Contributes to scholarship on the sociology of news making. Concludes that the relationship between journalists and news sources was shaped by the preferred meanings of a community's interpretive groups, including journalists and their news organizations. Uses examples from interviews with journalists and news sources to illustrate and…

Delineates three meanings of technology assumed in popular and academic discourse: technology-as-instrumentality, technology-as-industrialization, and technology-as-novelty. Examines the deployment of these definitions by the Clinton administration as it promulgates and defends its policies regarding the Internet. Reflects on the significance of…

Contends that increased coverage of certain sports has led to increased ritualization and professionalism of amateur sports thereby undermining intrinsic participation motivations and satisfactions. (MH)

Discusses the agenda-setting research model and suggests that an extension of this model presents a relevant theory of social change. (MH)

Expands Elihu Katz's proposals for social research on broadcasting with suggestions for "decentering" the media, studying the effects of society on the media, and looking at what researchers do to, for, and against television and its viewers. (JMF)

Examines the reactions of various New Yorkers to a twenty-three day phone service blackout in that state. Results indicate that the blackout affected their feelings of connectedness with and control over their environment. (MH)

Reconstructs the social networks linking early personal computing pioneers in order to identify the social and political representations and images that defined these social networks. Describes the linkage between technical development and cultural representations, particularly those of the user, in the case of personal computers. (SR)

Suggests that various complex social processes determine what constitutues news as well as how news should be reported. (MH)

Criticizes the Katz report (on social research on broadcasting) for failing to examine the social and theoretical aspects of broadcast communication. (JMF)

Examines the ownership and policies of the dominant firms in the Canadian film market to explain Canada's dependence on imported films. Demonstrates how the economic relations existing between Canadian and U.S. film industries limit the profitability of films made in Canada. (JMF)

Discusses a number of new books that signal a revival of interest in the role of propaganda as a tool of mass persuasion. Relates the political uses of this revival to modern concerns about public opinion and advertising. (JD)

Stresses the need for alternative information networks to offset the oppressive effects of the institutionalized public media and cites a program for acquiring "information literacy." (MH)

Argues that social structures, in the form of shared attitudes, values, beliefs, and identities, can emerge out of the spatially constrained nature of social interaction and influence. Discusses the processes that differentiate social space from both subjective psychological space and objective physical reality. (SR)