bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Lords of labour: Working and shirking in Bhilai
Authors: Parry Jonathan P.
Published: March 2007

At the ethnographic level this paper discusses work and work-groups in the company town of Bhilai (Madhya Pradesh). Though its central focus is on those who have permanent jobs with the Bhilai Steel Plant, a large-scale public sector enterprise, brief comparison is made with current attitudes to peasant agriculture, with contract labour in the plant and with workers in the private sector. At an analytical level, it offers a critique of E.P. Thompson's thesis that modern machine production requires and promotes a new concept of time and a new kind of work discipline, arguing that this thesis not only romanticises task-oriented peasant agriculture but also effaces the extremely variable nature of industrial production. It further suggests that—at least here—public sector employment serves in significant measure as a 'melting-pot' which creates important solidarities between work-mates that transcend the barriers of caste, religion and regional ethnicity, whereas recruitment procedures and the composition of work-groups in the private sector have tended to reproduce such 'primordial' loyalties. The tentative hypothesis is that the dominance of the public sector is not unrelated to Bhilai's history of relative communal harmony, which is potentially threatened by current economic and policy trends.
Asking for and giving baki: Neo-bondage, or the interplay of bondage and resistance in the Tamilnadu power-loom industry
Authors: De Neve Geert
Published: March 2007

This paper on labour relations in the power-loom industry of the south Indian town Kumarapalayam (Salem district, Tamilnadu) explores the dynamics of this practice of 'ask ing for and giving baki', employers' advances to their labourers, which has now become a widespread custom within this capitalist, industrial and urban setting. The introduction of this practice is related to the manufacturer-employers' search for a stable, skilled and disciplined workforce, the entry of a non-traditional weaving caste (Vellalar Gounder) into this industry, and the exclusion of particular groups on the basis of caste, gender and skill. The effects of giving advances on labour relations and labour turnover, however, reveal the problematic nature of this practice. Although employers have undoubtedly attempted to reintroduce through debt a form of labour attachment within this small-scale power-loom industry, the effectiveness of this strategy is highly paradoxical as labourers continuously escape bonds by moving to other employers, factories and even towns. It is suggested that a study of the dynamics and dialectics of imposing bonds and escaping ties may further our understanding of how labour bondage and its contestation take shape in an urban, industrial context.
Hobbes, Romance, and the Contract of Mimesis
Authors: KAHN VICTORIA
Published: March 2007

It is worthy the observing that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak but it mates and masters the fear of death.... Revenge triumphs over death, love slights it, honour aspireth to it, grief flieth to it, fear preoccupateth it.

Francis Bacon, “Of Death”

This fight being the more cruel, since both Love and Hatred conspired to sharpen their humours, that hard it was to say whether Love with one trumpet, or Hatred with another, gave the louder alarum to their courages.

Philip Sidney, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
Arendt Against Athens
Authors: TSAO ROY T.
Published: March 2007

Miss Arendt is more reticent than, perhaps, she should be, about what actually went on in this public realm of the Greeks.

—W. H. Auden
Must Global Politics Constrain Democracy?
Authors: GILBERT ALAN
Published: March 2007

The government itself, which is the only mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable [with the standing army] to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.

Henry Thoreau, in “Civil Disobedience”

It is easy to say — and often is said — that we cannot have tolerable relations with new revolutionary regimes. The problem is that our anticommunist paranoia has made it impossible to find out. We do not know whether Mao's declared interest in a relationship with the Americans in the 1940s or Ho Chi Minh's were sincere. And the reason we don't know is that we never tried to find out. Those who reported it was a possibility were hounded out of the foreign service because of our suspicion and fear of communism. The legacy of that era brings to mind Ivan the Terrible's practice of murdering the bearer of bad news. We are more civilized than that; we have been content simply to ruin people's careers.

