Environmental educators utilize activity guides as a primary method of diffusing environmental education material into educational settings. The most popular environmental education activity guide in use today is Project WILD. Project WILD has come under fire by various groups, especially animal rights groups. Accordingly, a content analysis study…

This study analyzes catalog descriptions from a large state university in ten-year increments from 1965 to 1995 to look for evidence of a transformation of colleges and universities as a result of the introduction of women as a subject in the curriculum. Feminist scholars in the 1980s predicted the transformation would occur gradually and…

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…

According to Mikhail Bakhtin, a 20th century Russian linguist and literacy critic, texts represent battlegrounds for competing voices, including the author's, the narrator's, and the characters'. This concept of "heteroglossia" can be applied to a short story such as Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," about…

A content analysis comparing gender portrayals in 2,209 network television commercials was conducted. Many earlier studies treated television advertising's portrayal of men as unproblematic and excluded ads aimed specifically at men from the study sample. To address this shortcoming, the sample was chosen from three different day parts: (1)…

A survey was conducted to study discussions of day care for children appearing in periodicals during 1959-81. Surveyed were articles found in the 12 most widely circulated magazines typically identified as being for women. A bibliography was made of the 96 articles appearing in the magazines, as listed in the "Reader's Guide to Periodical…

Finds that the mass media, especially newspapers have an immediate, direct effect on farmers' behavior only when the content is tailored to fit the farmers' existing situation. (RB)

Discusses the difficulties of publishing in the antebellum South, and describes the demise of "Uncle Remus's Magazine" in 1913 after a long struggle to keep it alive. (RB)

Concludes that political news reporting prior to the 1974 Colorado general elections was affected by management attitudes. (RB)

Finds no difference in the news coverage by two New York newspapers. (RB)

Stories in romance and adventure magazines tend to support traditional American stereotypes about roles and dispositions of men and women. (RB)

Finds that the 34 female characters observed on the 22 children and family-oriented programs included in this television survey are portrayed primarily in comic roles or as wives and mothers in a family context. (RB)

Concludes that junior novels have changed in form and content, are more difficult to read, and deal with mature topics. (RB)

Analyzing the setting of six recent "blockbuster" films, this study outlines numerous instances of the Western's influence on several contemporary science fiction films, "Star Wars,""Battlestar Galactica,""Star Trek: The Motion Picture,""The Black Hole,""The Empire Strikes Back," and…