text:
Next Message | Previous Message Next in Topic | Previous in Topic Next by Same Author | Previous by Same Author Chronologically | Most Recent First Proportional Font | Monospaced Font
Join or Leave AEJMC Reply | Post New Message Search Archives
TEXT/PLAIN (1829 lines)
Swamped in Politics: News Coverage of Wetlands in Three Presidential Administrations Bonnie Parnell Riechert, Ph.D. Coordinator of Communications Agricultural Experiment Station The University of Tennessee Knoxville, TN 37996-4500 USA Phone: (423) 974-7362 e-mail: [log in to unmask] M. Mark Miller, Ph.D. Professor of Journalism College of Communications The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Knoxville, TN 37996-0330 Phone: (423) 974-4452 e-mail: [log in to unmask] Paper submitted for presentation to Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Communication Theory and Methodology Division, August 1997, Chicago. Swamped in Politics: News Coverage of Wetlands in Three Presidential Administrations Bonnie Parnell Riechert, The University of Tennessee; and M. Mark Miller, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Abstract Several studies suggest that U.S. Presidents dominate the media agenda. This computer-assisted content analysis of Associated Press coverage of wetlands over a 12-year period compares the administrations of Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. Concept mapping procedures identify four major themes in 1,756 wetlands news articles from 1984-96: Habitat Restoration, Jobs/Development, Regulation Legislation, and Agriculture/Spending. Shifts in relative prominence of major themes suggest an active, but not necessarily dominant, influence of U.S. presidents on the media agenda. Swamped in Politics: News Coverage of Wetlands in Three Presidential Administrations The question of who sets the media's agenda is one of critical interest to mass communication scholars. This study explores the influence of U.S. presidents in shaping the content of news media coverage. The role of the news media in society is as much a manifestation or product of culture as it is a source of culture, Shoemaker and Reese (1991) have suggested. Agrees Kennemar (1992/1994), the news media "are as much the target of agenda-setting as they are the source" (p. 9). The focus of this paper is on this recycling, recursive role of the mass media in society (borrowing from the language of Derksen & Gartrell, 1993). The importance of studying media content "the message itself as a dependent variable" is emphasized by Shoemaker and Reese (1991, p. 8) in their pioneering volume, Mediating the Message: Theories of Influence on Mass Media Content. They argue that rather than viewing media content as a given, instead scholars should examine the factors inside and outside media organizations that affect media content (p. 1). It is in the spirit of this approach that this analysis is conducted. The term media sociology often is applied to studies with this focus: "A number of researchers who previously studied media effects including ourselves now find themselves asking why such effect-producing content exists to begin with" ((Shoemaker & Reese, 1991, p. 3). An intuitively-appealing hierarchical model of influences on media content is offered by Shoemaker and Reese (1991). The model divides influences on media content into five levels of widening scope: the individual level, the media routines level, the organization level, the extramedia level, and the ideological level. Dearing and Rogers (1996) explicate the agenda-setting process as "composed of the media agenda, the public agenda, and the policy agenda, and the interrelationships among these three elements . . . So, the agenda-setting process is an ongoing competition among the proponents of a set of issues to gain the attention of media professionals, the public, and policy elites" (pp. 5-6). They call for increased efforts of scholarly studies that focus on single issues to provide better understanding of these dynamic processes. Useful analyses of single issues include Lang and Lang's (1983) examination of the role of the media in the Watergate scandal, Gitlin's (1980) provocative study of coverage of the Students for a Democratic Society during the Vietnam War era, and Entman's (1991) analysis of coverage of the Korean Air Lines and Iranian air incidents. Additional in-depth investigations on single issues are needed, according to Dearing and Rogers (1996), to address such questions as who puts an issue on the national agenda: "What institutions in addition to the New York Times and the White House put an issue on the national agenda?" (p. 95). Agenda studies are critically important in the field of communication research, although they have been plagued by problems of terminology. Berkowitz (1992/1994) provides a helpful organization of the linguistic hodgepodge of terminology the semantic schizophrenia weighing down scholarly discussion of the mutual influences of policymakers and journalists. The terms agenda-setting, agenda-building, and information subsidy have "added both understanding and confusion to the study of journalists and news sources" (p. 82). Sadly but truly, the absence of consensus among communication scholars on the application of these various terminologies effectively mires the field in a bog of confusion and lack of clarity. Berkowitz (1992/1994) recommends the use of the term agenda-building or media agenda-building in discussion of the "interactive, give-and-take process of shaping media content" (p. 87). Not viewed simply as a transferral of priorities, this notion of the media agenda acknowledges the dynamic nature of the continuing process. As Berkowitz (1992/1994) notes, "Beyond journalism itself, the shared culture of journalists and policymakers leads toward a dynamic relationship that is sometimes more adversarial and sometimes more of an exchange" (p. 102). The needs for investigation of news media content as dependent variable, noted by Shoemaker and Reese (1991), as well as for in-depth analysis of single agenda-related issues, recognized by Dearing and Rogers (1996), point toward studies such as this one on the content of news media coverage of wetlands. Moreover, Shoemaker and Reese (1991) call for improved precision in methods for investigating media content, and this study employs rigorously precise measurement and comparison techniques made possible by developments during this decade in computer-assisted content analysis. Recent investigations demonstrate that the White House is highly influential "in putting an issue on the U.S. media agenda" (Dearing & Rogers, 1996, p. 17). The "notoriously" powerful role of U.S. presidents in influencing news coverage is observed by Shoemaker and Reese (1991, p. 153). Cohen (1989, cited in Shoemaker & Reese, 1991, p. 153) makes a similar observation: The president has a natural advantage over the media, giving him a commanding lead in setting the terms of public-political discourse. The president is invariably news . . . The White House can therefore create the news necessary to give the president's agenda wide publicity and even dominance in the political marketplace. (p. 2-3) The U.S. president "can put an issue on the national agenda just by giving a talk about it" (Dearing & Rogers, 1996, p. 75). In fact, Kingdon (1984) posits that "No other single actor in the political system has quite the capability of the president to set agendas in given policy areas for all those who deal with these policies" (p. 17). Bosso (1987) further suggests the U.S. president "is the political system's thermostat, capable of heating up or cooling down the politics of any single issue or of an entire platter of issues" (p. 261). Other influences such as the prestige media, scientific journals and the results of public opinion surveys also are powerful. Recent studies also provide evidence for the influence of Congress on setting the media agenda (Goodman, 1994). An earlier investigation of news coverage of wetlands by Associated Press demonstrated systematic shifts over time in relative prominence of the competing conservation and property owner concerns (Riechert, 1996). The study covered an 11-year period from 1984-95 and identified shifts in coverage content across years. The relative prominence of competing stakeholder concerns was shown to be related to news sources either mentioned or quoted in news articles. Some 1,456 articles were included in the computer-assisted content analysis. The study did not investigate systematic shifts in coverage across four-year periods corresponding to U.S. presidential administrations. The present study continues this strand of research by examining shifts in news coverage from 1984-96, across presidential administrations, involving those of Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton (his first term). Some 1,756 articles are analyzed in this study. The research strategy of this study is to examine news coverage of the particular issue of wetlands over time, comparing news coverage during the administrations of three different U.S. presidents and examining whether and how differences in coverage are manifest during those administrations. The topic of wetlands is appropriate for a study such as this. Wetlands are the subject of continuing news coverage in recent years as scientists debate their definition, conservationists promote their preservation, property owners and developers lobby for loosened protection for them, Congress debates their regulation, and courts address cases involving such conflicts. Wetlands have received continued and increasing news coverage over the past few years, becoming the focus of national attention in 1988 after Presidential candidate George Bush adopted the slogan, "No net loss of wetlands," as a campaign promise. Method In this study computer-assisted content analysis methods are used to examine news articles about wetlands over a 12-year period involving the presidential administrations of Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. Key themes in the wetlands news coverage will be identified using a set of multidimensional scaling (MDS) techniques referred to as concept mapping (Miller, 1990/1995). The method uses mathematical procedures to identify term co-occurrence patterns within text. Concept mapping was developed by Miller and relies on the use of the computer programs VBPro and VBMap, which he developed for qualitative and quantitative analysis of verbatim text. The term co-occurrence patterns will be examined using both cluster analysis (hierarchical) and MDS techniques. While the methods often are used in conjunction by scientists (Corter, 1996), their application to analysis of term co-occurrence patterns represents a methodological innovation of concept mapping. Hierarchical cluster analysis (1996) and extraction of principal components in MDS (Coxon, 1982) will be used to produce ultrametric tree dendograms and multidimensional scaling configurations or maps to indicate co-occurrence similarities of terms and theme (as terms occurring frequently together). Once the major themes of wetlands news coverage are identified, their relative prominence will be compared among the periods corresponding to the presidential administrations of Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. These comparisons will be made with one-way analysis of variance tests applied to the mean occurrences of theme terms in articles from the three time periods. The conservative Scheff test will be applied as a post hoc test to identify the differences among the presidential administrations. Significant differences in theme prominence across the presidential administrations will provide evidence for the systematic shifts in news media coverage over time and will help illuminate the role of these U.S. presidents relating to the media agenda involving wetlands. Findings from this study will contribute to improved understanding of the complex extramedia influences on the content of news media coverage. They should suggest avenues for further study relating to media content, media sociology, and media agenda setting. Concept Mapping Miller and Riechert (1994) employed concept mapping techniques in identifying major themes in coverage of pesticides in four magazines including a general news magazine (Time) and three diverse specialized magazines (Audubon, Nutrition Today, and Successful Farming). Key themes included such topics as the environment, farming issues, and food risk. Differences in relative prominence of the themes were identified across the magazines, and were interpretable by the different editorial slants of the specialized magazines. These differences would be expected in pesticides coverage among the magazines. The distinctions were identified, and the comparisons were accomplished, with quantitative precision through computer-assisted content analysis procedures. The study illustrates the usefulness of the concept mapping methods for identifying themes in text and for making comparisons related to these themes. The concept mapping procedures have been employed in numerous studies since 1993 to investigate a number of research