Showing papers in "Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly in 2003"

Public Health Communication: Evidence for Behavior Change

Abstract: * Public Health Communication: Evidence for Behavior Change. Robert Hornik, ed. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 2002. 405 pp. $99.95 hbk. $45 pbk. Public Health Communication: Evidence for Behavior Change is dedicated to answering a question that frustrates both health communication researchers and public health program planners worldwide: Do public health communication campaigns work? The book's answer to that question is a firm "yes," but the greatest value of the book is that it not only provides evidence supporting that conclusion but also helps us understand the circumstances under which campaigns successfully influence behavior. Perhaps even more importantly, it provides substantial explanation of the sorts of problems that may interfere with health communication campaign success. As Hornik's introduction notes, in recent years, several large-scale public health campaigns designed specifically to enable researchers to evaluate their effectiveness have produced discouraging results, suggesting that health communication campaigns have limited, if any, effects on behavior. In contrast, however, numerous other studies, along with the reality of increasing public adoption of many healthier behaviors, provide significant evidence that health communication campaigns can, indeed, produce positive behavior change. The book brings together a collection of sixteen case studies selected because, collectively, they support that conclusion. As the book notes, the cases selected are not meant to be representative of public health communication campaigns in general. Nonetheless, one of the strengths of the book is that Hornik has brought together a varied set of scholars writing on a wide variety of types of campaigns, conducted in numerous locations worldwide and focused on a broad range of health issues, including use of tobacco and marijuana among adults and adolescents, AIDS prevention behaviors, seat belt use, vaccination and other child health promotion behaviors, skin cancer prevention behaviors, and vasectomy adoption. In addition to the chapters examining intentional health campaigns, three chapters discuss how news coverage of health risks can influence behavior, often multiplying-but potentially also obscuring-the effects of intentional campaigns. Fan argues in the first of these three chapters that "the possibility should at least be contemplated that a major effect of an intervention effort is not the intervention itself but news about that intervention." Although this may be good news for the health promotion goals, it significantly complicates teasing out the effects of the intervention itself. As Viswanath and Finnegan note in the next chapter, the major community trials campaigns-those using intervention and control communities to enable evaluation of the campaign effects-largely have been underpowered to detect small differences between the intervention and reference communities. …

Media Credibility Reconsidered: Synergy Effects between On-Air and Online News:

Abstract: This experimental investigation of media credibility examined the combined, or synergistic, effects of on-air and online network news exposure, placing student and adult news consumers in broadcast news, online news, and telewebbing conditions. Results indicate that perceptions of network news credibility are affected by channel used. Perceptions of credibility were enhanced when the channel used was consistent with the news source being evaluated, suggesting a channel congruence effect. In addition, evidence is offered for the existence of a synergy effect between on-air and online news.

The CNN Effect: The Myth of News, Foreign Policy and Intervention

Abstract: The CNN Effect: The Myth of News, Foreign Policy and Intervention Piers Robinson London: Routledge, 2002 192 pp $2395 The author of The CNN Effect brings intellectual honesty and insightful observations to one of the most current versions of the debate about the power, or lack of power, of mass communication Piers Robinson, a lecturer in political communication in the School of Politics and Communication Studies at the University of Liverpool, asks if intense mass media coverage of humanitarian crises can, on occasion, compel governments to intervene with the use, or threat of use, of force The author's intellectual honesty becomes evident as he first considers cases widely regarded as clear-cut examples of the CNN effect, but that on closer examination, show little or no effect of media coverage on policymaker decisions Unlike theorists who blithely dismiss contradictory cases as misleading or hegemonic, Robinson uses these cases to challenge commonsense notions and to extend and refine his own explanations for the CNN effect Robinson begins with cases widely regarded as evidence of the power of the news media, not just CNN, to provoke responses by both Western audiences and political elites The 1991 US Operation Provide Comfort in northern Iraq and the 1992 Operation Restore Hope in Somalia are both cases of military intervention in areas that were without traditional "national interest" such as business investments or oil Instead, these "humanitarian" interventions were to signal a post-Cold War New World Order In spite of policymaker insistence that television images of starvation and suffering in Somalia prompted a military response, Robinson provides evidence that media coverage increased dramatically only after the decision to intervene Media coverage, in this case, served a "manufacturing consent" role that supported military intervention Another case widely regarded as supporting the CNN effect was US military intervention in northern Iraq to help mitigate the suffering of the Kurdish refugees who were trapped in the mountains between Iraq and Turkey Conventional wisdom was that compelling images of human suffering forced the United States to reverse its policy of nonintervention in internal Iraqi affairs Robinson argues that US policy reversed not because of television coverage but instead to reward the Turkish government for its loyalty during Operation Desert Storm While appearing to be in response to critical media coverage, the US "no fly zone" was designed primarily to draw the Iraqi Kurds away from the Turkish border into Iraqi refugee camps Robinson does not simply discard the CNN effect hypothesis (powerful media), or throw his support behind the "manufacturing consent" hypothesis (subservient media) on the basis of these two cases …

