uses and Gratifications in Austin, Texas • John Beatty, North Carolina-Pembroke • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

Poor Vision of Intelligence: The Very White, Very Male, and Very Professional World of Jeopardy! • Joseph P. Bernt, Ohio University • When FCC chairman Newton Minow described television as “a vast wasteland” in the early 1960s, perhaps he did not foresee or understand the social and cultural impact television would have on our society. Indeed, many critics of television have used terms such as the “boob tube” or “plug-in drug” to describe what they believed was a detrimental addition to society. Too often such critics fail to deal with the simple reality • good or bad, welcomed or unwelcomed • that television has become as central to American life as the automobile or telephone.

Intermedia Agenda Setting in the 1996 Presidential Election • Thomas P. Boyle, Susquehanna University • This study on the network news coverage across two time periods during the 1996 presidential election. Results from a content analysis of 116 political advertisements, 818 newspaper stories, and 101 network news stories found support for the belief that advertising influences the prominence of an issue within network newscasts, but not in the overall time devoted to it. Also, findings suggest prestige newspapers play a role in determining what issues lead television newscasts.

Auto Elite and Agenda-Setting: How the Auto Elite Set the Trade Policy Agenda? • Kuang-Kuo Chang, Oregon • The automotive industry leaders were illustrated through a descriptive content analysis as the agenda-setters for U.S. newspapers on their news coverage of the auto trade conflict between American and Japan. The study reveals that Lee Iacocca, alongside other auto elite, set the agenda for the New York Times and the Detroit News, both of which rely heavily upon these auto elite, and through them, U.S. presidents, Congressmen and U.S. Trade Representatives as the Primary news sources.

Television Viewing and Aliens’ Perceptions of the United States • Xueyi Chen, Syracuse University • The effects of television viewing have been the subject of communication research for many decades. Does television viewing truly influence individuals’ perception of social reality? Is the medium or the system the message (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan & Signorielli, 1994)? Do relationships between television viewing and conceptions vary according to audience from different cultures? Are there any contributions of television to viewers’ conceptions of social reality relatively “global” (Morgan, 1990).

Print Mass Media Coverage of the Promise Keepers: The First Five Years • Dane Claussen, Georgia • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

Thoughtful Self-Critique of Journalistic Cannibalism? International Press Coverage of Princess Diana’s Death • Martin Eichholz, Syracuse University • This study focused on the unexplored field of media self-critique and used the news coverage of Britain’s Princess Diana’s death to analyze differences between elite papers and tabloids as well as differences between German and US papers. Results show that elite papers’ coverage was more likely to focus on the media’s role and more likely to critique the media than the tabloids’ coverage. No significant differences were found between German and US papers regarding the amount of media critique they provided in their coverage.

Sex and Lies in the White House: How Journalists Wrote Themselves into the Story • Elizabeth Fakazis and Adrienne Russell, Indiana • Coverage of the Clinton-Lewinsky story instigated a wave of media criticism by journalists, journalism professors, and journalists-turned critics. This study examines how those connected with the profession explained, defended or criticized their performance to the public and each other in news stories. These stories fall within the dominant discourse of journalistic professionalism, confirming the professional status of journalism and efficacy of the norms and standards already in place.

Premodernism: Aristotle and Diana • Bob Frank, Berry College • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

Can Social Comparison Theory Explain Fascination with TV Talk Shows? • Cynthia M. Frisby, Missouri • Mass Media commentaries suggest that television talk shows are dramatically increasing and have become quite popular with American viewers. Despite the public’s interest in TV talk shows, mass media researchers have paid little attention to assessing the short-term and long-term effects of watching these programs. I is hypothesized that self-enhancement or feeling better about oneself and one’s life may be a reason people watch what some consider to be trashy, morbid TV programs.

Agenda-Setting and Spanish Cable News • Salma I. Ghanem, Texas-Pan American and Wayne Wanta, Oregon • A survey conducted in a highly Hispanic area examined whether exposure to Spanish-language cable news had an agenda-setting effect. Results show that level of exposure was associated with agenda-setting effects for Spanish cable news, but perceived media credibility and media reliance were not related to the strength of agenda-setting effects. Exposure, credibility and reliance were not associated with agenda-setting effects for English-language newscasts — perhaps because English-speakers had more news options in our survey area.

