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Communication Technology and Policy 2004 Abstracts
Communication Technology and Policy Division
The Online Shopping Profile in the Cross National Context: The Role of Innovativeness and Perceived Newness • Brian F Blake, Kimberly Neuendorf, Colin Valdiserri and Jillian Hughes, Cleveland State University • A study in five nations (Taiwan, Canada, USA, Iran, and Austria) develops a method of profiling online shoppers by their "typical"/"atypical" activity. The role of innovativeness and two dimensions of perceived newness (novelty and recency) is examined; findings refute the operation of domain-specific innovativeness as predicted. Novelty and recency do not moderate the prediction of usage from innovativeness as expected. Important cross cultural differences maintain.
The Transparent Gate: Online and Print Editions at Two Central Florida Newspapers • Matthew Blake, University of Florida • This study examines the relationship between the content in the print and Internet editions of two central Florida newspapers, representing unique classes of circulation size and corporate ownership. The researcher examined individual stories in both formats, looking at story location, and the source of written and graphical content. The findings suggest that online newspapers differ in the sources and local emphasis of content based on newspaper circulation size.
Presentation of Self on the Web: An Ethnographic Study of Teenage Girls' Weblogs • Denise Bortree, University of Florida • Through their use of weblogs, teenage girls are bringing elements of their offline relationships online and incorporating new ways of communicating into their relationships. As the girls use this new medium to construct themselves and their relationships, they must address the dual nature of weblog as a tool for interpersonal communication and mass communication. This paper presents an ethnographic study of 40 weblogs, an in-depth analysis of weblogs, and a set of 13 in-depth interviews.
University TV on the Internet: A New Approach to Multimedia Online Journalism and Education • Antonio Brasil, Rutgers University • This paper describes the Rio de Janeiro State University Online Television , the first online university television operating in Brazil. It is part of an ongoing research study of the introduction of online journalism in Brazil and the related consequences in terms of journalism education. This academic project is developing new experimental digital formats, audiovisual languages, grammar and concepts for the future of television on the Internet.
The Half-life of Internet Footnotes • Michael Bugeja and Daniela Dimitrova, Iowa State University • This exploratory study examines use of online citations, focusing on 2003 AEJMC papers accepted by the Communication Technology and Policy division. Authors analyze papers using URL reference addresses in bibliographies and document some 40% of online citations being unavailable a year later. Results show that .edu is the most stable domain. Reasons for "dead" URL addresses also are explored. Finally authors offer recommendations for researchers who use Internet citations.
The Liberalization of Cellular Phone Services in Taiwan: A Political-Economic Perspective • Li-Yuan Chang, SUNY-Buffalo University • Taiwan's cellular phone liberalization occurred at the late 1990s. This research adopts state theory's perspective to explain the political and economic conditions that lead to Taiwan government's reforms of mobile communication. The study found that the liberalization of cellular phone service reflected a complicated negotiation process among domestic economic power and the transnational economic capitalism. The economic dominants still maintain their power but in different forms.
Letters to Sarah: Analysis of E-Mail Responses to an Online Editorial • Hill Filiz Cicek, Christine Ogan and Muzaffer Ozakca, Indiana University; Sarah Shields, University of North Carolina at Chapel • An editorial that opposed the violence being perpetrated on the Palestinians by the Israeli government that was written on the Common Dreams web site prompted several hundred email responses to the author. The essay had been reposted to many listservs and other web sites. In a case study approach we track the repostings and analyze the responses to that editorial to determine the nature of the discourse in an electronic environment.
Regulation – No Regulation: The Swinging Pendulum of Regulating the Internet and Online Content • Maria Fontenot, University of Tennessee • The debate over children and media content continues with global use of the Internet. This paper examines attempted government regulation of the Internet and looks at efforts of the private sector. It also examines two Supreme Court decisions related to the statutes. It identifies regulatory patterns and addresses what lies ahead for cyberspace regulation. Content-based regulations will be nearly impossible to employ. Currently, only the private sector has been successful.
Choices Non-Commercial Radio Broadcasters Make When Deciding to Offer Internet Audio • Keith Greenwood and Kelly Marsh, University of Missouri • An internet survey was conducted to determine why non-commercial radio broadcasters that also provide audio content on the internet chose to do so, how the content is delivered to the audience and their satisfaction with the experience. Respondents chose to provide audio content on the internet for audience expansion and convenience. More respondents host the content within some division of their organization rather than using an outside provider and are generally satisfied with their experiences.
Same Problem, Different Solutions: An Analysis of College and University Responses to Music Piracy • Erica Gregory, North Carolina at Chapel Hill • In recent months, copyright infringement lawsuits against college students and increased media coverage about campus music piracy have prompted concern among college and university administrators. This paper reviews the various means by which higher-education institutions have responded to the problem and analyzes those responses. The study concludes that current institutional responses to music piracy are not likely to both satisfy legal requirements and affect the desired behavioral changes on campuses.
Experiencing interactive Advertising Beyond Rich Media: Impacts of Ad Type and Presence on Brand Effectiveness in 3D Gaming Immersive Virtual Environments • Dan Grigorovici and Corina Constantin, Pennsylvania State University • The present study reports the findings of a 2 X 2 mixed factorial design with ad type (billboard vs. product placement) and IVE arousability level (high vs. low arousing 3D worlds) as independent variables and brand recall, recognition and preferences as dependent variables. Presence was used in all analyses as covariate. Results support the distinction between brand effects due to ad type. Theoretical and practical implications are further discussed.
Pretty Pictures or A Lot of Other Really Cool Stuff: Issues of Adoptability and Substitutability Facing HDTV and DTV • Robert Hall, Indiana State University • Adoption of DTV is fraught with numerous obstacles. Many studies and market forecasts have used color television as a model in predicting adoption of DTV and HDTV. This paper examines a significant difference between the adoption of HDTV/DTV and color—the different degree of substitutability. Other adoption characteristics are also considered in examining the adoptability of HDTV and DTV.
Using Interactive Media to Promote Health Behavior: The role of Motivation, Information Seeking, and Interpersonal Communication • Jeong Yeob Han and Eunkyung Kim, University of Wisconsin at Madison • This research examines the relationships among motivations for health web use (treatment and diagnosis motivation), information seeking, interpersonal communication, and overall health promotion within the context of Internet health communication. Regression path analysis revealed that both health information seeking and interpersonal communication are considered to be the essential route that mediates the effect of two motivations, where two motivations have marginally significant but direct influences on overall health promotion.
The Mass Media and Nanotechnology: A Small Relationship with Big Potential • Diane Hickey, University of Florida • This paper explores the relationship between the media coverage and the National Nanotechnology Initiative policy. Sources from government, the media and various entities associated with nanotechnology were interviewed to determine their perceptions of the media's impact on the recent nanotechnology policy passed into law. Participant responses indicate that the media has influenced the legislation to some extent, though other media sources have had a greater impact than the mass media.
The Influence of Structural and Message Features on Web Site Credibility • Traci Hong, Indiana University • In a with-in subjects experiment 84 participants actively located Web sites based on two search tasks. Web sites were then content analyzed for message and structural features associated with source credibility. For both searches, message features predicted Web site credibility. Advertisements and structural features had no significant effect. Institutional-affiliated domain names predicted Web site credibility but only in the search that required more cognitive ability.
The E-Rate Program: A School Menu of Choices • Krishna Jayakar, Pennsylvania State University • Over the past five years, the E-Rate program has helped reduced the digital divide in America's schools. However, a number of controversies, most recently allegations of fraud, have led to calls for the program's reform. This paper compares four of these policy proposals, and recommends among other things that the future effectiveness of the E-Rate program may be best served by enabling a shift of funding from telecommunications access to software and content development.
Convenience, Recreational and Ambivalent Features: Classifying E-Commerce Web Site Features according to Their Effects on Online Browsing Behavior • Junghyun Kim, Michigan State University • The present study examined the relationship between web site features and shoppers' browsing behavior at e-commerce web sites. It distinguished convenience features that are likely to encourage convenience-oriented shopping from recreational features that might promote impulsive shopping. The analysis of sixty-one leading e-commerce web sites showed that three types of features coexisted at e-commerce sites: convenience features, recreational features and ambivalent features supporting both types of shopping at once.
Trust, Efficacy, and Online Political Activities: How People with Low Political Trust Participate in Alternative Online Political Activities • Eunkyung Kim and Jeong Yeob Han, University of Wisconsin at Madison • This study examines the interaction effects between political trust and self-efficacy on communicative, civic conventional, and civic unconventional online political activities. As Gamson's mobilization hypothesis suggested, the effect of political distrust on civic unconventional online political activities was amplified when political self-efficacy presents. Notably, we found the potential for Internet environments to mobilize citizen with high political self-efficacy and low political trust to become politically involved in communicative online activity.
Saving E-Mail: An Evaluation of the Constitutionality of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 • Martin Kuhn, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • In response to tremendous political and popular pressure for the federal regulation of spam, the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 was passed and took effect in January 2004. This paper asks whether the CAN-SPAM Act will survive intermediate scrutiny under the Central Hudson test. It predicts the Act will be found unconstitutional for failing to directly advance government interests in controlling spam and because viable alternatives to commercial speech regulation exist.
Statewide Public Affairs Television: How the Diffusion of Technology Expands the Definition of Journalism • David Kurpius and Karen Rowley, Louisiana State University • An examination of six states — five with statewide public affairs television and one nearing start-up — shows that recent innovations in broadcast technology have enabled them to set up their operations with minimal resources. Despite this, most disseminate broadcast-quality coverage of their respective state governments. This study concludes that the diffusion of innovation in broadcast technology has helped these organizations expand the diffusion of information about state government and the definition of journalism.
Honey, I Shrunk the World: The Relationship between Internet Use and International Engagement • Nojin Kwak, Nathaniel Poor and Marko Skoric, University of Michigan • Findings of this study have demonstrated the Internet matters for international engagement. According to the results, the Internet helped users increase their knowledge around the world, facilitated their sense of belonging to the collective, and motivated them to be willing to participate in international events. Further, findings suggested that younger users of the Internet tended to get benefited more than older users from reading international news on the Internet with respect to international engagement.
Sharing or Stealing? Understanding Downloading Behavior • Robert LaRose, Ying-Ju Lai, Ryan Lance Lange, Bradford Love and Yuehua Wu, Michigan State University • File sharing was analyzed through a new model of media behavior. In a multiple regression that explained 25 percent of the variance, downloading activity was positively related to deficient self-regulation and expected social outcomes. Downloading was lessened by perceptions of social unacceptability and expectations of poor quality downloads. Discontinuation of file sharing was predicted by fear of punishment, but skilled and habitual downloaders were unlikely to discontinue.
Keeping Our Network Safe: A Model of Online Safety Behavior • Doohwang Lee and Robert LaRose, Michigan State University • The present research develops and tests a model of online safety behavior drawn from Protection Motivation Theory and Social Cognitive Theory. Protective self-efficacy, coping response efficacy, perceived vulnerability to virus attacks, and prior experience with such attacks were the most important predictors of using virus protection. However, anticipated frustration with virus protection measures was negatively related to their utilization. Combined, these variables explained 47 percent of the variance in intentions to use virus protection.
Character-Based Group Identification and Referent Informational Influence in Computer-Mediated Communication • Eun-Ju Lee, University of California at Davis • In a 2 (participant's gender: male vs. female) x 2 (partner's character: male vs. female) between-subjects experiment, participants played a trivia game with an ostensible partner. People exhibited stronger group affiliation with the partner whose character represented the same gender as their own, despite its mismatch with their physical gender. Furthermore, group identification enhanced perceived competence of the partner and acceptance of partner's opinions. Implications for the Social Identity model of Deindividuation Effects are discussed.
Government Surveillance and Data-Mining Since 9-11 • Laurie Thomas Lee, University of Nebraska at Lincoln • Since the 1960s, privacy rights have been increasingly recognized, but this protection ended on 9-11. The Patriot Act and other initiatives were introduced, but a public outcry ensued. Is the privacy pendulum now swinging back? This paper addresses the most recent foreign intelligence programs that threaten individual privacy: Patriot II, Terrorism Information Awareness, and Matrix. The provisions of each of these programs are analyzed. Suggestions for restoring the privacy balance follow.
Relationship between Disclosure Dimensions and Physical and Psychological Health in an Online Breast Cancer Support Group • Janice Liebhart, Suzanne Pingree, Robert Hawkins, Fiona McTavish and David Gustafson, University of Wisconsin at Madison • This study evaluated whether or not dimensions of disclosure predicted changes in the physical and emotional experience of illness for women participating in an online breast cancer support group (n=77). Although the level of positive emotion expressed positively predicted changes in physical well being, contrary to expectations, level of disclosure depth negatively predicted this outcome, and positive affect in interaction with risk factor negatively predicted both outcomes. Online health research is needed.
The Foundations of Participatory Journalism and the Wikipedia Project • Andrew Lih, Hong Kong University • This paper investigates the evolution of many-to-many online participatory journalism, by focusing on the case of Wikipedia, a multilingual, online encyclopedia created collaboratively by thousands of ordinary Internet users. It analyzes the synergistic links to the open source movement, emergence as a unique online community and role in the modern media ecology. It concludes with an interpretation of participatory journalism as an ecosystem of technology, community and content.
Exploring the Dynamics of Webcasting Adoption • Carolyn Lin, Cleveland State University • This study explored the profile of webcasting adopters, the potential predictors of webcasting adoption, and audience interest in local webcast features, via a national telephone survey. Study results found that webcasting adopters suited the profile of "early adopters" of online technology; personal innovativeness, perceived utilities of webcasting and online-use level were also revealed as significant predictors of webcasting adoption.
The Dynamics of the 3G Wireless Standards Competition in China and Its Implications for Telecommunications Policy • Chun Liu and Feng Wu, Pennsylvania State University • This paper is one of a series of working articles that study the rapid transition of China's telecommunication service market. This paper will identify different stakeholders and their goals in China's 3G standards setting, address their strategies and predict the outcome.
Pricing, Content And Identity Issues At U.S. Newspapers—A Survey Of Managers • Jack Lovelace and Kirk Hallahan, Colorado State University • A survey (n=106) of editors/managers at America's largest online newspapers examined opinions of senior online executives about pricing and content practices and the identity of online versions of newspapers. Findings suggest that online editors are divided about future pricing practices, but feel strongly that archival access should and will require payment. Online content will continue to include both original material and information from the print edition.
Internet Technology and Long-Arm Jurisdiction: Are New Standards Required? • Robert Magee, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • The growth of the Internet has begun to change the nature of personal interaction, and courts have sought to interpret the legal notion of minimum contacts, a key element in determining long-arm jurisdiction, while taking into account the many ways people can have an effect on one another across geographic boundaries. Is the presence of a website changing the way state courts are determining whether to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant?
Decentralized Campaigning from the Bottom Up: Assessing the Impact and Significance of the Howard Dean Campaign to Internet Politics and Online Campaigning • Sharon Meraz, University of Texas at Austin • Many political commentators have declared the year 2004 to be the year of Internet politics. This paper assesses the contributions Dean has made to Internet politics through examining his decentralized, bottom-up, open style of campaigning. By embracing social software to bridge the online and offline worlds, Dean revolutionized and reinvigorated a powerful grassroots movement, while becoming the trendsetter in the use of technology for both the democratic and republican parties.
Commercialization of Cyberspace: Experiences and Expectations of Young Consumers • Sally McMillan and Margaret Morrison, University of Tennessee • Today's college students are in a unique position to provide insight into the commercial development of the Internet. Seventy-two students wrote extended essays about their Internet use. The grounded theory approach was used for data analysis. Five axial codes were identified: ration, emotion, social interaction, personalization, and privacy/security. In the selective coding process, a single overarching concept was found: pervasiveness.
The Language of Online Privacy Polices: Ethics, Power and the Information Gap • Irene Pollach, Vienna Institute of Economics and Business Administration • Since the quality of online privacy policies may be critical to user trust in Web sites, this paper sets out to examine the communicative adequacy of privacy policies on commercial Web sites. The findings of a linguistic analysis suggest that companies abuse their power as data collectors and post ambiguously worded privacy policies which obscure the agency of actions and mitigate or enhance ethically questionable data handling practices.
Staged News and the Online Audience: Participatory Journalism's Criteria for "Misleading" Representations by Government Perception Managers at Times of Social, Political and Economic Stress • Larry Pryor and Stephen O'Leary, University of Southern California • The staging and manipulation of news events has reached an unprecedented degree of sophistication, posing ethical and practical dilemmas for journalists. This essay examines "staged news" in the media coverage of the Iraq conflict to assess the effectiveness of political propaganda in a media environment transformed by the Internet. We argue that new media shift the balance of power by creating an unregulated public sphere in which critical analysis of propaganda images can
Bringing an Old Model into the 21st Century: Rubin & Windahl's Uses and Dependency Model and the Internet • Sue Robinson, Temple University• Theorists have explored the Internet's macro impact on democracy. Others have scrutinized Internet use by individuals. This theoretical essay suggests a marriage of the two perspectives, examining the Internet from a socio-economic-structural view in which the individual is both an active and passive player dependent on this new medium. A 20-year-old theory, the Uses and Dependency model by Rubin & Windahl (1986), could well uncover the Internet's implications for democracy and society.
Rethinking Interactivity: An Examination of Interactivity in Early Broadcast Radio • Charlene Simmons, Univeristy of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • In the last two decades the broadcast industry has attempted to create new interactive technologies. Yet is interactivity new? The purpose of this paper was to examine early broadcast radio to determine whether the medium attempted to interact with listeners. Research found early radio to be more than a medium broadcasting message to a passive mass audience. It was also an interactive medium allowing listeners to take an active role in their listening experience.
The Political J-Blogger • Jane Singer, University of Iowa • As Web logs or "blogs" gain popularity, more journalists are becoming bloggers. Through content analysis of twenty "j-blogs" covering politics or civic affairs, this study explores how the format affects traditional journalistic norms and practices, focusing on non-partisanship, transparency and the gatekeeping role. Although expressions of opinion are common, most journalists are seeking to remain gatekeepers even in this highly interactive format. Political j-bloggers use links extensively – but mostly to other mainstream media sites.
Effects of Hypertext Structure and Learning Style on Learning from Online Instructional Materials • Carmen Stavrositu, Pennsylvania State University • A 2 (learning style) X 3 (hypertext structure) experiment was conducted in order to determine how learning is affected in an online environment. Results reveal strong evidence that the hypertext structure of a Website plays a crucial role in how people learn from online contents. Further, learning style was shown to be a key individual difference variable: active and passive learners do not learn the same way from online materials.
Municipal information Web Sites and the Language Divide • Amanda Sturgill, Baylor University• This paper examines the availability of foreign language information on municipal web sites for the largest cities in the United States. An examination of these websites found that very few had information in Spanish and fewer had information in other foreign languages. There was no relationship between presence of foreign-language information and percent of the population living in households without an English speaker. The implications of these findings for English-challenged Americans are discussed.
Rural Voters' and Local Elections on the Internet: Implications for Web Site Design • Amanda Sturgill, Baylor University • As part of an effort to provide Internet-based election information to rural voters, this study asked more than 250 voters if and how they used the Internet to get information about the election. More than three-quarters of voters who answered primary election exit polls used the Internet, mostly from home. More than 25 percent used the Internet to get election-specific information. The relation of findings to designing an election information site are discussed.
How to Compete with Free: College Students' Views on Copyright Debate over P2P Music File Sharing • Dongkyu Sung, Minjeong Kim and Koang-Hyub Kim, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • The music industry has tried to extricate itself from the danger of losing its control over copyrighted music by launching a series of legal suits against music file sharing over peer-to-peer networks, including recent lawsuits against individual users. This paper explored how college students, many of whom have been engaged in music file sharing legally or illegally, understood these lawsuits and the copyright issues over digital music.