The Economy and Second-Level Agenda Setting: A Time-Series Analysis of Economic News and Public Opinion about the Economy:

Abstract: Data from a content analysis of forty-eight months of print and broadcast news about the economy were combined in time-series analyses with two indicators of consumer economic evaluations and three measures of real economic conditions to investigate second-level agenda-setting effects. Economic news was framed as negative more often than as positive, and negatively framed news coverage was one of several significant predictors of consumer expectations about the future of the economy. The study supports the argument that media coverage, particularly the media's emphasis on negative news, may have serious consequences for both expectations of and performance of the economy.

An Experimental Investigation of News Source and the Hostile Media Effect

Abstract: This study examined the interaction among different news sources, individual levels of partisanship, and the hostile media effect in sports news. Two hundred and three participants read a balanced story about their home-town college football team in one of three newspapers: the home-town, the cross-state rival university's town, or a neutral-town paper. The study found differences in the hostile media effect across conditions, suggesting the importance of news source in the phenomenon. Further, findings indicate strong support for the hostile media effect among sports news consumers.

What Liberal Media? the Truth about Bias and the News

Abstract: * What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News. Eric Alterman. New York: Basic Books, 2003. 322 pp. $25 hbk. This is one of the most depressing books I have ever read-and one of the most useful. Alterman, who writes a media column for The Nation and the "Altercation" web log for MSNBC.com, makes a compelling case that the media's presumed liberal bias is a myth, that any bias favors conservatives, and that conservatives have helped create a climate in which it is difficult to practice good journalism. The book, with forty pages of helpful citations, is meticulously documented, particularly compared to the tripe produced by Bernard Goldberg, Ann Coulter, and a few others who purport to document media bias. What Liberal Media? is depressing, whether you agree with the conclusions or not, because of what it says about the current state of journalism. Example after depressing example suggests that even reputable writers and news media are too often unfair, inaccurate, intellectually dishonest, timid, and mean-spirited. The chapters that recount the 2000 presidential campaign and the Florida election debacle are enough by themselves to make a professional or a teacher want to slit his or her wrists. One of many examples is the Washington Times' irresponsible story about candidate Al Gore's famous canoe trip down New Hampshire's Connecticut River, a story that damaged Gore's campaign. Although "almost nothing about the story was true," it was widely-and wildly-disseminated as a legitimate report by reputable media that did not verify its veracity. The book is depressing because "many conservatives who attack the media for its (sic) alleged liberalism do so because the constant drumbeat of groundless accusation has proven an effective weapon in weakening journalism's watchdog function." Alterman calls the conservative strategy "working the refs," and he makes a compelling case that it is effective. It is depressing because Alterman's research shows clearly that too many journalists are lazy and too willing to put partisanship above fair and accurate reporting. It is depressing because there seem to be no consequences for truly awful journalism. NBC's Lisa Myers, for example, interviewing Linda Lay of Enron fame, did not challenge Mrs. Lay when she said she and husband Kenneth were "fighting for liquidity." Nor did the sympathetic Myers challenge the statement, "Other than the home we live in, everything else is for sale." In fact, only two of the Lays' eighteen properties were for sale, and they "were happily sitting on at least $10 million in non-Enron stocks." Should not there be consequences for such shoddy reporting? …

Mass Communication Research Trends from 1980 to 1999

Abstract: This is a thematic meta-analysis of research trends in major mass communication journals during the 1980 to 1999 period. We analyzed study method, medium and area of focus, theoretical approach, fu...

The Impact of Web Site Campaigning on Traditional News Media and Public Information Processing

Abstract: This study examined the impact of Web site campaigning on traditional news media agendas and on public opinion during the 2000presidential election campaign. Based on an intermedia agenda-setting approach, this study demonstrated the direction of influence among three media in terms of the flow of information. An agenda-setting impact of Web site campaigning on the public was also identified.

