Science Communication Interest Group

Did the Press Blow the A-Bomb Story of the Century? Reflections on the Coverage of Rocky Flats • Len Ackland, Colorado at Boulder • A group of leading U.S. journalists and historians recently picked the Atomic Bomb as the top news story of the 20th century. The public story began with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, continued through the Cold War, and persists today in terms of existing arsenals, nuclear proliferation, and the cleanup of contaminated weapons sites. How well did the media cover this big story? An examination of press coverage of the key Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant near Denver, Colorado provides some clues. Over more than four decades, press performance went through different phases.

Framing an Environmental Controversy in India’s English-language Press: A Study of Text in Context • Elizabeth Burch, Sonoma State University • This contextual analysis adapts Shoemaker and Reeses theoretical framework of the hierarchy of intra- and extra-organizational influences to investigate whether the framing of the environmental sustainability and development debate in India was affected by constraints upon reporters from two of India’s leading English-language newspapers reputed to follow opposing political ideologies: pro-government and anti-government. It was found that the papers’ political ideologies did not necessarily affect their support for environmental sustainability or economic development paradigms, thus the notion of hegemony did not prevail in this case.

Exploring Direct To Consumer Advertising And Generation • Cynthia-Lou Coleman and Kathy Brittain McKee, Berry College • Researchers know little about how consumers respond to a fast-growing trend in advertising, the advertising of prescription drugs. This study used focus groups to better understand how young, female consumers make sense of such ads. The consumers were somewhat passive. They were hesitant to approach their physicians about drugs and were comfortable letting their doctors make decisions for them about medicines. In general, subjects avoided risk information and preferred television ads to magazine ads.

Media And Medical News: New York Times And London Times Coverage Of Breast Cancer, 1960-1995 • Julia B. Corbett and Motomi Mori, Utah-Salt Lake City • This research compared the relationship between medical community activities and newspaper coverage of breast cancer in the U.S. and Great Britain from 1960-1995. In a time series analysis, New York Times coverage was strongly influenced by U.S. and British medical journals’ attention to breast cancer and by public announcements of prominent U.S. women. In Great Britain, where health care is largely a government undertaking and holds a less powerful position in the social structure, the London Times paid far less attention to breast cancer.

It’s Not Easy Being Green: Building the News Media Agenda on the Environment • Patricia A. Curtin and Eric Rhodenbaugh, North Carolina • Media critics have charged public relations practitioners with fueling the environmental backlash or “wise use” movement by providing information subsidies to the media which propose that claims of environmental damage have been exaggerated. This content analysis study examines external and internal information subsidies supplied to members of the Society of Environmental Journalists to examine the validity of such charges and to determine the characteristics of and differences between the two sources of environmental information.

The Relationship Of Risk Information Processing To Consideration Of Behavioral Beliefs • Robert J. Griffin and James Giese, Marquette University and Kurt Neuwirth, Cincinnati and Sharon Dunwoody, Wisconsin-Madison • A model proposes that the form of information processing individuals apply to risk information from the media and other sources affects the number of behavioral beliefs they consider to be important to their judgments about performing risk-reducing behaviors and eventually influences the stability or maintenance of those behaviors. This study found that deeper, more systematic processing of risk information is positively related to behavioral belief accession and consideration across two communities and three risks (two health risks and one ecological risk).

The Sources Iowans Trust: The Impact Of Involvement On Credibility Perceptions And Channels Used For Environmental Issues • Sunae Jo and Lulu Rodriguez, Iowa State University • Audience’s perceptions of credibility in this study was treated not as an attribute of sources but as a relational concept, dependent upon a receiver’s involvement with the message. The results show that receivers’ self reported involvement with environmental issues could predict their perceptions of source credibility and the extent of their information-seeking behavior. However, involvement did not predict the choice of interpersonal channels as the preferred source of environmental information.

Embargoed Press Releases and the Construction of Science News • Vincent Kiernan, Maryland, College Park • Data from a content analysis of embargoed press releases issued by the journal Science and of wire-service and newspaper coverage of Science were used to test a model of influences on news judgement of science journalists. Newspaper coverage was influenced largely by wire-service coverage of journal articles; the newsworthiness of the journal articles, as depicted by the press releases, and the geographic proximity of the authors of a paper in Science explained little of the coverage by the newspapers that were studied.

