The topic of agenda setting has been one of the most researched fields in mass communication since its introduction in 1972. M. E. McCombs and D. L. Shaw (1972) began a research collection of over 200 projects by upholding the hypothesis that the media cannot tell viewers what to think but it can tell them what to think about. The question arises…

Spotlighting a variety of venerable poets, as well as some rising stars, this book is the second series of conversations about the lives and works of poets who write mainly for children and young people. The book presents informal interviews with the writers about their childhoods, the influences upon their work, their writing processes, how they…

The Media and Politics section of this collection of conference proceedings contains the following 11 papers: "Characteristics of Readers of Religious Publications for Political Information" (Judith M. Buddenbaum); "Is 'Nightline' Biased?: A Content Analysis of the Issue of Gays in the Military" (Chuck Hoy and Terry Scott);…

A critique predicated primarily on aesthetic considerations can show the potential a speech has to move an audience, but gauging a speech's actual effects on the audience is more difficult. A case in point is the United States Congressional investigation of the Iran-Contra scandal. Government officials and businessmen sold arms to Iran in exchange…

A study used protocol analysis to trace a group of specialized journalists' cognitive processing of information. Science writers were selected because they were hypothesized to be particularly sensitive to the needs of their audience and to rely more on audience knowledge when making decisions. Five science journalists (of about 25 contacted at…

This study examined the relationship between the structure of narrative and false belief understanding in young children. A group of 109 children between 38 and 63 months were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Children in the first group watched a story on video, while children in the second group shared the same story in book format. The…

While recent arguments often propose that students should be engaged as writers in service to the larger community, the question remains how to engage students as intellectuals, writers, and creators of knowledge in an intellectual setting that mostly asks them to be passive learners. In Project Renaissance, leaving behind the familiar boundaries…

Building on an earlier study, this paper presents the findings of a series of studies that asked senior newspaper editors throughout the United States how they view newspaper coverage of issues of concern to gays and lesbians. The paper presents detailed findings reported in four earlier papers analyzing data from the survey: "Daily Newspaper…

From the very first, textbook editions of Shakespeare have been, "badly edited, ineptly glossed, and inexcusably bowdlerized" (Levin, 1976). What is studied in schools is a version, or rather a "perversion" of Shakespeare controlled by narrow religious, sexual, racial, and social interests. A fear of laughter and cultural…

Planbox escalation is a linguistic method of analyzing narrative arguments. This persuasive procedure consists of 12 strategies: (1) begin with information that all sides can agree on; (2) prepare to respond by rejecting outright, questioning, ignoring or replacing the audience's opinions; (3) make the subject as attractive as possible; (4)…

Although previous generations have by no means been disloyal to the popular music of their youth, the tenacious attachment of the Baby Boomers to the music of the 1960s seems unprecedented. Three main reasons account for this constantly widening musical reclamation project. First, the Baby Boomers have a clearer sense of generational identity that…

Concerned with improving text readability in the content areas, this report first draws upon Linda Flower's writing steps and strategies in its description of writing as moving from planning to generating ideas in words, designing for a reader, and editing for effectiveness. It also presents nine more precise steps in the writing process along…

Three successive models were developed to test the existence of a need that leads individuals to select one mass medium over another and also to examine the idea of audience activity. Since it has been noted that uses and gratifications research has focused excessively on habitual media behaviors, the focus instead was on a medium where choice…

To bridge the gap between broad philosophical claims about the value of forensics and actual current practices and experiences, the concept of the "total" forensic program offers critical components that are educationally valid with numerous advantages for participants and sponsoring departments. The total approach is defined as the most…