Commission on the Status of Women

Reframing Media Coverage of Women’s Health: Magazine Reports on Breast Cancer and Implants in the 1990s • Julie L. Andsager, Washington State University and Angela Powers, Northern Illinois University • This study examined how women’s magazines covered breast cancer implants, considering whether information focused on social or economic issues, extending similar research on newspaper coverage. Traditional and computerized content analysis methods were used to determine the issues, sources, and frames appearing in four Magazines. The sources used and the frames that emerged suggested that magazines presented breast cancer in ways compatible with a sense-making approach, though the same was not true for breast implants.

Media Coverage of Women’s Sports: Perspectives of Female Journalists and Athletes in the United States and Norway • Bente Bjornsen, Denver • This paper examines how female journalists and athletes feel about media coverage of women’s sports, focusing in particular on newspapers in the United State and Norway. Using a critical theoretical framework, the research explores how patriarchal power structures and values within mass media and sports shape portrayal of female athletes. Interviews with female ski racers and female sports journalists reveal that they believe female athletes receive less sports-related coverage in newspapers than do male athletes, and that newspapers view male athletes as more important.

An Examination of the Women Featured in Broadcasting and Cable’s “Fifth Estater” 1992-1997 • Constance Ledoux Book, Meredith College • The men and women selected by the editors of Broadcasting and Cable for recognition in the weekly column “Fifth Estater” were examined over a five year period. Using the data made available in the weekly column a content analysis of those covered was conducted. Units of analysis included race, education, type of medium where employed, the number of positions held before recognition and a host of personal issues. Women comprised 12% of the sample and were significantly different than men in several ways: education level, number of positions held before recognition, type of medium where employed, whether married, divorced or have children.

News of “Kiddie Killings”: Feminist Theories of News Coverage and Violence • Mia Consalvo, Iowa • This case study of three shooting sprees by young boys in the South argues that feminist theories of violence against women were ignored as possible explanators in media analysis of the killings. This research points to the need for feminist theory to broaden its view of violence against women to highlight issues of power and coercive control, and show how these acts of violence serve to maintain individuals’ control over situations and other people.

Gender, Beauty, and Western Influence: Negotiated Femininity in Japanese Women’s Magazines • Fabienne Darling-Wolf, Iowa • This analysis of five Japanese women’s magazines investigates how Japan’s long history of Western influence might have impacted this country’s cultural representations of female beauty. Intended as a pilot study for a larger scale project, this analysis explores how Western influence is integrated and negotiated in these publications. It concludes that while Western influence is evident, Western-style consumption is often reinscribed into specially Japanese constructions of gender and sexuality.

Suffocating Jezebel, Sapphire and Mammy: Persistent Cross-Media Stereotypes of African-American Women in “Waiting to Exhale” • E-K. Daufin, Alabama State University • The film “Waiting to Exhale” continues to impact the film and video industry, as well as on the fabric of African American women’s psyche and intimate relationships in the Black community. This study is based on a focus group of 28 African American viewers and a social-reality model critique. It looks at cross-media stereotypes in the film and their social, cultural and marketing ramifications.

Beyond Tokenism: Multicultural Communications Theory and Practice • B. Carol Eaton, Syracuse University • This paper addresses scholars and practitioners in mass communications about the importance of including comprehensive diversity and “multiculturalism” in all aspects of their work. To that end, this paper briefly outlines one theoretical perspective that can be used for multicultural mass communication research and practice. The paper then develops a working model of multicultural communications to help practitioners, teachers, and researchers in the field include class, ethnicity, gender, and other intersections of identity in their work.

Gender Differences in the Perceptions of Television News Anchors’ Career Barriers • Erika Engstrom and Anthony J. Ferri, Nevada-Las Vegas • A nationwide mail survey of 246 local TV news anchors was conducted to examine anchors’ perceptions of hindrances to their career progress. Women anchors; highest-rated barrier was the overemphasis on their physical appearance; lack of professional networks and support groups ranked the highest for men. Career barriers ranked highly by anchors of both sexes included: balance between work and family life, conflicting roles of wife/mother or husband/father and professional newscaster, and relocation.

