Tips from the AEJMC Teaching Committee
“The Doctors Are In” Slated for Chicago Convention
(Article courtesy of AEJMC News, March 2012 issue)
Whether you are a brand-new instructor or a classroom veteran looking to hone your skills and re-energize your teaching acumen, the Standing Committee on Teaching has something special in store for you this year.
At the AEJMC Conference in Chicago, the committee will unveil the latest edition of its pre-conference workshop for faculty and will again offer its fast-moving and informative “The Doctors Are In” session on issues of interest to classroom teachers.
This will mark the sixth year of the popular “The Doctors Are In” session at AEJMC. The session was conceived in 2006 in San Francisco, and the first roundtables were initiated in 2007 in Washington, D.C. The original idea was to answer questions to those new to academe and give them guidance across a range of topics.
Guidance for Faculty
What we discovered was that many faculty, both rookies and veterans, wanted—or perhaps needed—a safe place to ask questions, share their frustrations, and take home some new ideas that would help them in their classrooms. Our “Doctors Are In” sessions have been a big draw year after year, and this year promises to be better than ever!
Think speed dating, but for ideas: participants move from table to table, with each table responsible for a different topic that keeps teachers, new and experienced, up at night. How do you balance teaching, research and service? How do you maintain some semblance of a life with the ever-increasing demands of the professoriate? And what about long-held dream you’ve had of teaching and researching abroad for a year?
We’ll also tackle some of the more pressing issues as a new academic year dawns. What does a model syllabus look like? How does a writing teacher keep from drowning in grading, yet still work with students to improve their reporting and writing skills?
The pre-conference workshop this year will be shorter, faster and best of all, in the evening of Wednesday, August 8, so you can travel in that day and still make it in time for the session. We’ll gather at 6:00 p.m., introduce ourselves and then immediately begin a fast-paced series of mini-sessions that you can attend on all sorts of subjects ideally designed for new faculty.
The mini-sessions will be run by a team of classroom veterans who have seen, and done, everything from large lectures to small seminars, newsroom classes and graduate courses. The sessions will be fast, intense and informal—and we’ll even feed you! Look for signup information on the Conference Registration Form.
Topics
Just a few of the topics we’ll be tackling this year:
- Syllabi and course construction: we’ll provide you with model syllabi and a great way to organize your course so you are confident, from Day One to final exams.
- Grading: the bane of any new instructor’s existence is the art and science of grading. There are ways to deliver grades, to balance rigor and humanity, to use grades to motivate rather than punish…we’ll tackle the basics and take all of your questions.
- Getting That Tenure File Going: We want to build great teachers who balance research and teaching. We’ll get your progression toward tenure and promotion started by giving you a vital checklist of things to be thinking about, and keeping track of, as you begin the journey.
- Setting Professional Boundaries: From Facebook and Twitter to after-hours socializing, the academic life these days is a dizzying race. We’ll tackle the toughest questions in a give-and-take where all of the toughest issues are tackled.
The pre-conference workshop is a must for new teachers, or those seeking a new perspective on teaching. You’ll not only benefit from the session content, but you’ll also benefit from building a network of colleagues from across the country who are in the same place you are professionally, giving you a bunch of new friends to bounce ideas off of and to turn to when you need that all-important mid-term pep talk. For years to come, you’ll turn to your AEJMC contacts for advice and collaboration. The pre-conference workshop is the best first step you can take as you enter the academy. We hope to see you there!
Schedule
Here is the schedule at a glance:
Teaching Committee —
Wed., Aug. 8, 6 to 9:30 p.m. — Workshop
Thurs., Aug. 9, 10 to 11:30 a.m. — Best Practices panel
Fri., Aug. 10, 7 to 9:45 a.m. — Teaching Committee meeting
Fri. Aug. 10, 1:30 to 3 p.m. — “Doctors Are In” session
Sat., Aug. 11, 8:15 to 9:45 a.m. — Faculty Concerns session
By Charles Davis
University of Missouri
AEJMC Teaching Committee
March 2012 issue newsletter ads
Indiana University, School of Journalism, Full Professor – Journalism: Indiana University’s School of Journalism on the Bloomington campus seeks a senior scholar with qualifications appropriate for appointment at the rank of full professor, beginning Fall 2012 or Spring 2013. Candidates’ research interests should be relevant to the vital issues of journalism and the media, such as political communication and public opinion, health care and science communication, communication law and policy, ethics, media history, media diversity, analyses of changes in the economics, professional roles and institutional structure of the media, or other issues—both nationally and globally. Successful candidates will have a Ph.D. in a relevant academic field, a well-established program of nationally recognized research and publication, a commitment to rigorous and innovative teaching, and a record of mentoring doctoral-level graduate students. Other desirable qualifications include the ability to work collaboratively within the School and also with scholars in other disciplines on campus and internationally, professional experience in a relevant mass-communications medium, a record of success securing external grants to support research projects, and leadership experience in relevant academic institutions (journal editor, association president, institute director, etc.). Screenings of applicants will continue until the position is filled. Send vita, names and contact information of six references, and a statement of interest in the position to: Professor Lars Willnat, School of Journalism, Indiana University, 940 E. Seventh Street, Bloomington, IN 47405-7108. Indiana University is an Equal Employment Affirmative Action Employer and is strongly committed to achieving excellence through cultural diversity. The university actively encourages applications and nominations of women, minorities, persons with disabilities, and candidates with diverse cultural backgrounds.
