A study examined the visual presentation of characters on five prime time network dramas, popular with the elderly, which star elderly actors. The title sequences of each show ("Murder, She Wrote,""The Golden Girls,""Matlock,""Jake and the Fatman," and "In the Heat of the Night") were analyzed. Results indicated seven significant interrelated…

Gay and lesbian adolescents are marginalized at many levels. Their needs and interests are slighted in the balance of advocacy work that purports a concern for the welfare of minority children. Their presence is overlooked in studies of youth and the mass media. Their existence is excluded from American popular culture. The symbolic annihilation…

The novel "The Women's Room," by Marilyn French, deserves an audience both because of the timely feminist issues it addresses and because of its formal experimentation with points of view. An interpretive theatre version of the story was performed twice in 1982-83, using a script adapted from the novel, and a modified chamber theatre…

This bibliography provides a chronological panorama of Vietnam War era mass market paperbacks. In an introduction, the bibliography also identifies the major visual themes used on the paperback covers to market the books. It shows the enormous variety as well as the great sameness of the Vietnam market paperback, 1960-1989, a market which saw…

The relationship between mass mediated symbol systems and the development of subculture were studied through an analysis of the "hardcore" followers of the rock group, the Grateful Dead, i.e., the "Deadheads." As a way of compiling a "thick description" of the kind proposed by Clifford Geertz (1973), several key areas…

Unlike the linear, serial process of reading books, learning to "read" television is a parallel process in which multiple pieces of information are simultaneously received. Perceiving images, only one aspect of understanding television, requires the concurrent processing of information that is compounded within a symbol system. The…

The widespread popularity of the young adult novels of Judy Blume makes them important factors in the socialization process. Almost all of the characters in her books are members of the middle or upper-middle class, and with the exception of some of the characters in 4 of her 15 novels, all are white. Thus, Blume is teaching youth how to be…

This literature review argues that the broader implications of social learning by a subordinate group through the cultural apparatus of the dominant group has not usually been made an explicit part of the theoretical perspectives utilized in studies of minorities' experiences concerning the impact of television. The review presents the principal…

Examining the evolution of the "Good Housekeeping" Seal of Approval--one of the first codes to set standards for the products advertised in a periodical, a study analyzed issues of "Good Housekeeping" magazine from 1909 to 1975 (with the exception of issues from July 1929 to December 1938). The study also examined elements that…

New technologically-oriented cartoons have been developed in the 1980s, and they may influence the attitudes and behaviors of their viewing audiences, who are comprised primarily of male children. A study analyzed "The Transformers" television program (a new robotic cartoon consisting of a mixture of violence, technology, space travel,…

Based on an audience study conducted in London to investigate the educational relevance of the differentiated response of young people 11 to 16 years old to popular culture, this paper discusses: (1) the reason why this and further studies of this type are needed; (2) the main findings of the study with emphasis on the way in which young people's…

This paper analyzes the ways in which members of different ethnic groups decode the worldwide hit television program Dallas, and suggests answers to the question of how such a quintessentially American cultural product crosses cultural and linguistics frontiers so easily. The program was studied with the intent of observing the mechanisms through…

Music videos from the past few years have become a prominent phenomenon in our culture. They are critically compared by a small or large section of the public with the structures of, and relations within, social reality. These videos are considered to portray real situations that are, according to the standards of western culture, severely…

Communication scholars have recently focused attention on songs as artifacts of popular culture. Current literature implies that the contexts of music communication are defined by the relationships that songs establish between artists and their audience: persuasive, expressive, and commercial. As the commercialization of music is an inherently…

A study compared the two television series, "The Lone Ranger" and "The Equalizer" to see whether the protagonists conform to the American archetype of the justice hero--defined as the hero who deals with crime in society. A formula analysis of the two television texts reveals that both heroes are male, scrupulous, independent,…