Mass Communication and Society 2000 Abstracts
Mass Communication and Society Division
An E-Community of Ideas and Information: Media Content Characteristics of Children’s Web Sites • Debashis Aikat, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • The research for this study was based on concepts related to cultural studies and discourse analyses of top four mainstream children’s web sites based in the United States — Children’s Television Workshop (http://www.ctw.org/), Disney Online (http://www.disney.com/), Nickelodeon Online (http://www.nick.com/), and PBS Online (http://www.pbs.org). Using discourse analyses methods, this study examined media content characteristics of children’s web sites based on five specific construct categories: (a) Information, (b) Entertainment, (c) Education, (d) Commerce, and (e) Interactivity.
Quality Standards in Children’s Programming: An Empirical Analysis of Industry Claims • Alison Alexander, Louise Benjamin and Seok Kang, Georgia and Keisha Hoerrner, Louisiana • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.
Professional Autonomy and the American Journalist • Randal A. Beam, Indiana-Bloomington • This paper uses data from two national surveys of American journalists to examine the relationship between professional autonomy and the professional roles or functions that journalists embrace; the factors that journalists say influence their notion of what’s newsworthy; and the hypothetical judgments that journalists make about ethically questionable reporting practices. The purpose is to examine the ways in which reporters who have the freedom to pursue the stories that they want in the way that they want differ from reporters – apparently increasing in numbers – who face constraints in their work.
Mass Mediating Social Capital • Christopher E. Beaudoin and Esther Thorson, Missouri-Columbia • This study examines social capital in terms of its connections with news media use via a telephone survey. Positive links were found between social capital — defined in terms of group membership, voting behavior, and community trust — and exposure to news media, especially newspapers. The study suggests the importance age and ethnicity play in social capital — both as mediating factors and as predictors. The study, via structural equation modeling, suggests that causation flows in both directions between social capital and media exposure.
Access Denied: Records Custodians as Resistant Gatekeepers to Government Information • Michele Bush, Florida • Access to government information is a safeguard against government corruption by allowing the citizenry to keep watch over its leaders. Records custodians across the country are denying the citizenry this right. This paper shows the proliferation of records custodians unlawfully denying access to public information. It also shows that there is a lack of statutory guidance for records custodians across the country. This paper reports the problems and provides solutions for improving access to government information.
Television Viewing and Perceptions of Race, Socioeconomic Success, and Reasons For Lack Of Success • Rick W. Busselle and Heather Crandall, Washington State • This survey (N=139) investigates the relationships between television viewing and perceptions about socioeconomic success and failure among African-Americans Results extend previous research by indicating l) drama viewing was related to perceptions of greater educational disparity between blacks and whites and to perceptions that discrimination is a problem for blacks. 2) Sitcom viewing was related to perceptions of less educational disparity and higher estimates of blacks’ income. 3) News viewing was related to perceptions that relative lack of success is due to lack of motivation and not limited job opportunities.
Treating the Y2K Bug: Knowledge Gap Factors that Shaped the Outcome of a Public Issue • Francesca Dillman Carpentier, Alabama • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.
Whatever Works: A Test of the “Division of Labor Component of Uses and Gratifications Theory • John Carvalho, Campbell • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.
Rebels with a Cause: Teenagers on Daytime Dramas • Naeemah Clark, Florida • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.
The Effects of News Stories That Put Crime and Violence Into Context: Testing the Public Health Model of Reporting • Renita Coleman and Esther Thorson, Missouri • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.
Retreads: Recycling American Prime Time Television for Fun and Profit • Chad Dell, Monmouth • In the 1990s, a new television programming strategy seemed to emerge: “retreads,” the movement of prime time programs from one network to another. In 1995 alone, five cancelled programs found homes on another network’s schedule. This essay accounts for the use of retreads over a fifty-year period, including its resurgence in the 1990s. The essay argues that as one of many program recycling methods, retreads contribute to the alienation of television audiences.
Married sex in the movies: The last taboo? • J.M. Dempsey and Tom Reichert, North Texas • While other studies have incidentally addressed the portrayal of sex between married partners, this study specifically analyzes how sexuality between married couples is depicted in mainstream movies, as represented by the top movie video rentals of 1998 In the 25 motion pictures, married partners were portrayed in sexual behavior 16 times, or in 15% of the 105 codable sexual encounters. The most common sexual behavior portrayed among husbands and wives was passionate kissing.
