Magazine Division

The Portrayal of Black Women’s Facial Features in Mainstream Fashion Magazines: 1989-1998 • Oluwatosin Adegbola, Howard • The method of content analysis was applied to three mainstream fashion magazines (Vogue, Glamour, and Cosmopolitan; randomly sampled from 1989-1998), to investigate claims of stereotypical portrayals. The women were coded on complexion, lip size, nose width, and hairstyle with attainable scores in categories ranging from very Caucasian to very Negroid. Results showed that there was a pattern whereby majority of the Black women in the magazines possessed Caucasian features.

Cosmetic Ads in Cosmopolitan and New Woman: Do Advertisers get Special Treatment in Editorial? • Elizabeth Althoff, Drake • Advertisers seek increasingly large concessions from magazines they advertise, as evidenced by recent RFPs from agencies. In this study, cosmetic ads are compared with editorial treatment of the advertiser’s brand in two women’s magazines, Cosmopolitan and New Woman, 1997 to 1999. While Cosmo mentioned only 21 brands in editorial, 19% of these were also advertisers in the same issue. New Woman mentioned 37 brands, but only 8% of these were advertisers.

Setting the Agenda and Framing in Beauty Magazines: A Content Analysis of the Coverage of Breasts • Julie L. Andsager, Washington State and Angela Powers and Rachael McKinness, Northern Illinois • This study uses two content analysis methods to examine how four women’s beauty magazines framed information concerning the health and beauty of breasts during the 1990s. Breast cancer prevention and risk was the most prominent theme, while implants received little attention. Cancer was associated with fear and danger. Breast size was a recurring frame, linking breasts to sexual attractiveness. Medical doctors were the most frequent sources used. Magazines varied in how they framed breast issues.

‘Pearl Harbor of the Cold War:’ Coverage of Post-Sputnik Science Reforms In Four National Magazines • Timothy E. Bajkiewicz, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Sputnik was a rallying cry for American science education. This study found eighty-six articles on this topic in four national magazines: Popular Science, Scientific American, Life, and the Saturday Evening Post, from October, 1957 to September, 1958. All called for immediate changes. The articles used examples of students and teachers, expert opinion, and scientific studies regarding attitudes and the state of science education in both the United States and the Soviet Union.

Farm Magazine Advertisers Turn Up the Heat: An Analysis of Ethical Pressures Faced by Farm Magazine Writers • Stephen A. Banning, Texas A&M • The traditionally small advertising base for farm magazine publications has continued to shrink. This study looks at kinds of pressures farm magazine writers may be feeling as they become dependent on fewer and fewer advertisers. Results of this nationwide survey indicate farm magazine writers feel advertisers are applying a great deal of pressure in areas of ethical concern. When compared with the same instrument given to a similar sample pool a decade before, the study indicates a general feeling that the amount of pressure from advertisers has increased.

Twenty-Five Years of Newsweek’s Coverage of Salvador Allende and Augusto Pinochet: A-Content Analysis • Matthew M. Bifano, Ohio • Through a longitudinal study using a content analysis, the researcher demonstrated that Newsweek’s coverage during the 1970 election of Salvador Allende, his presidency, the military coup in 1973, and Augusto Pinochet’s presidency tended to follow the U.S. government’s foreign policy. Newsweek’s dependence on official news sources and its failure to use human rights groups as sources made its coverage hegemonic rather than independent from the various U.S. administrations’ policies toward Chile.

Yosemite’s Transition from Space to Place: An Historical Investigation in Media’s Role in the Place-Making Process • Nickieann Fleener and Edward Ruddell, Utah • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

AOL-Time Warner’s Magazine and Music Interests: Good Business Makes Poor Journalism • Geoffrey P. Hull, Middle Tennessee State • This study examines two publications of AOL-Time Warner, Time and People Weekly, to determine whether they give more coverage or more favorable coverage to products and artists of Time Warner’s music division. One year of issues of each publication was examined. Time and People do devote more total coverage to Time Warner distributed recordings and artists than to those of their competitors Qualitative measures of the coverage found no significant differences.

Women’s Political Voices: A Content Analysis of The Political Coverage in Women’s Magazines • Stacey J.T. Hust, Washington State • Political coverage in women’s magazines has seldom been studied, but as an integral component of women’s media consumerism, it is important to discern how they cover important issues. Research reports that women do not have access to political information and are not conditioned to be involved in the political process. A content analysis is used to analyze the political coverage of nine magazines over a five-year period.

‘A Death in the American Family’: National Values and Memory in the Magazine Mourning of John F. Kennedy Jr. • Carolyn Kitch, Temple • The 1999 death of John F. Kennedy Jr. provided an opportunity for news media to tell a life story as a way of assessing the American character, defining it in terms of family and generation and in terms of sacrifice and redemption. Focusing on magazines a medium that played a leading role in the public mourning of JFK Jr. • this paper analyzes the narrative and ritual aspects of the coverage in order to understand journalism’s role in affirming national values and creating collective memory.

The National Geographic Magazine and Environmental Coverage, 1970-1980 • Jan Knight, Ohio • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

A Comparison of Magazine Summer Olympic Coverage by Gender and Race: A Content Analysis of Sports Illustrated • Jim Mack, Ohio • This study content analyzed 212 Summer Olympic articles in Sports Illustrated, seeking to find if the magazine provided representative coverage of women and minority U.S. athletes. The total U.S. medal winners for race and gender divisions was compared to the number of pictures and print references to U.S. athletes in Olympic articles from 1960 to 1996. This study found that, quantitatively, Sports Illustrated did provide representative coverage of female and minority athletes for the Summer Olympics.

Framing a War: Photographic Coverage of the Kosovo War in Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News & World Report • Nikolina Sajn, Kwangju Heo and Sarah Merritt, North Carolina • This paper studies framing of the photographic coverage of the Kosovo War in three U.S. newsmagazines. The quantitative content analysis of the photographs showed that the coverage concentrated on the U.S. leaders, troops and arsenal. The photographs of civilians showed almost exclusively just the Albanian side. The magazines failed to inform the public about all aspects of the war, and the traditional “good vs. evil” paradigm applies in the coverage of this confrontation.

American Magazines Prosper-At Whose Expense • David Sumner, Ball State • Conflicting evidence exists regarding whether consumers or advertisers pay most of the costs of magazine publishing for the industry as a whole. The purpose of this study is to look at the evidence by analyzing rates charged for both circulation and advertising, focusing on data from 1980 to 1998. It compares subscription prices, single copy prices, and advertising per-page rates for 96 major magazines monitored by the Audit Bureau of Circulations that were published continuously between 1980 and 1998.

Lillian Ross: Pioneer of Literary Journalism • James W. Tankard, Jr., Texas • Lillian Ross has reported for The New Yorker for more than 50 years. This paper argues that Ross has not been given sufficient credit for her contributions to the style known as literary journalism. Ross used dialogue and the technique of writing articles made up mostly of scenes to write such articles as her classic “Portrait of Hemingway.” She also pioneered the non-fiction novel form in her book Picture • years before Capote’s In Cold Blood.

The Relationship Between Health and Fitness Magazine Reading and Eating-Disordered Weight-Loss Methods Among High School Girls • Steven R. Thomsen, Michelle M. Weber and Lora Beth Brown, Brigham Young • The study examined the relationship between reading women’s health and fitness magazines and the use of eating-disordered diet methods (laxatives, appetite suppressants/diet pills, skipping two meals a day, intentional vomiting, excessive exercising, and restricting calories to 1,200 a day or less) among a group of 498 high school girls. The authors found moderate, positive associations between reading frequency and these unhealthful behaviors, which are often the first steps toward the development of anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa.

The Amazing Magazines of Hugo Gernsback • Jonathan Thornton, Trinity • In 1908, Hugo Gernsback foresaw the future of science fiction, helping to define it as an influential and popular genre through his magazine Amazing Stories. Throughout his life, Gernsback was a dreamer who would strongly influence the genre of science fiction magazines, from serializing “Ralph 124C41+” in Modern Electrics, to his peak of launching and editing the first all-science fiction magazine, to the post-Amazing Stories era of his life when he published several science fiction magazines.

Hidden Under a Bushel: A Study of the Thriving World of Religious Magazine • Ken Waters, Pepperdine • Religious publications have a long and varied history in the United States. The publications are among the first magazines to appear in the U.S. and their content helped shape the early Republic’s literacy, morals and political events. But during the past 150 years, their influence has lessened. Although some 3,000 religious publications exist today, most report small circulation levels. Critics contend that many religious magazines are more focused on doctrinal battles than presenting news and information for the general public.

<< 2000 Abstracts

Law Division

Determining Fame under the Federal Trademark Dilution Act of 1995 • Sue Westcott Alessandri, North Carolina • Because of the law’s newness, the true effect of the Federal Trademark Dilution Act of 1995 has yet to be seen. The small body of precedents, however, may serve to guide corporations required to provide evidence on the “fame” of their trademarks in FTDA cases. An analysis of the five reported cases heard thus far by the U.S. Courts of Appeals – and specifically two circuits’ decisions in determining the fame of a trademark – shows that advertising history, expenditures and market research may be the best evidence corporations can present.