Content Differences between Daily Newspapers with Strong and Weak Market Orientations

Abstract: A content analysis of more than 13,000 items on the main display pages in twelve daily newspapers finds that publications with a strong market orientation publish fewer items about government and public affairs and more items about lifestyle and sports than newspapers with a weak market orientation. But it also finds that content for the public sphere continues to dominate the main display pages of both newspapers that embrace market-driven journalism and those that do not.

Media Economics: Understanding Markets, Industries and Concepts

Abstract: Media Economics: Understanding Markets, Industries and Concepts. Alan B. Albarran. Ames, IA: Iowa State Press, 2002. 229 pp. At a recent conference of journalism teachers, three newspaper editors were asked what students should know about the "business of journalism." All three agreed that students need a better grasp of the economic forces that buffet media organizations today. They need that understanding, the editors argued, because these economic forces will influence what the students can accomplish when they become journalists. Media Economics: Understanding Markets, Industries and Concepts is a primer that can help lead to the understanding that the editors called for. Now in its second edition, the book provides an overview of basic economic principles and then applies those principles to the U.S. industries and organizations in which many journalism students will work. The author, Alan B. Albarran, chair of the department of radio, television, and film at the University of North Texas and editor of the Journal of Media Economics, clearly understands the undergraduate audience for which this book is best suited. First, he keeps the reader focused. The start of each chapter highlights the key points that are to be explained. Then, he reinforces what's just been learned. Each chapter concludes with discussion questions and exercises that apply economic principles to real-world situations. The content is framed broadly enough that it is appropriate not only as a text for courses on media economics but also for classes on media and society or media management. Though economic jargon is unavoidable in a book such as this, it is kept to a minimum. Concepts are clearly defined. Explanations are accessible. Tables and illustrations are plentiful. The book is broken into two major sections. The first is an overview of economic principles. While it is not a substitute for introductory courses in micro- and macroeconomics, it does cover basic terms such as supply, demand, the market, competition, monopoly, price elasticity, and so forth. The treatment of these concepts is always geared around the U.S. industries that make what we read, see, and hear. For journalism or mass communication students, the application of these concepts to their professional world is always apparent. Perhaps the most complicated part of this first section is the presentation of the industrial organization model, which introduces the concepts of market structure, market conduct, and market performance. …

Personal and Professional Dimensions of News Work: Exploring the Link between Journalists' Values and Roles

Abstract: Scholars studying news work have long focused on either journalistic roles or journalistic values, rather than trying to integrate the two as a way to better understand internal forces that drive reporters and editors. This study questions assumptions regarding values by applying social psychology research on values to better understand how journalists operate. The resulting “profile” of journalistic values produced by a nationwide probability-sample survey of 600 newspaper journalists—and an analysis of the links between ranked values and role conceptions—challenges assumptions about the influence of newsroom socialization on journalistic values. Analysis also shows more linkages between the adversarial role of the press and values, suggesting that the adversarial function may be more significant than indicated by previous research.

Experts in the Mass Media: Researchers as Sources in Danish Daily Newspapers, 1961–2001

Abstract: This study of journalists' 1961–2001 use of researchers in three national Danish daily newspapers identifies a dramatic and accelerating sevenfold increase in the number of articles referring to re...

The Effectiveness of Banner Advertisements: Involvement and Click-Through

Abstract: This study indicates that people who are highly involved with a product are more likely to click a banner ad than those with low product involvement. In addition, this study found an interaction effect of peripheral cues (ad size and animation) and level of product involvement on clicking of banner ads; i.e., the positive relationship between peripheral cues and banner clicking is found to be more pronounced among those with low, rather than high, product involvement.

Objective Evidence on Media Bias: Newspaper Coverage of Congressional Party Switchers

Abstract: Are the media biased? Many sources answer in the affirmative, typically indicting the media for a pro-liberal or pro-Democratic slant. Analysis subjecting these claims to objective testing, using baselines with which to compare coverage, has been lacking. By studying newspaper articles on congressional party switchers (members who have left their political party in mid-term), this research compares coverage when members of both parties have engaged in the same behavior. The results provide little evidence of partisan media bias, and no support for allegations of a pro-liberal or pro-Democratic bias.

Effects of Salience Dimensions of Informational Utility on Selective Exposure to Online News.

