A study investigated what a group of 29 senior advertising students, part of "Generation X," at a midwestern university found "objectionable" in 35 selected contemporary magazine advertising executions. Using a Q-sort, students ranked the advertisements and completed a personal interview. The majority of the advertisements that…

A composition instructor offered as extra credit an electronic bulletin board (part of a campus-wide electronic network) to a composition class at Northwest Missouri State University. The teacher limited his own participation as much as possible. The electronic bulletin board (bbs) was used by about half the class, with much of the other half…

Star TV, the first international satellite broadcast system in Asia, has had a profound effect on national broadcasting systems, most of which are rigidly controlled, state owned monopoly organizations. The purpose of this paper was to study the response of national governments, media industries, and the general public to this multichannel direct…

The Qualitative Studies section of the Proceedings contains the following 10 papers: "An Alternative to Alternative Media'" (James Hamilton); "A Critical Assessment of News Coverage of the Ethical Implications of Genetic Testing" (David A. Craig); "Earth First! and the Boundaries of Postmodern Environmental…

A search of women's magazines yields countless missives on the virtues of female vigilance not only in protecting personal health but also in protecting spouse and family health. Indeed, the face and content of women's magazines has changed remarkably little from their 18th- and 19th-century predecessors, which circumscribed the ideology of…

One of the greatest myths or fictions of nonfiction is that it contains no fiction. Ben Franklin's flight from Boston to Philadelphia illustrates how changes occur in the retelling of the "facts" of a life. In his "Autobiography," Franklin writes that his friend, Collins, arranged for a ship's passage for Franklin by telling…

During the summer of 1990, a university English education professor in Indiana responded to the writing of 20 fourth through seventh graders via a computer installed in his home. The students wrote daily anything ranging from a 3-line haiku to 10-20 computer-screen stories. The classroom teacher took the students through the steps in the writing…

A writing workshop held during a school holiday in an urban center in Southern Africa illustrated the premise that writing experiences with literary patrons can result in benefits for young authors. The workshop was planned with the purpose of encouraging children to write in a setting that emphasized the establishment of a children's library, a…

In addition to the variety of programs, activities, scholarships, and brochures included in Memphis State University's (MSU) minority recruiting program, the institution uses two approaches to the use of media not normally used in recruiting African-American students. The first is a newsletter aimed at historically African-American churches and…

A study examined how student-writers accommodated a real audience--that is how they adapted their writing to communicate clearly and forcefully with an audience other than the teacher. Subjects, 18 students in a pre-composition, remedial English course at Indiana University East, were asked to revise the formal drafts into a…

Given the affective dimension of writing in the workplace, assignments based on casebook scenarios have definite advantages in a technical or professional writing course. An English professor surveyed faculty in the Schools of Business and Education at Rider College prior to revising a course in technical writing. A majority of faculty, when asked…

A study examined the visual presentation of characters on five prime time network dramas, popular with the elderly, which star elderly actors. The title sequences of each show ("Murder, She Wrote,""The Golden Girls,""Matlock,""Jake and the Fatman," and "In the Heat of the Night") were analyzed. Results indicated seven significant interrelated…

In a study, 52 first-year college students were asked to complete questionnaires about their attitudes about legalizing drugs. The students were to offer persona judgments about hypothetical authors arguing for and against legalization. Next, the participants were assigned to read and evaluate essays for and against legalization, and then were to…

A unit for teaching writing to senior high school students is described in this brief article. AUTHOR'S COMMENT (excerpt): I have used the following exercises to help writing students develop a stronger sense of audience. The sequence of activities is divided into three phases--prewriting, drafting, and rewriting--and a fourth phase of publishing…

Richard Nixon's 1952 "Checkers" speech was an innovative use of television for political communication. Like television news itself, the campaign fund crisis behind the speech can be thought of in the same terms as other television melodrama, with the speech serving as its climactic episode. The speech adapted well to television because…