Entertainment Studies Interest Group

Agenda Setting and the Hip Hop Factor in Decision 2004 • Carol Adams-Means, Texas at San Antonio, Maria Flores-Guitierrez and Maxwell McCombs, University of Texas at Austin • The 2004 election process has encountered a new variable in voter education and participation. It has come via the Hip Hop (HH) subculture. The Hip Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) campaign is the vehicle through which HH music producers and performers intended to engage young, eligible voters, ages 18 to 35, in the 2004 election process. The non-partisan HSAN is comprised of HH music industry leaders, performers, political leaders, activists, academicians, and HH music followers.

The Kids are Watching, but what are they Learning? The Political Content of The Daily Show • Carole Bell, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Given The Daily Show’s increasing popularity as a news source and recent prominence in the 2004 election process, it is important to examine the nature of the information the show provides. The current analysis revealed that using The Daily Show as a primary source of political information is highly problematic. Viewers who use it as a substitute rather than supplement for traditional news will likely lack the information needed to learn from or evaluate its content critically.

Fan Websites: Motives, Identification and Site Content • Maureen Cech and John Beatty, La Salle University • As part of a larger study of the creators of celebrity fan Websites, this online qualitative study examines the self-selected responses of 49 site creators. A set of open-ended questions asking about their celebrities, fan communities, and creative expression was sent to these site creators. Actor- and musician-site creators reported similar motives for creating their fan sites, citing celebrity-based motives most often, followed by creativity-based and fan-based motives.

A Review of Literature on the Status, Effects, and Causal Factors Involved in the Differences in Media Coverage for Men’s and Women’s Athletics • Elizabeth Ann Gibler, University of Missouri-Columbia • In this paper, the literature on gender differences in sports coverage is examined for an understanding of the issue’s current status as well as its causes and effects. Despite the continuing increase in interest and participation in women’s sports, media coverage for female athletes has actually declined over the past decade. This unequal media coverage affects female participation and body image as well as the professional opportunities available to female athletes.

Tales of Tattered Romance: Cheaters TV, Real Reality, and Melodramatic Parody • Joseph C. Harry, Slippery Rock University • The Cheaters syndicated television show is analyzed as a hybrid genre that draws on and unwittingly problematizes traditional and contemporary notions of romance, technological surveillance, and voyeurism by featuring suffering lovers and videotaped exploits of their cheating mates. The rhetoric of the text is explored by examining its conjuncture within political, economic and socio-cultural forces, and by interpreting the program’s contradictory narrative, ethical, and ideological stance.

Impact of Celebrity Endorsers on Student Voters • Elizabeth Hutton, Maja Krakowiak, Kathleen O’Toole and Kelly Shultz, Pennsylvania State University • Rock musicians played an unprecedented role in the 2004 presidential election. In an effort to motivate the youngest segment of the electorate, some of the biggest names in rock music headlined benefit concerts on behalf of Democratic candidate Senator John Kerry. Performers such as Bruce Springsteen, who had never taken an overtly partisan stand in his 30-year career, stumped through swing states in a series of concerts called the Vote for Change Tour.

Linking Television General Viewing to the Acceptance of Rape Myths • Lee Ann Kahlor and Dan Morrison, University of Texas at Austin • Abstract not available.

The Role of Animation in the Third-Person Effect: A Comparison of Live-action and Animated Violence in Kill Bill Volume 1 • Christine A. Klek and Letrez A. Myer, Pennsylvania State University • Abstract not available.

Social Cognitive Understanding on Video Game Usage • Doohwang Lee and Robert LaRose, Michigan State University • This study investigated how people become deficient in self-regulation in video game play so that they may engage in excessive video game consumption behavior. Based on Bandura’s social cognitive theory of self-regulation (1986; 1991), this study proposed a model of unregulated video game consumption behavior and investigated why video games players engage in playing specific genres of video games. This study found significant impacts of outcome expectations, deficient self-regulation on video game play among 388 college undergraduate students.