Information and Communication Technology and Public Policy: Diffusion of Broadband in the U.S. and Korea • Eunjung Sung and George Barnett, SUNY at Buffalo • Broadband has become an essential component of information and communication technology, as well as an important issue for national technology policies, in the 21st century. What are the reasons for the differences between the U.S. and Korea in terms of diffusion of broadband? This study compared communication technology policy as the main factor influencing the adoption of broadband in the U.S and Korea. Differences and directions of the policy between two countries were discussed.
China's National Information Infrastructure Initiative: Informatization with Chinese Characteristics • Zixue Tai, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville • Information revolution with the Internet at its forefront has led nation-states to develop their own National Information Infrastructure initiatives over the past decades. These initiatives reflect different rationales, visions, and strategies in embracing the new information age. This paper examines China's informatization effort to build a Chinese National Infrastructure by maximizing economic and technological gains through internationalizing while at the same time minimizing political risks to a repressive regime by localizing with content control.
The Fate of Rural America in the Information Age: An Introduction and Preliminary Application of the 4Cs Theory • Marsha Tate and Sheila Sager, Pennsylvania State University • Using data gathered for five rural counties in North Dakota and Pennsylvania, this paper frames rural high-speed Internet access in terms of the 4C's theory: context, connectivity, capability, and content. Our analyses suggest that there are significant variations between the two states and among individual counties. Nonetheless, despite these variations, in order to sustain socio-economic success, each of the 4C's must be considered both individually and collectively in all of the cases.
The Role of Mobile Communication in International Telecommunication: Applying an Aspect of the World Systems Perspective • Varsha Tickoo, SUNY at Buffalo • The aim of the present paper is to examine the structure of the telecommunication network of the world in relation to global cellular phone usage. The core-periphery aspect of the world-systems theory is utilized here. Data concerning telecommunication flow and cellular phone subscriptions for 105 countries is analyzed and the results are discussed in a world-systems context, demonstrating the core-periphery structure of the telecommunication system and its relation with cellular phone usage.
SWIFTIES Online: Using Vietnam War Snapshots to Create a Virtual Community for Swift Boat Sailors • Jennifer Tiernan, University of Oklahoma • Vietnam veterans created thousands of personal snapshot images during the Vietnam War that document individual wartime experience. This paper explores how Vietnam-era Swift Boat veterans use their snapshot images and computer mediated communication to revisit wartime experiences and reconnect with their past. In the process, this group is creating a virtual interpretive community of Vietnam veterans who share common experiences and interpretations of the Vietnam War.
News Web Sites as Gated Cybercommunities • Mark Tremayne, University of Texas at Austin • This study tested emerging network theory against a sub-sample of the Web: stories on national news Web sites. It found that news Web stories contain links to external sites less frequently than just a few years ago. As each organization builds up its own archive of Web content, this material appears to be favored over content that is off-site.
Untangling Interactivity on the Web • Mark Tremayne, University of Texas at Austin • Two recent conceptualizations of interactivity propose that it resides in three elements of the communication process: channel structures, messages, and user perceptions. It is argued here that considering each of these as parts of one variable introduces confound that may obscure the effects of interactivity. An alternative model for interactivity research is proposed along with ways to measure interactivity on the Web.
Gender Differences in Need for Acceptance and the Use of Computer-Mediated Communication • Mina Tsay, Bimal Balakrishnan, Keston Pierre, Joy Vincent-Killian, Pennsylvania State University • This study examines how gender differences color an individual's need for acceptance, the frequency and purpose of CMC use, sense of presence, and perception of CMC as a social medium. Survey (N=138) findings show that gender predicts the need for belonging and CMC use. This study suggests that incorporating applications which improve perception of CMC as a social medium may enhance their appeal as a means for gratification, leading to greater CMC use.
Health Information Credibility and Influence via the Internet, Part I: Web Variables • Joseph Walther, Zuoming Wang and Tracy Loh, Cornell University • Concerns over health information on the Internet have generated efforts to enhance credibility. How users actually assess credibility for online health information is unknown. In this study we refined a health site credibility measure and tested effects of domains and advertisement presence in two illness-related topics. Interaction effects suggest that credibility depends to a great extent on topic and the joint effects of domain and advertising.
Values, Lifestyles and New Media: A Psychographic Analysis of the Adoption and Use of Wireless Communication Technologies in China • Ran Wei, University of South Carolina • This study examines the relationship between lifestyles of Chinese consumers and the ownership and use of pagers and cell phones. Using a probability sample of 7,094 respondents, the study shows that consumers who pursue fashion-conscious, information-oriented and Westernized lifestyles tend to integrate pagers and cell phones into their lives to achieve social differentiation. Multivariate results further suggest that pursuit of particular lifestyles motivates cell phone and pager use.
The Agenda-Setting Function of Controversial Websites: Media Exposure, Levels of Agenda-Setting Process, and Behavioral Consequences • Tae-Il Yoon and Jae, C Shim, Korea University • This study reports the agenda-setting function of controversial websites. The more often respondents were exposed to websites advocating a controversial issue, the more likely they were to perceive the issue as important (= issue agenda-setting) and to agree with the issue (= attribute agenda-setting). In addition, those who perceived the controversial issue as important and agreed with the issue were more likely to express intentions to participate in issue-related activities online and offline.
Uses and Gratifications and Exposure to the Internet: A Discrepancy Approach • Xingpu Yuan, Southern Illinois University • This study adopted a discrepancy approach which made a distinction between gratifications sought (GS) and gratifications obtained (GO) and examined how the GO–GS discrepancy is related to people's Internet use and Internet affinity. Several other variables, including income, duration of Internet use and skill at using the Internet were also tested as predictors. It was found that the GO–GS discrepancy significantly predicted Internet affinity but not Internet use.
What's Behind the "Great Firewall": Discovering and Interpreting China's Internet Media Policies • Lena Zhang, San Francisco State University • China's Internet blocking raised concern of cyber society. To unfold what's happening behind the foggy "Great Firewall," this research provides unusual in-depth insights from inside through face-to-face interviews of 18 key Chinese Internet policymakers about China's Internet content policy – its nature, making process, major driving forces and the trend in the context of China's transforming social environment. It's the first research approach of its kind on the topic.
Advertising 2004 Abstracts
Advertising Division
Are Product Placements Too Subtle to Persuade? Proposing Strength of Association as a Measure of Effectivess • Anna V. Andriasova and Carson B Wagner, University of Texas at Austin • Perhaps due to product placements' subtlety, studies have been unable to demonstrate changes in self-reported attitudes. However, ad research suggests placements may favorably persuade viewers less consciously and change product-related strengths of association. To test this hypothesis, a two-condition between-participantsps experiment (N=43) was run comparing SOAs of those who watched a placement to those of a control. Findings show that placements can change SOA, and viewers' SOAs were predicted by their character and program responses.
Rich Media, Poor Media: The Impact of Audio/Video vs. Text/Picture Testimonial Ads on Browsers' Evaluations of Commercial Web Sites and Online Products • Osei Appiah, Ohio State University • There has been some debate among advertisers concerning the practicality, necessity, and effectiveness of using multimedia on Internet Web sites. Given most companies have been slow to use multimedia features on their site, it seemed worthwhile to test whether this behavior is warranted by testing the impact of multimedia ads on a commercial Web site. In particular, this study attempted to test whether browsers' responses to multimedia like audio/video testimonial ads on a commercial Web site would significantly differ from their responses to either a commercial Web site with text/picture testimonials or a commercial web site with no testimonials. The findings indicated that Internet browsers were more likely to believe a site was targeting them, rate a site favorably, and more likely to express a desire to purchase the product when the site contained audio/video testimonials than they were when the site contained either text/picture testimonials or no testimonials.
From Fabulously Entertaining to Freakishly Annoying: Consumer Responses to Six Online Advertising Formats • Kelli S. Burns, Elon University; and Richard J. Lutz, University of Florida • This study gathered descriptive data on the perceptual antecedents of attitudes toward six online advertising formats and tested the ability of perceptions to predict attitude toward the format (Aformat) using a national survey of 1,075 adults. The data supported the three hypotheses. Web users possess significantly different attitudes across formats. Users hold a varied combination of perceptions about each format. Furthermore, the three perceptions of entertainment, annoyance, and information have a significant impact on Aformat.
Sex in Magazine Advertising: 1983 to 2003 • Courtney Carpenter and Tom Reichert, University of Alabama • Magazine advertisements from 2003 were content analyzed as a partial replication of a study that assessed sex in advertising in 1983 and 1993. As watchdog groups continue to be more vocal concerning indecency in advertising, and media in general, it is important to assess the state of sex in advertising since 1993. Overall, the findings indicate that female and male models are no more likely to be explicitly dressed, or engaged in sexual contact, from 1993 to 2003, despite overall increases from 1983 to 2003. In addition, sexual content continues to be more explicit and prevalent in women's and men's magazines. In 2003, for instance, 78% of women in men's magazine were sexually attired.
Sensation Seeking Targeting and Fear Appeal of Anti-Smoking Public service Announcement Messages for Young Adults • Youjin Choi, University of Florida; Glen T. Cameron, University of Missouri; Glenn Leshner, University of Missouri; and Michael T. Stephenson, Texas A&M University • High sensation value messages, and high fear appeal based on threat messages are used to prevent high sensation seekers from committing risky behavior because high arousal potential of high sensation value/threat messages may satisfy their need for intense stimulation. Through experiments with young adults, this study examined moderating effects of sensation seeking on the influence of anti-smoking public service announcements on information processing and attitudes toward the messages. There was no differential effect of sensation seeking on information processing and attitudes to the different levels of message sensation value/threat. Regardless of sensation seeking level of the research participants, high sensation value/threat messages were effective than low sensation value/threat messages.
Affective and Cognitive Effect of Humor in Advertisement: Role of Brand Familiarity • Hwiman Chung, New Mexico State University; and Xinshu Zhao, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Although the effects of the humorous ad have been a popular topic among advertising scholars, results have been mixed. This study also tried to understand the effects of humorous advertisement, especially on consumers' attitude, memory and cognitive responses. 1n particular, this study tried to understand the effect of brand familiarity on humor effects. It was hypothesized that the consumer's attitude and cognitive responses will be moderated by brand familiarity. Study results support that brand familiarity moderates the effects of humorous advertisement in terms of attitude and cognitive responses.
Ad Skipping and satisfaction among TiVo users by length of ownership • Douglas A. Ferguson, College of Charleston; and Elizabeth M. Perse, University of Delaware • A national sample of 61 DVR users completed an online survey that measured length of ownership, viewing satisfaction, and attitudes toward DVR functions. When compared to earlier samples totaling 198 users, DVR owners continued to report watching television live and recorded, with more enjoyment and greater control. Satisfaction remains a significant predictor of ad-skipping but the novelty factor may be mitigating. Length of ownership is associated with a small decline in ad-skipping behavior.
Who? Sees what products? In which content? And under what conditions? A Broader Product Placement Framework • Tracey Leigh Fisher and Carson B Wagner, University of Texas at Austin • Researchers have developed various typologies for studying product placement effects, but none may be sufficiently broad so as to account for all meaningful variations in placements, their reception by different viewers in different situations, and the outcomes of viewing. The present essay proposes a more comprehensive framework aimed at overcoming such limitations — and it reviews and situates prior placement research accordingly — in order to provide a helpful guide for the study of placement effectiveness.
Black Female and Black Male Prototypes: How Primetime Network Television Commercials Force Black Characters into the Cultural Mainstream • Dennis Ganahl, Sara Baker Netzley, William Hoon and Kwangok Kim, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale • This content analysis examined 84 hours of primetime television in 2000 to determine what prototypical – or ideal – images of Black men and Black women were presented in commercials. The study found a prototype of tall, dark, and outgoing Black men, and fair, petite, and quiet Black women. Many of the ethnic Black hairstyles, clothing, and speech patterns have been exchanged in favor of the predominant mainstream culture. In addition, a "pecking order" in the commercials emerged, starting with White men, and moving down to White women, Black men and Black women.
The conceptual overlap in promotion between marketing and marketing communications: Does it extend to an overlap in research? • Brian K. Hensel, University of Missouri • This study examined the extent to which "marketing communications" journals and general marketing journals cited each other. It found the greatest degree of interdisciplinary citation to be between selected marketing journals and a prominent advertising journal. The advertising journal cited (and was cited within) marketing journals to a much greater degree than it cited (and was cited within) selected mass communication and public relations journals. The data suggest that advertising may conceive itself as more within a marketing paradigm than a communications paradigm. Public relations research, on the other hand, was found to be isolated from both marketing and advertising research. Potential implications of the degree of interdisciplinary citation between research in marketing, advertising, and public relations are described and discussed.
News Bias and Advertising: Consumer and Media Professional Perceptions of Rub Off Effects • Jisu Huh, Denise E. DeLorme, Sarah M. Smith and Leonard Reid, University of Georgia • This paper determines if consumers and media professionals perceive bias in news; documents if those perceptions are harmful to advertising and if negative perceptions of advertising are harmful to news; explores perceptual differences based on predispositions and demographics; and compares consumers' and media professionals' perceptions. Survey results indicate that professionals view news quality more favorably and perceive less bias than consumers; consumers are neutral but professionals disagree that news bias is harmful to advertising; and predictors of consumer perceptions of bias rub off effects differ from those of professionals.
Quarter Position Effect during Super Bowl Broadcast: How adverting effectiveness changes as a game goes on • Yong-Ick Jeong, Koang-Hyub Kim and Xinshu Zhao, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • The primary goals of this study are to investigate the ad effectiveness originating from placing ads in different game segments and to suggest marketing implications based on these game segment position effects, especially in media planning strategy. The primacy effects were observed from the results. The brands advertised in earlier quarters are more remembered than those in later quarter. However, ad liking is not related with the quarter based position. Marketing implications for the results are discussed.
Exploring Culture's Influence on Standardization Dynamics of Creative Strategy and Execution in International Advertising • Jing Jiang and Ran Wei, University of South Carolina • The dynamic relationship between the degree of standardization in creative strategy and standardization of execution was modeled and tested in this study using Nokia advertisements from two culturally different countries, the United States and China. Results show that the International Branding Strategy characterizes Nokia's advertising campaigns -— standardized in creative strategy, but localized in execution in each culturally different market. More important, this study examines the influence of culture separately on the degree of standardization of creative strategy and of execution. Culture seems to have a greater impact on executions than that on creative strategies. These results have practical implications for international advertisers: It is profitable to develop a unified single creative strategy to be employed on a global scale as long as they take culture into account in executions. The more culturally different the target market is from the home country, the more localized the executions should be.
Celebrity Product Incongruence and the Effectiveness of Celebrity Endorsement • Jung-Gyo Lee, University of North Florida; and Esther Thorson, University of Missouri at Columbia • The present study examined how different degrees of celebrity-product congruence influence the persuasiveness of celebrity endorsements. The schema-congruity framework suggested by Mandler provides the theoretical basis for suggesting that a moderate mismatch between a celebrity's image and a product's image would produce more favorable responses to advertisements than would either a complete match or an extreme mismatch. This study also looked at how consumer characteristics, namely an individual's own levels of enduring involvement with a product category, moderate schema (in)congruity effects. Two experiments that used different types of match-up factors, physical attractiveness and expertise of a celebrity endorser, corroborated the inverted U-shaped relationship between schema congruity and affective responses.
Food for Thought: A Content Analysis of Food Advertising during Prime-Time Television • Wei-Na Lee, Eliana Shiao Tseng and Sejung Marina Choi, University of Texas at Austin • Today almost two-thirds of Americans are classified as overweight. While there are several known causes of obesity, food adversity on television has received a significant amount of criticism for its role in fueling the rise in obesity. The study reported in this paper examined the amount and general characteristics of food advertising and the actual nutritional content of the products advertised during prime-time programming on major networks. Results show that food advertising composed one quarter of the overall advertising during prime-time television. In general, food products advertised in prime-time television were unhealthy according to their actual nutritional content. Meanwhile, not surprisingly, the advertising messages for these products tended to employ taste/flavor/smell as the key promotional appeal instead of nutritional value. Implications of observations made in this study and suggestions for future research are provided.
Word-of-Mouth Advertising: A 50 Year Review and Two Theoretical Models for an Online Chatting Context • Gergely Nyilasy, University of Georgia • The purpose of this study is to investigate the conceptual and theoretical foundations of word-of-mouth (WOM) advertising and to propose two theories of online WOM in a chatting context. First, the extensive literature is reviewed and discussed within an integrative framework. Online WOM is then contrasted with offline conceptualizations, and a new definition for online WOM is offered. Utilizing attribution theory and theories of computer-mediated communication, two models of online WOM are proposed for an online chatting context.
Why McDonald Dropped Kobe Bryant: The Third-Person Effect of Celebrity Endorsers' Negative Information from Advertisers' Perspectives • Hye-Jin Paek, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Byoungkwan Lee, Michigan State University; Bong-Chul Kim, Chosun University and Charles T. Salmon Michigan State University • This study surveys advertisers to examine how their perception bias leads to their willingness to withdraw ads that feature a celebrity endorser tainted by a negative personal image. Based on the theoretical framework of "third person effects," the results show that advertisers perceive greater effects of a celebrity endorser's negative information on other advertisers and on consumers than on themselves. However, total effects rather than a self-other perceptual gap predicted the dependent variable. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
A Content Analysis of Content Analysis Research Published in Advertising Journals • Pumsoon Park, Kyoo-Hoon Han, Yongjun Sung, Hyeonjin Soh, University of Georgia • Content analysis is the fastest-growing research method in mass communication research. The present study investigates how and how much content analysis has been utilized in advertising research by reviewing all content analysis studies published in three major advertising journals from 1960 to 2002: Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising Research and Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising. Our results conclude that content analysis appeared in significant proportions in the three major advertising journals and it is becoming more popular among advertising researchers across decades and that content analysis is mostly used to describe tendencies or characteristics rather than to explain causal relationships or test theories.
Consumers' Use of Sponsorship Knowledge in an Internet Context: Antecedents and Consequences • Shelly Rodgers, University of Missouri at Columbia • The purpose of this research was to test a model of persuasion knowledge that identifies two antecedents and two consequences of sponsorship knowledge, a specific type of persuasion knowledge. A survey method was employed using a group of students and non-student adults. The results indicated that personal and professional experience, the antecedents, predicted persuasion knowledge. Persuasion knowledge, in turn, influenced perceived motives of the persuasion agent, which subsequently mediated perceptions of the agent. The findings are congruent with the Persuasion Knowledge Model and support the position that persuasion knowledge attainment and use are important factors in consumer behavior research.
The Petticoat Influence: The History And Agency Of Women In The Advertising Profession, 1880-1917 • Juliann Sivulka • This historical study examines how gender has operated in the development of the advertising profession from 1880-1917, but also considers the ways business has intervened in and shaped the construction of gender in American history. Women were the main consumers and carried the most decision-making power in households concerning consumer-product goods and services. Therefore it became critical that women have a voice that becomes recognized, listened to, and heard in the industry that tried to influence the decisions female consumers made. Paradoxically, women capitalized on gender conventions to enter the male-dominated world of advertising, providing the feminine viewpoint to sell products to the women's market.
Changing the Nature of Unreasoned Actions: A Test of the Anti-Drug Ad Viewing Styles Hypothesis • Carson B. Wgner, University of Texas at Austin • Anti-drug ad research has shown it is more difficult to establish strength of association (SOA) change as compared to changing self-reported attitudes, perhaps because the latter measures exaggerate effectiveness. Findings suggest that viewing anti-drug ads passively may result in SOA change, but the effect has not been demonstrated. To test this hypothesis, a two-condition between-participants experiment (N= 35) was run comparing SOAs of those who watched ads peripherally to those of a control group.
