To determine whether journalists withhold mobilizing information (any information that allows people to act on the attitudes and desires they already have), 56 professional journalists were asked to edit a nine-paragraph story about a wave of beetles that supposedly threatened large stands of timber. There were two versions of this story: the…

A study examined contemporary reactions of the Black American press to the relocation and internment of the Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II. Noting that the Black American press has been an activist press since its inception in 1827, it was hypothesized that Black newspapers would editorialize against the internment of Japanese…

The Scopes trial of 1925 drew many reporters to Dayton, Tennessee, to report on what they expected would be the final blow to ignorant fundamentalism. They came with many preconceived notions about Dayton, the people of Dayton, William Jennings Bryan, and creationism. Close examination of pretrial, trial, and posttrial coverage in eight…

A study examined the effects of employee turnover (employees who were fired, laid off, retired, or left for other reasons) and mobility (employees who left one newspaper to work for another newspaper or other journalism medium) on small daily newspapers (under 25,000 circulation). The study surveyed 300 newsroom editors and 600 reporters (with a…

To examine how media content is influenced by journalists' role concepts and organizational characteristics, a study used data which was originally gathered from telephone interviews with 1,001 American journalists conducted between December 1982 and February 1983, and which served as the basis for "The American Journalist: A Portrait of U.S.…

Since, in most cases, sequestration is no longer an option for judges to insure an impartial jury, judicial restraints or suppression orders directed at trial participants have become increasingly attractive. The problem is that the press has a desire to disseminate information about the judicial process to the public. Silence orders prohibiting…

This paper examines recent court decisions that indicate the extent of constitutional protection extended to opinionated statements made during broadcast commentaries. A brief overview of both the common law and constitutional privileges protecting the expression of opinion is also included in the paper. Specifically, the paper evaluates the…

Coverage of Mamie Eisenhower as First Lady illustrates difficulties that the media have in projecting images of women. Like many women in the news, she was noteworthy because of her satellite status in relation to a man. Exercising some control over her public portrayal--if only to refuse to see the press to the extent it desired--she deliberately…

The "Seattle Daily Times" and the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" from February through September 1897 were reviewed to determine their reaction to President Grover Cleveland's executive order that abruptly withdrew from further private claims huge stretches of land remaining in the public domain. Specifically, the study sought to…

Testing Kenneth Burke's theory on dramatistic frames, the attitudes and motivations reflected in the rhetoric of Watergate participants were analyzed in terms of literary forms: epic, tragic, comic, elegiac, satiric, burlesque, grotesque, and didactic. Nixon tried to transcend the Watergate conflict by stressing the greatness of his achievements…

Print news media coverage of Jesse Jackson's 1984 presidential campaign was analyzed to determine whether publishers followed their roles as liberal, moderate, or conservative publications in their coverage. It was hypothesized that print media coverage would be similar across publications regardless of editorial slant, because of the dominance of…

The pro-German American newspaper "The Fatherland," published shortly before the United States entered the First World War (1914-1917), displayed a failure of public relations in terms of defining and offering themes likely to convince a target audience to side with Germany. By looking at a public relations campaign undertaken by the…

This paper analyzes the relationship between the press and professional wrestling. It examines professional wrestling as a business and the conflicting goals of the promoters and the press. The paper focuses on how the press covered the most widely viewed professional wrestling show of all time, WrestleMania III (looking at newspaper coverage…

Conference proceedings on the Native American Press in Wisconsin and the Nation present speeches and presentations pertaining to current American Indian publications and examples of analysis and synthesis created by Indian scholars. Topics of speeches presented include: an interpretive framework for Native American discourse; the early years of…

A study was conducted to compare coverage of the United States invasion of Grenada provided by the Third World news agency Inter Press Service (IPS) during October and November 1984, with that provided by the "New York Times." The study instrument tested the direction, themes, sources quoted, and location of the stories. The theme…