Broadening the Scope of the Newsgathering Privilege to Protect Nontraditional Journalists: A Definitional Dilemma • Laurence B. Alexander, Florida • This paper explores the statutory and common law development of the journalist’s privilege, giving special attention to the parameters drawn to limit protection only to those who work in traditional roles in traditional news organizations. It also examines the widely accepted “checking value” theory of Vincent Blasi on the role that news-source confidentiality plays in serving as an additional check on abuses of government power. This underlying theory is considered in determining whether the journalist’s privilege should be expanded beyond its current scope.

The First Amendment & Postmodern Tendencies in Cyberspace • Justin Brown, Penn State • To address the possibilities and difficulties of expression on the Internet, legal scholars and courts have been articulating jurisprudence. While many have been boastful of a robust marketplace of ideas, missing from the discourse has been an examination of the postmodern tendencies of cyberspace. This paper reviews developing jurisprudence and offers a unique perspective of how the First Amendment may protect expression in the cultural environments of converging and evolving media.

The “Enticing Images” Doctrine: An Emerging Principle in First Amendment Jurisprudence? • Clay Calvert, Penn State • The split of authority among the federal appellate courts that emerged in 1999 concerning the Child Pornography Prevention Act’s prohibition of “virtual” child pornography presents a propitious opportunity to examine the emergence of a nascent principle in First Amendment jurisprudence • the enticing images doctrine. Under this doctrine, otherwise lawful images of fictional content can be prohibited because they “entice” or “seduce” minors to engage in illegal conduct. The roots of the doctrine take hold in more than just the CPPA.

Silencing Foreign Voices: Restrictions on Alien Ownership of Broadcast Stations • James V. D’Aleo • North Carolina • Broadcast ownership provisions have been present in American society in some form or another since 1912. The time has come for these restrictions to be lifted. The current provisions have been in place, with little variation, since the Communications Act of 1934. This paper argues that the original reasoning for these provisions no longer hold true in today’s society, indicating that foreign ownership restrictions should be lifted or relaxed.

First Amendment Rights of Non-Citizens In Light of Reno v. Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee • Irina Dmitrieva, Florida • The article argues that in a recent case, Reno v. Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, the U.S. Supreme Court de facto denied the First Amendment rights to non-citizens in the immigration context. The article argues that denial of free speech rights to aliens robs this country of the valuable source of new ideas and beliefs, and impedes the process of cultural exchange among U.S. citizens and immigrants.

State Protection of Copyright Interest In Primary Law Materials • Irina Dmitrieva, Florida • The article demonstrates that at least half of 50 states claim copyright interest in their primary law materials, such as state statutes, court reports, and administrative regulations. At the same time, state control over primary law materials may restrict public access to legal documents of vital importance. The author suggests changes in the United States copyright law that would deny copyright protection to the texts of state statutes and judicial opinions.

Contracting the News: A Study of Online News User Agreements • Victoria Smith Ekstrand, North Carolina • The terms of user agreements on news Web sites represent a new paradigm in the sale of news. Rather than selling the news, today’s online publishers provide content in exchange for agreement to the conditions of user agreements. This study examines the provisions in online news user agreements. It finds that such agreements duplicate or exceed protections provided by existing law and will be strengthened by new Uniform Commercial Code legislation.

The Lochner Monster Redux: Buckley and The Path of Legal Realism in Today’s Campaign Finance Jurisprudence • Emily Erickson, Syracuse • This paper examines the parallel often drawn between Buckley v. Valeo and Lochner v. New York, exploring the progressive legal realist agenda that helped end the Lochner era and recent attempts by the Supreme Court to both escape and hide within the bowels of its own “Lochner monster,” Buckley. It then looks at the most recent campaign finance precedents, including January’s Nixon v. Shrink decision, to discern whether today’s Court seems able and willing to slay Buckley.

Reconsidering the Federal Journalist’s Privilege for Nonconfidential Information: Gonzalez v. NBC • Anthony L. Fargo, Rhode Island • In 1998, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Gonzalez v. NBC ruled that there was no federal journalist’s privilege for nonconfidential information. The case appeared to go against precedent in the Second Circuit and appeared to be a serious blow to journalists’ efforts to expand the privilege to other circuits. However, a year later, the Second Circuit reconsidered Gonzalez and held that there was a privilege for nonconfidential information.

The Supreme Court’s Heavy Hand: The Reversal of Libel Decisions • Mike Farrell, Kentucky • The Supreme Court has near-total control of its docket, each year considering less than 100 of the seven thousand appeals it receives. When the Court grants certiorari, it is a signal the justices are more likely to reverse the decision of the lower federal court or the state court. An earlier study found the Supreme Court reversed the lower court in more than 60 percent of the cases it decided between 1953-90.

The Malice Muddle: The Changing Definition of Malice And Its Threat To The Fair Report Privilege • Deborah Gump, North Carolina • Suppose a mayor accused a councilmember at a town meeting of selling drugs. Next, suppose the reporter from the Daily Banner was told by his editor to forget about the accusation because the mayor’s libel suit would bankrupt the paper. Wouldn’t happen, you say? Under new court interpretations of the fair report privilege, it might. The privilege protects reporters from libel suits if they cover official proceedings accurately, fairly, and without common law malice.

Policy of Secrecy, Pattern of Deception: How the Government Tried to Undermine Press Freedom and the Right to Know During the Federalist Period • Martin E. Halstuk, Nevada-Las Vegas • The Supreme Court has consistently rejected arguments that the First Amendment provides the press with any rights not also afforded to the general public. The purpose of this paper is to explore the question of whether there is an historical basis to argue for constitutionally protected newsgathering privileges for the press. To illuminate this issue, this examination focuses on several events that took place between 1787 and 1798.

Circumventing Copyright with Controlling Technology • Matt Jackson, Penn State • The Digital Millennium Copyright Act added a new chapter to Copyright Act that protects the anti-circumvention technology used by copyright owners to restrict access to their content. In Universal City Studios v. Reimerdes, the first case involving these new provisions, the district court held that traditional defenses to copyright infringement did not apply to some violations of the anti-circumvention provisions. The DMCA and the Reimerdes case is evidence of a paradigm shift in copyright from a legal concept to a technological concept.

Libel in 48 Points: How Courts Have Ruled since Sullivan on Allegedly False and Defamatory Headlines Atop Accurate Stories • Susan Keith, North Carolina • The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in late 1999 that a headline could be actionable for libel on its own, even when the story to which it referred was substantially accurate. This no doubt pleased the plaintiff in the case, actor Brian “Kato” Kaelin, who had sued the National Examiner, a supermarket tabloid, over the headline “Cops Think Kato Did It.” However, the ruling also brought to the forefront the fact that some courts consider allegedly libelous headlines in context of the accompanying stories while others do not.

Web Site Framing: Copyright Infringement Through the Creation of an Unauthorized Derivative Work • Greg Lisby, Georgia State • The technological explosion and convergence that are the Internet and the World Wide Web • increasing amounts of information from a variety of sources, coupled with the accelerating change in the form of that information, from discrete media into one constant barrage of digitized bits • have posed new problems for copyright that promise to shake the law to its 300-year-old print media foundations. Take framing, as an example.

Hands in the “Cookie” Jar: Disclosure of Internet Transaction Generated Information under State Public Records Law • Harlen Makemson, North Carolina • This paper analyzed whether Internet transaction generated information such as cookie files are subject to disclosure under state freedom of information statutes and whether such information could fall under trade secret exemptions. For states that define public records as those made in connection with public business, disclosing cookies makes intuitive sense and is consistent with the legislative intent of broad access. Current laws leave courts ill-equipped to rule on the disclosure of cookie files.

Journalists on Journalistic Conduct in the Law of Libel • Tracie L. Mauriello and Thomas A. Schwartz, Ohio State • The U.S. Supreme Court’s requirement that libel plaintiffs show fault on the part of defendants has generated a body of law that examines journalistic conduct. Some see this as a threat to press freedom. After analyzing the responses of journalists to two libel case scenarios, this paper finds that journalists have higher standards for the practice of journalism than those of the Court and that they expect to be held legally accountable for journalistic malpractice but that they are unable to articulate a sense of proper journalistic conduct.

A Safeguard for National Security or a Wall of Secrecy Protecting Government Agencies? • Nelson Mumma Jr., North Carolina • The Freedom of Information Act was created to ensure that ordinary American citizens have access to government agency documents. This is important because it theoretically keeps the government accountable and allows individuals to access information they might need to knowledgeably vote and participate in the democratic process. However, Congress created nine exemptions to the FOIA, which allow government agencies to withhold information under certain conditions. Exemption 1 allows agencies to withhold documents if the release of these documents could harm national security or foreign relations.

Violence against the Press in Latin America: Protections and Remedies in International Law • Michael Perkins, Brigham Young • This paper analyzes recent cases decided by international human-rights tribunals that found attacks against journalists to be violations of the free-expression guarantees of the American Convention on Human Rights, the western hemisphere’s leading human-rights treaty. This study argues that the American Convention’s guarantees are being interpreted as demanding strict accountability from governments for investigating complaints of violence against the press, punishing journalists’ assailants, and indemnifying their survivors.