The Impact of Content Class on Reconciliation of Evaluative Inconsistencies • Alex Wang, University of Connecticut • This study examines the effect of evaluative inconsistency in different content classes on the strength of consumers' trust, believability, information diagnosticity, and attitude toward the information, as manifested in its ability to predict purchase intention. The results suggest that an apposing resolution of IMC strategy has to do with the likelihood of inconsistency reconciliation, that is, whether consumers are willing to pay greater cognitive effort to process inconsistencies with the goal of obtaining better information diagnosticity perceived in different content classes.
The Advertising Industry in Wartime: How Advertising During the Iraq War Was Framed in Advertising Industry Publications and Major National Newspapers • Jan LeBlanc Wicks and Boubacar Souley, University of Arkansas • Advertisers learned after September 11 that ads could suddenly become inappropriate when airing next to coverage of the attacks. This study examines how advertisers and advertising agencies framed or explained their Iraq War plans and activities to avoid complaints. The frames included the Distance frame whereby advertisers separated ads from war coverage and the Normalcy frame explaining why normal advertising activities should continue. The analysis suggests coverage was pro-industry and had few divergent viewpoints.
A Cross-Cultural Study Between American and Chinese College Students Regarding Television Viewing, Materialism, Beliefs and Attitudes Toward Advertising • Hongwei Yang and Dennis J. Ganahl, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale • A survey of 566 college students was conducted in a U.S. Midwestern public university and another survey of 312 college students was conducted in four Chinese universities to examine the relationships among television viewing, materialism, general beliefs about advertising and attitude toward television commercials. The surveys yielded surprisingly similar results. Television viewing was significantly correlated with materialism in both the United States and China. This finding suggests that television viewing cultivates college students' materialistic values in different cultural settings.
"Why Do They Hate Us?" International Attitudes Toward America, American Brands and Advertising • Jami A. Fullerton, Oklahoma State University • This study attempts to unravel the complex issues surrounding President Bush's question after 9/11 — "Why do they hate us?" by exploring international student attitudes toward "all things" American. A survey of 105 international students from various countries who were enrolled at Regents College in London, England in July 2003 was conducted to measure attitudes toward America, U.S. brands, media and advertising. The survey findings are analyzed herein to discover relationships between the measured attitudes and to determine if certain characteristics among international students make them more likely to "hate us."
Selling Truth: How Nike's Advertising to Women Accomplished the "Impossible" • Jean M. Grow and Joyce M. Wolburg, Marquette University • This study traces the evolution of three "big ideas" in Nike's advertising to women from 1990 to 2000: empowerment, entitlement, and emphasis on product. It also reveals the process from which the ads were created and the constraints upon that process from the agency creative team's perspective. It is the story of how the creative team used advertising to meet the marketing goals of the Nike brand by challenging social norms that define the role of women.
Behind the smile: Reading Cultural Values in Thai Advertising • Chompunuch Punyapiroje, Burapha University; and Margaret Morrison, University of Tennessee at Knoxville • This study investigates how Thai national cultural values are expressed in advertising messages. Three research questions are posed: Are values expressed in the message strategies of Thai commercials? If yes, how are these values presented in Thai commercials?; and, What relationship exists between message strategies and product categories? 225 Thai commercials were examined. Results suggest any investigation of Thai values must consider factors such as western values, economic situations, or social phenomenon influencing Thai society.
A is for Apple, B is for Boy and C is for Coke, Channel One and Commercialism: A Critical Assessment of the Historical Roots and Modern Developments of Advertising in Schools • Inger L. Stole and Rebecca Livesay, University of Illinois at Urbana at Champaign • During the past two decades, the commercialization of U.S. education has emerged as a frequently debated issue. This paper traces the history of advertising from its first occurrence in the 1920s to its modern day manifestations. In addition to exploring how and why advertising entered the nation's classrooms, and discuss some of the initial reactions to this form of educational material, the paper also explores the multitude and magnitude of advertising in schools that has taken place since the 1980s and addresses some of the ethical concerns associated with these developments.
Addressing Variant Learning Styles for Advertising and Public Relations Students • Joel Geske, Iowa State University • Learning styles serve as relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to the learning environment. The three modalities are Visual, Auditory or Haptic. Students in advertising and public relations (n=107) indicate a strong preference for haptic learning with almost no support for the auditory style — a predominant delivery method in college courses. Findings for these students are quite different from the general population. Two case study activities for haptic learning are included.
The Effect of Educational Background as Antecedent on the Job Satisfaction of Advertising Creatives • Thomas Hixson, University of Wisconsin at Whitewater; and Stephen Banning, Louisiana State University • This study examined the job satisfaction of advertising creatives, focusing on educational background as a possible cause for higher job satisfaction. It also examined the opinions of professionals in the field regarding their opinion of the most practical method of career training. Some academics have called for more liberal arts education for students in advertising as opposed to a strict focus on advertising. The survey was administered online. American Advertising Federation advertising creatives were contacted with information regarding the survey. One-hundred sixty one participants responded. While the advertising creatives had taken a variety of majors in school, the most common recommendation regarding advertising education was for straight advertising or Integrated Marketing Communication. Educational background appeared to have no effect on job satisfaction.
Integration of Advertising and Public Relations Curricula: A 2004 Status Report of Educator Perceptions • Phyllis V. Larsen, University of Nebraska at Lincoln; and Maria E. Len-Rios, University of Kansas • The communication environment has changed significantly in the last two decades. While many advertising and public relations professionals embrace a more integrated approach to communication, it is not clear how educators are responding. This study explored the current status of curriculum integration from the perspective of the educator. The most striking finding is a strong association between educator attitudes toward integration and the current level of integration at their institutions.
Teaching the Undergraduate Research Course for Advertising Majors: Course Content and Key Challenges • Brett Robbs and Kendra Gale, University of Colorado • Based on a survey of faculty teaching an undergraduate research course to advertising majors, this paper identifies desired outcomes and content priorities of those currently teaching the research course. Comparisons are made between courses designed for a range of majors and those designed specifically for advertising majors. Specific teaching challenges posed by this course are also discussed. Potential options for fine tuning the approach to this course are suggested.
The Portrayal of Men, Women and Children in Parents Magazine Advertisements: 2000 and 2003 • Brooke Clawson and Elizabeth Stohlton, Brigham Young University • A content analysis of full-page advertisements in the 2000 and 2003 editions of Parents magazine was conducted. The advertisements were analyzed according to gender, the representation of adults and children, race, and the adult's interaction and physical contact with the children. After the data was coded, SPSS was used to interpret the data. The data shows that men are underrepresented in magazine advertisements compared to women. When represented in ads, men were portrayed in stereotypical roles, and men were rarely shown alone with children. When interaction between men and children is portrayed, the interaction is friendly. The majority of the ads represent White men, women and children, and minorities are underrepresented.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: A Brand Development Model for Advertising? • Daniel Marshall Haygood, University of Tennessee • No abstract available.
College Students' Uses & Gratifications of Advertising • Jaime A Marshall, University of Central Florida • Employing Uses & Gratifications theory, this survey of 297 undergraduates sought to determine the primary reason why college students use the Internet, newspaper, radio, television and magazines for the purpose of understanding how advertising gratifies those needs. This study found that college students primarily use the Internet and newspapers for informational purposes while television, magazines and radio are utilized largely for entertainment. Moreover, respondents were more likely to pay attention to advertisements on mediums with a ritualized (entertainment) orientation rather than an instrumental (informational) orientation.
Information Processing Differences Between Internet and Magazine Advertisements Moderated by Selective Exposure • Jensen Moore, University of Missouri-Columbia • The current study proposes that selective exposure to advertising communications results in information processing differences between traditional and new media. Specifically, it examines information processing differences between magazine and Internet advertisements. This study uses a between-subjects experimental method to examine information processing differences moderated by selective exposure. Findings indicated higher selective exposure displayed when participants viewed online advertisements moderated recall and recognition differences between the two media. Implications for advertisers are discussed.
A Comparison of the Effects of Unsolicited E-mail and Postal Direct Mail on Consumer Advertising Evaluations • Mariko Morimoto and Susan Chang, Michigan State University • Using Psychological Reactance as the framework, this study sought to understand consumer attitudes towards two major direct marketing methods, unsolicited commercial e-mail (spam) and postal direct mail – in particular, perceptions of advertising intrusiveness, loss of control, and irritation. The results of this survey study indicated that in comparison, unsolicited e-mails were perceived as more intrusive and irritating than postal direct mail. In addition, participants did not indicate that they felt a loss of control regarding spam.
Attitude toward the Extension Ad: The Influence of Attitude toward the Parent Brand and Perceived Congruity • Xiaoli Nan, University of Minnesota • This paper investigates the impact of two factors on consumers' attitudes toward the ad for a brand extension: attitude toward the parent brand and perceived congruity between the brand extension and the parent brand. Results of an experiment employing 153 participants indicate that attitude toward the extension ad is more positive when attitude toward the parent brand is favorable (vs. unfavorable). In addition, attitude toward the extension ad is more positive when the extension is congruent (vs. incongruent) with the parent brand. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.
Where Does Political Speech End and Commercial Speech Begin?: A Re-Visit of Kasky v. Nike, Inc. • Yongjun Sung and Federico de Gregorio, University of Georgia • Kasky v. Nike, Inc. raises First Amendment issues of great importance to American corporations. The main issue of this case is whether speech by Nike in denying allegations about the "sweat shop" conditions in its overseas labor practice is commercial or noncommercial speech. The California Supreme court has ruled Nike's speech to be "commercial speech," thus not entitled to the same degree of protection as political speech under the First Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court, which had agreed to review the case, decided not to review the California court decision. This paper argues that the California Supreme Court ruling is unconstitutional because it would allow anyone to sue a company on the grounds that corporate statements about their business – not their products – may be false and misleading advertising.
Granting the Permission to Believe in Zionism: A Non-Traditional Analysis of the Strategy and Execution of a Zionist Poster Posted in Holocaust Survivor Camps in 1946 • Jason Berger, Kansas City, Missouri • With the continued violence in the Middle East between Palestinian and Israeli, we should use non-conventional research and analysis to understand the conflict. This paper is an analysis of a Zionist poster posted in Holocaust survivor camps in Western Europe. The poster begged in Yiddish the refugees to sit tight, not to worry, there will be a Jewish state in Palestine. The paper consists of two panels. On the left side, we see a dark, forbidden, impenetrable city. A lifeless refugee is being denied entry. In contrast, we see on the right side a refugee proudly entering the map of Palestine using the traditional "land of milk and honey" imagery. But there is more than meets the eye. Through using a host of advertising creativity models and stimulators along with a more literate and Jewish mystical form of analysis, this paper argues that the poster was indeed complex and, in essence, illustrated quite a sophisticated advertising strategy, creativity, and tactic which met the needs of the target.
Where Does Advertising End and Free Speech Begin?: A Case Study Analysis of the Troubling Nike v. Kasky Lawsuit • Anne Golden, University of Utah • Often, when a business entity is embroiled in a controversial issue, it pursues various strategies when communicating with the public. A business can try a defensive advertising campaign, paid advertorials, letters to the editor, or press releases while defending itself against a media onslaught. However, a recent Supreme Court decision has extended the false advertising laws in California so that now these laws apply, not only to paid advertisements, but also to other forms of communication with the media. This article discusses the ramifications of this decision to advertisers seeking to dialogue with media in the public sphere.
Branding at a Small Advertising Agency: A Big Agency Trapped Inside a Small Agency's Body? • Daniel Marshall Haygood, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • No abstract available.
"God Speaks:" A Case Study of a Public Service Campaign • Karen M Lancendorfer and Bonnie B Reece, Michigan State University • Public service campaigns, spanning 60 years and thousands of mass media advertisements, have asked Americans to 'Say No to Drugs' and 'Keep America Beautiful', along with everything in between. Although these campaigns are often considered important tools in promoting social issues, their efficacy has been hotly debated over the years. A case study of the "God Speaks" public service campaign is offered as an example of a non-traditional campaign that provides insights for future endeavors.
Graduate Education 2005 Abstracts
Graduate Education Interest Group
When do Journalists Learn About Ethics? An Examination of Classroom and Professional Attitudes About Ethical Standards • Scott Reinardy and Jensen Moore, University of Missouri-Columbia • A survey (n=1,195) included broadcast and print journalist students at a large Midwestern university, and broadcast and newspaper professionals. The study compares the ethical perceptions of introductory journalism students to graduating students, as well as professional journalists. The results indicate that in general terms the introductory students appear more ethically grounded than graduating students, and graduating students have a higher standard of ethics than professional practitioners.
Vietnam and Iraq: Memory vs. History During the 2004 Presidential Campaign Coverage • Sue Robinson, Temple University • This paper contrasts two ideas of journalistic ritual — a macro view of communication and a more micro level of objectivity — by textually analyzing five newspapers' coverage of the 2004 presidential campaign between John Kerry and President George W. Bush, whose mnemonic battles over Vietnam served to clash two fundamental concepts of objective history and cultural memory. Journalists' professional norms failed to reframe the politicized memories in any meaningful way.
Social Presence, Interactivity and Engagement: A Human-Centered Approach Towards Instructional Technology • Bimal Balakrishnan and Keston Pierre, Penn State University • This paper looks at the question of technology in education from a communication perspective and attempts to make the case for a more human-centered approach. Concepts of social presence, engagement and interactivity are identified as key variables and the relevance of these are theorized. A results of a pilot study carried out to explore the effect of these variables on student satisfaction in an online course are encouraging. The limitations and future directions for the research are discussed.
Entertainment Studies 2005 Abstracts
Entertainment Studies Interest Group
Agenda Setting and the Hip Hop Factor in Decision 2004 • Carol Adams-Means, Texas at San Antonio, Maria Flores-Guitierrez and Maxwell McCombs, University of Texas at Austin • The 2004 election process has encountered a new variable in voter education and participation. It has come via the Hip Hop (HH) subculture. The Hip Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) campaign is the vehicle through which HH music producers and performers intended to engage young, eligible voters, ages 18 to 35, in the 2004 election process. The non-partisan HSAN is comprised of HH music industry leaders, performers, political leaders, activists, academicians, and HH music followers.
The Kids are Watching, but what are they Learning? The Political Content of The Daily Show • Carole Bell, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Given The Daily Show's increasing popularity as a news source and recent prominence in the 2004 election process, it is important to examine the nature of the information the show provides. The current analysis revealed that using The Daily Show as a primary source of political information is highly problematic. Viewers who use it as a substitute rather than supplement for traditional news will likely lack the information needed to learn from or evaluate its content critically.
Fan Websites: Motives, Identification and Site Content • Maureen Cech and John Beatty, La Salle University • As part of a larger study of the creators of celebrity fan Websites, this online qualitative study examines the self-selected responses of 49 site creators. A set of open-ended questions asking about their celebrities, fan communities, and creative expression was sent to these site creators. Actor- and musician-site creators reported similar motives for creating their fan sites, citing celebrity-based motives most often, followed by creativity-based and fan-based motives.
A Review of Literature on the Status, Effects, and Causal Factors Involved in the Differences in Media Coverage for Men's and Women's Athletics • Elizabeth Ann Gibler, University of Missouri-Columbia • In this paper, the literature on gender differences in sports coverage is examined for an understanding of the issue's current status as well as its causes and effects. Despite the continuing increase in interest and participation in women's sports, media coverage for female athletes has actually declined over the past decade. This unequal media coverage affects female participation and body image as well as the professional opportunities available to female athletes.
Tales of Tattered Romance: Cheaters TV, Real Reality, and Melodramatic Parody • Joseph C. Harry, Slippery Rock University • The Cheaters syndicated television show is analyzed as a hybrid genre that draws on and unwittingly problematizes traditional and contemporary notions of romance, technological surveillance, and voyeurism by featuring suffering lovers and videotaped exploits of their cheating mates. The rhetoric of the text is explored by examining its conjuncture within political, economic and socio-cultural forces, and by interpreting the program's contradictory narrative, ethical, and ideological stance.
Impact of Celebrity Endorsers on Student Voters • Elizabeth Hutton, Maja Krakowiak, Kathleen O'Toole and Kelly Shultz, Pennsylvania State University • Rock musicians played an unprecedented role in the 2004 presidential election. In an effort to motivate the youngest segment of the electorate, some of the biggest names in rock music headlined benefit concerts on behalf of Democratic candidate Senator John Kerry. Performers such as Bruce Springsteen, who had never taken an overtly partisan stand in his 30-year career, stumped through swing states in a series of concerts called the Vote for Change Tour.
Linking Television General Viewing to the Acceptance of Rape Myths • Lee Ann Kahlor and Dan Morrison, University of Texas at Austin • Abstract not available.
The Role of Animation in the Third-Person Effect: A Comparison of Live-action and Animated Violence in Kill Bill Volume 1 • Christine A. Klek and Letrez A. Myer, Pennsylvania State University • Abstract not available.
Social Cognitive Understanding on Video Game Usage • Doohwang Lee and Robert LaRose, Michigan State University • This study investigated how people become deficient in self-regulation in video game play so that they may engage in excessive video game consumption behavior. Based on Bandura's social cognitive theory of self-regulation (1986; 1991), this study proposed a model of unregulated video game consumption behavior and investigated why video games players engage in playing specific genres of video games. This study found significant impacts of outcome expectations, deficient self-regulation on video game play among 388 college undergraduate students.
Simply Irresistible: Reality TV Consumption Patterns • Lisa K. Lundy, Louisiana State University • This purpose of this study was to explore college students' consumption patterns in regard to reality television, their rationale for watching, their perceptions of the situations portrayed in reality television, and the role of social affiliation in their consumption of reality television. The results of focus groups indicate that while participants perceive a social stigma associated with watching reality television, they continue to watch because of the perceived escapism and social affiliation provided.
Fascination of Reality Television with the College Student Audience: The Uses and Gratifications Perspective on the Program Genre • James A. Mead, Wisconsin-Whitewater • Due to recent publications on the popularity of reality television over the past few years, a study was conducted in order to determine the most common motives for why a specific target audience watches the programming genre. A total of 162 southeastern Wisconsin college students were surveyed on their regular television viewing habits. The only demographics each participant revealed were gender, age, race, and class standing.
You're Living in the Past, It's a New Generation: Music as a Memory Device in Nostalgia Television Shows • Heather Muse, Temple University • The proliferation of nostalgia television shows in recent years has given rise to popular music of past eras appearing on television frequently. This narrative analysis examines the use of popular music in the television series That '70s Show, Freaks and Geeks, and American Dreams to determine how popular music helped to evoke nostalgia for the era represented. Frith's notions of cultural and emotional codes for film music and Grossberg's concept of "rock formations" of culture were utilized in the analysis.
Monsters, Gangsters, Jesters and psychopaths: The Examination of Trait Characteristics of Movie Villains and Emotional Responses • Meghan A. Sanders, Pennsylvania State University • In this paper, the literature on gender differences in sports coverage is examined for an understanding of the issue's current status as well as its causes and effects. Despite the continuing increase in interest and participation in women's sports, media coverage for female athletes has actually declined over the past decade. This unequal media coverage affects female participation and body image as well as the professional opportunities available to female athletes.
Under the (Glue) Gun: Containing and Constructing Reality in Home Makeover TV • Madeleine Shufeldt and Kendra Gale, University of Colorado-Boulder • This paper presents a case study of two families over a 7-month period as they move from fan to applicant to cast of the home improvement reality TV program Trading Spaces: Family. The paper details the discrepancies between the actuality of participation and the preferred "reality" of dramatic and collaborative interior design. Strategies to maintain (or even increase) the producers' power over the unscripted events via program format, contracts and selective editing are highlighted.
Flow and Enjoyment of Video Games • Barry P. Smith, University of Alabama • This paper examines how flow may contribute to the experience of enjoyment derived from playing video games. Entertainment theories and flow theory are briefly reviewed and then applied to the medium of video games. Video game enjoyment is theorized as the result flow which occurs when the challenge presented by a video game is relatively high and matched with an individual's perception of his or her level of skill at playing the game.