Reporters’ Politics and Their Use of Political Sources in State Government Reporting • Eileen Gilligan, Wisconsin-Madison • This study examines the relationship between statehouse newspaper reporters and their sources. A content analysis was conducted using a total sample of 864 articles written by 28 reporters in four states. The reporters also were surveyed. No significant relationships were found between reporters’ political orientations and their use of political sources. However, reporters were found to use more sources that supported the status quo, specifically the political party in power in each state.

Do Social Norms and Media Coverage Influence Illicit Drug Trial Among College Students? Implications for Media Practitioners and Drug Educators • Alyse R. Gotthoffer, Florida • Illicit drug use by college students is hardly a recent phenomenon. According to an annual survey by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), 31.4% of full-time college students had tried an illicit drug in the past year (1994). The most prevalent of these drugs was marijuana, followed by hallucinogens, LSD, and stimulants, respectively. In addition, 16% of these students had used an illicit drug in the previous 30 days (1994).

Explicating Sensationalism in Television News: Content and the Bells and Whistles of Form • Maria Elizabeth Grabe, Shuhua Zhou and Brooke Barnett, Indiana • Sensationalism in journalism has been a popular topic of fiery discussions for centuries. Yet, it appears that this topic is more often debated than systematically investigated. Indeed, the word sensationalism has become an easy name-calling device for those who are in the mood for criticizing the mass media. Even in academic circles the term has been used with little precision. The notion of sensationalism is in desperate need of explication.

Journalistic and Humanist Approaches: Movie Reviews in The New Yorker and Entertainment Weekly • James Kendrick, Baylor University • This study compared reviews of 15 movies in Entertainment Weekly and The New Yorker to determine whether they used a journalistic or humanist approach, according to Bywater and Sobchack (1989). Using content analysis, the researcher coded for humanist mentions in eight major categories. The results showed that both magazines employed the journalistic approach in the majority of their reviews, which meant they concentrated more on describing facts about the movies rather than interpreting humanist traits.

Poll Wars in 1996 Presidential Election: Did the Pollsters Fail? • Hyun K. Kim, Wisconsin-Stevens Point • In the 1996 U.S. presidential election, most of the pre-election polls gave President Clinton a double-digit lead over the GOP candidate Bob Dole. The polls, with one exception, overestimated Clinton’s actual eight percentage point margin. Even though error margins were factored in, most of the pre-election polls were hardly accurate in the public’s eyes. This study compared polls with the actual results, examining the sampling errors and nonsampling errors that affected the election projections.

Willingness to Censor: Developing a Quantitative Measurement Across Speech Categories and Types of Media • Jennifer L. Lambe, Minnesota • Previous research about individual attitudes towards free expression focuses either on one category of speech (like pornography), or treats expression as a single concept. The “Willingness to Censor” scale measures across seven speech categories, and seven types of media. Subjects respond to 49 scenarios, each incorporating a unique combination of speech category and medium. From this scale, it is possible to generate an overall willingness to censor score, and subscores for each category and medium.

Answering the Critics: Are News Councils Out to Get the Media? • Jennifer L. Lambe, Genelle I. Belmas and William A. Babcock, Minnesota • Nearly 15 years after the demise of the National News Council, there is a renewed debate about the need to establish some similar mechanism for handling public complaints against the media. Recent discussions reveal that there are still strong reservations on the part of many members of the news media. This paper addresses the question of whether news councils are a forum for media-bashing, using the records of the Minnesota News Council as a case study.

