Archives for January 2012

Law Division

Merging Law and Ethics: Discourse Legal Theory and Freedom of Expression • David S. Allen, Illinois State University • Building on the work of Jurgen Habermas, this paper argues that discourse legal theory put forward a blatantly political idea of law that is guided by the ethical goal of improving discourse in society. In an attempt to take the discussion from the abstract to the practical, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hurley decision is examined. It is suggested that discourse legal theory puts forward a more protective standard for disempowered groups than current interpretations.

The Viability of the Libel-proof Plaintiff Doctrine Following the Masson Decision • Raymond N. Ankney, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Defamation laws allow a person to sue for statements that damage his or her reputation. However, a few courts have ruled that some defendants have such poor reputations that they should not be allowed to sue for libel. this paper reviews how courts have ruled on the libel-proof plaintiff doctrine following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, which repudiated part of the doctrine. The analysis showed that it remains a viable defense for media defendants.

Videodialtone Reconsidered: Prospects for Competition in the Wake of the Telecommunication Act of 1996 • David J. Atkin, Cleveland State University • The purpose of this study is three fold: (1) to revisit the rationales behind the 1996 Telecommunication Act, (2) evaluate its short term and likely long term impacts on cable industry structure and conduct, and (3) update the state of cross-media competition between cable, local telephone and long-distance industries, in order to provide a context to explore implications of greater merger activity facilitated by the Act. Implications for industry conduct are discussed, particularly in light of cable-telco competition facilitated by the 1996 Act.

Building Bridges: Metaphors and Analogies Used by Courts in Cases Involving the Internet • Stephanie Lyn Beck, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Increased Internet use in recent years has resulted in increased litigation and legislation surrounding speech via this new medium. In order to adjudicate these cases, courts have looked to a variety of regulatory models for guidance. This paper examines the models courts have used in their attempts to adjudicate questions of defamation, indecency and interstate commerce. Specifically, this paper will examine the application of the publisher, distributor, commerce clause, and broadcasting models.

Behind the Veil: The Rights of Private Individuals in the Wake of Hustler v. Falwell • Diane L. Borden, George Mason • The primary theories of speech liability • libel, invasion of privacy, and infliction of emotional distress • have been so broadly applied and with such conflicting brushstrokes that even private plaintiffs have little recourse when the mass media sully their reputations or harm their peace of mind. judicial tests have tended to turn on the idea of “publickness” • whether the speech is of public concern and whether the plaintiff is a public person.

“Exclusive” Reputation Injury: Harm by Hypocritization and the Emerging Reputational Dyad in Free Speech Jurisprudence • Clay Calvert, Pennsylvania State University • This paper analyzes the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ 1997 decision in Eastwood v. National Enquirer, Inc. The paper argues that Eastwood: 1) is a defamation action masquerading as a misappropriation case, and, as such, is part of a trend in First Amendment jurisprudence in which plaintiffs attempts to plead around the high hurdles of libel law when suing the media; 2) rekindles the need for finding better measures of reputational harm.

Mass Communications Research in First Amendment and Other Media-Related Federal Court Opinions • Dane Claussen, Georgia • Lexis-Nexis searches determined levels of social science evidence from academic journal articles in mass communication, economics, psychology, and political science cited by all federal courts in all published opinions. Mass communication research is cited only a small fraction as often as that from other fields. Possible explanations are offered. This paper also reviews the history and status social science research’s use in American federal courts, highlighting Monahan and Walker’s research and proposals.

Setting New Boundaries: How Iowa Newspaper Editors Are Applying A New Law Granting Them Expanded Access to Juvenile Names • Constance K. Davis, Iowa • On July 1, 1997, a new Iowa law allowed the release of names of juveniles as young as ten when they are taken into custody or when they commit any public offense. This paper examines whether Iowa newspapers have expanded their use of juvenile names and finds editors have only nudged at their previous boundaries.

Craft or Profession: Court Rulings Leave Room for Journalists to Decide the Question • Lori Demo, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • In the early 1990s, the courts issued conflicting rulings on three cases that asked whether newspaper journalists are professionals exempt from overtime pay under federal laws. The conflicting rulings can prove puzzling for newspaper managers who want to follow the law while also controlling newsroom payroll costs. This paper examines the professional orientation of journalists from sociological and legal perspectives and offers editors guidelines for how they can increase the professional orientation of the journalists from sociological and legal perspectives and offers editors guidelines for how they can increase the professional orientation of their staffs.

Mirrored in Parody, Mired in Paradox: Trademark Dilution and An Ancient Art • Stephen J. Earley, Denver • The passage of the federal Trademark Dilution Act (FTDA) in early 1996 opened up the latest battleground in the long tradition of litigation between those who practice the ancient art of parody and those who feel its sting. This paper explores recent legal frameworks along with historical factors, changing technologies, and aspects of politics and culture which make parody as a form of commentary more controversial, and arguably more vital, than ever.

The Supreme Court Press Corps • Dru Riley Evarts, Ohio University • The author, who was at the U.S. Supreme Court for the 1996-1997 term, surveyed the Court’s press corps, replicating in part a survey of that group that Everette Dennis had done in 1974. The 1997 group was much larger and 100 per cent of the “regulars” in the press corps participated. Among the findings are comparisons of the male/female ratio, age, media, political and social leanings, and these reporters’ opinions on a number of suggestions that have been made by which the Supreme Court could make coverage of that institution more readily available to the public.

The Journalist’s Privilege for Nonconfidential Information in States with Shield Laws • Anthony L. Fargo, Florida • A 1997 report by the Society of Professional Journalists warning of an erosion in the journalist’s privilege, plus recent case law and empirical studies, have focused attention on protections for nonconfidential information. This study found that sixteen states and the District of Columbia appear to protect nonconfidential information is statutes, but little consensus about the nature of the privilege exists.

Free Speech v. Fair Trial A 50-State Analysis of Trial Publicity Rules • Kathy R. Fitzpatrick, Southern Methodist • This paper addresses the question of what rules — if any — should regulate attorney speech in the trial context. A 50-state analysis of professional disciplinary (ethics) rules was conducted in an effort to better understand the various state approaches to restricting attorneys’ extrajudicial comments. The results indicate a need to reconsider the broad range of existing state practices and to develop a universal rule consistent with Constitutional principles.

A Methodological Framework for Comparative Media Law • Karla Gower, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This paper examines the secondary literature on comparative methodology in the disciplines of law, sociology, and political science for a methodological framework to be used when comparing media law in different countries. After deriving the methodological framework, the paper critiques comparative media law articles in light of that framework. The paper concludes that a consistent method is absent in mass communication comparative legal research and that a workable comparative methodology would strengthen the field of mass communication law.

Bits, Bytes and the Right to Know: How the Electronic Freedom of Information Act Holds the Key to Public Access to a Wealth of Useful Government Databases at Nominal Costs • Martin Halstuk, Florida • The Electronic Freedom of Information Act (EFOIA) became law on October 2, 1996. The purpose of this paper is to focus on one of the EFOIA’s key provisions, Section 3, which says all records compiled by federal agencies — even those recorded and stored in electronic formats — are subject to the Act’s policy of full disclosure. This paper concludes the EFOIA Section 3 has the potential of providing public access to a wealth of useful government databases at nominal costs.

Divergence of Duty: Differences in the Legal and Ethical Responsibilities of the Media in the Branch Davidian-ATF Shootout • Elizabeth Blanks Hindman, North Dakota State • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

Revisiting Free Speech on Private Property in the New Information Environment: A First Amendment Response to the Private Ownership Model • JoAnne Holman, Purdue • The utility of government as regulator of telecommunications industries in the post-Telecommunications Act era has been questioned by proponents of deregulation and competition. This paper argues that government has an important role in formulating the structural policy necessary to ensure system access to the new communications technologies. It examines how the doctrine of free speech on private property provides grounding for policy to ensure users can access a diversity of information sources and disseminate their own information to others.

When News Artists Take Without Asking: Digital Photo Collage As Transformative Commentary • Wilson Lowrey, Georgia • This article explores the copyright implications for news publications when news artists sample and distort protected news photos in digitally created photo collages. To date, no case on digital sampling of visual media has been tried. The author weighs the rights of the photographer and the rights of the news publication in a hypothetical case involving a photo collage created by the author. Several samplings are examined, each progressively more significant, to determine the threshold of infringement.

The Supreme Court and its “Public”: The Maturation of Theory and Interpretation • Susan Dente Ross, Washington State University • This study explores the complex and transient nature of publics and the evolution of legal policy by applying public opinion theory and the policy cycle concept to the multi-branch adoption and interpretation of the public interest concept. This research suggest that shifting Supreme Court interpretations of the public interest reflect the maturation of policy, and reflect and contribute to the continuing cycle of theory development.

On Denying the Obvious: A Critical Examination of Competing Ethical and Legal Claims Regarding Holocaust Denial • Kevin R. Stoner, Russell Sage • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

The Firebrand of My Youth: Oliver Wendell Holmes and the Influence of Emerson • Joseph A. Russomanno, Arizona State University • There is probably no figure in American jurisprudence who has been studies and whose record has been more studied and whose record has been more analyzed than Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Among the aspects of Holmes’ career that have commonly piqued the interest of scholars is the apparent transformation of Holmes’ view of the First Amendment and freedom of expression rights. In 1919, Holmes led a re-direction of the U.S. Supreme Court and its interpretation of these rights with a dissenting opinion in which he set forth a broader approach than what had previously been used, and what Holmes himself had previously held.

Link Law: The Evolving Law of Internet Hyperlinks • Mark Sableman, J.D., St. Louis, MO • Contrary to the “freedom to hyperlink” ethos, case law refutes any absolute right to link on the Internet. Rather, business and intellectual property law imposes limits on linking. This article reviews the basics of the legal theories applicable to hyperlinks; describes key hyperlink cases that have arisen involving direct links, “framing” and “inlining,” hidden metalinks, and contributory infringement through links and mirror sites; and concludes that linkages will often be subject to legal controls.