No Laughing Matter: Negative Attribute Agenda Setting on Late Night Television • Amy Zerba and Tania Cantrell, University of Texas at Austin • This attribute agenda setting study explores the negative attributes of Bush and Kerry jokes on Leno, Letterman, Conan and The Daily Show and the negative attributes stated by watchers and non-watchers of the shows during the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Findings from this content analysis, Web survey and experiment study show attribute agenda setting effects for Bush; increased campaign interest with show(s) exposure; and the significant influence of party affiliation with respondents' negative descriptions and the jokes' negative attributes.
Civic Journalism 2005 Abstracts
Civic Journalism Interest Group
The Democratic Ideal and Its Translation Online: The Possibility and Potential of the Internet as Public Sphere • Elizabeth Michelle Franko, University of Colorado • In both popular and scholarly publications, the Internet has been heralded as a new virtual public sphere, or as a tool for reviving a tired democratic process in established democratic states. This paper attempts to uncover and understand the ways in which classic and contemporary democratic theory elucidate the very potential of the Internet to become a viable public sphere. I also seek to interrogate the rhetoric around the Internet as a so-called democratic space.
Experiential Learning for Research and Reporting Classes Through a Comprehensive Newsroom Project • Sharon Hartin Iorio, Les Anderson, Leslie Blythe, Wichita State University • A class in communication research and a class in advanced reporting took part in a contracted civic journalism project for The (Junction City, KS) Daily Union newspaper titled "Re-imagining Junction City." While examples of academic and professional partnerships exist, none that allowed students to participate both I n the research phase and in the follow-up reporting of the research findings could be identified in a recent literature review.
"Civic Journalism Is Journalism With Ethics": Practitioners Speak To The Moral Imperative Of Their Work • Rick Kenney, University of Central Florida and Marie Hardin, Pennsylvania State University • How do civic journalists perceive the ethics of the journalism they produce? In a qualitative analysis of long interviews with reporters and editors in one civic journalism newsroom, this paper seeks to – in the spirit of communitarianism – give voice to the movement's everyday "experiencers": those who conceive, carry out, and publish the projects at the center of the decade-old debate over whether this brand of journalism is effective or even ethical The Student Writer as the Citizen in Public Journalism.
The Student Writer as the Citizen in Public Journalism • Cailin Brown Leary, University at Albany • Current conversations in public/participatory journalism and in composition are focused on how to engage and invigorate the citizenry. Writing teachers are preparing critical readers and writers to join the public conversation. These writing classrooms can become the sites where "somebody outside the journalism assembles the public." (Joann Byrd from "What Are Journalists For?" Rosen).
OhmyNews' and Its Citizen Journalists as Avatars of a Post-Modern Marketplace of Ideas • Ronald Rodgers, Ohio University • Abstract not available.
Judging Journalism • Ivor Shapiro, Patrizia Albanese and Leigh Doyle, Ryerson University • What does "excellence" mean in journalism? The literature reveals no universally agreed set of standards, and awards guidelines are often unclear. When interviewed about how they assess submissions, judges in Canada's two leading journalism awards programs emphasized their intuition and experience rather than specific criteria, but placed special weight on writing style and on the amount and depth of reporting. Other values included originality, relevance and public impact, integrity, and analysis.
Interactive Media And Journalists: The Effects of Interactive Media on Civic and Traditional Journalists • Shelley Wigley, Oklahoma State University and Patrick Meirick, University of Oklahoma • This study looked at differences between civic and traditional journalists. Sports journalists at daily newspapers participated in a Web-based survey. Results indicate that civic journalists do not place more value on citizen input than traditional journalists, nor do they pay more attention to sports talk radio and Internet message boards as a source of information or fan opinion. The study produced one counterintuitive finding.
Visual Communication 2005 Abstracts
Visual Communication Division
See It, Touch It, Taste It, Smell It, Hear It: The Use of Visual Metaphor in Sensory Advertising Strategy • Elizabeth Crisp, Tennessee, Knoxville • The purpose of this paper is to address visual metaphors as they relate to sensory appeals in magazine advertising. This research is important because very little research in the field has examined synesthetic images and visual metaphors in print advertising. This paper examines advertisements collected from five women's magazines and applies the sensory visuals contained in these advertisements to a visual rhetoric model.
Now You See It, Now You Don't: The Problems with Newspaper Photo Archives • Lucinda D. Davenport, Michigan State, Quint Randle, Brigham Young and Howard Bossen, Michigan State • This study systematically investigates the practices and policies of archiving and accessing images, now that most newspapers have gone digital. Findings from NPPA newspaper photographers, responding to multiple-choice and open-ended questions, show that policies and practices are in disarray. Photographers also are frustrated and concerned about digital technology becoming obsolete and what it means to historical records.
'Naturally' Less Exciting? Visual Production of Men's And Women's Track and Field Coverage During the 2004 Olympics • Casey Homan, Nevada-Reno, Marie Hardin, Penn State and Jennifer Greer, Nevada-Reno • Using Zettl's applied media aesthetics approach, visual production techniques were content analyzed in all track and field coverage in the 2004 Olympic Games. Segments featuring male athletes used more of everything: more time, more segments, more variation in camera shots, more variation in camera angles, more slow motion, and more use of rail-cam. The analysis shows that men's track and field coverage was framed as more visually exciting than the same events for women.
A Matter of Culture: A Comparative Study of Photojournalism in American and Korean Newspapers • Yung Soo Kim and James D. Kelly, Southern Illinois, • The content of 628 news and feature photographs in ten elite American and Korean newspapers was analyzed for differences in composition, subject number, and subject identification. The Korean approach to photojournalism was purely descriptive while the American approach was more interpretive. Koreans presented far more news, emphasized the group, and maintained a consistent composition. Americans ran more features, emphasized the individual and varied composition. Differences were explained by culture, normative protocols, and differing media philosophies.
Identity-Centered Model of Visual Design: A Case Study of the 50 State Quarters® Program • Angela K. Mak and Suman M. Lee, Iowa State • We adopt Soenen and Moingeon's (2002) dynamics of the identities of organizations model to demonstrate how the role of visual identity is treated as one of the components of collective identities (i.e. the projected identity) by showing how the creation of a state quarter can be seen as a crucial element that reflects the history of a state's past, present, and future.
Reality vs. Fiction: How Defined Realness Affects Cognitive & Emotional Responses to Photographs • Andrew L. Mendelson and Zizi Papacharissi, Temple • This paper presents the results of an experiment investigating cognitive and emotional effects related to changing the label ascribed to still photographs, from fictional to real, while keeping the content constant. Results demonstrated that viewers tended to react more strongly to photographs labeled as real, but they thought more about photographs labeled as fiction. Further, the label assigned to the photograph interacted with viewer's predisposition for learning from visual information.
Fahrenheit 9/11: Michael Moore, 'W,' & the Use of Montage as Political Strategy • Peter Morello, Missouri-Kansas City, David R. Thompson, Loras College and Birgit Wassmuth, Drake • This paper provides an overview of Michael Moore's docu-activist techniques in his 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11. As the authors define in this paper, a "docu-activist" is a documentary filmmaker who employs what one German scholar of filmmaking describes as "demagogische montage" for the purpose of specific, deadline-oriented social or political change.
The Construction of American Military Identity in Mahjoob's Cartoons after the Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal in Iraq: A Layered Exploratory Study • Orayb Aref Najjar, Northern Illinois • This study suggests that cartoons are important sites for the construction of the identity of the self and the "other." Using techniques culled from various disciplines that include social psychology, cognition, anthropology in conjunction with the cartoon code, this study "constructs" an analytical table of "Instructed Viewing" (Goffman, 1979) to study the way cartoonist Emad Hajjaj constructed the identity of the American military in Iraq after the prison abuses of Abu Ghraib.
The Bloody Lens: A bibliographic Essay on Ethical Concerns Related to Shocking Images of Violence and Tragedy • Carol B. Schwalbe, Arizona State • For decades, scholars and journalists have discussed the ethics of disseminating shocking images of violence and tragedy. The proliferation of violent images in our 24/7 news-hungry society raises ethics-related questions for photographers, editors, and producers. This article reviews the literature on the ethics of digital photo alteration (truth telling); decisions faced by photographers, editors, and producers about images of violence and tragedy; and codes of ethics that provide guidance about disseminating grisly images.
Newsroom Attitudes Toward the Roles of Newspaper Designers • Kathryn J. Smith, Jennifer George-Palilonis, Pamela Leidig-Farmen and Mark Popovich, Ball State • While newspaper designers have taken on increasingly important roles in newsrooms, professional and academic literature points to a divide between "word" journalists and "visual" journalists. This study examined current attitudes toward this divide by using Q Methodology. Forty-one journalists at four Mid-western newspapers sorted 50 statements concerning attitudes about the responsibilities of designers and the value of design to the newspaper and its readers. Three factors emerged and were labeled: Collaborators, Progressives, and Traditionalists.
Images of the Casualties of War: Is there a Media Right of Access? • Nicole Elise Smith, North Carolina, Chapel Hill • At the onset of the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. Pentagon issued a policy prohibiting media coverage, including photography, of the caskets of slain American soldiers arriving at Dover Air Force Base. This research asks, based on the unique attributes of images to convey information, is the ban an unconstitutional prior restraint? Additionally, as some families want photographic coverage of the return of their loved ones, does the restriction violate these families First Amendment rights?
Assessing Pictorial-projective and Photo-elicited Responses to Commercials • Lawrence Soley, Marquette • Photoelicitation and projective assessment are research methods derived from visual sociology and psychoanalysis respectively. This study combined the methods by having respondents view a commercial, and then showing them one of two versions of a projective drawing showing a lone or a male-accompanied woman sitting on a couch. Respondents were told that the woman in the drawing had just seen the commercial, and were asked about what the woman was thinking.
'When May I Expect my Uniform?' The World Through Chicago Political Cartoons Before and after Pearl Harbor • Fred Vultee, Missouri-Columbia • As December 1941 began, the Chicago Tribune and the Daily News were reporting two different wars: one America desperately needed to avoid, one it was duty-bound to enter. But when the presses rolled December 7, the Roosevelt-hating Tribune found itself uncomfortably aligned with its rival (owned by Roosevelt-hating Navy secretary).
Visual Representation of Villainy: Comparing Editorial Cartoons of Bin Laden, McVeigh and Kim • Samuel P. Winch, Penn State Harrisburg • This paper reports the results of a content analysis of editorial cartoons featuring Osama bin Laden, Timothy McVeigh, and North Korean President Kim Jong-Il. The elements of editorial cartoons of public enemies are examined as examples of rhetorically persuasive techniques in visual depiction.
Manipulating Visual Information in the Digital Age: How viewers React on Digitally Altered and Manipulative Captioned Photographic Images: Results of a Quasi-Experimental Study • Kathrin Ziegler and Klaus Forster, Munich • In our study we explore how digitally altered and manipulative captioned pictures are perceived by the viewers. We regard image perception as a first necessary step toward any kind of possible effects. Our findings suggest that viewers were not able to recognize differences between differently manipulated pictures with regard to their credibility on a cognitive level. On the emotional level the viewers could therefore be effectively manipulated with both captions and altered photos.
Public Relations 2005 Abstracts
Public Relations Divisions
Comparison of Indirect Sources of Efficacy Information in Pretesting Messages to Prevent Drunken Driving • Ronald B. Anderson, University of Texas at Austin • This experiment tested the impact of two forms of symbolic modeling and verbal persuasion on self-efficacy beliefs and intentions to prevent a friend from driving drunk. Three efficacy-information public service announcements were produced to raise participants; beliefs in their abilities to intervene successfully: a behavioral-modeling message, which demonstrated the prevention skills; a verbal-modeling message, which described the skills; and a persuasive message, which only encouraged intervention.
Beating the Odds: How the American Football League Used Public Relations to "Win" a War Against a Monopoly • William B. Anderson, University of Scranton • No professional sports group ever achieved acceptance as widespread within a single decade's span as the American Football League (AFL). This study chronicles how the AFL used public relations strategies and tactics to garner public acceptance, which in turn helped convince the older National Football League to merge with the upstart league.
Overcoming the Stigma of Discrimination: Applying a New Management Philosophy and Integrated Communication To Restore The Reputation Of Denny's Restaurants • Alik Anso, Richard Nelson and Stephen Matthews • Abstract not available.
The Effect of Prior Corporate Reputation on Public Attitudes Toward a Company • Public Suspicion as a Mediating Variable • Jiyang Bae, University of Missouri-Columbia • This study attempted to verify whether prior corporate reputation affects public perceptions toward corporate philanthropic messages and ultimately affects public attitudes toward the company. The study's five hypotheses were all supported with an experiment method. 72 undergraduate students were participated in this study. Participants inferred corporate charitable giving as a mutually beneficial activity when a company had a good reputation (H 1). Participants inferred corporate charitable giving as a self-interested activity when the company had a bad reputation (H2).
Cultural Awareness: Hispanic Public Relations Practitioners' Perceptions of Effective Communication with Hispanic Publics • Cristina Proañlo Beazley, University of Louisiana at Lafayette • As the Hispanic publics continue to grow in the United States, public relations departments must be prepared to communicate effectively with them. This exploratory study examines cultural awareness from the viewpoint of Hispanic public relations practitioners who communicate with Hispanic publics as part of their practice. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with eleven Hispanic public relations practitioners who work with Hispanic publics.
Building Relationships with Child Publics: Study of the Content of Nutrition Websites for Children • Denise Bortree, University of Florida • Abstract not available.
Finding a Conceptual Basis for Communicating about Terrorism: Is Terrorism 'Extreme' Activism? How do we Respond Ethically? • Shannon A. Bowen, University of Houston • Abstract not available.
Engineering the Continuation of a Non-judgmental U.S.-China Relations in the Tumultuous Post-Cold War World: An Overview of the Chinese Public Relations Campaign in the U.S. in 1990s Xiaowei Chen, Louisiana State University • This case study of the Chinese public relations campaign examines the geopolitical-ideopolitical context, identifies the key stakeholders, interprets their message strategy and issue management, and finally, illustrates how the Chinese public relations contributes to the delinkage of the U.S.-China trade from human rights issue.
A Study of Journalists' Perception of Candidates' Websites and Their Relationships with the Campaign Organization in Taiwan's 2004 Presidential Election • Yi-Ning Katherine Chen, National Cheng-Chi University • This investigation is designed to gain insight into what the perceptions are for journalists in using a candidate's website as a news gathering tool. Drawing upon the somewhat limited research to date, this study also seeks to explore how journalists' perception of the websites affects their relationships with the campaign organization. The results show that the some of the perceptions of such websites, as related to the relationship components, suggest that a candidate's website may enhance this relationship.
Closing the Deal: The Use of Snow & Benfords's Core Framing Functions on Activist Websites • Erik L. Collins, University of South Carolina, Lynn M. Zoch, University of Miami and Daniel C. Walsh, University of South Carolina • The researchers used an adapted version of the core framing functions model first introduced by Snow and Benford (1988) in conjunction with a content analysis of Websites to discover whether activist organizations are using methods described in the theory to strengthen the communication on their Websites.
Ethical Discussion in Peer Reviewed Public Relations Journals: A Content Analysis • Benton Danner and Michael A. Mitrook, University of Florida • Content analysis concerning the nature of ethical discussion in peer reviewed public relations journals was performed on a total of 721 articles from four scholarly journals covering the period 1998-2004.
An Evolutionary Model of Organization-Activist Relationships • Elizabeth Dougall • University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • The propositions of an evolutionary model of organization-activist relationships are advanced anticipating associations between variations in the public opinion environment of an organizational population and the evolution of organization-activist relationships. Variations are described using four dimensions: stability (turnover of issues), complexity (the number of issues in the issue set), intensity (volume of media coverage), and direction (favorability of media coverage for the focal population).
Legal Implications of IMC for Public Relations •Kathy R. Fitzpatrick, DePaul University• The application of First Amendment commercial speech doctrine to integrated marketing communication (IMC) demonstrates that the integration of public relations with advertising and marketing may dilute the constitutional protection afforded corporate speech. This analysis of U.S. Supreme Court decisions shows that by combining political expression, i.e., public relations, with commercial expression, i.e., advertising and marketing, a corporation may expand the range of communications that may be defined and regulated as commercial speech.
The Status of Public Relations Research in the Leading Journals between 1995 and 2004 • Eyun-Jung Ki and Hyoungkoo Khang, University of Florida • This study analyzes the trends, patterns and rigors of research studies pertaining to public relations through a content analysis of published public relations articles from two leading public relations journals between 1995 and 2004. Four hundred and three articles from the two journals were collected. Each article was coded by the year of its publication, the name of the journal, author(s)' name, affiliation, and country of author(s)' affiliation, research topics, research methods, sampling methods, response rates, intercoder reliability, and statistical analysis.
Exploring Town-Gown Relations: Community Relations in a University Setting • Sei-Hill Kim, Brigitta R. Brunner and Margaret Fitch-Hauser, Auburn University • Analyzing data from a telephone survey of local residents, this study examined the role of community relations in higher education. Our data supported the idea that various contributions to local communities may produce a favorable pubic image of a university. More importantly, residents who were more aware of the contributions showed greater willingness to support the university.
The News Release Format For The 21 Century: A Receiver-Based Model For The Electronic Medium • Thomas Klipstone, University of South Carolina • A content analysis of electronic news releases shows that electronic news releases are basically an electronic version of traditional print public relations material that is not being formatted or structured to fit the qualities and advantages of the electronic medium. This study reviews the current status of the electronic news release format and suggests an electronic news release format suited to take advantage of the qualities of the receiver-based medium.
Christina's Doin' It… So Should I? • The Nature of Celebrity Health Advocacy and Advice in Media • Julie C. Lellis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Abstract not available.
Crisis Communications Preparedness Among U.S. Organizations: Activities and Assessments by Public Relations Practitioners • Rhegan McDaniel and Kirk Hallahan, Colorado State University • A survey of U.S. public relations practitioners (n=126) found that three-quarters of their employer organizations have a written crisis communications plan and that organizations, as a whole, were reasonably prepared to engage in crisis communications. Preparedness was measured based on the presence of a crisis plan as well as a tactics index; a training index; indices related to the maintenance of lists of employees, media and stakeholders; and the monitoring of the print and broadcast media and the Internet.
Assessing and Managing Reputation among Multiple Stakeholder Groups of a Health Care Organization Seen Through the Lens of Identity and Identification • Angela K. Mak, Iowa State University • This paper uses PeaceHealth Medical Group as an example to assess a health care organization's reputation among various key stakeholder groups seen through the lens of identity and identification. An elite interview and eight focus groups (i.e. donors, volunteers, community leaders, local community, support staff, media, nurses, and doctors) were conducted. The different dimensions of primary and secondary reputation from stakeholder groups revealed that a reputation held by a specific stakeholder group is based on the strength of its relationship with the organization.
The Syllogism of Apologia: Rhetorical Stasis Theory and Crisis Communication • Charles Marsh, University of Kansas • Rhetorical stasis theory – the process of identifying a debate's core issue – can provide a hierarchical structure for crisis response strategies. The author proposes that the accusation in a crisis situation – the kategoria — has a syllogistic form, allowing crisis managers to decide whether to attack an accusation at its minor premise level, major premise level or conclusion. Stasis theory posits three content-related issues categories.
Is the Press Legitimizing the "Truth"? An Examination of the Third Party Endorsements of the "Truth" National Anti- tobacco Campaign • Jensen Moore and Fred Vultee, University of Missouri-Columbia • This study used discourse analysis to examine the positive press coverage (i.e. third party endorsements) of the "Truth" national anti-tobacco campaign. Thirty-nine national and regional articles from 1999-2005 were analyzed. The findings provide insights into the central themes, identifiable images, and dominant discourse presented by the media about the campaign. Results of this study are important because little is known about the legitimizing force of the press in regard to these campaigns.
