Cultural and Critical Studies Division

“Stoke The Joke” and his “Self-Appointed White Critics:” A Clash of Values on Network Television News 1966-1970 • Mary Blue, Loyola University and Vanessa Murphree, University of South Alabama • The three television networks framed the events of the civil rights movement and offered them to a nation seeking understanding. With Stokely Carmichael, news coverage changed. Carmichael threatened established values and challenged the moderate movement. This paper is about a clash of ideologies and the values upon which they are based – black power versus television. It examines the network television news coverage of Carmichael from 1966 – 1970, focusing on the struggle for hegemony.

The Salt River Ticket Democratic Discourse and Nineteenth Century American Politics • Dr. Mark Brewin, University of Tulsa • The topic of the paper is genre of nineteenth century campaign communication called Salt River Tickets. The tickets, which mocked the opposing side through caricature and irony, were passed out to those who supported the losing candidates in the days following Presidential elections.

Rebirth of a Nation: Race, Myth and the News 2005 • Rockell A. Brown, Xavier University of Louisiana, Kim LeDuff, Hampton University and Christopher Campbell, Ithaca College • This paper revisits a 1995 study that found local television news to perpetuate racist myths about people of color. The authors examined 17 hours of local news recorded in nine American cities in January 2005. Their textual analysis argues that local TV journalism continues to reify the attitudes of contemporary racism. The authors also describe the growing body of work in Critical Race Theory and its implications for the study of race and media.

Amusing Ourselves to Death or Some Young Voters’ New Subculture – The Phenomena of The Daily Show During the 2004 Presidential Election • Ying-Ying Chen, University of Texas at Austin • The Daily Show, a news satire, became a regular news source for some well-educated young voters during the 2004 U.S. presidential election. This study found a new model of political communication challenges the paradigm of mainstream news media. A subculture of young people is looming through its shared values of the show. These young people identify more dissatisfaction with political discourse than others.

The Author, the Text and the Genre: A Genre Analysis of Qiong Yao’s Huanzhu Gege • ShaoChun Cheng, Ohio University • In the Chinese world, Taiwan’s cultural worker Qiong Yao is a household name, and her popularity has long been built on her romantic novels, film adaptations, and TV drama productions. Her most popular work so far is definitely the TV drama series Huanzhu Gege (Huanzhu Princess). In this paper, I try to make sense of the popularity of Huanzhu Gege in the Chinese communities through analysis of the genre.

May the Circle Stay Unbroken: Friends and the “Presence of Absence” as a Rhetorical Reinforcement of Whiteness • Phil Chidester, Illinois State University • Whiteness has been largely conceived as a subject position that is discursively negotiated, yet rarely explicitly addressed in the social discourse. Friends demonstrates how media texts as forms of visual rhetoric may reinforce notions of racial identity without speaking race. Presenting the closed circle as a visual metaphor, Friends turns to “the presence of absence” to perpetuate whiteness as a subjectivity that claims an exclusive racial position while maintaining its “purity” through active exclusion of the Other.

The New Civil (Liberties) War: John Ashcroft’s use of the Mythic Hero Abraham Lincoln to Legitimize Government Secrecy and Reduced Civil Liberties • David Cuillier, Washington State University, • This critical discourse analysis examines the strategic and hegemonic use of a U.S. mythic hero, Abraham Lincoln, in the speeches of former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to justify reduced civil liberties, empowering the dominant political and social structures. This study identified four mythic hero actions that provide a source of legitimacy for U.S. policy, suggesting that using mythic national heroes in political speeches is a powerful discursive strategy to favor the powerful and subjugate the disadvantaged.

When Pictures Get Legs: The Search for Meaning in Iconic Images from Conventional and Unconventional News Sources in Iraq • Dennis Dunleavy, San Jose State University • This study evaluates news images, created from divergent sources, signifying visually prescribed norms in society. Semiotic analysis is used to tease out the normative function of media images. In this analysis, an image depicting a hooded Iraqi prisoner made by a combatant and an image made by embedded journalist of a soldier smoking a cigarette after battle are evaluated. Ultimately, this paper argues that news photographs confer meaning through reinforcing prescribed social, moral and cultural values.

Communicating Values: The Influence of Corporate Sponsorship of the 3-Day Walk for Breast Cancer • Heidi Hatfield Edwards, Penn State University • Between 1998 and 2002, Avon, the cosmetics company, sponsored a series of extreme fundraising events to raise money for breast cancer.’ The scope of the Avon 3-Day Breast Cancer Walks was massive, including thousands of participants, contributors, and spectators. In four years, more than 58,000 participants walked in the three-day, 60-mile event in cities throughout America.

C-SPAN, See White: A Critical Analysis of Washington Journal’s Guests • Chinedu (Ocek) Eke, Elon University • This study critically examines C-SPAN’s Washington Journal for the month of June 2004. By having an overwhelming number of white males as guests on the show, CSPAN legitimizes this group while marginalizing non-whites and women. Using cultivation analysis as a theoretical framework, this author proposes that the lack of minority or women experts on television relegates them to old stereotypes that suggest they have little or nothing to offer. This research challenges that notion.

Unraveling The Knot: Hegemony, Gender, and Weddings in Mass Media • Erika Engstrom, University of Nevada, Las Vegas • This paper examines the hegemonic messages about weddings and women disseminated by The Knot, the “#1 wedding website with brand extensions in magazines, books, and, with the cable outlet Oxygen, the reality television program Real Weddings from the Knot. The author unravels the various cross-over alliances of the Knot and analyzes the program’s content in terms of its promotion of wedding consumerism and a hegemony of femininity which emphasizes female beauty and role as consumer.

“What Is Your Favorite Word?” Celebrity, Orality, And Memory Inside The Actors Studio • Kevin Esch, University of Iowa • The talk show Inside the Actors Studio aspires to transcend its genre in an American media landscape dominated by banal, disposable celebrification. The show’s central contradiction, operating on multiple levels, is between its earnest, sophisticated discussions of the craft of acting and the commodification of the talk show format and film and television celebrities. How the show and its host negotiate this conflict becomes itself a kind of historiography of American acting culture.

“Anti-Aging” Magazine Advertising and the War on Nature • Kim Golombisky, University of South Florida • This essay examines “anti-aging” skincare advertising in women’s magazines to wonder about the representational politics of midlife women. If culture defines beauty as a woman’s greatest asset and defines beauty by youth, then it is no surprise that anti-aging advertising consists of a battle cry to wage a high-tech war on aging.

A Saidian Interpretation of Hi International • Clay Guinn, University of Houston • This study uses Edward Said’s theories to explore the cultural imperialism of Hi International, a glossy teen magazine funded by the U.S. State Department as an instrument of public diplomacy in the Middle East. While the publication’s goal is to expose its audience to American cultural exports, this literary analysis suggests that its language echoes a hegemonic Orientalism. Hi casts the Muslim world as an “Other” that desperately needs Western education and acculturation.

Manly Phil-osophy, Womanly Television; Hegemonic Masculinity and Dr. Phil’s “Tell It Like It Is” Talk Therapy • Lori Henson and Radhika Parameswaran, Indiana University • This paper analyzes Dr. Philip McGraw and his popular self-help talk show, Dr. Phil, to show the discursive ways in which television’s representations of therapeutic empowerment contribute to the production of hegemonic masculinity in post-Sept. 11 America. Conducting a textual analysis of McGraw’s media performance and episodes from the talk show, we argue that Dr. Phil offers a new version of masculinity that appears to incorporate sensitivity and responsibility.

Normative Aims for Journalistic Art Criticism • Thomas Hove, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This paper explores political and intellectual reasons for what Elkins (2003) calls “the flight from judgment” in journalistic criticism about the visual arts. Journalists are educated and trained according to a sociological perspective that regards artistic values and aesthetic experiences with suspicion. The author argues that if future journalists are not trained to make informed judgments about artworks and to articulate subjective aesthetic responses, journalism will continue to disregard the private and social benefits of art.

Images and Sounds as Representation in Print Media: Locating Power and Identity in Image-Sound Relationships • Katy June-Friesen, University of Missouri-Columbia • This paper explores how print media reflects and produces identities through relationships of images, sounds, and printed language. Visual and sonic representations are employed in media to construct concepts of race, gender, and class through social practices of seeing and hearing. Bringing together visual theories and theories of sound in culture, I argue we should look more closely at print media representations of visual and sonic culture as sites of power and inter-textual meaning making.

Habitus and Symbolic Power: Media representations of Africa’s AIDS and medication Issue • Euichul Jung, Rutgers University and Joo-ah Ahn, Dongshin University • This study critiques how Africa’s AIDS and medication issue is portrayed in different types of newspapers. It looks into the interconnection between the political economy of intellectual property and the AIDS crisis in Africa. As Bourdieu (1984; 1998) argues, the media’s symbolic power is essential in the confirmation of differences between social groups and classes.

Feminist Discourse and The Hegemonic Role of Mass Media: A Study of Newspaper Discourse About Two South Korean Television Dramas • Sumi Kim, University of Minnesota • With various social changes, there has been a notable cultural trend in which feminist concerns have been conveyed through many popular culture texts in South Korea since the early 1990s. In response to popular feminism, many different social groups and organizations have been engaged in the formation of feminist discourse, among them the mainstream media.

Reporting on “A Grieving Army of Americans”: The Symbolic Role of the Ordinary Citizen in News Coverage of Ronald Reagan’s Death • Carolyn Kitch, Temple University • For a week following Ronald Reagan’s death in June 2004, a series of official and vernacular rituals dominated American journalism. Through a rhetorical and narrative analysis of nearly 1,000 reports from the nation’s leading news organizations, this study explores how this coverage escalated and shifted from historical summary to nostalgia -becoming a story that focused not on the dead former President, but on “ordinary mourners” who turned out by the thousands to talk to reporters about the meaning of America.

Bollywood and the diaspora: The flip side of globalization and Hybridity in the construction of identities. • Anup Kumar, University of Iowa • Bollywood movies are just symptomatic of a larger phenomenon of media organizations, from India, China, and the Arab countries, reaching out to émigré audiences in the West. The paper suggests that in a way this has flipped the binary dialectic of global/local to local/global. An in the process is constructing deterritorialized-imagined communities’ and ‘hybrid identities’, in a post-national context of globalization, free of the geography of nation-states.

Face-to-face Sexual BZranding: Female Employees Discuss Erotic Codes Used in Promotional Activities • Jacqueline Lambiase, Texas Tech University • This study analyzes the codes of sexualized dress, entertainment environments, and flirtatious behavior expected by mainstream corporations for some promotional work. Narrative interviewing of female workers, coupled with theme analysis and with theory on sexual scripts, reveals the powerful hidden directives that management issued to sexualize commercial spaces. Women became objectified employees, and sexual appeals were intentionally used hand-in-hand with more traditional, sanctioned selling behaviors to build brands and to attract attention.

Sensationalism, Race and the Decline of Objectivity in the Wen Ho Lee Affair • J. Patrick McGrail, Susquehanna University • Two trends – the consolidation of media companies into fewer hands, with the resultant need to extract more profit from their news divisions, and the concomitant decline of newspaper readership forced newspapers in the 1990s to rely on entertainment values, especially sensationalism, that are anathematic to the ethical value of objectivity. In the case of falsely accused scientist Wen Ho Lee, this may have taken the form of shoddy reporting and race-baiting, even by the New York Times.

Members of the Club: Drawing a Boundary of Whiteness around the ASNE • Gwyneth Mellinger, Baker University • This paper performs a discourse analysis of the way in which membership criteria inadvertently fashioned the American Society of Newspaper Editors into a racially segregated organization. Using the theoretical framework of whiteness, this project also demonstrates how this exclusionary mechanism was maintained over time and helped to preserve the ASNE as an all-white, and later as a predominately white, organization, despite the ASNE’s own efforts to diversify the newspaper industry.

(Dis)Empowerment in Sex and the City • Fernando Paragas, Ohio University • This textual analysis explored femininity as a social construct as portrayed in Sex and the City, and concluded that despite outward appearances of empowerment, the show’s characters were ultimately disempowered individuals who, even as they found strength from each other, continued to be pawns to patriarchy. It contributes to the literature on postmodern feminism, or on how women must realize that their purported exercise of power against the patriarchy could actually serve to strengthen it.

The Impact of Big-Budget Cinema Production on the Aotearoal New Zealand Film Industry: a Historical-Contemporary Discussion • Robert Peaslee, University of Colorado, • This paper examines the Aoteroaf New Zealand film industry, which has recently experienced a tremendous influx of attention, capital, and praise, due in large part to the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the resulting “Frodo” Economy. By examining historical periods in which similar booms have occurred, and addressing the history of biculturalism in the AJNZ national cinema, the discussion raises many questions about governmental attempts to capitalize on the industry’s newfound notoriety through various acts of cultural policy and financing.

The Blindspot in the Political Economy Versus Cultural Studies Debate • Janice Peck, University of Colorado at Boulder • This paper revisits the “cultural studies vs. political economy” debate between Nicholas Garnham and Lawrence Grossberg and argues that neither perspective has resolved the core question dividing them-how to think the relationship between “the cultural” and “the economic”-because both conceive these as distinct areas of human activity. I propose the way beyond this dualism lies in a materialist theory of signification found in the work of Raymond Williams, Maurice Godelier and Jean-Paul Sartre.

