The current tension in the writing of histories has been between the defense of "textbook" histories--i.e., the conventional approach which focuses on great events, great individuals, and great collectivities--and progressive--i.e., populist or alternative histories which focus on ordinary people. A new form has been engineered by…

A study was conducted to explore the way network television news observes three countries friendly to the United States: Australia, Canada, and Japan. Every news story from 1968 to 1983 on the ABC, CBS, and NBC networks that mentioned any of the three countries or their people was examined. Coders classified the 4,038 stories based on origin,…

Challenges two assumptions of the Gerbner cultivation analysis: that commercial television content is uniform in its symbolic messages about society's values, and that television viewing is habitual (ritual) rather than selective. Overall, both assumptions are found flawed; discarding them, however, serves to strengthen rather than weaken the…

A study was conducted to describe the extent and dimensions of televised messages about nation, culture, and the Olympics, comparing them across three broadcast systems in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The study was based on complete opening ceremony telecasts by NBC in America, Australia's Network TEN, and the British…

Focusing on the experience of New Zealand, this paper is a response to a 1978 essay which suggested that a study be done to compare the programming patterns of television in the developed countries of Australia and New Zealand. Significant differences between the two nations are presented, including conspicuous discrepancies in television…