Simply Irresistible: Reality TV Consumption Patterns • Lisa K. Lundy, Louisiana State University • This purpose of this study was to explore college students’ consumption patterns in regard to reality television, their rationale for watching, their perceptions of the situations portrayed in reality television, and the role of social affiliation in their consumption of reality television. The results of focus groups indicate that while participants perceive a social stigma associated with watching reality television, they continue to watch because of the perceived escapism and social affiliation provided.

Fascination of Reality Television with the College Student Audience: The Uses and Gratifications Perspective on the Program Genre • James A. Mead, Wisconsin-Whitewater • Due to recent publications on the popularity of reality television over the past few years, a study was conducted in order to determine the most common motives for why a specific target audience watches the programming genre. A total of 162 southeastern Wisconsin college students were surveyed on their regular television viewing habits. The only demographics each participant revealed were gender, age, race, and class standing.

You’re Living in the Past, It’s a New Generation: Music as a Memory Device in Nostalgia Television Shows • Heather Muse, Temple University • The proliferation of nostalgia television shows in recent years has given rise to popular music of past eras appearing on television frequently. This narrative analysis examines the use of popular music in the television series That ‘70s Show, Freaks and Geeks, and American Dreams to determine how popular music helped to evoke nostalgia for the era represented. Frith’s notions of cultural and emotional codes for film music and Grossberg’s concept of “rock formations” of culture were utilized in the analysis.

Monsters, Gangsters, Jesters and psychopaths: The Examination of Trait Characteristics of Movie Villains and Emotional Responses • Meghan A. Sanders, Pennsylvania State University • In this paper, the literature on gender differences in sports coverage is examined for an understanding of the issue’s current status as well as its causes and effects. Despite the continuing increase in interest and participation in women’s sports, media coverage for female athletes has actually declined over the past decade. This unequal media coverage affects female participation and body image as well as the professional opportunities available to female athletes.

Under the (Glue) Gun: Containing and Constructing Reality in Home Makeover TV • Madeleine Shufeldt and Kendra Gale, University of Colorado-Boulder • This paper presents a case study of two families over a 7-month period as they move from fan to applicant to cast of the home improvement reality TV program Trading Spaces: Family. The paper details the discrepancies between the actuality of participation and the preferred “reality” of dramatic and collaborative interior design. Strategies to maintain (or even increase) the producers’ power over the unscripted events via program format, contracts and selective editing are highlighted.

Flow and Enjoyment of Video Games • Barry P. Smith, University of Alabama • This paper examines how flow may contribute to the experience of enjoyment derived from playing video games. Entertainment theories and flow theory are briefly reviewed and then applied to the medium of video games. Video game enjoyment is theorized as the result flow which occurs when the challenge presented by a video game is relatively high and matched with an individual’s perception of his or her level of skill at playing the game.

No Laughing Matter: Negative Attribute Agenda Setting on Late Night Television • Amy Zerba and Tania Cantrell, University of Texas at Austin • This attribute agenda setting study explores the negative attributes of Bush and Kerry jokes on Leno, Letterman, Conan and The Daily Show and the negative attributes stated by watchers and non-watchers of the shows during the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Findings from this content analysis, Web survey and experiment study show attribute agenda setting effects for Bush; increased campaign interest with show(s) exposure; and the significant influence of party affiliation with respondents’ negative descriptions and the jokes’ negative attributes.

<< 2005 Abstracts

Community Journalism Interest Group

When Casinos Come to Town: How Iowa Newspapers Framed Gambling Expansion and the Influence of these Frames on Citizens’ Approval or Rejection of Casinos in their Counties • Jason Michael Boucher, Iowa State • This study used framing theory to analyze the findings of a content analysis of four newspapers that serve different Iowa counties one year preceding and one year following each county’s casino referendum. The results show that the newspapers used the expansion debate, tax and economic frames the most, and relied heavily on state and local politicians as information sources. The orientation of opinion pieces was related to the referenda outcomes in each county.

Servicing the “Needy Mistress”: Commitment to People, Place, and Mission as a Function of Family Newspaper Ownership • Susan Brockus, Purdue University • Family members from six family-owned newspapers sold to media corporations in the past decade were interviewed to gain their perceptions on what it is like to grow up in, commit to, and ultimately sell the family newspaper after generations of ownership. It is the underlying concern of this project that there are differences between local and corporate ownership that have the potential for lasting impact upon cultural health, particularly in smaller markets and rural communities.