Smoke Got in Our Eyes: Biodiversity Concern and Media Framing of the 1998 Mexican Fires • Michael Maher, Southwestern Louisiana • In May 1998 fires from Mexico and Central America-some of them burning in highly biodiverse rain forests-created clouds of smoke that blanketed the United States for almost a month. This paper analyzes 349 news articles to determine how journalists framed the causes of the fires. It concludes that reporters framed the event chiefly in terms of human health, safety and convenience. Only three percent of the news framed the fires in terms of global biodiversity loss.

“A Chain Of All Things Good”: Online Breast Cancer Support And Institutional Change • Patricia Radin, Washington • When the diagnosis is breast cancer, the medical establishment in North America falls far short in providing urgently needed information and support. This study of a Halifax-based breast cancer web site finds that, for a limited number of women and their loved ones, online communication can help to empower, inform, and comfort. This is helping to promote change in the structure of North American medicine, where medical communication is already being influenced by self-help and consumerism.

Microbes, Outbreaks And The Media: Are U.S. News Magazines Suffering From Sleeping Sickness When It Comes To Covering Tropical Disease? • Gary D. Snyder, Ohio University • Tropical diseases are emerging as a threat to developed countries. This study examines how Time and Newsweek have covered tropical disease from 1975 to 1998. Coverage was minimal until 1994, when it tripled, and Ebola received a disproportionate amount of attention. A high percentage of stories have a link to the United States. The lack of communication research in the area of international health and tropical disease indicates a pressing need for further study.

An Index of Generalized Cancer Anxiety for Use in Health and Risk Communication Surveys • Craig W. Trumbo and Prathannna Kannaovakun, Wisconsin-Madison • This article describes the development and validation of an index measuring the construct of Generalized Cancer Anxiety for application in health and risk communication research. Various literatures are searched for the concept of cancer anxiety. The resulting set of 18 questions are evaluated using a survey of university employees (pre-test) and four surveys of communities involved in cancer rate investigations. A subset of 4-6 question items are identified with good reliability, test-retest stability, and validity.

Use Of E-Mail And The Web By Science Writers. A Longitudinal Study, 1994-1999 • Craig W. Trumbo, Kim J. Sprecker, Gi-Woon Yun, Wisconsin-Madison and Rebecca J. Dumlao Shearlean Duke, East Carolina • This paper investigates e-mail and Web use by science writers through a survey of the National Association of Science Writers executed in 1994 and 1999. The 1994 data shows that e-mail was expanding rapidly, and was more task-oriented than social. The 1994 survey sought to determine if a Web site could be an acceptable tool for science reporting. Respondents were favorable of the concept (those with early adopter profiles most favorable).

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Religion and Media Interest Group

Mother Teresa’s Death As Mystical Narrative In National Newspaper Dailes • Dennis D. Cali, East Carolina University • Newspaper coverage of the death of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, overshadowed in part by the extravagant media attention to Princess Diana’s death, was arguably abbreviated. However, articles on the Teresa story captured the symbolic significance and mythic character of the diminutive nun. This essay explains how, isolating rhetorical qualities that render the articles, collectively, a “mystical narrative.”

Communication In Religious Lobbying: Making Meaning Through Journalism • Kyle Huckins, Northwest Oklahoma State University • “Communication in Religious Lobbying: Making Meaning through Journalism” examines influence-building strategies used by religious groups in their discourse on issues. Taking Hofrenning’s list of three such strategies (symbolic, language, and coalition-building), the study applies the trio to an organizational publication. The study of Christian Coalition’s Christian American concludes that the group of religious conservatives used varying issue emphases, contexts and alliances to mobilize followers, and gravitated toward a political rather than religious agenda.

Not Alone In A Crowd: Religion, Media and Community Connected-ness At The Dawn Of A New Century • Michael A. Longinow, Asbury College • Religion and media in America have intertwined each other in a variety of ways from the earliest decades of this country’s democratic experiment. Moreover, religious organizations and those interested in religion have adapted themselves in innovative ways to the changing formats of popular media through this century, in many cases bringing cohesion and community to American religion. The end of the Twentieth Century and the dawn of the Twenty-First bring hope that this intermingling of media and religion will not diminish and could grow and flourish.