Defamation by Racial Misidentification: A Study of Exposure to Public Hatred and Contempt In the South • John C. Watson, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This a cross-disciplinary study of journalism law, history, and sociology. Specifically, it is an examination of the periods in Southern history when courts ruled that it was defamatory and libelous per se to identify a white person as black. By studying defamation lawsuits filed in Southern courts from 1791 through this century this paper traces the evolution and regression of the racial misidentification. Here, court ruling are treated as historical artifacts that reflect the Southern social structure.

<< 1998 Abstracts

International Communication Divisioon

The Role of Culture in International Advertising • Niaz Ahmed, Saint Cloud State University • The purpose of this study was to contribute to the debate on standardized versus specialized approaches to international advertising. This cross-cultural content analysis compared print advertising from the United States and India and examined how cultural values are manifest in advertising. The results found that there were significant differences in the way these two countries produced advertising messages and that different cultural values were reflected in their advertising expressions. This cross-cultural study suggests that caution should be exercised when considering standardization in advertising between divergent cultures.

Saudi Arabia’s International Media Strategy: Influence Through Multinational Ownership • Douglas A. Boyd, Kentucky • This study reviews and analyzes Saudi information policy that has attempted to keep some Western-oriented entertainment and information programming from reaching that country’s citizens. The focus of the research is the kingdom’s special concern about Direct Satellite Broadcasting (DBS) and how members of the royal family have become involved in the most important commercial Arabic-language satellite service in the Arab world.

Television News in a Transitional Media System: The Case of Taiwan • Yu-li Chang and Daniel Riffe, Ohio University This paper examines TV journalists’ views of the burgeoning cable news industry in Taiwan, which has been undergoing transition from authoritarianism to democracy. The survey results showed that private cable news operations still are partisan. Journalists’ experiences of autonomy and job satisfaction are all affected by the partisan nature of cable news media. Those who work in organizations with neutral editorial policies enjoy a higher degree of autonomy. Those whose personal politics matches with the company’s editorial policy tend to be more satisfied with their work.

Press Finance and Economic Reform in China • Huailin Chen and Chin-Chuan Lee, Chinese University of Hong Kong • The study provides a detailed account of the changing structure of press finance in China and its impact on various aspects of press operation. It closely scrutinizes the role of marketization in the process of partisan press’ decline and the transformation of newspapers’ financial management, practitioners’ income system, ownership structure, production process, and content. The emerging patterns suggest that the Chinese press in undergoing a liberalizing experience in some areas, which serve to dilute its mouthpiece function.

American Imperialist Zeal in the Periphery: The Rural Press Covers the Spanish-American War and Annexation of the Philippines • Dane Claussen, Georgia and Richard Shafer, North Dakota • 1890s farmers were politicized by economic/legal issues represented by Nebraskan Bryan’s popularity. In the 1898 Spanish-American War, most early volunteers were from western states, and farmers could closely follow war news in general newspapers. But agricultural publications varied in coverage levels, were conflicted by simultaneous anti-imperialism and patriotism, and•despite understanding that the War’s true goals were capitalistic•failed to inform farmers about new market or new competition posed by overseas possessions.

Considering Alternative Models of Influence: Conceptualizing the Impact of Foreign TV in Malaysia • Michael G. Elasmar, Boston University and Kathleen Sim, Marketing & Planning System • A review of the different perspectives on the impact of foreign TV reveals that the current dominant paradigm concerning this relationship is known as “media-based cultural imperialism” or “media imperialism.” After reviewing the assumptions made by proponents of media imperialism, we asked whether this theoretical perspective adequately explains the relationship between consuming imported TV programs and being influenced by these programs. For proponents of media imperialism, finding a link between these two variables is sufficient to demonstrate the existence of a conspiracy against indigenous cultures.

Reporting Under Civilian and Military Rulers in Africa: Journalists’ perceptions of Press Freedom and Media Exposure in Cameroon and Nigeria • Festus Eribo, East Carolina University and Enoh Tanjong, Buea • This study is a comparative analysis of journalists’ perceptions of press freedom in Cameroon and Nigeria. The former has a democratically elected government while the latter has a military oligarchy. The conventional wisdom or hypothesis that a democratically elected government may tolerate press freedom while a military regime will censor the press was not fully supported by the empirical evidence in this study. Cameroonian journalists in this study do not believe that the press is free.

Western Press Coverage of the United Nations Operation in Somalia: A Comparison of Extra- and Intra-media Data Sources • Anita Fleming-Rife, Pennsylvania State University • Extra-media data (UNOSOM II press briefing notes) were compared to intra-media data (newspaper content). Newspapers were: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Guardian. Findings show that little news was reported and most was “bad.” While the focus was on conflict, correspondents did cover non-violent government activities. Finally, the data show that correspondents in the field are more likely to report that which they witness rather than rely on sources, official or unofficial.

Factors Influencing Repatriation Intention, an Aspect of the Brain Drain Phenomenon • Kingsley O. Harbor, Mississippi Valley State University • Based on Grunig’s situational theory, this study proposed and tested a systemic relationship represented by a casual model composed of attitudinal, communicative, and motivational variables. The systemic relationship so formed explained the intention of Third World students to or not to return home after their assignment in USA. Study used stratified random sample of 400 Third World students attending university. Phone interview refusal rate was 23%. Data analysis involved regression and path analytical models.

Korean Students’ Use of Television: An Expectancy-Value Approach • No-Kon Heo and Russell B. Williams, Pennsylvania State University • A questionnaire was administered to extend previous research on the expectancy-value judgments of media use in a study of Korean students’ television viewing experiences. Consistent with the previous findings, the data showed that students’ expectancy-value judgments were important in their viewing decisions. Above all, information seeking was the most expected outcome of television viewing among Korean students.

Putting Okinawa on the Agenda: Applying Three Complementary Theories • Beverly Horvit, Missouri-Columbia • This paper examines why U.S. and Japanese policy-makers decided to make changes in the base structure on Okinawa after a schoolgirl was raped in 1995. Applying three different but complimentary theories • agenda setting, rational decision-making and bureaucratic politics • provides a fuller understanding of how U.S. foreign policy was made on Okinawa. This interdisciplinary approach can also serve as a heuristic device to improve knowledge about the interplay media, foreign policy and international relations.

Beyond Asian Values in Journalism: Towards Cultural Politics in the Asian Media Globalization • Min Soo Kim, Pyonghwa Broadcasting Corp. • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

Factors Influencing Gender Role Attitudes Among Lebanese Youth • Rana Knio and Michael Elasmar, Boston University • This study is an attempt to understand the various factors that influence Lebanese youth attitudes toward gender roles. In looking into possible associations, mere exposure was used as a guiding theory. Findings about gender role attitudes were varied. A weak, positive and statistically significant correlation was found between viewing US television programs and having more egalitarian attitudes toward gender roles. This particular finding supported mere exposure theory. However, traveling to the US and having friends and/or relatives living in the US had no influence on students’ gender role attitudes.

State Control on Television News in Post-War Lebanon • Marwan M. Kraidy, North Dakota • Whereas pre-war news media in Lebanon enjoyed a relatively high level of editorial independence, post-war Lebanon witnessed numerous conflicts between the Lebanese state and private broadcast media, caused by state attempts to control or ban television news and political programs. This paper traces attempts by the Lebanese state to control television news and analyzes internal and external factors influencing these attempts. Direct and indirect forms of control are discussed and conclusions are drawn.

Defining the Press Arbitration System: Its Impact on Press Freedom during the Sociopolitical Transition in South Korea • Jae-Jin Lee, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale • This study examines how press arbitration system has developed during the sociopolitical transition period in South Korea. The study analyzes how the press arbitration system has affected the relationships among the government, the press and the public. Considering that Korea’s press arbitration system reflects relative weight that the Korean society assigns to certain values, this study argues that the press arbitration system has served as main factor that brought major changes in the recent media environment.

Popular Literature and Gender Identities: An Analysis of Young Indian Women’s Anxieties About Reading Western Romances • Radhika E. Parameswaran, Indiana University • This paper takes an ethnographic approach to analyze young Indian middle-class women’s interpretations of imported Western romance fiction, particularly their responses to representations of sexually in these romances. My analysis is based on participant observation and interviews with forty-two women, teachers, parents, book publishers, and library-owners, which were conducted in Hyderabad, India during May-August 1996. I demonstrate that Indian women’s engagement with Western romances in postcolonial India is an experience that is mediated by their socialization within Hindu patriarchal and nationalist discourses.

Guiding Lights of International News-Flow Research: A Temporal Comparison of Influential Authors and Published Works • Yorgo Pasadeos, Emily Erickson-Hoff, Yvette Stuart and Laura Ralstin, Alabama • The international news-flow research literature has progressed from descriptive “foreign press” and “foreign news” accounts to modeling and fitting international news flow within broader theoretical frameworks. Critical studies of international news flow have had a similar progression. Although the international news flow have had a similar progression. Although the quantitative expansion in this research area in the 1980s was not matched in the current decade, qualitative progress may have offset the relative stagnation in the quantity of recent international news-flow research.

Can the Leopard Change its Spots: Parliamentarians’ Attitudes About Press Freedom in Zambia • Greg Pitts, Southern Methodist • Democracies have a free press. In Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda’s humanism defined the role of the individual and the press. Zambians experience greater freedom since muliparty elections in 1991 but humanism has shaped the values of current leaders. This paper quantitatively investigates support for the press among the Zambian Parliament. Regression models show that perceptions of media accuracy and fairness are not indicators of press support. Zambia must experience intergenerational value changes to overcome Kaunda’s humanism.

South Asian Student Attitudes Toward and Beliefs About Advertising: Measuring Across Cultures • Jyotika Ramaprasad and Michael L. Thurwanger, Southern Illinois University • Using a survey, this study applied to South Asia constructs developed in the United States • beliefs about advertising and attitude toward advertising in general (AG) • and their operationalizations with two goals in mind. First, to determine whether the factor structure of these beliefs is similar in the United States and South Asia. Second, to measure whether South Asian consumers’ beliefs about advertising predict their AG. The five South Asian countries in the study were Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

American News Coverage of International Crisis Negotiations: Elite Sources of Media Framing and Effects on Public Opinion • Dhavan V. Shah, Wisconsin; Kent D. Kedl and David P. Fan, Minnesota • The manner in which media present elites’ interpretations of international crises has important implications for strategic public diplomacy. This study considers two recent international crises: the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (1990 – 1991) and the military coup d’ tat of Haiti (1993 – 1994). Framing provides a basis for an analysis which examines (a) the problem definitions and treatment recommendations attributed to U.S. elites in key newspapers, and (b) the effects of these negotiations frames on public opinion.

