Although much is known about how governments and major media organizations stand on some world press problems, some important actors in the debate--small- and medium-size newspapers in the United States--have been ignored. The editors of these newspapers are gatekeepers who, like their counterparts on large elite newspapers, play a fundamental…

Noting that Hodding Carter, Jr., editor and majority owner of the Greenville, Mississippi, "Delta Democrat-Times," was considered a spokesman of and to the South regarding racial matters during the two decades between the end of World War II and the escalation of the Vietnam war, this monograph examines Carter's newspaper in the two-year…

A study examined the news coverage given by the "Industrial Worker" to the San Diego free speech fight of 1912, the last of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union's free speech fights on the West Coast. The "Worker," a publication of the IWW, devoted columns of coverage to that conflict in the form of reports, letters,…

Coverage of Chicanos by the news media, almost nonexistent until the mid-1960s, still has not achieved full balance or objectivity. It is important for media personnel to develop greater competence in handling Chicano coverage since the Latino group, of which Chicanos are the largest segment, are the nation's fastest growing population group…

After a unique court decision forbidding prior restraint in public high school publications in three states, a study was devised based on the responses to individual questionnaires sent to principals, faculty advisers, and student editors in each of the schools in the judicial district involved in the decision. Respondents answered questions…

The purpose of this study was to determine the attitudes of teenagers toward the First Amendment, to compare the attitudes of Florida teenagers with those of non-Florida teenagers, and to compare the attitudes of journalism students with teenagers not in journalism classes. A total of 430 students from Florida high schools and 457 from high…

From his vantage point as News Director of CBS News in Washington, the author examines the role of television news in our society and gives an insider's view of the day-to-day process of selecting and presenting news. Highlighting the book are in-depth discussions of past and recent news events. The Nixon "Checkers" speech, John…

Describes early court cases and decisions that influenced the struggle to end desegregation in higher education and analyzes the reaction in the Black press to the breakthroughs accomplished in those cases. Credits the press with correctly interpreting events that led to integrated graduate and professional education. (Author/MJL)

This curriculum unit for high school government or civic classes was developed as a requirement of a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship seminar in Indonesia. It deals with aspects of political control that the government exercises over citizen rights. The unit compares the situation in the United States, where the Bill of Rights guarantees the freedom of…

Section A of the Media and Law section of the proceedings contains the following nine papers: "RICO and the First Amendment: Racketeering Laws Threaten Free Expression" (Matthew D. Bunker and others); "Press Coverage of the Federal Appellate Courts: Technology and a Shared Notion of Newsworthiness" (Rebekah V. Bromley);…

A study investigated the apparent inconsistency of meaning connected with the term "professor," using the problematic aspect of the term as a way of examining tacit features of a particular speech community. The "social drama" that served as a catalyst for the study centers around the presence of the national "Accuracy in…

This paper suggests that the upcoming transfer of Hong Kong from Great Britain to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1997, offers a unique opportunity to observe how changing configurations in the political environment influence mass media. The article investigates how the Hong Kong press, which spans the entire left-center-right ideological…

The Texas Examination of Current Administrators and Teachers is a basic literacy test that was administered to 202,000 practicing educators in March 1986. An in-depth case study was undertaken to examine the effects of the test as an instrument of educational reform and policy making. The two-year study involved 10 separate data-collection phases…

Economic change in China is coming about through wide-ranging economic reforms, is taking place at an unprecedented pace, and is affecting the lives of many of the inhabitants of the world's most populous nation. However, the attempts to reform the political process have been slow, like the attempts to reform the Chinese press. The Chinese press…

The Portuguese press is now guaranteed free access to official sources of information, professional confidentiality, freedom of publication and of competition, and the independence of the professional journalist; yet its ability to influence public opinion is limited by a traditional expectation of governmental repression and by present financial…