William Lloyd Garrison, Bejamin Lundy & Seditious Libel • Amy Reynolds, Oklahoma • This paper explores early attempts to suppress abolitionist speech and discusses how those attempts helped shape the views of two leading abolitionist figures. In response to efforts to suppress their speech and presses, Garrison and Lundy began to raise questions about what free speech and free press meant and brought public attention to issues of free expression. They also illustrated the power the press had to illuminate these issues.

Counter Speech 2000: A New Look at the Old Remedy for “Bad” Speech • Robert Richards and Clay Calvert, Penn State • The doctrine of counter speech was firmly implanted in First Amendment jurisprudence by Justice Brandeis nearly three-quarters of a century ago. This article revisits this well-worn doctrine. In particular, it analyzes its strengths and weaknesses through the prism of an eclectic collection of five very recent controversies in which counter speech has been employed as an antidote to “bad” speech. The medium and the message in each case is different, stretching from messages of tolerance on billboards to counteract the effects of hate speech to videos available on the World Wide Web to ward off the effects of an allegedly negative television program.

Reno v. Condon: Regulating State Public Records as Commodities in an Information Marketplace • Joey Senat, Oklahoma State • In upholding the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, the Supreme Court granted Congress the constitutional authority under the Commerce Clause to override state FOI laws in order to restrict disclosure of drivers’ license data. The Court treated states as database owners and public records as commodities in interstate commerce. This paper argues that the Court should have adopted the reasoning of those lower courts that struck down the statute as a federal infringement upon states’ rights.

Defining the Concept of “Harmful to Minors “ in the Age of the Internet • Barbara Smith, Florida • For over 150 years, the United States government has emphasized the importance of protecting children from harm, especially in the area of sexually explicit material. However, society’s definition of pornography and determinants of harm have changed over time. Moreover, the emergence of the Internet has posed a challenge for government regulators. This paper proposes solutions to ensure that the government’s interest in protecting minors from Internet content is carried out in the least restrictive manner.

Freedom of the Private-University Student Press: A Constitutional Proposal • Brian J. Steffen, Simpson College • While the First Amendment protects public-university student journalists from censorship by the state, students at private universities are without constitutional protection from censorship. Courts usually have been unwilling to recognize First Amendment rights on the private campus, partly because most advocates of free-press rights have argued that the Constitution should apply with equal force on public and private campuses. This paper calls for a balancing of the First Amendment interests of the students against the pedagogical and philosophical interests of the private institution.

Tainted Sources, Matters of Public Concern: Applying the Wiretapping Laws to Media Disclosures • Josie Tullos, SUNY-Brockport • The ease of electronic eavesdropping has again raised the troublesome problem of balancing the tension between the First Amendment and personal privacy. That tension seemed overwhelming in two recent cases involving disclosure penalties in wiretapping statutes. The cases left Circuits divided and indicate that closer attention needs to be paid to the privacy concerns underlying the statutes. This paper suggests that a better approach is to look at privacy law as an aspect of community.

Pleading the Fifth: Media Economics, Free Air Time, & the Fifth Amendment • Glenda C. Williams, Alabama • Campaign finance reformers often use the concept of “free air time” as an incentive for voluntary compliance (compelling television stations to provide free advertising time for federal candidates). This paper outlines arguments from both proponents and opponents of free air time, with special emphasis on the two interpretations of “public interest.” Media economic theory is then used to support the argument that free air time would indeed take the property created by broadcasters: their audience.

<< 2000 Abstracts

International Communication Division

Open Competition
The Absence of Fairness in Philippine Newspapers • Geri M. Alumit, Michigan State • Content analysis results of two newspapers, Malaya and Manila Bulletin in the Philippines, show little fairness in the coverage of the Catholic Church in the Philippines. Interviews with reporters and editors at those two newspapers suggest that fairness is not an objective of Philippine journalism, and is also the product of other factors such as laziness, “press release journalism” and “envelopmental journalism.”

Dutch Audience’s Use and Interpretation of Economic News First Results From a Cross-National Explorative Study • Florann Arts, The Amsterdam School of Communications Research • In this paper focus groups show that the public’s relative disinterest in hard economic news is caused by the perceived gap between the issues covered and people’s daily lives. Television programs are perceived to increase the tangibility of economic news. Also, trust in the accuracy of economic coverage was found to be related to people’s confidence in the future state of the economy. The results furthermore suggest that people believe economic news does have more impact on others than on themselves.

Values Representations in International News • Christopher E. Beaudoin and Esther Thorson, Missouri-Columbia • This study sets forth a values approach to understanding international news coverage in a prestige American newspaper. Via a content analysis, a system of 13 values — including altruism, freedom, materialism, and peace — was examined in terms of how foreign nations, groups, and individuals were represented. Conflict values were clustered, as were positive values. Asia was stereotyped as materialistic, Western Europe as beautiful, Africa as power ridden, and the Eastern bloc as concerned with the value of security.

Myths and News Narratives: Toward a Comparative Perspective for the Study of News Content • Dan Berkowitz, Iowa and Hillel Nossek, Tel-Aviv • Comparative research across cultures provides a fruitful terrain for research into myths and narratives that are embedded into news content. This study offers a nexis of structuralist and ethnographic approaches that offers a conceptual complement for that vein of research. Following a conceptual discussion, the paper addresses methodological considerations and offers and scheme for conducting research with a cross-cultural research team.

This case study examines media literacy as it relates to the encoding Media Literacy And India’s Ramayan In Nepal: Are TV Aesthetics Universal Or Culture-Bound? • Elizabeth Burch, Sonoma State • This case study examines media literacy as it relates to the encoding and decoding of messages intended for non-western viewers. A qualitative methodology of contextual aesthetics examines how production techniques clarified and intensified the narrative of Ramayan • one of India’s first Hindu soap operas produced for television and aired in India and Nepal in the late 1980s. The purpose is to identify whether televisual conventions are culturally-bound or universal. The study finds that culture plays a key role in the way television messages are constructed and perhaps interpreted.

Linkages of International and Local News • Gene Burd, Texas-Austin • This study of how five daily newspapers made local tie-ins to international news on page one covers the month of January 1999 for the Boston Globe, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morning News and San Francisco Chronicle-Examiner. It surveys research on criteria for international news, professionals’ worries about scanty resources and skewed priorities, and the sparse training and textbook guides for both staff and free-lancers connecting “main street” to the larger world whose political boundaries are being dissolved by the electronic and natural environment.

From Globalization to Localization: World’s Leading Television News Broadcasters in Asia • Yu-li Chang, Ohio • This paper addresses globalization of CNNI, BBC World, and CNBC in Asia by analyzing and comparing program schedules of these three broadcasters. Globalization for them means adopting regionalization and localization in their programming strategies. CNBC Asia leads in its efforts of localization, followed by BBC World. While CNNI Asia Pacific has not moved beyond regionalization, it may soon adopt localization in Asia.

The Image of Muslims as Terrorists in Major U.S. Newspapers • Natalya Chernyshova, Washington and Lee University/American University in Bulgaria • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

Discrepancy of Gratifications of Online News Readers • Jung-Yui Cho, Alabama • Discrepancy of gratifications of online news among U.S. and foreign readers was investigated based on different themes of gratifications including remote access, immediacy, surveillance, and entertainment. The discrepancy between GS and GO was demonstrated to be of statistical significance. Besides, due to the fact that online news provides instant access to hometown news anywhere in the world, international participants of the survey revealed a very active use of the medium with more experience.

Between the Government and the Press: The Role of Western Correspondents and Government Public Relations in Reporting on the Middle East • Mohammed el-Nawawy, West Florida and James D. Kelly, Southern Illinois • Western news correspondents and three Egyptian and Israeli government PR officers were interviewed in 1998 to determine their role perceptions within the context of two theoretical models. Correspondents said analysis of complex issues was their primary role and PR officials said theirs was provision of information to correspondents. Israeli officials were far more accessible and easier to work with than their Egyptian counterparts, but correspondents were more skeptical of Israeli information. The newsmaking model best described the relationship.

Government, Press and Advertising Revenue: Impact of the 27 October, 1987 Suspension of The Star’s License to Publish on The Star and the Competing New Straits Times • Tee-Tuan Foo, Ohio • This study seeks to understand the relationship among an authoritarian government, the newspapers and the advertisers. It content analyzed the advertising that appeared in two Malaysian leading English Newspapers, The Star and the New Straits Times, before and after The Star was temporarily suspended by the government on 27 October, 1987. The results found that the Malaysian government’s suspension of The Star’s publishing license decreased the newspaper revenue and increased those of its main competitor, the New Straits Times, following The Star’s return to publication.

The Transitional Press Concept And English-Language Newspaper Readership In The Post-Communist Czech Republic • Bruce Garrison, Miami • Hachten has identified five political concepts of the world press, including the Western free press model. Ognianova has defined a “transitional press concept” for news organizations in nations that had been under Communist Party control and the newly independent press of Central and Eastern Europe that are moving toward the Western concept. This paper analyzed the role of an English-language newspaper in a region where English is not the dominant language.