Newspaper Letters and Phone-Mail to the Editor: A Comparison of Reader Input • Michael E. Dupre, Saint Anselm College and David A. Mackey, Framingham State College • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.
Partisan and Structural Balance of Election Stories on the 1998 Governor’s Race in Michigan • Frederick Fico and William Cote, Michigan State • The partisan and structural balance of newspaper stories covering the 1998 governor’s race in Michigan was assessed and compared to the newspaper coverage of three earlier elections. The 1998 election coverage favored the Democratic challenger in terms of space and prominence given his campaign’s assertions. A detailed issue analysis, however, suggests that the Republican incumbent was able to dominate the substantive issue agenda, while the Democratic challenger became himself the issue because of his insulting campaign comments.
Journalists’ Newsroom Roles and Their World Wide Web Search Habits • Bruce Garrison, Miami • This paper reports an analysis of how newsroom staff members search for information on the World Wide Web. Daily newspaper data collected in 1998 and 1999 were analyzed to determine if computer-assisted reporting supervisors, news researchers, general assignment and beat reporters, news editors, and newsroom technical specialists differed in how they searched for information on the Web. Findings indicated that there are clear differences in how the group members search.
World Wide Web Use In Newsrooms, 1997-99 • Bruce Garrison, Miami • This study focuses on the use of the Internet and World Wide Web in daily newspaper newsrooms during a three-year period covering 1997-99. The study focused on how these news organizations used the Web to find information, the Web sites most often used for newsgathering, what journalists perceived as the strengths and weaknesses of information found, the Web-based interactive technologies most often used, and the perceived advantages and disadvantages of Web reporting.
Effects of Media Coverage on Illicit Drug Trial Among College Students: What Does Curiosity Really do to the Cat? • Alyse R. Gotthoffer, Miami • This study examines the effects of media coverage on college students’ intentions to try illicit drugs. An experiment was performed with 172 undergraduate students to determine whether awareness, interest, and product curiosity affected intention to try a fictitious drug, MCA. Students were asked to listen to one of six radio segments with drug messages embedded in them. The results suggest that among students predisposed to try illicit drugs, repeated exposure to drug messages heightens awareness, interest, and curiosity about drugs, which, in turn, leads to an intention to try new drugs.
Morality and the Maintenance of Order: The Instructional Potential of “The Jerry Springer Show” • Mary Elizabeth Grabe, Indiana • The prevalence of verbal and physical aggression on daytime television talk shows has earned this genre the designation of “confrontainment.” In recent times politicians, clergy, and media critics have drawn attention by making castigating remarks about the content of particularly “The Jerry Springer Show.” Media scholars have gathered on the sideline of this scuffle to express opinions and offer research evidence to either defend talk shows as democratizing or expel them from the menu of morally just television fare.
The Incidence and Nature of Altruism in Primetime Television Programming • James K. Hertog and Mike Farrell, Kentucky • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.
Entertainment Media Use and Attitudes Concerning Women’s Rights: Merging Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches to Better Understand a Process of Media Effects • R. Lance Holbert, Dhavan V. Shah and Nojin Kwak, Wisconsin-Madison • Critical feminist scholars have long argued that the consumption of televised entertainment programming, because it is a site of gender role construction and contestation, plays an important role in shaping attitudes toward women and their place in society. Merging these insights with research on media uses and gratifications, we posit that individual-level differences in basic demographic characteristics, value-preferences, and social orientations motivate in the use of various types of recreational and informational media content.
Community Controversy and the News Media: A Network Structure of Community Actors’ Co-Coverage in the Local Newspapers • Naewon Kang, Wisconsin-Madison • This study uses network analysis to investigate how the community actors were covered together in news articles of the two local newspapers over a controversial school pairing policy in Madison, Wisconsin. By examining the co-coverage pattern, the author analyzes a symmetrical matrix of 133 community actors appearing in 132 news articles published during 1992 to 1995. Bonacich centrality and multidimensional analysis demonstrate that individuals who are involved in institutional organizations occupy central positions in the co-coverage network.
A Multilevel Approach to Civic Participation: Individual Length of Residence, Neighborhood Residential Stability, and their Interactive Effects with Media Use • Naewon Kang and Nojin Kwak, Wisconsin-Madison • Adopting the Sampson’s (1991) multilevel system model, this study attempts to investigate the role of residential variables both at the individual and at the neighborhood levels and communication factors in individuals’ civic participation. Findings in this study show the significant impact of both residential variables, individual length of residence and neighborhood residential stability, and support past evidences on the influence of communication behaviors on civic participation.