Small Programs 1997 Abstracts
Small Programs Interest Group
Reflective Practice in Journalism Education • Rod Allen, City University, London, Nod Miller, University of East London • The authors suggest that explicit structured reflection as identified in the literature on experiential learning can be valuable in the context of practically-based journalism education. In response to pressures on journalism education to develop more critical practitioners and to address rapid technological change, explicit structured reflection can be harnessed to address learners’ ability to think critically about their professional practice and to deal with issues of technology in a clear and uncluttered manner.
Perceptions of the Advisor/Student Relationship at a Small University • Carla P. Bennett, Pamela Cope, Midwestern State University • One of the most apparent and viable student/faculty interactions occurs in the academic advising relationship. This relationship has the potential for enhancing the personal growth of students as well as their satisfaction with their educational experience. Small colleges and universities, in particular, acquire distinction because students perceive that they are known as individuals, not numbers. On the whole, most campuses feel that advising is important, but current practices simply do not live up to expectations. This paper examines the perceptions of faculty and students in regard to academic advising at a small university.
Bloom’s Taxonomy and Journalism Conjoin to Improve Students’ Questioning Practices • Janet Blank-Libra, Augustana College • This paper investigates the need for the infusion of critical thinking instruction into the teaching of the journalistic practice of questioning. Given research done in the area of questioning, it seems probable that critical thinking instruction could enable students to employ self-directed thinking skills that would allow them to ask better questions. This paper offers a description of Bloom’s Taxonomy and how it might be used to facilitate better development of students’ questioning abilities.
New Models for Teaching Assistants: The Research Mentor Project • Hilary Karasz, Paula Reynolds, Melissa Wall, University of Washington • This paper describes the University of Washington School of Communication’s project to redesign the graduate student teaching assistant position into a new «research mentor» role. This new position emphasizes undergraduate acquisition of research skills where students are guided through the research process by graduate students who serve as role models and instructors. The conceptualization and evolution of the role is detailed, and implementation guidelines are provided for departments that wish to initiate similar projects.
Science Communication 1997 Abstracts
Science Communication Interest Group
An Elite Scientist at the Boundary: The Power of Evidence and the Evidence of Power in Media Coverage of Science • Linda Billings, Indiana University • The media are likely to dismiss a scientist who questions the standard scientific worldview. But how do the media respond when an elite scientist questions the reductionist paradigm? In describing his research into the alien-abduction phenomenon, Harvard Medical School psychiatrist John Mack has suggested that the conventional paradigm may be inadequate. Press accounts of Mack’s work with abductees reveal how journalists and scientists have attempted to protect the boundaries of the black box of science.
Leading and Following: Medical System Influence on Media Coverage of Breast Cancer, 1960-95 • Julia B. Corbett, Motomi Mori, University of Utah • This research investigated whether medical system influence on media coverage of breast cancer supported a guard dog perspective of mass media. There was support for the medical community both leading and following media attention to breast cancer. There were extremely high, significant correlations between medical journal articles and newspapers, magazines and TV coverage. Time-series analysis revealed a two-way, concurrent relationship between the amount of breast cancer funding and all media. Public events (primarily prominent women publicly acknowledging their breast cancer) and breast cancer incidence rates significantly affected print coverage; there was a two-way relationship between incidence and TV coverage.
Newspaper Economic Coverage of Motor Vehicle Emissions Standards • David C. Coulson, University of Nevada, Stephen Lacy, Michigan State University • This study analyzed six large newspaper’s economic coverage of federal regulations intended to reduce motor vehicle emissions under the Clean Air Act. Examination of this topic involved evaluating costs and benefits of government controls. All but one paper explicitly referred to formal cost-benefit analysis as a method to evaluate the standards. They all included specific economic costs and benefits associated with regulating motor vehicle emissions. However, the reporting on costs was far more extensive than on benefits in five of the papers.
Community Structure and Mass Media Accounts of Risk • Sharon Dunwoody, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Robert J. Griffin Marquette University • Studies of media coverage of risk typically rely on characteristics of individual reporters or on attributes of media organizations to predict story content and quality. While such emphases have historically been productive, they ignore the potentially profound influence of social structure on both journalists and their media organizations. In this paper, we review a literature that examines the impact of community structure on media coverage of local environmental risks. These studies conceptualize community structure as a surrogate for the distribution of power in communities, consonant with Tichenor, Donohue and Olien.
Getting an Advance Look: Controversies Over Embargoes in Science Journalism • Vincent Kiernan, University of Maryland • A key feature of modern science reporting is the embargo that controls the timing of reporting of findings from many journals and conferences. Using primary source material, this paper traces the evolution of science journalists’ views on this controversial practice from the 1920s to the present. Despite complaints by journalists that the embargo gives scientists a high degree of control over journalists, the embargo system developed at the active instigation of journalists and persists because of the continuing support of journalists.