Broadcasting in South Africa: The Politics of Educational Radio • Paul R. van der Veur, Montana Tech of the University of Montana • This paper explores efforts by successive British and Afrikaner led governments to use the educational potentials of broadcasting in molding the development of the African population. The study traces the transition of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) into a vehicle for the extension of Afrikaner nationalism and subsequently into an institution in the vanguard of the movement toward a multicultural democracy.

An Economic Imperative: Privatization as Reflected in Business Reporting in the Middle East • Leonard Ray Teel, Georgia State University; Hussein Amin, American University in Cairo; Shirley Biagi, California State University-Sacramento; Carolyn Crimmins, Georgia State University • Egypt, a socialist nation from the mid- 1950s until the 1990s, is an excellent case study of a national economy experiencing dramatic reforms in privatization and deregulation. Although similar economic initiatives are being undertaken in other Arab countries, including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Tunisia and Morocco, reforms have been pushed ahead faster in Egypt, especially since 1994, and despite significant obstacles in the form of loyalty to socialist ideas, public cynicism toward capitalism, and general distrust engendered by recent economic fraud in the banking industry.

Why Beijingers Read Newspapers? • Tao Sun and Xinshu Zhao, Minnesota, Guoming Yu, People’s University • Unlike the previous studies that focus on why and how the Chinese government and Communist Party used the mass media, this study asks what Chinese audience look for while reading newspapers. From the perspective of uses-and-gratification theories, two dimentions were proposed: the societal-level information, and the individual-level information. Those two dimentions differ from the dimentions found in uses-and-gratifications studies conducted in the United States. Using an audience survey of 749 Beijing residents in November 1996, we conducted three independent round of factor analyses based on three different groups of variables.

Markham Competition

Telecommunications Policy Reform and the Legacy of the Indian Post-Colonial State • Paula Chakravartty, Wisconsin-Madison • The core concern of this paper is to understand the social context which frames the politics of the state’s changing role in economic development in India. In this paper, I argue that central to understanding the policy process of telecommunications is the issue of state legitimacy in a democratic regime. I argue that seemingly clear-cut telecommunications policy issues such as access to services, information disparity, regulation and public accountability, are actually fought over in the larger politics of nationalism and corruption.

Worldview Differences of Natural Resources Between Spain and Costa Rica: A Content Analysis of On-line Newspapers • Lorena Corbin, Iowa State University • The study analyzed the environmental content of two large circulation on-line newspapers, one from a developing country (Coasta Rica) and one from a developed country (Spain). Olsen, Lodwick and Dunlap (1992) developed a paradigmatic model which presents the differences between the dominant worldview and the post-industrial worldview. Based on this, it was expected that the Costa Rican paper would emphasize the exploitation of natural resources (dominant), while the Spanish paper would emphasize environmental protection (post-industrial).

A Content Analysis of The Jerusalem Post-Bias in Syria-Related and Har Homa Articles • Hala Habal, Baylor University • This content analysis was conducted with two separate samples. The first was a constructed two-week period, representing 1997. The second was a six-day period, beginning July 30 and ending August 6, representing a period of conflict. The highest category of main article theme fell under the “conflict” grouping. Most stories had Israel as their main focus, with the highest number of proper mentions. A greater number of sentences in the lead of each article fell in the “report/attributed” category, with very few in the inference and judgment categories.

The Price of Ignorance: How Correspondents’ Language Skills Limit Their Work in Japan • Beverly Horvit, Missouri-Columbia • Many of the American correspondents working in Japan do not understand the Japanese language. Their language skills limit their access to a wide range of sources, which may help distort their reporting, and pose other practical constraints. At another level, not knowing the language, both verbal and nonverbal, limits their ability to understand the Japanese culture, which is reflected in the language.

The Structure of International News Flow in Cyberspace: A Network Analysis of News Articles in Clarinet • Naewon Kang, Wisconsin-Madison and Junho Choi, Purdue University • This paper examines the pattern of international news flow in cyberspace, using network analysis. It suggests that the world system perspective no longer effectively clarifies the global structure of the international news flow in cyberspace. For the better understanding of the dynamics of international news flow in cyberspace, this paper suggests that (a) single or comprehensive interpretation(s) like political significance, global commercialism, and sociocultural proximity would provide a more plausible explanatory framework.

Journalism Under Fire: Reporting the El Mozote Massacre • Kris Kodrich, Ohio State University • In January, 1982, New York Times reporter Raymond Bonner came across a gruesome scene in El Salvador • the charred skulls and bones of dozens of men, women and children. His January 27 article, headlined, “Massacre of hundreds reported in Salvador village,” brought shock and outrage, but was soon discredited and criticized by U.S. government officials and media conservatives, included a vicious editorial in the Wall Street Journal. El Mozote has come to represent years of brutal repression in El Salvador.

Human Rights in China: A Pawn of A Political Agenda? A Content Analysis of The New York Times (1987-1996) •Xigen Li and Charles St. Cyr, Michigan State University • A content analysis of 10 years of New York Times coverage of human rights in China has found that The Times set its own agenda in covering human rights in China apart from president agenda. While U.S. president concerned more on U.S.-China trade than human rights in China, The Times continued its coverage of human rights in China as presidential concern subsided. The evidence over 10 years of news coverage also suggests that despite a relatively independent rate of production of human rights news stories by The Times, neither incumbent presidents nor their opponents treated human rights as a high-visibility, independent issue or as a separate issue in foreign policy.

Michael Fay in ‘Lash Land’: A Case Study of Social Identity Construction in Foreign News Coverage • Meredith Li-Vollmer, Washington • Foreign affairs reporters may routinely come across opportunities to enhance or protect the social identity of their national group; thus, their identities as U.S. citizens may influence the construction of international events. A framing analysis of articles covering the caning of American Michael Fay in Singapore reveals that journalists not only actively defended and enhanced the social identity of the United States, but also attempted to mobile a social identity dynamic in the American public.

Media and Democracy in Argentina • Dave Park, Wisconsin-Madison • This paper looks at how the constraints of Argentina’s mass media limit conditions for a healthy democracy. Media politics, corporate concentration, foreign ownership and market restraints are viewed as new censors of information in Argentina. In addition, vestiges of authoritarian control such as government regulation and threats against the press continue to plague the mass media. The conditions limit discussion of human rights issues while undermining basic rights to pursue, gather and disperse information.

News About Korea and Japan in American Network Television Evening News: A Content Analysis of Coverage in 1996 • Jowon Park, Tennessee-Knoxville • Television news abstracts about Korea and Japan in three networks’ evening news programs were analyzed. Importance, thematic content, and orientation of news were examined. The findings showed that the news about Korea was treated less importantly than the news about Japan. While Japanese stories showed diversity in thematic contents. Korean stories showed lack of diversity. The news about Korea had a strong orientation toward crisis, while Japanese stories were balanced between crisis and noncrisis orientation.

Pleasure, Imperialism, and Marxist Political Economy: Exploring A Biological Base • William Thomas Pritchard, Bowling Green State University • Marxist imperialism theses have problematized the consumption of Western media by non-Western cultures. This is an exploratory investigation into possible reasoning behind this consumption. An overview of cultural imperialism theory is presented, along with a problematic issue of Marxist imperialistic theory: the treatment of the concept of pleasure. Studies concerning the intrinsically pleasurable characteristics of color, sight, and other “building blocks” of media fare are presented as in-roads toward the possibility of Western media being intrinsically pleasurable.

Finnish Women and Political Knowledge: What Do They Know and How Do They Learn It? • Helena K. SSrkis, Iowa State University • According to a 1988-89 study, approximately half of American men score higher in political knowledge than three-fourths of American women. Various social and economic differences between American women and men are cited as the reasons for this finding. This study hypothesizes that because of the lack of these social and economic differences in Finland, a gap in political knowledge between women and men would not be found there. The most important predictors of political knowledge in Finland are also identified, which support the limited media effects model.

Hollywood Attracts South Korean Capital • Doobo Shim, Wisconsin-Madison • This study investigates the reasons for the Korean chaebols’ sudden participation in culture industry and capital investment in Hollywood in the 1990s. To do this, the Kim Young Sam government policy that made the change in the culture industry will be examined in view of the traditional economic system in Korea, especially with regard to chaebol policy. Finally, the implications of the globalization and the culture industry development on the whole Korean economy will be examined.

Telling the Truth or Framing a Crisis?: Comparative Analysis of the 1994 North Korean Nuclear Threat as Portrayed in Two American and Two South Korean Newspapers • Young Soo Shim, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale • This study investigated how two elite American newspapers and leading South Korean newspapers used different news frames in covering the 1994 North Korean nuclear crisis. The study unsupported a key hypothesis that the two American papers would focus more on the confrontational aspect of the crisis than the two South Korean dailies. But another main hypothesis that the two American newspapers would fervently advocate sanctions against North Korea than the two South Korean newspapers was supported.

Bahamian TV Programming, 1977-1997: A Case Study of Cultural Proximity • Juliette Storr, Ohio University •This paper revisits the debate on the international flow of television within the context of Straubhaar, et al., 1992, theory of cultural proximity and asymmetrical interdependence. The main focus of the paper is to examine how Straubhaar, et al.’s 1992 study applies to a small developing country like the Bahamas. 1,628 television programs on the national television station, ZNS TV-13, were analyzed for a period of twenty-one years, beginning with the start of local television in 1977 and ending in 1997.

Media, Markets and Messages: Ghana’s Radio Forced to Make Choices • Janice Windborne, Ohio University • Until Structural Adjustment, Ghana had an extensive, state-run broadcast system oriented toward education and development. Now, forced to privatize its media, the country is faced with the competition between fostering consumer culture among the growing urban elite class and fostering development of the rural majority of the country. Development messages are particularly relevant to women who generally have less education and fewer resources than men. Conflicting interests and consequent problems are examined.