Why do Students Major In Public Relations? A Study of Factors Influencing a Student's Choice of Major, and Gender Similarities and Differences • Gina J. Noble, Oklahoma State University • This study surveyed public relations majors to determine the factors influencing the selection of their major in an effort to help public relations educators, advisers and counselors better understand the motivations and expectations of these students. The study attempts to provide information regarding why students decide to major in public relations, how students perceive the major and its job opportunities, common misperceptions regarding the profession, and gender similarities and differences of students selecting the major.
Sources and Synergies: News Media Discussion of Public Relations and Ethics • Bonnie Parnell Riechert, University of Tennessee • News media discussion of public relations and ethics is investigated in a computer-assisted content analysis of articles mentioning both "public relations" and "ethics" in The New York Times from 1988-2004. Themes in coverage are identified. The Public Relations Society of America and its code of ethics are represented in the coverage, indicating some success in frame sponsorship. The phrase "public relations" is used in a variety of ways; implications for practitioners and educators are discussed.
Effects of Endorsement Type and Expertise Indicators on Web Credibility • Amy Robinson-Russ and Marilee Long, Colorado State University • This study investigated the effects of endorsement type and author expertise on online credibility. It was hypothesized that subjects would perceive an online message endorsed by a third party (news organization) as more credible than one endorsed by a first party (corporation), and that subjects who received additional author information would assign higher credibility to the message than those who received the author's name. Results showed no significant difference in how subjects perceived message credibility.
The Dialogic Potential of Weblogs in Relationship Building • Trent Seltzer, University of Florida • Previous research has revealed a gap between the relationship-building potential of traditional Websites, the objectives of public relations practitioners, and the actual design of organizational Web sites. A content analysis of 50 environmental weblogs was conducted to identify the existence of dialogic principles that can be used to effectively build relationships online. Comparisons between weblogs and traditional Web sites suggest that weblogs may incorporate these principles to a greater degree than traditional Web sites.
The Death of the Models: A Meta-Analysis of Modem Dimensions in Public Relations • Bey-Ling Sha, San Diego State University • In recent years, the venerated models of public relations have been reconceptualized as dimensions of public relations behavior. This article examines the internal reliabilities of items across three studies constructing the "classic dimensions" of two-way, symmetrical, ethical, interpersonal, and mediated communication – as well as the "cutting-edge dimensions" of social activities and conservation – concluding with recommendations of specific items shown by meta-analysis to be the most valid measures of the new dimensions of public relations.
Crossing boundaries: Comparing online media relations of Fortune 100 companies' U.S. vs. China corporate sites • Ying Sun, Ohio University • While Web sites have become important corporate communications tools globally, no research has addressed the application of the Web to media relations in an international setting. This exploratory study compared media relations strategies as evident in the U.S. and Chinese corporate sites of American companies. Using content analysis, this paper examined how these sites address journalists' information needs and facilitate two-way symmetrical communication, and investigated how country-specific contexts influence the application of public relations models
Strategic Public Relations Based on a Scenario Approach: A Case of an Insurance Company • MinJung Sung, University of New York • Abstract not available.
Lowering the Bar: Privileged Court Filings as Substitutes for Press Releases in the Court of Public Opinion • Samuel Terilli, Sigman Splichal and Paul Driscoll University of Miami • In the civil lawsuit against Kobe Bryant for sexual assault, the judge admonished lawyers for engaging in "public relations litigation" – the use of pleadings to attract media attention and try cases in the court of public opinion. This paper looks at the legal ramifications of such practices. It concludes that lawyers and public relations professionals can responsibly use court documents to communicate with the public, so long as they do not abuse the process.
Lobbying as Advocacy Public Relations and its "Unspoken" Code of Ethics • Kati A. Tusinski, University of Oregon • This paper examines lobbying as a form of advocacy public relations. Interviews and document analysis are used to illustrate the advocacy function of lobbying and questions the ethics of such work. This research fills two visible gaps in the public relations body of knowledge by continuing to develop advocacy as a function of public relations and by contributing to the development of lobbying as a profession by studying the ethical frameworks lobbyists employ to their work.
Organizational Credibility as a function of Source Trust • Edward Vieira and Susan Grantham, University of Hartford • This study examined the role of affect and reason in cognitive involvement, comprehension, message credibility, and subsequent attitude formation. The results indicate that the model was driven by comprehension and involvement in processing the message. The non-profit designation (versus for-profit) was significantly linked to level of involvement with the message and subsequently source credibility and a positive attitude toward the topic.
Cross-National Conflict Shifting: A Case Study of the DuPont Teflon Crisis in China • Yimin Wang and Juan-Carlos Molleda, University of Florida • The purpose of this paper is to illustrate and support the theory of cross-national conflict shifting through a case study of a transnational crisis, the DuPont Teflon crisis in China. This recent corporate crisis originated from the United States due to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's administrative action against DuPont, which instantly shifted to China where it transformed into a consumer product safety crisis. A triangulation of qualitative and quantitative methods was used.
Fund Raising on the Internet: A Content Analysis of ePhilanthropy Trends on the Internet sites of the Organizations on the Philanthropy 400 • Richard D. Waters, University of Florida • To evaluate the current status of ePhilanthropy, a stratified random sample of the Chronicle of Philanthropy's "Philanthropy 400" was content analyzed for variables identified in practitioner and scholarly literature on accountability, fund-raising practices, and communication strategies. Analysis found that the top fund-raising organizations provided their annual reports, organizational goals, and mission statements while second tier organizations were more likely to use a sales and marketing approach by using e-commerce technology to process on-line donations.
The Practitioner Roles of Fund Raising: An Assessment of Gender Differences • Richard D. Waters and Kathleen S. Kelly, University of Florida and Mary Lee Walker, Consultant Orlando, FL • A national study of members of the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy found that Kelly's (1998) adaptation of public relations roles-liaison, expert prescriber, problem-solving process facilitator, and technician-account for the daily activities of fund-raising practitioners. Similar to public relations studies, all but the last role were found to be highly correlated, indicating a two role typology might be a better descriptor. One-way ANOVAs revealed that males enacted managerial roles more than females; however, no significant differences were found for the technician role.
Web Presence of Universities: Is Higher Education Sending the Right Message Online? • Elizabeth M. Will and Coy Callison, Texas Tech University • Web sites of the 3738 U.S.-based colleges and universities were sampled and analyzed to determine how higher education employs the internet to communicate to key publics overall and students in particular. analysis revealed prospective donors are the most often-targeted public followed by faculty/staff. Prospective and current students followed. In better news to students, the five items students most often seek on the Web were the five most common items linked from university home pages.
A Benchpoint Global Analysis of How Research is Used in Public Relations Throughout the World • Donald K. Wright, University of South Alabama and Michelle Hinson, University of Florida • Although research has been an important part of public relations for more than half a century, the use of research, measurement and evaluation in the field varies dramatically. While many have advocated the use of research through public relations textbooks, the scholarly literature contains few studies measuring how research actually is used in public relations.
An Analysis of Nonprofit Organizations' Web Pages for Public Relations: Focus on Media Relations, Donor Relations, and Interactive Communication Features • Hye Min Yeon, University of Florida • This study is to examine how the 100 largest nonprofit organizations utilize their Web sites for donor relations, volunteer relations, media relations and their interactive communication features. The result of this study revealed that most of selected organizations were effectively using the Web sites and donor relations were utilized the best. However, there is no relationship neither between public relations activities and grouped Web sites based on the revenues, nor between interactive communication features and the grouped Web sites.
Dictating the News: Understanding Newsworthiness from the Journalistic Perspective • Lynne M. Zoch and Dustin W. Supa, University of Miami • This study looks at previous research done in journalism and public relations to identify eight factors that determine newsworthiness. A content analysis of news releases from public and private corporations was then used to determine if they contained the eight factors identified by the research. The analysis indicated that only two of the eight factors were being used regularly in the releases, and that the majority of the releases would not be considered newsworthy by journalists.
Public Relations Writing: What do Agencies Want? • Kurt Wise, DePaul • This study explored the perceptions of public relations professional working in agency settings concerning the writing skill of entry-level practitioners and public relations writing pedagogy. Focus group participants indicated writing for the Web required a different approach than other writing tasks in an agency setting. Professionals also contended educators spend too much time emphasizing news releases and not enough time on other types of writing such as telephone and/or email pitches.
What Do They Get When They "Give Back?" A Three-Year Study of Public Relations Student Attitudes Toward Civic Engagement • Lisa T. Fall, University of Tennessee • The purpose of this three-year study is to assess how using what students learn in the classroom during internships influences their attitudes toward certain civic engagement issues. Results demonstrate that having more opportunities to use what they learned while on the job significantly predicts career choices as well as attitudes toward who they believe benefits most (themselves, organization, supervisor, community, target public/s) and how valued they believe their contributions are to their employer and to them personally.
Why are More Women than Men Attracted to the Field of Public Relations? Analyzing Students' Reasons for Studying PR • J. Rebecca Folmar and Lois A. Boynton, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This quantitative study explores why more young women than young men are attracted to the collegiate study of public relations and choose to join the public relations workforce professionally. Women's reasons for being attracted to public relations included: it is a profession for which they feel well-suited, allowing opportunities for relationship building, interpersonal communication, and creativity; and it is a broad, portable career path that allows opportunities for advancement as well as flexibility for family demands.
The Gatekeeper Interview Assignment: Teaching Public Relations Students How to Write for the News Media and to Conduct Media Relations Effectively • Elizabeth A. Johnson and Lynne M. Sallot, University of Georgia • This study uses the results of two focus group discussions, and telephone and e-mail interviews with 33 students who had completed "gatekeeper interviews" in public relations writing courses to judge the pedagogical value of the assignment. The gatekeeper interview requires students to interview in the newsroom working journalists who make decisions about using content that has a public relations practitioner influence in the news.
Teaching (About) International Public Relations: An Examination of Individual and Institutional Attributes of Public Relations Educators in the United States • Angela K. Mak and Jane W. Peterson, Iowa State University • This paper updates Parker's (1995) international public relations (IPR) education study by surveying PR educators on the AEJMC PRD mailing list. Results show significant changes in the past ten years in international perspectives in PR courses, the number of IPR courses offered by schools, and individual and institutional attributes between educators who teach IPR and those who do not. Suggestions for PR educators, school administrators, and graduate students in the US are discussed.
Building a Stronger PRSSA chapter: What Self Determination Theory Tells Us About the Importance of Motivation and Need Satisfaction • Robert S. Pritchard, Vincent F. Filak and Lindsay L. Beach, Ball State University • This study uses self-determination theory to predict the impact of need satisfaction and intrinsic motivation on PRSSA members. While higher levels of need satisfaction universally predicted more positive ratings of both the PRSSA chapter and adviser, Teahan award winners were significantly more positive in their ratings of all of these variables. Furthermore, students who felt more intrinsically motivated reported a greater likelihood that they would persist in PRSSA and transition to PRSA upon graduation.
Sources and Synergies: News Media Discussion of Public Relations and Ethics • Bonnie Parnell Riechert, Tennessee • Abstract not available.
Portrayal of Public Relations in Mass Communication Textbooks • Candace White and Thomasena Shaw, University of Tennessee • A qualitative textual analysis of how public relations is portrayed in the most commonly used textbooks in introductory mass communication courses was conducted to see if portrayal has improved since Carolyn Cline's similar study in 1982. The theoretical premise was that the literature indicates that journalists are socialized to hold negative attitudes toward public relations, and that socialization begins in the academy. Results show portrayal has improved, but negative attitudes continue to be expressed in textbooks.
Newspaper 2005 Abstracts
Newspaper Division
Survival in Paradise: How Local Identity Helped Save the Honolulu Star Bulletin • Ann Auman, University of Hawaii • This study analyzes identity and culture at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and how these helped save it from a closure attempt by Gannett Co. Inc. This paper theorizes that distinctive attributes related to the paper's identity, history and cultural and political influences that were unique to Hawaii kept it afloat. This study analyzes interviews with newsroom staff members and articles to illuminate the Star-Bulletin's identity and its connection to its survival.
Shielded From the Feds? An Examination of the Proposed Federal Shield Laws • Courtney Barclay, Florida • Journalists are facing an unprecedented use of federal subpoenas to compel the disclosure of confidential and non-confidential information. The lower federal courts, in determining the extent of protection of a reporter's privilege, have been inconsistent. However, Congress may finally be ready to defend the reporter's privilege–creating a federal shield law. This paper analyzes the two bills proposed before Congress in 2005 that, if passed, would create a statutory reporter's privilege.
Hype or Hope? Washington Post Coverage of Hormone Replacement: 1950-2004 • Marlene Cimons, Maryland • The purpose of this study was to examine more than a half-century of Washington Post coverage of hormone replacement therapy (HRT). A content analysis and critical reading found positive themes during early years; risks were reported later, a harbinger of the results of the 2002 Women's Health Initiative. Within an agenda setting framework, it appears the media reported the dangers, but readers did not take them seriously until the coverage became too prominent to ignore.
Newsroom Marriage Encounters: The Extent to Which Cross-Media Partnerships Display Convergence-based Behaviors • Larry Dailey, Lori Demo, and Mary Spillman, Ball State • This national study of newspaper editors and television news directors provides a snapshot of the state of news convergence. The study found almost 30 percent of newspapers and half of television news departments have convergence partnerships. It suggests that a few partnerships are relatively committed to their convergence efforts, while some are still trying to define them or have partnerships in name only. Finally, it finds the competitive spirit between newspaper and television newsrooms remains intact.
Framing of the Iraq War in the Online New York Times • Daniela Dimitrova, Iowa State • This study examined the framing of the 2003 Iraq War on the home page of the New York Times. The content analysis revealed that violence of war and military conflict frames dominated the coverage overall. Human interest stories and rebuilding of Iraq frames were also common. Missing from the coverage were the reasons leading up to the war. A change in frames occurred over time, indicating a shift in focus from episodic to thematic frames.
Beyond Props and Flak Jackets: A New Model to Define Modern Parachute Journalism • Emily Erickson and John Hamilton, Louisiana State • The common understanding of parachute journalism posits a large media organization whose cutbacks have obliterated its foreign bureaus and forced it to send out ad hoc reporters to do superficial coverage of crises abroad. But this ignores a greater variety in the nature and performance of these reporters and assignments. This study examines how newspapers are engaging in parachute journalism today, and proposes a typology that acknowledges the breadth and complexity of the phenomenon.
Analyzing the Federal Shield Law Proposals: What Congress Can Learn from the States • Anthony Fargo, Indiana • After a rash of cases in which journalists faced jail time for refusing to reveal confidential sources, two bills were introduced in Congress to create a federal privilege. This analysis of the bills finds they are similar. However, one provides a broader definition of who would be protected and the other would discourage subpoenas for reporters' phone and computer records. Both bills appear to avoid many of the problems that have befallen state shield laws.
An Analysis of the Bush Administration's Social Security Propaganda Campaign in Major U.S. Newspapers • Lillie Fears, Arkansas State • This investigation uses Jowett and O'Donnell's 10-Step plan for analyzing Bush administration's Social Security propaganda campaign as it is revealed in major U.S. newspapers. The plan assists the analysts in identifying several propaganda tactics within the president's proposal, including its purpose, target audiences, media techniques, and counterpropaganda. In addition, the plan offers useful guidance for evaluating the Bush proposal.
Plagiarism Persists Despite Journalists' Changing Attitudes • Fred Fedler, Central Florida • Well into the 1900s, it was common for newspaper reporters and editors to copy one another. For years, journalists accepted the practice as necessary and normal. Changes in journalists' attitudes were gradual as society, technology, and the newspaper industry changed. Today, plagiarism is almost universally condemned, yet eliminating all plagiarism may be impossible. Most newspapers have no written policies or adopt policies that simply prohibit plagiarism without defining it or providing useful guidelines.
Male and Female Sources in Newspaper Coverage of Male and Female Candidates in U.S. Senate Races in 2004 • Eric Freedman, Frederick Fico, and Brad Love, Central Michigan • This study assessed how the largest dailies in states with female Senate candidates in 2004 used male and female expert sand non-expert, uncommitted sources in covering campaigns. Male nonpartisan sources appeared more frequently and prominently than female sources. Female reporters cited male nonpartisan sources more often than did male reporters; reporters of both genders cited female sources equally rarely,. There was a negative correlation between gender diversity in sourcing and both newsroom diversity and circulation.
Why Journalism Students Don't Know Grammar • Gerald Grow, Florida A&M, and Glen Bleske, California State-Chico • Many college journalism teachers find themselves teaching high school grammar because students never mastered the skills. This paper discusses how grammar education at high school and college levels changed in recent decades, describes some ways of teaching grammar, and reports results of a pilot study of journalism students and their views about grammar skills. The survey indicated that confidence and anxiety may play key roles in how journalism students learn or do not learn grammar.
The Influence of Newspapers on Rural Economic Development • C. Ann Hollifield, Hugh J. Martin, and Cunfang Ren, Georgia • This study tests the theory that mass media have positive effects on local economic development. Rural areas lost newspapers over the 10 years studied. The presence of local daily newspapers in rural counties was related to lower poverty and higher retail sales, while circulation from non-local papers was negatively related to local retail sales. Weeklies had no impact on economic development. Consolidation of daily newspapers in rural areas may undercut the economic sustainability of communities.
Interactive Content & Online Newspapers: A Content Analysis of Online Versions of Korean and U.S. Newspapers • Moonki Hong, Yongrak Park, and Steven McClung, Florida State • Interactivity is considered as the best approaches for contribution of online journalism. Analyzing interactive features in the 116 online versions of Korean and U.S. newspapers in March 2005, the researchers found that U.S. online newspapers need to provide more "active" interactivity content increasing users' involvement. This study measured two different interactivity levels according to users participation based on online reading and writing.
Jesse James and Late-Nineteenth Century Missouri Newspapers: They Never Did His Legend Wrong • Cathy Jackson, Norfolk State • This descriptive study notes the journalistic and folkloric rise of Jesse James, a Missouri native, who robbed and killed, yet became an American outlaw hero. Through the use of folklore and sociological theories, this study places him and stories written about him as products of Missouri's crisis-filled, post-Civil War society. An analysis of 36 Missouri newspapers from 1866-1882 reveals stories infused with heroic motifs, insuring that James achieved hero status during his life and in history.
An Experimental Investigation of the Hostile Media Effect in Singapore • Wei Ling Koh, Diana Wong, Joel Yong, and Stella Chia, Nanyang Technological University • This study examines hostile media perceptions, which suggests the tendency for partisans from both sides of a controversial issue to regard the same media coverage as biased against their own viewpoint. Our data found support for hostile media perceptions and also showed that personal opinion remains the main contributing factor for perceived media bias.
Making Sports News: A Case Study of Sports Newsworkers • Dan Kozlowski, North Carolina • Utilizing data from fieldwork in the sports department of a metropolitan daily and interviews with sportswriters, this paper argues that what becomes sports news in the daily press is the product of a convergence of organizational bureaucracy, routines institutionalized to accommodate the exigencies of newswork, and an enigmatic conception of the audience, created and projected on the reader and then used to explain news judgment.
Says Who? Examining the Use of Anonymous Sourcing in News Stories • Martin Kratzer Renee, and Esther Thorson, Missouri • Recent media scandals and the new sourcing policies of three national elite newspapers have focused attention on the use of anonymous sources in newspapers. This content analysis reveals that there has been a decline in the number of anonymous sources from 2003 to 2004; however, the renewed focus on sourcing in the newspaper industry has not extended to the network industry where the number of unnamed sources has increased.
Cancer Stories in Black vs. Mainstream Newspapers: Is There a Public Health Perspective? • Jeongsub Lim, Jiyang Bae, Charlene Caburnay, Jon Stemmle, Shelly Rodgers, Doug Luke, Glen Cameron, and Matthew Kreuter, Missouri • This study compared the content of cancer news stories in black and mainstream newspapers to examine the presence of public health facts. The method was a content analysis of 24 Black and 12 mainstream newspapers, randomly selected from 24 cities in the U.S. Public health facts included prevention, mobilization information, perspective, monetary care, and consequences of cancer. Black newspapers provided more public health facts about cancer perspective and personal behavior mobilization than did mainstream newspapers.
