The failure of 17 newspaper markets between 1957 and 1975 raises the question of whether the 1982 entrance of "USA Today" into the newspaper market demonstrated fiscal prudence. A 20-month advertising content analysis was conducted to assess advertising trends in "USA Today." These data were compared with industry statistics…

Much current composition theory depends on the notion that writers represent reality--a situational context, an author, and an audience--in the text itself, and that readers construct their own representations of that text. Business writers, on the other hand, often direct their compositions to specific audiences, the members of which have…

A world-wide analysis of possible uses of entertainment media to stimulate social change. (CH)

One of Detroit's two black-owned and -operated television stations began broadcasting in October, 1975, as an independent, nonnetwork-affiliated channel. The diffusion theory of Rogers and Shoemaker, which assumes that adoption of an innovation is affected by the potential adopter's perception of the innovation's attributes, was applied in a…

The situation comedy, "Soap," television's first prime-time sex farce, stirred controversy months before its premiere, and subsequent pressure on advertisers forced the network to change the show's concept from an adult comedy to a "whodunit." This report summarizes the controversy, recounts reactions to the series, and lists…

An analysis of the House Judiciery Committee's impeachment hearings research conducted in Florida. (Author/HB)

Author continued the debate with a discussion on the problems related to using evaluative data. These problems draw attention to pragmatic judgments that decision makers must keep in mind. (Editor/RK)

This article is an enlargement of material first published in regular columns of film criticism in "The Progressive during 1955 and 1956.

A study was conducted as part of a program to develop and test an individual level communications model. The model proposes that audience members bring to communications situations a set of learned cognitive processing strategies that produce cognitive structural representations of information in memory to facilitate the meeting of the various…

To determine consumer preference regarding four forms of mass communication, an 18-item questionnaire was devised that asked individuals where they sought information on national and world affairs, local events, entertainment, and shopping (advertising). Results from the 108 respondents in the random sample indicated the following: newspapers…

Research on the effectiveness of science writing can be considered in three categories: audience characteristics, effects of scientific communication, and source/receiver relations. Audience research indicates that interest in problems may vary according to proximity to the problem, demographic criteria, and level of general concern with social…

Readers are "dumb" because they are not privy to the mind and intentions of the writer; and the failure of the unsuccessful writer is a failure to forecast what it is going to be like to be a dumb reader of the document. Sample sentences from students' writing illustrate the following types of writing problems, which force the reader to examine…