The Framing of Title IX: A Textual Analysis of The New York Times and The Washington Post, 1971-1975 • Julie B. Lane, Alexandria, VA • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

Distinction and Integration: Socio-Demographic Determinants of Newspaper Reading in the U.S.A. and Germany, 1974-96 • Edmund Lauf and Klaus Schoenback, Germany; Jack M. McLeod and Dietram A. Scheufele, Wisconsin-Madison • Who reads daily newspapers in the U.S.A. and in Germany? Inspite of a steady decline of newspaper reading, its socio-demographic determinants have been surprisingly stable in each of the countries since the mid-1970s. A long-term comparative analysis of audience data suggests that newspapers serve different cultural functions: In the U.S.A., they seem to be an instrument of social distinction, in (West) Germany additionally one of social integration.

Constructing ‘Public Personage’: A Strategy of the Korean Press for a Safeguard Against Libel Suits • Jae-Jin Lee and Jongbae Hong, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale • There is no doubt that the Korea press has been enjoying its “golden age” due to the sweeping democratization that began at the end of 1987. For the last decade, Korean press had expanded to a great extent, at least before Korean society was strongly struck by economic crisis in 1997. By the end of 1996, the number of daily newspapers increased to 282, which is nearly ten times as many as that in 1987.

The Use and Abuse of Media-Sponsored Opinion Polls in Two Presidential Campaigns: A Critical Analysis of Network TV News and Six Prestige Print Media • Dennis T. Lowry and Josephine Nio, Southern Illinois University • This study is the first longitudinal critical analysis of media-sponsored opinion polls by three different categories of prestige new media network TV, newspapers and news magazines. Poll stories from Campaign ‘92 and Campaign ‘96 were analyzed for conformity to AAPOR disclosure standards, and also for eight additional types of reporting/interpretation errors. Both the number of poll stories and the quality of poll stories was down in Campaign ‘96. Newspapers were the clear winner in conforming to AAPOR disclosure standards, and TV networks were the clear loser.

What’s in a Name Foreign Names and Their Influence on Perceived Reporter Credibility • Charles M. Mayo, Louisiana State University • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

Adolescence, Advertising, and the Menstrual Taboo • Debra Merskin, Oregon • Beliefs surrounding menstruation contribute to adolescent girls’ self-image in modern society. A content analysis shows that advertising in Seventeen and Teen continues to depict menstruation as a “hygienic crisis.” The findings suggest that not only do the ads carry messages from the past about cleanliness based on taboos, but also contribute to girls’ feelings about their bodies. This is important to researchers and consumers given that advertising is an important agent of socialization for adolescent girls.

Television Use and Social Capital: Testing Putnam’s Time Displacement Hypothesis • Patricia Moy, Dietram A. Scheufele and R. Lance Holberts, Wisconsin-Madison • Robert Putnam (1995a, 1995b) has charged that telecision is the driving force behind America’s decline in social capital. He argues that television viewing has privatized our leisure time, thus inhibiting participation outside the homes. However, Putna’s time displacement hypothesis has never been tested. We empirically examine the extent to which television reduces social capital through time displacement. Analyses of data from a Midwestern city (n=416) did not support the time displacement hypothesis; time spent with television did not affect civic engagement through perceptions of time pressure.

The Value of the Journalistic Identity on the World Wide Web • Ekaterina Ognianova, Southwest Texas State University • An experiment found that content providers on the Web associated with journalism, e.g., an online newspaper or television network online, were perceived as most credible, compared to a content provider that had nothing to do with journalism but was delivering news and an unidentified content provider. In content providers that had a journalistic identity, stories and ads were perceived as most credible. Stories were liked the most and likelihood of subscribing was the highest in the newspaper as perceived source.

Audience Responses to Mediated Terror: TV Coverage of the Ottawa Incident • Allen W. Palmer, Brigham Young University • Broadcast news reports of a hostage incident in Ottawa, Canada, are used in this experimental study to explore the question of how a media audience makes sense of mediated terrorism. The deliberate engagement of the news media by a terrorist nominally suggests control (top-down) of the construction of social meaning. Yet, meaning is sometimes seen as audience-centered as individuals draw upon idiosyncratic knowledge to make sense of news reports. Subjects (N=175) watched video reports of a hostage incident and then recorded responses.