“If This Were All I Knew… How Alternative-Media Users Imagine the Mainstream Audience • Jennifer Rauch, Long Island University • This discourse analysis examines how two audience groups-activists who used alternative media and non-engaged students who consumed mainstream news-constructed disparate interpretations of a network TV news program. Focused interviews revealed that unlike the students, the activists consciously recognized the polysemy of news texts. The active, resistant readers played games of interpretation such as role-playing, inventing dialogue and using conditionals contrary to fact (e.g. “if’). They distanced their own interpretations from those of imagined normal viewers-a strategy demonstrating the third-person effect.

Statewide Public Affairs Television: Developing an Ideal Type • Karen M. Rowley, Louisiana State University • Statewide public affairs television systems now exist in 20 states. These systems provide coverage of their respective legislatures in much the same way that C-SPAN covers the U.S. Congress. However, funding mechanisms, structures, and programming vary among these systems. Using information gathered as part of previous research, this project re-examines the data pertaining to funding, structure, and programming in an effort to determine the most effective operational model for these systems.

Imagining Contemporaries: The Emergence of a Global Identity • Adina Schneeweis, University of Minnesota • This study explores the way a global identity is imagined by individuals, independent of national or regional identities. Using Romanians as a case study, in-depth interviews were conducted to determine how and why these Romanians, living in their home country or abroad, come to form a global identity, if any.

The Media Framing of the ‘Mean Girl’: Implications of the Race, Gender, and Class Constructions of Mean Girls as Explored in the Glenbrook North Hazing Incident • Shayla Thiel, DePaul University • The influx of literature about “mean girls” that culminated in a popular film of the same name has done much to further stereotypes about race, gender, and class within popular culture. This paper focuses on the infamous Glenbrook North High School shown worldwide on videotape.

Invisible Cycle of Scapegoating: U.S. Media Coverage of Immigration “Panics” 1929-1994 • Christopher N. Williams, University of Texas at Austin • This study analyzes media coverage of four 20th century immigration “panics,” in which undocumented immigrants served as convenient scapegoats for larger social ills. The study argues that a significant and under-researched aspect of these events was the role played by the major U.S. mainstream media – including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, US. News and World Report and the Saturday Evening Post – in perpetuating this scapegoating process.

<< 2005 Abstracts

Communication Theory and Methodology Division

Adolescents and the Interactions with Music Media: Self-Concept and Gender Attitudes from a Symbolic Interactionist Perspective • Michelle Arganbright, Washington State • Two hundred eighteen eighth-graders completed questionnaires addressing self-concept, gender attitudes, and involvement with music media: parasocial interaction, identification, desirability, and understanding of persuasive intent. Greater identification, desirability, and parasocial interaction related to lower self-evaluations of physical appearance and self-worth for girls, but not for boys. Media figures may become “significant others,” shaping adolescent self-concept. Therefore, media literacy education may not only mediate behavioral outcomes, but also the cognitive processes which define one’s sense of self.

A New Approach to Television Debate Research: on the Relationship Between Viewing and Voters’ Decision-Making Time • Young-Min Baek, Seoul National • This research divided voters into two groups: early decision-makers who decide on their preferred candidate before television debate season and late decision-makers who make their decisions during television debate season. In addition, the researcher used longitudinal data analysis method to consider the voters’ decision-making time. The result shows that television debates viewing of late decision-makers expedite their decision-making process. This means that late decision-makers decide on their preferred candidate after watching debates.

Wag The Blog? An Analysis of the Frames Used on the 2004 Presidential Candidate Websites • Shannon Bichard, Texas Tech • This study investigates the framing used by candidates in the 2004 presidential election. The analysis specifically focused on the official blog content posted for both George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry. Content analysis was used as an unobtrusive measure to record the time, space, and tone attributes used in the blog text for the 64 days prior to the election. An analysis of each candidate’s distribution of framing content was provided.

The Influence of Individual and Routine Level Gate Keeping Forces on the Professional Role Conceptions of Print and Online Newspaper Journalists • William P. Cassidy, Wisconsin-Whitewater • Utilizing a framework combining gatekeeping theory with Shoemaker and Reese’s (1996) hierarchical model of news influences, this study examined the influence of individual and routine gatekeeping forces on the professional role conceptions of print and online newspaper journalists. Data from a national survey of journalists (N=655) representing 271 daily newspapers found that routine level forces exerted more influence that individual level forces, thus supporting Shoemaker and Reese’s (1996) model.

Open Global Networks, Closed International Flows: World System and Political Economy of Links in Cyberspace • Tsan-Kuo Chang, Itai Himelboim, Adina Schneeweis, Mohamad Elmasry, George Anghelcev, Dong Dong, Sumi Kim, Madhavi Murty, Sela Sar and William Yimbo, Minnesota-Twin Cities • The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to propose a conceptual framework incorporating various theoretical perspectives in sociology and mass communication to identify the determinants of international flow and links of foreign news in cyberspace and second, to test this model using preliminary data collected from online news media in eleven countries. Against the backdrop of the world system theory, three specific hypotheses were tested.

Presidential Approval and Media Agenda Setting: A Test Of Media as Political Institution Model • Young Jae Choi, Hallym • This research tested a ‘media as political institution’ model in the context of the wartime presidency of President George W. Bush (February, 2001 — August, 2003). Employing time series regression analysis, we traced factors impacting the Washington Post coverage on four primary issues — war, economy, domestic and foreign issues. Our data revealed that the prestige paper rallied around the war mood by covering the war issue when it was in accordance with public support for the president.

What Makes Deliberation Possible? Structural Equation Models of Online and Face-to-Face Deliberation Process • Yun Jung Choi and Hyo Jung Kim, Syracuse • This paper identifies factors that influence the deliberation process by proposing a deliberation model. Six ideas, reciprocity, reasoned discourse, freedom of expression, open-mindedness, empathy and public interest were recognized as concepts that compose deliberation construct, and deliberation was measured based on the six concepts.

Building the Media’s Agenda: A Theoretical Model of Influences • Rita F. Colistra, North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This paper argues that a consistent framework is needed when studying influences on media content. Three approaches that have been used to study this area are examined: the hierarchical model, agenda building, and framing. Facets from each approach are incorporated into a new theoretical model of influences on media content (IOMC) that provides a strong framework for researchers interested in who is telling the media what to think about and possibly how to think about it.

Demand Characteristics in Assessment of Body Image Media Effects: Pervasive-Media, Seeming-Naïve, and the Good Subject Characteristics • Prabu David, Tom German and Natalie Guinsler, Ohio State • The purpose of this study was to examine effects of exposure to thin media ideals on perceived effects on satisfaction with weight and attractiveness. Female participants evaluated perceived effects on self, on female friends and female students on campus. In the control condition when respondents where asked about media in general, without priming with any exemplars of fashion models, participants implicated the media for dissatisfaction with ideal body weight and attractiveness.

The Role of Media in Childhood Obesity: A Look Mass Communication Perspectives • Ying Du, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Recent years have witnessed the rapid increase in obesity among American children. Obesity research has been done mostly by scholars in health-related fields. Although there is a wealth of studies regarding the role of media in childhood obesity, most of the address only one or two aspects of the relationships and none has given a panorama to the issues. Moreover, few studies are guided ny media effects theories.

Is it Thinking, Talking, or Both? A Lagged Dependent Variable Model of Discussion Effects on Political Knowledge • William P. Eveland Jr. and Tiffany Thomson, Ohio State • This study extends existing research on political discussion’s influence on political knowledge in two ways. First, it expands the measures of discussion-related cognition to include discussion elaboration and perspective taking. Second, it employs panel data, which permit stronger causal inferences than cross-sectional studies. Our findings indicate that, even controlling for prior knowledge, interest, news use and news elaboration, political discussion frequency and discussion elaboration are positively related to political knowledge.

A Test of Competing Models of the Non-Additive Effects of Political Discussion and News Media Use on Political Knowledge • William P. Eveland Jr., Ohio State and Dietram A. Scheufele, Wisconsin-Madison • We test competing hypotheses put forth in previous research regarding the moderating role of political discussion on the news use to political knowledge relationship. The communication confusion model predicts that discussion attenuates news effects, whereas the differential gains model predicts that discussion amplifies news effects. We report nine separate studies, including both cross-sectional and panel surveys and a laboratory experiment.

Partisan and Structural Balance in Newspaper Coverage of U.S. Senate Races in 2004 with Female Nominees • Frederick Fico, Eric Freedman and Brad Love, Michigan State • Nine newspapers covering U.S. Senate races in 2004 were mostly even-handed in the space and prominence given candidates. Reporter gender, newsroom diversity and newspaper size were associated with partisan imbalance giving more favorable treatment to Democrats. The partisanship of a story’s lead predicted the story’s structural imbalance, regardless of the party the imbalance favored. However, story partisan and structural imbalances were negligibly related, suggesting that news processing conventions rather than journalistic partisanship produced the imbalance.

Learning to Hate Americans In Singapore: A Test of Defleur and Defleur’s Master Theory of Effects of Mass Communicated Entertainment • Jami A. Fullerton, Oklahoma State and Matthew Hamilton, Oklahoma City • This study investigates the relationship between attitudes toward Americans and exposure to U.S.-produced entertainment media among a sample of 328 Singaporean college students. While overall attitudes toward Americans are negative, findings reveal a significant positive relationship between attitude toward Americans and using U.S.-produced media. This finding contradicts DeFleur and DeFleur’s Master Theory of Effects of Mass Communicated Entertainment and suggests that American popular culture may be a positive factor in views toward Americans worldwide.

The Columbia Shuttle Breakup: News Diffusion Comparison of a Local and Distant Phenomenon • Jack Glascock, Illinois State and Larry J. King, Stephen F. Austin State • This study examines the news diffusion process during the 2003 Columbia shuttle tragedy. Subjects in two locations, one local and one distant were surveyed during the week following the breakup. One difference was the prevalence of the telephone for the local group in first hearing about the breakup versus either face-to-face and television for the distant group.

Can Efficacy Manipulation Increase Political Participation? An Experimental Study on a Actual and Persuasory Political Efficacy • Jong Won Ha, Sun Moon University and Jong Hyuk Lee, Syracuse University • This study examined the effect of two types of political efficacy – actual efficacy and persuasory efficacy) experiment was designed and the intention of six different types of political participation were measured. 221 university students participated in this experiment.

Who Accepts News? Nonlinearity in Media Effects Susceptibility • Sungtae Ha, Texas • In this project, voters’ attribute priming susceptibility presidential campaign news was scrutinized for its relationship with one of the most researched variables in political psychology: information processing ability. A nonlinear model of media effectiveness in political communication was developed to test such a curvilinear relationship between attribute priming susceptibility and processing ability. This study found that voters with moderate processing ability were most susceptible to the media effect.

The Effects of Government Censorship of Media Coverage on Interest in the Censored Coverage: A Comparison of Theoretical Explanations • Andrew F. Hayes and Jason B. Reineke, Ohio State • The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush continues the implementation of a policy from the George H. W. Bush administration that forbids journalist access to photographs of caskets containing the U.S. military personnel killed in action returning to U.S. soil. Using experimental and correctional data from a survey conducted just after the 2004 Presidential election, we tested competing predictions from reactance and balance theories on the effects of government censorship of journalist coverage on interest in viewing such images.

The Agenda-Setting Function of National Vs. Local Media: A Time-Series Analysis for the Issue of Same-Sex Marriage • Joe Bob Hester and Rhonda Gibson, North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This study compares the agenda-setting effects of national and local media on public salience in a market where an issue was both local and national with the effects in a market where it was primarily national. A new measure of public salience is also introduced. Results indicate that agenda-setting effects of local and national media are very different, with local media exerting a stronger agenda-setting influence when the issue is both local and national.

Mired in Ire, Engrossed in Gross? The Effects of Negative Emotions on News Readers’ Memory for Information • Elliott Hillback, Wisconsin-Madison • This paper presents a two-study examination of the impact of negative emotions on memory for information during news reading. A newspaper story about a local sewage backup provided content, while quotations by affected residents were varied to provide anger, fear, or disgust stimuli. Overall, readers’ feelings of anger and disgust were generally confounded, even when they correctly identified the emotional tenor of the affected residents.

The Spiral of Silence: Comparing Psychological Antecedents and Opinion Expression in Face-To-Face and Computer-Mediated Discussion • Shirley Soo-Yee Ho, Wisconsin-Madison • Since it was introduced by Noelle-Neumann (1974), spiral of silence theory has been examined extensively in the context of traditional face-to-face communication, but its applicability to computer-mediated communication has been left relatively unexplored. This study examines a key issue in spiral of silence research: whether the nature of the communication setting (i.e., face-to-face discussion versus online chat-room discussion) in which individuals are asked to express opinions affects their willingness to do so.

