Religion and Media Interest Group

Religiosity and the Third-Person Effect • Guy Golan, University of Florida • During the past decade, the third person effect has emerged as an important area of research in the field of mass communications. The current study provides the first empirical measurement of the influence of religion on the third person effect. The study provides evidence that on moral issues, religiosity is positively associated with perceived media impact on others. The study also provides evidence that on non-moral issues, religiosity is not associated with perceived media impact on self or others.

The Effect of Survey Mode on Responses about Religious Beliefs and Behaviors • Barry A. Hollander, University of Georgia • This study focuses on the effect the mode of a national survey (phone versus personal interview) can have on answers to questions about religious beliefs and behaviors. Mode is found to have little effect on how people answer questions about their religious beliefs and behaviors or on the relationships among religious variables and other variables of interest, including media exposure and trust. The one exception is the self-identification of oneself as a born-again Christian.

Newspaper Coverage of Fundamentalist Christians, 1980-2000 • Peter Kerr, Patricia Moy, University of Washington • In light of evidence indicating that political attitudes are driven in part by attitudes toward fundamentalist Christians (Bolce & de Maio, 1999), this study examines the potential role of media coverage in influencing these attitudes. A content analysis of a probability sample of 2,696 articles drawn from Lexis-Nexis indicates a relatively stable and slightly negative portrayal of fundamentalist Christians over the past two decades. The amount and type of depictions differed by geographical region as well as by type of newspaper article. Also emerging from the data was a trend toward the meshing of religion and politics. Implications of such coverage are discussed.

A Public Interest in Religious Broadcasting: A Case Study of Korean Religious Cable TV • Min Soo Kim, The Seoul Catholic Archdiocese of Korea • no abstract.

Religion and Topoi in the News: An Analysis of the “Unsecular Media” hypothesis • Rick Clifton Moore, Boise State University • Mark Silk has proposed in Unsecular Media that journalists operate with a limited series of topoi and that these are borrowed from religion. Silk thus claims when journalists write about religion, they do so in a very positive manner. In this study, I apply topic analysis to recent news coverage of Jesse Jackson to determine the extent to which the topos of hypocrisy was employed and whether this employment supported or challenged religious values.

Gone Fishin’: A Framing Analysis of the Fight over a Small Town’s City Seal • Mark Paxton, Southwest Missouri State University • This study is a framing analysis of regional and national newspaper, Internet and Associated Press news coverage of the legal dispute over the inclusion of a fish symbol on the city seal in the small town of Republic, MO. Analysis of news articles revealed four frames. First, news reports framed the fish as a Christian symbol, despite supporters’ contentions that it merely represented non-denominational moral values. Second, news reports trivialized the dispute by framing the issue as unimportant. Third, news accounts represented the plaintiff in the lawsuit against the city as a religious outsider because of her Wiccan beliefs. Fourth, news accounts framed the dispute in terms of grassroots support for the fish symbol and outside meddlers opposed to the fish symbol.

Fantasy Theme Analysis in the interplay of Charles M. Sheldon’s In His Steps and his Jesus Newspaper • Michael Smith, Regent University • This article uses fantasy theme analysis to explore the remarkable work of the Rev. Dr. Charles M. Sheldon, a Congregationalist minister. In 1887 Sheldon wrote In His Steps, a best-selling novel, and gained international recognition. This novel depicted ordinary people who were inspired to make decisions by asking themselves, “What would Jesus do?” In the novel, a newspaper editor applied the question to his business and altered his advertising and editorial policies to conform to standards he believed Jesus would practice. In 1900 Sheldon was invited to become that fictional newspaper editor and lead a daily newspaper from March 13 to March 17, 1900. This research examines the way Sheldon’s approach to journalism formed a web of meaning for his audience that reflected his worldview. Using the “What would Jesus do?” question, Sheldon created a rhetorical vision for his readers. The fictional world described in the novel was reproduced in real life as Sheldon’s rhetorical vision spread through his work in the daily newspaper.

