Challenges the idea that personal experience with issues or events in a community diminishes the use of mass media. Uses the community attachments model to hypothesize that personal experience will increase newspaper reading. Supports the key hypothesis when it comes to reading of the local community weekly and student newspapers, but not for the…

Discusses research on the negative impact of television and movies, scientific research on television violence and aggression, laboratory research, criticisms of laboratory research, field research, correlation studies. Concludes there is no evidence that viewing television violence increases aggression in children or adults but viewing it can…

Utilizes a theoretical framework of the media's role in reporting conflict and uncertain science, and feminism and science in a thematic analysis of magazine coverage given Rachel Carson and "the Rachel Carson of '90s," Theo Colborn. Notes that Carson and Colborn's identities as women, scientists, and agitators led critics to charge that…

Anticipating a possible future method of newspaper design (including multimedia content) and delivery, a study examined the interface among people, modality (paper, computer, multimedia), and three types of news story (news, sports, entertainment). The "primacy of print" theory (which predicts that information will be recalled better…

This monograph presents a sampling of papers delivered at a multidisciplinary conference focused on two dominant entities in African American cinema: religion and music. Papers in the monograph are grouped into three sections: the scholar's involvement in the filmmaking process, early Black theater and film, and contemporary issues in Black cinema…

A study used a diffusion of innovation approach to examine the adoption of digital imaging technology at daily college newspapers and to gauge its effect on student journalists' attitudes about the credibility of news photography and their work routines. College papers are well suited for such a study because their adoption of technology is likely…

Children of all ages are more likely to use electronic sources of information such as television and radio rather than print sources such as newspapers and magazines, according to a variety of studies. A study examined whether this tendency continued if the children were forced by their primary and secondary school teachers to use multiple news…

Communications media have long been acknowledged as the site of intense political struggle over issues of access to, control over, and representations in these media. That communications research is likewise the site of struggle between the various paradigms of the discipline is, however, troubling to the neophyte communication scholar. For well…

As the field of media studies progresses it moves with increasing fluency and fluidity among the disciplines, and the patterns of relationship that adhere in these dynamics hint at what the disciplines have to say to each other in general. For media studies to exercise a significant impulse toward holism and interdisciplinary synthesis, a model is…

The Media and Law section of this collection of conference presentations contains the following 11 papers: "Independent State Constitutional Analysis of Public Concern and Opinion Issues in Defamation Litigation, 1977-1993" (James Parramore); "The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992: Will Sun…

Anecdotal evidence suggests that college students are unaware of the socially constructed nature of news reports. Students may accept uncritically what they view and read. A narrative analysis of front-page coverage from the "New York Times" and the "Washington Post" of the 1990 Persian Gulf situation reveals how the papers…

The Newspapers section of this collection of conference presentations contains the following 24 papers: "Dropping the Paper: The Role of Women in Local Daily Subscription Cancellations" (Melinda D. Hawley); "The Effects of the 1990-1992 Recession in the Real Estate Industry in News Coverage in Real Estate Sections at Five Major U.S.…

A study examined whether the "most frequently published academic researchers" in mass communications, who collectively wrote 292 refereed articles, informed the public of their research findings by writing articles for consumer and trade publications. An examination of the "Reader's Guide to Periodicals" showed that the 53…

Noting that studies of media, culture, and consciousness assert wide-ranging connections among the three, this paper proposes a research program for investigating the media-consciousness-cultural link. Sections I and II provide a brief review of orality-literacy theories and communication theories. Section III proposes five areas of media…

This issue provides a springboard for discussion for using media awareness as a catalyst for environmental change. Articles in this issue include: (1) "No More Business as Usual" (John De Mott); (2) "Covering the World" (Mark Hartsgaard); (3) "Earth's Star Rises in Hollywood" (Rosalind Silver); (4) "Artistic Activism Reaches the Young"; (5) "Where…