The objective of this presentation is to share an artistic representation that was composed to illuminate what it might be like for beginning teachers to live through the experience of shattered hopes. This presentation was composed based on the results of a research study in which beginning teachers were asked to narrate meaningful and memorable…

This qualitative study explored diverse college students' perspectives on the portrayal of college life in recent popular films. Results from this study suggest that White college students dismiss stereotypes as comedic satire whereas their non-White peers readily identify the influence of negative media representations upon their academic and…

An educator, an "old timer" in sociology but new in the field of communication, sees her work as a "calling," a "mission." She wants the audience to feel the emotion of autoethnography. To bring research to life, she chooses three autoethnographic vignettes to show scenes in which a different kind of stigma is felt:…

Seeking the answers as to what makes one speaker more charismatic than another and why some speeches are merely effective while others move audiences to a transcendent state is a difficult task. This paper follows up on this challenge and seeks to provide some answers as to how the prophetic works of Richard Brothers moved his followers to a…

A study examined whether ethical sensitivity can be measured in response to radio programming. The study was interested in the extent to which a person feels a program is unethical in either its substance or its presentation. Subjects, 17 undergraduates in telecommunications at a large midwestern university, received course credit for their…

Original stories can provide a wealth of opportunity for forensics competitors. Original storytelling requires the sharing of a personal experience or family narrative that is adaptable to audiences differing in age and education. Community organizations and groups are invited to participate as audience members and vary from round to round.…

Noting that different audiences have constructed widely varying interpretations of the figure and work of Margery Kempe ("The Book of Margery Kempe" dates from the beginning of the 15th century), this paper examines the subversiveness of Margery's rhetoric for medieval audiences and for modern audiences and students. The paper first…

The goal of persuasive writing is to move the reader to action or to get the reader to refrain from action, and most of the secrets of persuasion can work either way. To get readers to take action, a writer has to appeal to the emotions as much as possible. To get readers to refrain from action, a writer must appeal to the intellect. The secrets…

Television aesthetics is the study of the compositional principles pertinent to the television medium in which basic elements of the television picture such as light, color, framing, space, time, motion, editing, sound, etc. are examined in relation to the finished product, the television program. The major areas covered by television aesthetics…

While not dismissing the "uses and gratifications" approach to research, this paper attempts to increase the theoretical and practical utility of gratifications measures by approaching them through a more phenomenological and longitudinal tack. The paper suggests that any "gratification unit" is given a unique meaning by the…

A study investigated whether positive response to humor in a speech would enhance audience evaluation of the speech/speaker. A short informative speech on "listening" which included nine relevant jokes was audio tape-recorded in two versions, one in which each joke was punctuated by laughter, and one in which a stony silence greeted each…

A study examined the influence of viewers' backgrounds on their interpretation of "associational montage" in television advertising (editing which seeks to imply an analogy between the product and a juxtaposed image possessing desirable qualities). Subjects, 32 television professionals from two urban television stations and 95 customers…

An edited transcript of the recorded discussion among panel members at a symposium at the 1993 meeting of the American Educational Research Association pertaining to changes in standards across time and jurisdiction is presented. Participants' comments reflect concern about the validity and reliability of standards. (SLD)

Many studies have shown that children of various ages learn from educational television, but the studies have not explained how children extract and comprehend educational content from these television programs. This paper proposes a model, the "capacity model," that focuses on children's allocation of working memory resources while…

Advertisers have leaned heavily upon researchers to answer the question of what the advertisers get for the money they spend. Researchers have used a wide variety of methods, including a split cable simulated test market. Wilder Penfield's 1950s research may help other researchers better understand what goes on in the mind of consumers as a result…