Abstract: An Internet newsmagazine was created to ascertain effects of three dimensions of news salience—magnitude, likelihood, and immediacy of events—on selective news exposure. In an overview, leads of half the articles were manipulated along the salience dimensions (low vs. high). Remaining leads and all articles were held constant. While readers sampled articles, their selective exposure was automatically recorded. Independent manipulation of salience dimensions resulted in increased exposure to associated articles for all three dimensions. Their joint manipulation yielded the same results for magnitude and likelihood. The absence of interactions in the joint manipulation suggests additive dimension effects.

Changing the Newsroom Culture: A Four-Year Case Study of Organizational Development at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Abstract: This longitudinal case study of change at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch measured newsroom employee perceptions of organizational development, newsroom restructuring (from beats to teams), and public journalism during Cole C. Campbell's tenure as editor, 1996–2000. Results indicate initial optimism about change faded within a year. Over the course of the study, respondents failed to see a connection between change initiatives and producing a better newspaper. Journalists did not experience empowerment associated with team-based systems.

The Internet and Public Relations: Investigating Practitioners' Roles and World Wide Web Use:

Abstract: A national e-mail survey of public relations practitioners investigated how use of the World Wide Web and practitioners' roles and status are linked. Cluster analysis partially replicated and refined Leichty and Springston's 1996 roles typology, further challenging the traditional manager-technician dichotomy that has driven twenty-five years of roles research. Managers used the Web more than technicians for research and evaluation and more than internals for issues communication. Managers and internals use the Web more than technicians for productivity and efficiency. In general, practitioners are no longer laggards in new technology, and women have caught up with men in use of new technology, such as the Web.

Measuring Contingencies: Using Scales to Measure Public Relations Practitioner Limits to Accommodation

Abstract: The contingency theory of accommodation in public relations posits that public relations practice moves on a continuum from total client or employer advocacy to total accommodation of a public. A survey of ninety-one top public relations practitioners was used to quantify contingency theory by constructing scales of five theoretical constructs: external threats, external public characteristics, organizational characteristics, public relations department characteristics, and dominant coalition characteristics. While the default response of practitioners was that bridge building is the best public relations practice, specific contingencies were found to limit bridge building or accommodation. Practitioners cited fear of legitimizing activist claims, credibility and commitment of an external public, and the place of public relations in the dominant coalition as contingencies impacting dialogue with contending publics.

Revisiting the Clinton/Lewinsky Scandal: The Convergence of Agenda Setting and Framing

Abstract: This study examines Clinton/Lewinsky scandal coverage from an agenda-setting perspective—while polls show morality is important to the public, why wasn't Clinton and Lewinsky's relationship? We argue that it was a case of compelling arguments, where the media's choice of attributes negatively affected the public's salience of the story. The “sex scandal/adultery?” attribute was used most often, was of low relevance, and we speculate that because of its high use in the beginning, persisted in people's minds, influencing the way they viewed continuing coverage of the scandal. Finally, ramifications of Clinton/Lewinsky coverage on the 2000 presidential election are discussed.

Press Bias and Politics: How the Media Frame Controversial Issues

Abstract: Press Bias and Politics: How the Media Frame Controversial Issues. Jim A. Kuypers. Praeger Series in Political Communication. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. 303 pp. $69.95 hbk. $24.95 pbk. Kuypers' book provides a detailed rhetorical analysis of how mainstream U.S. newspapers covered six recent speeches or public comments on race and homosexuality. Analyzing first how the speaker presented the issues, Kuypers then looks at newspaper coverage of the speech, comparing the "frames" contained in the original speeches or comments to those contained in the mainstream press coverage of the comments. Kuypers argues that the way that the newspapers framed these speeches provides readers with a perspective that not only is inaccurate, but is also liberal, anti-conservative, and out of line with the majority view of Americans. His overall point in the book is that the press is anti-democratic in the way that it covers controversial issues, offering only a narrowly defined liberal view on these issues. The book offers many insights to the area of political communication and press coverage. Kuypers deserves recognition for comparing in detail the frames of the actual comments with the press coverage. By looking in detail at the public comments and then contrasting that with the press coverage, the reader gets a closer look at the process of how the press covered these particular speeches. The author does a thorough job of illustrating how certain reporting practices helped frame the comments in a specific way for readers. The real strength of the book is this thorough and insightful rhetorical analysis of the public comments and of the newspaper coverage and then the detailed comparison of the frames. But the book is missing some information that might have helped developed the author's argument. One of the things missing from the book is a more complete look at the debate on what influences content in today's media. The accusation of press bias is not a new issue, and the author certainly illustrates the process and the way this might happen in the coverage of the six events discussed in the book. But the bias debate is broader than whether the media have a liberal or conservative political bias; the debate also includes things such as how corporate ownership of the media influences content, how government regulation or deregulation influences the content, and even what new sources of media (such as the Internet) have contributed to the diversity of media content. Another area that might have been more completely developed was the literature on framing research. The author uses framing, but does so selectively. The author tries to explain the process of bias by using several methods and theories (rhetorical analysis, framing, agenda setting, spiral of silence), but at some point the author needs to show how all of these unite to support his arguments. …