Post-Cold War Bulgarian Media: Free and Independent at Last? • Robyn S. Goodman, Alfred • Immediately following the Cold War’s collapse, many Bulgarian journalists suddenly declared the Bulgarian mass media “free.” Ten years later, they now argue that the Bulgarian media are far from achieving an independent, democratic status. This study describes changes in the Bulgarian mass media during the Cold War’s final years through the post-Cold War era to answer the following question: How close are the Bulgarian media to establishing themselves as a free, independent Fourth Estate?

McQuail’s Media Performance Analysis And Post-Communist Broadcast Media: A Case Study Of Broadcasting In Estonia • Max V. Grubb, Southern Illinois • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

Prospects And Limitations Of World System Theory For Media Analysis: The Case Of Middle East And North Africa • Shelton A. Gunaratne • This essay points out the potential of applying the world system theory to global communication and media analysis as a “humanocentric” enterprise covering both the present and the past. It attempts to identify the world’s core countries using a weighted index of a country’s size of the economy (GNP) and of the exports. It applies the index to rank order the countries in the Middle East and North Africa region to ascertain the likelihood of a core-periphery structure within the region itself and to test whether media freedom and media penetration follow the pattern of that structure.

Attitudes, Communication Behavior, and Cognition: A Trans-Cultural Test of Grunig’s Situational Communication Theory • Kingsley O. Harbor, Mississippi Valley State • This study tested Situational Communication Theory to ascertain its cross-cultural generalizability. The path model employed here comprised attitudinal, communicative, and motivational variables most of which were predicted by the theory. The systemic relationship so formed explained the intention of Developing World students to or not to return home after their studies in the USA. Study used stratified random sample of 400 Developing World students attending an American university. Phone interview refusal rate was 23%. Data analysis involved regression and path analytical models.

After the Rape: The Elite Newspapers’ Use of Sources in their Coverage of Okinawa, 1995-1998 • Beverly J. Horvit, Winthrop • This paper examines journalists’ use of sources on a noncrisis foreign policy issue • the debate over the U.S. troop presence in Okinawa after a child’s rape. A 1995-1998 content analysis of the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times shows journalists relied heavily on official sources. In addition, eight of 10 American sources quoted were administration sources. Furthermore, the type of sources quoted was dependent on from where the reporters were reporting.

The Relevance of Mass Communication Research in a Global Era: Localization Strategies of International Companies Entering India • Geetika Pathania Jain, North Texas • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

Television and Perceptions of Values among Korean College Students • Jong G. Kang, Illinois State and Seok Kang, Georgia • This study was designed to determine whether the relationship between culture and individualistic or collectivistic value structure types truly exist within the Korean sample of college students. Using the postulates and methodology of the value structure theory by Schwarts to mass communication, this study also employed value type analysis to investigate how respondents’ cultural background and television viewing habit are associated with their responses to value types. This study found significant correlations among individualist, collectivist, and mixed value types.

Glocalization As a Metatheory for International Communication Research • Marwan M. Kraidy, North Dakota • This paper proposes glocalization as a metatheory for international communication research. First, the theoretical problematic of international communication is introduced and international communication paradigms are reviewed. Second, the implications of the literature on globalization and localization for international communication theory are discussed. Third, the concept of glocalization is explained and proposed as a metatheory for international communication. The paper concludes by proposing a research agenda for international communication guided by the metatheory of glocalization.

Locating Asian Values in Journalism: A Content Analysis of Web Newspapers • Brian L. Massey and Arthur Chang, Singapore • The two major positions in the debate over Asian values in journalism were tested by a content analysis of news stories posted to English-language Web newspapers in 10 Asian nations. The findings offer some support to each position. Asian values do appear in reporting by Asian journalists. But they are neither pan-Asia values nor applied uniformly to all news events. This work could provide a benchmark for future studies of Asian values in journalism.

The Transitional Media System Of Post-Autocratic Nigeria • Anthony A. Olorunnisola, Penn State • This paper reviews the character of Nigeria’s recent transition in order to politically locate its media system. A combination of press concepts provides the heuristic basis for the suggestion of the margin of political freedom as a way to determine the latitude available to a transitional media. Also, the margin of political freedom enabled a prediction of the intrinsic readiness of the Nigerian media to face post-autocratic challenges.

Sovereignty, Alliance and Press-Government Relationship: A Comparative Analysis of Japanese and U. S. Coverage of Okinawa • Mariko Oshiro and Tsan-Kuo Chang, Minnesota • Within a comparative framework, the purpose of this paper is to determine the form and content of news coverage of the Okinawa reversion issue between the United States and Japan from 1969 to 1972. The Okinawa reversion issue was one of the most important and controversial diplomatic problems in post-war U.S.-Japan relations because of the 1951 security arrangement. The general theoretical approach in this study is based on two major factors that have been found to influence the news content: ideological structure in society and press-government relationship.

Korean Environmental Journalists: How They Perceived A New Journalistic Role • Jaeyung Park and Robert A. Logan, Missouri-Columbia • This study examined how Korean environmental journalists conceptually perceived a new journalistic role that they played in covering environmental campaigns launched by the news media since 1992 in South Korea. Despite being inadvertently put in situation to receive an unprecedented role of encouraging civic participation in environmental preservation, Korean environmental journalists showed considerable sophistication of understanding their social role. They were not only able to differentiate the challenging role conceptually but also understand it clearly and quickly.

Reading and Rating the Press: Press Freedom and Fair Reporting in Zambia • Greg Pitts, Southern Methodist • Democracy’s sweep through Sub-Saharan Africa during the l990s signaled multiparty elections, spawned additional media voices, and at least deference to a free press. Zambia is an example of a new democracy dealing these changes. A survey Zambia Parliamentarians found that 89% of respondents read at least one newspaper. However, Parliamentarians give Zambia’s newest privately owned daily newspaper a low score on fair reporting though resource scarcity and socialization of Parliamentarians may contribute to this perception.

The Flow of News About Environmental Risk in Mexico 1983-97 • Donnalyn Pompper, Tallahassee • This textual analysis of environmental risks of Mexico examined hegemony as encoded in two mainstream U.S. daily newspapers, 1983-1997. Five themes emerged upon examination of images, concepts and premises used in newsmaking. Furthermore, texts underscored power relations between the two nations. U.S. government and industry were influential in matters of air, water and land pollution, habitat loss, and industrial safety in Mexico. Mexican policymakers, by omission, were passive.

A Talking Nation, Not a Talking Individual: A New Order in Tanzania? • Jyotika Ramaprasad, Southern Illinois • Using a survey of 141 journalists, this study profiles the Tanzanian journalist in terms of demographic, workplace and attitudinal variables. The Tanzanian journalist’s pursuit of his profession is deliberate and he subscribes to its lofty ideals. He rates accuracy, analysis, investigation, and such high, and places considerable importance on the public affairs role of journalism, more so than on the material benefits of the job. At the same time, the years of socialization under “ujamaa,” the socialist policy of development which enrolled the press as partner, and the political policy of a one-party state have left their trace and are evident even in these more liberal times.

Factors Affecting the Internet Adoption by Thai Journalists: A Diffusion of Innovation Study • Anucha Thirakanont and Thomas Johnson, Southern Illinois • This research was designed to examine what factors affect the adoption of the Internet by newspaper journalists in Thailand. The diffusion of innovation (Rogers, 1995) was used as a primary theoretical framework for the study with English language introduced as an additional variable. The results indicated that the perceived attributes of innovation • relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability • were useful predictors of the adoption. The additional attribute • English-language compatibility of the Internet • did not turn out to be a significant predictor of adoption because likely-adopters and nonadopters did not appear to be aware of the problem.

The Pacific War: A Retrospective Look at Anti-Japanese Propaganda In The New York Times and Anti-American Propaganda in Asahi Shimbun • Hideko Yoshimoto and Diana Stover Tillinghast, San Jose State • The study, which examines anti-Japanese propaganda in The New York Times and anti-American propaganda in Asahi Shimbun during the Pacific War, found that the propaganda in the Times was a mirror image of the propaganda in Asahi in the time periods from the bombing of Pearl Harbor until Japan’s surrender. This finding held for both newspapers across all five thematic categories of propaganda • authoritarianism, patriotic appeal, self-image, enemy image, and morale manipulation.

Changing Relationships Between The Press And The State: A Sociopolitical And Communication Law Perspective • Kyu Ho Youm, Arizona State • The far-reaching evolution of the statutory framework on the freedom and control of the Korean press since 1987 is a fascinating case study. While there is still a legacy of suppression in some press statutes in Korea, other statutes make press freedom become closer to a reality for Koreans. The press statutes in and of themselves, however, cannot be an accurate indication of how the Korean press exercises its freedom with or without constraint.

Markham Competition
News Media Representation of the Yanomami Indians as a Reflection of the Ideal Audience • Tania H. Cantrell, Brigham Young • Using Narrative Paradigm Theory and Narrative Analysis, this study investigates news media coverage of the Yanomami Indians, an indigenous tribe residing in northern Brazil and Venezuela. Eight themes are described and plausible interpretations of ideal audience member values are presented. This project explores the reflective nature of the news media, discusses insights into the question of human identity, and concludes recommending further study to assess how the Yanomami would tell their own story.

Support of the Film Industries in France and Italy in the late l990s • Joseph Denny, Indiana • France and Italy each possess a proud film history. Both have made significant efforts to bolster their film industries for most of the 20th century. The results have been mixed. This paper examines and compares the efforts of France and Italy to maintain their film industries in the second half of the 1990s. It also offers policy recommendations for the future.