Among the Youngest and Poorest: A Real-Life Civics Lesson in Baltimore, Maryland and the Political Socialization of 16- and 17-Year-Olds • Edward M. Horowitz, Cleveland State and Michel M. Haigh and Johan Wanstrom, Oklahoma and Kimberly Ann Parker Ivanov, Georgetown College • Research in the political socialization of children, teenagers, and young adults over the past 40 years has also shown that political cognition, attitudes, and behaviors are not only formed at a young age, but are influenced by parents, schools, peers, and the media. Due to a series of unlikely events, sixteen- and seventeen-year-old youth were able to vote in the September 2003 mayoral and city council primary elections in the city of Baltimore, Maryland.

Who’s Listening: Newspaper Coverage of the Presidents’ Weekly Radio Addresses During Times of Crisis • Beverly Horvit and Dave Ferman, Texas Christian • This study examines coverage of the presidents’ 1997-2004 weekly radio addresses in The New York Times and Houston Chronicle. Bush received significantly less coverage in the Times than Clinton; the Houston paper treated the presidents similarly. Foreign-policy speeches received less coverage than domestic speeches but were more likely to be on the front page. Of the seven crises studied, only the 1998 embassy bombings and Sept. 11, 2001, attacks resulted in more coverage of the radio addresses.

Perceived Influence of DTC Prescription Drug Advertising: Do the General Public and the Expert Think Differently? • Jisu Huh and Rita Langteau, Minnesota-Twin Cities • Abstract not available.

Presidential Debate Viewing and Post-debate News Analysis: Effects of Reflective Activation and Preflective Priming on Voting Intentions • Hyunseo Hwang, Seungahn Nah, Melissa Gotlieb and Doug M. McLeod, Wisconsin-Madison • Research on media priming effects examines how certain message features influence subsequent audience reactions by triggering particular frameworks for understanding. Typically, priming is seen as a process that affects future events. However, priming may also operate retrospectively. That is, news content may prompt reflection on a past event. In this paper, we identify two retrospective processes that are outcomes of priming: reflective activation and reflective priming.

Contributions of Personal Norms on the Integrated Framework of College Students’ Alcohol Consumption Behavior • Taejin Jung, Megan Fitzgerald and Xiao Wang, Florida State • The traditional behavioral predictive attempt of Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior and its’ application on the health arena named of integrative model of behavioral prediction has been under critique on the lack of comprehensiveness in that it overlooked “an individual’s internalized moral rules” which contradict with perceived norm construct. This study tried to investigate whether the separate addition of measures of personal norms in evaluating FSU alcohol campaign may substantially improve prediction of individual intentions on drinking.

Communication and Democratic Participation: A Critical Review and Synthesis • Ellen Kanervo, Weiwu Zhang and Caroline Sawyer, Austin Peay State • The past decade has seen the flourishing of scholarly work on citizen participation since Putnam’s provocative thesis that the number of Americans coming together in community organizations for the civic good is declining. However, conclusions concerning citizen participation and media’s role in it are often conflicting and contradictory, and comprehensive assessments of the participation literature are scarce.

Generational Differences in the Connections of Media Use, Civic Participation and Consumption Activities • Heejo Keum, Texas at San Antonio • This study investigates how the media effects on civic participation and consumption activities vary by generational groups. A secondary analysis of the 2000 DDB Life Style Survey data indicated that the effects of the Internet were smaller in the Civic Generation than in the other generational groups whereas the effects of traditional media appeared to be strongest in the Civic Generation. Finally, the inter-relationships between participation and consumption did not differ significantly depending on generation.

TV as a Gap Equalizer in Health Knowledge & Behavior: Effects of Media and Self-Efficacy on Diabetes Knowledge and Behavior Gaps • Jangyul Robert Kim and Youjin Choi, Florida • Using the knowledge-gap hypothesis, this study attempted to investigate the moderating effects of the media use for health information on people with different education level, age, and self-efficacy. Through an analysis of two linked mail surveys conducted among a representative groups of US adults (N=4,397), this study identified the potential of TV programs as a gap equalizer in the context of diabetes-related knowledge. While TV use reduced education-based and self-efficacy-based knowledge gaps, it increased age-based gaps.

Feel Like Learning? an Analysis of the Political Implications of Late Night Talk Shows in the 2004 Presidential Election • Nojin Kwak, Lauren Guggenheim, Xiaoru Wang and Brad Jones, Michigan • Findings of this study demonstrate that late night talk shows mattered for young Americans in the 2004 election. Overall, findings suggest that the impact of late night talk shows on electoral participation is weaker than its role in informing young voter. Notably, among all predictor variables examined, watching candidates on talk shows seems more helpful in getting campaign information among viewers.

A Multilevel Approach to Social Capital • Chul-joo Lee, Wisconsin-Madison • Research on social capital is overshadowed by theoretical and empirical confusions. It is quite natural that the problems prevalent in the conceptual definition of social capital bring about operational problems, making social capital studies fragmented and preventing them from developing into a coherent communication theory. In this paper, I aim to come up with a process model of social capital, which enables us to combine fragmented and disordered approaches to social capital studies under the larger theoretical model.

Framing and Cue Convergence: Moderating Roles of Political Knowledge and Partisanship • Nam-Jin Lee, Wisconsin-Madison • This paper examines the moderating role of political knowledge and partisanship on the effects of news frames and cues on social tolerance and attitudes toward national security and civil liberties. These moderating variables conjoin to exert a complex influence on the framing and cueing process. In this experiment, alternative versions of news stories about government surveillance of Arab groups under the authority of the USA Patriot Act were embedded within a Web-based survey.

Effects of Ideologies and Values on Media Choices: An Examination of Consumers of Conservative Media • Tien-Tsung Lee, Washington State • The increasing popularity of conservative media such as Fox News suggests that many consumers choose news sources that reflect their political views. Utilizing Uses & Gratifications and Hostile Media Perceptions as the theoretical framework, and employing alternative measures, this study is an in-depth analysis of audiences’ ideologies and values. It examines whether and how ideologies and values influence audiences’ media choices and political behavior.

Indexing Hypothesis and Discourse Analysis: A Case Study of the Impeachment of South Korean President • Jeongsub Lim, Missouri-Columbia • This study conducted a case study of the relationship between U.S. foreign policy and the three major U.S. newspapers’ foreign news coverage. The case was the impeachment of South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun on March 12, 2004. This study analyzed a content of four policy statements and 17 news stories regarding the impeachment crisis. Furthermore, thematic and rhetorical structures were qualitatively analyzed.

Using a Split-Ballot Survey to Explore the Robustness of the “M.I.P.” Question in Agenda-Setting Research: A Methodological Study • Young Min, Kyun Hee and Dixie Shipp Evatt, Syracuse and Salma I. Ghanem, Marquette and Spiro Kiousis, Florida and Maxwell McCombs, Texas and Toshio Takeshita, Meiji • Three aspects of the “most important problem” question used in agenda-setting setting research to measure issue salience among the public were examined. A split-ballot design in a state wide survey compared versions of the public agenda with a social frame of reference versus a personal frame of reference, versions using the traditional term “problem” versus “issue,” and the effects of question order. High correlations were found in all three sets of comparisons.

Children’s TV Viewing and Consumption of Unhealthy Foods • Anne M. Ochsenhirt and Sei-Hill Kim, Auburn • Analyzing data from a survey of fifth through seventh graders, this study examined whether television viewing might promote children’s unhealthy eating habits. The overall amount of television viewing was associated with greater consumption of unhealthy foods. Children’s attention to food advertisements also had a significant effect, indicating that food commercials might be responsible, at least in part, for producing the unhealthy consequence of television viewing. More importantly, our data indicated that food commercials might influence children’s conceptions about food.

The Role of Apathy, Complacency and Media Perceptions in Political Decision Making • Bruce E. Pinkleton, Yi-Chun Chen, Myiah Hutchens Hively, Rebecca Van de Vord, Ming Wang, Erica Weintraub Austin and David Cuillier, Washington State • A probability based telephone survey of registered voters in Washington state was conducted the week before the 2004 presidential election to examine citizens’ political decision making. Results showed that some citizens may not participate in public affairs because they are complacent rather than apathetic. These two variables–which separated into two factors in a factor analysis–operated in some ways that were similar and in some ways that were different in citizens’ political decision-making.

Gatekeeping Theory: An Evolution • Chris Roberts, South Carolina • Gatekeeping theory, one of the original theories to come from mass communication research, has remained important since its debut shortly after World War II. While not necessarily the most interesting or controversial of mass communication theories, a series of scholars has advanced it during the past decades. The foremost gatekeeping scholar today says the theory remains relevant, and the emergence of “weblogs” has returned gatekeeping to the forefront of research considerations.

Political Talk and Social Tolerance • Hernando Rojas, Rosanne Scholl, Lucy Atkinson, Seungahn Nah, Alexandra Vilela and Seung Hyun Lee, Wisconsin-Madison and Heejo Keum, Texas-San Antonio and Douglas M. McLeod and Dhavan V. Shah, Wisconsin-Madison • This study investigates the influence of political talk on tolerance in post-9/11 America. We argue that certain features of individuals’ political discussion networks increase tolerance. Three experiments sharing a similar focus — civil liberties — and format — experiment embedded in a Web-based survey — show that people who discuss politics more often are also more likely to support the rights of certain groups. This increased tolerance is extended to groups one is predisposed to dislike or that media have portrayed as extremists.

The Fourth Estate in the Digital Age: Formulating A New Role for Journalists Based in Theories of Civic Discourse • Jack Rosenberry, St. John Fisher College • Ideas drawn from theories of cyber-democracy, or use of the Internet’s interactive nature to foster political discourse, can be used to define new ways in which online journalists can become facilitators of that discourse.

Effects of Mood on Responses to Detective and Preventive Health Behavior Messages • Sela Sar and George Anghelcev, Minnesota-Twin Cities • This study examined the effects of positive and negative on behavioral intentions in response to preventive and detective health messages. We hypothesize that people in a positive mood will be more likely to adopt behaviors recommended in preventive health messages than behaviors recommended in detective health messages. However, people in a negative mood will be more likely to adopt behaviors recommended in detective health messages than behaviors recommended in preventive health messages.

My Friend’s Enemy: How Split-Screen Debate Coverage Influences Evaluation of Presidential Debates • Dietram A. Scheufele, Eunkyung Kim, Dominique Brossard, Wisconsin-Madison • Leading up to the 2004 presidential debates, there was considerable discussion about the mode of presentation of television, i.e., debate coverage with simultaneous reaction shots of the opponent while a candidate was speaking or coverage with isolated shorts of each candidate only. In fact, many commentators argued that split-screen coverage of Bush’s reactions to Kerry’s statements hurt the President during the first debate.

Taking Games Seriously: How Explication and Theory can Improve Video Game Research • Mike Schmierback, College of Charleston • Although mass communication scholars have begun to assess video games, this work lacks coherence in its theorizing and measurement. This paper suggests ways to improve research on video games. First, it presents a typology of potential gaming variables, focusing on the content, context, and technology of gaming. Second, it describes some of the existing literature on games, highlighting ways mass communication theory has been or could be used to improve and coordinate this research.

Constructing Contentiousness: Presidential Debate Modality, Political Talk, and Judgments of News Credibility • Dhavan V. Shah, Jaeho Cho, Seungahn Nah and Dominique Brossard, Wisconsin-Madison • Recent research has found that the levels of incivility in televised debate exchanges adversely affect political legitimacy, particularly when the appearance of contentiousness is intensified through the use of broadcast production of techniques such as close-up camera perspectives (Mutz & Reeves, 2005).

Tracking Presidential Campaign Websites: Similarities and Differences Between 2000 and 2004 • Boubacar Souley and Robert H. Wicks, Arkansas • This study analyzed the content of news releases posted on the presidential candidate websites during the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns. Findings suggest topics such as education and social security that received significant attention in 2000 were supplanted by other topics such as terrorism and the Iraq War in 2004. Only three of the topics included among the top ten addressed in 2000 appeared in the top ten in 2004.

Internet Communication and its Relationship to Well-Being: Identifying Some Underlying Mechanisms • Patti M. Valkenburg and Jochen Peter, Amsterdam • The aim of this study was to improve our insight into the relationship between Internet communication and well-being. Drawing on a survey of 816 adolescents, we initially found that Internet communication was negatively related to well-being. However, when adolescents’ (a) closeness to friends and (b) their tendency to talk with strangers online were included in our Structural Equations Model, an entirely different pattern of results emerged.

Can You Hear Me Now? Evaluating Online Consultation in Singapore • Kevin Y. Wang, Washington • This paper evaluates the practice of online civic consultation in Singapore with a conceptual framework drawn from liberal democratic theories. The author surveys Singapore’s online consultation portal as well as the content of two selected discussion threads. The study found that while the discourse demonstrates characteristics of strong democratic deliberation, the quality of this communication is hampered by the lack of administrative moderation and the failure to adequately prepare participants before consultation process begins.

The Third-Person Effects of Political Attack Ads in the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election • Ran Wei, South Carolina and Ven-hwei, National Chengchi • This study examines the indirect effects of extensive negative political attack ads in the 2004 presidential election from a third-person effects perspective. Results of a survey using a probability sample of 496 college students indicate that they believe attack ads harm others more than themselves. Moreover, the respondents tended to perceive attack ads in traditional media to have a greater harmful effect on self and others than attack ads on the Internet.