Primer of Public Relations Research

Abstract: Where you can find the primer of public relations research easily? Is it in the book store? On-line book store? are you sure? Keep in mind that you will find the book in this site. This book is very referred for you because it gives not only the experience but also lesson. The lessons are very valuable to serve for you, that's not about who are reading this primer of public relations research book. It is about this book that will give wellness for all people from many societies.

Understanding Women's Magazines: Publishing, Markets and Readerships

Abstract: Understanding Women's Magazines: Publishing, Markets and Readerships. Anna Gough-Yates. New York: Routledge, 2003.190 pp. $23.95 pbk. This is not a book merely for readers with a casual interest in the content-or lack thereof, as some would argue-of women's magazines. It is far more than its title suggests. Those who pass itby because women's magazines are not their forte will miss a trenchant analysis of how economics, technology, advertising research, class, and culture intersect in the production of identity. In Understanding Women's Magazines, Gough-Yates describes how British magazine publishers of the 1980s set about reviving the flagging sales of women's periodicals. She does not do so, however, until she has thoroughly discussed the societal forces that led to the dramatic decline in women's magazines during the 1970s. The development of the image of a "New Woman" for the 1980s was the product of magazine producers' response to a complex interaction of economic and technological change. The shift away from Fordism (mass production along the lines of Henry Ford's auto assembly line) in the late 1960s, combined with increased competition from other nations, evolved into the pluralization of marketing niches and subsequent desires for consumption, GoughYates argues. Magazine producers overall were eventually able to adapt to many of these changes, but the continuing gender inequalities had them baffled. The plethora of research techniques and lifestyle models advertisers used in attempting to study the "women's market" was confounded by consumers' growing media literacy, feminism, and the masculine ethos of the industry itself. Thus, in the mid-1980s, a number of British women's magazines were launched or relaunched, many only to disappear shortly thereafter. Successful women's periodicals were able to reach female audiences by creating the image of a new, young, middle-class woman, who was liberated from the traditional "morality of duty." She was to be interested in communicating with others, in her own pleasure, and in creating her identity-often seeking these ends through consumption. One tool in building this image was the magazine editor herself, many of whom believed that they embodied this "ideal reader." Gough-Yates successfully illustrates how this formula worked through a number of magazines that tapped into variations of the image. Even more persuasive is the failure of the British version of Working Woman, which failed to adopt the pleasure and fun inherent in the new image. In the 1990s, as magazines faced declining circulations due to increased competition from other media, the re-imaging process began all over again, this time with an aggressive focus on sexuality. …

Professional Confidence and Situational Ethics: Assessing the Social-Professional Dialectic in Journalistic Ethics Decisions

Abstract: Ethical decisions that journalists make vary greatly in their situational context, often shaped by a tension between professional values and organizational imperatives. This survey of newspaper rep...