‘Where all things are pure and of good report’: The Doctrinal Theology, Religious Practice, and Media Manipulation of the Christian Science Church • Douglas Swanson, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse • The Church of Christ, Scientist, is a 21st century religious movement that is facing considerable challenges to its existence on many fronts. The church is morally hound to the unalterable religious theology of its 19th century founder, Mary Baker Eddy. The church is legally obligated to an intractable management structure Mrs. Eddy proscribed in the church Manual. For more than a century, church leadership has been able to follow Mrs. Eddy’s example and successfully manipulate the media to control dissemination of information about the church’s theology and practice. At the same time, the church has presented a pleasing public image of “rectitude and spiritual understanding” (Eddy, 1906, p.403). But recent financial crises and legal action against the church have generated unprecedented dissent, both inside and outside Christian Science. Examining how church leadership is struggling to address current issues with its 19th century frameworks could be indicative of the future success or failure of the Christian Science movement.

“Jesus Sends Dolphins to Save Cuban Child:” How the Press Played the “God Angle” in the Elian Gonzalez Story • Susan Willey, Florida Atlantic University • This study explores how well journalists report on supernatural religious claims when they insert themselves in a political and foreign policy story. An analysis of press reports of the Elian Gonzalez story reveals that reporters generally ignored the religious angle. When it was covered, journalists failed to question the assertions or provide any critical explanation that would have added depth and context and better understanding of the political power of religion within the Cuban-American community.

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Media and Disability Interest Group

“Disability” as Diversity in Public Relations Textbooks • Louella Benson-Garcia, Pepperdine University • The purpose of this study was to determine the extent, if any, that public relations textbooks address the diversity category of “disability.” Of the 17 textbooks analyzed, 12 did not. Four listed people with disabilities in a one- or two-sentence laundry list of diversity groups. The most substantial – a 69-word passage on eliminating writer bias. Results indicated a need for interest/advocacy groups to proactively provide curriculum materials and other information to educators, many of whom are textbook authors.

Primetime Portrayal of Persons with Disabilities: A Study in Representation, Stereotype and Impact • Dennis J. Ganahl & Mark Arbuckle, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale • This study examined the presence and portrayal of persons with visually detected physical impairments during prime time network television commercials. The research coded 1,337 prime time commercials during a 1999 sweeps rating period. First this study identified Primary and Secondary Actors with visually detected physical impairments. Then it categorized those actors’ roles according to Nelson’s Stereotypes. After being counted and categorized, the roles were evaluated for their potentially positive or negative impact. Broadly, this research found that persons with visually detected physical impairments were virtually nonexistent and only half of the acting roles could be categorized according to one of Nelson’s Stereotypes.

Leaving up to the Industry: People with Disabilities and the Telecommunications Act of 1996 • Tomoko Kanayama, Ohio University • Telecommunications policy becomes more important to solve the problem of the disabled in the information society. This paper examined whether Section 255 of the 1996 Act can achieve the goal. The paper found that this regulation remains more on encouragement to the industry to consider accessibility issues for the disabled. If the FCC will continue to rely on the voluntary efforts of the industry, the disabled will not enjoy the benefits of access to telecommunications systems.

A Right to the News: Accessibility of Newspaper Web sites to the Visually Impaired • Kathleen K. Olson, Lehigh University • Image-rich Web pages are often difficult for screen readers and other assistive technologies to interpret, limiting their usefulness to the visually impaired. This study uses the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) guidelines for Web developers to determine whether the top daily papers in the United States fulfill the Priority 1 requirement of accessibility for the disabled by providing textual alternatives to the visual content on their home pages.

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Graduate Education Division

National News Cultures: Toward a Profile of Journalists Using Cross-National Survey Findings • Mark Deuze, The Amsterdam School of Communications Research • no abstract

Skeptical Common Sense: The Media and the Truth about Montreux • Michelle Stack, University of Toronto • no abstract

Agenda Setting and Its Theoretical Elaboration • Namkee Park, University of Georgia • no abstract

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Entertainment Studies Interest Group

Focus Group Analysis: Can It Help Explain Present Audience Discontent with Broadcast Network Television? • William J. Adams, Kansas State University • This study used focus groups to investigate audiences dissatisfaction with the major U.S. broadcast networks. The study found a strong perceived lack of variety. However, the term variety actual meant three separate things. While participants gave lip service to a separation between news and entertainment, follow up questions indicate they see no real. Participants had strong anti-business sentiments based on the belief that networks and producers held them in contempt. While participants strongly objected to sex and violence, they could not agree on what represented objectionable content.