<< 1998 Abstracts

History Division

Pioneers in the State Freedom of Information Movement • Jeanni Atkins and James A. Lumpp, Mississippi • This paper examines the genesis of the Freedom of Information movement to enact open meetings laws from 1946-1966. It explores how the nationwide mobilization effort, discusses the problem of convincing journalists and legislators of the need for access laws, examines the difficulties encountered in getting legislation and also explains how the movement changed in the 1970s with the founding of media groups focusing on access problems and the entry of Common Cause into the access battle.

Standing for the Rights of the Black Worker-But Not at Home: The Labor Policies of the Chicago Defender • Jon Bekken, Suffolk University • Founded in 1905, the Chicago Defender quickly established its position as the most influential of the cities and indeed the country’s black newspapers. But while the Chicago Defender consistently portrayed itself as a vigorous defender of the race, the paper’s approach itself as a vigorous defender of the race, the paper’s approach to labor issues was often ambivalent. While the newspaper vacillated between encouraging black workers to accommodate themselves to their employers, or to join together to fight for better conditions, the publishers never reconciled themselves to union conditions in their own operations.

A Few Words Between Friends: A Comparison of How Two Elites, Lyndon Johnson and the Washington Post, Framed the Issue of Civil Rights Legislation in December 1963 • Laura Elizabeth Bond, Texas-Austin • A taped conversation between President Lyndon Johnson and Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham in December 1963 offers a unique opportunity to glimpse power in action and to learn how frames are transmitted from a news sources to the news media. Agenda-setting theory, framing and content and textual analysis provide a framework and tools for examining how the conversation influenced the Post editorial page, thus making a strong statement for civil rights legislation in the process.

The Feminist Mystique and Mass Media: Implications for the Second Wave • Patricia Bradley, Temple University • The author posits that the success of The Feminist Mystique as a product designed and marketed to a mass media audience influenced movement by placing emphasis on the distribution of the feminist message by way of mass media avenues. This served to shape the feminist message according to the needs of mass media to the detriment of the movement at a time when it was trying to establish itself as a political force.

Pioneering for Women Journalists: Sallie Joy White, 1870-1909 • Elizabeth V. Burt, Hartford • Sallie Joy White was the first women staff reporter on a Boston newspaper, a founding member of the New England Woman’s Press Association, an officer in several national press groups, a member of the woman’s movement, and acted as mentor to women seeking career opportunities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This study of White’s life and work provides a key to understanding the professional experience and development of women journalists during this period.

Surviving the FCC: The Legacy of UHFs • Kathryn B. Campbell, Wisconsin-Madison • WKOW-TV in Madison, Wisconsin, was born, prospered and then faltered during television’s so-called “Golden Age.” Nationally, few of the UHFs of its generation survived that decade of sweeping technological changes and unpredictable FCC regulation. WKOW-TV was broadcast on an Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band at a time when Very High Frequency (VHF) stations were thought to be much superior in terms of potential audiences, broadcast quality and profitability. This paper provides a brief historical review of the development of television, emphasizing the FCC actions in assigning television frequencies and its public service requirements.

The Remarkable Timothy Women • Virginia H. Carroll and Patricia G. McNeely, South Carolina • Elizabeth Timothy is widely acknowledge as America’s first woman publisher, but her skill as a printer/journalist has largely been underplayed. This paper re-examines her contributions along with those of her daughter-in-law, Ann Donavan Timothy, who has been overlooked entirely. If this paper were written in the traditional journalism style • five W’s, and H and an upside-down pyramid • Ann Timothy would be the lead. But from the cultural perspective, we have chosen to present her in the context of her family.

The Icons of Despair: A Comparison of World Series Coverage in Newspapers Before and During the Depression • John Carvalho, North Carolina • Within sports media history, extensive research has focused on sports journalism during the 1920s, the “Jazz Age” decade of Babe Ruth, Red Grange, and Jack Dempsey. By comparison, however, the 1930s have been studies less frequently. Newspapers during the decade were trapped between the realities of economic depression, which caused severe cutbacks in the number of pages, and the continued popularity of sports. This paper examines coverage in ten metropolitan newspapers from a variety of geographical locations.

“Those Who Toil and Spin”: Female Textile Operatives’ Publications and the Response to Industrialization • Mary M. Cronin, Washington State University • New England’s female textile operatives established and edited the nation’s first factory journals to lobby for changes in working and living conditions. These periodicals also served as forums for operatives to respond to the growing tension that were emerging between classes as members of the middle class sought to impose their visions of culture, propriety, respectability, and even religion as the correct ones. These weekly and biweekly newspapers and magazines existed for only a decade from 1840 to 1850, yet they were significant both to media and the labor movement.

The Roots of Press-Government Antagonisms: Newspapers and the Early Cold War, 1945-1953 • David R. Davies, Southern Mississippi • Newspapers’ relationship with government and government officials seemed to crack in the early 1950s, challenging press practices on several fronts. National security concerns rooted in the Cold War accelerated a trend toward greater secrecy in government, igniting a “freedom of information” (FOI) movement in professional associations to fight the growing secrecy at both federal and local levels. Journalists’ relationships with government officials began to suffer as the result of this anti-secrecy fight.

Wrestling with Corporate Identity: Television and the National Broadcasting Company • Chad Dell, Monmouth University • Why did professional wrestling disappear from the National Broadcasting Company’s program schedule, at a time when it may have helped the corporation weather a fiscal crisis? This paper examines the formative stages of NBC’s television operations (1945 to 1950) including a little-known financial crisis in 1949, to explain why this crisis led to a solidification of the company’s programming strategy toward expensive entertainment programming and away from popular, inexpensive genres such as professional wrestling.

Pens and Swords and “Splendid Wars”: The Case of Jose Marti, La Patria, and the Second Cuban War for Independence • Mercedes R. Diaz, Temple University • A small, little known newspaper called La Patria, not the Hearst-Pulitzer circulation wars of the late 19th century, was responsible for igniting the conflict the eventually would be known as the Spanish-American War. With it, publisher and poet-journalists Jose Marti managed to unify the formerly divided Cuban Revolutionary Clubs throughout the Americans, harness their economic might, and lay the groundwork for the second Cuban War of Independence.

The Battle of the Chicago Colonels: A Study of Newspaper Bias in the Debate Over Lend Lease • Wallace B. Eberhard, Georgia • Among the more colorful figures in an era of personal journalism in Chicago on the eve of World War II were two “colonel” publishers • Robert R. McCormick of the Tribune and Franklin Knox of the Daily News. Beneath the rivalry that existed between the two are larger question related to news content. Did those publishers shape the news content to fit their opinions, with all the attendant questions and criticisms raised by such journalistic behavior?

Covering Contraception: Discourses of Gender, Motherhood, and Sexuality in Women’s Magazines, 1938-1969 • Dolores L. Flamiano, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • An analysis of thirty years of birth control coverage in the Ladies’ Home Journal and Good Housekeeping shows shifting and sometimes contradictory discourses of motherhood and sexuality. Early coverage celebrated motherhood and women’s responsibility to their “biological natures.” Coverage in the sixties appealed to two pill-related fears:: endangered femininity and threatened masculinity. Both fears suggested that the pill breaking down the old double standard, and with dominant notions of appropriate gender roles and sexuality.

Public Relations in the Kennedy White House • Cathy Rogers Franklin, Loyola University • This study of President John F. Kennedy’s administration examines whether White House communication strategies were part of a formal plan or program consistent with the textbook definition of public relations. This based on historical evidence from presidential papers and oral history interviews with White House staff members and reporters. Examination of the role of Press Secretary Pierre Salinger and advisers will show whether James E. Grunig’s evolutionary models of public relations is applicable to White House.

Journalism Behind Barbed Wire: Two Arkansas Relocation Center Newspapers • Edward Jay Friedlander, South Florida • Previous researchers have discovered great variation in the editorial quality and editorial freedom of newspapers operated by Japanese Americans at World War II-era War Relocation Authority (WRA) relocation centers. Editorial quality at the two WRA centers in Arkansas also varied, but contrary to previously published research the Denson Tribune at Jerome Relocation Center and the Rohwer Outpost at Rohwer Relocation Center apparently operated with little if any WRA interference.

Spanish-Language Newspapers in New Mexico (1834-1912): Retaining and Recreating Ethnic Identity • Victoria Goff, Wisconsin-Green Bay • This paper’s main focus is the role New Mexican Spanish and bilingual newspapers played in preserving ethnic identity from 1834 when the first newspaper was published until 1912 when New Mexico became a state. The paper also studies how the hispano press helped create a unique multiethnic identity, looks at how the press provided a forum for grievances against Anglo culture, summarizes historical scholarship on Hispanic journalism, and provides an extensive listing of newspapers in the appendix.

The Who, What, Where, and Why of Journalists’ Archives • Joyce Hoffmann, Old Dominion • This paper explores the reasons journalists amass their personal archives. These collections, the object of genteel but spirited competition among research libraries, are the raw materials of scholarship for future generations. In folders filled with long-forgotten letters, yellowed manuscripts, and private diaries, researchers will find insights into the journalists and journalism of the late twentieth century. Decades ago, only death and the patina of time gave an archive value. But the vision of a few librarians changed that in the early 1960s.

Two Tales of One City: How Cultural Perspective Influenced the Reporting of Pre-Civil Rights Story in Dallas • Camille R. Kraeplin, Texas-Austin • Newspaper coverage of a series of racially motivated bombings that took place in Dallas, Texas, in 1950 tells two different stories. A weekly black newspaper, the Dallas Express, perceived the fight to end the bombing of black-owned homes in white neighborhoods as a battle over civil rights. The Dallas Morning News, on the other hand, wanted the violence stopped, but could not conceive of a solution outside of the segregationist status quo.

Hitting from the Left: The Daily Worker’s Assault on Baseball’s Color Line • Chris Lamb, College of Charleston and Kelly Rusinack, Clemson University • On August 16, 1936, the Daily Worker, a Communist newspaper published in New York City, published a banner headline that called on readers to demand the end of segregated baseball. Between 1936 and 1947, the Daily Worker, openly and brashly challenged baseball’s establishment to permit black players; condemned white owners and managers for perpetuating the color ban; criticized the mainstream press for ignoring the issue; distributed anti-discrimination pamphlets at ballparks; and let their readers know of the successes in the campaign to integrate the national pastime.