Perceptions of Traditional American Journalists Toward the Internet as a News Source: A Critical Approach • Thomas E. Ruggiero, Bowling Green State University • This study examines, from a critical perspective, the perception of traditional American journalists toward the Internet as a news source. Specifically, it argues that because traditional American journalists are socialized both ideologically and professionally into the dominant ideology, many are refusing to share their elite positions as disseminators of news with the Internet. Analyzed data from the Lexis-Nexis database and American journalism review magazines indicates that a concerted effort by traditional American journalists to Repair the elite new paradigm against incursion by the Internet is occurring.

Social Reality Effects of the Mass Media: The Case of the Aum Shinrikyo Affair in Japan • Shinichi Saito, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University and Miki Kawabata, Fukushima College for Women • The Aum Shinrikyo cult affair got massive mass media coverage in 1995. However, the media was severely criticized for its exaggerated and biased reports. This study examined the impact of the media coverage of the Aum issues on audiences. The results showed that the more respondents were exposed to the media coverage, the more they felt social anxiety or the worse their images of new religions becomes. Their implications for the cultivation perspective were discussed.

A Case Study: Daily Newspaper Editors’ Audience Construction Routines • Randall S. Sumpter, Texas A&M University • Media ethnographers have documented a variety of work routines used by reporters to establish the newsworthiness of events of persons in their negotiations with editors and sources. Less work has been devoted to the work routines of editors. In this case study of editors at a large daily newspaper, the observer identified several routines used by editors to socially construct substitute audiences and to reach marketing decisions about what stories should be offered to them.

Participation in Community Organizations and Consumption of TV and Newspaper News • Esther Thorson and Glenn Leshner, Missouri-Columbia • This study examined how habitual and “special” news consumption was related to three measures important for indexing how people are integrated with their own communities: participation in community organizations, voting, and knowledge about issues and occurrences important to their community. The hypothesis that news consumption is an important variable in how people relate to their communities was tested in five U.S. cities, each of which had experienced some kind of news media intervention (i.e., the “special news”).

Actual and Perceived Media Bias in Presidential Campaigns: Explaining Public Perceptions of a Liberal Press • Mark D. Watts, David Domke, Dhavan V. Shah and David P. Fan, Minnesota • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

In The Olympic Tradition: Sportscasters’ Language and Female Athleticism • Lisa M. Weidman, Syracuse University • Citing hegemony theory, the author argues that sports media reinforce patriarchal ideologies and dominant definitions of “femininity” and “masculinity.” Through a quantitative content analysis, comparing the way announcers on U.S. broadcasts of the 1996 summer Olympics spoke of female and male athletes, the author tests the hypothesis that sports announcers try to make female athletes seem more feminine and therefore more appealing. The hypotheses are not supported, indicating that media coverage of female athletes may be changing.

The Agenda-Setting Process of a Daily Newspaper: A Case Study • Elizabeth Evenson Williams, South Dakota • In this case study, the agenda-setting process of a Midwestern daily newspaper was examined through interviews with staff members along with a content analysis and other indicators. Five theoretical perspectives socialization, shared news values, definition of the situation, exchange theory and dominant ideology framed this study, and all were found to interact to shape the agenda-setting process. In addition, this study found that economic constraints, intermediate competition and role taking by staff members also played key parts in agenda setting.

CMPC (Computer Mediated Political Communication) and its Impact on the Political Process in Korea • Sook-Yeong Won, Bum-Soo Lee, Dong-Ah University and Eun-Ho Yeo, Cornell University • This study examines public participation in political process through CMPC (computer mediated political communication) in Korea. The authors examine political discussions from March to April, 1997, on two major on-line computer networks that are the most popular in Korea. The results show that CMPC in Korea is in its developing stage. Also, it is found that the public access to the political forum established by political forum established by political society tends to be difficult and private information is often not secured.

An Alternative to the Impasse: The Grassroots Approach to Cope with Media Violence Issues • Haoming Denis Wu and Lois A. Boynton, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • There has long been concern that television content that is violent in nature can have adverse effects on viewers, particularly children (see, for example, Comstock and Strasburger, 1993). Although television has been regulated by federal laws since its inception, these statutes do little to address content (Hughes and Hasbrouck, 1996). Most content regulation attempts have been met with stiff Constitutional resistance.