Is there sufficient evidence to regulate popular music and music videos?: A review and critique • David J. Atkin and Robert Abelman, Cleveland State University • For nearly half a century, the evolution of rock music has been marked by controversy over its social influence. To a large degree, arguments by the pro- and anti-regulation/censorship camps echo those encountered in debates over the effects of media violence and pornography generally (e.g., Jeffres, 1997). The present study reviews empirical work on the content and effects of violence in rock music and music videos. In evaluating whether the research meets the high burden for regulatory intervention, we must first establish (1) whether the content of these popular arts is, in fact, providing an increasingly toxic content environment, and (2) whether such contents actually influence audience attitudes and behaviors. A review of the literature suggests that assailants of popular music have needed to “fill in the blanks” of their empirical arguments with selective citations to the voluminous literature on general media effects (e.g., with TV violence). The specific literature on popular music and music videos provides little in the way of longitudinal, externally valid findings that can establish a “smoking gun” with media influences as potent causal agents with human behavior. Implications for media regulation are discussed.

Zelda 64 and video game fans: A walkthrough of games. intertextuality and narrative • Mia Consalvo, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee • This paper argues that in order to better understand and theorize video games and game playing, it is necessary to study the activities of gamers themselves. This research examines game fans’ construction of walkthroughs, which guide other players through the action and story of the game. It is argued that these walkthroughs function as narratives for gamers, which are read intertextually by game fans. Further, gamers should be considered active creators of meaning regarding games, as they inhabit many of the characteristics of traditional media fans, including active reading of the media text, construction of media texts to share with other fans, and knowledge of intertextual relations between various media forms.

Front Page Women: Images of Women in Film Version of the Classic Play The Front Page. • Douglass K. Daniel, Ohio University • Four film versions of the play The Front Page, considered by many the definitive work of fiction about newspaper reporters, retained misogynistic elements over nearly six decades. Rather than changing with the times, the stereotypical women characters who dared to enter the man’s world of the press room were crushed by it. Even in the most recent version, made in 1988, women remained the pawns of men when not merely disruptive and annoying.

I HATE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW!: FEMALE AFRICAN AMERICAN ARITISTS AND THE JUSTIFATION OF VIOLENCE IN MUSIC VIDEO • Michele S. Foss and Stephynie Chapman, The University of Florida • This essay explores the ways in which three African-American female musicians justify their use of violence within music video narratives. What are these artists saying in their videos? What do these videos teach viewers about African-American women? Whether a product of the progressive day and age or a product of the frequently controversial hip-hop genre, these videos make a timely cultural comment about an art form that continues to become more assertive.

Sins and Virtues of Prime Time Television: Fictional Characters as Role Models • Kendra L. Gale, University of St. Thomas • This paper is a content analysis of the moral character of fictional characters on popular prime-time, American television programs. This study uses the cardinal sins and virtues: 1) to assess the moral values of characters; 2) to document the overall presence or absence of moral themes in prime time sitcoms and dramas; and 3) to examine the consequences of particularly sinful or virtuous behavior. Characters are assessed for their potential as role models.

Reality Television Goes Interactive: The Big Brother Television Audience • Lisa Gandy and M.J. Land, Georgia College & State University, and Lisa McChristian, Elon College • Reality television was taken to a new realm in the summer of 2000. Television audiences and Internet audiences were married through a voyeuristic, interactive experience. This study attempted to better understand the audience attracted to these interactive, realistic television shows. Utilizing previous studies on audience interactivity, a random telephone survey of Big Brother viewers was administered. Big Brother viewers that browsed the show’s website before and after the show were demographically more likely to be younger, more educated, and PC owners. Big Brother website visitors were significantly more likely to plan to watch the television show, eliminate distractions to that viewing and be more involved during the television show than non-Internet website users.

Wong Kar-Wai: An International Auteur in Hong Kong Film-making • Timothy R. Gleason, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Qi Tang, Bowling Green State University and Jean Giovanetti, Freelance Writer • Wong Kar-Wai is the premier “auteur” of Hong Kong cinema. This paper analyzes his film, Chungking Express using the “auteur as structure” approach. The analysis reveals Wong utilizes a French New Wave style to represent his view of a Hong Kong undergoing social and political transformations. This research is significant because it introduces the work of an internationally-acclaimed director to mass communication scholars and deciphers a film inherently complex to interpret.