J. William Fulbright, in The Price of Empire (1989)

This poisonous thing I'm trying to describe is [a] characteristic way of dealing with criticism. It used to be enough to brand a critic as a radical or a leftist to make people turn away. Now we need only to call him a liberal. Soon “moderate” will be the M word, “conservative” will be the C word and only fascists will be in the mainstream.

E. L. Doctorow, Brandeis Commencement, May 21, 1989

We have lived with violence for seven years

It was not worth one single life

But the patriot's fist is at her throat

Her voice is in mortal danger...

Adrienne Rich, “Natural Resources,” in Dream of a Common Language (Norton, 1978)
Wounded Attachments
Authors: BROWN WENDY
Published: March 2007

If something is to stay in the memory, it must be burned in: only that which never ceases to hurt stays in the memory.

Friedrich Nietzsche

( from On the Genealogy of Morals)
The Cultural Conditions of Transnational Citizenship
Authors: BADER VEIT
Published: March 2007

No reverberatory effect of the great war has caused American public opinion more solicitude than the failure of the “melting-pot.” The tendency... has been for the national clusters of immigrants, as they became more and more firmly established and more and more prosperous to cultivate more and more assiduously the literatures and cultural traditions of their homelands. Assimilation, in other words, instead of washing out the memories of Europe, made them more and more intensely real. Just as these clusters became more and more objectively American, did they become more and more German or Scandinavian or Bohemian or Polish.... [This] is not, however, to admit the failure of Americanization. It is not to fear the failure of democracy. It is rather to urge us to an investigation of what Americanism may rightly mean. It is to ask ourselves whether our ideal has been broad or narrow—whether perhaps the time has not come to assert a higher ideal than the “melting pot.”... We act as if we wanted Americanization to take place only on our own terms, and not by the consent of the governed. All our elaborate machinery of settlement and school and union, of social and political naturalization, however, will move with friction just in so far as it neglects to take into account this strong and virile insistence that American shall be what the immigrant will have a hand in making it, and not what a ruling class, descendent of those British stocks which were the first permanent immigrants, decide that America shall be made.

Randolph Bourne (1916/1977, 248ff)
Conferring Resistance to Peer Pressure Among Adolescents
Authors: GODBOLD LINDA C. , PFAU MICHAEL
Published: March 2007

In this study, 417 sixth graders who were nondrinkers participated in a test of inoculation theory. Students viewed either a normative or information-based antidrinking public service announcement (PSA) or a neutral PSA unrelated to alcohol. Half of the students immediately saw a set of commercials that included beer advertisements. All students then completed a questionnaire measuring threat vulnerability, perceptions of peer acceptance of alcohol use, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. Two weeks later, the remaining group viewed the commercials. The students again completed the questionnaire. Immediately after viewing, the normative PSA produced lower estimations of peer acceptance of alcohol than did either the informational or neutral PSAs. When viewing commercials immediately following the PSAs, students were most resistant to persuasion both immediately following viewing and 2 weeks later. Path models revealed that estimates of peer acceptance and threat vulnerability affected resistance.
Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words?
Authors: WALTHER JOSEPH B. , SLOVACEK CELESTE L. , TIDWELL LISA C.
Published: March 2007

This article asks whether, and when, participants benefit from seeing each other's faces in computer-mediated communication. Although new technologies make it relatively easy to exchange images over the Internet, our formal understanding of their impacts is not clear. Some theories suggest that the more one can see of one's partners, the better one will like them. Others suggest that long-term virtual team members may like each other better than would those who use face-to-face interaction. The dynamic underlying this latter effect may also pertain to the presentation of realistic images compared with idealized virtual perceptions. A field experiment evaluated the timing of physical image presentations for members of short-term and long-term virtual, international groups. Results indicate that in new, unacquainted teams, seeing one's partner promotes affection and social attraction, but in long-term online groups, the same type of photograph dampens affinity.
Mass Media, Social Norms, and Health Promotion Efforts
Authors: YANOVITZKY ITZHAK , STRYKER JO
Published: March 2007

