Discusses a number of new books that signal a revival of interest in the role of propaganda as a tool of mass persuasion. Relates the political uses of this revival to modern concerns about public opinion and advertising. (JD)

Discusses how new video media affect patterns of exposure to television and explores how these changing patterns of consumption may be related to larger issues of the medium's social impact. (JD)

Argues that people are affected by the pervasive images of advertisers who use signs to imbue products with specific realities. Examines how people use this information about various consumer products in making judgments of other people. (MS)

Argues that research in environmental communication should look at communication-related linkages between society and the environment, and that biosocial theory presents a useful conceptual framework. Suggests five empirical generalizations about mass communication's possible roles in the interactions between people and the environment, drawn from…

Compares news content in China Central Television's National Network News and "People's Daily" newspaper for a one-month period in 1992 with content from 15 years ago. Suggests that news in China provides Chinese society and people with the baseline knowledge needed for the building of a forced consensus, the basis of Communist rule, and…

Examines the relationship between mass media and social change by studying women's magazine fiction in China before and after implementation of the Four Modernizations Policies in the late 1970s. Focuses on the relationship between representations of women and the shifting ideological landscape from a feminist perspective. Notes that old…