New Portraits in Old Frams: US and Chinese Media Utterances on the 50th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China • Yun Ding, Minnesota • This article seeks to delineate prominent media frames in the brief but intense reportage of the 50th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) by major U.S. and Chinese press. In a renewed attempt to unravel the China Knot, the U.S. media evinced a strong anti-Communist sentiment, whereas the Chinese press, under direct ideological dictate and institutional control, continued to betray its entrenched style of sing-along journalism. Taken together, they afforded us an opportunity to examine how competing discursive communities handled the heavy topic of Communism on the eve of a new century.

We Are French Too, But Different: Radio, Music and The Articulation of difference among Young North Africans In France • Nabil Echchaibi, Indiana • Research on migrants in media studies has focused mainly on representation in and reception of the mainstream media of the host country. While such research is still valuable, it obscures the role of migrants as active participants and producers of alternative media outlets that help in the articulation of their diasporic experience. This essay discusses how, through radio and music, young North Africans in France negotiate, elaborate, and reappropriate different cultural forms to carve out a place for themselves in French culture.

Manufacturing Consent of ‘Crisis’: A Content Analysis of the New York Times’ Reporting on the Issue of North Korean Nuclear Weapon • Oh-Hyeon Lee, Massachusetts • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

Communicative Distance and Media Stereotyping in an International Context • Deepak Prem Subramony, Minnesota • This paper transfers the constructs of communicative distance and stereotyping commonly found in the interpersonal communication literature into an international communication context. It hypothesizes that stereotyping by the media of one nation, of news from another nation, is positively correlated with the communicative distance between the two nations. Using innovative operationalizations of the communicative distance and media stereotyping constructs, the paper presents six international content analyses in support of the above hypothesis.

Historicizing Japanese Television Dramas: Technology, Drama Workers, and the Rise and Fall of Social Drama, 1945-1960 • Eva Tsai, Iowa • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.

The European Press And The Euro: Media Agenda-Setting In A Cross-National Environment • Olaf Werder, Gainesville • Coverage of the Euro currency introduction was analyzed in the leading news publications in the UK and Germany. Specifically, we probed whether (l) coverage of the same cross-national issue differed in level of support and (2) the two national media applied different news frames. The study showed that the London Times opposed the Euro even with pro-Euro sources, whereas the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung maintained neutrality. The Times used an episodic, while the F.A.Z. employed a thematic style.

<< 2000 Abstracts

History Division

Collusion and Price Fixing in the American Newspaper Industry, 1890-1910: A National Trend • Ed Adams, Brigham Young • This study cites examples of price fixing and collusive practices used among newspapers in several cities across the United States during the late 1890s and early 1900s. An examination of the E.W. Scripps papers reveals secret agreements or “combinations” that were utilized between competitors to gain market advantages or to limit competition. These practices were used to limit or eliminate competition. The practices included, but were not limited to profit pooling, price fixing, collusion and contract exclusivity.

The Birth of the Demise of Valentine Decision: Development of the Supreme Court’s Opinion Toward Commercial Speech • Soontae An, North Carolina • This study traces the development of the Supreme Court’s opinion toward commercial speech from 1942 to 1976. Early cases demonstrated that the Court’s uncertainty on what made certain speech commercial led to subsequent difficulties in deciding the boundary of the First Amendment protection for other categories of speech when they entailed commercial features in their messages. From his first remark in 1959, Justice Douglas consistently argued the deficiencies in the Valentine decision and urged the Court to set a more appropriate standard for the commercial speech.

Selling the National Pastime: The Formation of Major League Baseball Public Relations • Bill Anderson, Georgia • Understanding how one industry used publicity in the nineteenth century generated insights into how the field as a whole was utilized. In the case of the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs owners, they learned that maintaining the top player talent ensured favorable newspaper coverage. To maintain sympathetic media coverage while fighting to maintain the top player talent, the owners started their own publications, and bribed reporters to present their side of the industry.

The U.S. Military and War Correspondents in World War II: Roles and Relationships • Alan Armitage, Southern Illinois-Edwardsville • The relationship between the U.S. military and war correspondents during World War II affected coverage of the war as much as the rules of censorship. Colin Sparks’ six roles which the state plays in relation to the media (patron, censor, actor, masseur, ideologue, and conspirator) are the basis for an examination of works by and about World War II war correspondents to explore the impact of the relationship on coverage of the war.

“A Society Without A Newspaper is Like a Body Without a Head”: Chicago’s Immigrant Workers And Their Press • Jon Bekken, Suffolk • At the turn of the century, Chicago’s immigrant working class developed dense networks of community institutions, bound together by weekly and daily newspapers which were integral parts of those communities. This paper briefly examines the Lithuanian, Italian and Croatian immigrant press, examining the ways in which these newspapers helped give shape to developing communities and to define and make their place in the world around them.

“American Press Coverage of Sociologist Herbert Spencer During His 1882 Visit to America” • Jack Breslin, Minnesota • Herbert Spencer, the English philosopher and social scientist of evolution, enjoyed remarkable popularity in post-bellum America. This paper describes the newspaper coverage of Spencer’s 1882 visit to America in an attempt to discern what views of Spencer’s were conveyed to readers which shaped how they perceived him. Through content analysis of relevant news stories, feature stories, dispatches and editorials in nine selected major newspapers, this study of press coverage of Spencer’s visit offers an insight into this country’s acceptance or rejection of his intellectual contribution.

First Use: The Emergence and Diffusion of “Yellow Journalism” • W. Joseph Campbell, American University • This paper seeks to resolve a matter of enduring dispute among media historians by presenting specific and compelling evidence about the date and context of the earliest published use of the term “yellow journalism”: It appeared first in Ervin Wardman’s New York Press in January 1897. Wardman, before seizing upon “yellow journalism,” had experimented with at least one other phrase – “nude journalism” – as a substitute for “new journalism,” which then was commonly associated with the newspapers of Hearst and Pulitzer.

The (S.C.) Palmetto Leader: A Successful Start, 1925-1927 • Kenneth Campbell, South Carolina • The Palmetto Leader was a vibrant (but now little known) black weekly that got off to a successful start in 1925 because it catered to the emerging black middle class in South Carolina, particularly in Columbia. This research addresses the factors that made the weekly successful, both those traditional factors and others that might set The Leader apart.

William G. Brownlow and the Knoxville Whig: A career of Personal Journalism or Partisan Press • Alisa White Coleman, Texas-Arlington • An example of personal journalism was The Knoxville Whig, edited by William Gannoway Brownlow, Tennessee’s first Reconstruction governor. Brownlow used his newspaper as a tool for the Whig party, his own religious beliefs, and to further the interests of himself and his friends. This paper takes a historiographical approach to examine Brownlow’s editorial stand on the issues concentrating on the period from 1849, when he moved to Knoxville, to 1865, when he was elected governor.

Yosemite’s Transition from Space to Place: An Historical Investigation into Media’s Role in the Place-Making Process • Nickieann Fleener and Edward Ruddell, Utah • In the early 1850s very few individuals knew that the area which now constitutes part of Yosemite National Park existed. Yet the area’s obscurity was short lived and by 1864 Yosemite was protected by federal mandate. Cultural geographers refer to this transition from space to place and acknowledge the integral part media play in the place-making process.

Chicago Newspaper Theater Critics of the Early 20th Century: Mediating Ibsen, the Syndicate and the Little Theaters • Scott Fosdick, Missouri • This paper responds to the near total lack of scholarship on the Chicago newspaper theater critics of the period 1900 to 1920 by offering a preliminary look at who these critics were and how they responded to three challenges they faced: the controversial new “problem plays” of such European playwrights as Ibsen and Shaw, the expansionist tendencies of the New York theatrical Syndicate, and the Little Theater movement.

The National Geographic Magazine and Environmental Coverage, 1970-1980 • Jan Knight, Ohio • In 1970, National Geographic began covering environmental pollution, an editorial shift away from its eighty-two-year-old policy of avoiding controversy. Through a review of the magazine’s history from 1888 to 1980, editor’s letters to readers, and interviews with staff members, this paper reveals that the magazine’s environmental coverage focused largely on threats to U. S. energy sources and was tempered by fears that disgruntled, but powerful, readers would challenge the National Geographic Society’s nonprofit status.

The Creation of the “Free” Press in Japanese American Internment Camps: The War Relocation Authority’s Planning and Making of the Camp Newspaper Policy • Takeya Mizuno, Missouri • This study investigates how the War Relocation Authority (WRA) planned and documented the newspaper publishing policy in Japanese American internment camps during World War II. The WRA allowed internees to publish their own newspapers “freely” without “censorship” but under the authority’s “supervision.” This study examines the process and content of the WRA’s camp press policy. This study also shows that the federal government’s propaganda tactics had much to do with the WRA’s “free under supervision” scheme of press control.