This study examines the validity of a norm-reinforcement approach as a complementary model to direct media effects on health behavior change. Focusing on news coverage effects on youth binge drinking between 1978 and 1996, it was hypothesized that the media may have contributed to the reduction in this behavior by increasing perceptions of social disapproval. The predictive power of this approach was then compared with that of other plausible models (namely, a direct effect model and a model proposing media effects that are mediated by policy actions). The findings from two separate tests (a time-series regression and the ideodynamic method) suggest that although a direct route of media effects on binge-drinking behavior produced evidence of null effects, there was evidence that the impact of news stories on this behavior was mediated by policy actions as well as by changes in the social acceptability of this behavior. Implications of this approach to the study of media effects on health behavior change are discussed.
Exploring the Digital Divide
Authors: LOGES WILLIAM E. , JUNG JOO-YOUNG
Published: March 2007

The existence of a digital divide between old and young Americans has been well documented. It is usually defined as access or lack of access to the Internet. This study adds context to the understanding of the digital divide by demonstrating differenes in Internet connectedness, a multidimensional concept that includes consideration of the scope and intensity of the relationship that people develop with the Internet. Age is shown to be significantly associated not just with access, but with a tendency to pursue a more narrow range of personal goals online and with a pattern of connecting to the Internet from a smaller range of places. Nonetheless, older respondents evaluate the Internet to be as central to their lives as younger people do. Some support is offered for the idea that the digital divide is not merely a generational effect.
Learning From a Television News Story
Authors: Drew Dan , Reeves Byron
Published: March 2007

Although large numbers of young children watch news programs, researchers have paid little attention to nonproduction variables involved in learning from the news This field experiment with 435 third through seventh graders focuses on the relationship between childrens' perceptions of the news and learning and the effect of news story context on their per ceptions The study predicts that four perceptual variables—liking the story, liking the program, believing the story, and understanding the function of the story—will have a positive relationship to learning Because some news for children is presented in the context of cartoons and fantasy drama- such as the CBS "In the News" series—the study explores the effect of news story context on learning through the perceptual variables listed above
Consumer Information Use
Authors: Moschis George P.
Published: March 2007

Explanations for information seeking are customarily sought on the level of personal characteristics such as education or uncertainty. This study em ploys a coorientation model in which explanation for communication be havior is achieved on the level of the person's interpersonal or social relations. The power of coorientational variables is tested and compared with the power of commonly used individual characteristics in predicting amounts and types of information sought by buyers of cosmetics.
Audience Need for Orientation and Media Effects
Authors: Weaver David H.
Published: March 2007

Using data from a political campaign study conducted in Syracuse, New York, this article tests Blumler's argument that audience motives should be considered in uses and gratifications studies which seek to predict media influence processes. The primary research question addressed here is whether the general cognitive motive of need for orientation (a combination of political interest and uncertainty) is a better predictor of media exposure- media effects relationships than are individual political gratifications, par ticularly the surveillance gratifications. The findings tend to support Blum ler's (1979) proposal that we need to turn to basic audience orientations to predict and explain media influence processes. They also suggest that perhaps future studies of media uses and effects should move toward more general measures of audience motives and away from the more specific gratification measures which have been employed in past uses and gratifi cations studies
STYLE, CONTENT, AND TARGET COMPONENTS OF OPENNESS
Authors: NORTON ROBERT
Published: March 2007

This article introduces an instrument measuring openness as a function of style, content, and target components. The construct is embedded in a pragmatic, communication perspective. The measure was constructed and administered to 324 subjects. The data were structurally analyzed and the larger units of analysis for the respective components were used to predict selected dependent variables.
MOTIVATION FOR READING DIFFERENT CONTENT DOMAINS
Authors: HOLMLÖV P. G.
Published: March 2007