questions with computer-assisted content analysis. These studies include investigations of national election issues (Miller, Andsager, & Riechert, 1996); media framing of hate speech (Miller & Andsager [in press]); trends in scholarly journal content (Miller, 1994); coverage of women's health issues such as the French abortion pill RU486 and silicone breast implants (Andsager & Miller, 1994; Smiley & Andsager, 1996); advocacy group and news framing of public policy issues (Riechert, 1996); public issues (Miller & Riechert, 1997); media coverage of wetlands (Riechert & Miller, 1997); magazine coverage of pesticides (Miller & Riechert, 1994; Riechert & Miller, 1994) and several studies on source credibility (Chew & Miller, 1993; Chew, Mehta, & Oldfather, 1993; Chew & Kim, 1994). The procedures also are described generally in Miller & Riechert (in press). Analysis For this analysis all articles mentioning "wetlands" that were distributed by Associated Press from July 1984 until June 1996 were obtained in full text from the AP Newswire database through the DIALOG information service. This provided a data set of 12 full years of news coverage by AP (the full text of AP articles was available beginning with July 1984). Since this investigation was directed at news coverage and U.S. presidential administrations, articles discussing wetlands outside the United States were omitted from the this analysis. Also eliminated were editorial roundups, obituary-type articles (reporting the death of prominent wetlands advocates) and one article mentioning a college athlete whose last name was "Wetlands." Removal of these groups of articles left a total of 1,756 remaining articles on which this investigation focused. These strategies for retrieving and retaining news articles yielded a large set of 1,756 articles for the analysis in this study. The volume of coverage is adequate to support examination of a number of questions relating to the media content. The distribution of the articles by year is shown in Figure 1. The set of articles include 43 from July 1984 - July 1985; 74 from 1985-86; 71 from 1986-87; 81 from 1987-88; 144 from 1988-89; 168 from 1989-90; 162 from 1990-91; 220 from 1991-92; 134 from 1992-93; 199 from 1993-94; 169 from 1994-95; and 251 from 1995-96. The steady increase in news articles about wetlands over this period indicates continued and increasing coverage of wetlands in the news media. The distribution of the wetlands news articles by presidential terms also shows this pattern: Reagan 354 Bush 686 Clinton 716 The 1984-96 articles covered the time periods of Reagan's entire 1985-88 second presidential term as well as the last six months of his first term; of Bush's entire 1989-92 presidential term; and of Clinton's 1993-96 term except the last six months. Themes in the wetlands articles were identified using the key word frequency ranking procedures and concept mapping techniques made possible by the VBPro set of computer programs, which include VBMap (Miller, 1990/1995a and 1990/1995b ). The programs were designed specifically for content analysis of natural language text and for concept mapping, or multidimensional scaling analysis of co-occurring terms and themes in text. Entman (1993) elaborates the manifestation of themes in key words. Case numbers were added in the text file containing the news articles, and the file was formatted in VBPro (Miller, 1990/1995b). The file then was submitted to the program's procedures for creating (1) an alphabetized list of all terms used in the articles (also indicating frequency of occurrence) and (2) a frequency-ranked list of all the terms, ordered by raw frequency of occurrence. The first file listed terms from a, occurring some 21,070 times, to of, occurring 29,224 times, to water, occurring 3,076 times, to wetlands, occurring 4,566 times, to Zwannendael, occurring 2 times. From the list of terms in the second file, ranked by frequency, were selected more than 100 terms that (1) occurred frequently in the text, and (2) that are substantively meaningful and unambiguous. Grammar function words such as a and of, though frequently-occurring, are omitted from analysis, as are terms that might have more than one meaning, such as act or states. The multidimensional scaling program for term co-occurrence accommodates a large number of terms, up to 125 words or groups of words. The frequently-occurring terms selected for the concept mapping procedure are listed in Table 1 along with their frequency of occurrence and additional information that will be referenced later. These terms were used to create a search file (Miller, 1990/1995b), with which, and for which the text file was coded, using the VBPro coding procedures. Terms that occurred frequently in singular and plural form were combined in the search file together for coding purposes (farm/farms, and so on). The numeric coded file created by the procedures then was submitted to the VBMap program, which applies multidimensional scaling techniques to identify the term oc-occurrence patterns in the text. Three dimensions or coordinates were specified, because three dimensions are easily represented visually in maps or configurations that may be constructed using the program's output of coordinate values for each specified term. The coordinate values output by VBMap for each specified term also are listed in Table 1 under the column heading, "Coordinates 1, 2, and 3." These values are useful in constructing multidimensional configurations or maps showing the relative location of the terms in a multidimensional space. An example of this type of map will be presented and discussed later in this paper. The output of coordinate values for the terms also may be submitted directly into statistical programs such as SPSS for hierarchical cluster analysis, using the agglomerative schedule and cosine similarity measurement method, to ascertain which terms occur most often together. The procedure was followed for the 120+ terms discussed previously and listed in Table 1. The resulting clustering schedule, shown in a tree-type dendogram, immediately linked several groups of terms to reveal that they occur together frequently in the text. The following steps then were taken to assure the stability of the clusters. Before the analysis proceeded further, an additional search file as created with the same terms plus three added source identifier terms (to indicate the presidential terms of Clinton, Bush, and Reagan). The constructed code terms used were $CLIN, $BUSH, and $REAG meeting the criteria of being unique, easily recognizable, and not occurring naturally in the text. The text file of the news articles was opened, and within each news article was added one of the identifier code terms, depending on the date of the article and the corresponding presidential term. Thus, the identifier code term $CLIN was added in articles from 1993-'96; $BUSH was added within articles from 1989-'92; and $REAG was added within articles from 1984-'88. The text file then was reformatted in VBPro before the coding procedure was repeated for the 120+ frequently-occurring terms and the three inserted identifier code terms. The new numeric coded file then was submitted to the VBMap program for generation of coordinate values for three coordinates or dimensions, and the resulting data file was submitted to SPSS for hierarchical cluster analysis. (The procedures are followed first without, then with, the inserted code terms to confirm the stability of the clusters.) The term clustering patterns revealed by these two clustering analysis procedures are shown in Columns 1 and 2 of Table 2. As indicated in the table, several terms clustered immediately with the term agriculture: acreage, crop, growers, producers, production, subsidies, benefits, and rural. A second tight cluster was formed by the linking of the terms conservation, soil, erosion, farming, USDA, erodible, farmers, and agricultural. The table lists the terms connected in 23 tightly-formed clusters of co-occurring terms from among the 120+ terms included in the cluster analysis. Examining the co-occurrence patterns of the individual terms, as listed in Table 2, might be compared to looking at a grove of trees from an arm's length we see the individual leaves clearly, but a different perspective and additional understanding is provided by looking from several paces back. (This avoids the well-known "can't see the forest for the trees" problem.) Thus, another stage of analysis is undertaken to examine the co-occurrence patterns of the key terms from the perspective of stepping a few paces back, combining the clustering schedules into fewer and more easily comprehendible categories. Another way to describe the comparison of relative proximities of clustering groups of terms is to think of looking at constellations of terms. The following procedures offer this type of examination. A new search file was created by combining these terms into 23 groups (as suggested in the cluster analysis) plus the three identifier terms indicating presidential administration. This search file was submitted to the VBPro coding procedure, along with the text file of the news articles, to generate a new data file coded for frequency, by case, of terms from each term cluster, as listed in Table 2. The data file then was submitted to the VBMap program to obtain coordinate values for three coordinates or dimensions. This information was output by the VBMap program and is listed in Table 2 under the column heading, "Coordinates 1, 2, and 3." The coordinate values may range from -1 to 1, with proximity in the three-dimensional space representing frequent occurrence of the terms together in the text. Thus, the terms located farthest apart in the derived multidimensional space occur together infrequently or never. For example, the identifier terms $CLIN, $BUSH, and $REAG necessarily never occur together in an article. The relative proximity of the groups of terms, now consolidated into meaningful clusters or themes (agriculture, conservation, and so forth), is easily visualized in a multidimensional configuration or map. This can be constructed using the coordinate values output by the VBMap program. The values listed in Table 2, Column 3, were used to construct the concept map presented in Figure 2. Recall that the purpose of multidimensional scaling procedures is to reveal the hidden patterns of data structure (Kruskal & Wish, 1978). The map shown in Figure 2 provides a visual illustration, in a derived multidimensional space, of the data structure of the term co-occurrence patterns in the news coverage on wetlands over a 12-year period. It shows us what terms occurred together, and which terms did not tend to co-occur. Circles on the map represent the relative location of the terms in the text; thus, the points (represented by circles) that locate closest to one another represent terms that occur consistently together in the text. The shaded circles indicate the relative location of the inserted identifier code terms representing the administrations of Clinton, Bush, and Reagan. Location of the shaded circles does not indicate the content of what each president said in the media (that remains for a further study), but are meaningful in conjunction with their proximate terms to indicate what themes occurred most prominently in news coverage during the distinctive administrations. The two dark lines represent coordinates or dimensions 2 and 3 in the multidimensional space, and the vertical lines to which the circles are attached represent coordinate 1 in the three-dimensional space. The circles attached at the top of a vertical line indicate positive values in coordinate 1, while circles attached at the bottom of a vertical line indicate negative values. What does the map tell us about news coverage on wetlands during presidential administrations of Clinton, Bush, and Reagan? The configuration reveals that industry, pollution, wetlands, habitat, the environment, building, and restoration received preponderant coverage during the Reagan administration, compared to his immediate two successors. Jobs and industry were primary themes during the Bush administration. With regard to coverage of wetlands, legislation, government, rights (of property owners), and Congress dominated coverage during Clinton's first term in office. The relative location of Bush compared to Reagan and Clinton is most notable, revealing that media coverage of wetlands was much more similar during Bush's administration to coverage during Reagan's administration than during the succeeding term of Clinton. In other words, wetlands coverage after Bush was dramatically different than coverage before his administration. The dramatic shift suggests the possibility that Bush redirected the media discussion of wetlands, which could be accomplished through shifting the national policy agenda related to wetlands. Studies by Nicodemus (1995) and Riechert (1996) support this interpretation. A discussion by Nicholas (1992) is relevant: President Bush, who once vowed to protect wetlands "no matter how small" has responded to this pressure with a well-orchestrated campaign that