A Virtual Fetish: Themes of a Virtual Community as Presented in Time and Wired • Marjorie Lynne Yambor, Michigan State • A somewhat novel mania is sweeping society: the virtual community. The online virtual world of the internet represents the current state of virtual reality, providing an immersive environment in which individuals may interact with other; this alternative-playpen-existence has reached fetish status. People everywhere are discovering the lure of chat rooms, e-mail systems, internet games, and usenet news groups.

<< 1998 Abstracts

Magazine Division

Miracle in South Africa: A Historical Review of U.S. Magazines’ Coverage of the First Heart Transplant • Raymond N. Ankney, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Magazine coverage of the first human heart transplant, which was performed in south Africa in December 1967 by Christiaan Barnard, was reviewed. Magazines showed a pro-American slant in their coverage by asserting that luck played a large part in Barnard performing the operation. They also downplayed Barnard’s accomplishment by saying he received surgical training in the United States. However, few stories mentioned that Barnard’s patients were living much longer that those of American surgeons.

Consumption of Teen Magazines by Adolescent Italian Girls: Reading Patterns and Motives • Britto M. Berchmans, University Pontificia Salesiana • Research on teens’ use of teen magazines is meager even though magazine reading is a widespread phenomenon among adolescents. Basing itself on a theory of media use uniquely suited to the specific development exigencies of teenagers, a survey of 903 adolescent Italian girls inquired into their reading habits and motivations for reading teen magazines. This paper proposes that teenzines are an agent of broad socialization that assists teens in their identity formation, identification with other teens, and entertainment.

What’s Wrong With These Pictures?: Images of the Elderly in Life and Ebony Magazine Ads, 1990-1997 • Sharon Bramlett-Solomon and Ganga Subramanian, Arizona State University • This content analysis of Life and Ebony, which replicated and updates an earlier study, reveals a gloomier picture of elderly portrayal in the 1990s than in the previous decade. The findings show decreased elderly representations in ads and show more elderly figures featuring aging-associated products and services. One of the most interesting and surprising study findings was observed on the race variable. Black elderly figures were three times more likely to appear in Life as white elderly figures were likely to appear in Ebony, a finding opposite what was noted in the earlier study.

The Astounding Women of Analog: A Content Analysis of Cover Art • Lisa Daigle, Georgia State University • This study is a content analysis of science fiction magazines cover art. It is designed to find out if specific types of cover art, namely those with images of women, exist and if certain images are reoccurring. It also seeks to find out if certain female images have changed over time. Its focus is on Analog Magazine and its history of cover art from 1930 to 1990.

Zine But Not Heard? Editors Talk About Publishing On-line • Kathleen Endres, Akron • This study was based on responses from 123 editors of on-line publications. Among the results: most on-line publications had a print counterpart, although on-line content was often different; specialized business publications lag behind consumer magazines in on-line publishing; the editorial department was key in determining if a publication went on-line.

“When I Grow Up…” How Popular Magazines Portrayed Journalism as a Career for Women, 1872-1926 • Agnes Hooper Gottlieb, Seton Hall University • This paper asks a fundamental question: “How did popular magazines portray journalism as a career for women?” This is asked as a first step toward understanding what it was like for women a century ago as they tried to break into a male-dominated profession. This paper describes cases of sexual harassment, job discrimination and prejudice against the women who pioneered journalism as a feasible career path for women.

Women’s Magazines Used Agenda-Setting, Priming In Effort to Influence ‘96 Election • Ernest C. Hynds, Georgia • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

Family Pictures: Constructing the Typical American in 1920s Magazines • Carolyn Kitch, Northwestern University • Beginning in the 1920s, American magazines described a modern but wholesome lifestyle based on a shared national identity. Their audience was an ambitious, suburban middle class — the group key to the success of mass culture in twentieth-century America. This rhetorical analysis considers how two top-circulation magazines, The Saturday Evening Post and Good Housekeeping, used verbal and visual imagery, especially cover art, to create a blueprint for the “typical” American family in a commercial world.