Paving the Road to Hell: National Public Radio in the Lee Frischknecht Years • Michael P. McCauley, Maine • Millions of Americans are familiar with the news and information programming now available on National Public Radio; indeed, it would be hard to imagine that many members of the educated upper-middle-class could do without their daily dose of Bob Edwards and Robert Siegel. But vast popularity and the smooth delivery of quality programs were not always operative concepts at NPR; such notions belie the major tensions that characterized the network’s day-to-day operations during its formative years.

The Journalistic Function of Book Reviews: How Faludi’s Backlash Made News • Priscilla Coit Murphy, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Book reviews have traditionally been studied primarily for their role in literary criticism rather than as part of journalistic activity. This paper considers the multiple journalistic roles potentially played by book reviews, from strictly informative to the agenda-setting creation of and participation in public debated. Using Faludi’s 1991 newsmaking feminist book, Backlash, the study traces the controversy’s chronology and the interaction of reviews with general news and commentary surrounding its issues.

Women’s Historical Contribution to Journalism Education As Seen in Emery’s The Press and America • Kristine L. Nowak, Michigan State University • This article examined the treatment of women in the history of journalism education over time. The design is a longitudinal case study of Edwin Emery’s history textbook, Press and America, a volume that has been and continues to be widely used in journalism classes and programs across the country. This examination looks at how women’s contributions to the field are treated in each of the seven editions published between 1954 and 1992.

The Chicago Television “Holy War” of 1956-1957 • Bob Pondillo, Wisconsin-Madison • Martin Luther, a film about the 16th century priest who priest who sparked the Reformation, was to be shown on WGN-TV, Chicago, in December, 1956. Management canceled the movie at the last moment, Lutherans claimed because of Catholic pressure. The Catholics denied it, the Lutherans persisted, and WGN-TV was caught in a legal and public relations nightmare. This bizarre moment in early television tells us much about the emerging medium and the times in which it grew.

Trivia or Relevance? An Analysis of Conference and Published Papers of the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) 1982-1996 • J.R. Rush and Alf Pratte, Brigham Young University • Since its founding at Southern Methodist University in September 1982, the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) has been successful in attaining at least two of its goals: (1) to provide an additional forum for media scholars to present scholarly refereed papers and (2) to publish research on the history of American journalism. The purpose of this study is an exploratory attempt to identify and quantify to some extent the vast research that has been conducted by hundreds of media historians under the umbrella of the AJHA over the last 15 years.

At Our House: A Case Study of Grace B. Freeman, Syndicated Columnist, 1954-1964 • Marilyn S. Sarow, Winthrop University • This paper focuses on how the attitudes and values of the 50s shaped the writing of Grace B. Freeman, a highly successful southern freelance writer and syndicated columnist. Her column, At Our House, was distributed by King Features Syndicate for 10 years. This case study provides insight on the role of the freelancer in the 50s and the relationship the writer had with her editors.

“Censorship Liberally Administered”: Press, U.S. Military Relations in the Spanish-American War • Randall S. Sumpter, Texas A&M • This research examines issues of the New York World and New York Journal & Advertiser and a collection of official papers to see how the press and the military modified their relationship and their practices to fit the circumstances of the Spanish-American War. Correspondents and Publishers incorporated tales of censorship attempts into their “New Journalism” formula; censors learned that civilian policy makers valued favorable public opinion over requirements for military secrecy.

Casting Radicals Upon the Waters: Press Support of the Deportation Campaign of 1919-1920 • Sue D. Taylor, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • In general sense, the American press has kept a wary eye on government throughout the history of this nation. It has been called the “watchdog” of the public interest against corrupt of illegal practices of politicians and lawmakers at least since the late nineteenth century. This, as they affect the public interest, officials who initiate and implement foreign and domestic policies have long been subject to criticism from the press.

Bridge to the Modern Era: Free Press on the Wage Workers’ Frontier • David J. Vergobbi, Utah • This pilot case study delineates how the editors of an 1887-1889 Western newspaper began their journalistic evolution from a partisan frontier booster press to an emerging independent commercial style. It does so by considering the editor’s engagement with the socio-economic catalysts that rapidly transformed North Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene mining district society from a pioneer self-sufficiency to the corporate dependency of a wageworkers’ frontier. The study clarifies the need and potential of analyzing such journalism on a broader scale of time and geographic location.

“News of the Weird” in 1830? Humorous Ridicule and “Paragraphing” as Journalistic Innovation • Samuel P. Winch, Nanyang of Technological University • Two unique types of 19th-century journalistic humor are now quite uncommon: ridicule of crime victims, and “paragraphing.” Ridiculing crime victims in journalism began in London in the 1820s, and was quickly adopted by George Prentice, a Louisville editor in the 1830s. These two extinct and innovative forms of journalistic humor help us understand the state of the journalistic art in the mid-1800s.

Remembrances Past: Nineteenth-Century Press and the Uses of American History • Betty Winfield, Missouri and Janice Hume, Kansas State University • This study analyzes journalistic historical references during the nineteenth century. It seeks to show how the American press used history or historical referents as part of news accounts by examining as primary sources article titles taken from indices to look for nostalgic references, historical context, historical analogies, value and assumptions about the past. The purpose is to seek to understand the complex relationships between the press story telling and the collective American historical culture.

<< 1998 Abstracts

Communication Theory and Methodology Division

Examining Rhetorical Structures in Competing News Frames: How Interest Groups Shaped Coverage of the Late-term Abortion Debate • Julie L. Andsager, Washington State University • In competing to shape policy on social issues, interest groups develop rhetoric to garner more media coverage and a larger slice of public opinion. This study examined how pro-choice and pro-life groups attempted to build rhetorical structures in frames of the late-term abortion debate in 1995-96. Pro-life rhetoric appeared more frequently in six major newspapers’ coverage and was more closely associated with the issue than was pro-choice rhetoric, suggesting the value of its emotional appeal.

Synthesis 2000: A Unified Model of Mass Communication • Michael Antecol and Keith P. Sanders, Missouri-Columbia • Because previous models of the communication process did adequately represent the actual communication experience, there has been a shift in research attention away from holistic models, to ones that more accurately reflected various individual elements within a mass mediated experience. The results of these attempts have disembodied the mass communication process such that there is no longer a unified manner in which to regard the mediated communication experience. Although there have been calls for studies that cross levels of analysis, there has been no recent attempt to synthesize a coherent model of mass communications that would be suitable for the next century.

Predicting Future Risky Behavior Among Those “Too Young” to Drink as the Result of Advertising Desirability • Erica Weintraub Austin, Washington State University • A convenience sample of 273 children in Washington state investigated the validity of a predrinking behavior index as a behavioral outcome to assess media effects on precursors to drinking among children for whom alcohol consumption is not yet occurring. It also examined age trends in relevant beliefs and behaviors. Perceptions of advertising desirability increased steadily from third to ninth grade, whereas identification with portrayals leveled off after sixth grade. Expectancies also increased with age, particularly between sixth and ninth grade.

A Path Model Examining the Influence of the Media On Fear of Crime and Protective Act • Mahmoud A.M. Braima, Southern University, Thomas Johnson and Jayanthi Sothirajah, Southern Illinois-Carbondale • In an effort to understand how the media influence people’s fear of crime, this paper proposed and empirically tested a model of the relationship between (1) demographic variables and crime issue involvement; (2) simple exposure to the media, exposure to crime news and crime information seeking; (3) attention to crime content; and (4) fear of crime and taking protective acts against crime. Data from a survey of 311 adult residents of Little Rock, Arkansas Provided preliminary partial support for the developed hypothesis.

The Crisis of Communication for Citizenship: Normative Critiques of News and Democratic Processes • Eric P. Bucy, Indiana University and Paul D’Angelo, Villanova University • Over the last 25 years political communication researchers have presented mounting evidence of how the press fails its public mission by not adequately informing the electorate, presenting an accurate picture of civic affairs, or fostering a sense of connectedness to governing institutions. Perceived shortcomings of the political communication system and sustained controversy in the field over the nature and extent of media deficiencies have led scholars to articulate a crisis of communication for citizenship and a crisis of political communication research.

The Role of Media Examples in The Heuristic Process Model of Cultivation Effects • Rick W. Busselle, Washington State University • This study explores the influence of specific examples on judgments. Analysis is carried out in light of The Heurisitc Process Model of Cultivation Effects (Shrum, 1996). Ss (197) completed a traditional cultivation survey, and six weeks later were divided into two experimental conditions. Condition 1 performed an exemplar accessibility task measuring the amount of time required to think of an example of an extra-marital affair, a shooting, and an African-American doctor.

Developing an Integrated Theory of Recall of News Stories • Margaret H. DeFleur and Melvin L. DeFleur, Boston University • This paper has two objectives: First, an axiomatic theory of news recall is derived from studies of psychological attention sets, principles of perception, studies of folk-tale recall and theories of memory storage, Its seven propositions predict the general nature of patterns of recall among individuals who attend to and retell a typical spot new story. The second objective is to check these predictions against data obtained from a large-scale news recall experiment. The results indicate that the theory has predictive value.

News Coverage of “Moral” Issues, Priming of Candidate Integrity, and the Vote Choice • David Domke, Washington; Dhavan V. Shah, Wisconsin-Madison and Daniel B. Wackman, Minnesota • Relatively unexplored in political communization research is how issues commonly discussed by politicians and news media in “moral” terms influence citizens’ appraisals of candidate character and, through these evaluations, shape voting behavior. In this research, we theorize that moral issues not only influence electoral choices due to citizens’ acceptance or rejection of candidates based on issue stands, but also that thoughts about these issues “carryover” to other political judgments • in particular, perceptions of candidate integrity.

The Cognitive Mediation Model: A Framework for Studying Learning From the News With Survey Methods • William P. Eveland, Jr., Wisconsin • Often survey research on learning from the news implicitly uses a direct effects approach that assumes that exposure directly leads to learning. This paper provides a more sophisticated, multivariate theoretical framework for this area of research in the form of a “cognitive mediation model” based on experimental research in psychology. Existing survey measure that can use to test the model and existing for individual links in the model is summarized.