Entangled Evolutions: Media and Democratization in Eastern Europe

Abstract: Entangled Evolutions: Media and Democratization in Eastern Europe. Peter Gross. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Press, 2002. xii, 226 pp. $49.95 hbk. $24.95 pbk. When 1989 revolutions freed Eastern Europe from Communist rule, many observers predicted that the newly liberated, post-Communist media would shed Communist-era ideological control, recreate themselves as a liberal democratic media system with strong professional standards, and become a driving force in establishing open societies in Eastern Europe. However, in Entangled Evolutions, author Peter Gross, professor of journalism at California State University-Chico, points out that such "utopian" predictions have not, and may never, come true. After all, he argues, although Eastern European journalists are no longer forced to toe the Communist Party line, their new employers, representing a wide variety of political views, frequently expect them to push media outlet partisan agendas. And strong political pressure, combined with desperate economic conditions, a lack of professional journalistic traditions, etc., often result in extremely partisan and/or sensational Eastern European coverage based more on opinions, inaccurate information, and half truths than on well-documented, credible facts. Finally, how can societies facing their own democratic transformation difficulties be expected to create a democratic media system that can aid them in the process? Entangled Evolutions details numerous post-1989 Eastern European journalistic shortcomings. However, Gross argues that it is unfair to judge this coverage based on unrealistic expectations and predictions made during the euphoric fall of communism. In other words, some scholars have focused so intently on the negative aspects of the media's post-1989 development, they have overlooked the media's significant democratic successes. Gross, who says he himself has been guilty of such oversights in previous research projects, arrived at more positive conclusions about post-1989 Eastern European journalism while conducting extensive research for this text. For example, in Entangled Evolutions, which expertly analyzes the complicated interactions of civil society, political culture, and Eastern Europe's post-Communist media (from 1989 to 2000), Gross argues that the post-1989 media have "indirectly and unwittingly" helped set some groundwork for a possible future democratic press system. For instance, when Eastern European journalists promote their media outlets' political views, which are often quite diverse, they collectively present a marketplace of ideas to their audiences. In addition, when media groups openly compete for political, economic, and cultural clout, they demonstrate to their Eastern European audiences (and help build) the type of public climate necessary for a liberal democratic press system to take root. …

Question-Order Effects in Surveys: The Case of Political Interest, News Attention, and Knowledge

Abstract: Subjects were exposed to one of three survey versions differing only in question order. Those who first faced difficult political knowledge questions reported significantly lower levels of both pol...

An Experimental Examination of Readers' Perceptions of Media Bias

Abstract: Perceptions of media bias were explored by manipulating expectations of bias and news topic. Readers were more likely to designate material opposing their own viewpoints as biased. Perception of bi...

Postfeminist News: Political Women in Media Culture

Abstract: Postfeminist News: Political Women in Media Culture. Mary Douglas Vavrus. Albany: State University of New York Press. 2002. 225 pp. $62.50 hbk. $20.95 pbk. The central premise of Postfeminist News is that media representations of women in politics reinforce traditional sex roles even as they appear to promote women's presence and power in the public arena. Such news coverage, Mary Douglas Vavrus says, constitutes a type of postfeminism: "a revision of feminism that encourages women's private consumer lifestyles rather than cultivating a desire for public life and political activism." Vavrus explains that postfeminism assumes that feminist politics has accomplished its goals and is no longer necessary. But, she contends, it "offers little or nothing to women who are not well situated materially and socially. It fails to address the needs and concerns of a majority of women, yet it significantly informs news discourse of women in politics." Vavrus, an assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and coeditor of American Cultural Studies, examines news accounts of women in politics during four recent time periods: the 1991 coverage of Anita Hill, the 1992 and 1996 national election contests, and the 2000 Senate race of Hillary Clinton. She categorizes Hill as a "political woman" because she was part of the formal political process: the 1991 nomination hearings of Clarence Thomas by elected officials. News accounts perpetuated a dismissive attitude toward Hill and "women's issues," as well as a belief in a system well-run "by elite white men ... an unraced, ungendered, and unclassed norm," the author says. Although Vavrus is far from the first to examine this coverage, it is interesting to see it used in this context-as a lead into a discussion of news coverage of the 1992 national elections dubbed "The Year of the Woman." Like the Hill-Thomas stories, the elections were cast as a battle between the sexes. The media attributed the election of females to overwhelming anger over the treatment both Hill and the issue of sexual harassment had received. But, Vavrus says, it "denies the long history of women's work in formal politics" to attribute even the election of experienced politicians solely to this factor. It also trivializes women's concerns and activism by ignoring the fact that, in other years, "women ran for office in large numbers for precisely the same reasons . . . to change public policy and legislation and to interject women's voices into male-dominated political conversations." In her most innovative chapter, Vavrus chronicles the shift in media representation of women in politics from "strong women poised to gain electoral power by wresting control of it from the governing white patriarchs" in 1992 to "soccer moms" in 1996. …