could threaten fully half of the nation's remaining wetlands. The White House defends its position by claiming that previous regulations covered many areas that are not really wetlands and went too far in blocking development and denying landowners their rights to develop their property. Some members of Congress, from both sides of the aisle, have also proposed legislation to rein in wetlands protection. And growing numbers of landowners, encouraged by a conservative shift in the judicial system during the Bush and Reagan years, are pressing their cases in courts. (p. 36) Another type of visual representation of the patterns of term co-occurrence in the text is provided by cluster analysis in the tree-type dendogram. In such a diagram all terms are eventually linked, but terms that are combined earliest in the clustering schedule are the ones that occur most frequently together. The dendogram in Figure 3 also shows the relative co-occurrence similarity of these term clusters, reasonably conceptualized as themes in the wetlands articles. The dendogram was generated by cluster analysis with the cosine method using the coordinate values shown in Table 2, which were output by the VBMap program. The clustering results displayed in the dendogram in Figure 3 provide justification for further consolidation of the term clusters into superclusters, dependably conceptualized as major themes in the wetlands news coverage. After all, these clustering terms and groups of terms emerge from the data themselves. The dendogram suggests broad classification of the 23 specific themes into four major themes, which we label Habitat Restoration, Jobs/Development, Regulation Legislation, and Agriculture/Spending. These major themes are listed in Table 3 along with the term clusters or narrower themes that they encompass. Reasonable division of the coverage into these manifest major categories allows for comparison of relative prominence across presidential terms. The results of these comparisons will be discussed following a review of the nature of each of these four grand topical divisions. The Habitat Restoration Theme The major theme referred to here as Habitat Restoration includes the narrower themes of permit, preserve, build, habitat, restoration, wetlands, runoff, and scientists. Grouping of these topics into this sensible encompassing theme is based on the results of the cluster analysis shown in the dendogram in Figure 3. News coverage with prominence of the Habitat Restoration Theme involves discussion of wetlands preservation and restoration, of wetlands-related permits and projects in building that affect wetlands. For example, the AP news articles ranking highest in frequency of the terms comprising this theme is a Sept. 5, 1994, article datelined Land O' Lakes, Fla., carrying the headline, "Florida's Water Woes." Excerpts of the article include the following: Catherine Monsees retired to a house on a lake once stocked with fish and teeming with wildlife. That's all gone now. What she has left is a dry lake bed chocked with weeds and a tarnished dream, for her golden years. . . .The culprits are varied: too much water pumped from natural underground reservoirs, persistent drought, rapid growth and virtually no thought for water conservation. . . . An estimated 17,000 acres of wetlands are damaged. Marshes are arid. Cypress trees are dead. Ducks, cranes, turtles and alligators are gone. The Jobs/Development Theme The Jobs/Development theme incorporates the narrower themes of industry, pollution, development, environment, and jobs. News articles with prominent emphasis on this major theme discuss industry and development relevant to wetlands, implications to the environment, and potential impacts on jobs. An example of an article with prominent focus on this major theme is an Oct. 21, 1992, article datelined Washington and carrying the headline, "Environmentalists Cool to Bush, Back Clinton Despite a Mixed Record." The following excerpts are taken from the news report: A comic strip congressman recently lectured his wife, urging her to "face reality, the real choice. You can either choose jobs or trees, jobs or air, jobs or . . ." The distraught woman bolted the frame a choice voters don't have, even when the real-life presidential campaign dialogue starts sounding like the Washington satire by Mark Alan Stamaty. President Bush alternatively labels Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton a polluter-coddler, who let poultry companies foul his state's rivers with chicken waste, and an environmental extremist who has embraced the ideas of his greener-than-thou running mate, Sen. Al Gore. . . . Bush came into office pledging to be an environmental president but has gradually given more weight to business concerns. A second example of coverage focusing on this theme is seen in a Sept. 23, 1991, news report datelined Grand Canyon, Ariz., and carrying the headline, "Bush, Environment." Excerpts from the 1,269-word article follow: Like any other tourist, President Bush stood in awe of the Grand Canyon's magnificence. His one-word reaction to the canyon's natural majesty: "grandeur." The Grand Canyon provided a breathtaking backdrop for the official announcement of a plan to block pollution over the national park a lofty achievement by any standard. . . . But critic's lambast the administration's pro-industry bent on other issues, such as oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and resistance to costly regulatory measures. . . . [Wilderness Society President George Frampton] charged Bush "has stood with big oil, the timber industry and the mining companies." . . . Bush frequently states a goal of balancing economic and environmental needs. He used that rationale last month when he backed off a campaign promise to allow "no net loss" of wetlands by rewriting the definition of a wetland. "A pothole in the backyard is not a wetland," Bush told reporters. . . . Among other actions bemoaned by administration critics: Refusal to commit to reduction targets for carbon dioxide emissions, . . . the decision to drop millions of acres from wetlands protection . . . Bush's insistence on opening the Alaska refuge to oil exploration...resistance to raising fuel efficiency requirements for cars . . . The Regulation Legislation Theme A third major theme, described as Regulation Legislation, incorporates the smaller themes of government, legislation, endangered, rights, and regulation. News articles emphasizing these topics focus on wetlands legislation, implications for endangered species and for the rights of property owners, and the role of government in regulation of wetlands. An example of news articles with prominent emphasis on these areas is the March 3, 1995, report datelined Washington and headlined as "House Approves Landowner-Compensation Bill." Excerpts of the 805-word article follow: Declaring an assault on arrogant government, the House approved a bill today requiring federal agencies to compensate landowners for restrictions that protect wetlands and endangered species. The legislation, which was denounced by Democrats as a thereat to environmental protection and a potential drain on the U.S. treasury, cleared by a vote of 277-148. It now goes to the Senate . . . Called the "Private Property Protection Act," the House-passed measure would broaden substantially the definition courts traditionally have given to a "regulatory taking" of property. The Agriculture/Spending Theme A fourth major theme referred to as the Agriculture/Spending Theme represents the combination of the narrower themes of agriculture, conservation, economic, spending, and Congress, as mentioned previously and as listed in Tables 2 and 3. Articles emphasizing these topics focus on wetlands and agriculture, conservation practices relating to wetlands, and economic/spending issues relating to agriculture. A news article headlined "1985 Farm Law Will Help Eliminate Soil Erosion: Conservation Group" and released by Associated Press on Jan. 30, 1990, emphasizes these topics. Excerpts from the 664-word article, datelined Washington, follow: Historic provisions in 1985 farm law will help farmers move rapidly toward the elimination of severe soil erosion on much of the nation's cropland by the mid-1990s, a private conservation group said Tuesday. A study of more than 1,000 farms in selected areas across the nation showed that the conservation provisions of the 1985 Food Security Act have been a main force in prodding and luring farmers into protecting soil resources. The report, released here by the Soil and Water Conservation Society of Ankeny, Iowa, focused on the 1985 law's provisions governing the use of fragile, highly erodible land, and wetland areas. The computer procedures with which these four major themes were identified assure their representativeness of the overall news coverage on wetlands, because the terms comprising them emerge from the news articles themselves based on their frequency of occurrence and their occurrence together in the text. Identification of these themes, represented in the text by the appearance of the relevant terms, allows for comparisons of their relative prominence in the news coverage. The efficiency and precision of computer-assisted content analysis is appreciated when the task is to code 1,756 articles about 4,000 pages of text for frequency of occurrence of 100 or terms (from Table 2) combined into four major topical themes. This process is accomplished easily by constructing four new variables from an existing data file in SPSS . The existing file, created by VBPro with search files and coding procedures, listed the frequency of occurrence of the terms listed in Table 3 for each case or news article. Four new variables were created using the computer commands in SPSS and adding, for each case, the frequencies for the terms combined within each major theme category. The values generated in this process then were used to conduct one-way analysis of variance tests comparing the prominence of each major theme in news coverage among the three presidential administrations. These statistical tests compare the mean frequencies of the theme terms in news articles distributed during the three presidential administrations. The results of these analyses are presented in the following section. Results and Discussion Comparisons of relative prominence were made among coverage in the three presidential administrations for each of the four major themes in the wetlands news coverage. The tests, therefore, compared the prominence of the major themes of Habitat Restoration, Jobs/Development, Regulation Legislation, and Agriculture/Spending across the administrations of Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. Prominence of a theme was measured by occurrence of the relevant theme terms in the news articles. Comparisons involve the mean occurrences of the theme terms. Coverage of The Habitat/Restoration Theme Comparison of the term frequency means revealed that coverage of the Habitat Restoration Theme was more prominent in the Reagan administration than in the following administrations. Table 4a summarizes these comparisons. One-way analysis of variance revealed a significant difference among the presidential administrations, as summarized in Table 4b. The Scheff post hoc test was applied, indicating that the mean occurrence of 13.31 relevant terms in the Reagan administration was significantly higher than the means of 11.40 and 10.10 during the Bush and Clinton years, respectively. The environment was not considered an issue on Reagan's agenda, so the explanation for this must be found elsewhere. Reagan entered the oval office "as a time of especially low prestige Jimmy Carter had just been vicariously held hostage by Iranian militants for 444 days" (Manheim, 1991, p. 83), as the news media had reminded the American public on a virtually daily basis. The Grenada incident among others served to positively reinvent Reagan in the public mind as a world leader. A point to be made here, Manheim argues: is that public officials, no less than political candidates and probably more have reason to find means to structure the ways they are portrayed in the news media. Much of their relationship with journalists and through journalists, with the public, is guided by this fact. Making news, as much as making or implementing policy, is part and parcel of the business of politics. (p. 83) Coverage of Jobs/Development Theme Comparisons of prominence of the Jobs/Development theme in news coverage also were made for the three presidential administrations. The results of these tests are presented in Table 5. One-way analysis of variance tests revealed significant differences among the presidential administrations, for this variable. The Scheff post hoc test showed that the relative occurrence of these relevant theme terms was significantly higher in the Bush administration compared to the Reagan and the Clinton administrations. Examples of articles emphasizing this theme, provided in the previous section, were somewhat critical of Bush while focusing on his themes of jobs and development. A potential explanation is that the media