Media Frames and Fairness and Balance of Five U.S. Newspapers' Coverage of Same-Sex Marriage • Xudong Liu, Louisiana State and Xigen Li, Arkansas State • A content analysis of 209 stories on same-sex marriage found overall coverage of same-sex marriage was fair and balanced. Source dominance of the stories was associated with balance of the coverage. The stories framed as thematic were more likely to be fair and balanced than the stories framed as episodic. The findings did not support the general belief that prestige newspapers do better than high circulation newspapers in fairness and balance of news coverage.
Walking in Step to the Future 2005: Views of Journalism Education by Practitioners and Educators • Ernest Martin, June Nicholson, Paula Otto, Jeff South, Judy Turk, and Debora Wenger, Virginia Commonwealth • This 2005 Internet survey of 343 journalism educators, newspaper editors and television and online news executives contrasts views about preparation of students for current and future jobs by showing gaps between what employers' value most in job applicants and what educational programs are providing. Second, it addresses newsroom challenges that are shaping the industry and journalism education. Third, it examines views on blogging and on newsroom support for First Amendment legal disputes.
Model of the Practice of News Immediacy by Web Newspapers • Brian Massey, Utah • Research tends to take a discrete view of the Web-newspaper practice of immediacy. This article proposes a holistic approach that encompasses the journalistic, commercial, audience and organizational-decision sides of the practice. It represents that approach in a model that conceives of Web-news immediacy as involving dimensions of "time," "form" and content," and starting with a "trigger" decision within the newspaper organization. Also discusses are influences that may work on that decision.
Connecting With Readers: Why Newspapers Should Consider Incorporating Blogs Into Their Online Content • Liz Matson, Northeastern • This paper argues that blogs can be an extension of a newspaper's daily news reporting and a means of connecting with the audience in a more immediate way. Using examples of current newspaper blogs, the paper presents six ways a newspaper can incorporate blogs into the editorial content of the paper's Website. The paper also presents a content analysis of 81 major metro and national newspaper Websites, which was undertaken in March 2005.
Young Adults' New Sense of Community Calls for a New Newspaper • Rachel Davis Mersey, North Carolina • Relying on sense of community research and utilizing a uses and gratifications lens, this research asserts that the frame of relevance for young adults is markedly different from that for traditional newspaper consumers, and that the root of this is a revised sense of community, which relies on the idea that relationships–not place–build communities. This geographically-unbound perspective calls for continued research and perhaps ultimately a departure from the conventional newspaper.
What's Good for Business is Good for America? The Framing of Outsourcing in Business Newspapers and General-Interest Newspapers • Joshua Mound, Ohio • When offshore outsourcing created controversy, it became not just a business matter, but a social and political issue framed by the press in numerous ways. Through the comparison of multiple groups of publications–each consisting of two general-interest newspapers with demographically different audiences and one business newspaper, all from the same city–this study examines the way in which the variables of class and business-orientation affect the framing of outsourcing.
Covering Campaign Finance: A Content Analysis of Articles, Editorials and Columns on the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 • Samuel Murphey, Christina Collison and Anthony Albrecht, Truman State • This paper analyzes the framing of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. We use content analysis methodology to analyze 96 news articles, editorials, and columns from seven newspapers. Our research shows that newspapers emphasized the legislative process frame more often than justification or issue frames. Further, most newspaper coverage was of a reactionary rather than a proactive nature. The findings prove that significant changes are needed to inform the public about legislative policy making.
Newshole Changes in Three Large Newspapers with Different Ownership Patterns • Geneva Overholser, Esther Thorson, Yan Jin, and Yonghoi Song, Missouri, and Steve Lacy, Central Michigan • This paper examined the Front and Metro newshole in Cleveland Plain Dealer (privately owned), Philadelphia Inquirer (publicly traded), and Minneapolis Star Tribune (owned by two-tiered companies) in 1987 and 2001 (before 9-11) to test the hypothesis that differential profit pressure known to exist in the three ownership patterns would impact the size and distribution news in the newshole. The results are discussed in terms of economic theory relating ownership to newspaper quality indexed by newshole.
When the Barbaric Becomes Sublime: Early New York Times Coverage of the Iraq War • Victor Pickard, Illinois • The historical account of U.S. press coverage of events leading up to and during war suggests the press plays an integral role in bolstering the case for military operations to an often-ambivalent public. Through careful reading of New York Times coverage of the early stages of the Iraq War, this paper examines one news tendency——namely, the technologizing of war——in the process of rendering the phenomenon of war as something natural and awe-inspiring.
Watchdog or Good Neighbor? The Public's Expectations of Local News Paula Poindexter, Don Heider and Maxwell McCombs, Texas • After an earlier study found the public expected the press to be a good neighbor, the present study set out to determine what that meant. The survey revealed being a good neighbor was strongly valued by women, African-Americans, and Hispanics and over half wanted more coverage of education, health and medicine, science, and arts and culture. Concerns included crime and social issues. Television was viewed as best able to address the public's concerns.
Mental Map Making: The Role of Black Newspapers in Shaping Perceptions of Cancer in Black Community • Qi Qiu, Cynthia Frisby, Shelly Rodgers and Glen Cameron, Missouri • Using case study meta-analysis, content analysis of black and mainstream papers was combined with survey findings from the same newspaper markets to explore news coverage in relation to mental maps of cancer. Findings indicate that cognitive and affective media attributes were associated with audiences' cancer knowledge and attitudes, supporting second-level agenda-setting. Less positive black newspapers correlated with higher levels of cancer anxiety among black women. Exposed to more positive headlines, white women had less fear.
The Public's Views of Ethics in Managing 'Letters to the Editor' • Bill Reader and Daniel Riffe, Ohio • This survey poses questions about attitudes toward the importance of LTEs and about ethics related to LTE selection, specifically letters that might be "hostile" toward the respondent's personal views. Results show that political/ideological views have almost no bearing on attitudes toward the ethics of publishing letters, with most people supporting publication of divisive letters. The exception was with a letter advocating racial segregation, which most respondents said would be "highly unethical" to publish.
It's Gametime: The Maslach Burnout Inventory Measures Burnout of Sports Journalists • Scott Reinardy, Missouri • A survey (N = 249) of newspaper sports journalists utilized the Maslach Burnout Inventory to examined burnout. Sports journalists suffer moderate rates of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, and have a high rate of personal accomplishment. Sports editors have a higher rate of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization than sports writers or desk personnel, and a lower rate of personal accomplishment. Younger, less experienced sports journalists at smaller newspapers suffer a higher rate of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization.
More Heat Than Light: A Case Study of Crime-Victim Identification in Theory and in Practice • Kathleen Richardson and Herb Strentz, Drake • This project had intended to study how newspaper identification of accusers in sexual abuse cases affected victim willingness to report crimes. Instead the research became a case study of the efficacy of such identification and the usefulness of statutory access to police records. The study found that police kept most reports of abuse secret, and suggests that debate over victim identification sheds more heat than light when it comes to news coverage of sexual abuse.
'Journalism is a Loose-Jointed Thing': A Content Analysis of Editor & Publisher's Discussion of Journalistic Conduct Prior to the Canons of Journalism • Ronald Rodgers, Ohio • With a category system drawn from the ethical elements listed in the Canons of Journalism, this analysis examined Editor & Publisher's discussion of the problems of journalism on its editorial page in the more than twenty years leading up to ASNE's adoption of that code in 1923. This study confirmed the presumption that code was a culmination of the ongoing and historical discourse in the newspaper industry's primary trade journal.
Second Servings: Online Publication and Its Impact on Second-Day Leads in Newspapers • Jack Rosenberry, St. John Fisher • A content analysis comparing contemporary newspaper leads to ones from 15 years earlier, before Internet publication became commonplace, determined that use of "first day" (direct/summary) leads has declined over that time. The findings support an argument that newspapers' print editions have become a permanent second-day publication concurrent with the rise of the 24-hour news cycle and the phenomenon of newspapers using their online editions to break news.
The Popular Ideology of Freedom of Expression: An Analysis of Newspaper Political Columns • Thomas Schwartz, Ohio State • This paper addresses the literature on public attitudes toward freedom of expression by analyzing 139 columns by 31 nationally syndicated newspaper columnists in an attempt to describe what the paper calls a popular ideology of freedom of expression. The paper explains what seem to be the conservative and liberal views but also notes "new right" and "feminist-critical" subgroups.
The Influence of Expert Opinion on Media Coverage of the Heisman Trophy Race • Trent Seltzer and Michael Mitrook, Florida • This study examines the 2001-2003 Heisman Trophy races to determine the relationship among the agendas of expert opinion, media coverage, and Heisman voters. The study analyzed 717 media stories, 50 AP college football polls, and 40 Rocky Mountain News expert opinion polls. The results provide support for the agenda-setting and framing influence of expert opinion and media coverage on the Heisman vote, suggesting the important role of expert opinion in the agenda-setting and framing process.
Taking Up Space: Growing Newspaper Groups, Their Markets, and the Makeup of Local Content • Joshua Shear, Syracuse • In this paper, the author predicts that large newspapers groups prefer economies of scale to putting reporters on the streets at each of their newspapers, and that certain types and subjects of news will be more prevalent in group-owned papers than their independent counterparts. Relationships are also predicted between market variables and story topics. The author's hypotheses are rejected, but interesting relationships are discovered in post-hoc analysis.
Stepping Back from the Gate: Online Newspaper Editors and the Co-Production of Content in Campaign 2004 • Jane Singer, Iowa • In their coverage of the 2004 political campaign, editors of Web sites affiliated with major U.S. newspapers continued to emphasize the provision of credible information. But they moved toward seeing that information less as an end product and more as a basis for user engagement, participation, and personalization. This study suggests a way that journalists might preserve their gatekeeping role in our democracy while simultaneously accommodating the interactive nature of the Internet.
Use of Anonymous, Government and Other Types of Sources in Newspaper Investigative Stories • Miglena Sternadori, Missouri • The study content analyzed winning and non-winning newspaper articles entered in the annual contest of Investigative Reporters and Editors from 1995 to 2002. Sourcing patterns were compared, and — contrary to expectations based on normative prescriptions — winning stories used more anonymous sources than non-winners. The frequency of use of government-affiliated sources was about the same. Occasional granting of anonymity appears to continue to be an acceptable practice in investigative reporting, especially in stories on government wrongdoing.
The Right of Review: Signs of Growing Cooperation with Sources • Duane Stoltzfus, Goshen • In thirty years since James W. Tankard Jr. and Michael Ryan considered the accuracy of science coverage in newspapers and challenged the accepted wisdom about prepublication review, it would appear that journalists have moved closer to an approach favored by the two researchers. A survey of the top 50 newspapers in the country shows that the majority often give staff members significant freedom to negotiate prepublication review.
Slave Reparations Dismissed in the News: An Examination of Reparations Coverage in Daily U.S. Newspapers • Venise Wagner, San Francisco State • This study examines coverage of the issue of slave reparations in daily U.S. newspapers. Using content analysis of articles pulled from Jan. 1- Dec. 31, 2002, the study explored how print press treated the story, assessing placement of stories, length, story types, use of sources and the inclusion or exclusion of contextual elements that portray the history of slavery, the legacy of slavery and the economic outcomes of slavery.
The Internet's Influence on Newspaper's Agenda: A Content Analysis of News Coverage in the New York Times, 1999-2003 • Xiaopeng Wang and Ying Sun, Ohio • From the inter-media agenda setting perspective, the authors conducted a content analysis to examine the general picture of how online information affected traditional media's agenda and whether newspapers treated the Internet as a reliable source. The authors found that political entities have utilized new information technology to maintain and promote their interest. In the newspaper newsrooms, the Internet was regarded as a new medium, but not a reliable news source.
The Dominance of Bearish News? Investigating the News Coverage Against the State of the Economy • Denis Wu and Anita Day, Louisiana State • This paper investigated the economic coverage of four local and two national media. Most economic news were found negative in nature. The local media are more likely than the national media to deliver a rosy picture of the economy. Government budget and company performances are two dominant topics, although local and national media differ on the angle used to report on the topics. The New York Times was found to reflect more closely the economy.
Neutral Reportage' as a Libel Defense • Kyu Youm, Oregon • The "neutral reportage" doctrine immunizes the press from liability for republishing in a neutral manner "newsworthy" allegations made by any "responsible" speaker about public figures. The debate about the validity of neutral reportage as a constitutional libel defense continues, although it was first enunciated in 1977. On March 28, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to rule on the validity of the neutral reportage doctrine. This paper reexamines the uniquely media-friendly libel defense.
Shaping Feelings: Newspaper Agenda Setting, Level 3: A Hypothesis • Jason Yu and Donald Shaw, North Carolina • We hypothesize that agenda setting exists at the level of affect, agenda setting, level 3. Using New York Times and Gallup Poll data, we found evidence that the affect associated with news messages is transferred to audiences. The study suggests that newspapers may suggest to readers how to feel about topics, a step beyond agenda setting, level 1 (objects), and agenda setting, level 2 (attribute framing).
The Framing of the 2004 Olympic Games in the U.S. Press • Thimios Zaharopoulos, Washburn U• This examines the framing of the 2004 Olympic Games as reflected in the coverage on the New York Times web site. It reinforces views about news media practices that emphasize conflict frames reflecting news values like balance and deviance; and economic consequences frames. However, frames Olympic organizers desired were hardly reflected in the coverage. Certain news frames are related to more contextual coverage, to more negative tone of coverage, and to shorter news coverage than others.
Similar Content, Different Packages: Covering the 9/11 Attack in U.S. and British Major Newspapers • Li Zeng, Arkansas State • This study examined the coverage of the "9/11" attack in U.S. and British major newspapers during the first week after the event. It found that the newspapers in the two countries portrayed the same event in different ways. British newspapers tended to provide more background information through features stories. In both story headlines and non-commentary stories, British newspapers were more likely to use a characterization word to describe the perpetrators than their U.S. counterparts.
Mass Communication and Society 2005 Abstracts
Mass Communication and Society Division
Missing the Market: Character Salience in Television Program Websites • James R. Angelini, Debbie P. C. Goh, Jason A. Rosow, Tyler Dodge, Wenchang Deng, Na Zhou and Susan Tyler Eastman, Indiana University, Bloomington • The television media promote primetime programs in ways that reflect different target markets. Analysis of the gender, ethnic, and age demographics of 1306 images of characters on the six broadcast networks' 124 program websites showed close similarities between old and new media in gender and ethnicity stereotyping but not in age stereotyping. In addition, an index of character and program salience measured the relative prominence of characters by demographic type.
Cultivating Fear: The Effects Of Television News Public's Fear Of Terrorism • Fernando Anton, Iowa State University • Based on cultivation theory, this study analyzes the relationship between television news exposure and the creation of fear in TV audiences. The results showed that heavy television news viewers are more scared of terrorism than light viewers. They also hold a larger number of erroneous beliefs about facts related to terrorist incidents and are more likely to change their behavior due to fear. Differences in cultivation levels among viewers of the six main national TV networks were also found.
Political Advertising and the Third Person Effect: Investigating the Behavioral Consequences of Negative Political Ads • Stephen Banning, Guy Golan, and Lisa Lundy, Louisiana State University • Political advertising has emerged as a key component of the modern presidential campaign. The current study examines the perceived influence of negative and biographical political advertisements on potential voters. A judgment task experiment of 340 individuals who were shown four ads from the 2004 Bush/Kerry campaigns provided some evidence as to the perceived effects of television presidential ads.
Cable Battleground: Analysis of Coverage for the 2004 Presidential Election on CNN and Fox News • Jacqueline Bates, Syracuse University • A content analysis was designed to explore cable shows' stories on policy and campaign issues during the 2004 presidential election. Both CNN and Fox News were compared for airtime of policy and campaign issues as well as airtime devoted to the candidates. Through this research project, it was found that CNN and Fox News are highly similar in their coverage of policy issues and candidates, but they differ in the coverage of campaign issues.
Make Me Over: Third-Person Perception About Body Image and Endorsement of Plastic Surgery in Self and Others • Kimberly L. Bissell, University of Alabama and Ron Leone, Stonehill College • Research examining the social effects of mass media as it relates to body image distortion often considers some behavioral components, specifically excessive dieting, bingeing, and exercising, but little is known about the degree in which women turn to plastic surgery to correct or reshape their bodies. Using a survey of college women, participants were shown an image of a thin-ideal swimsuit model and asked to project how repeated exposure to images like the one viewed would affect themselves and others.
Who's Got Game? Exposure to Entertainment and Sports Media and Social Physique Anxiety in Division I Female Athletes • Kimberly L. Bissell, and Katie Hines, University of Alabama • This study compared college female athletes' exposure to two types of media, and looked for possible associations with social physique anxiety, an affective trait that could be present in women who have eating disorder tendencies. Our survey of Division I female athletes yielded very inconsistent patterns with regard to the type of media that is more likely to be related to higher levels of physique anxiety.
Managing Impressions of Ethnic Diversity: Is Diversity a Differentiation Tactic on Collegiate Home Pages? • Lori Boyer, Louisiana State University • This study is an empirical analysis of whether colleges and universities use ethnic diversity as a self-presentation tactic. The Web site home pages of a random sample of 40 academic institutions were examined for written and visual references that regarding students of African American, Hispanic or Asian backgrounds. Findings suggest ethnic diversity was more likely to be present in the photographs rather than in the text. Results are discussed from the self-presentation theoretical perspective.
Third-Person Effect and Censorship of Web Pornography • Li-jing Arthur Chang, Jackson State • The study, which surveyed 710 respondents in Singapore, found that third-person effect played a role in the support for the censorship of Web pornography. Other factors found to predict the support for the censorship measure include gender, age, and Internet use. In addition, the study also confirmed past empirical evidence about the link between third person effect and undesirable media content, and the association between third person effect and the social distance between self and others
Youth Perceptions of their School Violence Risks • John Chapin, Penn State University • In order to gauge youth perceptions of school violence, the study links two perceptual bias literatures: third-person perception and optimistic bias. The intersection of the two literatures may be especially beneficial in understanding how adolescents process and interpret mass media public health messages and subsequently engage in risk behaviors or self-protective behaviors in health contexts. Findings from a survey of 350 urban adolescents indicate shared predictors of third-person perception and optimistic bias (age, self-esteem) as well as differences (knowledge).
Attention, Perception, and Perceived Effects: Negative Political Advertising in a Battleground State of the 2004 Presidential Election • Hong Cheng and Dan Riffe, Ohio University • Based on a statewide telephone survey conducted two weeks prior to the November 2004 presidential election, this study probes Ohioans' attention to and perception of the 2004 presidential election advertising, and their perception of effects of those negative political ads. Citizens in this "battleground" state had a very high level of awareness of the campaign and campaign advertising, and characterized the campaign advertising as more negative than in the past.
An Examination of Third Person Effect with Q Methodology: How Does My Ideal Body Image Differ from the Perceived Ideal Image of Others? • Yun Jung Choi and Jong Hyuk Lee, Syracuse University • The third person effect was examined with the Q methodology. Participants were asked to sort images of women to represent their ideal image and their perception of other's ideal image. The third person effect was observed in the study. People's their own ideal Q sort loaded on one factor while their Q sorts representing their perception of others' ideal image loaded on another factor.
Risk Communication: The Importance of Source Diversity to Credible and Interesting Reporting • Raluca Cozma Louisiana State University • An experiment was conducted to explore the effects of government versus multiple sources on perceived credibility of and interest in risk stories. It also analyzed the effects of sources on participants' assessment of government credibility and source reasonableness. The study investigated the effects of demographic characteristics of participants on the same variables, and tried to determine if there was any statistical correlation between credibility and interest. It also analyzed the effects of human-interest reports on credibility and interest.