How Distant the Forest? Proximity, Environmental Controversy and Source Status Conferral • Carol M. Liebler, Jacob Bendix, Syracuse University • This study examined newspaper coverage of the old-growth forest/spotted owl controversy over a five-year period, with an emphasis on news sources. Specific foci are whom the media conferred expert status upon, and the extent to which source usage and status varied with physical and cultural proximity. Findings show that physical and cultural proximity do not affect diversity of sources, but they do have implications for the manner in which sources are portrayed.
Does Media Framing Keep Population off the Public Agenda? • T. Michael Maher • Scientists are deeply concerned over human population growth, but the American public is not. This paper shows that media framing, which typically omits mention of population growth as a cause of environmental problems, may influence Americans’ indifference to population. Using doctored newspaper clippings, this experimental research shows that if media framing connected population growth to environmental problems, population would have greater salience among readers.
Local Attitudes Toward Local Newspaper Coverage of a LULU (Locally Unwanted Land Use) • Katherine A. McComas, Clifford W. Scherer, and Cynthia Heffelfinger, Cornell University • This study examines attitudes toward local newspaper coverage during a proposed landfill siting. Residents one mile from the proposed site received mailed questionnaires measuring attitudes about the landfill, perceptions of bias in newspaper coverage, and interpersonal communication. Responses (n=267) were analyzed and compared to a content analysis of local newspaper articles. The conclusions suggest perceptions of bias in newspaper coverage were insufficient motivation to alter media consumption behaviors.
Safe Farm: The Impact of a Risk Communication Campaign • Lulu Rodriguez, Jane Peterson, Laura Miller, Charles Schwab, Iowa State University • In 1991, Iowa State University launched an information campaign aimed at reducing the incidence of accidents in the rural areas due to the dangers associated with farming. Radio public service ads and weekly newspapers articles with farm safety messages were reinforced by educational resources within ISU’s extension network. This study evaluates the impact of this campaign on its target audience: the farm operators. The data set for this study consisted of the combined responses for two surveys of 460 Iowa farm operators conducted in 1991-92 and 1993. Results of pre- and post-test measures indicated significant improvements in safety attitudes and behaviors between 1991 and 1992 among farmers with more than 40 acres, but that these changes could not be attributed to the campaign.
Connecting Theory and Practice: Are Counterstereotypes Effective in Changing Girls’ Perceptions of Science and Scientists? • Jocelyn Steinke, Western Michigan University • Researchers, educators, and policy makers have emphasized the need for science intervention programs for girls and young women to change their perceptions of science and scientists. A common technique used by many of these programs, including many media programs, is the use of counterstereotypes of women scientists. Little research, however, examines why the use of roles models would be effective or which characteristics of role models are most persuasive in changing perceptions of science. This paper connects theory and practice by drawing on Bem’s gender schema theory (Bem 1981, l983) to develop a framework for examining the influence of women scientist role models on girls’ perceptions of science and scientists. The purpose of this paper is l) to describe the usefulness of Bem’s gender schema theory as a framework for future research, 2) to explore how the key variables identified in Bem’s gender schema theory relate to the cognitive processing that defines girls’ and young women’s perceptions of science and scientists, and 3) to identify some of the key criteria for effective role models for media intervention programs.
Humor as a Resource in Constructing Scientific Knowledge and Ignorance • S. Holly Stocking, Indiana University • One of the basic tenets of the sociology of scientific knowledge (or SSK) is that scientists engage in considerable labor to construct their research results as knowledge (cf., Pinch, 1990). Indeed, the construction of knowledge is believed to require many things, including material resources, allies, and the application of accepted and persuasive conventions of method and discourse. In a recent symmetrical move, scholars interested in developing in a sociology of scientific ignorance or SSI (cf, Smithson, 1989; Stocking and Holstein, 1993) have argued that it is not just scientific knowledge that scientists labor to construct; they also labor to construct scientific ignorance. This paper builds on the few existing sociological studies of humor in science, reinterpreting some of that evidence and adding some new evidence to argue that scientists sometimes use humor as a rhetorical resource to accomplish the constructions of both knowledge and ignorance. In addition, the paper argues that scientists sometimes use humor as a rhetorical resource to accomplish the constructions of both competence and incompetence in science.
Heuristic-Systematic Information Processing and Judgment of Environmental Risk • Craig Trumbo, Cornell University • This project investigates how individuals judge environmental health risks. Analysis of case study survey data indicates that mediated information, anxiety, and past hazard experience all influence the primary factors that subsequently predict how individuals process information. These primary factors—motivation to seek information, feeling that information needs are not being met, and perceived self-efficacy for making a judgment—together predict how strongly individuals utilize either systematic or heuristic information processing strategies for making a judgment.
Media and Disability 1997 Abstracts
Media and Disability Interest Group
The Americans with Disabilities Act: Defining Deaf People and Their Rights • Mark Heil Borchert, University of Colorado • While safeguarding the rights of the deaf and other groups of persons with disabilities, the policies of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) also provide a particular interpretation of these groups and their rights. Based on analysis of the ADA and the discourse surrounding it, as well as interviews with leaders of organizations serving deaf and hearing-impaired persons, this paper explores the definitions of the deaf and their rights implicit in this law. It suggests that the law addresses deafness as an inability and the rights of the deaf in terms of their integration into mainstream American society. These definitions, however, are problematic for some deaf leaders who argue that the deaf community is a cultural and linguistic minority and that policies of integration can be threatening to this subculture.