The Klan and Press in Atlanta, 1919-1921: A Tale of Public Relations and Newspaper Opposition • Hanna Norton and Karen Miller, Georgia • This paper analyzes press coverage of the Klan in three Atlanta newspapers before, during and after its Imperial Wizard hired a public relations firm in June 1920. Scholars have not reached a consensus on the national press’s importance to the rise or destruction of the Klan. They have, however, most often condemned the press for not undertaking active opposition to the Klan. Our own research found that all three Atlanta daily newspapers did comment negatively on the organization during the two week period surrounding the 1921 Congressional investigation.

Race and the Construction of News: Press Coverage of the Tuskegee Study, 1972 • April L. Peterson, Washington • On 26 July 1972, Associated Press reporter Jean Heller broke the story of a 40 year-old Public Health Service study of syphilis in a population of African American men in Macon County, Alabama. This paper reviews news coverage of that story as a case study of race and the construction of news by examining news stories in the mainstream press and black press of the period. News frames are discussed to illuminate how news is constructed.

Czars, Presidents, Philosophers, and Miscegenation: The Cultural Power of Early Motion Pictures • Elaine Walls Reed, Kutztown University-Pennsylvania • From the vantage point of time, aided by access to the personal documents of movie czar Will H. Hays and philosopher Mortimer J. Adler, motion picture historians and critics learn more about the public and private negotiations that helped to shape 20th century American race relations.

The Confederate Press Association: A Revolutionary Experience in Southern Journalism? • Ford Risley, Penn State • This study examines the guidelines for telegraphic reporting established by the Confederate Press Association during the Civil War. The association’s superintendent liked to say the practices, which stressed concise, timely, and factual news reporting, represented a “complete revolution” in Southern journalism. Indeed, they were a major change in a region where timely news reporting traditionally had taken a backseat to editorial opinion. Although the work of the association was not the revolutionary experience claimed, the standards it sought to live up to clearly raised the bar for Southern journalism.

Crisis Public Relations at Pennzoil: An Organization’s Corporate Communication Response During a Landmark Legal Battle • Dennis R. Robertson, Arkansas State University • Pennzoil’s battle with Texaco in the 1980s over the Getty Oil reserves was legendary legal history. It was also public relations history. This paper examines the role of public relations in the Pennzoil-Texaco battle. Through literature review, personal interviews and oral histories, the research documents the policies, practices, and tactics of Pennzoil’s public relations department during one of the most fascinating events in American corporate history.

“Pounding Brass” for the Associated Press: A Surviving Press Telegrapher Recalls His Craft • J. Steven Smethers, Oklahoma State • Before the widespread adoption of the teletype, the Associated Press employed telegraph operators to dispatch news copy to member newspapers. This paper chronicles the heyday of press telegraphy through the reminiscences of a former AP telegrapher, Aubrey E. Keel of Kansas City, covering various aspects of this lost profession, including the training, daily routines, professional standards and the eventual displacement caused by the industry’s conversion to teletype technology.

Bat Masterson: Sheriff of the Sports Page • Mike Sowell, Oklahoma State • Bat Masterson not only was one of the last heroes of the Old West in the late nineteenth century but also one of the first heroes of a new frontier at the turn of the century the sports page of the American newspaper. This paper is an examination of how Masterson’s sports columns from 1903 to 1921 reflected his self-appointed role as a de facto “sheriff of boxing,” and how he used his forum as a sports writer to apply his Western sense of honor and justice to the boxing ring.

Science, Journalism and the Construction of News: How Print Media Framed the 1918 Influenza Pandemic • Meg Spratt, Washington • This paper examines how the relationship between scientific method and journalistic norms shaped news frames of the 20th Century’s most deadly pandemic in both scientific and mainstream publications. By examining journalistic coverage in Science, Scientific American, Survey, and The New York Times of the Spanish Influenza at the height of the 1918 pandemic, it becomes apparent that reliance upon objectivity, neutrality, and empirical data supported the views of authoritative sources while almost obliterating the voices of victims and average citizens.

Liberal Journalism in the Deep South: Harry M. Ayers And The “Bothersome” Race Question • Kevin Stocker, Brigham Young • This paper looks at why Anniston (Alabama) Star editor Colonel Harry Ayers progressed then retrogressed on the race issue. He befriended blacks in the 1920s and advocated economic, educational, and electoral equality in the 1930s and 1940s but opposed integration. A study of his writings provides a unique look at a member of an ignored group of southern community newspaper editors who tried to build a New South without harming the old one.

Strange Bedfellows, or a Marriage Made in Heaven? Advertising, the Federal Government, and the Second World War • Inger Stole, Illinois • Contending that the Second World War helped solidify the institution of advertising in the economy, the polity, and American culture, this paper chronicles how the American advertising industry navigated the treacherous political waters of Washington D.C. in the early 1940s, primarily through its newly created public relations arm, the (War) Advertising Council. It argues that the Council successfully neutralized the threat of hostile government actions towards advertising, and helped establish cordial relations between the federal government and the advertising industry.

Expanding the “Dual Role” Concept: The Latvian Newspaper Kanadietis, 1913-1914 • Andris Straumanis, Wisconsin-Eau Claire • Adopting the work of anthropologists who have studied “rites of passage,” this paper suggests that the long-standing debate about the role of the immigrant press should be reexamined by stressing the liminal stage. Expanding the notion of a “dual role” allows for inclusion of media that do not fit the traditional dichotomy of cultural maintenance vs. acculturation. The Latvian-language newspaper Kanadietis, published in Winnipeg, Canada, from 1913 to 1914, is presented as a case study.

Covering the Century: How Four New York Dailies Reported the End of the 19th Century • Randall Scott Sumpter, Texas A&M • This study compares how two groups of New York dailies covered the end of the l9th century. The “yellow” press linked the century’s end to jingoistic predictions, self-promoting scoops and coverage of sensational topics. Other editors, seeking reader and advertiser niches not yet dominated by the yellow journals, avoided sensation and tempered optimistic predictions with stories about possible shortages. Their efforts furnish another example of how market competition nourished the development of “objective” news practices.

New York City Press and the McKinley Assassination: Debates About Journalism Ethics When a Newspaper Was Accused of Killing a President • Brian Thornton, Northern Illinois • William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal was accused of inciting a presidential assassination following the shooting death of President William McKinley in September 1901. At that point the Journal and a rival, The New York Sun, promptly engaged in a letters to the editor war. This paper examines public reaction and debates about journalistic responsibility published in five leading New York City daily newspapers -The New York Journal; The Evening Post; The New York Sun; The New York Times; and The New York World.

Burning Crosses and Activist Journalism: The Unlikely Heroism of Two Mississippi Editors • Jan Whitt, Colorado • Journalists summarize lifetimes and abbreviate events in order to serve the interests of public knowledge and/or social action. It is tempting for them to write the stories of everyday citizens as if their subjects are somehow more courageous, more spiritual, or more committed than the average person. Telling the stories of “heroes” • such as Pulitzer Prize-winning Mississippi journalists Ira B. Harkey Jr. and Hazel Brannon Smith • requires an understanding of the nature of both journalistic and historical narrative.

World War I and the Success of the United Press • Dale Zacher, North • This study uses extensive original source documents to examine the importance World War One played in the eventual financial success of the United Press wire service. The U.P., created in 1907, faced a difficult task in covering a global war, yet emerged from it stronger than ever. The U.P. was able to use several notable scoops early in the war to establish a long-lasting reputation, overcoming problems with censorship, technological limitations and cutthroat competition.

<< 2000 Abstracts

Cultural and Critical Studies Division

This Mythical Place, El Pais de Las Mujeres: Representing Women in a Venezuelan Telenova • Carolina Acosta-Alzuru, Georgia • Latin American telenovelas stand out as a genre that has successfully challenged its U.S. counterpart — the soap opera — in a global media environment that is increasingly dominated by the U.S. Drawing on cultural studies, this report focuses on how women are represented in a Venezuelan telenovela, El Pais de las Mujeres (The Country of the Women). These representations are negative in themselves. However, the storylines reverse these negative constructions by ridiculing them (and the characters that voice them), providing, in this way, a vehicle of empowerment for Venezuelan women.

The First Amendment and the Doctrine of Corporate Personhood: Collapsing the Press-Corporation Distinction • David S. Allen, Illinois State • This paper examines the legal concept of corporate personhood, entitling corporations to protection under the Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights, as it applies to the press. Following that doctrine, the U.S. Supreme Court has struggled to differentiate the press from corporations, collapsing First Amendment distinctions. It is suggested that the Court’s actions hurt press freedom, but more importantly creates another opening for corporate domination of the public sphere.

Reconstructing the Concept of Public Trusteeship in the Digital Broadcasting Era: Public Trusteeship for a Deliberative Democracy • Misook Baek, Iowa • This paper attempts to construct the political-philosophical foundation of public trusteeship to realize the democratic potential of digital broadcasting, shifting away from the narrow debate of regulatory scheme and policy. Thus, this paper proposes the conceptualization of public trusteeship for a deliberative democracy emphasizing an informed citizen and civic participation in political processes. This paper relies on Dewey’s and Habermas’ theoretical discussion of the media, the community, and democracy, and the communitarian interpretation of the First Amendment.