Advertising Exposures and Message Types: Exploring the Perceived Effects of Soft-Money Political Ads • Frank Dardis, Heidi Hatfield Edwards, and Fuyuan Shen, Penn State University • This experimental study examined third-person effects of negative political attack advertising and its relationship with ad type (issue vs. character), exposure level and attitudes toward campaign finance reform. After being exposed to one, three, or five independently sponsored attack ads from the 2004 Presidential Election, subjects were found to overestimate the effects of negative political advertising on others vs. self.
Hyper-Masculinity as Political Strategy: George W. Bush, the "War on Terrorism," and An Echoing Press • David Domke University of Washington • Scholars have demonstrated the centrality of masculinity as an ideology in the American presidency, but have devoted insufficient attention to the manner in which presidents use specific forms of masculinity in strategic ways to control the mass media environment and circumscribe public sentiment.
First-time Eligible Presidential Voters' Perceptions of Politics, Patriotism, and Media • Jacqueline M. Eckstein, Miglena Daradanova, Peter J. Gade, University of Oklahoma • This Q-methodology analysis seeks to help explain the attitudes of a large and important group of the political electorate-first-time presidential voters. This cohort, also called Generation Y by scholars and social pundits (Klinger, 1999; Morton, 2001; Shepherdson, 2000), is the largest group of first-time presidential voters in U.S. history (Rosenberg, 2004).
Multilevel Models of the Impact of News Use and News Content Characteristics on Political Knowledge and Participation • William P. Eveland and Yung-I Liu Ohio State University • Studies indicate that election news has changed for the worse since the 1960s. But, little research has examined the impact of this "decline" in the quality of news on the effects of news use on positive outcomes such as political knowledge and participation. This study employs multilevel modeling to test the hypothesis that news media effects vary over time as a function of news media content. The data provide little support for this hypothesis.
Rationalizing War A Path Analysis Model of Agenda Building • Shahira Fahmy, Southern Illinois University, Juyan Zhang, Monmouth University and Wayne Wanta, Missouri School of Journalism • This agenda-building study employed a path analysis model to examine the three-way relationship among the president, the media and the public on the Iraq War issue during the Bush administration. Findings suggest President Bush reacted to public opinion by emphasizing the five most important rationales for war: War on terror; Prevention of the proliferation of V/MD; Lack of inspections; Removal of the Saddam regime; Saddam is evil.
Show the Truth and let Al Jazeera Audience Decide Support for Use of Graphic Imagery Among Al Jazeera Viewers • Shahira Fahmy and Thomas J. Johnson, Southern Illinois University • This survey examines Al Jazeera viewers' perceptions of the network's presentation of graphic and war-related visuals and whether viewers perceive the network provides visual information they cannot find in national Arab media and CNN. Nearly nine in ten supported the use of graphic imagery, saying watching those visuals was a good decision for them and that Al Jazeera provides a unique source of visual information. Further, media reliance, press freedom and political interest predicted support for use of graphic imagery.
News (Un)Scripted: An Analysis of Support and Blame in The Wake Of Two Shooting Deaths • Vincent F. Filak and Robert S. Pritchard, Ball State University • Using Gilliam et al's (2000) theoretical framework of crime news as script, this case study examined the response postings (n=389) left on a newspaper's website regarding two fatal shootings. An analysis of the postings found differences in placement of blame and support based on whether the incident followed standard script patterns. Postings regarding a shooting that fit the script were more likely to attribute blame to the assailants as individuals and offer sympathy to the victim's family.
An Empirical Investigation of the Relationships Among Fear and Efficacy of Breast Cancer, Media Use, and Knowledge About Breast Cancer Prevention in Caucasian and African American Women • Kenneth Fleming and Cynthia Frisby, University of Missouri-Columbia • This study examines the relationships among attitudes toward breast cancer, knowledge about the disease, religious beliefs, and use of various news media channels in Caucasian (n=240) and African American (n=206) women randomly selected in eleven metropolitan areas in the U.S. Results show that magazines were negatively related to fear of breast cancer, and radio was positively related to efficacy of the disease for African American women. Use of the Internet was a predictor of efficacy for Caucasian women.
Media, Civics & Social Capital in a Hispanic Community: The Case of Santa Ana, California • Dennis Foley and Tony Rimmer, California State University • This study explores relationships between community activity and media use among Hispanics with data from a 2002 survey in Santa Ana, California (N=209). Survey questions were adapted from a Robert Putnam 2000 national benchmark survey from which Putnam developed his notions of social capital. Community activity and media use were both low and positively related. Education was the only factor to show positive correlations with both community activity and media use. Cultural dimensions, including language, were also expected to reveal influences. They did, but with minimal effect. The implications of the findings in this unique community raise concerns about the possibility of building "social capital" — the norms of reciprocity and trust necessary for community life.
"Always a Bridesmaid and Never a Bride:" Portrayals of Women of Color as Brides in Bridal Magazines • Cynthia M. Frisby, University of Missouri-Columbia • Bridal advertisements from 2000-2004 were content analyzed as an extension of a study reported in a book titled White Weddings that assessed the portrayals of African American women as brides in bridal magazines from 1959 – 1999. Data obtained show that the proportion of Caucasian women as brides was greater than the number of ads featuring Black women as brides. Significant differences were also found on the ethnicity of the model used on the cover of magazines.
Political Correlates of Daytime Talk Show Viewing • Carroll J. Glynn Ohio State University, Bruce W. Hardy and James Shanahan, Cornell University • This study examined the influence of daytime talk shows on opinion formation, from a cultivation perspective. Specifically, we examined how exposure to daytime talk shows and the extent that these shows are perceived as real are related to support for government involvement in family issues. Not only did we find that both exposure and perceptions were positively related to levels of support, we found a mainstreaming effect toward a liberal position.
Political Knowledge, Civic Engagement, and Media Use Across Election Campaigns • Robert Kirby Goidel and David D. Kurpus, Louisiana State University • Understanding the role of the media in informing and engaging the public in democratic political processes has been at the core of empirically based mass communication research. Yet, despite a considerable body of literature, we know surprisingly little about how patterns of media use differ across elections (presidential, senate, and mayoral) within a single election season, and media use translates into civic engagement.
Second Level Agenda Setting and Political Advertising: Investigating the transfer of issue and attribute saliency during the 2004 U.S. presidential election • Guy Golan, Louisiana State University and Spiro K. Kiousis, University of Florida and Misti L McDaniel, Louisiana State University • The current study examines the agenda setting function of televised political advertisements during the 2004 U.s. presidential election. Adding to the growing research on second level agenda setting, we examined how the advertising agendas of the Bush and Kerry campaigns may have impacted public evaluations of the two candidates. Our results provide support for the agenda setting hypothesis as well as mixed support for the second level hypothesis.
Framing Private Lynch: Establishment and Tenacity of the Hero Frame During War • Josh Grimm University of Texas-Austin • Following the rescue of Jessica Lynch, a soldier captured during the invasion of Iraq, media outlets incorrectly sensationalized events surrounding her capture, imprisonment, and rescue. Using Lule's components of a hero, newspaper articles and news transcripts were analyzed for these attributes, and a Web forum was studied to gauge reaction. A hero frame was present in the press and, for at least a portion of the population, the frame was a stubborn one.
Coverage of Illusion: Framing the Pre-Iraq War Debate • Jacob Groshek, Indiana University • This study examined how two leading news outlets framed the pre-Iraq War debate. Not only was opposition seldom framed in a substantive manner, neutral and supportive coverage were also rarely framed substantively. These findings suggest that the public was given little basis for participating in policy deliberation and that the media made more effort to illustrate how the policy was going to be implemented, rather than why it should (or should not) be implemented.
Have the Cows Gone Mad: Are They Sick, Down, or Diseased? A Content Analysis of Newspaper Articles Discussing the First U.S. Mad Cow Outbreak • Michel M Haigh, Michael Bruce and Elizabeth Craig, University of Oklahoma • This study examines the media's portrayal of the mad cow disease outbreak of 2003. It specifically examines whether the newspaper coverage of the news event differed between the east/west coasts and the Midwest. The differences examined include: tone, framing (episodic, thematic, economic, health, treatment, or causal), affect, and source credibility. Results indicate a variety of differences in tone, framing, emotion, and source credibility between the east/west coasts versus the Midwest newspapers coverage.
How Activists Persuade; Examining Differences in Message Factors in the Abortion Debate • Abby Gail Hendren, University of Florida • With the trend toward examining persuasion effects from a consumer-marketing perspective, the heated public debate about abortion provides opportunities to examine the precursor to effects, the message itself, within the context of a controversial issue. Through content analysis of NARAL and NRLC '5 press releases, significant differences in the persuasive message factors employed by the groups were found. Additionally, differences emerged between the groups' discussion of abortion decision-making, and the specific issues addressed by each group.
The Perception of Freedom of the Press in the Eyes of the Media: A Comparative, International Analysis of 242 Ethical Codes • Itai Himelboim, University of Minnesota and Yehiel (Hilik) Limor, Sapir College • This study explores perceptions of freedom of the press of those who practice it: journalists and media organizations. References to freedom of the press in codes of ethic worldwide were analyzed based on characteristics of organizations and the political-economic status of countries. Findings show that journalists express concerns regarding their freedoms, regardless the level of freedom of the press in the country. In developing countries, codes show concerns primarily about the most fundamental freedoms.
Effects of Positive vs. Negative Self-Efficacy Statements in Humorous Anti-Alcohol Abuse Ads • Myiah Hutchens Hively, Moon J. Lee, and Yi-Chun "Yvonnes" Chen, Washington State University • This study investigated the effects of self-efficacy statements in different types (positive vs. negative) of taglines in humorous anti-alcohol abuse advertisements based on individuals' sensation seeking tendency. An experiment was conducted with 114 college students. Results indicate that positively reinforced messages consistently demonstrated better results than the negatively reinforced advertisements; however, results were mixed for the effects of self-efficacy statements. Implications, limitations and directions for future research are discussed.
Sin, Wrath, and Death Ritual Interrupted: Press Coverage of the Tri-State Crematory Scandal • Janice Hume, University of Georgia • Abstract not available.
Embeds' Perceptions of Censorship: Can You Criticize a Soldier Then Have Breakfast with him the Next Morning? • Thomas J. Johnson and Shahira Fahmy • Southern Illinois University • This study examines a survey of embedded journalists worldwide to explore their opinions about freedom of the press and the degree to which they believe their reports were censored during the Iraq War. Our findings suggest most journalists took a social responsibility approach to freedom of press during the Iraq War, saying the needs of the media and military need to be balanced. Embeds reported that they experienced little censorship in Iraq and said they did not self-censor their stories.
Web Site Story: An Exploratory Study of Why Weblog Users Say They Use Weblogs • Barbara K. Kaye, University of Tennessee • This paper examines the uses and motivations for accessing Weblogs. Rather than relying on motivations from pre-existing scales measuring traditional media or Internet use that need to be adapted for weblogs, this study asked respondents in an open-ended format for reasons why they connect to weblogs.
Motivations for Online News Sites: Uses and gratifications of online news sites for political information • Daekyung Kim and Thomas J. Johnson, Southern Illinois University Carbondale • This online study examined the motivations for why politically interested Internet users during the 2004 presidential campaign were using mainstream news sites, independent Web-based news sites, and Weblogs, and attempted to discover which factor predict motivations for using the news Web sites. Convenience/information seeking appeared as the strongest motivations for using news Web sites. The findings also indicate that each of the news Web sites satisfies different needs.
A balancing act: Predicting support for requiring Internet filters in public libraries and schools • Jennifer L. Lambe, Mynah S. Lipke & Elizabeth M. Perse, University of Delaware • Although the First Amendment seems absolute, it is balanced with other important interests. Protecting children from Internet pornography has been a struggle for Congress. The Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) requires public libraries and schools to place filters on computers with Internet access to receive funding for new technologies. This study examines variables predicting public attitudes about such filters. News framing, internet pornography use and liberal-conservative self-ranking are among the statistically significant predictors.
Here and There around the World: Proximity and Scope as News Values • Jong Hyuk Lee, Gang (Kevin) Han, Pamela J, Shoemaker, Syracuse University and Akiba A. Cohen, Tel Aviv University, Israel • Based on the data of What's News, a cross-national news definition project, this study introduces the concept of scope to enrich the dimensions of proximity, as a news value and examines the extent to which news items exhibit these two as well as how they may be related. Other two news values, deviance and social significance are also discussed regarding their interaction with both proximity and scope.
Rethinking Voter Rationality: Presidential Debates and Voter-candidate Issue Alignment • Nam-Jin Lee, Christopher C. Long, Seungmin Shin, Seung-Hyun Lee, and Dhavan V. Shah, University of Wisconsin-Madison. • Research on presidential debate has proposed several conflicting mechanisms leading to issue alignment-a process in which voters bring their issue positions and candidate choice into alignment, with varying implications for voter rationality.
Party affiliation, political ad perceptions and political involvement: Evidence from the 2004 Presidential campaign • Sangki Lee and Fuyuan Shen, Penn State University • This research used a data from a survey during the 2004 presidential campaigns found that party affiliation was a significant factor in how individuals perceived the negativity and truthfulness of political ads. Specifically we found that people respond to negative political ads in accordance with their partisanship. Furthermore, it was found that party affiliation has significant effects on how negative perceptions of ads influence political involvement. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings will be addressed.
Advanced Learning and Online News: A Test of Cognitive Flexibility Theory • Wilson Lowrey and Kyun Soo Kim • University of Alabama • This study employs cognitive flexibility theory (CFT) from the field of education psychology to test learning effects from varying online story formats. According to CFT, when case examples from a knowledge area are interwoven with conceptual perspectives, learning should be more easily applied across diverse settings. Experiment findings revealed significant interaction effects with degree of prior Web use and degree of prior knowledge of story content, but a weak main effect from varying story format.
Awakening the Civic Parent: The School and Family in Political Socialization • Michael McDevitt, University of Colorado at Boulder and Spiro Kiousis, University of Florida • This paper explores whether schools-through the prompting of student-parent conversation-can awaken the civic parent of an adult, a role identity that might otherwise remain dormant. Results validate a theoretical model in which a school intervention engenders political involvement directly, but also indirectly through the long-term cultivation of civic parenting. Results are derived from a field study of Kids Voting USA as taught to high school students and parents in Arizona, Colorado, and Florida.
Evidence of Media Saturation Among a Group of 10th Graders in Beijing • Jay Newell and Ma Qing, Iowa State University • A foundational assumption of post-modem thought is that societies worldwide are awash in mass media. However, the suppositions of media saturation have yet to be defined or tested. For this research, indicators of electronic media saturation were considered to be the ubiquity of electronic media devices, the proximity of devices to their users, and the constancy of media device use.
Perceptions of Seafood/Fish Safety and Media Effects in China • Lan Ni, University of Maryland • Using qualitative interviewing, this study examined how people in China perceive the safety of seafood and fish and how the media play a role in the communication of such risk. Consistent with the western risk literature, the findings basically confirmed the importance of personal relevance in risk perception and the necessity of multiple level efforts or a "holistic approach" in risk reduction. The unique finding about risk information overload demands further research on risk prioritization.
Mass Media, Religion, and Support for Civil Liberties: The Case of Muslim Americans • Erik C. Nisbet, James Shanahan, and Ronald Ostman, Cornell University • This paper examines associations between mass media use and individual predispositions, such as ideology and Christian religiosity, with public support for restrictions on Muslim American civil liberties. Using a national survey conducted in November 2004, we demonstrate how attention to TV news regarding the War on Terrorism and religiosity are both associated with increased support for restrictions.
Middletown Media Studies: A Comparison of Concurrent Media Exposure across Three Research Methods • Robert A. Papper, Michael E. Holmes, Mark N. Popovich and Michael Bloxham, Ball State University • Concurrent media exposure (CME) is an emerging concern in audience research for media professionals and scholars. We apply three methods–telephone survey, media diary, and observation–to reveal features of CME such as its frequency and duration in a typical media user's day and patterns of concurrent media pairings. Results reveal differences in the profile of CME across research methods and underscore the roles of television as a "universal presence" and telephone as a "universal priority" in shaping patterns of CME.
The Differential Effects of Entertainment Television on College Women's Satisfaction in Weight and Self-Esteem: The Moderating Role of Body Mass Index and Perceived Importance of Physical Appearance • Jm Seong Park, and Michael F. Weigold, University of Florida • The present study investigated how women's body mass index (BIVH) and perceived importance of physical appearance moderate the relationship between entertainment media use variables, including both passive exposure to entertainment programming and active use of entertainment referents, and body-image dissatisfaction and self-esteem. Based on a survey with 198 female undergraduates, the study found that importance of physical appearance moderated the comparison to self-esteem link, while BMI moderated the exposure to body image dissatisfaction link.
Ideology and Source Credibility: Partisan Perception Bias in Believability of CNN, Fox News and PBS • Zengjun Peng, University of Missouri • This paper examines the relationship between partisan ideology and perception of source believability within the framework of hostile media effect. Results show that partisan ideology significantly influenced people's perceived believability of three news outlets of CNN, Fox News and PBS (News Hour with Jim Lehrer). Liberals are more likely to rate CNN as believable while conservatives tend to endorse Fox News. Partisan ideology, however, does not make a difference in the evaluation of PBS.
Individual Differences in Perceptions of Internet Communication • Jochen Peter & Patti M. Valkenburg, University of Amsterdam • Drawing on a survey among 687 adolescents, we investigated (a) to what extent their perceptions of Internet communication differ and (b) which background variables (i.e., age, gender, social anxiety, loneliness, need for affiliation) underlie these differences. We focused on how adolescents perceive the controllability, reciprocity, breadth, and depth of Internet communication in comparison with face-to-face communication.
Advertising evaluations and perceived media importance in political decision making • Bruce E. Pinideton, David Cuillier, Yi-Chun "Yvonnes" Chen, Rebecca Van de Vord, Myiah Hutchens Hively, Erica Austin and Ming Wang • Washington State University • Scholars often blame the news media and negative campaign commercials for increasing citizens' apathy and disinterest in politics. This study examined the relationships among people's perception of media and advertising, and their political apathy, complacency, efficacy, and involvement through a telephone survey of randomly selected voters in Washington state. Results indicate that perceptions of advertising usefulness positively associated with apathy and the perceived importance of political advertising as a source of election information associated with complacency.
Social capital and mass media effects: A reexamination of the relationship between social capital and newspaper, television and Internet use • Maria Raicheva-Stover, Washburn University • It is a central argument in this study that communication carries wide implications for social capital, yet this link has not been examined in sufficient depth. On the basis of existing literature, this study conceptualizes social capital as consisting of two complementary categories – structural and cognitive. Furthermore, the study uses improved measures of newspaper, television and Internet use to predict the two types of social capital.
The making of the 2004 U.S. President: A Matter of Ethnic Differences, Faith or Political Identification? • Raiza A. Rehkoff, Georgia State University • During election years, religion and politics have to be seen not as separate but interrelated factors, especially when parties politicize issues at the intersection of religion and politics like gay marriages, abortion, Iraqi invasion and death penalty. Building on social identity theory, this study examines religious, political identities and news media exposure as predictors for presidential voting intentions and attitudes toward politicized issues among African American and non-African American new voters during the 2004 presidential election.
Television and Political Alienation in Japan: Lazarsfeld and Merton's Narcotizing Dysfunction Revisited • Shinichi Saito, Tokyo Woman's Christian University • Expanding on Lazarsfeld and Merton's (1948) narcotizing dysfunction, this study examined whether viewing television cultivates political alienation. Data from a survey conducted in Tokyo revealed that frequent viewers were more likely to be politically apathetic and feel politically inefficacious. Among viewers who did not watch the news on public television, television viewing was also related to cynicism. We examined the implications of our findings and provide some directions for future research.