frequently quoted Bush discussing jobs and development while they also provided criticism of his environmental policies. Coverage of Regulation Legislation Theme Comparisons of relative prominence in media coverage of a third major theme, Regulation Legislation, are presented in Table 6a. With a mean of 10.07 relevant theme terms per case during the Clinton administration, prominence of the Regulation Legislation theme was significantly greater compared to coverage during the terms of his two immediate predecessors (with means of 3.80 and 4.13). Coverage during the Reagan and Bush terms did not differ significantly. The results of the associated one-way analysis of variance test are given in Table 6b. Coverage of Agriculture/Spending Theme Similar findings related to coverage of a fourth broad theme of Agriculture/Spending are presented in Table 7. As indicated table, coverage of agriculture was significantly more prominent in Clinton's administration than in the terms of Reagan and Bush, while this theme received similar levels of coverage during the Reagan and Bush administrations. One-way analysis of variance findings are shown in Table 7b. To summarize the results of these comparisons, shown in Tables 4-7, coverage of Habitat Restoration was highest during the terms of Reagan, coverage of Jobs/Development was highest during the term of Bush, and coverage of Regulation Legislation and Agriculture/Spending was highest during Clinton's term. These comparisons offer compelling evidence for the systematic shifting of news media content over time. The nature of the shifts, however, suggest an inconsistently rather than consistently dominant influence of the U.S. president on the American news media agenda. Review of the news articles and findings of additional studies (Nicodemus, 1995; Riechert, 1996) show that during the Reagan's presidential terms in the 1980s, news coverage of wetlands emphasized conservation/environmental issues. Conservation advocate groups were quoted frequently in the news media as they discussed the benefits of wetlands and warned of the environmental threats of continued loss of natural wetlands. Benefits of wetlands include preventing flooding, improving water quality, and providing critical habitat for threatened and endangered wildlife species (Wetlands Fact Sheets, 1995). Public awareness of the environmental importance of these diverse areas was so high in the public mind, in fact, that Presidential hopeful George Bush in 1988 issued the slogan, "No net loss of wetlands" as a campaign promise. After taking office, however, Bush instead sought relaxation of regulations that protect wetlands and who lobbied for legislative reforms that restricted the definition of wetlands and that would provide compensation to property owners affected by restrictions imposed by wetlands protection. During his administration scores of wetlands legislative reform bills were introduced, and these still were being debated in the national policy and media agendas when Clinton took office. The ensuing shift in wetlands news coverage of relative prominence of conservation to property-owner concerns is linked largely to the public statements and policy activities of Bush (Nicodemus, 1996; Riechert, 1996). Conclusions Several conclusions may be drawn from this study. Evidence is provided that in some cases (with Bush, in wetlands news coverage), presidents may effectively energize an issue and reframe it in the media, and yet may not be able to maintain media nor public support on the issue. Continued research in this area is needed. It would be worthwhile, for example, to study the relationship of the themes in presidential assertions in news coverage content, relative to assertions by other actors such as legislators and to the prominence of these themes in media coverage. This can be studied in coverage of wetlands and any other number of topics. Notable also is the successful demonstration of these computer-assisted methods in identifying major themes in text and using those themes for making meaningful comparisons. These methods can be applied to studying media content with reliable precision and appealing efficiency. The methods can handle enormous amounts of text, making possible the investigation of complex agenda processes over long time periods and in volumes of coverage. Investigation of research questions with larger sample sizes will make agenda-related studies more powerful in examining news coverage for differences of interest. Such large sample studies allow trends to emerge because the statistical law of large numbers becomes operative. It also makes it possible to look for patterns between and within subsets of the data, which also contain large amounts of information. These findings of the comparisons in this study, considered together with reviews of the news articles emphasizing each major theme, show that the role of the U.S. president in the media agenda is more complex than some studies have suggested. While the president may place an issue on the public agenda and the media agenda, the president may not always control its evolution. Other actors in the process, including legislators, compete for dominant influence. It is possible that historically U.S. presidents have enjoyed more influence on the media agenda than they have enjoyed in recent years. Investigations by Hughes (1995) and others provide evidence that this is the case. Further study is needed to determine changes in the president-media relationship over time. Journalism norms and values prescribe that the president will be covered prominently in the news media. The position and the activities of the president hold the news values of prominence, impact, and many times conflict, occasionally even the bizarre. Numerous studies cited here show that media continually and consistently report the comments of the president. The findings of this study, however, along with those of Hughes (1995), Gonzenbach (1992), and others, also indicate that the media coverage of the U.S. president includes far more than what the president says and wants to be said. These findings suggest that the U.S. president is powerful enough to tell the media what to talk about, but is not powerful enough to tell them what to say. References Aldenderfer, M. S., & Blashfield, R. K. (1984). Cluster Analysis (Sage University Paper Series on Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, series no. 07-44). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Andsager, J. L., & Miller, M. M. (1994, November). Exploring patterns of controversy: News coverage of RU486. Presented to the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago. Berkowitz, D. (1992/1994). Who sets the media agenda? The ability of policymakers to determine news decisions. In J. D. Kennamer (Ed.), Public Opinion, the Press, and Public Policy (pp. 81-102). Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers. Bosso, C. J. (1987). Pesticides and Politics: The Life Cycle of a Public Issue. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Chew, F., & Kim., S. (1994, August). Using concept mapping to go beyond the source credibility model in assessing celebrity-message congruence. Presented to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Atlanta. Chew, F., & Miller, M. M. (1993, November). When the source is the message: Going beyond the source-message effectiveness model to assess presidential attitudes congruent with voter preference. Presented to the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago. Chew, F., Mehta, A., & Oldfather, A. (1993, August). A re-examination of the source-message effectiveness model: Analyzing pieces of the celebrity endorsement puzzle via source models, cultural meaning transfer, and concept mapping. Presented to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Kansas City, MO. Corter, J. E. (1996). Tree Models of Similarity and Association (Sage University Paper Series on Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, series no. 07-112). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Coxon, A. P. M. (1982). The User's Guide to Multidimensional Scaling. Exeter, New Hampshire, Great Britain: Heinemann Educational Books, Inc. Dearing, J. W., & Rogers, E. M. (1996). Communication Concepts 6: Agenda-Setting. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Derksen, L., & Gartrell, J. (1993). The social context of recycling. American Sociological Review, 58, 434-442. Entman, R. M. (1991). Framing U.S. coverage of international news: Contrasts in narratives of the KAL and Iran air incidents. Journal of Communication, 41(4), 6-27. Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51-58. Gitlin, T. (1980). The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Goodman, R. (1994, May). Bush administration congressional versus presidential agenda-setting: The China most favored nation controversy. Presented to the International Communication Association, Albuquerque, NM. Gonzenbach, W. J. (1992). A time-series analysis of the drug issue, 1985-1990: The press, the president, and public opinion. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 4(2), 126-147. Hughes, W. J. (1995). The "not-so-genial" conspiracy: The New York Times and six presidential "honeymoons," 1953-1993. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 72(4), 841-850. Kennamer, J. D. (Ed.). (1992/1994). Public Opinion, the Press, and Public Policy. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers. Kingdon, J. W. (1984). Agenda, Alternatives, and Public Policies. Boston: Little, Brown. Kruskal, J. B., & Wish, M. (1978). Multidimensional Scaling (Sage University Paper Series on Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, series no. 07-11). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Lang, G. E., & Lang, K. (1983). The Battle for Public Opinion: The President, the Press, and the Polls During Watergate. New York: Columbia University Press. Manheim, J. B. (1991). All of the People All of the Time. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, Inc. Miller, M. M. (1990/1995a). User's Guide for VBMap: A Program for Multidimensional Scaling of Concepts. Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Miller, M. M. (1990/1995b). User's Guide for VBPro: A Program for Analyzing Verbatim Text. Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Miller, M. M. (1994, November). Patterns and trends in 20 years of Public Opinion Quarterly: An application of concept mapping. Presented to the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago. Miller, M. M. (In press). Frame mapping and analysis of contentious issues. Accepted for publication in Computers and the Social Sciences. Miller, M. M., & Andsager, J. L. (In press). Media framing of hate speech: From campus to the public sphere. Accepted for publication in Newspaper Research Journal. Miller, M. M., Andsager, J. L., & Riechert, B. P. (1996, November). Framing the candidates in presidential primaries: Issues and Images in press releases and news coverage. Presented at the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago. Miller, M. M., & Riechert, B. P. (1994, August). Identifying themes via concept mapping: A new method of content analysis. Presented to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Atlanta. Miller, M. M., & Riechert, B. P. (1997, May). Frame Mapping: A quantitative method for investigating issues in the public sphere. Presented at the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Norfolk, VA. Miller, M. M., & Riechert, B. P. (In press). Frame mapping: A new method for investigating issues in the public sphere. Accepted for publication in Computer Content Analysis: Theory, Methods, Applications (Mark D. West, ed.), Ablex. Nicholas, S. (1992). The war over wetlands. Issues in Science and Technology, 8(4), 35-41. Nicodemus, D. (1995, March). The prestige press and environmental communication: A case study of The New York Times and the national wetland policy during the Bush administration. Presented to the Conference on Communication and the Environment, Chattanooga, TN. Riechert, B. . (1996). Advocacy Group and News Media Framing of Public Policy Issues: Frame Mapping the Wetlands Debates. Riechert, B. P., & Miller, M. M. (1994). Magazine coverage of pesticide issues: A computer content analysis. Presented to the Agricultural Communicators in Education, Moscow, ID, and Pullman, WA. Riechert, B. P., & Miller, M. M. (1997, May). Competing Views in the Case of Wetlands: Frame Mapping the Public Issue Landscape. Presented at the International Communication Association, Chicago. Shoemaker, P. J., & Reese, S. D. (1991). Mediating the Message: Theories of Influence on Mass Media Content. New York: Longman Publishing Group. Smiley, L., & Andsager, J. L. (1996, November). Communications in conflict: How media agents framed the silicone breast implant controversy. Presented to the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research, Chicago. Wetlands Fact Sheets. (1995). EPA843-F-95-001. Washington, DC: United States Environmental Protection Agency. Figure 1. Wetlands News Articles Distributed by Associated Press by Year, 1984-96 (Excluding Articles