Telemedicine in South Dakota: A Cultural Studies Approach • Warren Bareiss, South Dakota State • This study examines how socio-economic relationships are negotiated with regard to telemedicine in South Dakota — a state where telemedicine has rapidly developed in response to an ongoing crisis in health-care. An overview of economic conditions in South Dakota is followed by examinations of network structures through which telemedicine operates and an analysis of how telemedicine is rhetorically constructed. Concluding sections discuss the hegemonic nature of telemedicine in South Dakota and raise new questions about telemedicine.

Marginalized, Excluded and Invisible: The Portrayal of Labor in Journalism Textbooks • Jon Bekken • Journalism textbooks play a key role in not only training journalists in their craft, but also in inculcating professional ideology. This study examines 29 newswriting, media writing, and reporting textbooks, documenting their systematic marginalization and exclusion of labor. Even texts that address the need for labor coverage often undercut that message through examples and assignments, which rely exclusively upon management and government sources. This “hidden curriculum” simultaneously undercuts the textbooks’ stated intentions, and ideologically prepares journalists to serve as stenographers to power.

Cyberspace: The New Disney Universe • Jeffrey Layne Blevins • The Disney empire comprises one of the top media conglomerates in the world and their most notable move in Cyberspace has been the addition of an Internet search engine. The purpose of this study is to explore Disney’s expansion into Cyberspace and analyze the relationship between its Internet search engine and burgeoning media empire. This newest search engine will most likely power an effective vehicle for Disney to cross-promote its vast empire.

What’s Wrong with a Little Media Manipulation, Anyway?: Longing for Althusser • Bonnie Brennen, Missouri-Columbia • This convention paper focuses on the current one billion dollar anti-drug public service announcement deal, through which the United States government has been inserting propaganda into prime time television shows. It draws on the work of French philosopher Louis Althusser, specifically his contributions to the development of ideology, in an attempt to illustrate the continued relevance of his work to understanding the complex relationship between media and society.

A Tradition of Dissent: West Indians and Liberian Journalism, 1830 to 1970 • Carl Patrick Burrowes, Howard • West Indians immigrants were conspicuously present in the Liberian press, especially in forms of journalism that challenged the hegemonic order established by African-American repatriates. Notably among them were John B. Russwurm, founder of the first Black newspaper in America, and Edward Wilmot Blyden, a leading nineteenth-century Black intellectual. Their ideological challenges consistently evidenced a duality that is said to characterize Caribbean culture: a social conservatism coupled with a political radicalism.

Between Cultural and Social Identities: A Discourse Analysis of Web Diaries on Hong Kong’s Handover • Hong Cheng and Guofang Wan, Bradley • This paper is a discourse analysis of Web diaries concerning Hong Kong’s handover from Britain to China. It pinpointed numerous dynamic and multifaceted interactions of language, culture, and ideology in Hong Kong people’s heart and soul searches for cultural and social identities during the territory’s sovereignty transfer. The paper also examined communication strategies used in Web diaries and analyzed this new communication genre’s potential for empowering mass audience as well as enlarging knowledge gap.

What Language Do Cyborgs Speak? • Mia Consalvo, Wisconsin-Milwaukee • This paper explores fan communication online, and how online communication in general is changing. This is due to two factors — the development of hypertext, and our vision of ourselves as cyborgs. I argue that hypertext changes the way we think about knowledge, it de-centers authority, and challenges the linear. As we move online, and learn how to exploit this new “language” we will develop new and revolutionary uses for it. However, we must use this new language and way of being to ensure that everyone has access to it, for it to be truly revolutionary.

The Reality of Virtual Hate: A Fantasy Theme Analysis of the Rhetorical Vision of Hate Groups Online • Margaret E. Duffy and Victoria A. Palmer, Austin Peay State University • The development and growth of the Internet and Worldwide Web have provided a new and persuasive medium for business, education, and social interaction. It has also provided a powerful new medium for hate groups seeking to disseminate their message and recruit new followers. This paper uses Ernest Bormann’s fantasy theme analysis to examine hate group websites as a means to understand the worldviews expressed and the resulting potential for persuasion.

Janet Malcolm: Constructing a Journalist’s Identity • Elizabeth Fakazis, Indiana • This article explores the role that Janet Malcolm played in defining the boundaries of legitimate journalism as she defended herself against charges that her journalistic methods and her identity as a professional journalist were suspect. Malcolm positioned herself as a journalist and metajournalist, defining her methods as representing the norms of the profession while challenging the dominant conception of journalism as an enterprise ideally involving disinterested, institutional voices rather than individual authors subjectively interacting with their subjects and texts.

Negotiating Consumption, Play and Masculinities through Role-Play/Trading Cards Games: An Exploratory Research on the Players of Magic: The Gathering¨ in Iowa City • Mirerza Gonzalez-Velez, Iowa • In an attempt to understand the relationship between the construction of cultural identities and the consumer culture, this paper explores role-play/trading cards games such as Magic: The Gathering¨. Using as evidence data of an exploratory qualitative research developed with non-participant observation and semi-informal interviews, the paper argues that games as Magic: The Gathering¨ represents both a commodity of the culture industry and a cultural space in which male identity is constructed.

The News of Inclusive Education: A Narrative Analysis • Beth A. Haller, Towson and Bruce Dorries, Radford • This paper investigates a nationally publicized case in the debate over the best method of educating millions of children with severe disabilities. Using Fisher’s narrative paradigm, this paper analyzes four years of the extensive media coverage of the legal battles of Mark Hartmann’s family. The 11-year-old’s parents took the Loudoun County, Va., Board of Education to court to reinstate their autistic son in a regular classroom. Much media attention focused on the story because it dramatized the issues concerning the national debate about inclusion.

The “Forgotten” 1918 Influenza Epidemic and Press Portrayal of Public Anxiety • Janice Hume, Kansas State • Journalists and scholars often use the idea of a shared “American anxiety” in their analyses of trends, yet no one has looked historically at how media depict public anxiety. This study examines magazine coverage of a domestic crisis that should have made Americans anxious, the 1918 influenza epidemic, to explore references to anxiety, and to try to understand why this epidemic, which killed more people than World War 1, is lost to American public memory.

Theorizing Automotive Radio: Prosthesis, Technology, and Cultural Form • Matthew A. Killmeier, Iowa • Automotive radio and broadcasting emerged in the 1950s as a unique cultural form of radio, rather than a particular manifestation of radio. As a mobile medium, it required a mobile society, audiences and content. This paper is a theoretical engagement with the meanings and significances of automotive radio, including mobility, space and over place, technology and information.

‘Grimm’ News Indeed: ‘Madstones,’ Clever Toads, and Killer Tarantulas (Fairy-Tale Briefs in Wild West Newspapers) • Paulette D. Kilmer, Toledo • Editors in Nevada, Texas, Arizona, or California sprinkled fanciful items among editorials boosting their new El Dorado and sober news accounts. Besides connecting East and West via the imagination, these fairy-tale briefs provided a respite from the harsh reality reported graphically in the news columns and too often experienced personally by readers in frontier communities during the late Nineteenth Century.

The Active Audience in a Panic: A Case Study of the Interaction between Media Discourse and Public Opinion prior to Labor Law Revision in December 1996, Korea • Nam-Doo Kim, Texas at Austin • This paper examines the interaction between mainstream media discourse and public opinion before labor law revision in 1996, Korea, and evaluates the nature of the public through the redefinition of “active audience.” While the media coverage of labor issue and background issue was unbalanced toward pro-employer side, there were some indicators that the public responded sensitively to the marginalized oppositional theme in the media discourse. The activeness in the general audience was motivated by the mass fear.

Examining the Problematic of Auteur Theory: The Case of David E. Kelley and Picket Fences • Karen E. Kline, Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania • This paper explores the contemporary critique of auteur theory in the realm of commercial television production, which has been asserted, from poststructuralist, materialist, and dialogic perspectives. Drawing upon ethnographic research conducted within the David E. Kelley production company, the author argues that Kelley is a television auteur, albeit one whose authorship is implemented in ways consistent with the auteurist critique. Thus, this paper offers a variegated view of television authorship, which incorporates that critique.

Polysemy, Resistance, and Hegemony: An Audience Research of a Korean Prime-Time Drama • Oh-Hyeon Lee, Massachusetts • While exploring the polysemic nature of a Korean prime-time drama, Bogo Ddo Bogo, and its viewers’ interpretations, this paper examines the hegemonic power of the show, the agency of the audience, and the power relations between them. This study finds that the viewers actively construct various meanings of the program, even resistant to the dominant ideological meanings and values articulated in the program. However, the hegemonic power of the program seems to overpower the agency of the audience.

Capote’s Legacy: The Challenge of Creativity and Credibility in Literary Journalism • Mark H. Masse, Ball State • Thirty-five years ago (1965), Truman Capote published his best-selling “nonfiction novel,” In Cold Blood. The book has been both praised for its compelling writing and criticized for its inaccurate and misleading reporting. The legacy of Capote reflects the enduring challenge facing authors of literary journalism in producing creative and credible works. This paper examines Capote’s historical contributions to the craft of narrative nonfiction writing and the critical response to In Cold Blood since the 1960s.