Women Correspondent Visibility 1983-1997 • Joe S. Foote and Cynthia Price, Southern Illinois University • This study, covering 15 years from 1983-1997, is the first longitudinal study to examine the visibility of women correspondents on the network television evening news. After stagnating during the eighties, women’s visibility increased sharply during the early nineties, providing a firm foundation for incremental improvement. By 1997, more than half of women correspondents were among the 100 most visible, up from less than 25 percent fifteen years earlier, but their inclusion among the top ten remained elusive.

Blame and Shame: Teen-aged Mothers, Ideologies and the New York Times • Dustin Harp, Wisconsin-Madison • While taking into account the complexities of adolescent pregnancy within the context of a culture that both sexualizes teen-aged girls and admonishes them for being sexually active, this research explores ways in which the New York Times’ coverage of teen-aged pregnancy and motherhood from 1992 through 1996 reflected dominant ideologies of motherhood. Through text analysis, and drawing on a feminist theoretical perspective of the ideology of motherhood, the research investigates the nature of 18 articles.

Mary, Patricia, Maxine and Cynthia: Tracing the Stories Behind the First Rape Victim Identification Debates, for Columbia S.C. 1909 to the U.S. Supreme Court 1975 • Kim E. Karloff, California State University-Northridge • The press has been grappling with the issue of identifying rape victims long before Patricia Bowman and the Central Park Jogger made headlines. So have the courts. While Florida Star v. B.J.F. in 1989 served as the U.S. Supreme Court’s last statement on the legal debate, it first addressed the issue in 1975’s Cox Broadcasting v. Cohn, a broadcast case out of Georgia. State leaders and residents, however, have been stewing over the matter since the turn of the century.

Sexual Saints and Suffering Sinners: The Uneasy Feminism of The Masses, 1911-1917 • Carolyn Kitch, Northwestern University • During the 1910s, both the women’s rights movement and Socialism gained widespread support in American. This paper examines the intersection of these causes in the radical magazine The Masses, offering a rhetorical analysis of its verbal and visual imagery of women and the working poor. It argues that the magazine’s conflation of gender and class and its inability to transcend stereotypes weakened its arguments about both women’s rights and Socialism at a crucial political movement.

Listen Up: A Comparison of Male and Female Opinion on the Issue of Family Values • Myra Gregory Knight, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Recently, many newspapers have intensified efforts to attract new readers, in particular working women. Some have hired female columnists, who are assumed to write more on topics of interest to women and in a style more pleasing to them. This study compares opinion columns by men and women to see whether such gender differences exists. The women were found to frame a “woman’s” issue differently and to employ a more “feminine” writing style.

Blurring the Lines: Postfeminism, Sanity and Ally McBeal • Abigail S. Leafe, Syracuse University • This research uses a theoretical feminist perspective to examine Ally McBeal, a new primetime television drama, giving special attention to the concept of postfeminism. The investigation revealed that, on Ally McBeal, the private sphere invades the public to the extent that they are hopelessly intertwined. The result, for the program’s protagonist, is complete chaos and loss of mental stability. Femininity, female gazes and bonding, as well as the program’s implications for women are also examined.

War Stories: Women Correspondents Battle to Cover the Vietnam Conflict • Christine Martin, West Virginia University • Although women correspondents have covered wars since the Spanish-American conflict, it was not until the Vietnam War that they achieved fill access to the battlefield and equal opportunities to cover all aspects of the conflict. Easily attained army accreditation, the burgeoning women’s movement and the unique nature of the Vietnam War • a Third World, essentially, political conflict • combined to offer women reporters unprecedented opportunities to cover the war and to prove themselves as worthy members of journalism’s elite crew • war correspondents.

Gender Roles in Rumpelstiltskin: The Effect of Fantasy Portrayals on Real-Life Attitudes • Katjar R. Pinkston • This research explored to what extent 82 fourth graders would respond to gender roles stereotypically after having watched a heavily stereotyped film of Rumpelstiltskin compared to a new, less stereotypical version. It was found that the 1965 group was more likely to reply that women were gentle and cried more often, while men got into fights, made most rules, and protected others than those who watched the 1986 version or who saw no film.