on Wetlands Outside the United States) Table 1. Terms Occurring Frequently in News Coverage of Wetlands, Specified for Analysis of Co-Occurrence Patterns, and Eigenvector Values for Multidimensional Space ______________________________________________________________________________ Term Frequency Coordinates 1, 2, and 3* of Occurrence ______________________________________________________________________________ wetlands 4,566 ( 0.06, -0.06, 0.35) environmental 3,566 (-0.24, 0.26, 0.04) water 3,076 (-0.02, -0.17, 0.14) farmers 1,977 ( 0.61, 0.10, 0.14) land 1,977 ( 0.21, -0.01, 0.33) government 1,825 ( 0.07, 0.38, 0.25) acres 1,749 ( 0.27, -0.17, 0.31) senate 1,692 ( 0.11, 0.50, 0.03) conservation 1,623 ( 0.53, -0.03, 0.16) Bush 1,660 (-0.09, 0.18, -0.34) wildlife 1,482 (-0.06, -0.31, 0.28) congress 1,425 (-0.05, 0.43, -0.13) oil 1,404 (-0.14, -0.12, -0.14) protection 1,303 (-0.29, 0.28, 0.30) spending 1,250 ( 0.10, 0.50, -0.24) agriculture 1,224 ( 0.61, 0.21, 0.05) budget 1,169 ( 0.02, 0.37, -0.33) Clinton 1,090 (-0.14, 0.45, -0.06) development 948 (-0.08, 0.03, 0.01) legislation 940 (-0.11, 0.51, 0.16) property 875 (-0.22, 0.27, 0.56) species 859 (-0.31, 0.08, 0.43) environment 812 (-0.19, 0.22, -0.05) policy 792 ( 0.09, 0.04, 0.12) republicans 778 (-0.21, 0.52, 0.12) environmentalists 772 (-0.15, 0.04, 0.06) natural 718 (-0.09, -0.17, 0.10) research 706 ( 0.09, 0.12, -0.23) protect 702 ( 0.12, 0.08, 0.20) everglades 701 (-0.06, -0.15, -0.01) EPA 693 (-0.20, 0.09, 0.01) American 692 ( 0.01, 0.05, 0.04) cost 690 ( 0.02, 0.19, -0.08) clean 644 (-0.21, 0.14, -0.08) tax 652 ( 0.00, 0.17, -0.27) Table 1. (Continued) ______________________________________________________________________________ Term Frequency Coordinates 1, 2, and 3* of Occurrence ______________________________________________________________________________ fish 650 (-0.12, -0.35, 0.20) crop 632 ( 0.65, 0.13, 0.04) pollution 631 (-0.15, 0.08, -0.05) endangered 630 (-0.33, 0.16, 0.45) industry 619 (-0.14, 0.04, -0.11) project 611 (-0.06, -0.19, 0.00) agricultural 602 ( 0.39, 0.05, 0.14) birds 568 (-0.07, -0.29, 0.14) habitat 523 (-0.04, -0.26, 0.31) soil 511 ( 0.43, -0.07, 0.13) production 494 ( 0.51, 0.05, -0.02) laws 490 (-0.25, 0.32, 0.29) resources 483 (-0.04, -0.08, 0.09) lawmakers 455 (-0.11, 0.51, 0.13) acre 448 ( 0.12, -0.21, 0.18) vote 442 (-0.06, 0.43, 0.06) flood 432 (-0.01, -0.12, 0.10) world 426 ( 0.00, -0.02, -0.16) landowner 420 ( 0.03, -0.00, 0.31) corps 414 (-0.10, -0.18, 0.12) health 400 (-0.14, 0.28, -0.13) subsidies 394 ( 0.49, 0.21, -0.07) economic 392 (-0.01, 0.08, -0.11) construction 389 (-0.11, -0.09, -0.04) home 387 (-0.02, -0.06, -0.09) costs 375 ( 0.11, 0.10, -0.10) benefits 372 ( 0.31, 0.14, -0.02) energy 370 (-0.15, 0.12, -0.25) plants 369 (-0.08, -0.06, 0.01) waste 362 (-0.13, 0.06, -0.13) beach 348 (-0.08, -0.13, -0.03) rights 326 (-0.19, 0.30, 0.48) lakes 326 (-0.08, -0.19, 0.05) court 322 (-0.10, 0.04, 0.11) growers 318 ( 0.28, 0.06, 0.01) gulf 310 (-0.08, -0.09, -0.11) Table 1. (Continued) ______________________________________________________________________________ Term Frequency Coordinates 1, 2, and 3* of Occurrence ______________________________________________________________________________ marshes 304 (-0.02, -0.20, 0.11) restore 299 ( 0.03, -0.02, 0.09) forest 299 (-0.12, 0.07, 0.03) island 296 (-0.06, -0.12, -0.01) erosion 294 ( 0.41, -0.05, 0.14) Reagan 290 (-0.09, 0.06, -0.17) build 290 (-0.09, -0.12, 0.07) USDA 287 ( 0.49, 0.01, 0.12) acreage 287 ( 0.44, 0.11, 0.06) toxic 285 (-0.23, 0.11, -0.13) regulation 285 (-0.19, 0.33, 0.30) dole 285 (-0.06, 0.23, -0.05) rivers 277 (-0.12, -0.19, 0.11) duck 275 (-0.00, -0.24, 0.16) engineers 269 (-0.12, -0.20, 0.16) jobs 265 (-0.07, 0.08, -0.20) waterfowl 255 ( 0.03, -0.24, 0.17) protecting 255 (-0.05, 0.14, 0.22) building 253 (-0.07, -0.11, 0.02) population 251 (-0.09, -0.24 , 0.06) environmentally 244 ( 0.07, 0.03, -0.06) preserve 243 (-0.03, -0.06, 0.19) producers 243 ( 0.50, 0.13, 0.02) farms 240 ( 0.61, 0.16, 0.07) urban 239 (-0.11, 0.12, -0.02) funding 238 ( 0.05, 0.18, -0.12) taking 234 (-0.11, 0.21, 0.26) debate 234 (-0.03, 0.36, 0.23) restoration 233 (-0.02, -0.12, 0.03) drilling 233 (-0.13, -0.00, -0.22) farming 231 ( 0.27, -0.02, 0.13) sensitive 230 ( 0.02, 0.07, -0.07) permit 228 (-0.08, -0.05, 0.10) logging 228 (-0.16, 0.16, 0.09) rural 220 ( 0.25, 0.15, -0.03) developers 217 (-0.06, -0.07, 0.20) Table 1. (Continued) ______________________________________________________________________________ Term Frequency Coordinates 1, 2, and 3* of Occurrence ______________________________________________________________________________ erodible 215 ( 0.57, 0.03, 0.09) runoff 214 (-0.06, -0.11, -0.04) chemicals 212 ( 0.04, -0.01, -0.03) threatened 211 (-0.11, -0.10, 0.16) owners 209 (-0.18, 0.13, 0.36) residents 204 (-0.09, -0.17, -0.06) global 202 (-0.09, 0.11, -0.21) appropriations 200 (-0.01, 0.37, -0.06) animals 199 (-0.13, -0.17, 0.15) taxes 196 (-0.04, 0.13, -0.23) scientists 195 (-0.10, -0.07, 0.01) ______________________________________________________________________________ *Eigenvalues: 5.6608, 4.9291, 3.8051; Percentage Total Variance Per Factor: 5, 5, 4; Cumulative Percentage Total Variance: 5, 10, 14; Percentage Extracted Variance Per Factor: 39, 34, 26; Cumulative Percentage Extracted Variance: 39, 74, 100 Table 2. Themes in Wetlands News Articles ______________________________________________________________________________ Group Terms Coordinates 1, 2, and 3* ______________________________________________________________________________ (1) Agriculture agriculture, acreage, crop, growers, (0.16, -0.42, 0.50) producers, production, subsidies, benefits, rural (2) Conservation conservation, soil, erosion, farming, USDA, (-0.02, -0.35, 0.49) erodible, farmers, agricultural (3) Wetlands wetlands, restore, landowner (-0.16, 0.11, 0.12) (4) Economic economic, tax, budget, sensitive ( 0.38, -0.39, -0.20) (5) Jobs jobs, energy, Reagan, taxes, Bush, global ( 0.16, -0.33, -0.49) (6) Regulation regulation, laws, protection, logging ( 0.32, 0.47, -0.12) (7) Endangered endangered, species, court ( 0.09, 0.55, 0.09) (8) Rights rights, property, owners, taking, protecting ( 0.26, 0.51, 0.21) (9) Industry industry, waste ( 0.02, -0.01, -0.42) (10) Pollution pollution, clean, toxic ( 0.05, 0.07, -0.46) (11) Environment environment, urban, environmental ( 0.19, 0.14, -0.35) (12) Development development, EPA, forest, environmentalists (-0.01, 0.16, -0.31) (13) Spending spending, cost, funding ( 0.46, -0.28, 0.02) (14) Congress Congress, Dole, Clinton, appropriations ( 0.55, -0.02, -0.06) (15) Government government, American, debate ( 0.34, 0.10, 0.24) (16) Legislation legislation, lawmakers, vote, Republicans ( 0.60, 0.24, 0.10) (17) Runoff runoff, residents, beach, Everglades, island, (-0.33, 0.04, -0.07) project (18) Scientists scientists, plants (-0.18, 0.07, -0.14) (19) Permit permit, threatened (-0.19, 0.23, 0.06) (20) Preserve preserve, developers (-0.18, 0.20, 0.03) (21) habitat habitat, wildlife, water, flood, waterfowl, (-0.36, 0.13, 0.09) resources, duck (22) build build, rivers, natural, Corps, Engineers, animals (-0.32, 0.26, 0.00) (23) restoration restoration, fish, birds, marshes, lakes, population (-0.45, 0.13, 0.05) $CLIN [identifier code term in 1992-96 cases] ( 0.37, 0.28, 0.22) $BUSH [identifier code term in 1988-92 cases] (-0.14, -0.25, -0.14) $REAG [identifer code term in 1984-88 cases] (-0.30, -0.06, 0.02) ______________________________________________________________________________ Note. The themes are identified by clusters of terms occurring together, identified in hierarchical cluster analysis of frequently-occurring terms. *Eigenvalues: 2.3186, 1.9114, 1.6362; Percentage Total Variance Per Factor: 12, 10, 9; Cumulative Percentage Total Variance: 12, 22, 31; Percentage Extracted Variance Per Factor; 40, 33, 28; Cumulative Percentage Extracted Variance: 40, 72, 100 Figure 2. Concept Map of News Coverage of Wetlands, 1984-96. Figure 3. Dendogram Output of Hierarchical Cluster Analysis of Clustering Terms from Wetlands News Articles. Table 3. Major Themes Formed by Cluster Analysis of 23 Themes in Wetlands News Coverage (Frequently-Occurring Term Groups) ______________________________________________________________________________ Major Theme* Narrower Themes (Term Groups**) Included ______________________________________________________________________________ Habitat Restoration Permit, Preserve, Build, Habitat, Restoration, Wetlands, Runoff, Scientists Jobs/Development Industry, Pollution, Development, Environment, Jobs Regulation Legislation Government, Legislation, Endangered, Rights, Regulation Agriculture/Spending Agriculture, Conservation, Economic, Spending, Congress ______________________________________________________________________________ * Suggested by clustering schedule shown in dendogram in Figure 3 **Listed in Table 2 Table 4a. Prominence of Habitat Restoration Theme in Wetlands News Coverage by Presidential Administration ______________________________________________________________________________ Reagan Bush Clinton ______________________________________________________________________________ Mean: 13.31a 11.40b 10.10b SD: 10.77 10.43 10.38 n: 354 686 716 ______________________________________________________________________________ Note: Means in the same row that do not share subscripts differ at p < .05 by the Scheff test. Table 4b. One-Way Analysis of Variance for Prominence of Habitat Restoration Theme in Wetlands News Coverage by Presidential Administration ______________________________________________________________________________ Source df ss ms F Ratio ______________________________________________________________________________ Between Groups 2 2451.17 1225.59 11.15* Within Groups 1753 192601.55 109.87 Total 1755 195952.72 ______________________________________________________________________________ * p < .0001 Table 5a. Prominence of Jobs/Development Theme in Wetlands News Coverage by Presidential Administration ______________________________________________________________________________ Reagan Bush Clinton ______________________________________________________________________________ Mean: 6.64a 8.09b 6.26a SD: 9.50 9.48 6.68 n: 354 686 716 ______________________________________________________________________________ Note: Means in the same row that do not share subscripts differ at p < .05 by the Scheff test. Table 5b. One-Way Analysis of Variance for Prominence of Jobs/Development Theme in Wetlands News Coverage by Presidential Administration ______________________________________________________________________________ Source df ss ms F Ratio ______________________________________________________________________________ Between Groups 2 1246.69 623.35 8.72* Within Groups 1753 125340.70 71.50 Total 1755 195952.72 ______________________________________________________________________________ * p < .001 Table 6a. Prominence of Regulation Legislation Theme in Wetlands News Coverage by Presidential Administration ______________________________________________________________________________ Reagan Bush Clinton ______________________________________________________________________________ Mean: 3.80a 4.13a 10.07b SD: 4.32 3.74 12.34 n: 354 686 716 ______________________________________________________________________________ Note: Means in the same row that do not share subscripts differ at p < .05 by the Scheff test. Table 6b. One-Way Analysis of Variance for Prominence of Regulation Legislation Theme in Wetlands News Coverage by Presidential Administration ______________________________________________________________________________ Source df ss ms F Ratio ______________________________________________________________________________ Between Groups 2 15603.19 7801.60 109.36* Within Groups 1753 125057.29 71.34 Total 1755 140660.49 ______________________________________________________________________________ * p < .0001 Table 7a. Prominence of Agriculture/Spending Theme in Wetlands News Coverage by Presidential Administration ______________________________________________________________________________ Reagan Bush Clinton ______________________________________________________________________________ Mean: 8.15a 9.42a 11.33b SD: 12.76 12.07 10.51 n: 354 686 716 ______________________________________________________________________________ Note: Means in the same row that do not share subscripts differ at p < .05 by the Scheff test. Table 7b. One-Way Analysis of Variance for Prominence of Agriculture/Spending Theme in Wetlands News Coverage by Presidential Administration ______________________________________________________________________________ Source df ss ms F Ratio ______________________________________________________________________________ Between Groups 2 2696.11 1348.05 10.0004* Within Groups 1753 236305.53 134.80 Total 1755 239001.64 ______________________________________________________________________________ * p < .0001 Methods
Back to: Top of Message | Previous Page | Main AEJMC Page


text:
Design Article
Thanks for your clarifications Ken! And yes, I wasn't paying too much attention ...
