Uses the violence of "The Road Runner" cartoon series as a starting point for a mythico-rhetorical analysis of the message system contained in the cartoon. Explores how the cartoon re-enacts the myth of Sisyphus in the context of the post-World War II technological boom. Discusses insights into the meanings of cartoon violence, and into…

Many young adults enjoy graphic novels because the genre differs so dramatically from the books that educators traditionally have encouraged adolescents to read. Growing up with television and video games, contemporary young adults look for print media that contain the same visual impact and pared-down writing style and contribute to their…

For more than a quarter of century, researchers have been studying the effects of TV viewing on both children and adults. Although controversies still exist, the data presents a clear picture of increased aggression in all age groups following the viewing of ?violent? TV. In this article, the author discusses how to help a child who is negatively…

Background: There are two accounts of categorization performance in autism: that there is an impairment in prototype formation (Klinger & Dawson, 2001) and that there is an impairment in processing features held in common between stimuli (Plaisted, O'Riordan, & Baron-Cohen, 1998). These accounts, together with central coherence theory (Frith,…

This case study addresses a middle class family's role in their son's literacy development through an investigation of the socio-cultural practices that support his literacy acquisition. Rogoff's socio-cultural framework, which proposes three planes of analysis for observation of human development, is used for the analysis. The literacy practices…

Cartoons are generally regarded as "kids' stuff," unworthy of scholarly study. As an aspect of popular culture, television cartoons do not attract scholars who are interested in being part of the "critical elite." Some scholars believe, however, that less time should be spent discussing how TV might be used to teach children…

This study, a part of a larger project, investigated what children learn about gender roles from cartoons and how these cartoons might color the children's view of the world. A total of 89 children ranging in age from four to nine were sampled from three different locations (a university-affiliated day-care center and two parochial schools near…

Trends in the content and structure of television programs and commercials during children's viewing hours on U.S. network television over the past 20 years reveal a steady decrease in educational programs for children and an increase in violent acts. In addition, characters in both programs and commercials have remained remarkably sex-typed. A…

Children's attention to four cartoons was observed in a laboratory session at the end of a two-year longitudinal study of home television viewing. Age (5 or 7), verbal ability (PPVT-R score) and home viewing history were examined as predictors of visual attention. There were no age differences, but PPVT-R scores were positively related to…

A study examined how teachers help students to write with greater precision. Subjects, 160 freshman students, wrote a single sentence describing a wordless Peanuts cartoon. They were asked to express specific semantic relationships (sequence/cotemporality, intention/instrument, and intention/enablement) between the actions in two contrasting…

Because of the historical influence of religion in the national life and personal lives of many American citizens and the interplay between religious and national affairs in public discourse, it is useful to study the secular media for its portrayal of religion as news or as value system. A study describes the nature of commentary on religion by…

Part of a larger project to design a production curriculum and measure the impact of this production activity on children's writing, visual thinking, and problem solving skills, a project developed an effective but inexpensive video for use in teaching animation processes to students at the elementary school level. The project used "cutout" or…

Questioning why illustrated text is commonly used for children in the absence of significant proof of its usefulness, the present author undertook a study to measure fourth graders' retention of three variations of a story book text. Results indicate illustrations have several effects on retention. (BJG)

THE HUMOR PREFERENCES OF DICHOTOMIZED GROUPS OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS (SPECIFICALLY, CONFORMISTS AND NONCONFORMISTS) WERE STUDIED TO DETERMINE SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES AND TO ESTIMATE THE DEGREE OF RELIABILITY OF RESPONSES TO A HUMOR PREFERENCE INVENTORY. A TOTAL OF 111 MALE SOPHOMORE STUDENTS IN HIGH SCHOOL IDENTIFIED BY THEIR RESPECTIVE HOME ROOM…