Newsroom Leaders’ Perceptions of the Role and Value of Copy Editors at Community Newspapers • Corbin Crable, Anna Morelock and Amber Willard, Kansas State University • This study maintains community newsroom leaders place less value on the role of copy editors than on other positions, such as designers, and have eliminated the copy editor or integrated the job into other positions due to budget constraints. Survey results from 77 community newspapers statewide showed leaders valued the work performed by copy editors but not employing one person whose sole task is copyediting.

Life and Death in a Small Town: Cultural Values and Memory in Community Newspaper Obituaries • Janice Hume, University of Georgia • This study analyzes 738 obituaries published in a twice-weekly newspaper, the Guntersville (Ala.) Advertiser-Gleam. The purpose is twofold—to show how citizens’ lives were publicly commemorated, and to illustrate the important role obituaries play in community newspapers. Obituaries did more than report the news of deaths. They celebrated life, and represented a kind of “ideal,” offering clues about values. What they revealed was a people with strong ties to place, family, church, and work.

Back to the Future: Allegheny Mountain Radio and Localism in West Virginia Community Radio • Maryanne Reed and Ralph E. Hanson, West Virginia University • Community radio is a form of non-commercial broadcasting designed to serve a specific geographic area. In recent years, community radio has become a viable alternative to both commercial and public radio, which produce nationally oriented programming designed for mass audiences. The value and impact of community radio can be seen through the work of Allegheny Mountain Radio, a three-station network serving a rural and geographically isolated region of southern West Virginia and Virginia.

<< 2005 Abstracts

Civic Journalism Interest Group

The Democratic Ideal and Its Translation Online: The Possibility and Potential of the Internet as Public Sphere • Elizabeth Michelle Franko, University of Colorado • In both popular and scholarly publications, the Internet has been heralded as a new virtual public sphere, or as a tool for reviving a tired democratic process in established democratic states. This paper attempts to uncover and understand the ways in which classic and contemporary democratic theory elucidate the very potential of the Internet to become a viable public sphere. I also seek to interrogate the rhetoric around the Internet as a so-called democratic space.

Experiential Learning for Research and Reporting Classes Through a Comprehensive Newsroom Project • Sharon Hartin Iorio, Les Anderson, Leslie Blythe, Wichita State University • A class in communication research and a class in advanced reporting took part in a contracted civic journalism project for The (Junction City, KS) Daily Union newspaper titled “Re-imagining Junction City.” While examples of academic and professional partnerships exist, none that allowed students to participate both I n the research phase and in the follow-up reporting of the research findings could be identified in a recent literature review.

“Civic Journalism Is Journalism With Ethics”: Practitioners Speak To The Moral Imperative Of Their Work • Rick Kenney, University of Central Florida and Marie Hardin, Pennsylvania State University • How do civic journalists perceive the ethics of the journalism they produce? In a qualitative analysis of long interviews with reporters and editors in one civic journalism newsroom, this paper seeks to – in the spirit of communitarianism – give voice to the movement’s everyday “experiencers”: those who conceive, carry out, and publish the projects at the center of the decade-old debate over whether this brand of journalism is effective or even ethical The Student Writer as the Citizen in Public Journalism.

The Student Writer as the Citizen in Public Journalism • Cailin Brown Leary, University at Albany • Current conversations in public/participatory journalism and in composition are focused on how to engage and invigorate the citizenry. Writing teachers are preparing critical readers and writers to join the public conversation. These writing classrooms can become the sites where “somebody outside the journalism assembles the public.” (Joann Byrd from “What Are Journalists For?” Rosen).

OhmyNews’ and Its Citizen Journalists as Avatars of a Post-Modern Marketplace of Ideas • Ronald Rodgers, Ohio University • Abstract not available.

Judging Journalism • Ivor Shapiro, Patrizia Albanese and Leigh Doyle, Ryerson University • What does “excellence” mean in journalism? The literature reveals no universally agreed set of standards, and awards guidelines are often unclear. When interviewed about how they assess submissions, judges in Canada’s two leading journalism awards programs emphasized their intuition and experience rather than specific criteria, but placed special weight on writing style and on the amount and depth of reporting. Other values included originality, relevance and public impact, integrity, and analysis.