‘Natural Born Killers’: An Aesthetic-Ethical Deconstruction of Violence in (and of) the Mass Media • Joseph Harry, Slippery Rock University • The 1994 film Natural Born Killers is analyzed from a postmodern literary and aesthetic-ethical interpretive stance to consider the film’s own ethos pertaining to violence as both personal, family-dysfunctional issue and as cultural-media event. The theoretical position, and the film’s own chaotic, schizophrenic narrative, both provide a means to understand the film’s contradictory moral outlook from a deconstructivist ethical perspective, embracing complexity, irony and moral indeterminancy as a potentially inescapable and problematic outcome of ethical evaluation within a media-fragmented culture.

Fall Colors 2000: The State of Diversity in Broadcast Network Prime Time Television • Katharine Heintz-Knowles, Children’s Media Research and Consulting, and Jennifer Henderson, University of Washington • Network television came under fire during the 1999 season for it’s lack of racial diversity. Network executives responded with assurances that the 2000 season would be more inclusive of racial minority characters. This paper examines the racial diversity in the first two episodes of each entertainment series airing during prime time on the six broadcast networks for the Fall 2000 season. The study discovered that the network prime time world is primarily a white one, with African Americans making a visible presence and all other racial minority groups being virtually invisible. While a vast majority of programs have entire casts that are racially mixed, most of the racial minority characters are included in secondary and guest roles. When just opening credits casts are considered, the authors discovered that more programs featured racially homogeneous casts (either all white or all black) than racially mixed casts.

The Influence of Media Ownership on News Coverage: A case of CNN’s Coverage of Movies • Jaemin Jung, University of Florida • The purpose of this study was to examine whether media conglomerates use their own media outlets to promote their media products. Specifically, CNN’s coverage of movies was content analyzed to see differences based on the ownership. The findings suggest that CNN, a subsidiary of Time Warner, showed favoritism toward their parent company’s movies. While CNN increased the amount of coverage of Time Warner’s movies after the merger with Time Warner, it reduced the coverage of its competitors’ movies.

That Which Unites and Divides Us: A Study of Television Audience Meaning-Making • Karen E. Kline, Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania • This paper examines the social practices surrounding television that were enacted by a group of regular viewers of the television program Picket Fences. The ethnographic data provide a portrait of active audiencehood revealed through the ways respondents asserted control over their viewing experiences and the specific terms of their engagement with this program and its characters. At the same time, respondents generated ideologically diverse interpretations that reflected the racial and social class differences among them.

Mass Media Use and Teen Sexuality: Findings from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health • Myra Gregory Knight, Elon College • This study examined the cultivation of sexual attitudes and behaviors among adolescents based on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a representative sample of U.S. high school students. The study found that television viewing alone was not linked with any of the sexual attitudes tested but that sexually suggestive media use and overall media use were. Both television viewing and sexually suggestive media use were associated with an increased risk of sexual debut.

Offense and Harm as Predictors in a Third-Person Effect Variation Study • Ron Leone, Stonehill College • The purpose of this study is to examine how personal offensiveness to, and perceived harmfulness of, violent and sexual film content relates to the setting of minimum age limits for viewing movies containing examples of each. Using third-person effect as a theoretical framework, a 2×2 experiment was conducted. Subjects were asked to assess how harmful they believed what they viewed was, and, instead of responding to “effects on self” items, subjects indicated levels of personal offensiveness to the material. It is hypothesized that subjects will find sex more offensive than violence, and personal offensiveness will outweigh perceived harmfulness as affecting behavior (setting a minimum age limit for viewing). Findings are mixed: although sex appears to not be more offensive than violence, personal offensiveness does seem to outweigh perceived harmfulness when setting a minimum age limit for viewing sexual and/or violent movie content.

Bodies on Display: ESPN’s Coverage of the NFL Draft • Thomas P. Oates, University of Iowa • The 2000 NFL Draft was the occasion for an intense and remarkable media spectacle. ESPN’s production included television, magazine and internet coverage. This paper considers these texts from a critical/cultural perspective in order to interpret the complex ways in which assumptions and assertions about various forms of power are woven into the narratives produced by ESPN. The paper presents the argument that the draft coverage celebrated technological capitalism, masculinity and military values.

Latinas and African American Women in the Film “The 24-Hour Woman” • Diana I. Rios, University of Connecticut and Meta Carstarphen, University of North Texas • This essay examines women of color in “The 24-Hour Woman.” We examine how the film reconstructs images of Latinas and African American women and critique the extent to which the film breaks new ground. Our analytic approach includes “mestiza” (Sandoval, 1998; Anzaldua, 1987) and “womanist” (Walker, 1983) perspectives. The mestiza and womanist frameworks are appropriate for this film analysis since they lend insight into woman character thinking and development throughout the film narrative.