From Here to Obscurity: Media Substitution Theory and the Internet • Barbara K. Kaye, Valdosta State and Thomas J. Johnson, Southern Illinois • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.
Internet Uses and Gratifications: Understanding Motivations for Using the Internet • Hanjun Ko, Florida • In this study, the uses and gratifications theory was applied to investigate the Internet users’ motivations and their relationship with attitudes toward the Internet as well as types of Web site visited by users. Four motivations and five types of Web sites were discovered via factor analysis. Differences among heavy, medium, and light users of the Internet were also analyzed in terms of their motivations, types of Web sites frequently visited, and attitudes toward the Internet.
A Framing Analysis: How Did Three U.S. News Magazines Frame About Mergers or Acquisitions? • Sang Hee Kweon, Southern Illinois • The study examined news coverage of the mergers based on the types of mergers, government policy, and news focus of the three U.S. news magazines. This study found that all three magazines covered mergers or acquisitions favorably, particularly media mergers, and mergers news coverage was 35.3% (183) episodic and 64.5% (335) thematic. Fortune, a business-focused magazine, covered non-media mergers more favorably, whereas Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report covered media mergers more favorably than non-media mergers.
Pleasure, Reality, and Hegemony: A Television Drama and Women in a Korean Confucian Patriarchal Family Structure • Oh-Hyeon Lee, Massachusetts • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.
Political Talk, Not All “Hot Air” A Path Model Predicting Knowledge, Cynicism & Vote in an Issue Campaign • Glenn Leshner and Maria E. Len-Rios, Missouri • This study used regional telephone survey data collected after a 1999 off-season issue election to examine how campaign media and interpersonal political discussion predict how much voters learned about the issue, how they voted, and how politically cynical they were. Three distinct types of voters were identified: those who thought the issue was important, those who reported being involved in the campaign, and those who relied on endorsements to decide how to vote.
The Role of Response Efficacy in Health Threat Messages • Yulian Li, Minnesota • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.
City Characteristics of Newspaper Coverage of Social Security Reform: A Community Structure Approach • John C. Pollock, Tiffany Tanner and Mike Delbene, College of New Jersey • Utilizing the community structure approach developed by Tichenor, Donohue, and Olien (1973, 1980) and elaborated by Pollock and others (1977, 1978, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999), a set of hypotheses were tested to discover the relationship between city characteristics and newspaper reporting on Social Security reform. This approach suggests that certain demographics within a community are systematically linked to newspaper reporting on critical issues.
Thinking About Health: The Relationship of Mass Media and Cognition to Perceptions of Children’s Health • Bryan H. Reber, Missouri • How media use and cognitive work contribute to perceptions of children’s health and quality of life issues was tested in a survey of 1,238 adults. Demographics were predictors of cognitive work and media use on children’s health issues. High cognitive work on children’s health issues was significantly related to pessimistic perceptions about the status of children’s health. High television exposure and attention were related to optimistic perceptions. Cognitive work led to more accurate assessments of the health situation.
Perceptions of Media Fairness: Implications for The Nixon And Clinton Legacies • Marilyn S. Roberts, Florida and Thomas J. Johnson, Southern Illinois • The study examines perceptions of the Watergate and Lewinsky scandals. Survey data (n=450) was collected after the Senate rejected articles of impeachment against President Clinton. Three questions asked about the scandals: whether their actions were serious enough to warrant being forced out of office; perceptions of corruptness; and whether the media were out to get them. Included are measures of demographic and political variables to determine significant associations and implications for the two Presidential legacies.
Telemedicine versus Telelaw: A Legal Comparison Between Offering the Services of Doctors and Lawyers over the Internet • Johanna M. Roodenburg, Florida • This paper compares the movement of the services of doctors and lawyers onto the Internet. It finds that doctors are moving online at a more rapid pace than lawyers. The paper examines the policy rationale for the different telemovement pace between the two professions.
Co-use and Co-processing of News Media in the Family: An Explication and Empirical Validation • Christian Sandvig and Melissa Nichols Saphir, Stanford and Steven Chaffee, California • This study considers the sharing of media in the family by developing two concepts similar to co-viewing and mediation but that apply to communication media other than television. Termed co-use and co-processing, this paper first explicates these concepts, then presents preliminary empirical evidence that these concepts exist from a survey of parent-adolescent pairs. We find that families widely co-use media other than television, mutually co-process content from these media, and that adolescents often initiate co-processing.