All I Really Needed to Know (About Beauty) I Learned by Kindergarten: A Cultivation Analysis • Susannah R. Stern, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This study addressed young girls’ conceptions of beauty in conjunction with their media consumption to illuminate the early development of beauty standards and definitions. The relationship between amount of television viewing and perceptions of beauty were examined among 63 kindergarten girls. The results revealed that heavier television viewers differed from lighter viewers in their definitions of and standards for beauty. Overall, evidence was found for a cultivation effect; heavier viewers’ perceptions of beauty adhered more closely to those patterns which currently persist in television content.

The Portrayal of Professional Beach Volleyball Players in Three Major Newspapers, 1995-1997: An Analysis of Media Coverage of Male and Female Athletes • Troy Tanner, Brigham Young University • This study investigates print media portrayals of female and male professional beach volleyball players. Beach volleyball coverage in the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Sun Tribune and the Sun-Sentinel (Ft. Lauderdale) was examined from the years 1995 to 1997. Both quantitative content analyses and qualitative analyses are used to test the hypothesis that women professional beach volleyball players, consistent with the coverage of female athletes in general, are underrepresented, treated as inferior to men, and often framed within the context of sexuality rather than athletic ability.

<< 1998 Abstracts

Small Programs Interest Group

The Newsroom Approach to Improving Writing and Reporting Courses: Murder, Rape, Child-care and Crisis Counseling 101 • Kim E. Karloff, California State University-Northridge • While newswriting and reporting textbooks instruct them to “write with particular care when accusing someone of a crime,” and newspaper headlines highlight the fact that rapes and sexual assaults continue to plague their streets, homes and campuses, and statistics indicates at least 9 percent of their friends will become pregnant or develop an STD, few journalism students say they are truly equipped to cover such woes. This paper suggests that while future journalists may be more open to discussing these issues than their media predecessors, they learn more about covering such news by meeting with media professionals and the experts, scholars and counselors who work daily in their respective fields.

Teaching Beginning News Reporting Using the Conferencing Method • Sally Turner, Emporia State University • While composition professors for decades have been discussing and experimenting with ways to teach writing that would enhance learning and performance, only rarely do these dialogues spill over onto those who teach writing in other disciplines. This paper focuses on what the research, largely qualitative and anecdotal, says about teaching news writing as a process, and specific ways to quantify that research as we begin, in our field, to explore the most effective ways to teach news writing.

Assessing the Teaching of Media Ethics in Small Programs • John W. Williams, Principia College • Higher education in American is under attack and one of the forms of the attack is the growing threat of the federal government to participate more fully in institutional accreditation. In response to the threat, regional accrediting bodies have been pushing for institutional self-assessment for the purpose of institutional improvement. The assessment movement, including outcomes-based assessment and performance assessment, is filtering down to the individual instructor and course level. This paper is an exploration of one instructor’s attempt to design assessment process, by which he can assess student change using an experimental method.

<< 1998 Abstracts

Science Communication Interest Group

Risk Perception and Information Management Responses to a Predicted Earthquake: Was the Optimism Unrealistic? • L. Erwin Atwood, Pennsylvania State University • Management of threatening information is one means by which individuals respond to perceived risks from predicted disasters. Analysis of correlates of unrealistic optimism, pessimism, and realism indicate that responses to threats of death or injury differ from those regarding threats of property damage. Pessimists are clearly differentiated from optimists and realists by perceived risk perceive effects of news media and discussions with family and friends, and by gender and age.

Evaluating Assertions About Science Writing, Reporting and News Selection: A Content Analysis of the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times • Robert A. Logan, Peng Zengjun and Nancy Fraser Wilson, Missouri-Columbia • In this study, science news in the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times within biennial periods from 1989-1995 is analyzed to explore seven research questions about science reporting, writing and news selection. Among the findings are: the percentage of issue oriented stories in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times was higher than suggested within the literature. The percent of stories in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times that embedded educational-informative content was higher than suggested with the literature.

Setting the National News Agenda from New York: When the Times Changed the Dioxin Heath Risk Frame • Glynn R. Wilson, Tennessee-Knoxville • New York Times dioxin coverage from 1989 to 1994 is studied utilizing agenda-setting, framing and gatekeeping theory, with traditional and computer-assisted content analysis techniques. A major health risk frame changed in 1991, when a front page story compared the risks to sunbathing. The story was picked up by other news outlets, potentially leading to public confusion. The combined theory and methods employed here codify in the news frames and address implications for media agenda-setting.

