Supplements the idea of the realistic spy story as reflector of modern problems with a theory of its meaning or a "metaphysics" of the genre. Available from: Thomas L. Erskine, Co-Editor; Literature/Film Quarterly, Salisbury State College, Salisbury, Maryland 21801, Subscription Rates: individuals, $6.00; students, $5.00; single copies, $2.00. (MH)

Content analysis of 12 metropolitan newspapers revealed a great similarity in reporting; coverage focused on what the candidate was, rather than on what he or she said. (KS)

Summarizes the results of content analyses of six journalism periodicals appearing during 1955, 1965, and 1975. (KS)

Shows that two of three videotex services had substantially more stories than their companion newspapers, and that all three tended to get stories earlier than the papers. (FL)

Reports results of a content analysis of national award-winning children's literature for environmental themes. Indicates that of the 72 books analyzed all but six books had some type of environmental content, although the messages did not constitute themes. More environment content was found in books published after 1970. (ML)

Examines summaries of expository text written by undergraduate students to discover the nature of text-to-summary mapping. Finds that simple omission and one-to-one mapping of text sentences into summary sentences were the most favored strategies. (FL)

Reviews the contents of eight journals from 1970 to 1981 to evaluate the coverage of women's issues during the "second wave" of feminism. A slight increase in the profession's attention to women's issues was evident in the 1970s. Urges continued practice, research and writing by and for women. (JAC)

Reports on a study that examined 15 randomly selected issues of a newspaper to determine if the readability scores for stories written in different writing styles are consistent when assessed by different tests. (HOD)

Concludes that (1) the message structure of highly creative television commercials tends to differ from that of television commercials from the general population of television advertising and (2) there is a difference in the message structure of highly creative commercials across cultures. (FL)

Reveals that most newspapers are devoting as much or more space to editorials today as in 1957 and that more are endorsing political candidates. (FL)

Examined the 74 issues that comprise volumes 1-20 of the "Journal of School Psychology" (JSP) to determine the number of articles (N=709), the name and number of authors and coauthors (N=910), and the number of separate references (N=6,722) that appeared. (LLL)

Reviewed 26 marriage and family textbooks for content about stepfamilies. Many authors did not include the topic or included it in only a cursory fashion. Stepfamily information could be categorized as factors related to successful functioning, source of stress, and recommendations. Concluded that stepfamilies have been relatively neglected. (JAC)

Examines (1) whether previous research has actually measured the information content of ads; (2) how such content should be measured; and (3) trends in factual content of general magazine ads for 1958, 1968, and 1978. Concludes that while most ads contain nonfactual claims, most also have factual claims. (FL)

Finds that the percentage of favorable, neutral, and unfavorable statements about the three Kennedy brothers in two national news magazines was similar and that both magazines published proportionately more favorable statements about John Kennedy than about either of his brothers. (FL)

Examines pictures used in "USA Today" and its readership data and concludes that it is edited primarily for men. (FL)