The content of pretrial crime stories in a national sample of 29 newspapers was analyzed to discover the extent of violations of the voluntary free-press fair-trial guidelines of the American Bar Association (ABA), which have been adopted by 23 states. The investigation also considered the relationship between violations and several relevant…

In order to test the opinion held by judicial and rhetorical scholars that distinct differences exist in rhetoric between majority and nonmajority Supreme Court decisions, an examination was made of 301 of Justice William O. Douglas' Supreme Court decisions. A hybrid methodology based on genre criticism and content analysis was used to examine the…

Segments of primetime and Saturday morning television programing were viewed by 225 people who then reported what criteria they used to assess violence on commercial and public television. The subjects also provided data on their visual media experience, their viewing habits, their viewing attitudes, and demographic characteristics. The subjects…

A study was conducted to determine whether there was a linguistic correlation between a financially good year and a bad year as expressed in the annual reports of company presidents to their shareholders. Specifically the study tested the "Pollyanna Principle," which states (1) that regardless of whether the year was financially good or bad, the…

Frame analysis is an approach to social situations that can be applied profitably to literature and performance. A frame is the reality status of a situation; keys are the characteristics that define a frame. Most literary works are keying on real life frameworks. Literary works that are based on other literary works, such as parodies, are…

Fifteen children's picture books from each of three time periods--1960, 1964, and 1968--were rated using the Rokeach Value Survey in order to identify the value systems expressed in their contents and to compare these systems with those held by adults. Results indicated that the instrumental values ranked highest were loving, imagination,…

The purpose of this project was to develop and validate guidelines which will ensure that vocational materials developed under Bureau of Occupational and Adult Education (BOAE) auspices are free of sex bias. The guidelines serve a three-fold purpose: (1) to provide a guide for development of any materials resulting from BOAE contracts or grants;…

This report describes the results of a study of family role structures and family role interaction patterns of U.S. television families appearing during prime time and Saturday morning programs for the 1976-1977 season. The content analysis constitutes a role-by-behavior description of verbal interaction among television families, the coding unit…

This report describes a series of studies designed to construct and validate a set of text materials necessary to the pursuance of a long-term research project on information analysis and integration in semantically rich, naturalistic domains, primarily in the domain of the stock market. The methods and results of six separate experiments on…

Sesame Street programs are perpetuating the subjugated role of females by presenting a picture of male-dominated society while portraying females in roles of following, cleaning, mothering and imitating, and as being of limited intelligence, subservient and passive. Analysis of a randomly chosen Sesame Street program (#189) shows how the series…

Theories of communication can be applied to case studies in human behavior drawn from short stories, novels, plays, and screenplays, in addition to standard psychological texts and personal experiences of class members. One example is A.H. Maslow's concept of self-actualization exemplified by the character of Phineas in John Knowles'"A…

An examination of the coverage of Latin America during 1977 by "Newsweek,""Time," and "U.S. News and World Report" was undertaken to compare the number of stories and the amount of space devoted to that region with that afforded other areas of the world. The results showed that of the major areas of the world, only…

Kenneth Burke's Dramatistic Pentad is an analytical device intended to be used by critics to discover the roots of motivation for particular acts. The five elements of the pentad are the scene, act, agent, agency, and purpose. Using the Burkean Pentad, this symposium presents the following five analyses of Watergate: "Scenic Responsibility:…

Three news magazines ("Time,""Newsweek," and "U.S. News and World Report") and three opinion magazines ("The Nation,""The New Republic," and "National Review") were assessed with regard to their coverage of Africa. Analysis of the magazines' contents indicated that, on an overall basis,…

The purpose of this study was to examine and evaluate the portrayal of death in selected fiction books for children. The sample consisted of 90 books which were listed by six authors discussing the appearance of the death theme in children's books. A method of content analysis was applied as the research design, and each book was analyzed on the…