Images of Mental Retardation in American Film: Narratives, Semiotics, and Historical Perspectives • Patrick Devlieger, Tal Baz and Carlos Drazen, Illinois-Chicago • This paper reviews ten American films in which persons with mental retardation are depicted. Using interpretation and comparison, two essential questions drive the analysis in this paper: What is mental retardation, and what is rehabilitation in the context of these films. Using narrative analysis, semiotics, and historical comparison, mental retardation is at times tragedy, a burden, or a dimension that helps to understand the essentials in life. Rehabilitation is radical exclusion, a phantasy, truth, interconnection.
Are You Letting Your Mental Health Problems Hurt Him?: Advice to Women About Mental Health and Illness in Women’s Magazines, 1960-1990 • Carol Brooks Gardner, Indiana University • A thematic analysis of more than 15 women’s magazines directed to women from 1960 to 1990 yielded several themes: the trivialization of potentially important and serious mental symptoms; the subordination of women’s health problems, both major and minor, to those of others around them, especially their boyfriends or husbands; and the same emphasis on a cure rather than on normalization of a disability that is found in the rehabilitative model of understanding physical disabilities. In this paper, I place this topic in the existing literature on media and disability. I also suggest the use of sociologists Ibarra and Kitsuse’s (1990, 1991) framework of rhetorics applied to social problems as especially helpful when analyzing mental disabilities and gender. I term the overriding rhetoric reflected in the popular magazine articles as, by and large, a rhetoric of gendered incompetence.
Community Structural Pluralism and Local Newspaper Coverage of Ethnic Minority Groups and Americans With Disabilities • Douglas Blanks Hindman, North Dakota State University, Ann Preston, Quincy University, Robert Littlefield, North Dakota State University, Dennis Neumann, North Dakota State University • This study examines how editors’ perspectives on coverage of ethnic minorities and Americans with disabilities are shaped by the nature of their communities. Findings indicate that editors from more pluralistic communities place higher value on news about ethnic and other minorities, and a lower value on stories about Americans with Disabilities. Local newspapers appear to be more responsive to the majority groups’ interests than those of the excluded groups.
From Pity to Pride: People with Disabilities, The Media, and an Emerging Disability Culture • Miho Iwakuma, University of Oklahoma • In recent years, the media coverage of people with disabilities has changed from seeing them as objects of pity to people with equal rights like others. This paper examines several turning points in the past, which had significant impacts on people with disabilities in the media. These incidents mentioned in the paper are: the disability rights movement, the protest of the Gallaudet University students, and regulating the Americans with Disability Act. The studies done by Clogston and Haller also suggest that the media depiction of people with disabilities has changed from the traditional models to the progressive models, especially since the Gallaudet University student protest. In addition, the paper talks about a relationship between the media and the disability culture • the common sentiment held among people with disabilities. Finally, the study mentions how other countries, such as Japan, are interrelated with the U.S. media through global networks, and how the Japanese media has changed portrayals of people with disabilities.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt and His Disability: The Chicago Tribune and the 1936 Election • Darlene Jirikowic, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee • President Franklin Roosevelt, with the help of the Washington press corps, successfully shrouded his disability by managing the visual images that were transmitted to the nation. The President, however, had much less control over print stories. My research investigated whether the conservative slant of a newspaper revealed itself in negative, verbal references about Roosevelt’s paralysis. Methodology focused on a comparative content analysis of campaign stories in both The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune for one month preceding the 1936 election. Neither paper alluded to FDR’s handicap, though, apparently, for different reasons.
A Search for Indications of Disability Culture in Magazines Marketed to the Disability Community • Jeffrey Alan John, Wright State University • The purpose of this paper is to report results of a study that sought to identify subjects or subject matter that could be construed as indicators of a specific or unique disability culture. As its methodology the study employed a preliminary content analysis of publications that seek as their readership people with disabilities. Results provide at least some evidence of generally accepted prerequisites of culture, such as tools and technology, a largely shared value system in support of the individual with a disability, and a prioritization of events and information that promote interaction within the disability community.
Containment of Image: Critical Theory and Perspectives on Disability in the Media • Robert K. Kalwinsky, University of Iowa • Using critical theory to ground examination, this paper represents a first step toward exploring the macro level concerns informing media accounts of the disabled. It approaches the stereotypical formations and shallow descriptions of most portrayals through examination of ideological factors that intercalate with cultural forms. The results are then analyzed in terms of the potential for emancipatory media depictions and the concomitant political/economic formations that are entailed in constructing this potential.
Hand-Ling Media Research on Disability: Toward including a Feminist Exile Perspective on Theory and Practice • Catherine L. Marston, University of Iowa • In this paper, I will emphasize the relevance of a disability perspective to feminist theory and feminist media research. I detail the incompleteness of feminist theory without a disability perspective. I then discuss the space in feminist media studies for this perspective. Lastly, I suggest a preliminary program of research Ñ exploring the areas of representations of disability in the mainstream and alternative media, as well as disability in the journalistic and academic workplaces.
