The aim of this study is to show the media, particularly television, as a device belonging to the modern governmental societies' pedagogical apparatus that teaches, among other things, a set of truths forming a cultural curriculum in which one learns to divide the world. The author argues that much of the identity modeling undertaken by neoliberal…

The Newspapers section of the proceedings contains the following 11 papers: "News Items in the 'Shrinking Foreign Newshole': The Case of the New York Times" (Daniel Riffe and others); "Newspaper Coverage of Gays and Lesbians: Editors' Views of Its Longterm Effects" (Marilyn Greenwald and Joseph Bernt); "Effects of Staff…

A study applied research concepts from consumer product involvement to test a model for research on involvement with social issues. Issue involvement was defined as the state or level of perceived importance and/or interest evoked by a stimulus (issue) within a specific situation. Attitudes on four social issues--abortion, pornography, the…

The foreign and international studies section of the proceedings includes the following 11 papers: "The Role of Culture in Development Communication Research and the Use of Ethnography in Development Communication Project Planning" (Jeff Merron); "A Catechism for Censorship: The Development of Circular Number 1000 in World War I…

A study tested the hypothesis that highly unrepresentative news stories about foreign nations would have a more damaging effect on the accuracy of inferences formed by United States audiences if the stories concerned developing countries than if they were about developed nations. Subjects, 76 college students, answered questions concerning a…

To investigate the role of the press in the agenda-setting process, a study examined the evolution of Harry Truman's policy on Palestine from November 29, 1947 through May 14, 1948--the 6-month period before Israel declared its nation-state status. Using a model which views the formation of public policy as a multidirectional process among the…

To provide a better understanding of the depictions of countries by the news media, it is necessary to determine whether similar portraits are presented in all types of reporting or whether there are different, or even contradictory, portrayals of foreign countries within individual newspapers considered nationally influential. A study examined…

A study investigated the effects of U.S. mass media on three dimensions of Thai society: lifestyles, social problems, and value conflict. A total of 100 two-part questionnaires were distributed to Thai students at southwestern public universities in the United States. Forty males and 28 females, whose lengths of stay in the United States varied…

The paper investigates whether the 1976 presidential debates contributed to political participation among all sectors of American society. Evidence was obtained from 353 eligible voters in Madison, Wisconsin, before and after the debates. Effects were evaluated by taking correlations between the level of respondents' exposure to the debates and…

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role played by the media in the 1972 U.S. Senate election in Virginia during the Scott and Spong campaigns. Its primary interest is the use of television, particularly the intense blitz by the Scott organization, which is viewed as a significant variable in the Scott victory. The case study seeks to…

Notes that relationships between the media and the presidency have been written about extensively, yet some conclusions have been misapplied and overvalued, while other potential conclusions have been overlooked or denied. Presents 10 propositions providing corrective hypotheses and new focus for presidential communication researchers. (SKC)

Maintaining that only by integrating communications into program planning and policy can Kids Count grantees and other child advocates achieve their goals, this document presents four studies examining the ways in which the media currently frame children's issues, the consequences of those frames, and possibilities for reframing media depictions…

The miscellaneous studies section of the proceedings includes the following 14 papers: "The News Shapers" (Lawrence C. Soley); "Journalism and Mass Communication Journal Reviewers: Their Standards and Perceived Roles in the Research Process" (Stanley T. Wearden and Fred F. Endres); "Celebrity Advertising: Perception,…

To see whether the subject matter of magazines of general circulation and the subject matter of public concern coincide, a study examined the volume of coverage of United States-Soviet relations, communism, and issues of nuclear warfare between the two nations in twentieth century popular magazines. The "Reader's Guide to Periodical…

Fifty-eight studies relating to the "knowledge gap" hypothesis (a theory that correlates public knowledge to educational level and mass media exposure) are examined in this report. In the opening sections, the theory is defined, and the early information diffusion studies and public opinion polls that led to its formulation in 1970 are…