Historical Survey of Media Coverage of Biotechnology in the United States 1970 to 1996 • Bruce V. Lewenstein, Tracy Allaman and Shobita Parthasarathy, Cornell University • Media coverage of biotechnology has played a crucial role in carrying debates about the science, technology, economic, and ethical issues of biotechnology from halls of academe, business, and government to a broader audience. The basic pattern of such coverage has been characterized as a shift from criticism of “genetic engineering” in the 1970s through a more promotional tone on “biotechnology” in the 1980s, and a more nuanced but nonetheless positive tone in the 1990s.

The Role of Attribution and Framing in Rationalizing About Risk Estimates • LeeAnn Kahlor and Sharon Dunwoody, Wisconsin-Madison and Robert J. Griffin, Marquette University • This study looked at factors that may be related to the ways in which people make sense of quantitative risk estimated. The concepts of framing, attribution and informal reasoning aid in this endeavor. Analyses of open-ended comments in a survey about the risk of getting sick from a waterborne parasite indicate that people’s explanations of their level of risk are consistent with predictions made by attribution theory, but are only weakly related to interpretive frames that they may have encountered in the media and other channels.

The Mars Meteorite: A Case Study in Controls on Dissemination of Science News • Vincent Kiernan, Maryland • Through interviews with participants and analysis of media reports, this paper reconstructs preparations by NASA and the American Association for the Advancement of Science regarding discovery of fossilized bacteria in a meteorite from Mars in 1996. The agencies attempted to manipulate the timing and manner of press coverage to serve their own ends. Contrary to the agencies’ stated rationale for embargoes on science news, premature disclosure of the paper in the media did not produce inaccurate media reports.

Newspaper Source Use on the Environmental Beat: A Comparative Case Study • Stephen Lacy, Michigan State University and David C. Coulson, Nevada-Reno • The purpose of this study is to determine whether reporters covering the environmental beat used more diverse sources than are relied on under a traditional beat system. Even though newspapers have Broadened their beat systems to include a greater diversity of topics, the inclusion of a greater diversity of sources has not necessarily followed. In this study of six large and prestigious dailies, the traditional bureaucratic types of sources continue their dominance in shaping the news.

Mass Communication and Public Understanding of Environmental Problems: The Case of Global Warming • Fiona Clark, Keith R. Stamm and Paula Reynolds-Eblascas, Washington • Public understanding of environmental problems is treated here as an example of mass communication problem that has yet to be adequately solved. A survey of metropolitan area residents found that although people are aware of global warming in a general sense, understanding of causes, possible consequences, and solutions is limited. Print media and radio appear to make a difference in both understanding and the number of actions taken by respondents to address this problem.

Objectivity as Independence: Creating the Society of Environmental Journalists, 1989-1997 • John Palen, Central Michigan University • The Society of Environmental Journalists started in 1989 and quickly became the largest organization of environmental journalists in the nation. It grew despite renouncing growth possibilities on behalf of the journalistic virtue of independence. SEJ’s membership restrictions were controversial. In working through the controversies, SEJ clarified its definition of “environmental journalist,” while demonstrating the continuing strong hold on journalists of the ideal of objectivity.

Alternative Medicine Portrayal in Elite Newspapers: Cure or Quackery? • Lisa M. Brown, Brian H. Vastag, Stephanie L. Dube, Scott C. McMahan and Kristie A. Swain, Texas A&M University • This content analysis examined alternative medicine coverage in 259 articles appearing in nine elite newspapers in five countries. Stories were analyzed for alternative medical topics and primary health problems, and alternative medical topics were compared against newspaper and year. Overall, alternative medical coverage was positive between 1992 and 1997.

<< 1998 Abstracts

Media and Disability Interest Group

The Origins of Closed Captioning: The National Bureau of Standards and Television for the Deaf • Mark Borchert, Northwestern College • This historical study examines how the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), in the pursuit of its own agenda, took the first steps in creating closed-captioned television. As NBS researchers developed a technology to transmit precise standards of time, their interests, intentions and limitations shaped the nature and cultural definition of what would come to be known as “television for the deaf.” The understanding of closed captioning that emerged in this context continues to impact American policy and culture.