Evaluating Self and Others: Systematic Processing vs. Heuristics in the Third-Person Effect • H. Allen White, Murray State and Julie L. Andsager, Iowa • An experiment tested whether systematic reasoning and heuristic cues resulted in perceived third-person influence. A third-person effect was found in that subjects thought “others” would be more influenced by heuristic cues and process information heuristically. Conversely, subjects reported that the “self” was more influenced by systematic arguments and systematic processing. Discussed are implications for the third-person effect hypothesis as it relates to celebrities as sources in persuasive messages and the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion.

Underlying Mechanisms of Indirect Effects of Mood on Attitude: Cognitive vs. Motivation Mediation • JungAe Yang, Indiana • This study investigated the mechanisms of indirect effects of mood on persuasion processes by testing two competing hypotheses, i.e. motivational vs. cognitive hypothese. Consistent with motivational hypotheses, positive mood participants showed reduced processing, compared to those in the other two conditions; their attitudes and thought favorability were not different across strong and week argument groups. For those in the neutral and the negative moods, reading strong arguments produced more positive attitudes and more favorable thoughts.

The Impact of Source Types on Perceived Bias of Online News Sources • Li Zeng, Arkansas State and Walter B. Jaehnig, Southern Illinois-Carbondale • This study examines whether different types of sources quoted within online news stories affect individuals’ perception of source bias. One hundred and five college students participated in an experimental setting. The findings provide evidence for the applicability of the Elaboration Likelihood Model in an online news environment. When exposed to stories arousing a high level of motivation, participants reported that official sources were more biased than individuals affiliated with non-government organizations.

Exploring People’s Conceptions of Privacy in the Virtual World • Lara Zwarun, Texas-Arlington and Mike Z. Yao, California-Santa Barbara • This study uses Q-methodology to explore whether five dimensions of privacy identified from extant literature are meaningful ways of organizing people’s subjective concerns about online privacy. Results indicate that a majority of people display a similar pattern when asked to organize the statements based on spatial and psychological views of privacy, but not on the informational, rights, and boundary management perspectives, suggesting that interpretation of privacy can be subjective and requires more examination.

<< 2005 Abstracts

Communication Technology and Policy Division

The Digitized Self as Public Tender: Privacy Laws (or lack thereof) and the Sale of Personal Records • Umaru Bah, Morgan State University • The paper discusses three factors influencing the lack of an effective federal personal records privacy law (PRPL), namely the automation of public records, the existence of state and federal laws that permit unfettered access by private entities to personal records, and the de facto commercial enterprise between the public records industry and state and federal agencies. The paper criticizes self-regulation and outlines the provisions for a good federal PRPL.

My Missourian: A case study of open source journalism • Clyde Bentley, Brian Hamman, Jeremy Littau, Hans Meyer, Brendan Watson, and Beth Welsh, Missouri • The journalism world was shaken in 2004 by the success of a publication in Korea that drew most of its content from volunteer “citizen journalists.” When the “open source journalism” concept of OhMyNews landed in the United States via the Northwest Voice in Bakersfield, CA, a Midwestern journalism school decided to create and document a demonstration publication using resources and procedures that could be freely adopted by any newspaper. This case study documents that effort.

Congressional Efforts to Protect Children from Internet Pornography: Muted Voices in the Legislative Process • Jeffrey Blevins and Fernando Anton, Iowa State University • This analysis brings a range of theoretical perspectives on the communications policymaking process to bear on Congressional efforts to regulate Internet content in the interest of protecting children and will show how those endeavors have been vexed by advancements in technology, concerns about free speech, and perhaps, the closure of the Office of Technology Assessment. The subsequent implications of this analysis for communication scholars who wish to intervene in this process will then be discussed.

Executives’ Perceptions of Print/Online Integration Factors that Influence Major Newspaper • Bonnie Bressers and Robert Meeds, Kansas State University • In today’s competitive environment, the newspaper industry often expends significant resources on communication technology initiatives without fully understanding the obstacles involved or potential outcomes. Newspapers have struggled with how to integrate the newspaper operations with their online counterparts to leverage their strengths. A survey of 63 major newspaper editors quantifies which operational procedures and policies are predictive of greater levels of integration, and which influence management’s belief that integration has met its objectives.

In a Word: A Qualitative Exploration of Health Information-Searching Behaviors Among Healthy and Diabetic Women • S. Camille Broadway, University of Florida • In an effort to fill in gaps in previous research into online health-information seeking, this study used three qualitative methods — focus groups, think-aloud protocols and in-depth interviews — to examine the specific processes and procedures that diabetic and healthy women used to find information on the Internet. User perceptions of resource attributes influenced the selection of search engine. Search terminology fell into three basic types: symptoms, disease names and source name.

Uncovering the Regulation of Interactive Television • Justin Brown, University of Florida • Because interactive television (ITV) requires addressability, digitization, large bandwidth and upstream throughput for the user to request information, the cable television industry is widely acknowledged as being in a favorable strategic position to distribute ITV services. This paper explicates ITV and identifies variables that may affect the regulation and deployment of cable’s offering of ITV.

A Comparative Study of the U.S. and Korean Mobile Telephone Industries • Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida • South Korea is the world leader in mobile communications deployment. This study examines the factors that have shaped the state of mobile phone markets in the U.S. and Korea and explores the country specific conditions that have contributed to the differential development of mobile telephones in these two countries. Much dissimilarity between the two markets was discovered, especially in the role of the government, technical development, and relevant broadband environment.

Toward An Integrated Model of Software Piracy Determinants: A Cross-National Longitudinal Study • Byeng-Hee Chang and Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida • This study examines the factors affecting a country’s software piracy level. Since political/regulatory means typically play a direct role in piracy control, this study also reviews the endogeneity of intellectual property protection to assess its power as a mediating factor between the other proposed determinants and software piracy. It was found that income inequity, economic openness, education, technological development, software market size, and regulatory protection strongly affect the level of software piracy in a country.

The Utility of Iowa State University’s Agriculture Extension Online Resources To Iowa Farmers • Kim Claussen, Iowa State University • This study evaluated the utility of the Iowa State Agriculture Extension website to Iowa farmers. It determined the majority of farmers are not using the website. Farmers reportedly rely on, trust, and spend most of their free time reading farm publications, watching television shows and listening to radio programs about farming, talking to other farmers, and attending seminars or training sessions. They also tended to pay closer attention to these sources than to online channels.

Internet Users Friends of FOI? Attitudes Toward Access to Public Records and the Relationship to Media News and Information Use • David Cuillier, Washington State University • Citizen and press access to government records is essential for a strong democracy. To better understand factors related to support for FOI, a nationwide survey of 614 college students measured media use in relation to support for press access to public records. The results indicate that television news use is negatively related to support for access, and newspaper and Internet are positively related. Implications for FOI and Internet users are discussed.

Are Bloggers Journalists – or Just Very Lonely Pamphleteers? • Constance Davis, Northern Illinois University • The rapid proliferation of Web logs – or blogs –has raised the question of whether bloggers are journalists who can protect confidential sources. The courts have defined a journalist as someone who intended to disseminate to the public the news that is being gathered. Courts have held that journalists need not be a member of the mainstream media and need not publish through traditional means. But courts will not uniformly hold that bloggers are journalists.

Making the Transition from Old to New Media? Patterns of Media Use By Young Adults in Germany and the US • Dennis Davis, University of Otago, New Zealand, Ruediger Steinmetz, University of Leipzig, Germany, Stephanie Broege, University of Otago, New Zealand, and Veena Raman, Penn State • Findings are reported from a cross-national convenience survey of students conducted from 2001 to 2004. New and old media use was compared in Germany and the US. TV viewing time increased along with computer use and Internet use. TV use increased less among students who reported more computer skill or longer experience using the Internet. German women differed most. They had high use of only one form of new media — text messaging via cell phones.

Social Presence and Online Agents: Does Rich Media and Agency Make a Difference? • Edward Downs, Sampada Marathe, Anamarcia Lacayo, Penn State University • This study examined perceptions of social presence between participants and an online agent. The presence of biographical information and richness of media was manipulated to create a 2×2 factorial design. When controlling for gender, results demonstrated a significant main effect for biographic information and a significant interaction effect for media richness. Limitations and theoretical implications are discussed, as are directions for future research.

Predicting Non-Adoption of Communication Technologies Based on Demographics, Media Exposure, and Selected Perception • Michel Dupagne and Michael Salwen, University of Miami • A national telephone survey was conducted with 486 adults to identify non-adoption predictors of 13 communication technologies based on demographic, media use, and perceptual variables. A logistic regression with three hierarchical blocks was run for each of the technologies. Consistent with diffusion theory and research, non-adopter respondents were more likely to have fewer persons in their households, lower income, and lower perceptions of relative advantage of new technologies than adopter respondents.

One World Wide Web, Three Monitoring Schemes: A Comparative Analysis of the Internet Surveillance Systems of the United States, Russia and China • Lyombe Eko, Anup Kumar, and Jie Liu, University of Iowa • This paper compared the Internet surveillance systems of the United States, the Russian Federation, and China. The comparison was carried out within the framework of the Eko Internet regulatory typology. It was found that the three countries carry out Internet surveillance within the framework of their respective political, economic, social and cultural systems. The United States is a neomerchantilist regulator of the Internet whose surveillance activities are mostly limited to judicially sanctioned law enforcement measures.

Measuring Attention Differences in Reading Print and On-Line Using EEG • Joel Geske, Iowa State University • This study explores if media affect attention patterns for subjects reading text. A series of typography studies done in the mid-1990’s indicated that typography for the computer screen does differ from print standards. A further review of the literature suggests that there is a difference in how the brain processes information and reacts to various media. Some of these variations indicate a decrease in attention and ability to concentrate.

Satellite Television Adopters: Who will Choose DBS Over Cable TV? • Ju Ha, Hallym University, South Korea • Direct broadcast satellite is creating a new level of multichannel video subscription services. In the highly competitive multichannel television programming delivery market, the future success of DBS is largely dependent on its ability to acquire and retain subscribers, among other factors. Based on the theory of diffusion of innovations as a research framework, this study explored the adoption process of DBS by examining the factors associated with the adoption.

Emerging Media Business Models Worldwide: A Study of Leading Webcasters in 13 countries • Louisa Ha, Bowling Green State University, Richard Ganahl, Bloomsburg University, Alex Arampatzis, Edge Hill University College, Ilhem Allagui, University of Montreal, Piet Bakker, University of Amsterdam, Marylaine Chausse, University of Montreal, Baoguo Cui, Tsinghua University, Petar Djekic, University of Cologne, Monica Herrero, University of Navarre, Kenichi Ishii, University of Tsukuba, Alice Lee, Hong Kong Baptist University, Yu-Li Liu, National Chengchi University, Claudia Loebbecke, University of Cologne, Claude Martin, University of Montreal, Hang Min, Jonkoping University, Sora K. Park, Kwangwoon University, South Korea, Charo Sadaba, University of Navarre, Spain, Clement So, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Niranjala D. Weerakkody, Deakin University, Australia • This paper reports the findings of a 13-country comparison of webcasting business practices, and the results of a test of the robustness of the webcasting business model framework suggested by Ha and Ganahl (2004). The globalness of the webcast medium is also examined. The study establishes the variety of business practices by different types of webcasters, and the domination of domestic webcasters and domestically produced content in webcast services.

A Comparative Analysis of the Broadband Policy: The US vs. South Korea • Gwang Jub Han, Howard University, Dong-Hyun Byun, Chonnam National University, South Korea, and Jung Mi Lee, Howard University • This paper attempts to simultaneously provide an answer to the following interrelated questions: Why is broadband more readily available in South Korea than in the US? It is found that the Koreans’ rapid diffusion of broadband access is the result of combining the government’s culturally-sensitive ICT policy that promotes both the supply and the demand of the broadband with Korean people’s unique cultural traits including the sophisticated, hush-rush consumer behavior.

The Gendered Blogosphere: Where Promise Meets Reality • Dustin Harp and Mark Tremayne, University of Texas-Austin • This study examined the political blogosphere and looked for answer to the question: Why are so few of the top bloggers women? Answers are found in two theoretical approaches, feminist theory and network theory. Ways to “subvert the hyperlink hierarchy” are examined.

Catch 1201: An analysis of discourse in the 2000 and 2003 DMCA anticircumvention hearings • Billy Herman and Oscar Gandy, University of Pennsylvania • Section 1201 of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act bans the circumvention of technological protection measures (TPMs) that protect copyrighted works. The Librarian of Congress holds triennial hearings to determine exemptions to this ban. This paper, a discourse analysis of these hearings, concludes that the hearings are a venue shift–absolving Congress of fair use concerns, giving the Librarian no real power to solve them, and eliminating courts’ ability to excuse otherwise non-infringing conduct.

The Digital Divide in a Community Context: Access versus applications • Douglas Hindman, Washington State University • This study uses survey data from two communities to test hypotheses about the digital divides in access versus applications. Findings showed that status indicators were more closely associated with the adoption of Internet applications than with local newspaper reading. Rates of adoption of the various technologies varied significantly among the geographic areas even as the relative ranking was stable across communities. Status indicators were consistently associated with both technology access and Internet applications.