Coverage of Presidential Illness and Disability • Ann E. Preston, Quincy University • A peculiarly unhealthy group, most U. S. presidents have failed to reach their life expectancies. Of the last 19 presidents, 14 have experienced illness or disability while in the White House. Journalistic folklore and scholars blame media for complicity in concealing presidential infirmity, while popular writers state that presidential health is coming under ever closer scrutiny. Little evidence exists to support either perspective. To address the lack of evidence, this research examined Time magazine coverage of presidential illness and disability for presidents Roosevelt through Bush. Surprisingly, media interest in presidential health has waned rather than waxed as time progressed, but the information being provided may be more explicit than it was earlier in this century. Coverage reassures the nation of the president’s health more than it reveals uncertainty about prognoses, especially for those presidents who underwent major health risks while in office. Journalists are remarkably unsuspicious of presidents’ physiological fitness to serve.
Disability Publication Demographics and Coverage Models • Lillie S. Ransom, University of Maryland • This paper is a summary of two aspects of a larger study that analyzes how disability publications may help forge group identity for people with disabilities. It reports the circulation, target audience, editor demographics, and distribution information for fifty-six (56) disability publications. It also describes the editors’ perceptions of coverage of disability issues. Methodology: A mail survey was used to ascertain 56 editors’ perceptions about their disability publications. In addition, a random subset of 12 editors were interviewed about disability related concepts and coverage issues. Conclusions: 131 disability publications identified disability publications fit into Clogston’s (1990) progressive/civil rights model of disability coverage, three models of coverage were discerned: activist/ political; assimilationist/mainstreaming; and special interest publications.
Lesbian, Gay and Family Diversity 1997 Abstracts
Lesbian, Gay and Family Diversity Interest Group
Como Se Dice HIV? Adapting Human Immunodeficiency Virus Prevention Messages to Reach Homosexual and Bisexual Hispanic Men the Importance of Hispanic Cultural and Health Beliefs • Matthew A. Bowdy, University of Kentucky • HIV/AIDS prevention messages catered to Anglo homosexual/bisexual men are not effective in teaching preventative behaviors to Hispanic homosexual/bisexual men. Hispanic sociocultural traits associated with homosexuality and bisexuality prevent effectiveness. The Hispanic family is also extremely important in influencing behaviors. Successful HIV prevention messages geared towards Hispanic homosexual/bisexual men need to include the following: the importance of the Hispanic family, Hispanic cultural beliefs about homosexuality and bisexuality, and the cultural beliefs.
The Case of POZ Magazine: Putting Uses and Gratifications to the Test • Gary R. Hicks, Texas • The tradition of media inquiry known as uses and gratifications assumes an active audience that looks to the media to solve problems and meet needs. McQuail (1983) lists the key areas of learning and information, self-insight and personal identity, social contact, diversion, entertainment and time-filling. Traditional media seek to provide one, usually more, of these benefits to its users. But what happens when a single media outlet tries to be everything to its readers? My research interest is in examining just how successful POZ, a slick magazine written for the HIV-positive community, is fulfilling its mission to be just that.
Freedom for My Speech, But Not for Yours: The Persistence of Stigma and the Urge to Censor in the 1970s • Elizabeth M. Koehler, Univ. of North Carolina • The First Amendment confers upon the oppressed the means to ensure their rights will no longer by trampled by an uninformed or unaccepting majority. The curious scene of the 1970s involved gay men and lesbians —dissenters who rely on the First Amendment to help them get their message out — attempting to censor mainstream media messages that subverted their cause. This paper examines this paradox to explore the role of censorship in moving the marginalized toward acceptance.
Healy v. James and Campus Gay Organizations: Progress of a Movement, 1967 – 1977 • Elizabeth M. Koehler, Univ. of North Carolina • The freedom of association has become increasingly important in shaping the texture of political discussion in America. In Healy v. James in 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court said the associational rights of Students for a Democratic Society were abridged when it was denied official campus recognition. After Healy, gay campus organizations found themselves granted the same associational protections by the courts. This paper explores the apparent connection between Healy v. James and the recognition of gay liberation groups on U.S. campuses.
Internship and Careers 1997 Abstracts
Internship and Careers Interest Group
Inside the Advertising and Public Relations Internship • Fred Beard, University of Oklahoma • The importance of internships in the education and future careers of advertising and PR students is well established. Although previous research confirms the benefits and characteristics of internships, this study investigated the proposition that certain patterns of assumptions, attitudes, and behaviors are characteristic of successful internships. To examine this proposition, the author conducted interviews with interns and their supervisors, and analyzed the data qualitatively, seeking descriptive categories. The patterns emerging from the data provide insights into how the participants work together to accomplish a successful internship.
Criteria for Hiring Public Relations Graduates: Employers’ Perspective • Carol Ann Hackley, Quingwen Dong, Clark Robins, University of the Pacific • A longitudinal survey of Public Relations employers shows that there are five categories which should be emphasized for public relations students. These are 1) educational focus, 2) communication skills, 3) analytical ability, 4) professional orientation, and 5) personal. The survey shows that major changes in public relations employers’ hiring criteria over time focus on public relations and organizational emphasis, research capability, person achievements and professional orientation.
