To examine the status of opinion as protected speech, a study sought answers to three questions: (1) Is opinion protected under the constitution? (2) If protection exists for opinion, has it usurped the common law fair comment defense in libel litigation? and (3) How do the courts define opinion in the context of libel? Answers were sought in…

Higher education and fund raising journals were examined for fund raising articles for the period 1980 to mid-1986. Articles concerning fund raising in higher education were then analyzed using Silverman's "products of inquiry" typology. Silverman's typology is used to classify research products by assessing the relationship between the research…

Fourier analysis, a common technique in engineering, breaks down a complex wave form into its simple sine wave components. Communication researchers have recently suggested that this technique may provide an index of the rhythm of conversation, since vocalizing and pausing produce a complex wave form pattern of alternation between two speakers. To…

A study attempted to ascertain whether Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger demonstrated a particularly unfavorable attitude toward the press in a pattern of press-related decisions. Sixty press freedom cases located through the indexes of the official "United States Reports" were examined. Hypothesis 1 predicted that Burger assigned…

Part of a series of statistical surveys of public broadcasting based on data provided by the licensees of the Corporation for Public Braodcasting, this report provides details of public television program content for the fiscal year 1982. The chapters include information on the following: (1) definitions and categories, (2) the public television…

A study examined how presentation of men and women by selected internal business publications changed from 1978 to 1982. A visual content analysis of three major industry publications was conducted. The total number of individuals shown in the 22 magazines studied was 1,551. Of these individuals, 83% were male and 17% were female. After…

Learning Activity Packages (LAP's) are not meant to replace textbooks. (MW)

Shows, from actual examples, how advanced students can be led to work on authentic texts. A model file includes four phases: motivation, filter, analysis, transfer. Work in each phase is discussed and illustrated. Suggestions are added for publishers for constructing such files. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

This research is a content analysis of those portions of college level health education textbooks which deal with drinking and alcoholism. Twenty books published between 1966 and 1973 were examined. The findings reveal a low level of reliability of information between the texts and high levels of inconsistency within the texts. (Author)

In a collaborative effort, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Document Design Project conducted an evaluation of marine radio rules for recreational boaters that had been rewritten in plain English by FCC personnel. The revised rules were evaluated by 53 experienced boaters and 52 inexperienced boaters, who were given either the…

A study was conducted to contrast the news coverage of developed and developing nations, and of the United States specifically, as transmitted to Asia by the Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI). A total of 556 AP reports and 453 UPI reports drawn from a 6-week period were coded for more than 100 variables and 47 topics. The…