Rosa Luxemborg, The Thomas Paine of the Russian Revolution: A Pamphleteer, a Martyr and a Socialist with a Human Face • Beverly G. Merrick, New Mexico State • The purpose of this research into intellectual history is to explore the contributions of Rosa Luxemborg, as pamphleteer and political columnist. She predicted the fall of the Leninist-Marxist model, and proposed a kind of social democratic model that is a cousin to similar political and social movements in the United States. Although she became a martyr for her contributions to the thenradical thought of freedom of expression in Soviet Russia, more than 40 years before the sixties movement of the New Left, Luxemborg is the ideological founder of that movement.

The Symbolic Repertoires of Contention: The Rhetoric of California Latino Strikers and Media Framing • Young Min, Texas at Austin • The present paper explores the collective action frames of a Latino labor strike in California and probes the media’s framing of the walkout. By employing various polarizing frames and religious rhetorical markers, the strikers try to mobilize various audiences as supporters and invalidate the management’s new labor policies, but do not radically challenge capitalist law and order. Being dissonant with the strikers’ collective action frames, the news frames color the strike as a matter of conflicts between strikers and replacement workers and posit the company’s neo-liberal labor policies as reasonable business decisions.

Ideology and Manufactured Environments: An Analysis of the Disney Home Page • Randy Nichols, Oregon • This paper provides a critical analysis of the way in which the Disney web page is set up to enforce Disney’s ideological stance. By drawing on political economic studies of the Disney corporation as well as studies of how the Disney corporation controls space for its ideological ends, a better understanding of the implications of the company’s web page is gained.

Hemp in the Media: Social Struggles over a Controversial Plant • Andy Opel, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This paper examines the recent effort to revitalize the hemp industry in the United States. Contrasting information from the hemp advocates websites and popular literature with newspaper coverage from three major dailies over a three-year period, this discourse analysis reveals a struggle over the definition of the hemp plant. The media discourse around hemp in the late 1990s is found to be more than a semantic debate, and includes connections to the larger cultural debates of the “drug war” and the “culture war.”

Discourse about Global Media in Postcolonial India: Beauty Contests, Gender, and Nationalism • Radhika E. Parameswaran, Indiana • The controversial Miss World beauty contest that was held in India in 1996 is the focus of the proposed project. The controversy arose from protests expressed against the pageant by factions such as religious leaders, political parties, and feminist activists. This study is based on intensive interviews with organizers and sponsors of the pageant, and with other informants who were involved in managing and supporting the pageant.

The Talk of Movers and Shakers: Class Conflict in the Making of a Community Disaster • Lana F. Rakow, North Dakota • Communities and disasters are both products of communication. Communities are created by interactions of residents and institutions; disasters are named and blame assigned. In 1997, Grand Forks, North Dakota experienced a serious flood, which altered communication processes and highlighted class conflicts. Two groups, “movers” and “shakers,” represent conflicts over definitions of the event, political ideologies, and control of material and symbolic activity. While both groups “talk,” only one has “voice,” further embedding class differences.

Myth of the Southern Box Office: Lining Domestic Coffers with Global Prejudices • Elaine Walls Reed, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania • In the first half of the 20th century, the foreign market for domestic motion pictures dictated screen content that helped to institutionalize a domestic version of British imperialism. The Southern box office became the scapegoat, and American race relations suffered because of it.

Veiled Promise: The Meaning of “Chador” as a Late 20th Century Signifler • Elizabeth Lester Roushanzamir, Georgia • This inquiry investigates U.S. media texts demonstrating how processes of articulation and negotiation help construct a strategic version of Iran, which promotes the goals of transnational capital and U.S. foreign policy. While at times the goals of capital and state diverge, the construction of a gendered Other complements media representations of ethnicity, “race,” nationality and class to further common goals. In particular, representations of Iranian women in the news media, flat simplistic, iconic and memorable form a discourse of power that differs significantly from 19th century Orientalist representations.

Chiapas and the New News: Internet and Newspaper Coverage of a Broken Cease-fire • Adrienne Russell, Indiana • Taking the norms of journalism as exhibited in newspaper coverage of the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas as its starting point, this study analyzes online discourse centered around the rebel movement in order to reveal characteristics unique to computer mediated discourse. The paper focuses on the mechanisms by which traditional journalism and computer mediated communication each produces a particular truth about the Zapatista movement.

One of Those Shows: What Ally McBeal Tells Us about the Fate of Feminism • Camisha Ann Russell, American • Ally McBeal is a popular and fiercely debated show. The Ally character is simultaneously seen as feminist, postfeminist, and anti-feminist. The show was even used in Time magazine to ask: “Is Feminism Dead?” Such a question rests heavily on particular interpretations of the show and of feminism itself. Ally McBeal and the discussion surrounding it have more to tell us about the way our society views feminism than about feminism’s actual condition in that society.

Sunny Days on Sesame Street?: Multiculturalism and Resistance Postmodernism • Ute Sartorius, South Dakota • After thirty years of broadcasting, Sesame Street, which has been called one of the most influential children’s shows ever, plays an important role in shaping society’s construction of multiculturalism. This paper addresses the role of educational children’s television as a contributor to the forging of the notion of multiculturalism by analyzing Sesame Street’s suitability as an instrument for multicultural pedagogy.

Return of the Mummy: Hollywood Horror Revives Orientalism • Soon-Chul Shin, Georgia • Edward Said’s Orientalism explains how historical narrative have framed and distorted the images of the “Other.” The spectators are led to an exotic place, while watching Orientalistic films, where historical, spatial, temporal, and cultural contexts are totally fictitious, not just distorted; Imperialistic narrative rather “refract” the Others instead of “reflect” them. Tales of “the other” narrated by Orientalistic discourse boosted exploration of cinema’s particular capacity to reproduce an object in “verisimilitude” without truth.

Contradictory by Nature: The Dream of Attaining Nirvana through Materialism: A Critical Analysis of Silicon Valley Internet Start-ups and Entrepreneurs • Helga G. Tawil, Colorado • This is a preliminary research project based on in-depth interviews with individuals at Silicon Valley start-ups. From the Critical Theory approach, the aim is understanding and analyzing the forces in, and reasons for joining start-ups; attempting to understand the struggle and reconciliation between individuality and social pressures, looking at how the individual preserves his autonomy and individuality in the face of overwhelming social forces in Silicon Valley start-up culture, as well as addressing those socio-economic forces.

Dubuque’s First Political Prisoner: Violence, Class, and the ‘Frameup’ of Labor Journalist Archie Carter • James F. Tracy, Iowa • This paper is an analysis of the circumstances preceding and following the arrest and conviction of labor journalist, organizer, and political activist Archie Carter on a sodomy charge in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1938. Examination of newspapers, oral histories, court documents, and personal materials of Carter’s associates indicates that Carter was framed by powerful business interests and state authorities because of his activities as labor organizer and journalist.

Presidential Politics, the Emergence of Entertainment Journalism, and the Battle for Headlines: An Examination of the 1994-1995 Baseball Strike • Robert Trumpbour, Pennsylvania State • The capacity to inject ideology into sports-related content is explored, utilizing Presidential involvement with the 1994-1995 Major League Baseball strike. It is argued that entertainment-based media content may be perceived as culturally neutral by some citizens, but several media-related trends may serve to intensify the influence of these messages. President Clinton’s participation in the 1994-1995 baseball strike appeared to be a policy failure, but upon closer inspection, several successes were achieved.

Locating a Theoretical and Methodological Field for Contemporary Japanese TV Dramas: Discourse Hierarchy, Critical Ethnography and Radical Space of Television Writers • Eva Tsai, Iowa • This essay critiques various kinds of built-in theoretical hierarchies in television studies that have shaped the ways scholars position and evaluate television institutions, forms and workers in the Japanese context. I specifically address a much neglected and disciplined space of TV writers and argue that such a state is related to the theoretical and methodological perceptions of writers as marginalized media workers. Ultimately, I urge that researchers studying TV writers use critical ethnographic methods to deal with the issue of power relationship between the researcher and his or her subject.

The Use of Race as Political Strategy by Political Candidates: A Case Study of Opinions Expressed by Voters during a U.S. Presidential Campaign • Niranjala D. Weerakkody, Deakin University (Australia) • Taking the social constructionist position, this case study examines the opinions expressed on race by voters in depth and focus group interviews at different locations and different stages of the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign and what effect media messages shown as stimuli to the focus groups had on these opinions. It qualitatively analyzes the framing of these opinions by both whites and non-whites, under the themes “Candidates’ racial prejudice” and “Race is used as political strategy.”

Ideology and Race in California: The New York Times Coverage of Proposition 187 • Chris Williams, Texas at Austin • Using critical cultural and media sociology theories of ideology, race and the media, this study examines the New York Times’ coverage of Proposition 187, California’s plan to deny social services to undocumented immigrants, the vast majority of whom are non-white. It concludes that although the Times editorialized against the discriminatory nature of 187, its news coverage perpetuated the elite “blame the undocumented” discourse that diverted public attention from other important aspects of the immigration issue.

The Political Economy and Content of Television: The Soap Opera Paradigm • James H. Wittebols, Niagara • This paper seeks to show how television has responded to the increasing pressure to focus on market interests by appropriating elements from soap operas which have proven so successful in fulfilling market values. The techniques present in soaps which serve market interests are applied to an analysis of non-soap programming to present evidence that the political economy of television plays a significant role in how stories are told across fictional, sports and public affairs programming.

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