Does Money Still Buy Happiness? Effects of Journalism Internships on Job Satisfaction • Edward M. Horowitz, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Survey data of journalism school graduates was used to examine the impact of media-related college internships on graduatesÕ job satisfaction. By assessing the media industry through internships prior to graduation and the job market, graduates can make career and employment choices that are best suited to their particular career goals. Findings indicate that it is the quality of internship(s) that predicts to job satisfaction, not quantity of internships. Although higher salaries do predict to high job satisfaction, those respondents doing what they want to do are the most satisfied.
Digital Imaging Skills and the Hiring and Training of Photojournalists • John Russial, Wayne Wanta, Oregon • This paper, based on a national survey of newspaper photo editors, details the degree of technological change in newspaper photography. It looks at the importance placed on digital imaging and photography competencies, and it examines the implications for the training and hiring of journalists. It concludes that the shift from chemical to digital processing has led to a relative lack of concern among photo editors about the need for chemical darkroom skills. Many journalism programs, however, continue to focus on those skills. It finds that new technical skills, such as the use of digital cameras and the web, are growing in importance. Skills that reflect convergence of photo jobs with others within the newsroom, such as design and graphics, are growing in importance. But photo editors say the key skill that reflects cross-media convergence • video • is unimportant now and only slightly more important for the near future.
Graduate Education 1997 Abstracts
Graduate Education Interest Group
Leader of the PACK: An Analysis of Music Listeners’ Motivations Using the PACK Taxonomy • John R. Chapin, Rutgers University • The PACK Taxonomy of motives is used through a Uses and Gratifications perspective to test ten related hypotheses concerning adolescents’ motivations for listening to specific forms of popular music. For this pilot study, 63 structured interviews were conducted with students at a rural community college, to assess students’ motivations for listening to specific songs and specific forms of popular music and motivations for their current personal projects. The content of songs identified as favorites is also examined. As expected, adolescents’ personal projects are found to be contingent on age, and themes of favorite songs are found to be contingent on adolescents’ purposes for listening to them. Expected differences in PACK motives between specific popular music forms are not found.
Women and All the News That’s Fit to Print? • Mike Dorsher, University of Maryland • Content analysis is performed on a random sample of 224 New York Times editions, from 1966 to 1994, to see if the increasing number of women in the newsroom correlates with increased coverage of women on Times’ pages. The data show a significant increase (at alpha level of .05) in women’s bylines, pictures and references, but not obituaries, letters to the editor or op-ed pieces. There also is significant evidence that women write about women more than men do, but that men increasingly write about women when more of their newsroom colleagues are women.
Setting the Media Agenda: A Case Study • Kyle Huckins, University of Texas at Austin • Attempting to add to the growing literature on agenda building, the study uses agenda-setting theory as a model for testing the correlation between the agenda of the Christian Coalition and major U.S. newspapers. Highly significant relationships were found in cross-lagged correlations between the agenda of the group’s official newspaper and the media agenda, and statistically significant secondary effects were also noted. Less clear were measures designed to analyze contributing factors helping the Coalition set the media agenda.
From Wise to Foolish: The Changing Portrayal of the Sitcom Father from the 1950s to the 1990s • Erica Scharrer, Syracuse University • This content analysis of 72 episodes of sitcoms categorized by decade in which they were originally aired shows modern television fathers are more likely to be shown foolishly than in the past. The study shows that with the increased presence of women in the American workforce over time, sitcom fathers have gone from knowing best to knowing little. The portrayals are shown to have changed over time and to correlate with these extra media variables.
Civic Journalism 1997 Abstracts
Civic Journalism Interest Group
The Treatment of Public Journalism in Three Media Review Journals • Renita Coleman, University of Missouri-Columbia • Between 1993 and 1996, the three major journalism reviews published 45 articles of various types that focused on some aspect of public journalism. Analysis provides comparisons among these journals by examining the role each played in the debate, assessing the quality of criticism, and analyzing the evolution of thinking about the subject. This study provides evidence that the quality in evaluations of the debate has matured even while public journalism itself remains highly controversial.
The Language of Public Journalism: An Analysis of the Movement’s Appropriation of the Terms Public, Civic, Deliberative Dialogue, and Consensus • James Engelhardt, University of Oregon • This essay applies Stephen Lukes’ multidimensional conception of power to the public journalism movement. Particularly, it is concerned with how the language and/or vocabulary of public journalism reveals a particular power dynamic – a dynamic both synonymous and discordant with traditional journalistic practice. This article relies on the work of scholars who have confronted the interrelation between language and power such as V.N. Volosinov, Michel Foucault, Jurgen Habermas, Roger Fowler, and Trinh Minh-ha. The new journalistic movement’s use of four terms – public, civic, deliberative dialogue, and consensus – will be addressed, exposing the distinctions between public, civic, and traditional journalism and exemplifying that public journalism consists of more than just good journalism.
Civic Journalism: The Practitioner’s Perspective • Peter Gade, Scott Abel, Michael Antecol, Hsiao-Yin Hsueh, Janice Hume, Jack Morris, Ashley Packard, Susan Willey, Nancy Fraser Wilson and Keith Sanders, University of Missouri • The debate about the practice and theory of civic journalism has grown as more media have experimented in the 1990s with civic journalism projects of varying sizes and goals. Critics and theorists have voiced their thoughts on the movement, but very little is known about what journalists think about civic journalism. This paper attempts to address this issue by asking journalists at two similarly sized newspapers, Mobile (Ala.) Register and the Wichita (Kan.) Eagle, to react to a series of statements about the role of the media in society and civic journalism. Of the four types emerging from this Q-Methodology study, Neutral Observers and Civic Journalists factor themselves toward the philosophical poles of libertarianism and social responsibility, with Responsible Liberals and Concerned Traditionalists taking more centrist positions.
