To examine the content of newspaper advertisements used by banks before, during, and after a major bank collapse, issues of the Knoxville (Tennessee) "News Sentinel" from 1982, 1983, and 1984 were analyzed for bank sponsored product and nonproduct advertisements. These advertisements were studied for type, size, and content relating to…

In order to examine the vision of Latin America transmitted to the American public in Tin Pan Alley's popular songs in the first half of the twentieth century, a study analyzed nearly 50 songs. The songs were grouped into five categories: (1) songs which describe Latin locales; (2) songs which are constructed around a Latin woman's name; (3) songs…

In many classrooms, the textbook becomes the main source used to determine objectives, procedures, opinions, questions, thoughts, and other items used in teaching U.S. history. This study was done to determine how the Reconstruction Era was presented in a selected group of junior high school U.S. history textbooks. The books were classified…

Use of communication theory in an analysis of the court proceedings of the Jean Harris murder trial suggests that Harris contributed to her conviction with her inconsistent use of language and her refusal to remain in low-profile. Harris' defense attorney attempted to portray her as an upstanding, well-bred member of the community, and as a…

Since the advent of cable television in the early seventies, the success of television evangelists including Oral Roberts, Jim Bakker, Robert Schuller, and Jimmy Swaggart has grown, both in terms of finances and in conversion of souls. Although many television preachers use similar strategies for getting donations, their backgrounds and messages…

This publication acquaints the user with microcomputer statistical packages and offers a method for evaluation based on a set of criteria that can be adapted to the needs of the user. Several popular packages, typical of those available, are reviewed in detail: (1) Abstat, an easy to use command driven package compatible with the IBM PC or the…

To increase knowledge about the nature of news (particularly its valuation and presentation conventions), to enrich understanding of communication conventions in our society through the study of news communication, and to fashion a tool that can be used to charge and change such conventions, a study examined the content of all news articles…

Conventional wisdom holds that the right-wing John Birch Society disintegrated during the late 1960s. An examination of the society's periodical readership indicates that it has, instead, expanded. Moreover, this expansion occurred during a period of ideological dissonance for the organization, a fact that undermines confidence in the explanation…

The citation study technique, known as bibliometrics, was undertaken in this study to evaluate scholarly exchange among the core journals in the field of communication. The journals studied were "Central States Speech Journal,""Communication Research,""Journal of Broadcasting,""Journal of…

The primary tasks of the ethnographic researcher are to discover, describe, and comparatively analyze different speech communities' ways of speaking. Two general abstractions occurring in ethnographic analyses are normative and cultural. Communicative norms are formulated in analyzing and explaining the "patterned use of speech."…

Through a review of data from the Campbell-Ewald Advertising Agency and its creative director, the Chevrolet car company, and a review of the award-winning television commercials, this paper explores the successful relationship between Chevrolet and that agency from 1955 to 1965. Following an introduction and a list the questions asked about both…

The history of and current trends in the publication of children's books in Subsaharan Africa are discussed, and the books' contents are examined. The publication of children's books for African children was started by Euroamerican missionaries in the 19th century. Publication was always related to education. With the achievement of independence,…

To determine the number of journal articles authored by women and related to women and communication, a content analysis was made of communication journals from 1970 to 1984. The following journals were analyzed: "Central States Speech Journal,""Communication Education,""Communication Monographs,""Communication Quarterly,""Human Communication…

A study was conducted to determine whether the "New York Times" news coverage given India between 1973 and 1980 was consistent with trends in United States foreign policy toward India during those years. The period under study was characterized by four alternating periods of tense and relaxed relations between India and the United…

A quantitative analysis of 40 years of articles appearing in the "Public Relations Journal" was made to determine how the journal has responded to ethical criticism of public relations over the years. While 17% of the articles during one eight-year period discussed questions touching on ethics in some way, quantitative analytical tools…