Almost from the introduction of the new technology into newsrooms, the video display terminal (VDT) has raised health concerns. Ironically, the newspaper industry--which ordinarily would be at the forefront, acting as a watchdog over worker health and safety concerns--has initiated little news coverage of the VDT radiation issue. The Newspaper…

Several forces are allowing, for the first time in the history of television, the creation of prime time texts with lesbian characters. Chief among these forces are the relatively marginalized position of broadcast television brought on by increasing cable penetration and home video ownership, liberalized censorship guidelines on the part of the…

This annotated bibliography of 76 citations and abstracts focuses on communication with, by, and about the elderly. Publications span the period from 1949 to 1987. References to convention papers and materials that have not been published have been included only if available through the ERIC Document Reproduction Service or a similar organization.…

A study was conducted to determine the socioeconomic status (SES) of listeners of all-news radio. Subjects, 102 females and 98 males in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, responded to a 12-statement questionnaire in a telephone survey. Although previous studies suggested that listeners of low SES regarded radio primarily as a source of…

A study investigated three United States and three foreign newspapers to determine the direction or bias of coverage of the 1983 Korean Airline (KAL) incident and any differences in coverage. It was hypothesized (1) that the amount of space allotted to the story in U. S. newspapers would be greater than that in foreign newspapers; (2) that there…

Contrasts between children's visualization and understanding of a filmed story and of a story in print are drawn in the introduction of this symposium paper. Discussion then briefly focuses on variables related to studying effects of story pictures on viewers, such as the story-line, audience characteristics, and the coordination of story modality…

Using census data from pre-Civil War Georgia at two points in time (1850 and 1860), this paper describes the Georgian publishing industry and profiles those involved in it. Microfilm editions of handwritten documents were scanned to find the names and other data (residence, job title, age, sex, place of birth, and value of property owned) of those…

Emerging videotex news services--systems for distributing textual information on television screens that permit direct competition with pulp newspapers--are presently rooted in a limited theory of newsreading. The first of two rival theories of newsreading applicable to electronic newspapers is "uses and gratifications" research--the…

A study of media use by children was conducted to produce an index of fantasy-reality orientation derived from the respondents' stated preferences for media content combined with their responses to a series of open-ended questions designed to tap the gratifications they claimed to receive from the media. Data were collected in three waves, when…

Surveys, content analyses, and laboratory experiment/judgment task strategies continue to be the dominant research methods used in mass communication research. Some researchers, however, are advocating method triangulation--the use of at least two and as many as five methods within the same study. A manual and computer search of several databases…

A study was conducted to examine the causal predictors of mass media development in 105 underdeveloped countries for various lengths of time to determine if there were consistent relationships among the dependent and independent variables regardless of the time lag. The study also sought to determine how mass media developed during the 29-year…

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…

Prompted by the lack of use and gratification studies that have concerned themselves with an examination of newspaper-related behaviors such as subscribing versus not subscribing, buying single copies versus not reading at all, and weekday versus Sunday newspaper readership, a study conducted a telephone survey of 543 persons to determine whether…

Media historians have been criticized for their inability to ask substantive questions, for ignoring underlying conditions in media's past, and for their failure to relate the narration of technological developments to existing social and cultural tensions. One problem media historians confront is the scope of their research--many media histories…

Dealing with a variety of issues related to media ethics and press responsibility, this report presents 12 essays on editorial policy and reporters' responsibility. The essays discuss the following: (1) a reporter who posed as a jail officer to gain entry into a prison to interview an inmate, (2) a journalism professor's opinion as to the ethics…