Moderating Role of Situational Information Processing Goals in Issue Publics’ Candidate Evaluation: The Interaction of Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivations • Young Mie Kim, Ohio State University • Taking a motivational approach and employing a unique methodological tool that combines individual level Web behavior data with survey data, this study examines the interaction of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations in online information selection and candidate evaluation in the context of an election campaign. In particular, this study investigates the moderating effects of situational information processing goals (i.e., extrinsic motivation) on the selectivity and candidate evaluation of members of an issue public (i.e., intrinsic motivation).

An Examination of Factors Contributing to South Korea’s Global Leadership in Broadband Adoption • Tuen-Yu Lau, University of Washington, Si-Wok Kim, University of Washington, and David Atkin, University of Connecticut • The present study explores the economic and public policy factors that have contributed South Korea’s global leadership in broadband adoption. Our analysis suggests that (1) the dramatic growth of the broadband market in Korea is the culmination of appropriate government policy, growing demand, and fierce market competition based on responsive supply, and (2) operators can benefit from consolidation as well as multiple revenue sources generated by new services in order to remain competitive.

Collaborative IT Problem Solving Between Users and Technicians: An Application of Co-Cognizing Model in IT Customer Services • Jong Hyuk Lee, Syracuse • This study explored the process of IT problem solving between users and technicians by applying the co-cognizing model. Users and technicians, according to this model, go through common sequential steps to solve their problem: co-exposing, co-focusing, co-orienting, co-constructing, and co-reorienting. Time line method, composed of in-depth interview and content analysis, was carried out for 37 users and 21 technicians. As a result, 10 steps of problem solving process were identified and explained by the co-cognizing model.

No Creation, No Liability: Should ISP’s News Portals Enjoy Blanket Immunity from Defamation Suits? • Tae Hee Lee and Robert Magee, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This study investigates whether news portals should enjoy broad immunity from liability for defamation under Section 230 of the CDA. Since Zeran v. AOL, courts have granted ISPs blanket immunity. However, some courts have argued that if an ISP participates in developing third party content, it could be regarded as an information content provider and thus be held liable. Conflicting lines of reasoning are applied to the case of news portals.

Mapping the Journalism-blogging Relationship • Wilson Lowrey, University of Alabama • This paper depicts the likely areas of conflict between journalism and blogging, and predictors of this conflict. These issues are examined from within systems theory from the sociology of occupations, which suggests occupations compete with one another to maintain jurisdiction over work areas. This framework suggests journalism is well positioned, but there are areas ripe for poaching by bloggers — e.g., partisan content and specialized content. Journalists pursue strategies to address such vulnerabilities.

Event Blogging the 2004 Conventions: Media Bloggers, Non Media Bloggers, and Their Network Connections • Sharon Meraz, University of Texas at Austin • This study examined 5,225 links from 104 blogs covering the Democratic National Convention (DNC) and the Republican National Convention (RNC). Using network theory, homophily, and gatekeeping to predict relationships between media bloggers and non-media bloggers, results highlighted consistent power law relationships and diverse linking practices among the four different networks. Media bloggers were more prone to link to non-media blogs covering the DNC, link less, and link internally to their own blog.

Information Communication Technologies and National Development in the Caribbean: The Jamaican Situation • Nancy Muturi, University of the West Indies, Jamaica • ICTs have been credited for contributing to this shift from the one-way form of information dissemination to strategic communication thus enhancing the adoption of new ideas and changes in undesirable behaviors and practices. Applying the Diffusion of Innovations theory, this paper explores the ICT situation in the Caribbean in terms of access and adoption and use in various development sectors, as well as the challenges to effective adoption and maintained use of these technologies.

Wireless User Groups: A Comparison with Early Predecessors • Namkee Park, University of Southern California • This paper attempts to elicit prominent characteristics of wireless user groups, which have presented grassroot endeavor of building Wi-Fi networks over unlicensed spectrum. After examining the earlier technology groups of radio amateurs, rural telephone co-ops, and community networks, the study claims that the characteristics of user innovation, user autonomy, and sense of community can play an important role for wireless user groups to lay the groundwork for the future trajectory of the Wi-Fi technology.

Bridging the Digital Divide in South Korea: A Content Analysis of Korean Government Projects from 2000 to 2004 • Namsu Park and Jaekwan Jeong, University of Texas at Austin • Meaningful access to the Internet should be paired with education and content for the disadvantaged groups as well as access within economic and sociopolitical rationales. This article examines government projects to bridge the digital divide in South Korea by asking: 1) distribution of the projects in access, literacy and content by year, 2) rationales in the projects for different disadvantage groups and 3) distribution of the projects in access, literacy and content for different groups.

The Realities of Leadership in Online Cancer Support Groups (Ocsgs) • Songyi Park and Pamela Whitten, Michigan State • This is an exploratory study about the realities of leadership in online cancer support groups. Content analysis and chi-square test of more than 1,300 messages of the leaders in eight groups showed that: 1) the organizational support is a unique aspect of leadership in these groups. 2) The degree of participation and the frequent types of support the leaders offer vary depending on their formal status. 3) Gender differences are found in the leadership styles.

Precursors of Adolescents’ Use of Visual and Audio Devices During Online Communication • Jochen Peter, Patti M. Valkenburg, and Alexander P. Schouten, University of Amsterdam • The increasing use of webcams and microphones questions the assumption that computer-mediated communication lacks visual and auditory cues. Drawing on a survey of 1,060 adolescents, we found that a considerable proportion of adolescents used webcams and microphones during instant messaging. If adolescents perceived the lack of visual cues in online communication as important, they used webcams less frequently. Greater levels of social anxiety reduced the use of webcams, higher levels of private self-consciousness increased it.

The Rise of Neoliberalism in Global Communication Systems from NWICO to WSIS • Victor Pickard, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign • Recent discussions centered on communication rights and internet governance at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) recall earlier United Nations Educational Scientific Cultural Organization (UNESCO)-sponsored debates on the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). This paper brings into sharper focus both parallels and significant disjunctures between the two movements by examining historical connections and contrasts in relation to the rise of neoliberalism.

The Whole World Is Talking: Intermedia agenda-setting in American and foreign online media organizations • Monica Postelnicu, Kristen Landreville, and Cristina Popescu, University of Florida • Online media were often characterized in terms of diversity and as an alternative to the homogenous coverage of traditional media organizations. Using an intermedia agenda-setting theoretical perspective, this study explores diversity and originality of news content among 84 online news Web sites from 24 countries. Results indicate that online media seem to follow in the footsteps of traditional media and only offer consumers limited diversity.

Children and Media Policy in a Digital Environment • Jack Powers, Syracuse • Children’s access to media content is unprecedented as is the concern over the deleterious effects of exposure. Surprisingly, governmental policies that have been enacted to ostensibly protect kids from the harmful influences of media are often shaped, not by the media content, but rather by how that content is delivered. This paper sets out to understand the issues involved with children and media policy and makes five policy recommendations.

Mapping the Blogosphere: Citizen-Based Media in the Global News Arena • Stephen Reese, Lou Rutigliano, Kideuk Hyun, Jaekwan Jeong, University of Texas-Austin • Globalized communication has created a space for news and political discourse that overrides geography and increases opportunities for non-mainstream news sources. This paper examined one part of these greater trends – weblogs. It analyzed the linking patterns on six of the most popular weblogs to study their relationship to the mainstream media in the U.S. and internationally. Findings suggest a more complementary relationship between weblogs and traditional journalism and less political insularity than typically assumed.

Googling Hate: Hate Speech, First Amendment Ideology, and the World Wide Web • Laura Resnick, Ohio University • A Jewish-American businessman was shocked to discover Google’s top-matching website for his key-word search (“Jew”) was JewWatch.com, a virulent anti-Semitic site. His subsequent campaign to convince Google to eliminate the site from their index launched a public controversy. This paper examines Google’s claims that their search-engine technology does not reflect their values, as well as the ramifications of national ideologies on the international medium of the Internet.

Internet Use, Digital Literacy and Purposive Web Use: An Emerging Model • Rebecca Reynolds and Jin Sun Cho, Syracuse University • This study presents findings from a survey exploring the relationships between internet use, digital literacy, and purposive web use. Findings confirm past work indicating that age is a barrier to Internet use and digital literacy. Additionally, digital literacy serves as a predictor for online political participation and other forms of purposive web use. And, online political participation serves as an indicator of offline participation.

Computer-mediated Courtship: Heterosexual Courtship Strategy in an Online Environment • Handley Robert, University of Texas at Austin • People increasingly turn to Internet personal ads to attract a mate. This study examines heterosexual courtship theory when the behavior it seeks to explain occurs in a mediated environment: Internet personals. Results show that advertisers behave in ways predicted by heterosexual courtship theory; however, courtship behavior varied with ad service and with the presence or absence of a photograph. Results suggest that ad services represent different social units and the photograph may influence courtship strategy.

Experiencing Journalism: A New Model in Online Newspapers • Susan Robinson, Temple • A descriptive analysis of four online newspapers supports Deuze’s (2003) contention that journalism is morphing into a connective, interactive, multi-media, dialogical form of news dissemination online. This paper also demonstrates how Internet attributes engage audiences in new ways. The author suggests an expansion of Deuze’s (2003) online model to include a concentration on public experience, incorporating both a citizen journalism participatory function as well as a presence function.

How People Learn Using Interactive Cancer Communication Systems • Bret Shaw, Jeong Yeob Han, Robert Hawkins, Fiona McTavish, and David Gustafson, University of Wisconsin-Madison • To provide insights about how women with breast cancer learn from Interactive Cancer Communication System, this study examines how using different service types employing conceptually distinct pedagogical methods relates to learning outcomes. As expected, findings supported the constructivist idea that interactive computer programs may supplement the learning potential of information services delivered via transmission-oriented methods. Contrary to expectations, however, those who used information services benefited less if they were more frequent users of communication services.

As Assessment of Privacy Policies at Health Related Web Sites • Kim Sheehan and Michelle Honald, University of Oregon • Americans are concerned with privacy of health information, yet actively seek health information online. Many health-related web sites collect personalized information to facilitate exchanges between visitors and site sponsors. This study found sites collect a range of personal information through a variety of interactive methods. They have mixed compliance to the FTC FIPs, with few sites providing information about choice in data collection, security, and access of information. Readability of privacy policies is low.

Constituent E-mail: Its Impact on State Legislators’ Perceptions and Agendas • Mary Sheffer, Louisiana State University • This is a follow up study to a 2000 report, which gauged Illinois legislators’ perceptions and attitudes toward e-mail communication. The inability to determine the origin of e-mail negatively affected constituent e-mail’s impact on legislators’ personal political agendas. Advances in e-mail technology could alleviate this problem, thus impacting legislators’ perceptions and use of e-mail as a political tool of communication. This paper, therefore, measures and compares state legislators’ perception of the importance of e-mail communication.

Broadband Internet Adoption: Influencing Factors • Byong-Ryul Shin and Jyotika Ramaprasad, Southern Illinois University • The study’s conceptual model predicting broadband Internet adoption distilled independent variables from theories of diffusion of innovations and uses and gratifications. Most relationships were confirmed indicating viability of the model. Broadband adopters tended to be those who think of themselves as more innovative; who have greater needs for entertainment, speed, and always-on; who have higher family incomes; and who perceive more advantages of broadband Internet in terms of saving time, multitasking, and service reliability.

Public Interest and Competition in the Convergence of Telecom and Broadcasting: A Comparative Case Study of Korea and UK • Dong Hee Shin and Eun-Sang Yoon, Penn State • Convergence of broadcasting and telecommunication services draws attention because of its complexity and possible impact on market and regulation. The focus of this study is to review current policy debates on convergence in Korea and UK. This research identifies the reasons for the seemingly endless debates between pro-competition and pro-public interest. It suggests a layered regulatory framework that can embrace both competition and public interest.

Communication Technologies and Political Development: Cultures Matter, Vertical Media Don’t • Marko Skoric and Yong Jin Park, University of Michigan • This study comparatively examines the interplay between culture, horizontal communication technologies and political/economic development. Using empirical indicators of cultural values and indices of technology, we analyze the impact of cultural variables on the accessibility and decentralization of horizontal networks. The findings indicate that political/economic development is related to the accessibility and decentralization of horizontal networks, affected by the presence or absence of cultural values emphasizing freedom of choice, modernization, and political liberty.

Interactivity and Online News Sites • Jessica Smith, University of South Florida • Interactivity is a built-in feature of the Internet, and it is important to understand how online news sites use it. A conceptual definition of interactivity has not been applied consistently, but various operationalizations include e-mail, online forums, real-time chat, multimedia, polls, and hyperlinks. This paper examines the concept and definitions of interactivity on the Web and offers a literature review that groups techniques that have been labeled interactive.

Effects of Interactivity on Attitude Formation on Political Websites: A Test of Mediation Effect of Perceived Interactivity • Indeok Song, Indiana • This study tests a mediation model of website interactivity, which is based on the idea that objective aspects of interactivity or technological aspects of interactivity do not always correspond to the perceptual or subject aspects of interactivity and that perceived interactivity may mediate the effects of objective aspects of interactivity on outcome variables. The results from an experiment with 78 college students supported the mediation model for predicting political attitudes formed on a political website.

