This ERIC/RCS Special Collection contains 10 or more Digests (brief syntheses of the research on a specific topic in contemporary education) and FAST Bibs (Focused Access to Selected Topics--annotated bibliographies with selected entries from the ERIC database), providing up-to-date information in an accessible format. The collection focuses on…

Drawn from a much more extensive research project about children and television, this study examined the social processes through which the meanings of television are established and negotiated. A series of small group interviews with boys aged between 8 and 12 years were conducted. Two series of interviews focused on the cartoon television series…

Noting that the trend in the newspaper industry from the predictive-control model to the explanative-naturalistic model mirrors a trend in the communication discipline toward qualitative research and more meaningful connections between industry and academia, a study investigated Sedgwick County, Kansas residents' concerns regarding politics and…

Writing teachers and theorists face political and pedagogical dangers because of their increasing tendency to align themselves against each other on the side of either rhetoric or composition. As the differences between the two schools widens, writing teachers stand to lose political ground in English departments and their students stand to lose…

Karaoke (singing along to music videos) has swept Taiwan with such force that many people go to singing schools to improve their singing. Three cases in this paper demonstrate how the ethos, or credibility, of the singer is a combination of initial and derived ethos. Who the singer is tends to determine how much attention he or she receives…

This report presents findings from a study of the effects of televised beer commercials on fifth and sixth grade children (N=468), aged 10-13 years. Each child was interviewed in-person at his or her home. The findings indicated: (1) most children are frequently exposed to beer commercials on television; (2) children's skepticism of television…

This paper attempts to trace a line of theory development in technical communication from Dwight Stevenson's 1977 call for "instrumental effectiveness" in theoretical inquiries, based upon careful inductive research methods, to later examples of more speculative and inadequately documented theories about what constitutes the field's…

This three-part guide contains suggestions for theater arts experiences for handicapped students. Part one discusses the rationale, purpose, and scope of this guide as well as four values of theater arts for the handicapped. Part two contains instructions for creative drama activities. Following a page of tips for the teacher, 18 activities using…

This paper describes a study which examined the similarities and differences in the reactions to a naturalistic account between an internal participant audience and an audience external to the evaluation context so that some notions about generalizability of such material could be developed. A second aim of the study was to examine the…

Intended as an introduction to an interactive writing workshop, this paper presents a general description of the Document Design Center's writing model to be used by workshop participants. Suggesting that the model is an aid in analyzing and revising writing, in developing new documents, and in applying writing research to practical writing tasks,…

Designed to tap the rich collection of instructional techniques in the ERIC database, this compilation of lesson plans offers practical suggestions for developing high school students' writing skills. The 37 lesson plans in this book are divided into four sections: (1) descriptive; (2) audience/voice; (3) expository; and (4) creative. A user's…

Kenneth Burke's concepts of identification, the five terms of dramatism, and strategic uses of ambiguity can be successfully taught to undergraduates if appropriate and familiar examples are used. Print and electronic advertising offer the instructor an up-to-date, familiar, and abundant source of classroom examples. Market segmentation models…

The extensive television coverage of the Opening Ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games was a vital lead-in for a television network as it sought to generate audience interest over the course of the games. This coverage models an unfolding international news event in its presentation style and is analyzed from that perspective in a content…

Using a theoretical framework known as family systems theory, an exploratory study in progress is examining the role of media in the home. Three areas representative of the research are: (1) the place of mass media in the roles of the individual family members; (2) how the media regulate interactions between family members; and (3) the function of…

Although schools in many countries have initiated mass media education, American schools still give little consideration to any systematic study of the mass media. Students are particularly in need of learning how to apply basic critical viewing concepts to watching television, the most powerful and ubiquitous of the mass media. Most researchers…