Handbook of the Media in Asia

Abstract: [black square] Handbook of the Media in Asia. Shelton A. Gunaratne, ed. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2000. 722 pp. $111.25 hbk. Handbook of the Media in Asia, edited by Shelton A. Gunaratne, a professor of mass communication and a specialist in international communication at Minnesota State University Moorhead, is a more-than-700-page volume intended to cover all major aspects of mass media in twenty-five Asian countries or economies. Contributed by thirty-six scholars on mass media in Asia, this handbook comprises three major parts: South Asia (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka), Southeast Asia (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam), and East Asia (China, Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Mongolia, and Taiwan). In each chapter, a concise overall profile (including geography, people, government and politics, and economy) of the country or economy under review and a detailed media profile (covering the history of the press and broadcasting, policy and legal framework, financial aspects, structure and organization, major media-related issues, and important statistics) are provided. The media profile is further divided into the press, broadcasting, and the new electronic media (such as the Internet and the online media). The information provided in the Handbook is authoritative, thorough, and consistent. Intext citations are carefully provided throughout the volume while a list of references is available at the end of each chapter. To kick off this magnificent volume, Gunaratne presents an insightful twenty-nine-page "Overview" on the media in Asia. After a quick and clear operationalization of the concept "Asia," he addresses several important issues related to the media in this continent. He first reviews the issue of press freedom, from an Occidental point of view. Based on the annual Freedom House survey of press freedom worldwide, he reports the ranking results of the degrees of press freedom in those Asian countries and economies covered in the Handbook. By comparing them with some Western countries labeled with high degrees of press freedom, he puts the Asian countries or economies in a global perspective. Although it might be uncertain how accurate the numerical scores that the Freedom House survey assigned to individual countries or economies were, these scores added, at least, some "tangibility" to press freedom, a highly abstract and hard-to-measure concept. In the next section of his Overview, Gunaratne focuses on the Asian values. This section is especially informative and truly thought provoking. …

Self-Exposure: Human-Interest Journalism and the Emergence of Celebrity in America, 1890-1940

Abstract: Ponce de Leon, Charles L. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. 352 pp. $19.95. Whether in popular music, movies, sports, business, or politics, celebrities clearly dominate print and electronic journalism more today than at any time in our history. In Self-Exposure: Human-Interest Journalism and the Emergence of Celebrity in America, 1890-1940, Charles Ponce de Leon analyzes the origins and formulaic development of this odd species of journalism that graces popular magazine covers, fills cable channels, and infiltrates the lineups of television news programs and the front pages of major newspapers. The rise of such publicists as P. T. Barnum, Ivy Lee, George Parker, and Edward Bernays contributed to the growth of celebrity journalism. Ponce de Leon argues in Self-Exposure, however, that the growth of urban centers, a national economy, and large-scale industries in the last half of the nineteenth century created the requisite environment for these publicists and a relatively small group of gossip and feature writers to perfect the formulae of human-interest journalism in the early decades of the twentieth century. And these are formulae that continue to define celebrity journalism. European rulers, advised by educated counselors, had managed their public images, but rising urban centers in the United States following the Civil War offered business and civic leaders opportunities to remake themselves in an anonymous public sphere. Ponce de Leon argues that new graphic technologies transferred these created public images onto the pages of mass circulation magazines and newspapers. As the world of business became routine and everyone was viewed as playing a role in this public sphere, journalists began exposing "real" lives of public figures. Early on in the New York World, Munsey's, Cosmopolitan, or McClure's, "celebrity" meant appearing frequently in short notices placed in columns with such titles as "In the Public Eye" or "People Often Talked Of." Reporting on cafe society in these columns, journalists by the 1920s made Jack Dempsey and Franklin Roosevelt equals. Other contributing factors in the development of celebrity journalism, in addition to early gossip columns, were the emergence of the interview format with its dependence on quotations; the rise of trend stories with opinions from celebrity experts; the prevalence of the magazine and Sunday-supplement profiles that sent reporters to offices, back stages, restaurants, and homes of celebrities; and the arrival of inexpensive magazines such as Ladies' Home Journal, Munsey's, and Everybody's. In the 1920s, upscale magazines such as Vanity Fair and The New Yorker adopted and transformed the celebrity profile into an art form, a product of a small group of writers who then exploited this sophisticated style in Colliers, Saturday Evening Post, and Life. …

Bridging Latin America's Digital Divide: Government Policies and Internet Access:

Abstract: Latin American governments are attempting to close the digital divide by enacting policies to increase access to information technologies. This cross-sectional time-series analysis of nineteen coun...