An ‘Improbable Leap’: A Content Analysis of Newspaper Coverage of Hillary Clinton’s Transition from First Lady to Senate Candidate • Erica Scharrer, Massachusetts-Amherst • This study is primarily a quantitative content analysis of newspaper coverage of Hillary Clinton as she makes an unprecedented transition from first lady to senate candidate. 342 newspaper stories are analyzed to determine whether the press has responded to her adoption of non-traditional roles with a negative tone. 96 stories about Giuliani are used for comparison, and a qualitative analysis of negative statements appearing in news stories adds depth and dimension to the discussion of critical tone.
Media Cue-Taking and Trends in Mass Opinion: Explaining Evaluations of ClintonÕs Competency and Integrity • Dhavan V. Shahm Wisconsin-Madison; David Domke, Washington; Mark D. Watts, Abacus Associates and David P. Fan, Minnesota • Contrary to what might be expected according to many models of media effects and public opinion, President Clinton’s job approval ratings remained high – and even slightly rose – during the period of critical coverage surrounding the Monica Lewinsky debacle. At the same time, although it received much less attention, public evaluations of the President’s integrity plummeted. With these public opinion divergences in mind, several pollsters, pundits, and scholars have argued that news media must have been largely irrelevant.
The Impact of Political Advertising: Differences Between Positive Ads and Issue, Image and Mixed Attacks • Sung Wook Shim, Florida • The purpose of this study is to identify the impact on the attacking candidate when he/she attacks the attacked candidate with four types of ads: issue, image attacks, both issue and image combined attacks and positive. The study results show that image attack produced a greater negative change than issue attack for evaluation of attacking candidate. The decline was significant between likelihood of voting for attacking candidate in the pretest and likelihood of voting for attacking candidate in the posttest.
Media Bias, Campaign Coverage, and Public Opinion: The 2000 New York Senate Race • Young Jun Son and Deborah Soun Chung, Indiana • This study examines the linkage between candidate treatment and public opinion during the ongoing 2000 New York Senate race and tests T. Patterson’s media candidate portrayal models. With evidence of political bias, our findings demonstrate the New York Times and the Washington Times were respectively favorable to Mrs. Clinton, the Democrat, and to Rudolph Giuliani, the Republican. In the visual part, we did not find specific media bias. We could not support Patterson’s models both in the written and the visual part.
Exploration of TV-Free Life Style • Toward a Media Exchange Model • Tao Sun and Tsan-Kuo Chang, Minnesota • ABSTRACT NOT AVAILABLE.
Influence of Spouse Communication and Informational Media on Risk Perception • Eun-Ho Yeo and Clifford W. Scherer, Cornell • This study used a path model to examine the influence of two communication behaviors on risk perception. Spouse communication, talking about health issues, and mass communication, use of informational media, particularly print, was used to predict husband and wife personal risk perception and societal risk perception. The focus of the paper is to examine the possibility that the impact of informational mass media on risk perception is mediated by family interaction, particularly husband-wife communication.
Economic Literacy and News Interest • Lowndes F. Stephens, South Carolina • The National Council on Economic Education, the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Department of Education (Goals 2000 Educate American Act) and other organizations are promoting economic literacy. In this investigation the author tests, and finds support for, two hypotheses (using a random telephone survey sample of 369 residents in a Southern metropolitan area) – that interest in economic, business, and personal finance news is strongly and positively correlated with economic literacy, and with estimated financial net worth.
Exporting the First Amendment a Case of the Fair Report Privilege • Kyu Ho Youm, Arizona State • Under the fair report privilege doctrine of American libel law, “[t]he publication of defamatory matter concerning another in a report of an official action or proceeding or of a meeting open to the public that deals with a matter of public concern is privileged if the report is accurate and complete or a fair abridgment of the occurrence reported.” Regardless of how it is formulated, the answer to the question of whether reports of the proceedings of foreign courts and other agencies fall within the fair report privilege in U.S. law carries profound implications for American news media in global communication.
An Interdisciplinary Synthesis of Framing • Weiwu Zhang, Wisconsin-Madison • This paper provides a multidisciplinary treatment of the framing analysis and pays close attention to the framing processes linking its antecedents, contents, and consequences. The antecedents of framing addresses the issue of how frames are constructed in the first place and how these influences interact with news media routines to influence actual media content frames. The consequences of media content frames deal with the extent to which media frames are adopted by audience members.
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