Personal Contact Versus Media Exposure as Predictors of Reactions to People with Disabilities • Olan Farnall and Kim Smith, Iowa State • The research presented in this paper explores the influence of personal contact and media exposure on reactions to people with physical or mental disabilities. Visibility of the estimated 43 million Americans with a disability has significantly increased since the 1990 passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which requires employers to make “reasonable accommodations” for disabled employees, mandates that new public transportation be accessible and bans discrimination on the job and in public places.

Physiographic Aggragation and Segmentation: Inclusion of Visually-Detected Physically Impaired Role Models in Advertisements • Dennis Ganahl and Jeff Kallem, Drake • This is an intensive case study of a physically handicapped person. The research develops a personal market profile of the subject to identify him as a prospect and target market for major advertisers. The researchers then develop data from the subject’s actual media consumption to see if any physically impaired models reflect this target market of one in the advertisements. The research results are disappointing and do not illustrate the inclusion of visually-detected physically impaired models in current advertising.

Prizing Disability in Journalism: Inspiration as Code • Beth Haller, Towson University • Awards for excellence in journalism have grown and expanded enormously in the past decade. Prestigious awards signal “validation” of journalistic reporting, but the subject of this paper is the larger cultural meaning that the topics of these awards winner signify. This paper qualitatively assesses specific types of award-winning journalistic endeavors • those that deal with illness or disability. The goal was to reveal the cultural meanings behind these types of journalistic stories and their potential social impact on the lives of people with chronic illness or disability.

A Feminist Exploration of Cybertheory, Student Journalists and RSI Work Culture • Catherine Marston, Iowa • This paper is an initial effort to explore and integrate feminist and cultural theories into a preliminary ethnographic study I conducted of the student journalists at the Daily Iowan. I examine feminist disability and cyber theories to consider the cyborg as a theoretical concept related to my work. I also situate this project within American journalistic work culture, which I refer to as “RSI work culture” because cultural factors are implicated as causes of RSI.

<< 1998 Abstracts

Internship and Careers Interest Group

Predicting Successful Internships • Fred Beard and Linda Morton, Oklahoma • Although previous research suggest the characteristics of successful interns and internships, little research has attempted to examine the relationships between them and specific outcomes. The results of a canonical correlation analysis indicates that all the predictors are correlated with successful outcomes; that the predictors account for approximately one-half the variance in successful internships; and that the effectiveness of an intern’s worksite supervisor is the single most important predictor of internship success.

A Phenomenological Study of the Internship Experience: Reflections from Three Perspectives • Emma Daugherty, California State University-Long Beach • Journalism and mass communication educators have long valued and internships for students. With all the importance placed on experiential learning experiences, such as internships, scant literature exists on the subject. In order to understand the underlying expectations and perspectives of the internship experience for the three groups of participants • interns, site supervisors, and internship coordinators • a phenomenological method of inquiry was used in this study. This qualitative study included 15 interns, 15 site supervisors, and 20 faculty internship coordinators as participants and found that similarities and differences in their responses can help improve the internship experience.

Positioning University Internship Programs to Emphasis the Complementary Nature of Theoretical and Applied Training Methods • Teresa Mastin, Michigan State University • The debate continues, theoretical or applied training methods, which method is most appropriate for training students enrolled in university advertising and public relations programs. This paper proposes that university internship programs are qualified to serve in a unique position as harbinger that theoretical and applied methods are indeed complementary and as such should be presented concurrently. Such a stance would help students and practitioners alike make the conceptual link between applied activities and their theoretical underpinnings.

Correlating Grade Point Average with Internship Performance: A Case Study • Michael L. Maynard, Temple University • Analysis of internship grades earned by 132 journalism mass communication students who registered for internship credit at a major Northeastern university show that students with a 2.7 GPA predictably do as well as students with a GPA ranging from 3.0 to 3.3. Accordingly, it is recommended that the GPA cutoff point for internship eligibility at this school be lowered to 2.7, from the previous 3.0 standard. This case study demonstrates the value of measuring actual performance against idealized standards.

<< 1998 Abstracts