Starting from a concept of two pursued gratifications—immediate rewards, relaxative reasons, pleasure-seeking, and the like; and delayed rewards, such as cognitive or instrumental reasons—it is suggested that these are two separate dimensions rather than a single dichotomy. These dimensions are believed to correlate quite differently with knowledge on municipal affairs as obtained from newspaper reading. Simple gratification scores are derived from a convenience sample's assessment of actual news items and an equal number of similar but unpublished items. These scores are used to predict respondents' knowledge score. Results indicate that while sheer amount of reading does not covary with knowledge of city affairs, it matters why people read their local papers. If the readers want to learn about municipal politics, they tend to be taught; consequently, if they read city affairs articles for fun, they learn rather little. Media effects seem to depend strongly on the motives of the media users—on the media gratifications pursued.
MEMORY PROCESSES IN MEDIA EFFECTS
Authors: KELLERMANN KATHY
Published: March 2007

Memory mediates the effects of mass media on the individual. The nature of memory is such that encoding, storage, and retrieval of episodic (context-dependent) information from mass media messages is often inhibited whereas semantic (thematic, procedural, structural) information retention is often promoted. Therefore, mass media effects are better defined in terms of structural information transmission than in terms of specific content transmission.
EEG ACTIVITY AND THE PROCESSING OF TELEVISION COMMERCIALS
Authors: ROTHSCHILD MICHAEL L. , THORSON ESTHER , REEVES BYRON , HIRSCH JUDITH E. , GOLDSTEIN ROBERT
Published: March 2007

This article introduces the reader to the EEG via a literature review and then presents data from a study that uses television commercials to modify EEG. Data show correlations between level of EEG activity and several measures of learning and affect. Further analysis presents a method to evaluate EEG change across half-second increments of the commercial. Speculations are made as to meaning and value of the EEG method.
VISUAL FORM COMPLEXITY AND TV NEWS
Authors: RIMMER TONY
Published: March 2007

An electronically estimated form complexity variable, static complexity, is analyzed throughout the course of a network TV newscast. No support is found for the hypothesis that audiences prefer an optimal level of static complexity, but there is support for the hypothesis that longitudinal analysis accounts for more variance than a cross-sectional approach. This study has implications for research in TV news that confines itself to content-based variables and assumes only a cross-sectional relationship between newscast material and audience responses. Both form variables and time should be considered along with content in the study of reactions to TV news.
AMERICAN TELEVISION IN THE INTERNATIONAL MARKETPLACE
Authors: CANTOR MURIEL G. , CANTOR JOEL M.
Published: March 2007

The power and influence of the American television industry in today's world market is examined. Based on interviews with media buyers and sellers from the United States and other countries, the argument is advanced that the goal of attracting large audiences dominates program selection. It is the audience in each country, with its own system of cultural values and beliefs, that ultimately decides the popularity of programs. This plays a decisive role in influencing the types of shows imported from the United States.
HOW MEDIA USE AND RELIANCE AFFECT KNOWLEDGE LEVEL
Authors: CULBERTSON HUGH M. , STEMPEL GUIDO H.
Published: March 2007

Results of studies of the relation between media consumption and political knowledge are mixed. This study looked at three media consumption variables—reliance, media use, and focused media use—and their relation to knowledge of issues in a state tax referendum. Focused media use was defined as reading or viewing of news about state and local politics. Reliance on TV news correlated negatively with knowledge of issues. Reliance on newspapers did not correlate at all. Focused TV news use correlated more highly with knowledge of issues than did general TV news use. For newspapers, both focused and general use had strong correlations with knowledge measures.
Toward a “Critical Mass” Theory of Interactive Media
Authors: MARKUS M. LYNNE
Published: March 2007

This article proposes a “critical mass” explanation for the diffusion of interactive media, such as telephone, paper mail systems, electronic mail, voice messaging, or computer conferencing, within communities. Interactive media have two characteristics not shared by many other innovations. First, widespread usage creates universal access, a public good that individuals cannot be prevented from enjoying even if they have not contributed to it. Second, use of interactive media entails reciprocal interdependence, in which earlier users are influenced by later users as well as vice versa. Consequently, interactive media are extremely vulnerable to start-up problems and discontinuance. Traditional explanations of diffusion of innovations do not accommodate these two properties of interactive media. The influence of these two properties on the probability and extent of interactive media diffusion within communities is the focus of the critical mass theory developed in this article.
Telecommunications and Organizational Choice
Authors: KEEN PETER G. W.
Published: March 2007