Cultural Standard of Attractiveness: A 30-Year Look at Changes in Male Images in Magazines • Cheryl Lynn Law, Florida • This research examined mass media images being portrayed in three popular men’s magazines • GQ, Rolling Stone and Sports Illustrated • from 1967 to 1997. Some researchers indicate that men are entering the world of objectified bodies where unattainable ideals are the norm and that these mass media images contribute to psychological distress and related disorders. The researcher concluded that over the 30-year time period studied, male images have become thinner and more muscularly defined.

McLuhan’s Dew-Line Multi-Media Newsletter: A Retrospective Study • William M. Lawbaugh • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

Images of the Poor in Newsmagazines, 1958-1967 and 1988-1997 • Michael R. Newberg, Ohio University • Poverty and related public assistance programs have been prominent news topics throughout the past forty years. This content analysis of articles in Time, Newsweek and US News & World Report compares the representations of the poor from the 1960s with the 1990s. Examination of photos, text and source citations indicate that coverage of the poor and programs aimed to combat poverty has grown increasingly unsympathetic and male politicians continue to dominate the discussion.

The Ebola Virus: Tracking Master Narratives in Magazine Journalism Discourse • Donnalyn Pompper, Cabrini College • This empirical project scrutinized the content of Ebola virus reportage in widely circulated consumer magazines from 1976 through 1996. The study was launched to gain insight into magazines’ role as influential molders of discourse designed to promote social order. A close textual reading, with attention to linguistic dimensions, uncovered more than the medial reality of an incurable virus, or real geography. The ideologically loaded master narratives underscored hegemonic power relations through frames, sourcing practices, metaphors, and symbolic word groupings.

Bypassing the Mainstream: Finding Gratification Through Zine Publishing • Neil A. Swanson, Georgia • Zine publishers use their work to satisfy specific needs that the mainstream media fail to satisfy. Through the creation of their own texts, they explore dimensions of their lives that consuming other media simply cannot reach. Generally exploring alternative subject matter, zines offer their publishers a form of “textual productivity” that they can circulate within their own cultural community (Fiske, 1992). Zinesters share their they work with other zine publishers, developing common bonds and tightening connections within their community.

Beauty and Fashion Magazine Reading and Anorectic Cognitions As Predictors of Dieting Behavior in College-Age Women • Steven R. Thomsen, J. Kelly McCoy, Marleen Williams, Brigham Young and Robert L. Gustafson, Ball State University • The study was conducted to explore the relationship between the reading of women’s beauty and fashion magazines, dieting behavior, and the existence of anorectic cognitions in college-age women. Unlike past studies, which have examined the relationship between the quantity of beauty and fashion magazines read and eating disorders, this study assesses the impact of reading frequency, preferences for articles, photos, of ads, and motivation for reading on dieting behavior, which is considered to be precursor to the development of eating disorders.

Reviewing The Record: What Magazine Letters to the Editor Said About Journalism in 1962, 1972, 1982 and 1992 • Brian Thornton, Midwestern State University • This research examines what ordinary consumers of news have written about journalism over the past 30 years in letters to the editor. To obtain a national view of public sentiment about journalism, letters to the editor from 1962m 1972, 1982 and 1992 published in 10 national news magazines • as opposed to newspapers – were examined. This research found that within the span of 30 years, the number of letters to the editor discussing journalism published in the 10 mainstream new magazines declined from 66 percent to 3 percent.

Uncovering the “Hidden Epidemic:” Consumer Magazine Reporting on HIV/AIDS and Other STDs • Kim Walsh-Childers, Debbie Treise, Alyse Gotthoffer and Lyn Ringer, Florida • The paper describes the STD- and AIDS/HIV -related results of a content analysis of 44 consumer magazines. There was significant variation in the extent of coverage across the four magazine types analyzed. About 9 percent of al sex-related items made some mention of STDs; about 14 percent mentioned HIV. The women’s and teen magazines were most likely to cover non-HIV STDs without reference to specific diseases. In covering HIV/AIDS, the most common topic was the sexual transmission of HIV.

<< 1998 Abstracts