A Thought-Experiment with Small-City Media After 4G Wireless Technology Introduction • Greg Stene, Wichita State University • Development of Fourth Generation (4G) wireless broadband technology is the variable in a thought-experiment considering potentials for individuals, bloggers, and newspapers to enter the location of the small-town newspaper and challenge it for dominance. The experiment suggests that the possible 4G (or 5G) ability to transmit video nearly instantly can change the newsgathering process itself, and permit immediate Web publication, creating journalism without gatekeepers, editors, or schedules.

Group Communication, Technology and College Newspaper Editors • Amanda Sturgill and Kristin Zastoupil, Baylor • Studies have looked at the impact of technology on organizations in general, but fewer have looked at the impact on media as organizations. About 50 student editors at college newspapers completed measures of communication satisfaction, group satisfaction and work group cohesiveness. The audit includes statements of the frequency of use of various kinds of communication technologies as well as measures of how effective the respondent finds organizational communication.

Internet Postings and Blogger Videos: Bic This! Kryptonite’s Bike Lock-Ballpoint Pen Fiasco from an Issue Contagion Perspective • Patricia Swann, Utica College • The Internet is changing the way issue managers identify and evaluate potential threats to an organization. Timothy Coombs’ issue contagion perspective posits that the Internet provides a means for altering issue priorities. The evaluative tool of likelihood can determine what issues need action. The Kryptonite product failure case examined how an issue contagion develops and how success markers of likelihood could be used to identify the signs of an Internet issue gaining momentum and spreading.

Legal Consciousness of Copyright • John Thomson, Jr., University of Wisconsin, Madison • New home copying technologies have brought a legal shift which has made individuals increasingly responsible for copyright law. This paper attempts to examine what people know about, and how they comply with, copyright through sociology’s theoretical framework called “legal consciousness.” Based on a series of intensive interviews about knowledge of copyright, it will be argued that the lack of legal knowledge highlights the social construction of the law.

Interactivity, Perceived Interactivity and Parasocial Interaction on a Political Candidate Website • Kjerstin Thorson and Shelly Rodgers, Missouri • We examined the effects of interactivity and perceived interactivity on attitudes toward a political candidate website, impression of the candidate, and intention to vote for the candidate. A blog served as the context. Interactivity significantly influenced attitude toward the website, but not candidate impression or vote intention. Perceived interactivity influenced all three dependent variables but did not interact with interactivity, suggesting that these are two separate constructs. The effects were mediated by parasocial interaction.

Agenda-Setting and Blogs: Issue and Attribute Salience Influence on Celebrity Web Sites • Kaye Trammell, Louisiana State, and Spiro Kiousis, University of Florida • This study investigated agenda-setting on blogs through posts (n = 700) and reader feedback in comments (n = 534) and trackbacks (n = 48). After finding support for agenda setting, data revealed corresponding issue salience between bloggers and readers. Differences based on interactivity level were investigated. Agendas of high interactivity users were correlated with the blogger; findings were not significant for low interactivity users. Delayed response times weakened the agenda setting effect.

Contingent Interactivity and News Story Navigation: An Experiment • Mark Tremayne and Amy Schmitz Weiss, University of Texas-Austin • This study compared contingent and structural hyperlink designs and found that users in the contingent condition selected hyperlinks more frequently. The practical and theoretical implications of this and other findings are discussed.

Hacking Authority: Teens Negotiating Acceptable Use in School Computing • Cassandra Van Buren, Utah • In the context of growing global reliance on networked computers, the negative impact of malicious computer hacking is increasing. The article describes results of an ethnographic study of the ways in which staff at a public high school attempted, using various strategies, to invest students in protecting network security on campus. Participant-observer data is presented and analyzed in the context of best-practices recommendations for policy makers.

Online Interactivity on Political Websites From the 2004 Legislative Election • Tai-Li Wang, National Chengchi University, Taiwan • This study conducts comparative analysis of multiple genres of political websites through the perspectives of online interactivity during Taiwan’s 2004 legislative election. Findings suggest that, in terms of human-to-content interaction, party websites appear to function as more effective channels for boosting voter support than candidate websites. Citizen and non-governmental websites appear to provide more avenues for human-to-human interaction with less resource base. The human-to-interface interaction appears to be downplayed in the 2004 legislative election.

Building a Coherent Web: Using Structure-Building Text and Hypertext To Facilitate Engagement and Understanding of News About Complex Issues • Ronald Yaros, University of Wisconsin-Madison • An experimental design, supported by a theoretical framework of text coherence and comprehension measured effects of the within subjects (N=301) factor of text structure and the between subjects factor of hypertext link structure. Results suggest that audience interest in and understanding of unfamiliar news is enhanced by explanatory structure building text for linear (axial) links but not for non-linear (network) links. Results are interpreted in the context of cognitive capacity and effects of user interactivity.

How Consumers Process Cultural Cues on Commercial Websites: The Role of Felt Targetedness in the Communication Model of Cultural Cues • Tae-Il Yoon, Hallym University, South Korea, and Esther Thorson, University of Missouri • This study examines how consumers process cultural cues in the context of commercial websites. Based on the review of previous communication models, this study proposed and confirmed a model of hierarchical sequence in which consumers went from felt targetedness to purchase intention. These findings were consistent and robust across three different cultural groups. Felt targetedness was especially found to play an important role in consumers’ processing of cultural cues embedded in commercial websites.

<< 2005 Abstracts

Advertising Division

TEACHING

Service Learning Across the Curriculum: A Collaboration to Promote Smoking Cessation • Jean M. Grow and Joyce M. Wolburg, Marquette University • This paper focuses on how pedagogy, service and scholarship can be combined across the advertising curriculum through service learning, which invigorates collaboration between faculty members, student teams and advertising professionals. The authors demonstrate how service-learning projects integrate curricula (pedagogy) using a community-based client (service), ultimately leading to scholarship and professional outcomes. Specifically, this study analyzes the launch of a service learning based smoking cessation campaign on a mid-west college campus.

Ethical Justification: Too Frequently a “Black Hole” in Advertising Education? • David L. Martinson, Florida International University-North Miami • Ethics involves making judgments, judgments about good and bad, right and wrong. Advertising practitioners have long struggled in an attempt to balance their responsibilities vis-a-vis persuasive communication efforts on behalf of clients against their responsibilities to be genuinely truthful in regard to impacted third parties.

Advertising Professionals in the Classroom: Comparing Electronic versus In-Person Visits • Jay Newell Iowa State University • Advertising industry experts are invited to speak in professional programs on an on-going basis. However, there is scant research to establish the pedagogical advantages of guest experts in the classroom, and little investigation into the effectiveness of new technology such as videoconferencing to effectively bridge the distance between media company offices and university classrooms. This exploratory research, using elaboration-likelihood model factors, tracks the acceptance of 10 guest speakers by students (N=86) in multiple advertising courses over 3 semesters.

Student Teams as Therapy Groups How progress and conflict follow strikingly similar patterns. • Tom Weir, Roy Kelsey, and Susan Weir, Oklahoma State University • This study attempts to draw comparisons between college students working closely in a team environment with patterns of interaction in psychotherapy groups. The literature indicates similarities in the process of both types of groups. Data is gathered from a student group using the GCQ (short form) (MacKinzie, 1983). Important similarities are found between the scores of the student group and those demonstrated for therapy groups, indicating that the group learning process involves similar fundamental stages.

RESEARCH

Advertising and Audience Offense: The Effects of Media Type and Potentially Offensive Products, Services and Themes • Frank K. Beard, University of Oklahoma • A growing research literature suggests when and why audiences will be offended by advertisements. The content analysis reported in this paper tests hypotheses derived from the literature using actual consumer complaints about real advertisements. Findings supported four of the study’s five hypotheses, supporting conclusions that audience members are more likely to be offended by offensive themes than the products, services or ideas advertised; some themes are predictably more offensive than others.

Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising for Stigmatized Illnesses • Soontae An and Hyun Seung Jin, Kansas State University • This study examined the effects of direct-to-consumer (DTC) prescription drug advertising on consumers’ perceptions toward stigmatized illnesses, erectile dysfunction and overactive bladder. Telephone interviews were conducted to assess individuals’ media consumption level, attention to DTC ads, perceived prevalence of erectile dysfunction and overactive bladder, and attitudes toward these stigmatized illnesses. The results showed that those with high DTC ad attention tended to estimate the likelihood of having those illnesses high, and the heightened perceived prevalence led to less stigmatization.

Cancer Ads: A Comparison of Advertising Strategies in Black vs. Mainstream Newspapers • Jiyang Bae, Crystal Y. Lumpkins, Shelly Rodgers, Glen Cameron, University of Missouri-Columbia, Doug Luke, and Matthew Kreuter, St. Louis University • The primary purpose of this study was to compare cancer-related ads in Black vs. mainstream newspapers to determine whether there were differences in advertising strategies used. Advertising strategies that were examined included sociocultural factors (collectivism, religiosity and racial pride), appeal (emotional, informational), referral to resources (website, 800 number, brochure), and angle (local, regional, national). The method was a content analysis of 24 Black and 12 Mainstream newspapers, randomly selected from 24 U.S. cities.

Examining the Source Element at the Interpersonal Level: A Case Study of the Body Donation Campaign in Taiwan • Hao-Chieh Chang, Chinese University of Hong Kong • This study examines the source strategies employed in the body donation campaign in Taiwan. Typical studies on the source element of campaigns focus on the effects of source qualities on persuasion. Specifically, the “who” and “what” factors were assessed to evaluate the source effect. This study explores how the campaign sources at the interpersonal level deliver the message to the target. In-depth interviews with four interpersonal sources were conducted.

The Effect of Negative Publicity on Consumers’ Brand Evaluations: The Moderating Role of Corporate Advertising • Yoon Yong Cho, and Shelly Rodgers, University of Missouri-Columbia • The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of negative publicity on consumers’ attitudes toward the corporation and its brands. The moderating effect of corporate advertising as a counter strategy for recovering negative image was also examined. The method was an experiment. Negative publicity had a negative impact, and positive publicity had a positive impact on brand and company evaluations. However, negatively primed attitudes toward the company and its brand shifted in a positive direction after being exposed to corporate advertising.

From Big-Five Framework Perspective: Does Online Brand Have Personality? • Hwiman Chung, New Mexico State University And Youngjun Sung, University of Georgia • This paper examines the generalizability of Aaker’ s theoretical framework of the dimensions of brand personality (the five factors of Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication, and Ruggedness) across online brands. In this study, which examined online brand personality dimensions, 308 subjects evaluated three global online brands by using 70 brand personality traits.

A Qualitative Investigation of Older Adults’ Perceptions of the Influence of D.C Advertising on Self and Others • Denise E. DeLorme, University of Central Florida, Jisu Huh, University of Minnesota and Leonard N. Reid, University of Georgia • A series of in-depth interviews was conducted to examine older adults’ perceptions of DTC advertising influence on themselves and others. Results give empirical voice to previous survey findings and provide additional evidence to support the third-person effect in DTC advertising. Older adults do not perceive DTC ad effects on themselves when asked directly, but do indicate behaving in DTC-ad-expected ways in particular situations. They also perceive different types of DTC ad effects on others than on themselves.

The Influence of Movie Genre on Audience Reaction to Product Placement • Steven David Garza and Coy Callison, Texas Tech University • Participants completed measures after viewing movie clips categorized by genre-comedy, drama, and science fiction. The experiment compared brand recall, brand liking, and opinions toward brand placement across genre. Humor research suggests product placements in comedies would be more effective than placements in other genres. Results indicate that comedy does not outrank other genres as a vehicle for product placement. Previous research findings were confirmed in that prominent placements were more successful than subtle placements.

The Third-Person Effect In Controversial Product Advertising • Keith Jensen And Steve Collins, University of Central Florida • This research seeks to determine if there is a third-person effect in the realm of controversial product advertising. Survey participants rated their perceived levels of personal offense to product categories as well as the expected offense levels of other groups of people. The results show a significant third-person effect for five of six product categories where an effect was expected. In the case of advertising for racial extremist groups, a first-person effect existed as predicted.

The Effects of Self-Efficacy Statements in Humorous Anti-Alcohol Abuse Messages Targeting College Students: Who is in Charge? • Moon J. Lee and Myiah Hutchens Hively, Washington State University • This study examined the effects of self-efficacy statements in humorous, positively reinforced anti-alcohol abuse messages. The experiment was a post-test only design with 124 college students. Results indicate that highly rebellious individuals who watched ads with a self-efficacy statement (i.e. You are in control of the situation) indicated lower alcohol expectancies, higher risk perceptions, and higher intentions to change their drinking behavior than those in the non-self-efficacy condition.

Advertising Practitioners’ Opinions on Professional Training and Advertising Programs • Tien-Tsung Lee, Washington State University And William E. Ryan, University of Oregon • This study surveyed some of the most creative minds in advertising, asking them to assess the value of their educations and to share their opinions on a number of related topics. How well did their programs of study prepare them for work in advertising? Where should an advertising program be placed in the academy: journalism and communication departments, business schools, fine arts or design programs? What is the professional and personal value of an advertising degree?