Generating spatial audio from portable products - Part 1: Spatial audio basics
Ken Boyce, Audio Technologist, Texas Instruments Silicon Valley Labs
[Part 2 of this article introduces two beamforming techniques and takes a close look at TI's LM48901 spatial array audio amplifier.]
The soundstage generated by a stereophonic audio system is typically restricted by the physical locations of the speakers, while the sound events perceived by the listener are limited within the span of the two speakers. In small-size stereo speaker systems, such as those found in portable devices, the perceived stereophonic soundstage becomes very limited, almost monophonic.
Portable stereo sound systems have a limited soundstage because their design is limited by the number of speakers and the spacing between them. To overcome this size limitation, spatial audio sound generation techniques can be used to expand the stereo soundstage, achieve better crosstalk cancellation, and enhance certain spatial cues. Texas Instruments (TI) has applied these sound processing techniques in a new family of spatial audio integrated circuits for portable products with two to 16 speakers. These include smartphones, tablets, laptops, sound docking stations, and sound bars.
This two-part article provides a spatial audio tutorial and highlights the audio design techniques employed in the LM48901 quad Class D spatial array IC. The first part defines spatial audio and discusses key techniques such as head related transfer function, crosstalk cancellation and audio beamforming. Part two provides an overview of the LM48901's beamforming technique and its web-based software tool that in a few simple steps allows you to create audio effect programming to convert your product's small soundstage into an immersive cinematic experience.
Spatial Audio
Naturally occurring sound in the space around us is inherently spatial. Sound sources are located at a point in a small region of the total space around us, although some sources such as earthquakes and landslides emanate from a broader area.
The sound scatters off various objects in the environment around us, then we hear the direct and scattered sound binaurally with our ears and after some human auditory processing, the sound is finally recognized. We make decisions about the processed sound, characterizing the sound(s) with labels such as direction, location, loudness, ambience and quality, near, far, tone, fat and thin, among others. In the case of two or more sound sources, the characteristics mix of each sound source (relative to the total sound being received) is also determined.
Spatial audio is simply a term applied to the reproduction of sound by electronic/mechanical methods that attempts to artificially recreate the real world listening experience of sound(s), or alternatively attempts to artificially alter reproduced sound(s) in order to create a perceived spatial environment that may not have originally existed.
The principle of spatial audio reproduction is simple:
If the reproduced sound waves arriving binaurally at your eardrums are identical to those of the real audio source at a particular position, you will perceive the reproduced sound as coming from a source at that particular position. It does not matter that originally the sound source may have been at some other position. The sound 'data' arriving at your ears is what is processed by the brain to ultimately characterize all aspects of the sound.
Having tested some of these algorithms twenty years ago, I can honestly say that the technology is amazing. The advancement in inner cranial and exo cranial perception has been a long time coming from the research labs to commercial products. I think everyone will be amazed with how sound can be manipulated to put you into a 3-D sound environment to match the 3-D video available.
This is really neat stuff.
Although I'm a big fan of such processing in certain applications (for example nearfield "personal" monitors, one needs to note the importance of the room in more traditional audio settings, which generally is neglected and for which is much more difficult to account. And it tends to screw up spatial processing of this sort.
But merely treating the room as a negative, as is suggested in this article, flies in the face of listener preferences and other psychoacoustic results, some of which are sometimes subtle but rather well-understood now, despite continued misunderstandings in the popular press and elsewhere. In particular, it is misleading to state, as the author does, that reflections per se result in reduced "clarity". In fact, however counterintuitive, the reality is quite the contrary. See Toole's book Sound Reproduction for a comprehensive treatment of these issues.
Brad Wood
Good observation Bcarso. Here is a fun experiment for a rainy day:
Start with the typical residential room with drywall (acoustically reflective) walls and ceilings and maybe some curtains and floor carpet acoustic damping for good luck.
Drive a single speaker with a sine wave about 300-400 Hz or so at comfortable loudness.
Plug one ear with an earplug.
Move around and see how many places exist where you can completely null the perceived audio tone with the position of the unplugged ear. Caused by reflected (standing) waves and destructive interference, the wavelength IIRC of 350 Hz is somewhere about a meter.
This effect exists with normal listening with both ears, just harder to notice.
Good article, but room acoustics do play a big part.
Indeed. If we were to take the "reflections diminish clarity" assertion seriously, we'd all be seeking out anechoic spaces for our listening enjoyment. For those of you who have had access to a good chamber, you know how absurd that would be.
There was no mention of anechoic chambers in the article, and I definitely do not advocate them as a desirable listening environment. . They are, however, a good environment for making specific audio measurements. Anechoic chambers are also known as "dead rooms" while the most pleasant listening environment is a "live room". The terms refer to the fact that a live room sounds more realistic while a dead room is, well… dead – no life.
There is no perfect technique to accurately reproduce sound. All methods have drawbacks and what one enjoys another will not. From a psychoacoustic point of view, practically all reproduced sounds we listen to don't faithfully reproduce the original and are enhanced in some way for our listening enjoyment (or tolerance). This does not stop people from using the techniques, however. Witness a whole generation that only knows MP3 music quality and you know what I mean.
I suppose the best statement would have been: "While reflections make it easier to hear from any position, the reflections arrive at different times and intensities than the original signal and CAN result in sound that lacks clarity."
The intent of the statement in the article was not to explicitly "treat the room as a negative". Rather it was to point out that the room does affect clarity, usually negatively. Because of this fact, much effort, including material in O'Toole's excellent book, is expended to improve room listening environments for consumers.
As a practical matter, reflections (or echoes) are a very important part of acoustics as they help us estimate the direction, and distance of sound objects. But no reflecting surface is perfectly flat and that fact alone will blur the reflection, e.g. "smear" the sound. It becomes more complex as the number of reflecting surfaces increase.
Reflections can obscure the true source of a sound under certain conditions and reduce intelligibility. Longer echoes are generally a less offensive than shorter echoes. Echoes can cause phase interference which results in either reinforcement or partial cancellation of a sound at a particular frequency. For music, this can occur over a wider frequency range than for speech. When similar complex sounds in different phases interact, the effect is called comb filtering and is almost always undesirable as it obscures detail and harms intelligibility.
I want to address a couple of other points Brad made.
1. Yes... the room situation can screw up spatial audio effects, especially if you are using the technique to try to reproduce a 5.1 or 7.1 audio system. In this case you may want to do some specific beam forming in order to create wanted reflections. Some makers of such systems also advocate having a microphone at the desired listening position, and use the data it picks up as a means of measuring the room characteristics and adjusting the algorithms accordingly.
However, the article premise was on small product use cases where space constraints did not permit even a reasonable stereo sound field. In this case, the spatial audio processing could enhance the listener experience and it was not intended for a multi-person audience.
2. As a closet musician, I am were aware of the improvement of synthesized sounds that can be accomplished with the judicious use of early reflections and reverberation as well as equalization. To me, a "dead" piano (or 'dry' as they say in music lingo) is useless - not real sounding. So reverb and reflection echoes are added (make the sound 'wet') to make the piano sound more realistic as if it were in a real room. All 'dry' or all 'wet' makes Jack a dull boy, so there is always an optimum mix of 'dry' to 'wet'. Whether this is accomplished totally electronically or partially by the room makes no difference so long as the resultant sound sounds more realistic to the average person. If so, then they can enjoy it. If not.... there is always complaints.
Lastly, I want to thank everyone who has read the article and commented on it. I hope my replies have helped.
Thanks for your clarifications Ken! And yes, I wasn't paying too much attention to the "portable" in the article's title --- my apologies :) I am on edge a bit I guess when I read things about rooms, particularly after some recent pronouncements about how poorly understood loudspeakers and rooms are (AES Heyser lecture by a certain prominent hifi magazine editor).