Newspapers and Citizen-Based Journalism in the 1996 Elections: a Cross-Market Comparison • Philip Meyer, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Deborah Potter, The Poynter Institute for Media Studies • Efforts to do citizen-based journalism and effects of those efforts were compared in 20 markets through content analysis and before-and-after surveys of media practitioners and citizens. Media intent had a strong effect on certain content categories, but content had weak or no effect on citizen attitudes and behavior. However, media intent did predict citizen knowledge and trust in media. The outcome suggests that previous commitments to citizen-based journalism in certain markets left an ongoing effect.
Issues and Agendas: The Case of Wichita, Kansas Revisited • Christina Newby • This study examines the agenda-setting function of local and national media on citizens of Sedgewick County, Kansas. The purpose of this research is to examine the agenda-setting effect with regard to citizens’ concerns and look at the way in which agenda-setting is viewed by individuals who have experience with public journalism. The research replicates a study that expands a traditional agenda-setting research content analysis and introduces a correlation with in-depth interviews.
The 1996 Presidential Campaign, Civic Journalism and Local TV News: Does Doing Civic Journalism Make Any Difference? •Amy Reynolds, University of Texas-Austin • This content analysis compares the local television news coverage of the 1996 presidential election by two stations, one that supports the civic journalism philosophy and one that supports traditional journalism. The civic journalism station successfully eliminated opinion polls/horserace from its coverage and focused on voting efforts and issues, but, while the station clearly showed civic journalism leanings and provided some notable differences in coverage, it still didn’t fully achieve the goals of civic journalism.
Visual Communication 1997 Abstracts
Visual Communication Division
The Development of Self Efficacy in Young Women in Relation to the Perception of Attention to Sexuality as Power in Advertising Images • Cecelia Baldwin, San Jose State University • This empirical study examines the hypothesis that attention to sexuality, in advertising, is perceived as self efficacy, or a personal power enabling one to control one’s own life. Semiotic theory provides it’s framework. The subject population consisted of two groups of young women, average high school students and advanced placement high school students. The hypothesis was upheld in independent t-tests. Additionally, ANOVA analysis revealed significant differences that may help young women to refute this perception.
Coverage of Gandhi’s Funeral Brings Competing Philosophies and Camera Technologies into Focus • Claude Cookman, Indiana University • A comparison of the photographic coverage of the funeral of Mohandas Gandhi by Margaret Bourke-White and Henri Cartier-Bresson reveals why and how their different philosophical and technical approaches produced very different results. It also details Cartier-Bresson’s method- for producing a news reportage, and demonstrates that despite his current denial of photojournalism, he was compelled to witness important events and communicate what he photographed to the audiences of mass-circulation, illustrated magazines.
A Time Out of Mind: When the Chicago Tribune Rescued Trapped Suburban Women • Alan Fried, University of South Carolina • A Chicago Tribune self-promotion advertising campaign from the 1950s was analyzed using ethnographic content analysis and proxemic analysis of photographs. The campaign stands out for the way it depicted its audience, its voice, and for its advertising appeals. Although the appeals hearken back to the Social Ethos described by William H. Whyte, Jr. in The Organization Man and David Reisman’s The Lonely Crowd, the ad campaign fits within Media System Dependency Theory.
Readability of Body Text in Computer Mediated Communication: Effects of Type Family, Size and Face • Joel Geske, Iowa State University • This experimental design used 78 subjects to test readability of different type sizes and type faces in both a serif and sans serif type family. The study found there are few significant differences for speed of reading between type sizes of fourteen, twelve and ten point type. Twelve point type had the highest rankings for both speed of reading and recall of material. Bold type did not increase readability and hurt recall in most cases. Little difference was found between serif and sans serif type except in ten point type where speed and recall were poorer with the serif type face.
Cameras in Courtrooms: Dimensions of Attitudes of State Supreme Court Justices • Dennis Hale, Bowling Green State University • This study attempted to extrapolate the future development of state supreme court policies concerning cameras and broadcast equipment in courtrooms by interviewing recently retired members of the courts. Support for cameras in courtrooms was contrasted with judicial support for eight other mass media rights. Courtroom cameras received the weakest support of the media rights. The justices predicted a weakening of the right during the next five years.
Learning News Through the Mind’s Eye: The Impact of Supporting Graphics on Television News • Stefan A. Jenzowsky, Thomas Knieper, Klaus B. Reginek, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universtitat Munchen • The purpose of this paper is to investigate how we process supporting graphical inserts in television news and which learning processes are involved in watching everyday news programs. Data is presented from a laboratory experiment in which two independent variables were manipulated: (a) the graphic visualization of news presentations, and (b) the graphic representation in recognition tasks. Results suggest a high acceptance of supporting graphics and a picture superiority effect for any condition of retrieval, while no encoding specificity effect was found for most conditions.
