A study of the level of belief or commitment an information source holds for his message. (CH)

Tom Metzger and his white supremacist movement, the White Aryan Resistance, attempt to build support with working class whites and youth to create white working class solidarity and racial separation. Metzger uses videotapes as one of the methods of bringing his racist and conspiratorial message to his audience. One such vehicle is "Race and…

Intended to aid theory building in the study of influences on news content, this paper examines how five basic theoretical approaches to studying news content can be integrated into J. Herbert Altschull's assertion that mass media content reflects the ideology of those who finance the media. The paper notes that Altschull's theory accounts for the…

What mass communication effects are possible that have not yet occurred because no effort has been made to achieve them? Why has there been only limited success in mass communication efforts attempted already? For people to be communicatively affected, they have to be behaviorally affected. People are generally weak behaviorally, especially in the…

A longitudinal study sought to determine whether American newspapers shifted from foreign to domestic news content at the end of the War of 1812, as journalism historians traditionally believe, or if the shift in fact occurred before then as a result of a heightened American self-consciousness. A sample was drawn from newspapers from 1808 through…

A content analysis was undertaken of the files for one month of the Rome-based Inter Press Service (IPS), an international news agency specializing in the news relating to the Third World. The data suggested that IPS is indeed providing a different kind of news service from that of the traditional news agencies. More than three-quarters of the…

To examine the role of the animated cartoon in propaganda associated with World War II, 194 of 262 cartoons produced for theatrical release by Warner Brothers, Inc., from 1939 to 1946 were analyzed. Propaganda content was determined by the number and nature of symbols used and the cartoon's "attitudes" toward these symbols. An analysis…

A study investigated the kinds of content total market coverage (TMC) publications carry, the role of the newsroom in publishing them, and how closely identified they are with the parent newspaper. These TMC publications, begun only a few years ago, are designed to cover the total market with selected, preprinted advertisements inserted into…

A study was conducted to determine if interest in business and financial news could be predicted from factors other than demographic variables. It was hypothesized that the type and number of personal financial investments the reader had would predict interest in business and financial news. In a telephone survey, 376 adults in a large,…

A study examined changes in the treatment of women's issues and feminism from 1975 to 1985--the United Nations (UN) designated "Women's Decade"--by two nationally circulated newspapers. The purpose was to find out how much and what kind of news was reported during the three UN World conferences for women held in 1975, 1980, and 1985;…

Noting that past local media coverage of environmental topics, including those dealing with radiation topics, has often been superficial, a study assessed press coverage of the radon problem in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania during the first nine months of 1985. The study explored whether local media coverage of radon--a colorless,…

A study was conducted to determine what, if any, are the ethical guidelines standard for persons working in the magazine industry. A two-page questionnaire, consisting of 21 questions, was mailed to the contact editors of 100 of the nation's most popular consumer magazines. Responses were received from 49 of the editors. The data revealed that…

A study analyzed the coverage by 15 American newspapers of a single foreign news story, the assassination of Sweden's Prime Minister Olof Palme on February 28, 1986. Issues of the newspapers for the first week after the murder were examined and total coverage of the event, measured in number of words, was calculated for each paper. In addition,…

This paper argues that the proliferation of videocassette recorders in the United Kingdom, especially England, has altered the terms of all electronic--and possibly cinematic--viewing in that country, with the exception of areas where communal viewing is the dominant practice, where broadcast is the dominant distribution mode, and where cinema is…