THE COMEDY CAMPAIGN: The Growing Influence of Humor in Presidential Elections, A Uses and Gratifications Approach • Laura K. Smith, University of Texas • In the year 2000, news and entertainment programs dedicated a great deal of comedic attention to the presidential race. Taking a Uses and Gratifications approach, the author examines the role of comedy among the young electorate. She concludes comedic programs, while popular, are among many sources young people use to learn about the candidates. The author also examines motivations driving young people to non-traditional sources and finds motivation can significantly affect the impact of jokes.

View the Right Way: Encoding/Decoding and the Critical Reception of Do the Right Thing • Mark W. Sullivan, Towson University • Spike Lee’s film Do the Right Thing became quite controversial upon its 1989 release. The unusually large amount of printed commentary generated by the film provides a rare opportunity to examine a variety of actual response to one text to help understand just how polysemic a text might be. Belying the theoretical potential of “selective perception” leading to an infinite number of individual decodings, the response quickly clustered into just two meanings.

Colonial/Censorship Burdens • See Kam Tan aand Annette Aw, Nanyang Technological University • This paper examines censorship with respect to colonialism. It specifically seeks to understand the operation of such prohibitive powers, their vigilance and failure, through a disursive analysis of Tsui Hark’s feature, Dangerous Encounter – 1st Kind (1980). Three interrelated questions guide the analysis: Is censorship all-powerful? How is censorship dealt with at the site of production? Can censorship engender an creative impetus of its own, beyond its initial debilitating capacity?

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Civic Journalism Interest Group

Teaching Crime and Violence Reporting from a Public Health Perspective • Judy Bolch and Esther Thorson, University of Missouri • This paper describes the public health perspective on crime and violence reporting and then justifies that approach by looking briefly at the extensive literature that has developed on the patterns of crime reporting that characterize American Journalism. The public health perspective can be clearly argued to fit well within the category “civic journalism.” This literature also suggests some of the detrimental effects on Americans of such reporting. With the public health reporting perspective justified, the paper then describes how the approach was used to teach crime and violence reporting to a class of undergraduate and graduate students. Readings, student work, and student evaluations of the course are described. The authors contend that this new way of teaching “cops and courts” suggests a potential benefit in linking research on journalistic content and critique of that content with hands-on teaching of young reporters.

Civic Journalism in the 2000 U.S. Senate Race in Virginia • David Kennamer and Jeff South, Virginia Commonwealth University • The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot is a proponent of civic journalism; the Richmond Times-Dispatch is not. Content analysis of the papers’ coverage of Virginia’s 2000 U.S. Senate election reflected the divergent newsroom philosophies. The Times-Dispatch stories were more likely to be triggered by campaign-managed events, to focus on the election “horse race” and to use political establishment sources. The Pilot’s stories were more likely to result from independent or enterprise reporting, to address issues and to use “real people” sources.

After Columbine: Public Journalism and The Needs of Youth • Jan Maxson, University of Washington • The Portland Press Herald initiated the “On The Verge” public journalism project in January 2000 to address issues faced by youth in the community. The school shootings at Columbine served as a catalyst to a five part project to address issues such as school, cliques, racism and pressures faced by youth This research involved 452 surveys of youth and community members to assess the project, its impact and changes in the community climate for teens.

Civic Autonomy in Journalism Education: An Alternative to the Lure of Detachment • Michael McDevitt, University of New Mexico • Civic journalism has failed to appreciate the importance of autonomy as an inevitable outcome of professional socialization. College students are likely to adopt a conventional view of autonomy given their need for psychological identification with the profession. Educators should promote a model of civic autonomy, which incorporates professional expertise in service to political activation. The intent is to match reporting methods with democratic goals, and thereby encourage a reflective approach to news coverage.

Civic Journalism Influence On Local TV News Coverage of the 2000 Elections • Amy Reynolds, Indiana University and Gary Hicks, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville • During 2000, several corporate Owners of local television Stations announced they would incorporate initiatives into their 2000 election coverage to improve the quality of their political journalism. Simultaneously, Best Practices 2000 began to help local television stations develop strategies and plans for innovative election coverage. This study examines whether or not a variety of civic journalism principles had taken hold in local television news, even if none of the television Stations themselves were civic journalism advocates.

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