Interactive Media And Journalists: The Effects of Interactive Media on Civic and Traditional Journalists • Shelley Wigley, Oklahoma State University and Patrick Meirick, University of Oklahoma • This study looked at differences between civic and traditional journalists. Sports journalists at daily newspapers participated in a Web-based survey. Results indicate that civic journalists do not place more value on citizen input than traditional journalists, nor do they pay more attention to sports talk radio and Internet message boards as a source of information or fan opinion. The study produced one counterintuitive finding.

<< 2005 Abstracts

Visual Communication Division

See It, Touch It, Taste It, Smell It, Hear It: The Use of Visual Metaphor in Sensory Advertising Strategy • Elizabeth Crisp, Tennessee, Knoxville • The purpose of this paper is to address visual metaphors as they relate to sensory appeals in magazine advertising. This research is important because very little research in the field has examined synesthetic images and visual metaphors in print advertising. This paper examines advertisements collected from five women’s magazines and applies the sensory visuals contained in these advertisements to a visual rhetoric model.

Now You See It, Now You Don’t: The Problems with Newspaper Photo Archives • Lucinda D. Davenport, Michigan State, Quint Randle, Brigham Young and Howard Bossen, Michigan State • This study systematically investigates the practices and policies of archiving and accessing images, now that most newspapers have gone digital. Findings from NPPA newspaper photographers, responding to multiple-choice and open-ended questions, show that policies and practices are in disarray. Photographers also are frustrated and concerned about digital technology becoming obsolete and what it means to historical records.

‘Naturally’ Less Exciting? Visual Production of Men’s And Women’s Track and Field Coverage During the 2004 Olympics • Casey Homan, Nevada-Reno, Marie Hardin, Penn State and Jennifer Greer, Nevada-Reno • Using Zettl’s applied media aesthetics approach, visual production techniques were content analyzed in all track and field coverage in the 2004 Olympic Games. Segments featuring male athletes used more of everything: more time, more segments, more variation in camera shots, more variation in camera angles, more slow motion, and more use of rail-cam. The analysis shows that men’s track and field coverage was framed as more visually exciting than the same events for women.

A Matter of Culture: A Comparative Study of Photojournalism in American and Korean Newspapers • Yung Soo Kim and James D. Kelly, Southern Illinois, • The content of 628 news and feature photographs in ten elite American and Korean newspapers was analyzed for differences in composition, subject number, and subject identification. The Korean approach to photojournalism was purely descriptive while the American approach was more interpretive. Koreans presented far more news, emphasized the group, and maintained a consistent composition. Americans ran more features, emphasized the individual and varied composition. Differences were explained by culture, normative protocols, and differing media philosophies.

Identity-Centered Model of Visual Design: A Case Study of the 50 State Quarters® Program • Angela K. Mak and Suman M. Lee, Iowa State • We adopt Soenen and Moingeon’s (2002) dynamics of the identities of organizations model to demonstrate how the role of visual identity is treated as one of the components of collective identities (i.e. the projected identity) by showing how the creation of a state quarter can be seen as a crucial element that reflects the history of a state’s past, present, and future.

Reality vs. Fiction: How Defined Realness Affects Cognitive & Emotional Responses to Photographs • Andrew L. Mendelson and Zizi Papacharissi, Temple • This paper presents the results of an experiment investigating cognitive and emotional effects related to changing the label ascribed to still photographs, from fictional to real, while keeping the content constant. Results demonstrated that viewers tended to react more strongly to photographs labeled as real, but they thought more about photographs labeled as fiction. Further, the label assigned to the photograph interacted with viewer’s predisposition for learning from visual information.

Fahrenheit 9/11: Michael Moore, ‘W,’ & the Use of Montage as Political Strategy • Peter Morello, Missouri-Kansas City, David R. Thompson, Loras College and Birgit Wassmuth, Drake • This paper provides an overview of Michael Moore’s docu-activist techniques in his 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11. As the authors define in this paper, a “docu-activist” is a documentary filmmaker who employs what one German scholar of filmmaking describes as “demagogische montage” for the purpose of specific, deadline-oriented social or political change.

