Debates as to the critical element in the writing process have usually taken sides as to either the preeminence of the writer or the essential nature of the text. Throughout two separate studies into the instruction of creative writing genres, the key element in every teaching situation is, instead of writer or text, the creation of a tangible…

According to Lawrence Chua, "zines" are "xeroxed broadsides" which "make marginality their starting point, empowering voices excluded from the slicker journals." According to "Ms," they are "downsized stapled rags...often defiantly tasteless." A subgenre of zines, "Grrrl zines" are those written, produced, and distributed by young women, usually…

Children's broadcasting in Germany (public and private television as well as radio) is traditionally educational broadcasting that aims to show and explain the world to children, and seeks to motivate them to discover and use their creativity and imagination. It occurs in different types of programs and employs a variety of literary and…

A case study examined the cooperative consultation between a writer for the television serial "All My Children" and a health educator. The consultation spanned six years. The story of the alcoholic "Arlene" began to air on the serial in January 1991. Scenes involving Arlene were recorded. Consultation between the health…

A coalition of health groups wants the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJR) to discontinue the use of the Joe Camel cartoon character in its cigarette advertisements. RJR has denied the findings of the three studies published in the "Journal of the American Medical Association" and cited by the health groups--these studies contend that…

A study compared six midwestern United States campus newspapers with their respective general circulation newspapers. A content analysis of these publications was designed to determine whether local news stories in daily student newspapers are as readable, interesting, and thorough as those found in general circulation daily newspapers. The daily…

In writing, as in conversation, there are implicit boundaries which separate various modes of communication, and these boundaries cause exclusion, discomfort, and misunderstanding. The existence of these boundaries results in a number of issues, such as the categorization of texts, the differences between writing for English classes and writing in…

The concept of genre should not be limited to literary genres, but should be expanded to include all types of texts, including those traditionally considered to be nonliterary. Essentially, many things about writing work the way they do because of genre, and a better understanding of genre can give us a better understanding of writing, reading and…

Four different principles of visual manipulation constitute a minimal list of what a visually "literate" viewer should know about, but certain problems exist which are inherent in measuring viewers' awareness of each of them. The four principles are: (1) paraproxemics, or camera work which derives its effectiveness from an analogy to the…

The youth market is a lucrative one, influencing the spending of over $125 billion annually. Increasingly, advertisers are turning to new in-school vehicles, including "wall media" (such as wallboards), tie-in programs, product sample packages and sponsored television programming, to reach students in public high schools. School systems,…

Noting that many instructors involved in teaching writing to students of differing cultural backgrounds seek to pinpoint the origin of the differences in communication between the form of written language conveyed to students and that which they use in their everyday language, this paper recommends ethnography to provide evidence as to what is…

To gain insight into how critical standards for broadcast drama evolved with time, this paper examines the critical response to the development of broadcast drama in the first two decades of radio (1920-1940), as reported in the periodical press. The paper is based on two underlying assumptions: (1) that the stories a society tells are indicative…

After several years in academic public relations, a professional writer returned to teaching composition. After her first attendance at the annual meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, she experienced a turning point in her view of "the essay." Following the conference, she changed her assignments from…

In 1972 Ernest Bormann and his students were in the process of developing and applying what was later called "fantasy theme analysis" to various kinds of communication including the political campaign communication of 1972. Fantasy theme methodology ultimately developed into "Symbolic Convergence Theory," which has generated a…

An audio stimulus activity involves listening to a taped narrative and then responding to several questions. Narratives can be tailored to accommodate their varied audiences, since audiences are more "tuned in" when they are participating in activities to which they can relate. As a group project, students in a listening course at the…