A Casual Approach to the Third- and First- Person Perceptions • Koji Fuse, Li Jing and Arthur Chang, Texas • This research integrates various contingent variables into c casual model for media effects attribution bias (i.e., third-person, and null perceptions), and uses structural equation modeling to test all path coefficients simultaneously. The analysis suggests the overall food for of the model to the data. Contrary to past findings, however , the path coefficient of ego-involvement on perceived media accuracy turned out to be positive, and that of ego-involvement on the third-/first-person perceptions negative.

The Effects of Tabloid and Standard Television News on Viewer Evaluations, Memory and Arousal • Maria Elizabeth Grabe, Shuhua Zhou, Annie Lang and Paul Bolls, Indiana University • The application of flamboyant video production features is primarily associated with advertising, movies, and MTV music videos. Advances in television production technology, however, have made the application of lavish production technology, however, have made the application of lavish production features less expensive and time consuming, thereby enabling television news producers to incorporate them into their package of news. At the same time, extravagant production features have become part of what critics refer to in their outrage against tabloid news.

Dependency and Control • August E. Grant, Youda Zhu, Debra Van Tuyll, Jennifer Teeter, Juan Carlos Molleda, Yousef Mohammad and Lee Bollinger, South Carolina • A fundamental criterion of any measure is that is be exhaustive, representing every possible value or dimension of the phenomenon is question. To date, the assertion the Ball-Rokeach’s (1985) six dimensions of individual media dependency are exhaustive has been unchallenged. It may be true that every possible goal related to the consumption of media content can be classified into one of the six dimensions, but there may be additional dimensions of individual media dependency that have not yet been explored.

Information Sufficiency and Risk Communication • Robert J. Griffin, Marquette University; Kurt Neuwirth, Cincinnati and Sharon Dunwoody, Wisconsin-Madison • Analysis of a survey of two Great Lakes cities develops and tests part of a model that focuses on characteristics of individuals that might predispose them to seek and process information about risks in different ways. Support is found for the model’s propositions that information sufficiency (a person’s sense of the amount of information needed to cope with a health risk) is based partially on affective response to the risk, which is based in part on perceptions of key characteristics of the risk.

Source Perception and Electrodermal Activity • No-Kon Heo and S. Shyam Sundar, Pennsylvania State University • The Multistage Sequential Model of Face Recognition was used to hypothesize a relationship between electrodermal activity evoked by various communication sources and audience perception of those sources. Skin conductance responses (SCRs) were recorded while subjects (N=28) watched images of 22 communication sources. Perceptions of sources were recorded via a questionnaire. Results showed that sources associated with different program genres evoked different levels of SCRs, and familiarity of sources was positively associated with the level of electrodermal activity.

The “Critics,” “Believers,” and “Outsiders” of Election Polls: Comparing Characteristics of the Third-Person Effect, First-Person Effect and Consensus Effect • Yu-Wei Hu, National Taiwan Normal University and Yi-Chen Wu, Catholic Fu-Jen University • This study utilizes the statistical method of discriminant analysis to illustrate the social and psychological characteristics of the third-person effect, the first person effects, and the consensus effect of election poll reports. The results of the analysis show that those who perceive a third-person effect of the poll reports are quite confident in making voting decisions on the basis of their own knowledge of the campaign activities. These people tend to question the legitimacy of election polling and are the critics of election poll reports.

Family Communication Patterns and Personality Characteristics • Li-Ning Huang, Central Connecticut • A survey was conducted to investigate the relationships between family communication patterns and a set of personality characteristics, including self-esteem, self-disclosure, self-monitoring, desirability of control, social desirability, shyness, and sociability. Results showed that subjects from pluralistic families exhibited greater desire for control, self esteem, and sociability, whereas those from protective families were more likely to be self-monitoring and shy.

Cognitive Innovativeness as a Predictor of Student Attitudes and Intent: An Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior to Online Learning Environments • Tracy Irani and Michelle O’Malley, Florida • This study, using TOPB as a framework, investigated the effect of internal and external cognitive innovativeness on attitudes, beliefs and behavioral intentions related to desire to experience an online Web-based course. Results indicated high internal and external innovators had more positive attitudes than low. Regression analysis suggested that attitude was predictive for high internal innovators, while for high cognitive innovators, attitude and norms were predictive.

The Therapeutic Application of Television: An Experimental Study • Charles Kingsley, Michigan State University • Television has been criticized for contributing to a great many antisocial effects, but it does have beneficialeffects as well. This study examines television’s effect on the mental and emotional health of outpatients. It was hypothesized that the viewing of a nature video qould significantly reduce the ourpatients’ stress levels. An exploratory filed experiment was conducted to test this hypothesis, and the results demonstated tentative support.

The Ability of the AIDS Quilt to Motivate Information Seeking, Personal Discussion and Behavior as a Health Communication Intervention • Christopher Stephen Knaus, Bruce E. Pinkleton and Erica Weintraub Austin, Washington State University • Several seldom-used approaches have demonstrated significant effects with regard to HIV and AIDS education and prevention. The NAMES Project Foundation’s AIDS Memorial Quilt is designed to encourage compassion and increased emotional appeal, which is intended to lead to increased desire to seek information and develop skills concerning the transmission and prevention of the disease. A field experiment (n=560) was used to examine the ability of the AIDS Quilt to motivate information seeking, personal discussion and behavioral outcomes among those who viewed it.

Revisiting the Knowledge Gap Hypothesis: Education, Motivation, and Media Use • Nojin Kwak, Wisconsin-Madison • The findings of this study support the significance of motivational variable and media use in modifying the relationship between education and knowledge acquisition. People’s behavioral involvement in the 1992 presidential campaign influenced the knowledge gap due to education such that the gap was significantly smaller among those with a higher level of involvement. Also, respondents’ TV news viewing during the campaign significantly reduced the knowledge gap between education groups; thus, the more frequently people watched news stories on TV, the smaller the impact of education on knowledge acquisition.

The Effects of Political Talk Radio On Political Attitude Formation: Exposure vs. Knowledge • Gang Heong Lee and Joseph N. Cappella, Pennsylvania • This paper examines the effects of political talk radio (PTR) on the formation of voters’ favorability toward political candidates. It was found that, when compared to a two-sided message, exposure to an ideologically partisan message has an impact on the listeners’ political favorability toward leaders that reflects the dominant direction of the message. Specifically, there is clear and consistent Rush Limbaugh PTR effect such that his party message undermines the Clintons and presidential performance while upholding the Republicans and their performance.

Predicting Online Service Adoption Likelihood Among Nonsubscribers • Carolyn A. Lin, Cleveland State University • As we approach the dawn of the digital television revolution, the convergence between television and online services continues to progress along technological as well as content dimensions. With further erosion of the television audience on the horizon, it is speculated that PC-TV use will on day displace traditional TV use. This study investigates the relations between perceived television use and online access motives among non-online subscribers • the audience segment that is being courted by the online industry, and how much relations influence the likelihood of online service adoption.

The Third-person Perception and Support for Restriction of Pornography: Some Methodological Problems • Ven-hwei Lo and Anna R. Paddon, National Chengchi University • The third-person effect hypothesis, that people perceive media to impact others more than themselves, also posits this perception may lead to greater support for censorship. Teens from 15 high schools in Taipei, Taiwan, were surveyed and the results support the existence of third-person effects. However, the magnitude of the perceptual bias between perceived first-and third-person effects. However, the magnitude of the perceptual bias between perceived first- and third-person effects did not predict support for restriction.

Television News Coverage of Social Protest: Framing Effects of Status Quo Bias • Douglas M. McLeod and Benjamin H. Detenber, Delaware • This study investigated framing effects of television news stories. Participants watched one of three news stories about an Anarchist protest, which differed by level of status quo bias (High vs. Medium vs. Low). Status quo bias had significant linear effects on perceptions of the protesters and police, tolerance for the protesters’ expressive rights, and estimates of the protest’s effectiveness, popular support and newsworthiness, but not to general perceptions of protest as a form of democratic expression.

Understanding Deliberation: The Effects of Discussion Networks on Participation in a Public Forum • Jack M. McLeod, Dietram A. Scheufele, Patricia Moy, Edward M. Horowitz, R. Lance Holbert, Weiwu Zhang, Stephen Zubric and Jessica Hicks, Wisconsin-Madison • Participation in a deliberative forum has received relatively little scrutiny relative to traditional forms of participation, such as voting or contacting an official. This study examines the role of individuals’ discussion networks in predicting their willingness to participate in a deliberative forum. Using data collected from a midwestern city in the fall of 1997 (n=416), we employed structural equation modeling techniques to examine a provisional model of public deliberation. This model identified two pathways linking network characteristics to participation in a deliberative forum.

Framing the Nicotine Debate: A Cultural Approach to Risk • Priscilla Murphy, Temple University • This study examined Congressional testimony, concerning regulation of tobacco advertising, by three policy factions representing industry, government, and lay activists. It was based on the cultural theory of risk, which divides policy disputants into entrepreneurial, bureaucratic, and egalitarian communities, each with a distinct cosmology. Major themes in the testimony were identified through semantic network analysis and clustering of associated words that revealed discourse patterns peculiar to each group and reflecting the cultural theory of risk.

Viewer Elaboration About News Video • Michael Murrie, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale • Based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model by Petty and Cacioppo, a Model of Interactive Media Elaboration is proposed to experimentally test the relationships of the independent variables • need for cognition, distraction, pacing (view time and pause time), and repetition • with the dependent variable, elaboration about nonlinear (interactive) video, measured by thinking aloud. Elaboration for linear and nonlinear video news stories was compared using a repeated measures crossover design. Elaboration was greater for nonlinear video.

Mood Congruence and the Utility of Sad Media Content•An Exploration of “Wallowing” • Kimberly A. Neuendorf, Cleveland State University • Drawing on the psychological literature on mood congruence, and the communication literature on mood management and uses and gratifications, an model is developed which examines functional congruent affect-seeking media behavior (i.e., “wallowing”). Questionnaire data from 86 undergraduates reveal (1) the existence of three distinct types of wallowing (active, passive, and “cathartic crying”), (2) no relationship between wallowing and media content preferences, even under conditions of state depression, and (3) some support for the prediction that wallowers will be more likely than non-wallowers to respond to depression with greater functional use of sad content.

