Noting that one way to tap into organizational life involves examining the symbolic discourse occurring in the context, a study examined stories and metaphors, forms of symbolic discourse, in two Christian denominations in Southern Appalachia. Transcriptions from audiotapes of sermons and lay talks (e.g., Sunday School lessons) from Church of God…

This paper discusses some of the ways in which the commitment of the television series Cagney and Lacey to the examination of often controversial social issues from liberal or progressive standpoints--especially issues associated with the women's movement--is worked through in narrative practice. The origins and development of the series are…

This study examines one aspect of the television medium--television news and its encoding practices--that was expected to be affected by changes instituted when socialists took office in France in 1981. It is noted that this government's legal reform advocated a more decentralized system of governance and a liberalization of the state monopoly on…

A study examined the general structure of children's information books and their use of language. A corpus of over 110 information books was examined for (1) obligatory elements of the genre, (2) optional elements, (3) iterative or repeating elements, (4) elements with fixed orders of occurrence in relation to other elements, and (5) elements with…

Efforts to discover what variables affect news media content have taken many approaches during the past 35 years. These approaches have emphasized psychological factors, sociological factors, cultural and social forces, and economic factors. Evidence exists that all these forces play a role in determining what becomes news. To examine how these…

This paper investigates the priority of social and political issues in America's Asian Indian subcommunity and, secondarily, proposes content analysis for investigations of Asian American sub-cultures. The data sources and methodology are described first: letters to the editor published between September 1, 1983 and June 30, 1984, were selected…

Noting that one of the greatest criticisms of television is the lack of television criticism itself, this paper proposes a multidimensional approach to the subject, based on current forms of criticism and theory. The 10 forms of criticism or theory discussed in the paper are (1) rhetorical criticism, (2) dramatic criticism, (3) literary criticism,…

The basic arrangements and practices of American broadcast audience research and measurement were established during the first decade (1920-29) of the field's existence, and were motivated by commercial and competing institutional concerns within the broader context of evolving forms of imagination and expression. A review of the evidence found in…

William Hard was a creative and prolific writer of popular magazine journalism who used a rich variety of literary styles and techniques to tell his stories. His best work, which appeared in "Everybody's Magazine" from 1907 to 1911, shows characteristics that support the suggestion that Hard be considered among those writers Tom Wolfe…

An important influence on a presidential candidate's debating style, the "incumbency factor," has been largely ignored by researchers. An analysis of the argumentative style of incumbents, based on the 1976 and 1980 presidential debates, has isolated three distinguishing characteristics: (1) presidential incumbents tend to avoid extended…

A critical review of literature focusing on some theoretical and methodological issues that have been generally neglected in past studies of the press's role in the making of United States foreign policy reveals that some external and internal factors may limit the capability and initiative of the press in the foreign policy area. These…

Acknowledging inadequacies of press coverage of black Americans during this century, a study examined how a medium sized Ohio daily newspaper covered blacks before, during, and after the civil rights movement. Items concerning blacks in 66 issues of the Youngstown "Vindicator" from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s were studied, and the…

Despite gains in recent years, women still win political office much less frequently than men do. One reason might be that women may not receive the same response from the media as do their male counterparts. The research study explored this possibility by investigating: (1) differences in the methods used by the mass media to portray male and…

A study explored whether the pictorial coverage of African-Americans in three national magazines (Life, Newsweek, and Time) has increased over time, whether the content categories of those pictures has changed, and whether the picture percentage for African-Americans has approached their percentage of the population (11%). Content analysis of…

In order to identify the scope or limits of the practice of development journalism, a study examined the content of the Forum page in the "Straits Times" of Singapore during relatively free (1979-1980) and restricted (1986-1987) press periods. The study had two major objectives: (1) to study the nature of the Forum page (a readers'…