Political Endorsements In Daily Newspapers and Photographic Coverage of Candidates in the 1995 Louisiana Gubernatorial Campaign • John Mark King, Louisiana State University • Daily newspaper endorsements in the 1995 Louisiana gubernatorial campaign and photographs of candidates were examined. Independent variables were endorsement in the primary election and the runoff election. Dependent variables were photo size, color/black and white, fold location, placement and depiction of the candidate. Results from 10 hypotheses showed that endorsed candidates were more likely to have photos published on front pages and more likely to have favorable photos published than candidates not endorsed by newspapers.
The Flapper in the Art of John Held, Jr.: Modernity, Post-Feminism, and the Meaning of Women’s Bodies in 1920s Magazine Cover Illustration • Carolyn L. Kitch, Temple University • In the 1920s, the flapper • a symbol, then and now, of the Jazz Age • was closely associated with the magazine illustration of John Held, Jr. An examination of this imagery considers women’s representation as a primary site for the intersection of early-twentieth-century feminism, modernism, and consumerism. It suggests that, during a pivotal decade in both women’s history and mass-media history, the progressive cultural construct of the New Woman became commodified and contained in the flapper.
Motivating Incentives, Self-Efficacy and Their Consequences for Web Authoring • Ghee-Young Noh, Michigan State University • This study was undertaken to identify relationship between determinants derived from social cognitive theory and Web authoring. Web authoring behavior was considerably explained by motivating incentives, self-efficacy, programming competence, and accessibility. However, motivating incentives and the perceived self-efficacy were more important factors than accessibility and computer programming to predict the degree of Web authoring. This study suggests that social cognitive theory could provide additional explanatory power for the mechanism of implementation of Web authoring.
Teaching the Use of Color: A Survey of Visual Communication Division Members • Lyle D. Olson, Roxanne Lucchesi, South Dakota State University • This paper presents the results of a survey to determine the extent to which journalism and mass communication educators are teaching the use of color and how they are doing it. It includes lists of the most used and top ranked resources for teaching the use of color. The respondents also indicated that students in their programs do not receive enough training in the use of color and that computer hardware and software resources at their schools to teach color are lacking.
Staged, Faked and Mostly Naked: Photographic Innovation at the Evening Graphic (1924-1932) • Bob Stepno, University of North Carolina • The New York Evening Graphic is remembered for its sensational fake composite photos, not for its other photo-illustration innovations. This paper describes a variety of techniques the Graphic used, including composographs and studio re-enactment of news events, and the media reaction at the time, particularly through Editor and Publisher. The paper finds there was little debate of the ethics of altering images, but the technique became linked to controversies over particular sex stories and images.
Moles and Clowns: How Editorial Cartoons Portrayed Aldrich Ames, Harold Nicholson and the CIA • John W. Williams, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale • No Abstract available.
Visual Communication • CREATIVE PROJECTS
Protest 96: Revolution in Cyberspace, a Paradigm Shift in Global Communication • Rita Csapo-Sweet, University of Missouri-St. Louis • This presentation documents an interactive exhibition in St. Louis that monitored and participated with the massive pro-democracy protest demonstrations that took place in Belgrade, Serbia, from mid-December 1996 to mid-February 1997. When the Milosevic government tried to silence the election results that the independent media were broadcasting, university students in Belgrade created a website and began disseminating their messages over the Internet. Suddenly their struggle became global and communication history was made.
If the Genie is Out of the Bottle: How Do We Teach the Ethical Decision-Making of Digital Imaging Manipulation in the Post-OJ Era of Photojournalism (Without Sounding Like a Luddite?) • Jock Lauterer, Penn State University • When photojournalists or picture editors use digital imaging manipulation to fundamentally alter the content of photos for whatever reason, they strike a death blow at the heart of what makes authentic photojournalism so valuable. This slide lecture is designed to introduce visual communications students to the historical abuses of photography, to alert them to the seductive and yet wonderful powers of the digital age, and to provide them with a journalist’s moral compass.
Structuring Text for On-line Delivery, or Life Beyond Repurposing • Stephen Masiclat, Syracuse University • The rush to publish online newspapers has made the World Wide Web the premiere venue for online journalism. But the vast majority of online newspapers are simply print articles re-purposed for the web. Articles constructed for printed pages are placed in an environment with new capabilities and severe limitations. This presentation is a demonstration of a different way to present information that is mindful of the online environment’s characteristics and its users.
Gone West: The American West in the ‘90s, a Photographic Essay by Alan Berner • David Rees, University of Missouri • ‘Gone West’ is a CD-ROM presentation of a photo essay by Alan Berner. It includes comments by the photographer about his own work and visual reference to Arthur Rothstein’s pictures which inspired Berner. This is a prototype of new technology applied to journalistic presentation and has educational benefits for students because they can view a complete body of work and hear the photographer’s own perspective about that work in a classroom or individual setting.
Creativity Workbook and Self-Promotion Web Site for Advertising Art Direction • Jean Trumbo, Cornell University • A creativity resource workbook was developed for students enrolled in an Advertising Art Direction course. The workbook includes idea generation exercises designed by the instructor to prompt innovation in the creation of student portfolios. The final objective of the course was to develop a professional quality portfolio and to augment that through a self-promotional web site. Work from each student was included on the web site. The materials in this workbook include creativity exercises and page templates that were used to build the student portfolio web site.