First-Person Shooters and Third-Person Effects: Early Adolescents' Perceptions of Video Game Influence • Erica Scharrer and Ron Leone • Perceptions of the potential for negative influence from six specific video games that varied in rating (from E for Everyone to M for Mature) were measured in a sample of 118 sixth and seventh graders. Results support a third-person perceptual gap that grew as the rating of the game became more restrictive. The presence of parental rules about video games was a positive predictor of perceptions of influence on self and others.
'We'll Never Save Enough': the Effect of Media Use on Prospective, Retrospective, Sociotropic, and Pocketbook Economic Attitudes • Rosanne Scholl, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This study examines the relationship between media exposure and perceptions of personal and sociotropic economic vitality. Using multi-wave panel data from the DDB-Needham Lifestyle Survey, this study shows that media exposure is associated with greater optimism about the current state of the national economy, but greater pessimism of "pocketbook" judgments about one's own current economic situation. Media use was not related to prospective judgments about future personal and societal economic health.
Television Consumption and Gender Role Attitudes in Late Adolescent Males • Jay Senter, University of Kansas • Using the cognitive information-processing model and cultivation theory as a basis, this study examined the potential connection between late adolescent males' television consumption and their attitudes about masculinity. Participants kept track of their television viewing for a week and then responded to an attitudes questionnaire. The data yielded a correlation between the amount of sexual content the participants consumed and the likelihood that they accepted stereotypical portrayals of masculinity as normative.
Communication, Consumption, Contentment, and Community: A Non-Recursive Model of Civic Participation and the "Pursuit of Happiness" • Dhavan V. Shah, University of Wisconsin-Madison, R. Lance Holbert, University of Delaware, Lucy Atkinson, Eunkyung Kim and Sun-Young Lee, University of Wisconsin • Theories of social capital and civic culture suggest that life satisfaction has a positive and, perhaps, reciprocal set of influences on engagement in cooperative activities. However, as Coleman and Galbraith assert, contentment, especially stemming from economic affluence and compensatory consumption, may diminish inter-reliance, weaken the strength of social ties and ultimately reduce civic volunteerism.
The Rise of Network Public Opinion as a Social and Political Force in China • Zixue Tai, Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville • This paper examines the role of the Internet in creating a brand-new social platform where Chinese citizens can debate hot issues of the day. It demonstrates through recent cases that since public opinion on sensitive issues may not be readily available elsewhere due to official sanction and control, popular sentiments as expressed in online forums, chatrooms and BBS often serve as a barometer for politicians, government functionaries and lawmakers to gauge public opinion.
Community Newspapers as Members of the Local Growth Coalition: Framing Discourse Surrounding Community Initiatives • Michael L. Thurwanger, Bradley University •This study analyzed news and editorial coverage by newspapers serving Illinois communities seeking selection as prison sites. Analysis of frames and their sponsors support the existence of an effective alliance within these rural communities fitting the local growth coalition model proposed by Logan and Molotch (1987). Consistent with that model, the study provided strong evidence of membership and participation by the newspapers in those local growth coalitions and advancement of their economic growth agendas.
Democratic Consequences of Hostile Media Perceptions: The Case of Gaza Settlers • Yariv Tsfati and Jonathan Cohen, University of Haifa • In this paper, we examine the consequences of the hostile media phenomenon and advance the argument that people's perceptions of hostile coverage shape their trust in mainstream media institutions. Media trust in turn affects trust in democracy and willingness to accept democratic decisions.
Communication Channels and Agenda Diversity: The Impact of "Display" and "Research" Sources on the Public Agenda • Ester DeWaal and Klaus Schoenbach, University of Amsterdam • As display channels, television, print newspapers, radio and magazines offer pre-selected and pre-ordered information about topics of the public sphere. "Research" channels, such as online news sites, online newspapers and videotex, allow, but also require more autonomy from their users. Consequently, overlooking topics one is not interested in should be easier. So, display channels should contribute to more diversity of the perceived public agenda.
Explaining Charitable Giving During Times of Crises: An Exploration of Two Psychological Paradigms • Richard D. Waters, and Jennifer Lemanski, University of Florida • A survey of two Red Cross chapters' donors revealed that donors to the December 2004 tsunami relief efforts were more likely to experience feelings of cognitive dissonance than non-donors and their donations resulted in a consonance restoration. Testing the mere exposure theory, it was found that increased exposure to news concerning the tsunami did not correlate to increased donations. This study found support for Festinger's hypothesis that individuals avoid situations that increase feelings of dissonance.
Nationalism as a McLuhanite Message in the Online Sphere • Xu Wu, University of Florida • Forty years ago, Canadian social scientist Marshall McLuhan first declared that "the medium is the message." What kind of message has the online medium brought to the cyber world and to the real world? Is there any room or time left for the continual existence of nationalism? Moreover, what nationalists can do and have been doing in utilizing the online technology to promote their causes? Relevant literature and cases were reviewed and analyzed in answering these questions.
Zooming in on American Civic Life: Modeling Social Capital from Internet Dependency Relations and Internet Current Affairs News Consumption • Jin Yang, University of Memphis And Jyotika Ramaprasad, Southern Illinois University • Focusing on social capital from Internet dependency relations (IDR) and Internet current affairs news consumption perspectives, the study explored the role of the Internet in American civic life and its contributions to social capital resources, using structural equation modeling. It found complex relationships among IDR, Internet current affairs news consumption, and social capital.
A Meta-analysis of Coping Strategies for Reducing Children's Media-Induced Fright • Yinjiao Ye, University of Alabama • This investigation meta-analyzed the effect of coping strategies on reducing children's media-induced fright reactions. Results confirmed the estimation in the literature that for children approximately from 7- to 11-year-old, cognitive strategies worked better than non-cognitive strategies and had a moderate effect (r = -.34) in reducing their media-induced fear. For children approximately younger than 7-year-old, results suggested although non-cognitive strategies tended to be more effective than cognitive strategies did, no significant difference existed between these two types of coping strategies.
Web Repertoires and Audience Concentration • Jungsu Yim, Seoul Women's University • This study focuses on presenting the evidence of an association between Web repertoires and audience concentration that has been hypothetically suggested in some past studies. The result is that Web repertoires formed in an individual respondent level lead to audience concentration in an aggregate level. The result implies that television audiences in the multi-item media environment will face the similar environment to the Web.
Nationalistic Ambiguity in the Shadow of Occupation: Newspaper Opinion Pages as Meaning-Makers about Post-War Iraq • Mervat Youssef, Amani Ismail and Dan Berkowitz, University of Iowa • In times of nationalistic ambiguity, media discourses function as a forum for casting diverse voices that negotiate meaning about developing events. The manifestation of this process is explored through two moments that generated such ambiguity within the American community: The Abu Ghraib prison abuse and the Nick Berg beheading in 2004. Findings suggest that mediated opinion discourses often serve as a mechanism which facilitates the maintenance of community cohesion around shared values through group differentiation.
<< 2005 Abstracts
Law 2005 Abstracts
Law Division
Protecting the Public Policy Rationale of Copyright: Reconsidering Copyright Misuse • Victoria Smith Ekstrand, Bowling Green • This paper addresses the doctrine of copyright misuse, an affirmative defense to infringement. This analysis revealed that courts (1) have been reluctant to find in favor of defendants who claim copyright misuse and (2) have interpreted the doctrine narrowly on the basis of antitrust considerations. However, more recent decisions suggest a greater willingness to rule for defendants claiming misuse.
The Protection of an Author's Work: Press Coverage of the Emergence of Copyright during the Mid-Nineteenth Century • Gary C. Guffey, University of Georgia • The Copyright Act of 1831 is considered the basis of modern U.S. copyright law. Although there was strong support for the law portrayed in the newspapers and magazines from 1820 to 1840, many writers found trouble with the ultimate effects of the law. According to the articles an author's exclusive rights expanded to include greater domestic protection but failed to develop the financial structure necessary to support the creative talents.
Blocking the Sunshine: How the FOIA's "Opaque" Deliberative-Process Exemption Obstructs Access to Government-Held Information • Martin E. Halstuk, Penn State University • This paper seeks to shed light on FOIA Exemption 5, which applies to "inter-agency or intra-agency" documents. The purpose of this exemption is to protect the government during litigation. Therefore, it embodies several common law privileges from discovery, mainly the deliberative-process privilege, the attorney work-product privilege and the attorney-client privilege. This research project focuses on the deliberative-process privilege because it is the most broadly worded and most often invoked of the Exemption 5's privileges.
When Is an Invasion of Privacy Unwarranted Under the FOIA? An Analysis of The Supreme Court's "Sufficient Reason" and "Presumption of Legitimacy" Standards • Martin E. Haistuk, Penn State University • This paper examines a 2004 Supreme Court decision, Favish v. National Archives Administration, which concerns a FOIA request for the death scene photos of former Clinton White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster, who committed suicide. The Court held that FOIA's privacy exemptions extend to Foster's family members and, therefore, the government could withhold the pictures. This paper concludes that the Court's recognition of privacy rights for family members of the dead was not unreasonable.
Step Out of Line and the "Man" Will Come and Take You Away: Using "Speech Zones" to Control Public Discourse in 21″ Century America • Paul Haridakis and Amber Ferris, Kent State University • We review the use of Speech Zones in which narrowly prescribed areas are designated as acceptable places for expression, and large areas, regardless of whether they have been traditional public forums in the past are deemed off-limits for public discourse. We argue that the use and level of acceptance of speech zones to control public discourse in the 21st century provides a gauge of the current level of societal commitment to free speech.
Press Protection in the Blogsophere: Applying a Functional Definition of Press to News Web Logs • Laura J. Hendrickson • This paper discusses how a functional definition of "the press" might broaden the scope of who qualifies to include some news web logs. The author further discusses the implications of this for either increasing the number 01' news outlets who qualify for press privileges or, in the event the press ultimately is indistinguishable as an institution, for diminishing special protections – such as shield laws or access to important news events – that the press traditionally has enjoyed.
Soldier Or Citizen In The Digital Age? How Access to Technology and the Embedded Media Program Effect First Amendment Protections for Speech and the Military's Authority to Restrict it • Anaklara Hering, Florida • When defining First Amendment protections for military personnel, courts balance the need for a viable military against preservation of rights for those called to arms. Most often, national security wins at the expense of speech, however embedded war correspondents and sophisticated communication devices present challenges to these precedents. This article explains the rationale that holds service members as soldiers first and citizens second and proposes education before the press loses its access to the battlefield.
Telemarketing Regulation and the Commercial Speech Doctrine • R. Michael Hoefges, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Federal appeals courts have ruled constitutional both the federal ban on unsolicited telefax advertising and the national do-not-call registry under the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has declined requests to review these decisions. Thus, for the time being, these federal regulatory schemes stand as examples of constitutional limitations on telemarketing that preserve the rights of advertisers and marketers while protecting the concomitant right of consumers to receive – and not receive – these and other targeted communications.
Unconstitutional Review Board? Considering a First Amendment Challenge to IRB Regulation of Journalistic Research Methods • Robert L. Kerr, Oklahoma • This paper considers how IRB regulations on journalistic research methods might fare if subjected to the judicial scrutiny of a First Amendment challenge. Through analysis of relevant case law, this article considers the critical elements likely to be at issue and finds the regulation suspect on multiple constitutional grounds. Regardless whether the plaintiff in this hypothetical challenge could in fact prevail, however, the analysis offers substantial evidence that such regulations are glaringly at odds with American free-speech traditions and values.
A Multilevel Approach to Spam Regulation: Federal Preemption, State Enforcement, and CAN-SPAM • Martin G. Kuhn, North Carolina • Prior to the passage of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 thirty-six states had enacted their own anti-spam statutes. This paper asks how the preemption and enforcement provisions in the Act limit existing state legislation, shape emerging state statutes, and define a new role for the state attorneys general in anti-spam enforcement.
First Amendment and Libel in Emerging Democracies: Case Study of Kyrgyzstan • Svetlana Kulikova, Louisiana State University • This paper is an attempt to analyze the libel law application in the post-Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan (Central Asia). Comparative analysis of the Kyrgyz constitution and libel cases in light of the US First Amendment demonstrates that in a generally permissive legal environment and in the absence of public figure concept, public officials can effectively use the libel law to suppress criticism of the government, silence oppositional media and re-introduce self-censorship among journalists.
Non-Discriminatory Access and Compelled Speech: Drawing the Distinction in the Cable Open Access Debate • Nissa Laughner, University of Florida • This paper focuses on whether mandatory open access for competitive ISPs on cable broadband systems constitutes a form of compelled speech It reviews Supreme Court precedent relating to compelled speech; it also uses two district court decisions addressing the compelled speech question as case studies by which to identify relevant issues; it then proceeds with an analysis of whether open access is content-neutral or content-based, and whether gatekeeping concerns arise in the broadband context.
[Bleep], Lies and Videotape: Motion Pictures Edited for Content as a Window on the Control of Culture • Joshua Lewis, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge • The paper offers an analysis of the recent phenomenon, enabled largely by digital technology, of editing motion pictures to remove graphic violence, sexual situations and foul language for the home viewing market. The paper argues that, especially in the context of the increasing fortification of intellectual property laws, coupled with the concentration of media ownership in a handful of corporations, third-party editing should be found to be a non-infringing use of legally acquired media content.
"Son of Sam" Goes Incognito: Emerging Trends in Criminal Anti-Profit Statutes • Christina M. Locke, University of Florida • Laws preventing criminals from profiting from crimes, especially by telling their stories, exist in most states. Twenty-eight states have laws similar to the original "Son of Sam" law declared unconstitutional in 1991. However, a growing number of states have eliminated references to expressive materials from their anti-profit statutes. Analysis of procedural provisions of the laws reveals that the goals of preventing criminal profiteering and compensating victims are thwarted by the way the laws are administered.
File Sharing in Canada vs. The United States: A Laissez-Faire Alternative or a Different Path to the Same Place? • Bryce J. McNeil, Georgia State • Peer to peer (P2P) technology tests limitation of copyright law. This has caused significant debate in North America. This paper examines how differences between fair use (U.S.) and fair dealing (Canada) create two distinct copyright law environments. It is concluded that assuming Canada will remain the laxer of the two on P2P proprietors is presumptuous. Further observation of fair dealing in practice is needed to understand how and if Canada will differ on copyright stances.
Media Access to Juvenile Courts: The Argument for Uniform Access • Emily Metzgar Louisiana State • This paper advocates uniform media access to the nation's juvenile courts, including both delinquency and dependency hearings, based on consideration of juveniles' due process rights; Supreme Court decisions on media access to legal proceedings; the nature of the juvenile justice system; and the media's role in raising awareness of public policy issues. Ultimately this paper recommends establishment of presumptive access policies for all juvenile courts and encourages more comprehensive media coverage of juvenile justice issues.
The Sky Is Not Falling: The Media Community Must Stop Automatically Crying "Trend" When A Court Rejects A Reporter's Privilege Claim • Fabian James Mitchell, Louisiana State • Judith Miller's 2004 jailing was met with protest and speculation about what repercussions this ruling could have on existing reporter's privilege. The media's coverage of her fight and their cries of "trend" are emblematic of the misinterpretation and mischaracterization of rulings this paper denounces. Reporters' instinct to uphold their ethical standard of protecting sources is so deep-rooted in their professional thinking that they are prevented from thinking objectively outside of their own rights and neutrally assessing court rulings.
Social Norms and the Copyright law: An Analysis of Fan Web sites • Kathleen K. Olson, Lehigh • This paper examines online fan site authors' attitudes toward copyright as revealed in survey responses and through content analysis of the sites themselves in order to determine how the authors use the copyrighted works of others in their sites and to discover the social norms regarding copyright that dominate the fan site culture online.
Publish at Your Peril: International Law Inconsistencies Present Legal Conundrums for Media Interests • Ashley Packard, University of Houston • Transnational cases involving conflicts over jurisdiction, choice of law and enforcement of foreign judgments indicate a disparity in approaches between the United States and other countries that courts cannot bridge. Governments will have to negotiate a solution. Attempts to reach consensus on an intergovernmental jurisdiction and judgments treaty through the Hague failed in 2001. However, developments within European Community and U.S. law signal that international agreement might be more attainable than only few years ago.
Narrow Lanes Ahead?: An Examination of Public Access to Information about the Transportation of Hazardous Materials in a Post-9/11 World • Amy Kristin Sanders, University of Florida • This paper discusses the public's ability to access information about the transportation of hazardous materials with regard to changes in law and policy since the 2001 terrorist attacks. Central to this discussion is the implementation of the Critical Infrastructure Information Act of 2002 and its potential effect on the public's ability to request information regarding HazMat transportation under federal FOI provisions. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security's 2004 rule-making pertaining to critical infrastructure information will also be examined.
Out of the Closets and into the Courtroom • Holiday Shapiro University of Minnesota • Outing, the forced disclosure of a person's lesbian, gay, bisexual or trangendered (LGBT) orientation, has practically since its introduction been a part of our case law. This paper analyzes the evolving law of outing. It discusses the avenues of redress available to outing targets, provides an overview of the case law, reviews the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2003 case Lawrence v. Texas, and reflects on how the Lawrence decision may change outing law.
Mandatory Internet Filtering in Public Libraries: The Disconnect Between Technology and Law • Barbara H. Smith, Kansas State University • In 2003, the Supreme Court upheld the Children's Internet Protection Act, which mandates the installation of filtering technology in public schools and public libraries that accept certain types of federal funding for technology. However, filtering technology is incompatible with law, and most likely always will be, as human beings need to interpret and apply the law, something that technology will never be able to do.
Reporters Skating On Judge Posner's Thin Ice in a Branzburg Maze • Samuel A. Terilli, University of Miami • Recent events and cases, from the outing of Valerie Plame to leaks about the anthrax investigation, are forcing a reexamination of reporter-source confidentiality and Branzburg v. Hayes. Judge Posner's decision in McKevitt v. Pallasch and several other recent decisions have interpreted Branzburg narrowly, questioned the existence of any First Amendment privilege, and directed the press to other sources of law for protection. These decisions represent persuasive authority that the press should not ignore.
The First Amendment And Internet Filters: A Study Of Boston Area Public Libraries After Implementation Of The Children's Internet Protection Act • Anne Trevethick and Dale Herbeck, Boston College • This paper reports the results of a study of 126 public libraries in the Boston area undertaken in an attempt to determine whether the adoption of the Children's Internet Protection Act restricted adult access to protected expression. Among the notable findings, the study found that the CIPA produced a nominal increase in the number of libraries installing filters on all Internet-connect computers and that librarians were willing and able to disable filters for adult patrons.
Humanitarian Law Project v. Ashcroft – National Security in the Homeland vs. Human Rights elsewhere • Roxanne S. Watson University of Florida • In 1996 the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) was passed, making it a crime to provide assistance to terrorist groups. A group of citizens challenged the AEDPA as an infringement on First Amendment rights and argued that the system by which the terrorist groups were designated under the AEDPA violated due process. The author traces the court decisions, arguing that there is no constitutional right to associate with terrorists but the right to due process should be observed.
Vicarious Liability and the Private University Student Press • Nancy J. Whitmore, Butler University • The lack of a First Amendment prohibition regarding administrative interference with the student press leaves a private university open to legal liability from the content of student publications through the doctrine of vicarious liability. Given the trend in vicarious liability law, university policies that grant private university students the right to make all editorial decisions are not likely to protect a private university from liability for torts committed by its dependent student press.
Tile Clash Between U.S. and French Law it Cyberspace: Judicial Line-Drawing on First Amendment Boundaries • Kyu Ho Youm, University of Oregon • The notion of the borderless Internet is more often tested these days. The ongoing Yahoo! case is illustrative. It involved a French court's order of 2000 to Yahoo! to ban display of Nazi insignia on its sites. On March 25, 2005, the entire Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments in the case. This paper examines the key issue underlying Yahoo!