Organizations are becoming increasingly complex as a response to diverse environmental demands. The costs are high, in terms of managerial layers, administrative overhead, formal procedures and controls, and impersonal paper. This article describes how information technology can be employed to simplify organizations and reverse this trend. The article also describes the federated organizational structure, which is analogous to the United States. A key feature is that telecommunications can be employed to permit simultaneous centralization-with-decentralization. This permits organizations to reap the benefits of both organizational forms. The article concludes with suggestions for research on organizational pressures and the potential contribution of telecommunications in helping organizations cope with these pressures.
In the Eye of the Beholder
Authors: REEP DIANA C. , DAMBROT FAYE H.
Published: March 2007

This study investigated the perceptions of sex role sterotypes held by young adult television viewers. College students (N = 677) rated four sets of male and female characters who were similar in age, marital status, and job responsibilities and who shared the lead in four prime-time crime detection dramas. Subjects used a validated psychological measure of sex role attributes to rate the characters and themselves. Results indicated that viewers readily perceive differences between characters who have surface similarities. In addition, subjects rated three of the four female characters higher in work competence and work seriousness than their male partners, indicating that the role the actor plays is more important to viewer perceptions than the sex of the actor. Comparisons by subjects of self-ratings with television character ratings indicate that viewers perceive significant differences between themselves and television characters. Correlations between these ratings were significant but low to moderate, indicating that the viewer perceptions of sex role sterotypes are based on factors other than the viewer's own sex role attributes.
The Interaction of the Individual's Social Environment, Attention and Interest, and Public Affairs Media Use on Political Knowledge Holding
Authors: PETTEY GARY R.
Published: March 2007

This study examines the interplay between an individual's social environment or milieu and the individual's own motivations for political knowledge, such as political interest and attention to public affairs media. Political knowledge is the dependent variable. The sample survey, multiple regression design examines the respondent's perception of his or her political social environment by measuring the perceived politicization of the respondent's family, friends, and co-workers. The study found that the perception of one's social environment made a significant contribution to the respondent's level of political knowledge even after controlling for traditional individual-level predictors. Further, this article examined the interactions between the individual's social milieu and two other predictors of knowledge—attention/interest and public affairs media use. The interactions as a group provided a small but significant contribution after controlling for all other variables.
Coorientational Accuracy and Differentiation in the Management of Conflict
Authors: PAPA MICHAEL J. , POOD ELLIOTT A.
Published: March 2007

The relationship between coorientational accuracy and differentiation time and two dimensions of conflict (interaction satisfaction and assertiveness of influence strategies) was investigated in an experimental study of 108 employees from a national insurance company office. The employees were placed in dyads in one of two settings, low or high coorientational accuracy (CA), and were videotaped while discussing a topic of personal and organizational relevance. The results yielded three major observations. First, high-CA dyads engaged in significantly less differentiation than did low-CA dyads. Second, low-differentiation-time dyads were significantly more satisfied with the conflict process than were high-differentiation-time dyads. Third, high-differentiation-time dyads used significantly more assertive influence strategies than low-differentiation-time dyads.
Gender-Based Perceptual Biases in Mediation
Authors: BURRELL NANCY A. , DONOHUE WILLIAM A. , ALLEN MIKE
Published: March 2007

The questions posed in this article are related to gender stereotyping in a simulated mediation context: Do disputants perceive the role effectiveness of men and women mediators differently, and do men and women mediators enact intervention strategies differently during highly control-oriented mediation sessions? To answer these questions one mixed-sex group of subjects was trained to mediate roommate conflicts using an interventionist model of mediation (i.e., highly control oriented), whereas another mixed-sex group received no training. The data revealed that, although the trained mediators used equally controlling strategies, the males were perceived by the disputants as more controlling. In contrast, untrained female mediators were more controlling but they were perceived as less controlling. These results are related to current research in gender stereotyping.
Communicative Indices of Employee Performance With New Technology
Authors: PAPA MICHAEL J. , TRACY KAREN
Published: March 2007

