For English-speaking researchers, French doctoral dissertations can represent a "terra incognita." For this reason, a retrospective bibliometric study of French dissertations in press and media studies offers a useful profile of available research to researchers concentrating in studies of the press and other media. The present study…

Outlines four factors that account for the relative lack of integration between mass communication and interpersonal communication researchers. Cites several forces that support segregation of the two research areas, yet notes that the recent turn to cognitive explanations of communication in both fields may create the climate for meaningful…

Examines the development and historical inaccuracies of the "magic bullet" interpretation of American propaganda studies, which asserts that propaganda critics between the world wars treated messages as "magic bullets" directly and powerfully infused into passive receivers. Considers why this misconception of the progressive…

Offers a "guard dog" metaphor for the functioning of the mass media, suggesting that media perform as a sentry for groups having sufficient power and influence to create and control their own security systems. Delineates this perspective from others, and suggests several hypotheses that may be derived for testing the utility of the guard dog…

Analyzes the content of campaign advertising in seven states. Focuses attention on: the media mix by which state candidates communicate; the electoral conditions most likely to elicit policy content in advertising; and the pictures of state and federal legislatures which emerge from this communication. (RS)

Sketches contours of the postmodern movement and implications for a research agenda in mass media and international communication. Analyzes the furor over Salman Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses" to illustrate the difficulties that result from Western interpretations of events whose origins are distant culturally. Offers a number of…

Investigates whether the intensity and scope of media system dependency (MSD) relations are positively related to perceptions of threats in the environment. Finds that higher perceptions of threat are associated with more intense MSD relations; threat perceptions are strong predictors of the intensity of MSD relations when demographic variables…

Noting that despite increasing research into ethnic minority media and audience analysis, specific Asian American populations and the media serving them have been largely ignored, this paper identifies and examines the media organizations serving various Asian American populations. The first part of the paper reviews the growth of Asian American…

Analyzes how the manufacturer dealt with the Tylenol poisonings: the link between Tylenol and the poisoning was denied, its image as a safe product was bolstered, capsules were differentiated from other products, and as a result, sales recovered. Extends the applicability of apologia as a way to analyze other media campaigns. (SKC)

Concludes that although the new rhetoric may serve as a reminder that communication studies are more than simple effects research, the ferment produced by a highly politicized debate--if it successfully masquerades as scholarly controversy--can become intellectually self-limiting and sterile. (PD)

Summarizes studies in the field of media and aging within six categories: media-use behavior and demographic characteristics of the aging audience; related media content; effects on individual's responses to aging; social consequences of the interrelationship between media and aging; structure and function of media organizations; and strategies…

Analyzes questionnaires and dream reports of 241 undergraduate students for the presence of media figures in their dreams. Finds that media figures appear as friends, collaborators, or associates rather than as celebrities. Suggests that viewers do not enter television scripts in their dreams, but incorporate media figures into their own life…

This paper presents an in-depth look at semantics and how it has been and continues to be studied in mass communication. The paper notes that modern communication scholars have largely ignored the importance of semantics to mass media research. The paper examines the historical roots of semantics, noting that the 1930s saw the intellectual…

States that the system of local political journalism has become fragile and that steps should be taken to remediate the situation, such as developing tax incentives that invite television news, distributed in nonbroadcast form, to enter the arena of local political information. (DF)

Examines the process of disseminating scientific information to the public. Explores the particular steps and strategies that scientists use in taking research findings to a popular audience. Examines the popularization of cold-fusion research. (RS)