The Press And The “Greening Of Religion”: Themes, Sources, And Conflict In Newspaper Coverage Of Faith-based Environmentalism • Rick Clifton Moore, Boise State University • This paper investigates news coverage of environmental activity among American religious groups in the 1990s. The press, in reporting this phenomenon, presented a facade of religious inclusiveness while consistently reporting the story in ways that focused on traditional American religious institutions. In addition, official sources were called upon much more frequently than unofficial sources. Finally, reporters tended to downplay conflict in stories, using novelty as the key news value and attempting to extend that novelty over several years of reporting.

The Effect of Digitalization on Religious Television Stations • Brad Schultz, Southern Illinois University • This study sought to investigate the effect of the government-mandated transfer from analog to digital broadcasting, as it pertains to religious television stations. The study measured attitudes of religious broadcasting executives through a mail survey and had three hypotheses: digitalization would result in more consolidation, syndication and the emergence of a new economic model. Support was shown for consolidation and a new model, but not for syndication.

Hollywood’s God: The Problem of Divine Providence • Jeffery A. Smith, Iowa • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

Secularists or Modern Day Prophets: A Study Of The Ethical And Moral Values Of Today’s Journalists And Their Connection To The Judeo-Christian Tradition • Doug Underwood, Washington • This nationwide study a strong religious orientation in their lives, and that their professional values are rooted solidly in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Respondents reported strong levels of religious belief by a variety of measurements. Even journalists who weren’t religiously oriented responded positively to a series of professional exhortations by famous journalists that contain strong religious overtones, as long as the maxims didn’t use language that is overtly religious in nature.

Watching The Religious Audience: The Complex Relationship Between The Christian Media, The Mainstream Media And The Conservative Protestant Audience • Hillary Warren, Wisconsin-Stevens Point • This paper considers the problematic relationship between the conservative Protestant audience and the Christian media. Using a combination of interviews and market data, the author finds that the Christian media is limited as an indicator of rank and file opinion. The paper concludes with several suggestions for research into this relationship, primarily focusing on the importance of small groups and interpersonal connections in the formation of media-related opinion in the conservative Protestant community.

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Media Ethics Interest Group

An Intellectual History Of Mass Media Ethics • Clifford Christians and John Nerone, Illinois • Examining the case of the Cincinnati Enquirer’s reporting on Chiquita, we argue that media ethics is challenged to support media critique and political actions. We trace this impasse in media ethics historically, identifying a continuing reliance on utilitarianism and modernist rationalism. We conclude by looking to a dialog among Habermasism discourse ethics, communitarianism and feminism for scholars.

Ethics On Trial: Courts Scrutinize Plaintiff Journalists’ Roles in Defamation Cases • Constance K. Davis, Iowa • Two plaintiff journalists lost defamation cases in 1998. In both cases courts scrutinized the journalists’ ethics and found their actions had helped turn them into limited-purpose public figures. In one case, a photojournalist had taken his concerns about staged photographs in Time magazine to a computer discussion group. In another, a broadcast journalist got into the middle of the failed ATF raid at the Branch Davidian compound, helped move wounded agents and shared his information with other media.

To Council or Not To Council: Debunking Common Myths and Fears About The National News Council • L. Paul Husselbee, Lamar University • Three common assumptions seem to have emerged from speculation about the demise of the National News Council. These assumptions, coupled with journalists’ concerns about news councils in general, are frequently cited as reasons not to consider news councils as a viable mechanism of media accountability. This analysis of the complaints filed with the National News Council finds no evidence to support these assumptions. It suggests that journalists’ traditional “news council phobia” is just that-an irrational fear.

Press, Privacy and Presidential Proceedings: Moral Judgments and the Clinton-Lewinsky Affair • Jennifer L. Lambe, Christina L. Fiebich and Darcia Narvaez, Minnesota • This exploratory study examines the relationship between levels of moral judgment and various attitudes towards the Clinton-Lewinsky affair and subsequent impeachment proceedings. Trends suggest that individuals with higher levels of moral reasoning take a more systemic view of political controversies. Expectations about Presidential competence and character are found to be highly correlated with attitudes concerning the private lives of public officials. Both demographic characteristics and attitudinal variables are shown to be associated with the level of blame assigned to the news media in shaping the Clinton-Lewinsky situation.

