Using radon (a naturally-occurring radioactive gas linked to lung cancer) as the health risk factor, a study examined which risk-taking tendencies interact with different health-risk message strategies. A phone survey pretested 837 randomly selected homeowners from three Florida counties with the highest levels of radon in the state (706 agreed to…

Describes the emergence of media evangelists in times of situational crisis. Discusses the appeal such leaders have to listeners possessing a "crisis mentality." Offers a model to explain the communication influence process associated with these charismatic speakers. (SR)

A study investigated the impact of a one-time persuasive message presented to subjects across two media--audio and audiovisual. A second variable, distraction, was also examined for its induced impact on conferring resistance to the message. Subjects were 170 college undergraduates, 46 of whom were assigned to a control group that did not see or…

Arguing that little research has been done on media portrayals of persons with disabilities, this paper reviews mass communication content studies of media portrayal of women and blacks in terms of deviance and minority group theories, and also reviews studies of media treatment of persons with disabilities from the rehabilitation and education…

This paper focuses on the experimental findings of Shanto Iyengar with regard to media agenda-setting and a theory of priming, summarizing his work across time. Following an introduction, the next section briefly reviews five of Iyengar's experiments on agenda-setting and priming, giving an overview and conclusions for each. The final section, a…

A study examined the effects of television on dyadic interaction. Subjects, 41 dyads (mostly same sex dyads) consisting of a student in an introductory communication course (students were given extra credit for participation in the research) and a friend, were randomly assigned to one of four treatment conditions and were videotaped by a hidden…

A study quantitatively summarized the literature examining the association between acceptance of rape myths and exposure to pornography to address disputes in the academic community regarding the consistency of such research. The entire collection of "Psychological Abstracts" and "Sociological Abstracts" was manually searched…

A study assessed the accuracy of public perceptions of public reactions to a politically problematic situation, the return of the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China in 1997. The analysis sought to relate differential patterns of communication behavior related to pluralistic ignorance (shared incorrect beliefs about…

Focusing on the sex roles portrayed over commercial radio targeting adolescents, a study conducted a content analysis of two radio stations in the Washington, D.C. market (the two stations held an average share of 30 to 35 percent of the adolescent audience in that area). The content analyzed included the advertisements, disc jockey (DJ) chatter,…

An experimental study compared celebrity evaluations of a treatment group exposed to a celebrity endorsed prosocial message and a control group shown a picture of the celebrity. Subjects, 88 young adults (younger than 25 years) enrolled in an introductory communications class at a mid-size university in the northeastern United States, were…

Researchers have put forth the idea that the mass media have an "agenda setting" function, that the more coverage an issue receives, the more important the public perceives that issue to be. A study tested the hypothesis that the campaign agenda presented by the media would have a stronger agenda setting effect than the aggregate media…

A review of literature and two surveys, one of college students and one of a random sample of adults, were used to examine four aspects of media embedded interactions (social behavior in front of a TV or radio): their functions, their environment, their effects, and the reactions of the interactants to them. Television is seen as performing a…

A study examined how the relative familiarity of a social group described in a message may affect the impact of ostensibly fiction and nonfiction messages on subsequent beliefs about social groups. The 24 paid subjects each received one of four sets of prose excerpts. Each set consisted of four excerpts that were labelled as fiction or nonfiction…

Future developments in communication technology promise to have both positive and negative effects on information sources, messages, the media, and audiences. An increased tendency toward monopolistic control, for example, might accompany improvement in information management. A significant problem already in evidence among information…

Defining inquiry as a discussion, a conversation that tries to make sense of what is happening, this paper argues in favor of replacing the traditional metaphor for news--news as science--with an alternative metaphor--news as drama--in order to provide a useful vocabulary for making sense of news. Traditional metaphors that have organized research…