Expands Foucault's genealogy of the modern subject and morals, particularly as found in "The History of Sexuality." Focuses on the contemporary sex therapist Dr. Ruth, locating the phenomenon of Dr. Ruth within the matrix of power/knowledge and the political technology of the body. (SR)

Surveys the evolution of American television criticism, suggesting that, with the current attention to textual and contextual criticism, it is now in an important stage of refinement. (MS)

Presents a reply to the critics of his essay (this issue). Indicates that recent histories have strengthened the monopoly that the penny press has achieved in the discussion of journalism history in the 1830s and beyond, often while reasserting questionable claims about market structure, readership, political stance, and national and historical…

Points out some of the mutually illuminating relationships that offer an astringent challenge to communication/community research. Argues that community mass media campaigns can be very successful when they are part of an integrated program that uses local celebrities, live meetings, and easily measured finite goals. (RAE)

Argues that the symbolic annihilation of gay and lesbian youth exhibited by network television contributes to a dysfunctional isolation supported by the mutually reinforcing invisibility of homosexual adolescents on television and in the real world. Suggests that the spiral of silence also partially accounts for the inefficacy of oppositional…

Gives a thorough rhetorical investigation of "The X-Files" beginning with an exploration of the show's antecedent genre. Links the show to the genre of ontological detective stories, not science fiction. Describes the way in which the show simultaneously deconstructs and reconstructs authority. Creates a new story using science,…

Describes three varieties of metatelevision: audience awareness and intertextuality or medium-reflexive structure; metagenericism or genre-reflexive structure; and autodeconstruction and ilinx or text-reflexive narrative. Metatelevision relies on the ability of the viewers to recognize artifice. (NKA)

Schudson, Dan Schiller, Donald L. Shaw, and John J. Pauly discuss John C. Nerone's article (this issue) and suggest other approaches to the study of the penny press. (JK)

Critiques three contemporary films, "Rocky IV,""Blade Runner," and "The Terminator." Constructs an evolving dystopian shadow myth that expresses the culture's repressed fears about its relationship to technology. Offers implications for the reinterpretation of the dystopian myth and for the conduct of other cultural…

Notes that the paradigm of resistance has enjoyed widespread popularity in the field of media studies. Argues for understanding media studies as a field in Pierre Bourdieu's sense of the term. Explores the analytical and political limits of this paradigm, and by extension, the intellectual vision that proceeds from it. (SR)

Examines theories of ideology as presented in Marxist-based critical studies; how these theories serve a strategic function within Marxist theory; and, by way of the work of Michel Foucault, the inadequacies of this discourse of "ideological" analysis. Proposes that critical studies of the media move toward the concept of…

Discusses the recent concern over the imbalanced international flow of cultural products into Taiwan--such as films, television programs, and news from developed to developing nations--as it has fed the apprehension that imported popular music may have socialized Taiwanese audiences with alien values and ethics. (JD)

Responds to criticism of the uses and gratification model by proposing a modified model integrating the dependency perspective. Suggests that this integrated model broadens the heuristic application of the earlier model. (MS)

Finds that a scale to measure television viewers' risk of disinhibition cannot be developed because three antecedent issues need to be addressed: the need for a theoretical calculus for assembling contextual information into an overall assessment of risk; a broad conceptual definition of violence; and a conceptualization about the frequency of…

Discusses the Cook Islands experience in acquiring television and how highlighting push, pull, and temporal factors accounts for the creation and maintenance of dependency relationships. Demonstrates how the dependency relationships cannot be reduced to "natural" market forces but rather a range of strategies which Television New Zealand…