Stoic and Aloof for Eternity: An Analysis of Multiple-Male Images in Men’s Magazine Advertising • Katie McRee and Bryan E. Denham, Clemson University • While existing research provides a wealth of information regarding the portrayal of females in advertising, relatively few studies have focused on images of males. The present research builds on the few studies that do exist, examining multiple-male images (n=291) in advertisements featured in four men’s magazines: Details, Esquire, GQ and Playboy. Content analysis revealed continued imagery of the stereotypical, aloof American cowboy in the context of advertisements, but also provided interesting data on the sexualized nature of male models.

Consumers’ Processing of Interactive Web Sites: The Effects of Motivation, Opportunity, Ability and Comprehension • Wendy Macias University of Georgia • This research is a pilot for a larger scale study of how consumers’ process branded Web site material. An experiment was conducted to test the effect that interactivity level had on comprehension. Additional covariates were tested to better understand the effect that motivation, opportunity and ability have on the processing capacity. The results indicate that, of the three processing variables, motivation (specifically the message attention part of advertising message involvement) had the greatest impact on comprehension.

Advocacy Advertising to Community Stakeholders: Perceptions of Risks, Benefits, and Trust in the Coal Industry • Barbara Miller and Janas Sinclair, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Community stakeholders, who live where a business or industry is located, are an important audience for advocacy messages about industry benefits and risks. In focus groups, West Virginia residents defined risks and benefits of the local coal industry primarily in terms of community identity.

An Exploratory Study of Young American and Korean Consumers’ Intentions to opt-in to SMS Advertising • Alexander Muk, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and Christina Chung, University of Southern Mississippi • The convergence of the Internet and wireless telephony and the fast adoption rate of the mobile phone have combined to present a new platform for advertising. SMS advertising uses push advertising strategy to deliver advertising messages to users’ mobile phones in text formats. It has considerable scope for one to one marketing based on the private and direct nature of the medium and situations of the users.

Is the Fruit Better if More Wasps Eat It: Exploring the Effects of Self-monitoring and Visual and Verbal Message Strategies on Social Approval Appeals • Jun Rong Myers, Soyoen Cho, Sela Sar And Ron Faber, University of Minnesota • This paper investigates the moderating role of self-monitoring and the effects of visual and verbal message strategies in social approval appeals in advertisement. An experimental study was conducted with undergraduate students (N=153) testing the interactive relationship between self-monitoring, verbal claims and visual cues of social approval appeal and persuasion effects. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed relating to advertising research and creative strategy.

The Effects of Consensus between Third-Party Endorsements on Audience Attitude and Behavioral Intent • Alex Wang, University of Connecticut • This study examines the process by which audiences integrate third-party endorsements into their product evaluations and how endorsement consensus affects this process. The results suggest that positive endorsements enhance audiences’ attitudes while audiences’ needs for consensus play a crucial role in determining how audiences will form their behavioral intents. Consensus is important because it determines whether a given product is perceived as meeting or falling short of product evaluations.

Promotion Of Destinations After Disasters: An Experimental Examination Of Communication-Evoked-Imagery Effects • Linda Wang-Stewart, Pacific Lutheran University • In facing the challenge of promoting tourism destinations damaged by disasters, this study was designed to examine the interaction effects of Communication-Evoked Imagery ads and memory. College students (= 116) participated in a 2 (Imagery) X 2 (Memory) X 3 (Countries) X 6 (Orders) within subject experiment. The results indicated significant main effects and interaction effects of imagery and memory congruency. The findings suggested that Communication-Evoked Imagery ads are effective to encourage audience’s information processing, especially in message-memory incongruent conditions.

The Effects of Ethnic identity on Audience’s Evaluation of HIV Public Service Announcements • Xiao Wang, and Laura M. Arpan Florida State University • An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of participants’ ethnic identity in the context of health communication. Results indicate there was a marginally significant interaction effect of black participants’ ethnic identity and source ethnicity on the evaluation of the overall credibility of the spokespersons, but not on the evaluation of public service announcements. No significant interaction effects were found among white participants on either of the dependent variables.

Military Recruitment Advertising: The Effectiveness of Advertising in Persuading Women to Consider the Military as a Career Option • Maura Mollet, And Tom Weir, Oklahoma State University • This study assesses the relative effectiveness of military recruiting advertisements to attract women to the military, and makes use of a combination of Osgood’s congruity theory (1955; in Severin and Tankard, 1988) and Goffman’s (1979) gender roles in advertisements. This study showed no consistent relationship between gender roles in recruiting materials and the likelihood that participants might consider military service, but did reveal interesting relationships among other variables.

The Influence of Humanlike Navigation Interface on Users’ Responses to Internet Advertising • Kenneth C. C. Yang, University of Texas – El Paso • The present study integrates literature from the interface design and Internet advertising effectiveness literature to examine whether a humanlike navigation interface will increase the effectiveness of Internet advertising. The study employs a post-test only with a control group experiment design to examine whether and how a humanlike navigation interface will have effects on users’ responses to Internet advertising.

Cultural Values Reflected in Chinese and American Web Service Advertising • Jie Zhang and Doyle Yoon, University of Oklahoma • This study examines cultural values and information cues as reflected in U.S. and Chinese Web service advertising appeals. Also, the distribution of service categories between the two countries is explored. Content analysis of the 836 service advertisements from 74 selected Chinese and U.S. Websites reveals that collectivism and individualism remain to be the most important cultural constructs differentiating Western cultures from East Asian cultures.

The Role of Involvement and Previous Evaluation in Attractiveness Match-Up Hypothesis • Yanjun Zhao And James Kelly, Southern Illinois University Carbondale • This study concerns the match-up hypothesis that effectiveness of an attractive model in an ad varies in product. This study was the first to consider the potential role of individuals’ previous evaluation and involvement about a product in the interaction between model attractiveness (more vs. less attractive) and product type (perfume v. vacuum) in advertising effectiveness.

The Effect of Fear Appeals in AIDS Prevention Ads on Attention, Interest, Liking and Intent to Adopt Recommended Behavior • Yanjun Zhao And Jyotika Ramaprasad, Southern Illinois University Carbondale • This study examined the influence of fear appeals as well as efficacy and relevance on ad attention, interest, and liking, as well as intent to behave (as per the recommended behavior–using condoms) in AIDS prevention advertisements. Results of a repeated measures experiment showed that fear appeal, efficacy and relevance were significant predictors of participants’ response. In addition, the study also found two interaction effects. Implications for practice in anti-AIDS/HIV advertising and experiment methodology were discussed.

PF&R

Subliminal advertising: A reply to August Bullock’s not-so-secret sales pitch • Sheri Broyles, University of North Texas • On June 11, 2004, August Bullock posted a message on the AdForum listserve touting his new book The Secret Sales Pitch: An Overview of Subliminal Advertising. This posting created a great deal of discussion, proving what a hot topic subliminal advertising continues to be. This paper is a response to that book.

Effects of Gay-Themed Advertising Content on Emotional Response, Attitude Toward the Ad, and Changes in Attitude Toward the Brand • Joe Bob Hester, Rhonda Gibson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • The amount of gay-themed advertising is increasing, and there is much speculation about the effects on consumers, both gay and straight. But there has been very little mpirica1 investigation of the effects on individuals’ attitudes toward the brand advertised or toward the issue of homosexuality.

Are You Talking To Me?: Advertising Content Analysis of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy • Eunsun Lee, Jounghwa Choi and Teresa Mastin, Michigan State University • The study examines advertising strategies that advertisers employ to target gay consumers through mainstream media. A content analysis of commercials placed on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, a gay-themed makeover cable TV show, was conducted. The result showed that advertisers use an implicit approach through gay window advertising and window advertising can be characterized by cues based on the stereotypes of gay consumers.

Celebrity Endorsers and Generation Y: New Insights for Advertisers • Olaf Werder and Stephynie Chapman Perkins – New Mexico • Abstract not available.

SPECIAL TOPICS

The Super Bowl: ‘Tis the Season for Self Promotion • Sue Westcott Alessandri • Abstract not available.

The Great Divide? Defining Multiculturalism and Globalization in Advertising • Frauke Hachtmann and Sloane Signal, University of Nebraska-Lincoln • As we move toward a truly global economy advertising practitioners must be equally comfortable communicating with multicultural audiences in the United States as well as different cultures abroad. The authors propose that communicating to and with global audiences should be seen as an extension of multiculturalism in the United States and not as separate areas of scholarship.

Against Advertising: Humorous Critiques in The Wall Street Journal Cartoons • Michael Maynard Temple University • The editorial page cartoon, when not overtly political, offers a compelling site for researching how a newspaper airs critiques of advertising through humor. Using the release mechanism theory of humor, this study content analyzes 2,959 Pepper… and Salt cartoons from the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal and finds 82 cartoons targeting advertising.

Got Rights? PETA Says No: Nonprofit Issue Advertising and Celebrity Right of Publicity • Rachel Mersey, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This research examines the construct of commercial use as applied in right of publicity and First Amendment commercial speech cases to determine whether nonprofit issue advertising campaigns, such as PETA’s featuring former President Ronald Reagan and the tagline: “Win one for the Gipper: Animal fats DOUBLE your risk of Alzheimer’s,” would qualify either as a commercial use or for constitutional protection of the highest order, concluding that philosophical-based advertising is fully protected by the First Amendment.

From Subservient Chickens to Brawny Men: A Comparison of Viral Advertising to Television Advertising • Lance Porter and Guy Golan, Louisiana State University • The diffusion of the Internet into American homes along with the growing penetration of high speed Internet via cable and satellite have changed the very nature of online advertising. The current study focuses on one of the most recent online advertising phenomenon -viral advertising. The study provides an historical account of the viral marketing, provides a definition for viral advertising and then moves on to provide what may be the first empirical investigation of viral ads.

Advertising and the Pluralism of Indonesian Middle Class Identity: the Global-Local Nexus in Tempo Magazine • Janet Steele, George Washington University • An examination of advertising in Tempo magazine can offer clues to the global-local nexus in a developing country. Although Tempo’s readers are believed to be from the middle class, the advertising images are hardly monolithic. Some advertisements put being “Western” in the forefront, while others celebrate the local – suggesting the pluralism of middle class aspirations, and raising doubts about the notion of a capitalist “mono-culture.”

Outside the Box, Inside the Circle: Using the Six-Segment Strategy Wheel To Predict the Direction of Change in Message Strategies • Ronald Taylor, University of Tennessee • This research challenges the popular claim-“breakthrough creative”– made by advertisers and agencies that often accompany announcements of changes in message strategies. Based on analysis of 50 announced changes in strategy, this paper suggests that the direction of change in message strategy is predictable. Strategies are predictable because advertisers and their agencies tend to choose new strategies from a rather narrow range of many possible message strategies.

Celebrity Endorsers And Generation Y: New Insights For Advertisers • Olaf Werder and Stephanie C. Perkins, University of New Mexico • Generation Y has been found to be cynical toward campaigns using celebrities. The present study uses a case study design to document how college-age members of this cohort describe in their own words their beliefs about celebrity endorsers. The results of the study indicate that the fit and meaning transfer between celebrity image and ideal self-image are important for a Gen Y-oriented campaign. Findings and implications for advertising theorists and practitioners are discussed.

Content Comparison of Presidential Election Campaigns: Functional Approach to the Candidate’s and their Party’s Web sites and TV Spots • Doyle Yoon and Joseph Seth, University Of Oklahoma • This study attempted to examine how two presidential election camps utilize two media, television and the Internet, in 2000 and 2004 presidential election campaigns. Content analysis with both candidates’ and their parties’ television spots and Web sites of the 2000 and 2004 presidential election campaigns were conducted to examine the role of the Internet as a new tool for political campaigns, compared to television spots.

The Genealogy of an Icon • Margaret Young, Bradley University • Phoebe Snow was the first feminine iconic merchandising supermodel; the unrecognized prototype for all Ronald McDonalds to come. Her quiet demeanor, “lost in thought”, elegant image inspired poets, playwrights, marriage proposals, fashion designers, women and men young and old. Though she was not human in a flesh blood format, she was real. This paper traces her 70+ years through America pop culture.

STUDENT PAPERS

Direct-To-Consumer Television Advertisements Of Prescription Drugs And Their Impact On Physician Prescription-Writing Tendencies • Jocelyn Kay Albertson, Iowa State University • This study explores the impact of direct-to-consumer television prescription drug advertisements on Iowa physicians’ attitudes toward drug products and their tendency to prescribe those products. Using the tenets of diffusion of innovations theory and the two-step flow hypothesis, the findings of this survey indicate that physicians are not in favor of televised DTC advertising of prescription products and that their negative attitudes are important contributors to their tendencies to prescribe products shown in the ads.

Content Analysis of Automotive Company Websites as Internet Advertising: A Cross-Cultural Study • Chan-pyo Hong, Youngrak Park and Kenneth Kim, Florida State University • A comparative content analysis was conducted on a total of 34 automotive company websites targeting Korean and US consumers in order to investigate the current contents (as attitude function-based advertising appeals) of the websites. Texts, hyperlinks, and images in the selected websites were analyzed on the theoretical basis of instrumental versus symbolic function dichotomy. The analysis of the results reveals that there are cultural differences in terms of two function-related items identified in the automotive websites.

