Qualitative Studies Division

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

<< 1998 Abstracts

Public Relations Division

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

<< 1998 Abstracts

Newspaper Division

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

<< 1998 Abstracts

Minorities and Communication Division

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

<< 1998 Abstracts

Media Management and Economics Division

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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