Focusing on conversational stories of personal experience (SPEs), this paper explores the narrative skills of preschool-aged black children in a low-income, urban community. Although linguistic and anthropological work attest to a flourishing tradition of story telling among black adults, little is known about the ways in which children become…

A study analyzed the effects of instruction in an introduction to public relations class on student perceptions of contrasting public relations communication styles. Two standard models, the traditional scales of family communication patterns and J. E. Grunig's triangular model of public relations objectives, were adapted for the study. A content…

There are thousands of alternative media outlets in the United States. By definition, they differ from the mainstream dominant media. The idea that the media represent and promulgate societal values is widely held. While not monolithic, the dominant media which grew alongside mass industrialization share an overriding bias. The dominant media…

After summarizing the widespread occurrence and male orientation of television beer advertising, this paper describes a study of the thematic content of beer commercials. Two-hundred and six beer advertisements which appeared on WTBS, the USA Network, and ESPN between September 1983 and September 1985 were studied. Event-specific ads and those in…

The purpose of this study was to discern whether the mental picture a journal creates in its feature articles matches its mission statement. A content analysis was conducted on the feature articles in the seven most recent volumes of "Educational Leadership" (EL) and "Phi Delta Kappan" (PDK). Over 2,200 articles were analyzed…

Social studies textbooks need careful inspection with regard to how they treat ethnicity. Although there have been several studies of possible bias in textbooks, there are methodological concerns that need further deliberation. Content analysis has been called a "technique for systematic inference from communications," and it may be viewed as a…

To determine the treatment of visual journalism by privacy law from the origins of privacy law in 1890 until 1978, an analysis was made of the mass media legal cases occurring between those years. The cases were subjectively divided into three categories: those that established or extended a freedom of the press or the right of a defendant to…

A study examined the effects of technological change on news production, particularly the introduction of an electronic press release service (as opposed to the mailing of paper copy news releases) to two newspapers in Madison, Wisconsin in late 1984. A content analysis of 309 news releases generated at the University of Wisconsin's news service…

A study examined the number of times male and female characters appear in text and illustrations and also evaluated the occupations and activities of the characters found in the 14 books which received the Caldecott Medal winning children's books for the years 1971 to 1984. Specifically examined were the following: (1) whether there was a…

Designed to pilot a particular technique for eliciting imaginative constructions centered on the microcomputer, this exploratory study used a "projective" type method with a game format that required group performance. Students in a mixed class of 88 graduate students enrolled in a course on social thought were directed to generate…

Focusing on research from the mid-1920s to the mid-1980s, a study examined the published content analyses of college reading texts from the standpoints of methodology employed by various writers, specific information presented in respective content analyses, and observed trends in content presentation that have emerged since the mid-1920s.…

Examining the evolution of the "Good Housekeeping" Seal of Approval--one of the first codes to set standards for the products advertised in a periodical, a study analyzed issues of "Good Housekeeping" magazine from 1909 to 1975 (with the exception of issues from July 1929 to December 1938). The study also examined elements that…

This study used the sense-making approach of message-q/ing to examine how individuals arrive at an understanding of new technology, in this case, word processing. Subjects were 10 computer naive undergraduate students learning to use word processing as part of a course requirement. Using the WordStar program manual, subjects employed the…

This paper analyzes the ways in which members of different ethnic groups decode the worldwide hit television program Dallas, and suggests answers to the question of how such a quintessentially American cultural product crosses cultural and linguistics frontiers so easily. The program was studied with the intent of observing the mechanisms through…

This paper addresses questions about the processes involved when viewers "make sense" out of the diverse visual and aural signs of a television program and then render that sense in a spoken account. A pilot study was conducted to explore the manner in which modes of viewing, and talk about viewing, include or exclude recognition of…