Value System Changes Resulting from a Media Ethics Course: A Postmodern Perspective • Larry Z. Leslie, South Florida • This pre- and post-test study examined value system changes resulting from a media ethics course. Over three semesters, seventy-four students participated in the study. They were given Rokeach’s lists of terminal and instrumental values on the first day and again on the last day of class and asked to rank each value on the lists in terms of its importance to them. The study was designed to answer several questions about the degree to which formal instruction in ethics could be influential in students changing the relative importance of several values, particularly those deemed important and less important to contemporary, postmodern culture.

Conservation vs. Dynamism: Five Versions of a Code of Ethics-A Case Study of the Israel Broadcasting Authority • Yehiel Limor, Tel-Aviv University and Ines Gabel, The Open University • The Nakdi Document is the code of ethics and practice of the Israel Broadcasting Authority (‘BA). Since it was drawn up in 1972, the document was updated four times (in 1979, 1985, 1995 and 1998) and expanded fourfold. The significant changes during the years reflect the unique position of the ‘BA as a public broadcasting organization. The research analyses the changes and the political, religious, cultural and professional reasons and circumstances for these changes.

A Research Agenda for Establishing a Grounding for Journalistic Ethics • Dan Shaver, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • The author suggests a model derived from modified professional theory and a set of characteristics for a system of media ethics that may avoid some of the difficulties of traditional approaches. The model proposes the cultivation of a relationship of trust based on bargains between individual news organizations and the immediate public they serve. A six-phase research agenda for testing the basic assumptions and for developing and implementing the model is proposed.

Telling It Like It Is: Letters To The Editor Discuss Journalism Ethics in 10 American Magazines, 1962-1972-1982-1992 • Brian Thornton, Northern Illinois University • This research found that: Negative letters increased from 47% negative in 1962 to 93% negative in 1992; Letters about journalism declined 95 percent during the study period; Themes in the letters changed from ethical concerns about truth to the view that objectivity has been abandoned. These findings add a largely unexplored dimension to the topic of public opinion and press ethics while building on Hazel Dicken-Garcia’s research into letters in the 1800s.

Autonomy and Accountability: Reassessing the National News Council • Erik Ugland, Minnesota • This study examines complaints brought before the National News Council, which operated from 1973 to 1984. It seeks to answer the arguments and assumptions posed by opponents of the Council that the Council was biased against the news media and therefore intruded on their autonomy. It seeks evidence of bias by examining disparities in the success of media respondents versus public complainants and disparities in the voting patterns of individual members of the Council.

Rights, Wrongs and Responsibilities: The Nexus of Law and Ethics in the Newsroom • Paul S. Voakes, Indiana University • How do journalists sort out the tangle of legal rights and ethical responsibilities in their everyday news work? In a survey of 1,037 journalists and in-depth interviews with 22 others, this project found substantial evidence for three models of the relationship of law and ethics: A Separate Realms model, a Correspondence model and a new “Responsibility Model,” in which the law is considered in problematic situations but only as one of several considerations in what is essentially an ethical decision.

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Media and Disability Interest Group

Disability Visibility: Cartoon Depictions Of Bob Dole • Gene Burd, Texas • This analysis of 65 editorial cartoons by 31 artists examined stereotypes of age and disability in images of Bob Dole. It found 46 were negative and 19 positive in a sample from newspaper reprints and originals in Newsweek, Time, U.S. News, National Review, Nation, and Editorials on File during the 1995-96 presidential campaign. Themes of death, violence and senility dominated images of Dole. Little connection was made between his disability and age and his political position or abilities.

Creating a Virtual Television Culture: Using Actors and Models to Reflect Desired Perceptions in Primetime Television Advertising • Dennis Ganahl, Southern Illinois University • These research results reflect an uncaring and non-inclusive advertising community. They dramatically illustrate the lack of inclusion of visually-detected physically impaired models in current advertising. The study continues a longitudinal analysis of “if and how” the visually-detected physically impaired persons are portrayed in network primetime advertising. This is the largest sampling of network primetime television advertising ever undertaken for this type of study.

