English has historically been accepted as the de facto language standard for the United States. Legislative efforts have attempted to manipulate language in this country, and there is presently an attempt to introduce a constitutional amendment making English the official language of the United States. Supporters of the amendment stress problems…

Televised political debate has become an expected element in most political races for public office: as important as door-to-door campaigning, as crucial as purchased media time, as strategized an element as scheduling press conferences. In order to address candidates' opinions of local televised debates, who should participate in them, and what…

A study examined newsmagazines' visual coverage of the 1988 election to determine if patterns of difference in the visual presentation of candidates existed. A content analysis examined all the visuals (photographs and illustrations) of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates printed in three national weekly newsmagazines--"U.S.…

Factors that influence the effectiveness of program evaluation in higher education and eight recommendations for program evaluation are considered. Currently, program evaluation is characterized by negotiation because of three powerful concepts: the nature of multiple constructions and multiple realities; the influence of power distributions…

Conventional wisdom holds that the right-wing John Birch Society disintegrated during the late 1960s. An examination of the society's periodical readership indicates that it has, instead, expanded. Moreover, this expansion occurred during a period of ideological dissonance for the organization, a fact that undermines confidence in the explanation…

The business community in Dallas, Texas, has had considerable influence in developing a school desegregation plan for the Dallas Independent School District. Business leaders' interest in school desegregation stemmed from a desire to maintain a good business climate in a community whose tranquility, they felt, was being threatened by emerging…

Congress is often ambiguous on legislation involving the interests of society's functional groups but is more specific on legislation involving territorial interests. Researchers tested three propositions about congressional action on territorial versus functional matters in education. The three propositions are that Congress (1) is more explicit…

There is a growing awareness among scientists and researchers in every field that the selection of problems for research, the guiding theories, the interpretation of evidence, and resulting conclusions can be, and in fact often are, shaped by political or social ideology. If infused with keenly critical vigilance, such awareness affords the best…

Five approaches, designed by the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL), help educational administrators gain access to the educational policy-making process. They include a year-long fellowship program, the Educational Policy Fellowship Program, for midcareer administrators to learn about policy-making at the federal, state, and local levels;…

The proposed form, content, and funding of South Africa's second television channel (TV2) are examined in this paper. Noting that the service is designed for the country's black majority population, the paper points out that it is nonetheless controlled by the white-dominated South African Broadcasting Corporation. Following a brief outline of the…

L. L. Guttman's scaling procedures were used to analyze United States Supreme Court decisions concerning the press for the period 1971-1981. Guttman scaling is essentially a means of determining whether a given set of responses is unidimensional, meaning that the responses are part of a single hierarchical continuum. The 44 press cases during the…

In partial replication of an analysis of the 1976 presidential campaign debates, two researchers analyzed the debate between Republican presidential candidates Ronald Reagan and George Bush (Houston, April 23, 1980) for its visual features, (amount and type of camera shots). The visual categories by which camera shots were coded included…

Although there has always been some form of accountability in education, in the last decade the American educational system has instituted a new kind of accountability. This accountability has sprung from increased federal involvement in education, states' needs to justify increased educational expenditures, and increased citizen involvement in…

The advancement of women in higher education and the selection process of college presidents are addressed. The leadership role is increasingly a "political" one and authority has decreased in the last decade. There is much variation and complexity in institutions that affect the selection process. The two-year colleges are different in governance…

Some of the similarities and differences in the news media coverage of the United States presidential campaign of 1980 are discussed in this paper. Among the differences related are the loss of the symbolic power of tbe primary elections, which forced the media to look for significant trends elsewhere; the mixture of politics with the…