Floyd is just Toole btw. I joked with him when he was persuaded to leave NRC in Canada and join Harman International, that he had decided to become a capitalist Toole :)
My apologies to Fred vis a vis O'Toole vs Toole.
No problems Brad. I am glad you read the article thru and your comments gave the opportunity for further clarifications.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Find great deals on quality New England, Australia hotels & resorts, or indulge at one of our luxury resorts. Take advantage of the many amenities that can be included with your stay such as in-room internet access, wifi, room service, fitness center, pool, hot tub, steam room, and shuttle services to and from the airport. Browse our New England, Australia hotels and resorts and plan your New England, Australia vacation today!
Page:1 of 2 |
Sort By: |
Tamworth, Australia Hotels & Resorts - Country Comfort Tamworth is located in the heart of the Big Sky Country (New England North West), a five-minute walk from the town center, and approximately
Tamworth, Australia Hotels & Resorts - Golden Guitar and Wax Musuem 0.5 kilometres. The center of town is 2 kilometres from hotel. Front Desk Hours: 7:00am to 10:00pm.
Tamworth, Australia Hotels & Resorts - Boutique Hotel - reception. Two award winning restaurants, conference and banquet facilities.Superbly appointed rooms.
Armidale, Australia Hotels & Resorts - The Quality Hotel Powerhouse Armidale is Armidale's only true four-star hotel. We are within walking distance to the town center.
Armidale, Australia Hotels & Resorts - Country Comfort Armidale is located approximately two blocks from the center of town and four miles from Armidale Airport.
Tamworth, Australia Hotels & Resorts - Welcome to the BEST WESTERN PLUS All Settlers Motor Inn where guests will find friendly customer service and award-winning accommodation at an unbeatable
Bathurst, Australia Hotels & Resorts - Bathurst Panorama Serviced Apartments overlooking Mount Panorama Racecourse offer long stay studios & 1 bedroom serviced & furnished apartments
The Entrance, Australia Hotels & Resorts - The Waldorf Apartment Hotel at The Entrance is a new resort complex located on the Central Coast of NSW at The Entrance. We offer 1 & 2 bedroom hotel apartments accommodation suitable for daily or extended stay
Parramatta, Australia Hotels & Resorts - The Parramatta Waldorf Apartment Hotel is a modern contemporary stylish 4 � star apartment hotel with new standards of spaciousness and offering accommodation for short or extended stay.
Sydney, Australia Hotels & Resorts - Sydney south Central location, luxury studio & 1 bedroom hotel apartments accommodation for up to 4 persons suitable for short and extended stay.


text:
Tweet |
Follow Us on Facebook Get updates from FaveCrafts.com posted directly to your News Feed. |
Cute as a Button Valentine's Day JarsThese Cute as a Button Valentine's Day Jars from Laura Kelly are so fun to make with your kids. Perfect for filling with candy, candles, or little love notes, these thrifty projects are a great way to share some sweetness with your Valentine. These are even simple enough to make in the classroom and make great Valentine's for kids to share with their friends and classmates. A collection of random sized jars would also make a great homemade Valentine's Day decoration that you can display on our bay window or your mantel. Materials:
Something worth saving?
Free eBooks


text:
7. | The Gap | ||
The disgusting valley of space between the legs of girls who are way too fucking skinny. These "gaps" are possessed by girls who look like 13-year old boys, and not real women. They are also generally flat-chested and all-around unattractive. When I was walking up the stairs to English, I got stuck behind the girl with the gap, and it was right in my face! So gross.
1. | The Gap | ||
This distance between a girls legs directly below her pubis symphsis. (There is a slight distance decrease as the inner thigh usually bulges in, about 1-1.5" down from the perineal. This is natural in even the most perfect 18 year old specimens) GAP TEST Tell your woman to get in her bikini. Instruct her to stand in an upright and standing position, as if she was waiting in line at the grocery store with food that she will cook for you later tonight. With her facing directly in front of you, make sure that her ankles are touching each other. From her ankles to her crouch, the inside of her legs should never touch. Ever. This is the GAP TEST. If her legs do touch, you will need to consider taking drastic measures to remedy the situation. Calling her fat will not help, add -ass to the end of it, that usually increases response time. Also see The Bridge and The Valley to learn other important female attributes. "Dude, did you see the gap on that chick?!!"
"Yes dude, she must be an import" |
2. | The Gap | ||
The place of a girls vagina in between her legs that is usually visible when they wear tight pants. Look! its the gap, I'd hit that.
3. | The Gap | ||
The space between the tube train or London Underground train and the platform. "Mind The Gap." as heard at any Tube Platform.
4. | The Gap | ||
The Gap is the part between a womans arse. You can see their Gap with the help of tight jeans. Damn, have a look at her. Tight Jeans, tight arse and The GAP.
Guys love filling a Gap and some box eaters with their plastic toys, you don't have to be a carpenter to fill it either. |
5. | The Gap | ||
A leafy suburb of Brisbane that happens to be on a freaking volcano. Inhabitants include but are not limited to emos, gap sluts, Stupid Pathetic Children and skater fags. The Enoggera River, or 'the creek', runs through The Gap, and easily floods over, mocking the poor souls who have property close to it in the frequent storms. GSH Kid One: Oi mate, i herd that doobsy got head from some slut in the creek, and then it storm'd.
GSH Kid Two: Who was she? i reckon i know the bitch. Overhearing Marist or MSM kid's thoughts "god they're dropicks, i wish i didn't live in The Gap" |
6. | the gap | ||
Don't fall into the gap! Shayla


text:
What is this page?
Download the CD/DVD cover part you chose and see what other parts are available for this title. You can also rate this cover quality, watch related videos, listen to similar artists and many more.
If you like this cover you can share it with your friends by clicking the Email this link under the download button.
King Crimson - Live In Toronto 1974 (2011) Retail CD
Cover Info:
- Title:
- King Crimson - Live In Toronto 1974 (2011) Retail CD
- Part:
- Inside
- Dimensions:
- 1416 x 1403 px
- Size:
- Downloads:
- 6 (0 today)
- Uploaded:
- 09/07/12 by pontiacc
- Quality Rating:
Cover not yet rated. Click CDs to vote!


text:
Welcome to Polynesian Plaza
Affordable Waikiki hotel rooms for your Hawaii vacation
Aloha, E Komo Mai!
A charming oasis in the heart of Waikiki Polynesian Plaza is ideally located on Kalakaua Avenue, just one block to world-famous beaches and next to Waikiki's revitalized Beach Walk. Our pet-friendly Waikiki hotel features comfortable, air-conditioned studios and one bedrooms with WiFi internet access ($), private lanai balconies and fully-equipped kitchenettes with 2-burner stovetops (most), microwaves, and mini-refrigerators. You'll find the perfect setting for island leisure at our secluded outdoor swimming pool surrounded by swaying palms, banana trees and tropical flowers.
Why Stay With Us?
- One Block To Waikiki Beach
- Affordable Studios & 1 Bedrooms
- Fully Equipped Kitchenettes
- Pet-Friendly Hotel (dogs up to 30 lbs. $20/night)


text:
Man Snagged In Massive Manhunt Headed To Prison
By: Ken Curtis
Updated: September 26, 2012
A man who led officers on a high speed chase through rural Houston County almost a year ago was ordered to prison Wednesday on drug charges. Assistant District Attorney Banks T. Smith said Daryl Gumms received two 25-year sentences----one for manufacturing methamphetamine, the other for selling the illegal drug.
Circuit Judge Henry "Butch" Binford will allow Gumms to serve the sentences concurrently which, essentially, means a single 25-year prison term.
A manhunt targeting Gumms began after he fled from deputies while riding a motorcycle in southern Houston County. A few hours later, Gumms was stopped by an Alabama state trooper while driving a pickup truck then believed to be stolen.
Gumms, 35, pulled a gun on a trooper then fled on foot, becoming the target of a massive manhunt spanning about 12 hours. The search ended after Gumms, according to investigators, used a gun to force himself into a home near Webb. The woman who lived there called 9-1-1, and Gumms was taken into custody without incident a short time later.
Charges involving the taking of the pickup and forcing his way into the woman's home were dropped when a Houston County Grand Jury decided not to indict. No specific reason for the decision was cited, but its likely witnesses failed to cooperate with prosecutors. Gumms previously pleaded guilty to pulling the pistol of the trooper.


text:
REAL Program receives Government funding
Richmond's Korin Gamadji Institute (KGI) has received over $970,000 in funding from the Federal Government to continue its successful Richmond Emerging Aboriginal Leaders (REAL) program.
9:40am May 25, 2013
Richmond v Essendon snapshot
We take a look at the recent and not so recent history between the Tigers and the Bombers.
2:05pm May 24, 2013
Korin Gamadji Institute launches website
The Korin Gamadji Institute (KGI), Richmond's centre for Indigenous youth, has launched its own website.
11:35am May 24, 2013


text:
Australia - Events & What's On
Able Magwitch 70s Show Band 25 MAY 13
One of Brisbane's biggest bands from the 1970's has reformed. Able Magwitch is back playing the 70's classics that made them a household name. In the late 70's they were support act for Blondie,...read more
Its My Party (And I'll Die If I Want To)
Gruff , well ordered, quintessentially Aussie family man Ron has 111 minutes left to live. In a final gesture, he hosts a family party. As the minutes tick away, the party unravels to reveal a dysf...read more
Buddy 'N' Roy: Together 'n' Alone
From the producers of Buddy: The Concert, Johnny Cash: The Concert and The Class of 59, come and take a stroll down memory lane into the heady days of the fabulous 50s and the swinging 60s when Hap...read more
The Delltones
THE DELLTONES - The band that makes you feel good long after the show's over! Australia knew that it loved the Delltones way back in 1958 when four young lifesaver's appeared at the Bronte Surf ...read more
Emily-Rose Sarkova & Susanna Bishop at The Independent
Poetry and music have forever spoken so well together in song. Susie Bishop's evocative voice meets Emily-Rose Sarkova's expressive pianism in an exploration of the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé thro...read more
MMCP - Hairspray Music Show at Mackay
Mackay Musical Comedy Players 2013 Theatre Season Presents Hairspray By arrangement with Hal Leonard Australia Pty Ltd Exclusive Agent for Music Theatre International (NY) Music by MARC SHAIMAN ...read more
Ali McGregor's Alchemy (performs at COPACC)
On the back of her international tour of Jazz Cigarette, Ali McGregor creates a bold, sexy jazz reinvention in her dynamic new show. With Alchemy, Ali McGregor draws on her influences – from ope...read more
The Kransky Sisters at Twin Towns
Watch out! The Kransky Sisters are bringing their brand new-baked show to town! From Abba to Pink Floyd and Beyonce to AC/DC, these three eccentric sisters with their eclectic mix of instruments in...read more
Sydney Symphony Orchestra
Join the Sydney Symphony in Albury for one night only in this concert of popular orchestra favourites. Experience Beethoven's beautifull exploration of nature in the Pastoral Symphony and savour...read more
Grace Knight Music at The Abbey ACT
Grace Knight is one of the most enduring talents in Australian music. With Aria nominations and chart topping recordings in each of the past three decades, her career spans over thirty five years. ...read more


text:
But he responded with perhaps two of his best of the day in golf's version of overtime.
