Noting that little research has addressed the question of violence in commercials directed to children, a study examined commercials aired during the 21 top-rated children's cartoons during one broadcast week in late spring 1993. Commercials were analyzed for violent content, gender of primary actors and recipients of violent action, primary…

To gain insight into how critical standards for broadcast drama evolved with time, this paper examines the critical response to the development of broadcast drama in the first two decades of radio (1920-1940), as reported in the periodical press. The paper is based on two underlying assumptions: (1) that the stories a society tells are indicative…

Explaining complex scientific and environmental subjects in the mass media is difficult to do, particularly under such constraints as short deadlines and lack of space or time. When a scientific controversy and human health risk are involved, this becomes an even harder task to accomplish. The subject of electromagnetic fields (EMF) involves…

It is indeed a problem, perhaps even a crisis, that many Americans are ignorant of "The Tempest," the Civil War, the location of the Persian Gulf, the Constitution, or the chief justice of the Supreme Court. However, if conservative humanists continue to ostracize, scorn, and ignore both media studies and the media themselves, the result will not…

A study tested the knowledge gap hypothesis, a promising framework for research in the field of mass communication devised by P. Tichenor, G. Donohue, and C. Olien in 1970. The study investigated the relative contribution of two types of factors--structural and motivational--in predicting the degree to which persons will attend to health messages,…

The United States Coverage of International News section of the proceedings contains the following 15 papers: "TV News and U.S. Public Opinion about Foreign Countries: The Impact of Exposure and Attention" (Holli A. Semetko and others); "The World of U.S. Network Television News: Eighteen Years of Foreign News Coverage"…

"Bosstown Sound" was a slogan used to promote several Boston (Massachusetts) rock bands in 1968. In theory, the Bosstown Sound was a logical development to follow the San Francisco "sound," which included the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, and other Bay Area bands that had been commercially successful in 1967.…

Qualitative interviews and field observation were used in a study that examined the duties, satisfaction, organizational constraints, and career pathways of advertising agency account executives. In addition, the study compared the personnel functions of two different agencies--one large and one small. Results showed that the functions of account…

Prestel is an interactive videotex system which has been available to the public in the United Kingdom since the late 1970's. Recent research funded by the British Library Research and Development Department provided public libraries with access to Prestel and monitored their reactions to the services. Aims of the trial were to promote Prestel by…

In contrast with earlier findings indicating that public information campaigns produce little change in public attitudes and behaviors, current research suggests that the Advertising Council's "Take a Bite Out of Crime" campaign, initiated in 1979, has had a substantive impact on the public's response to crime prevention. Data from a…

Instructional technologists have traditionally used the scientific or rationalistic paradigm to study the instructional potential of pictures. Naturalistic and rationalistic inquiry differ in their views of reality and truth, the relationship between the investigator and the subject, the goals of inquiry, and the role of values in inquiry.…

The effect of media presentations (oral, print, pictures, and combinations) on prose learning between high socioeconomic status white and low socioeconomic black children is compared and analyzed. (DEP)

Recent history textbooks have conspicuously removed references to religion and religious publications, providing a distorted view of American and world history. One such neglected publication, the Boston "Recorder," was founded by Nathaniel Willis in 1816. A Christian newspaper, it was based on three principles: (1) to show theological…

It is no longer "new" news that the "new" media, separately or in convergence with the traditional mass media, are often reinforcing old ways and traditional patterns. Concentration of ownership; under- or misappropriate employment patterns for certain groups and classes of people; and inadequate, inappropriate, and inaccurate…