Wrestling with Stereotypes: Images of the Mentally Ill in the WWF • Marie Hardin, Florida Southern College and Brent Hardin, Florida State University • This study examines the stereotypes and symbols used in reference to individuals with mental illness or mental disabilities in professional wrestling. After using qualitative methods to analyze more than 30 hours of 1998-99 World Wrestling Federation pay-per-view specials, researchers concluded that stereotypes used to characterize the mentally/ill disabled, while not vastly different from those already seen in prime time, exaggerate negative images of these groups.

Investigating Media Influence on Attitudes toward People with Disabilities and Euthanasia • Kimberly A. Lauffer and Sarah Bembry, Florida • The issues of euthanasia, physician-assisted death, and physician-assisted suicide have become hot topics for news and entertainment shows, spawning hours of programming since a videotape depicting Jack Kevorkian injecting a lethal dose of drugs into the arm of Thomas Youk, a man with Lou Gehrig’s disease, aired on 60 Minutes during the November 1998 sweeps. This experiment used an information-integration approach to examine whether such programming affects attitudes toward people with disabilities.

The Media’s Role In Building The Disability Community • Jack Nelson, Brigham Young University • It is obvious that technology is rapidly changing the world around us. Nowhere is that change more evident than in the changes occurring for those with physical and mental limitations-their portrayal in the media, their use of the media to achieve group aims, and their use of the new on-line media to communicate with others who have limitations and with the non-disabled world as well. In a very real way the growing sense of community among those with disabilities has been linked to the media.

Print Advertising Images of the Disabled: Exploring the Impact on Nondisabled Consumer Attitudes • Zenaida Sarabia Panol and Michael McBride, Southwest Texas State University • This research evaluated the impact of advertisements featuring physically-disabled persons on perceptions, feelings, and behavior of nondisabled audiences. No significant differences were found between responses toward disability and nondisability ads, pointing to possible mainstreaming effects. However, gender and status of disabled persons in advertisements appeared to influence negative assessments of advertising portraying physically-disabled females with nondisabled males. Frequency of exposure to ads portraying disabled persons also seems to determine the direction of attitudinal responses.

Kevorkian Convicted In 60 Minutes A Semiotic Analysis Of Editorial Cartoons • Ann Preston, Quincy University • This research asked what signs depict Kevorkian and related characters in recent cartoons, what those signs signify, and how proximity affects depictions. Icons include exaggerated nose, ears and glasses in caricatures of Kevorkian. Indices include IV bags and hypodermics. Symbols consist of words. Depictions of Kevorkian and of “60 Minutes” are overwhelmingly deflating. Only two cartoons extend the agenda beyond the “60 Minutes” broadcast or the Kevorkian trial to include disability. Detroit is over represented among trial cartoon.

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Internship and Careers Interest Group

Benefits Of An Internal College Internship With Professor As Practitioner Supervisor: A Two-Year Case Study • John E. Forde, Mississippi State • One method to help communication professors stay current is for them to directly supervise students who are completing internships within their own college. When students receive credit for the work, the professor may serve as the faculty supervisor/coordinator and the professional/practitioner supervisor. This case study outlines one successful program being implemented by a university and the ensuing benefits for the students, professor, dean, and other publics.

Helping Students Find Internships And Jobs: An Outline For A Workshop On Resume Writing, Interviewing And Portfolio Development In Cooperation With Professional Public Relations Practitioners • Terri Lynn Johnson, Indiana University • The importance of internships for public relations students is well established, but obtaining the internship can be competitive and overwhelming. This paper outlines how to establish a workshop to help students develop resumes, interviewing skills, and portfolios with the help of professional public relations practitioners. It supplements the educational program, provides skills needed to obtain internships and jobs in the field, supports a mentoring program for college students and builds the University’s relationship with professionals.

Emotional Intelligence and Employability: Implications for Internship Curriculum • Michael L. Maynard, Temple University • The study correlates Emotional Intelligence dimensions of motivation as well as social and communication skills with feedback from internship hosts on 79 student evaluations on two questions: What gave the intern most trouble? and Would you hire the intern? Chi square analysis supports the hypothesis that interns not lacking in emotional intelligence are more likely to be considered for employment by the internship host than interns who lack emotional intelligence.

<< 1999 Abstracts