Weldon, the 2010 champion, double-bogeyed his final hole of regulation to finish the tournament at 8-under par and in a tie with Jaylon Ellison. But Weldon matched the Anniston, Ala. native for two holes of a sudden death playoff before winning the 76th Annual tournament on the third playoff hole at the LaFayette Golf Course.
"It feels great," Weldon said after handing the trophy to his daughter, Avrie. "I should have won this one a lot sooner tonight, but still, I played pretty well and it always means a lot to me to win out here."
Weldon hit two balls into a large section of green under repair on the par-4 18th hole before missing a 12-foot bogey putt that would have won him the title by one stroke. However, his putt slid just just past the cup and he tapped in for a six to tie Ellison for the lead after 36 holes.
After taking the 18-hole lead with a 7-under par 65 on Saturday, Weldon carded a 35 on the front nine on Sunday, but bogeyed the 13th hole and missed a short birdie putt on the par-3 14th after sticking his tee shot to within five feet of the flag.
However, he bounced back to birdie the next three holes and carried what he believed was a comfortable lead heading to the 18th tee.
Defending champion, Heath Jones, playing with Weldon in the final foursome of the day after an opening-round 69, birdied four of the first five holes on Sunday to briefly tie Weldon for the overall lead.
But the Trenton native would have to settle for bogey at the par-4 seventh after missing a short par putt, and he would bogey the par-4 ninth to finish the front nine at 2-under par. He couldn't find the magic on the back nine, though, recording eight straight pars before a bogey at 18 left him four shots off the lead.
Tre Lamb teed off with the final group on Sunday after a 5-under 67 on Saturday, and he recovered from an opening bogey on the par-5 first hole to eagle the par-4 third after driving the green.
But the former Calhoun High and current Tennessee Tech quarterback had three more bogeys and just two more birdies the rest of the day for an even par 72.
Josh Jackson, a two-time tournament champion, also began the day just two back after an opening-round of 67, but Jackson went out in 42 on Sunday and stumbled to a final round score of 3-over par 75.
Meanwhile, one group ahead, and unbeknownst to Weldon, Ellison, four shots back to start the day, was making a serious charge toward the top of the leaderboard.
Four birdies and two bogeys on Sunday's front nine put the former Jacksonville State University golfer at 5-under par overall at the turn, and he would collect birdies at 13, 14, and 15 before shooting par on the final three holes to end the round with a 67, tying him for lowes score of the day with former champion Ron Bohannon.
He then watched from the practice green as Weldon's bogey putt came up short, sending the tournament championship to extra holes.
"Heath was on fire to start out today," Weldon explained. "But when I got a birdie on No. 9 and Heath bogeyed it, I knew I was a few shots up on him. We just went on going with pars for a while, but then I got the three birdies in a row, and I'm thinking it's over going into the last hole because I thought I had a five-shot lead. I no idea what (Jaylon) was doing ahead of me. I guess it would have been nice to have known that information before I butchered 18."
Both players birdied the par-5 first hole, but Weldon's drive at the par-4 second missed the fairway and came to rest under some tree branches in deep rough to the left.
His low-runner from 155 yards out landed nearly 80 yards short of the green, but it kept bouncing and rolling before finally coming to rest just on the front edge of the green. He would two-putt to match Ellison's par, sending the match to a third playoff hole.
"I have no idea how that ball made it onto the green," Weldon admitted. "I had to use a 6-iron to keep it under the trees, and I had to hit it out of the deepest rough on the course, maybe six inches deep. But it must have come out with a lot of top spin or something, and it somehow it got to the green."
Both players' drives missed the narrow fairway to the right at No. 3. Ellison's shot nearly landed on the tee box on the seventh hole, while Weldon's drive ended up two feet to the right of the cart path in more difficult rough some 110 yards from the center of the green.
But a bump-and-run with an 8-iron again did the trick as it came to rest on the backside of the green, some 20 feet from the hole. Ellison, however, pitched his second shot short of the green, and another pitch left him with an eight-foot putt for par.
Weldon two-putted for his par, then looked away and held his breath as Ellison's attempt to extend the match just missed wide.
"I figured that the longer (the playoff) went on, the more I could get my composure and I'd be alright," Weldon said. "Sure enough, when he hit his tee shot right on No. 3, I knew he was as bad off as I was.
"I've had to play that 8-iron shot before, several times actually, and I was just glad it stopped on the green. I've had to go to playoffs in this tournament before and lost. I just had to find a way to regroup. I probably have more experience coming in second than anyone else out here, so I just tried to hang in there. Maybe that paid off for me today."
Jared Willerson took third place at 5-under (139) after beating Lamb on the third playoff hole. Willerson carded a 70 on Sunday after shooting a 69 on Saturday.
Jones and Ryan Cannington each shot a 1-under 71 on Sunday to finish at 4-under (140) for the tournament. Logan Killen shot rounds of 72 and 69 to finish at 3-under (141), while Jackson finished eighth overall at 2-under (142).
Past champion and tournament regular, Ken Maples, Jr., needed four extra holes to claim the first flight title at 1-under par (143), while Jeremy Reigger (151) won the second flight in a scorecard playoff.
A scorecard playoff was also needed in the third flight where Gary Carroll (159) was crowned the winner. The fourth flight was won by LaFayette High School golfer Kurt Ingram (169).
LaFayette Golf Course head pro, Eddie Jackson, said it was the one of the best Chicken Dinner tournaments he had ever been associated with.
"It's my eighth year running the tournament and it's by far the smoothest one we've ever had as far as weather, compliments, number of golfers, and quality of play," he explained. "It was a great tournament and you have to love it when it comes down to a playoff. We had two guys worthy to be the champion, but Shonn was able to find a way to get it done."
Many players in the tournament field wore orange ribbons on their hats in support of LaFayette High School student, Austin Whitten. Whitten, a 15-year-old rising sophomore, is currently paralyzed from the chest down due to a swimming accident last weekend.


text:
The 2011 Pam Ward Chronicles: Week 1
They're baaaaaaack! The Pam Ward Chronicles triumphantly return for a fifth season to document all the awful announcing and best quotes throughout the day in college football. Defending Pammies champ Chris Spielman will be in Columbus for Akron/Ohio State on ESPN at noon ET and you can check out all the games, times, and announcers at the link below. We will update the Pammies as we are able to with your comments in the thread and Tweets to us at AA throughout the day. Use the hashtag #PWAA to send in submissions via Twitter or leave a comment below. Make sure you also like your favorite quotes in the comments as well so they will be included for consideration in the weekly Pammies vote. Already we've started the 2011 Pammies with some great ones from the action earlier this week that will get us rolling!
Full Week 1 Announcing Schedule
"You've got to play football for sixty minutes every snap." - Andre Ware (via sctvman)
"I like to see a running back who has eyeballs in his shoes." - Craig James (via Brady Green)
"Pick up of a baker's dozen." - Rob Stone. That's 13 yards. (via sctvman)
"You have so many things going on in your mind, the last thing you're worried about is the play cock, the play clock..." - Danny Kanell (via bfinleyui)
"shootout in Waco" - Lee Corso with probably not the best choice of words (via sctvman)
"You can hear the smoke..." - Chris Rix (via Jeff Matthews)
"If I am coaching Ohio State..." - Urban Meyer with a prophetic word? (via sctvman)
"What's that saying you got about LSU" - Lee Corso
"Laissez les bon tomps roulez?" - Chris Fowler
"Lessait bot ton bray lay lay! Geaux Tigers" - Lee Corso, failing French 101


text:
a service of the Internet Archive
Sites for this collection are listed below. Narrow your results at left, or enter a search query below to find a site, specific URL or to search the text of archived webpages.
Page 1 of 1 (1 Total Results)
Sort By:
Captured 9 times between Aug 12, 2011 and Nov 30, 2012
Subject: Talbot County , Historical Societies, History, Eastern Shore
Page 1 of 1 (1 Total Results)


text:
Comedy Club Database
El Paso Comic Strip
Main | Schedule
Upcoming Shows
Dead-Frog on Facebook
Find Comedy Near You
Discover stand-up coming to your town
The 5 Funniest Comedians
Based on the Who's Funnier Game.
Louis C.K.
Steve Martin
See the 25 Funniest Comedians
Influence the rankings by playing Who's Funnier.


text:
All Are Welcome in This Place
The invitation we extend is the invitation we have received from Jesus Christ. Christ Lutheran Church invites you to be a part of this vibrant community of faith, whether you're old or young, rich or poor, straight or LGBT; you are welcome irrespective of work or education, race or ethnicity, and whether your faith is as established and sure as an oak, as nascent as an acorn, or pliable as a sapling. Join us on the journey!


text:
Only Show Me...
Travel Tools
Site Functions
Save time and money and book direct with the owners, verified private villas with pools, apartments, B&Bs and cottages worldwide today
Get superb deals on private cottages, apartments and holiday rentals in Florida, Spain, France, Tenerife, Italy, Portugal, Mexico, England UK and Florida Golf Coast, plus hundreds of amazing destinations worldwide.
Get Inspired – Book Geckoes Lodge in the superb rainforest setting of Puerto Viejo Talamanca Costa Rica, just minutes from the beach.
Featured Travel Review
Excellent Time At Calabay Palms Holiday Villa in Florida Orlando USA
We spent an amazing two weeks staying here. The villa is wonderful and the perfect oasis to the busy and hectic world of the... read more
Holiday Rentals Hot Spots
Sign Up Now
Featured Rental
Member Options
Get our monthly newsletter with travel reviews, tips, holiday offers plus lots more...