Self-Consciousness and Personal Web Presence • Ghee-Young Noh, Michigan State University • This research attempts to test hypotheses regarding underlying factors that cause people to create similar personal homepagers. The results suggest that self-consciousness, especially private self-consciousness, affect several aspects of the Web design concept. Moreover, this research suggests that the concept of self-consciousness may be useful to identify or predict social identity and self-disclosure on Web presence. While public self-consciousness had effects on family identity presence, private self-consciousness had effects on self-disclosure.

Evidence for Selective Perception in the Processing of Health Campaign Messages •Ekaterina Ognianova, Southwest Texas State University and Esther Thorson, Missouri • This study tested the psychological mechanism that operates in audiences’ processing of health or safety campaign messages, specifically selective perception vs. perceptual defense. Three different surveys conducted in two Midwestern states between 1995 and 1997 provided consistent evidence for the operation of selective perception, especially in regards to messages that don’t call for radical changes in behavior. The study has both theoretical and practical implications for the understanding and design of health and safety campaigns.

Effects of Source Power Distance and Collective Versus Individual Appeal Strategies on Mexican-American and Anglo Young Adults’ Responses to Televised Alcohol Warnings • Anna Perea and Michael D. Slater, Colorado State University • This research examined the responses of 73 Mexican-American and Anglo young adults to four televised drinking and driving warnings., Warnings were manipulated into collective and individualist appeals, and to high and low power distance appeals through the use of a Surgeon General attribution. Females rated the collectivist warnings, and males the individualist warnings, more believable. Anglos rated warnings without the Surgeon General as the source more believable than warnings with the Surgeon General as the sources; the opposite was true for Latinos.

Identifying Structure Features of Radio: Orienting and Memory for Radio Messages • Robert F. Potter, Annie Lang and Paul Bolls, Indiana University • This paper examines the ability of nine different structural and content features of radio to elicit orienting responses from radio listeners. It further tests the effect of the orienting response on listeners’ memory for information presented immediately following the orienting eliciting feature. Results show that eight of the nine features elicit orienting responses. On average, memory is better for information presented following those features than it is for information presented before the features.

From Framing to Frame Theory: A Research Method Turns Theoretical Concept • Wim Roefs, South Carolina • Through a thematic discussion of the development of frame research in mass communications studies, the paper explains how ‘framing’ has turned from a research method into a theoretical concept that is increasingly at the center of mass communications studies. At the end, it is proposed that researchers make a distinction between “framing” and “frame theory” to avoid semantic confusion.

Perceptions of Media Power and Moral Influence: Issue Legitimacy and the Third-Person Effect • Michael B. Salwen, Michel Dupagne and Bryant Paul, Miami • A national telephone survey was conducted to investigate whether the perceived legitimacy of issues mediates the third-person effect. The third-person effect involves two general hypotheses: (1) a perceptual hypothesis, which predicts that people perceive other people to be more vulnerable than themselves to harmful media effects; and (2) a behavioral hypotheses, which predicts that perceiving others as more vulnerable increases support for restrictions. Issue legitimacy was hypothesized to reduce third-person perception and support for restrictions.

Persuasive Power and Effect Negativity: Assessing Perceived Media Influence to Test the Third-Person Effect Hypothesis • Dhavan V. Shah, Ronald J. Faber, Seounmi Han Youn and Hernando Rojas, Minnesota • In this study, we posit that two distinct factors underlie both the perceptual and the behavioral components of the third-person effect hypothesis: The estimated power (the amount of influence) and the estimated negativity (the valence of influence) of mass communications. To explore these issues, we surveyed 194 adults, using a mall-intercept procedure, who estimated the power and negativity of various types of advertising messages on self and others, and expressed their willingness to censor these classes of commercials.

Psychological Process in Perceiving Reality • Michael A. Shapiro and T. Makana Chock, Cornell University • Little attention has been paid to the mental processes and story elements influencing moment-to-moment perceived reality judgments. One possibility is that people compare story elements to a typical prototype. In three experiments a manipulation of atypical information in a “soap opera” or a news story predicted about half the variance in perceived reality. In a fourth experiment, participants used dials to continuously rate entertainment television shows for interest, liking, typicality, or perceived reality.

Deeper Into Media Use Motivations: The Role of Biology in Media Use • John L. Sherry, Arizona • Little media research and theory has addressed the contribution of biologically rooted individual differences to media use or effects. This study examines the relationship between television use motivations and individual differences in temperament, a multi-dimensional variable which is biologically rooted, stable across the lifespan and accounts for how individuals differ in behavioral tendencies. A survey was conducted of 285 undergraduates using he Dimensions of Temperament Survey and the Greenberg Uses and Gratifications scale.

The Role of Intentionally in Social Explanation: How Individual Difference Variables Can Help Build Communications Theories of Persuasion • Janas E. Sinclair, Florida •Philosophers of science emphasize that social scientific theories provide the most complete explanation of phenomenon when they account for the intentions of individuals. In this paper it is argued that mass communication theories of persuasion are also best able to explain human behavior when the intentions of individuals are considered. Mass communication theories of persuasion that do not account for intentions are examined. Individual differences variables are also examined as a way in which researchers may account for the intentions of individuals.

Effects of Media Use on Audience Framing and Support for Welfare • Mira Sotirovic, Illinois-Urbana-Champaign • This paper examines cognitive structures underlying individuals’ simple preferential response to a survey question measuring attitudes toward welfare. The closed-ended question was followed by an open-ended question used to obtain cognitive responses consisting of frames used in individuals’ reasoning about consequences of cutting welfare benefits. From the results it is evident that media are important source of frames that people use to think about issues. More importantly, those frames that are related to particular patterns of media use seem to have power to alter even deep ideologically motivated welfare preferences.

Germany and the United States Mirrored: An Exploration of Computer-Assisted Content Analysis • Robert L. Stevenson, North Carolina; Sabine Stiemerling and Antje Brockmann, Ludwig Maximilians-UniversitSt MYnchen and Haoming Denis Wu, North Carolina • Content analysis, used in one-quarter to one-third of recently published communication research articles, has been influenced, albeit modestly to date, by rapid growth in availability of electronic news archives and simple computer programs that expand the range of material examined and, to some degree, emulate traditional coding techniques. This study addressed the question of the image of the United States and Germany as reflected in two major daily newspapers, the New York Times and SYddeutsche Zeitung of Munich, as a case study of computer-assisted content analysis.

Mass Media and Social Change: A Theoretical and Methodological Comparison of the Tradition and the Future • Andrew H. Utterback, University of Utah • The purpose of this essay is to describe and differentiate research concerned with media and social change from two theoretical and methodological camps: the sociological tradition and a cultural studies approach. The essay shows that a cultural studies approach serves to increase our understanding of the relationship between media and social change through an expansion of our filed of objects of study, a (re)valuation of validity over reliability in our choice of methods, and a concrete and explicit concern for the success of the goals of cultural, political, material, and social equality above the myths of scientific objectivism.

Video Violence: Desensitization and Excitation Effects on Learning • Bradford L. Yates, Michelle Ballard, Mary Ann Ferguson, Kirk Filer, Ann Villanueva, Alison Knott and Tracy Cristal, Florida • An experiment tested desensitization and excitation effects of video violence on learning.

<< 1998 Abstracts

Communication Technology and Policy Division

Reassessing Public Support for Public Access Cablevision: A Faded Passion? • David Atkin, Kimberly Neuendorf and Leo W. Jeffres, Cleveland State University • This paper examines performance issues concerning local public, educational and government (PEG) access channels. The study is based on a survey of cable subscribers in a major metropolitan market. The findings suggest that community access channels compare favorably with many satellite-delivered channels, though viewership is not strongly related to use of other media. Open-ended responses suggest that meetings are the most commonly viewed access fare, followed by sports programming.

Old Scarcities, New Spaces, and the Public Interest in the New TV: Stakeholder Arguments in DBS • Patricia Aufderheide, American University • The U.S. Federal Communications Commission proceeding on public interest obligations of direct broadcast satellite service providers provides a sharply defined test case of the meaning of the public interest in rapidly changing environment for U.S. electronic media. It demonstrates remarkable continuity, despite new technologies and competitive environments, with past policy. It also demonstrates the frailty of social institutions and resources to propose and implement such policies.

The Digital Satellite System: Innovation Attributes and Adoption • Ted Carlin, Shippensburg University-Pennsylvania • The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the adoption of a new communication innovation (the Digital Satellite System) and the consumer’s perception of its attributes. A self-administered mail questionnaire was utilized to collect the data. Stepwise multiple regression analyses showed that adoption of the DSS was significantly influenced, positively and negatively, by a number of attributes. The objective attributes of receive dish size, monthly programming cost, DSS equipment cost, and DSS channel variety influenced the adoption of the DSS.

Toward Building Issue Awareness and Knowledge: Including the Internet in a Repertoire of Information Sources • Alice P. Chan, Cornell University • Adopting the perspective of a repertoire of information sources, this paper evaluates how the Internet can aid in issue awareness and knowledge building. In the analysis, motivations for information seeking and the respective strengths of mass media and interpersonal communication are reviewed. Then, user and medium characteristics of the Internet are discussed in comparison and contrast with those of existing mass and interpersonal information sources. Implications for future research and public policy are also recommended.

Computerization of Taiwanese Newspapers • Li-jing Arthur Chang, Texas-Austin • This study attempts to describe the adoption of computer technology by the Taiwanese newspapers and explain the adoption process with the diffusion of innovations theory. Findings showed that the adoption process can be explained using the three perceived attributes under the theory: (1) the perceived relative advantage of an innovation over the old idea, (2) it compatibility with existing values and needs of potential clients, and (3) it complexity in use and understanding.

On-Line or Off-Base?: A Pilot Study to Determine Undergraduate Student Perceptions About Offering A Journalism/Mass Communication Course on the Web • Barbara J. DeSanto and J. Steven Smethers, Oklahoma State University • Computer-based distance education is being touted as one of the futurist ways to offer a variety of students courses they otherwise would not be able to take because of distance and/or time. While studies have been done on the designing Internet courses, little has been done to assess student perceptions or preferences about participating in this type of course. This pilot study specifically targets undergraduate communication students to ascertain their reactions to on-line courses in a profession that demands a certain level of social interaction to be successful.

