Examines the discursive construction of audience identity at a public radio station in New Mexico by investigating listener letters printed in the radio station's newsletter. Shows how the letters frame the audience in particular ways. Discusses listener letters as an ongoing text, and spatial discourse as metacommunication. (SR)

Defines the "critical" approach to communications study. Assesses leading recent works in critical and institutional theory, emphasizing books available in English. Claims that scholars in mass communications must periodically address the questions raised in these publications to keep abreast and take full advantage of the critical…

Examines the current state of empirical research on religious television, discusses some of the implicit difficulties in exploring this phenomenon and its viewership, and suggests avenues for future research. (MS)

Presents a brief overview of the history of recorded music, focusing on the dynamics between production and consumption. (JD)

Compares interpretive media research with traditional media research. Suggests that interpretivism's distinctiveness from earlier work is not always entirely clear and that, through an analysis of the challenges that interpretivism poses to preceding traditions, these challenges may be illusory. (MG)

Attempts to demonstrate the value of conjunctural interpretive analysis (which is multilevel, multimodal, and explicitly theoretical and political) through an interpretation of the culture of homelessness in the United States. Addresses differences between positivist epistemologies. (SR)

Examines origins of wildlife films. Outlines their tension between education and entertainment. Looks at how Disney codified wildlife films as a coherent genre by imposing conventionalized narrative frameworks upon them. Discusses factors influencing wildlife television in the 1990s. Concludes that wildlife films are a valid and distinct film and…

Discusses the significance to media studies of queer theory. Examines (1) the commodification of "witness testimony" relating to the question of sexual innocence in the case of child molestation; (2) the effeminization of Jackson as a homophobic containment of him by the press; and (3) interpretive excess in the media's focus of an…

Discusses the assumptions that ground radical, liberal, and socialist feminist theoretical frameworks, and reviews feminist media research. Argues that liberal feminism speaks only to White, heterosexual, middle and upper class women and is incapable of addressing most women's concerns. Concludes that socialist feminism offers the greatest…

Surveys the relationship between historical inquiry and mass communication research. Argues that historically grounded inquiries into mass communications have focused on three areas: apparatus-centered criticism, social history, and textual interpretation. Contends that challenges from inside and outside the discipline have encouraged historians…

Develops an interpretation of contemporary social and cultural life which conceives of "the religious" as radically located within "the secular." Notes that such a situation implicates some received understandings, particularly in the area of secularization. Explores implications for media theory and research, along with…

Reviews the past five years of community ties research. Examines recent research for evidence of progress in resolving important conceptual issues, and discusses problems that still persist despite previous cautions. (RAE)

Argues that, in terms of demography of attention, broadcast economics, the excitation of wide public commentary, and First and Third World media dependency issues, American Olympic television is a worthwhile object of scrutiny for mass communication researchers. Appraises two studies by Thomas Farrell and Eric Rothenbuhler (same issue). (SR)

Uses Kantian logic to analyze the statement of Libertarian press theory "Truth beats falsehood in a free marketplace of ideas" as a definition, an observation, and a universal truth. Notes three corresponding moral universes, with differing ethical obligations. Discusses strengths and weaknesses of each. Cautions media ethics analysts…

Identifies the major insights concerning contemporary communication and media practices associated with the postmodern condition and evaluates their contribution to critical media studies. Suggests that postmodern media studies are themselves a symptom of the very postmodern culture they seek to analyze. (RS)