Length Versus Frequency: Deconstructing Myths In Advertising Research • Yongick Jeong, North Carolina – Chapel Hill • This study examined empirically the impact of commercial length and frequency on advertising effectiveness. The results supported hypotheses that predicted advantages of frequency over commercial length in enhancing audiences’ brand recognition and advertising liking. Although both commercial frequency and length were found to be significant, the impact obtained by running an additional commercial was considerably higher than the impact acquired by increasing average and total commercial length. Marketing implications for the results are discussed.

Cultural Differences in Specific versus Diffuse Dimension: A Design and Message Comparison between American and Korean Brand • Jong Woo Jun And Hyung-Seok Lee, University of Florida • This study explores the differences in brand execution for different cultures, Korea and the U. S. The purpose of this paper is to identify the role of specific/diffuse dimension on brand-marks and taglines. The finding indicates that Korean brands are generally more diffusive than those of the U. S.

The Influence of Appraisal and Emotion on Message Effectiveness of PSAs • Yahui Kang, University of Pennsylvania • The study adopts a new approach to message effectiveness by adapting traditional appraisal studies to mass media context; treating appraisal as a measure of message content; and identifying message content that is more conducive to emotional reactions and message persuasiveness. Using Scherer’s appraisal theory, the appraisal-emotion link found in the interpersonal context is replicated in the media context. Negative emotions elicited by PSAs contribute to perceived message effectiveness. Implications for PSA designing are discussed.

Toward Developing Conceptual Foundations of Internet Brand Community • Juran Kim, University of Tennessee • Recently, Internet brand communities are attracting attention from advertisers. One purpose of this study is to offer conceptual foundations of Internet brand community by developing an integrated overview of the current research. Concepts from the Structuration theory are used for synthesizing the consumer behavior literature. This stud attempts to find and till the gaps between brand community and Internet brand community in the literature h’ considering critical characteristics of the Internet environment.

Drama as Mediator or Magnifier of Emotional Responses to Irritation in Advertising: An Exploratory Study • Jennifer L. Lemanski, University of Florida • An exploratory experiment manipulating ad format type (drama versus argument) and irritation level (low versus high) was conducted to learn more about the effects on attitude toward the ad and recall of the ad when drama and irritation are involved.

Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion + Uses & Gratifications: An Enhanced Model of Comparative Advertising Effectiveness • Amy Shirong Lu, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This study draws from the Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion and Uses and Gratifications to advocate a new model for the effectiveness of comparative advertising. The proposed model is highly conceptualized and awaits further theoretical input and more empirical testing. However, it is precisely the different natures of the ELM and U&G that make it important to find a way to bring together the two theories, which have been divided for too long.

Unselling the Cigarette: A Content Analysis of Persuasive Elements of Two Types of National Anti-Tobacco Advertisements • Jensen Moore & Keith Greenwood University of Missouri – Columbia • The purpose of this study was to examine the persuasive elements of a traditional anti-tobacco social marketing campaign to an industry manipulation campaign. It was suggested that because of reported effectiveness differences between the two campaigns, that different persuasive elements were being used. Ninety-Six print advertisements were content analyzed for visual and verbal persuasive elements.

A Content Analysis of Direct-to-consumer Pharmaceutical Television Commercials: A Look at the Information Cues Again • Daniel Ng, University of Leicester • The debate of direct to consumer ads has been a controversial one. Marketers enjoy huge advantages while advocate groups still fight for consumers’ rights. Both has entirely different point of view yet not one side has a convincing footing. A re-look at the information cues via using content analysis of television commercials indicate that there has nothing change except consumers certainly overloaded with overwhelming medical information. Some cues obviously appear more importantly than others.

Market Scarcity and Persuasion • Feng Shen, University of Florida • This study examined the role of purchase quantity restriction, a type of market scarcity, in persuasion. Purchase quantity restriction alone decreased message elaboration and product attitude favorability. The effect was further moderated by message quality. When a weaker message was present, the restriction still decreased message elaboration and product attitude favorability. When a stronger message was present, the restriction increased message elaboration and product attitude favorability.

The Master Settlement Agreement and Visual Imagery of Cigarette Advertising in Two Popular Youth Magazines • Yongjun Sung, and Heidi J. Hennink-Kaminski, University of Georgia • The 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) between tobacco companies and forty-six states bans tobacco companies from targeting youth through advertising and promotions. While previous studies examined the effect of the MSA on the overall cigarette marketing environment changes, no study has addressed possible shifts in the visual imagery and claims of cigarette ads in youth magazines since the MSA took effect in 1998. To address this issue, we analyzed cigarette advertisements in two popular youth magazines across two eras (pre-MSA vs. post-MSA).

The Mediating Role of Attitude toward the Ad and Identification with the Spokesperson Xiao Wang, Florida State University • This study examined the underlying psychological process of participants’ evaluation of source ethnicity and expertise on their acceptance of a public service announcement. The study proposed the effects of such evaluation were mediated by identification with the spokesperson and attitude toward the ad. Five hundred and twenty two participants evaluated one of four PSAs for HIV awareness campaigns.

<< 2005 Abstracts

Commission on the Status of Women

In the classroom but not the newsroom: A qualitative examination of why women leave journalism jobs • Tracy Everbach, University of North Texas and Craig Flournoy, Southern Methodist University • This study employed in-depth interviews to determine why many female graduates of college journalism and mass communication programs decide to leave newsroom jobs. Research revealed female graduates had high expectations for journalism jobs but become disillusioned by sex discrimination. Reasons for leaving included unequal pay, lack of job flexibility, absence of mentoring and emphasis on male news values. The study recommends actions for journalism organizations and journalism educators to retain women in newsroom jobs.

Choice or Chance? Gender, Victimization and Culpability in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation • Katie Foss, University of Minnesota • This research explored gender and culpability in crime victim representations through a discourse analysis of anonymous victimizations in five seasons of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Findings indicate a vast discrepancy between male and female victimizations in that men become victims by chance, whereas carelessness and sexuality cause women to be victimized. Furthermore, female victims often suffer sexual assault prior to death. These results reinforce existing rape myths and suggest ideological support for a patriarchal society.

Is There Method to the Madness? Worldwide Press Coverage of Female Terrorists and Journalistic Attempts to Rationalize Their Involvement • Elizabeth Gardner, University of Texas at Austin • This study examined worldwide media representations of female terrorists, specifically focusing on journalistic explanations for their involvement in terrorism. Content analysis of 214 news articles revealed that rationalizations are found in one third of all articles and vary from nationalism to revenge. Journalists themselves are the leading source for these explanations; a disparity between motives given by the female terrorists and by journalists suggests that the media’s portrayal of female terrorists is a misrepresentation of reality.

The Global, the Local and Gender in the News: An Institutional Analysis of the Inter Press Service • Margaretha Geertsema, Butler University • This paper investigates the gender-mainstreaming project of the alternative global news agency Inter Press Service within the frameworks of globalization and feminism. IPS has consciously worked to address gender issues since 1975, with a major project implemented from 1994-1999. This analysis of institutional materials reveals the IPS gender policy reflects cultural hybridization through its focus on the human rights of women within local contexts, as well as its endorsement of Third World Feminism.

“I may decide it’s not worth it to balance it all”: The experiences and values of young women in sports journalism careers • Marie Hardin, Penn State University and Stacie Shain, Independent Researcher and Kelly Shultz, Penn State University • In the first part of a longitudinal study to explore the factors that impact career longevity of women in sports journalism, women who have worked in the field for less than two years were interviewed about barriers and opportunities in regard to their career success. Three general themes emerged during the interviews: 1. Being a woman is not a barrier but is instead an (unfair) advantage; 2. The world of sports is a man’s world.

Spaces for Feminist (Re)articulations: The Internet, Newspapers, and the Gang Rape of “Jane Doe” • Dustin Harp, University of Texas at Austin • Feminist (re)articulations of rape counter hegemonic conceptualizations about the crime. This research examines how journalists covered a gang rape and how an online community participated in a broader discursive construction of the crime and rape issues in general. Through an analysis of the local mainstream daily newspaper, alternative weekly, online chatrooms, and blogs, the study illustrates ways feminist and dominant understandings of rape are negotiated in an expanding discursive public space.

Women in the Blogosphere: Access, Practices, and Gender Politics • Dustin Harp, University of Texas at Austin and Sandra L. Nichols, Towson University and Mark Tremayne, University of Texas at Austin and Tina Castronovo, Towson University • Using ethnographic content analysis this paper presents a case study of BlogHer, an organization and accompanying website that serves as a bridge between the virtual world and the real world to offer women a location for improving access to and articulating gender discrimination in the Blogosphere as well as strategizing solutions. We describe the locations of interaction on BlogHer and analyze how they work together to create a subaltern public sphere.

Jane Grant in Full Bloom • Susan Henry, California State University • When she divorced Harold Ross in 1929, it appeared that Jane Grant’s involvement in The New Yorker, which she helped him found, would end. Yet during World War II she spearheaded the creation of a highly (and unexpectedly) successful edition for soldiers overseas. Afterward, in the anti-feminist 1950s, she revived the Lucy Stone League and energetically led its fight for women’s rights.

Prominence of Men and Women in Newspaper Sports Coverage as an Indicator of Gender Equality Pre- and Post-Title IX • Kent Kaiser and Erik Skoglund, University of Minnesota • This paper investigates this question: Did the prominence of women’s newspaper sports coverage increase after passage and implementation of Title IX, consistent with the expectation that greater equality in athletics would lead to greater prominence in coverage? The paper applies a content analytical method to the Star Tribune of Minneapolis and the St. Paul Pioneer Press from 1940 to 2005 and finds that traditional frames of inequality have persisted and possibly strengthened.

Egyptian Television Advertising Portrayals of Women: A Content Analysis and Discussion • Kevin L. Keenan and Mireille Ishak, The American University in Cairo • Issues related to gender portrayals in advertising are discussed and a content analysis of 508 television commercials from Egyptian Channel 1 is described. Variables include voiceover gender, character age, product type, credibility basis, setting, presence of children, and character subservience. Findings show evidence of gender stereotyping and are compared to studies in the U.S. and other countries. Interpretations are offered and suggestions for future research are raised.

Gender Politics and Morning Television: A Discourse Analysis of the Media-Constructed ‘Duel’ between Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer • Hillary Lake, University of Oregon • This study examines print coverage of the ratings war between Katie Couric, of NBC’s “Today” show, and Diane Sawyer, of ABC’s “Good Morning America”. Drawing on feminist political economic theory, this study uses discourse analysis to demonstrate how coverage of Couric and Sawyer reinforces stereotypical ideologies about women in powerful positions.

More Than a “Bunch of Girls” and a “Tea Party”: Public Relations Empowers a State Commission for Women • Cathy Rogers, Loyola University • This case study examines the role of public relations in the success of the Louisiana Women’s Policy and Research Commission and to show how the group served as an advocate for change for women in Louisiana. This analysis of the reestablishment of the Commission and its communications strategies at the beginning of the 215t century provides insight about a dynamic political force in the movement to establish equality for women in Louisiana.

Introducing Women to the Internet: Digital Discourse in Women’s Media • Cindy Royal, Virginia Commonwealth University • Over the past decade, the number of women using the Internet has increased from a quiet minority to an equally represented demographic. But before the mid- 1990s, the Internet was characterized as a primarily white, male domain, used by those in privileged positions in academia, government, and the military. Arguably, these origins have shaped the way Internet technology has been viewed and accepted by society.

Madam or Mr. President? Press coverage and public perceptions when a woman leads in a presidential election: The case of Chile • Sebastian Valenzuela and Teresa Correa, University of Texas at Austin • Women are succeeding in presidential races all over the world. This study examined differences in news coverage of Chile’s first female president Michelle Bachelet and her male contenders in the 2005 elections and the impact of these differences on voters’ perceptions. Using a content analysis of three newspapers, a secondary analysis of a survey and agenda setting as a framework the findings show striking differences in coverage and suggest that the press influenced public perceptions.

A lightning rod in sport: The reproduction of patriarchal ideology in Title IX discourse • Erin Whiteside, Penn State University • This paper explores assumptions about the relationship between sport and gender and what happens when patriarchal ideology is contested. By examining op-ed articles on Title IX, a law that has tremendously changed the opportunity for girls and women to participate in sport over the last 30 years, this textual analysis reveals discourse that reinforces sport’s patriarchal ideology and marginalizes girls and women from this cultural activity.

Framing the First Ladies: Media Coverage of the Candidates’ Wives During the 2004 Presidential Elections • Geri Alumit Zeldes, Michigan State University • This paper extends a study that examined media coverage of the candidates’ wives during the 2000 presidential campaign’ by examining the 2004 presidential election. Like the 2000 study, the “escort” role was the dominant frame. Coverage of the prospective First and Second Ladies did not fulfill the other established frames of “noblesse-oblige,” “policy adviser,” and “protocol style-setter.

<< 2006 Abstracts