This paper argues for a clearer conceptualization of media stimuli in experimental research and identifies 3 issues impeding our understanding of message processing: (a) assumptions bolstered by manipulation checks about homogeneity of response to media stimuli, (b) conflation of 2 different classes of variables--media attributes and psychological…

When education (teaching and/or learning) is considered to be an art, then it seems obvious that the methods of artistic inquiry would be appropriate analysis techniques. Such analysis seems to be rare or non-existent in educational technology. Semiotics, the theory of signs, provides one such set of methodologies for examining text. This…

Thirty-two students at the University of Oregon were tested to determine the effects of media on mental imagery and memory. The model incorporates a dual coding hypothesis, and five single and multiple channel treatments were used. (Author/JEG)

A study examined the mass media research literature to determine if there was a dominant paradigm in the field. The mass media research published in eight communication journals from 1965 to 1989 was content analyzed to identify paradigm, orientation (focus and theory), data (type, source, and sample), methodology (type and manipulation), and…

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)

This discussion of the information-processing model of learning as it relates to research in educational media traces research in conceptual organization to its beginnings in mathematical models of information-processing; addresses research hypotheses concerning structure and organization, processes and processing systems, and perceptual cues; and…

Examines two motivational models: a drive reduction model in which media use and satisfaction are directed by the gratifications people seek, and an exposure-learning model in which the gratifications are largely received as an accidental result of exposure to media. Concludes that both can be used effectively to represent media use and…

This symposium paper looks at three paradigms for naturalistic research on visuals: the positivistic, the interpretive, and the critical approaches. Discussion centers on questions of epistemology, such as "What do you mean?" and "How do you know?" The place of naturalistic inquiry within this discussion is indicated, and…

Concludes that people who are older, more educated, and have a high surveillance need are more likely to be newspaper subscribers than are other types of people. (FL)

Examines some problems and difficulties encountered in international comparative research programs in mass communications: comparability of units of analysis; lack of consensus manifested in dichotomization into "conventional" and "critical" approaches; and suitability of exported models, theories, concepts, and methods to Third World conditions.…

This paper (1) presents observations about the major paradigms and assumptions that have historically shaped media research; (2) encapsulates the activities, thinking, and paradigms of the present; and (3) reports on a study in which 100 theoreticians and researchers were asked to respond to 50 hypothetical statements about media in the learning…

On the premise that legal research in mass communication should be scientific and grounded in theory based upon available knowledge about how the world works, it is argued in this paper that the research paradigm used by most communication-law scholars is inadequate. In the first section of the paper the current, "institution-centered"…

This paper examines the tradition of research within the field of educational technology and cites problems endemic to the dominant research methods. It is suggested that a reexamination of the history of the field has intrinsic merit and is necessary at this time; furthermore, historical analysis may assist in the development of new research…

Pointing out that linear causal models can organize the interrelationships of a large number of variables, this paper contends that such models are particularly useful to mass communication research, which must by necessity deal with complex systems of variables. The paper first outlines briefly the philosophical requirements for establishing a…

Presents a social systems framework for mass communications research and traces the evolution of the model. (TO)