The Construction of American Military Identity in Mahjoob’s Cartoons after the Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal in Iraq: A Layered Exploratory Study • Orayb Aref Najjar, Northern Illinois • This study suggests that cartoons are important sites for the construction of the identity of the self and the “other.” Using techniques culled from various disciplines that include social psychology, cognition, anthropology in conjunction with the cartoon code, this study “constructs” an analytical table of “Instructed Viewing” (Goffman, 1979) to study the way cartoonist Emad Hajjaj constructed the identity of the American military in Iraq after the prison abuses of Abu Ghraib.

The Bloody Lens: A bibliographic Essay on Ethical Concerns Related to Shocking Images of Violence and Tragedy • Carol B. Schwalbe, Arizona State • For decades, scholars and journalists have discussed the ethics of disseminating shocking images of violence and tragedy. The proliferation of violent images in our 24/7 news-hungry society raises ethics-related questions for photographers, editors, and producers. This article reviews the literature on the ethics of digital photo alteration (truth telling); decisions faced by photographers, editors, and producers about images of violence and tragedy; and codes of ethics that provide guidance about disseminating grisly images.

Newsroom Attitudes Toward the Roles of Newspaper Designers • Kathryn J. Smith, Jennifer George-Palilonis, Pamela Leidig-Farmen and Mark Popovich, Ball State • While newspaper designers have taken on increasingly important roles in newsrooms, professional and academic literature points to a divide between “word” journalists and “visual” journalists. This study examined current attitudes toward this divide by using Q Methodology. Forty-one journalists at four Mid-western newspapers sorted 50 statements concerning attitudes about the responsibilities of designers and the value of design to the newspaper and its readers. Three factors emerged and were labeled: Collaborators, Progressives, and Traditionalists.

Images of the Casualties of War: Is there a Media Right of Access? • Nicole Elise Smith, North Carolina, Chapel Hill • At the onset of the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. Pentagon issued a policy prohibiting media coverage, including photography, of the caskets of slain American soldiers arriving at Dover Air Force Base. This research asks, based on the unique attributes of images to convey information, is the ban an unconstitutional prior restraint? Additionally, as some families want photographic coverage of the return of their loved ones, does the restriction violate these families First Amendment rights?

Assessing Pictorial-projective and Photo-elicited Responses to Commercials • Lawrence Soley, Marquette • Photoelicitation and projective assessment are research methods derived from visual sociology and psychoanalysis respectively. This study combined the methods by having respondents view a commercial, and then showing them one of two versions of a projective drawing showing a lone or a male-accompanied woman sitting on a couch. Respondents were told that the woman in the drawing had just seen the commercial, and were asked about what the woman was thinking.

‘When May I Expect my Uniform?’ The World Through Chicago Political Cartoons Before and after Pearl Harbor • Fred Vultee, Missouri-Columbia • As December 1941 began, the Chicago Tribune and the Daily News were reporting two different wars: one America desperately needed to avoid, one it was duty-bound to enter. But when the presses rolled December 7, the Roosevelt-hating Tribune found itself uncomfortably aligned with its rival (owned by Roosevelt-hating Navy secretary).

Visual Representation of Villainy: Comparing Editorial Cartoons of Bin Laden, McVeigh and Kim • Samuel P. Winch, Penn State Harrisburg • This paper reports the results of a content analysis of editorial cartoons featuring Osama bin Laden, Timothy McVeigh, and North Korean President Kim Jong-Il. The elements of editorial cartoons of public enemies are examined as examples of rhetorically persuasive techniques in visual depiction.

Manipulating Visual Information in the Digital Age: How viewers React on Digitally Altered and Manipulative Captioned Photographic Images: Results of a Quasi-Experimental Study • Kathrin Ziegler and Klaus Forster, Munich • In our study we explore how digitally altered and manipulative captioned pictures are perceived by the viewers. We regard image perception as a first necessary step toward any kind of possible effects. Our findings suggest that viewers were not able to recognize differences between differently manipulated pictures with regard to their credibility on a cognitive level. On the emotional level the viewers could therefore be effectively manipulated with both captions and altered photos.

