Analyzes the appeal of horror films. Develops a model that finds that important factors in the horror film's appeal are the audience's desire to experience the satisfying resolutions and to see the destruction usually found in these films and the sensation-seeking personality traits of audience members for these films. (NKA)

Examines data on what situational factors influence people's desire to view violent television programming. Surveys research on the effects on viewer's behavior of the presence of other observers, the nature of the available target, situational features operating as retrieval cues, the viewers' interpretations of the violent scenes, and the…

Examines the audience experience with home video cassette recorders (VCRs) from the perspective of the active audience concept. Finds the orientation of Israeli VCR owners to VCRs is selective, somewhat involved, and generally productive of gratifications. Also finds the kinds and levels of activities associated with VCR use are moderately…

Explores agenda-setting implications of indexing news content by topic instead of by salience cues. Suggests significant differences in news topic exposure on equivalently concentrated patterns of readership in two versions of a newspaper. Readers evaluated the indexed newspaper negatively, but a reader core liked the indexing. (NKA)

Investigates the hypotheses that (1) voters define the personal images of political candidates in behavioral terms, and (2) such behavioral images are predictive of preferences for those candidates. Results provide strong support for both positions. (RAE)

Discusses implications of the contextualism of William McGuire for media-effects research and for the answers media-effects researchers give to questions of social concern. Argues that mass communication research long has contained latent contextualist orientations. (MS)

Examines the feelings, learning, and diffusion effects resulting from the Challenger explosion using a two-pronged approach both in a cross section and an over-time panel design. Indicates that television reliant individuals were the most knowledgeable about the disaster and also significantly more likely to recall accurately the "visual…

Reviews recent research on aspects of mass media that use a sociolinguistic framework. Argues that linguistic strategies used by media personae to foster the appearance of neutrality as well as aspects of attribution are rich areas for sociolinguistic investigation. (SD)

Reports that most editorials favor deregulation and that ownership ties with television and radio stations seem to affect their stands. (FL)

Shows that economic and political factors rather than education or training are the strongest indicators of editors' views of the New World Information Order. (FL)

Outlines the work of the Mass Observation research movement. Calls for evaluation of the significance of Mass Observation's collection methods and results. Argues it was one of the most ambitious popular culture studies in this century. (MS)

This study examined the structure underlying preferences for content in books, motion pictures, and television programs. Multidimensionally scaled correlations revealed two dimensions; entertainment-diversion versus aesthetic-intellectual preferences and expressive versus instrumental behavior. Findings are discussed. (Author/MT)

Examines how sportswriters reveal, organize, and reaffirm some of the diverse cultural values that baseball, as an American institution, represents. (PD)

Describes a study to determine the type and quantity of Western news coverage of Third World earthquakes. Finds little evidence of geographical bias in coverage studied, and suggests that care must be taken to examine the underlying news events before bias is alleged. (MS)

Describes a project to study characteristics of employee publications. Identifies three potential editorial strategies, and concludes that most publications tend toward noncontroversial, "trivial" content like employee recognition themes. (MS)