Reports on diffusion studies following major and minor papal encyclicals. The results suggest that the relevance and salience of the information is more predictive of diffusion than is news value. (TO)

Shows that youth's image of TV police is not correlated with his image of actual police; television images held by delinquents and middle-class adolescents do not differ. (TO)

Discusses the question of defining government documents as property and the consequent conflict with the First Amendment rights of the press. (TO)

Reports three experiments supporting the inference that the powerless are more sensitive to content that explains than to content promising reward. (TO)

Reveals that content analysis shows that media coverage of the environment tends to deal with problems of a community at a distance rather than with local issues. (TO)

Presents a critical discussion of two news value indices and makes some suggestions for considering social psychological variables in the development of such indices. (TO)

Reports a study devising a constructive treatment for news of violence that has higher reader interest than a conventional straight-news approach. (TO)

Describes an experimental study which demonstrates that science and technical writing can be written to maximize audience interest and appeal. (RB)

Media therapy is a systematic video program in behavior change for psychiatric patients. Patients engage in short videotaped interactions with a consultant-facilitator. These interactions then are viewed, and the patient with consultant help identifies specific behavior that he would like to change. (Author)

A study of media performance reveals improvements and a helthy willingness to experiment with new procedures. Certain shortcomings, however, persist; media still lack sensitivity, sophistication, and skepticism commensurate with their important and strategic position. (DM)