<< 2005 Abstracts

Scholastic Journalism Division

War, Politics and the Journalism Classroom: Resistance to News in a Divided Education System • Sara-Ellen Amster, University of California-San Diego • This paper describes a three-year study of Southern California journalism students’ attitudes toward the news media and politics. It explores their coverage of September II, 2001 and the conflict in Iraq. The study also examines the effect of unequal American education on three journalism classrooms and teen attitudes toward conventional news. It explores the way teaching and perceptions of school officials about student press freedoms affect cynicism, resistance and alienation of teenagers toward the democratic system.

Teaching Teachers about Media Literacy: A Survey of Faculty in Colleges of Education • Jane Baughman and Donica Mensing, University of Nevada-Reno • The need for young people to “become intelligent, competent consumers and creators of media messages” (Considine, 2002, p. 23) is becoming increasingly clear. This study examined how media literacy is conceptualized and taught by faculty at Nevada’s eight Colleges of Education. The results of the survey show that faculty agree on the importance of media literacy education in teacher training, but that few have received any training themselves.

Is We There Yet? Mass Communication Students and Grammar Ability • Steve J. Collins and Tara McNealy, University of Central Florida, and Kimberly Bissell, University of Alabama. • Using a survey of students enrolled in an upper-level mass communication course at a southeastern university, the authors examined students’ performance on a 20-question grammar quiz. The results offer plenty of reason for concern. The average score was 10.8. Students struggled with such basic distinctions as the differences between “its” versus “it’s” and “doctors” versus “doctors.” Further analysis indicated that students who’d matriculated from a community college did significantly worse than other students.

Hazelwood Revisited: A Free-Speech Perspective • Thomas E. Eveslage, Temple University • It was 17 years between Tinker v. Des Moines and the High Court’s ruling in Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier. Now, 17 years after Haze/wood, it is time to take a closer look at this heavily criticized case. This paper will answer the following: What evidence exists that student journalists could use Hazelwood to gain more press freedom? The paper will examine court rulings and legal doctrine to see whether policy and practice, legislation and litigation provide hope that the chill of Haze/wood can be reduced.

The Impact of a Civic Journalism Project on Reader Knowledge, Attitudes and Stereotypes • Maria Knight Lapinski and Sue Ellen Christian, Western Michigan • Student newspapers are published for a variety of reasons, one of which is to have an impact on reader’s knowledge of or attitudes about a variety of social issues. This manuscript reports the outcomes of a civic journalism project in a high school designed to impact knowledge, attitudes, and stereotypes about Muslims post-911. Findings indicate sex differences for knowledge and attitudes. The intervention had some impact on stereotypes but not attitudes or knowledge.

Help From A Hoarse Horse: Homonym Exposure and Journalism Students’ Writing Grades • Bruce L. Plopper and Sonny Rhodes, University of Arkansas at Little Rock • Using a longitudinal design, this study investigated the effect 11 weeks of homonym exposure had on journalism students’ writing class grades. Results showed that for journalism majors receiving such exposure, post-treatment writing class GPAs increased slightly but not significantly; however, the writing class GPAs of journalism majors not receiving homonym exposure declined significantly. The writing class GPAs of non-majors remained stable, with or without homonym exposure. Implications for journalism writing class pedagogy were discussed.

Use of Palm Handheld Computers in a Study of University Communications Students • Judy L. Robinson and Julie E. Dodd, California State-Fullerton • In this exploratory study, a small group of communications students in a large university were given a Tungsten E and a keyboard for a semester. Students attended weekly meetings to learn software and hardware applications and to discuss how they were using their Palms. The students were very comfortable in incorporating Palm use into their academic and personal lives.

What do High School Journalism Advisers Really Want? An Exploratory Study of the Future of Scholastic Journalism • Andi Stein California State-Fullerton • This paper explores the future of scholastic journalism, using Southern California high schools as a sample. The study evaluates the state of high school journalism programs in Southern California by assessing the current resources and needs of instructors/advisers. The study is designed to find out what programs instructors/advisers have, what kinds of preparation they bring to these programs, and what they would like to see from local colleges and universities in the way of training and resources for their programs.

<< 2005 Abstracts