Newspaper Size as a Factor in Use of Computer-Assisted Reporting • Bruce Garrison, Miami • The paper investigates the role of newspaper circulation as a factor in use of computer-assisted reporting resources by U.S. daily newspapers. The study analyzes the relationships between newspaper size and general computer use in newsgathering, the number of staff people involved in computer-assisted reporting, availability of training programs, use of portable computing, use of online research services, online spending, and existence of World Wide Web sites. The study found support for six of seven hypotheses suggesting that larger newspapers have a distinct advantage in computer use in newsgathering.

Interactivity Reexamined: An Analysis of Business Web Sites • Louisa Ha, The Gallup Organization and E. Lincoln James, Washington State University • This study reexamined the concept of interactivity and proposed that interactivity be defined as the extent to which the communicator and the audience responded to each other’s communication need. Interactivity was constructed as comprising five dimensions: 1) playfulness, 2) choice, 3) connectedness, 4) information collection, and 5) reciprocal communication. Business web sites were analyzed in order to illustrate the application of interactivity dimensions on the Web.

Computer • Mediated Communication (CMC): A Response to the Social Information Processing Perspective • Vernon Harper, Howard University • This paper examines one of the fastest growing communication technologies. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has long been the source scholarly inquiry. One of the most substantial theories to explain CMC effects is the social information processing perspective. The social information processing perspective describes how the rate of message exchange creates high levels of impression formation in CMC participants. The present paper explores the social information processing perspective and charts a new course for CMC research.

The Rural-Urban Gap in Community Newspaper Editors’ Use of Information Technologies • Douglas Blanks Hindman, Stan Ernst and Mavis Richardson, North Dakota State University • This paper is an exploration of community newspaper editors’ use of two types of information technologies that are a) compatible with, and b) incompatible with the routine production of the newspaper. Findings were that indicators of social status were closely associated with editor’s use of incompatible technologies. Nationally, gaps between rural and urban communities with on-line newspapers appear to be widening.

Kids on the Net: User Characteristics and Effects of Computer-Mediated Communication on Mass Media and Interpersonal Interaction • Nojin Kwak and So-Hyang Yoon, Wisconsin-Madison • This paper investigated what factors contribute to adolescents’ use of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and how adolescents’ CMC use influences their traditional media use and interpersonal interaction. Four distinct measures of CMC use were employed: exposure, frequency, intensity, and duration. Findings demonstrate that respondents’ social/demographic characteristics, gratifications sought, and psychological attachment to CMC are important correlates of CMC use. Also, family background was found to moderate the association between psychological attachment to CMC and CMC use.

The Effects of Hypertext on Readers’ Recall Based on Gender • Moon Jeong Lee, Florida • This study was interested in the effects of hypertext verses traditional text on readers’ recall with added consideration for gender and gender constancy differences. The effect of different text formats was found significant in on article • traditional text had higher scores. The gender effect was significant in the other article. Males scored higher than females. Gender constancy was not significant.

The Convergence of the Web and Television: Current Technological Situation and its Future • Seungwhan Lee, Indiana University • This paper attempts to conceptualize the convergence of the World Wide Web and television broadcasting. For this purpose, the paper explains the possibilities for convergence using McQuail’s four patterns of information traffic and Hoffman and Novak’s media topology. Then the study compares three current forms of convergence such as “WebTV,” “Intercast,” and “Webcasting,” focusing on comparing the technological advantages and disadvantages of each technology. Using Cherry’s “liberties of action” concept, the last part of the paper discusses the future of Web broadcasting.

Searching for Violence on the Internet: An Exploratory Analysis of MTV Online Music Video Clips • Greg Makris, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This study explored violence in the content of MTV Online music video clips. A sample of 150 MTV Online video clips were content analyzed using a normative definition of violence and several qualitative dimensions of violence, including the nature of the violent acts, the consequences of the acts, and the characteristics of the perpetrators and victims of the acts. A wide variety of acts were observed within the sample, however few video clips contained violence, and much of the violence was less-severe in nature.

Interactivity: A Qualitative Exploration of Definitions and Models • Sally J. McMillan and Edward J. Downes, Boston University • The literature on interactivity includes many assumptions and some definitions but few tools for operationalizing the concept of “interactivity” in computer-mediated environments. This paper takes a first step in filling that gap. In-depth interviews with 10 individuals who work and teach in the field of interactive communication led us to a six-dimension conceptual definition of interactivity. Based on these dimensions, we propose a Model of Cyber-Interactivity which we plan to test empirically in future research.

The Unique Nature of Communications Regulation: Evidence and Implications for Communications Policy Analysis • Philip M. Napoli, Rutgers University • This paper argues that communications regulation posses three fundamental differences from the regulation of other industries. These differences are: (a) the fact the FCC regulatory decisions often have a potential for social, cultural, and political impact that extends well beyond the individual institutions or organizations directly involved in these decisions; (b) the difficulty with categorizing FCC regulatory responsibilities and decisions as purely economic or purely social regulation; and (c) the consequent ambiguity and multiple interpretations surrounding the FCC’s mandate to serve the “public interest, convenience or necessity.”

Motivation, Design and Personal Web Presence • Ghee-Young Noh, Michigan State University • This study identified six motives for authoring a personal homepage: escape, promotion, pleasure, contribution, communication, and family. It also identified some connections between those motivation pattern and design/content outcomes using content analysis and e-mail survey data. While the goal-oriented motivation such as promotion and contribution positively affected functional design and media richness, the entertainment motivation such as escape had a negative effect on media richness. The results support that motivation patterns are connected to specific media behavior.

Cyberstalking: Victims Use Online Resources to Fight Back • Ashley Packard and Susanne Gaddis, Houston • CyberAngels, a group that “patrols” the Internet to discourage online stalking, estimates that if ratios of real-world stalkers were superimposed upon the Internet, there would be 40,000 Internet stalkers harassing as many as 3000,000 victims. This article examines the phenomenon of cyberstalking and resources victims have used to defend themselves. It also assesses the effectiveness of state and federal criminal legislation intended to address the problem, as well as civil remedies available to victims.

From the Ether to Cyberspace: Development Patterns in Emerging Media • Randall Patnode, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This paper outlines a systems model of how emerging media develop based on the historical patterns of radio and the Internet. It identifies three phases of new media development and links these phases to Rogers’ diffusion of innovation s-curve. The three phases are: innovation, driven by individuals experimenting with the new medium; opportunity, driven by system-owners, information producers, and financial speculators; and maintenance,. driven by system-owners and regulatory bodies.

Online Journalism and Media Convergence: Empty Promises for Small Markets? • Ann E. Preston, Quincy University • This case study of a small market television network affiliate, daily newspaper and radio station explores the degree to which online journalism’s promised expansion of archival sources, cross-media collaboration of journalists and convergence of media are being realized. The three media share the same owner and philosophy of communitarian journalism. Findings suggest that while major markets may be reaping the benefits of online journalism, small market journalists rely on traditional skills and conventions.

A Political Economic Review of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 • Julian Rush, Brigham Young University and Jos Blanco, Saint Mary’s College of California • This paper analyzes the political-economic underpinnings and impacts of the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (TA), on February 8, 1996. The paper explores the intended market initiatives, the legislative history and political economy of the new law. As with any new legislation, the stated benefits and goals for the American consumer have been obscured due to competitive position undertaken by telecommunication firms. The authors have reviewed the plethora of mergers, lawsuits and administrative agency decision-making and posit whether the competitive end of the law have been justified or fulfilled positive changes in telecommunications markets and improved social welfare.

Digital Imaging and the Photojournalist: Work and Workload Issues • John Russial, Oregon • This paper examines the impact of digital imaging on the nature of newspaper photojournalism work. The shift from chemical to digital processing has brought an increase in staffing. The study, which is based on a national sample of photo editors, offers some support for the view that news production technologies are greeted with some ambivalence in newsrooms because they both enrich the job and enlarge it at the same time. Photo editors are largely positive about digital imaging, saying that it increases photographers’ flexibility in working with images and autonomy but that it also makes photo work more routine and leads to a grater priority on production.

Mass Media and the Concept of Interactivity: An Exploratory Study of Online Forums and Reader E-Mail • Tanjev Schultz, Indiana University • Mass media are well represented on the World Wide Web now. But it is not clear yet how interactive they will be in the online environment. The paper first goes over theoretical implications, discussing lack of interactivity in traditional mass media. Then it identifies concrete settings and levels of interactivity in online journalism. Finally, and exploratory study of New York Times journalists and forum participants helps to illustrate chances and problems of mass media online.

The Tease Effect of Slow Downloading: Arousal and Excitation Transfer in Online Communication • S. Shyam Sundar and Carson B Wagner, Pennsylvania State University • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

Online Newspapers: Living Up to Their Potential? • James W. Tankard, Jr. and Hyun Ban, Texas-Austin • McLuhan postulated that new media emulate the forms of old media. This study examined the extent to which online newspapers are taking advantage of the special features offered by the Internet, including hypertext, interactivity and multimedia. While some online newspapers have adopted such innovations as frequent updating, hypertext links embedded in stories, multimedia features other than photographs, and interactivity features other than e-mail addresses and search engines for archives, most have not.

The Role of Local Government in Information Age After the Passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 • Kuo-Feng Tseng, Michigan State University • Convergence of communications technology, such as cable television, telephone, and computer network, has made those primary separate industrial players enter each other’s service. The passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 removed barriers to entry and affects cities in management of rights-of-way, local zoning authority and municipalities’ ownership in the integrated telecommunication services. This paper examines related policies of cable television, telecommunications, and wireless services from nineteen Michigan communities, to provide basic principles of regulatory instruments for other municipalities.

Controlling the Uncontrollable: Export controls on Encryption Technology • Rita Zajacz, Indiana University • This paper uses the statist paradigm to examine the state-industry controversy over export controls of encryption technologies from the inception of the debate in 1991 through November 1996. By examining the fate of bills proposed for the liberalization of encryption technologies and the administration’s Clipper chip initiatives, we can conclude that the American state clearly preferred security over wealth maximization in policy making, and it proved to be very successful in fielding Congressional challenge.

<< 1998 Abstracts