The relationship between employee performance and communicative abilities was investigated in a field study of 128 claims adjusters from two insurance company offices. The study examines the relationships between communicator competence, listening ability, and frequency of task-related talk and employee performance with new technology. Comparisons are also made with individual levels of past productivity. Multiple regression analysis reveals significant positive relationships between each of the communication variables and employee productivity with new technology. Post hoc analyses reveal that two of the communication factors (communicator competence and frequency of task-related talk), and general level of past task productivity are significant predictors of two additional performance measures: (a) the productivity decrease that occurred during the first week in which the new technology was used and (b) the speed with which the employees returned to their average previous productivity levels using the new technology.
Message Discrimination
Authors: FINNEGAN JOHN R. , VISWANATH K. , HANNAN PETER J. , WEISBROD RITA , JACOBS DAVID R.
Published: March 2007

Some 15 years ago, investigators Clarke and Kline proposed message discrimination as an alternative open-ended measure of media exposure. This study examined its use in a multicity health campaign project. It addressed three issues: message recall patterns as a function of instrument length and sociodemographic variables; types of messages recalled; and interviewer effects. Analysis suggested that three open-ended “question cycles” were sufficient to capture the majority of respondents' message recall and that respondents did not recall different types of messages earlier or later in the instrument's administration. The major argument that message discrimination as a technique is less biased against those with less formal education received qualified support. The study also lent qualified support to the conclusion that interviewers were a source of excess but controllable variability in this open-ended survey method.
Audience Selectivity and Involvement in the Newer Media Environment
Authors: PERSE ELIZABETH M.
Published: March 2007

This study filled gaps in previous research on audience activity by focusing on the temporal dimension of audience activity in the newer media environment. Specifically, this study considered two types of selectivity: program selection before exposure and changing channels while viewing. This study included four indications of audience involvement: intentionality, or anticipating television viewing; attention, or focused cognitive effort; elaboration, or thinking about program content; and engaging in distractions while viewing. Because the newer media environment provides more program choice, 342 cable subscribers who also owned remote-control devices completed questionnaires. Partial correlations indicated that selectivity and involvement were not necessarily consistent across time. But more salient viewing motives are linked to more preexposure activity. Canonical correlation revealed that instrumental use is marked by higher levels of activity before exposure and involvement during exposure. Ritualistic television use is reflected in higher selectivity before and during exposure but less involvement during exposure. The discussion focuses on implications of these findings for gratification-seeking activity and media effects.
The Disagreeing Audience
Authors: MANAEV OLEG
Published: March 2007

Paradoxically, the advent of glastnost and the democratization of Soviet society appear to have diminished both agreement with mass media and trust in them. At the same time, the disagreeing audience—as compared to the agreeing one—demonstrates more self-consciousness and social activity, conditions indicating greater preparedness for perestroika and the restructuring of Soviet society. These results were obtained from surveys in 1985 and 1987 of 2,000 Byelorussians aged 16 to 30 in five social class categories: collective farmers, workers, technical employees, secondary and professional school students, and university students. Survey results are compared to a content analysis of reports of problems on Soviet radio and television and in youth newspapers (750 texts in 1985, 850 in 1987). The author concludes that under conditions of “monopropaganda,” in which mass media are managed by a single sociopolitical group, disagreement with the media becomes a socially positive force for the democratization of society.
Interpersonal Effects in Computer-Mediated Interaction
Authors: WALTHER JOSEPH B.
Published: March 2007

Several theories and much experimental research on relational tone in computer-mediated communication (CMC) points to the lack of nonverbal cues in this channel as a cause of impersonal and task-oriented messages. Field research in CMC often reports more positive relational behavior. This article examines the assumptions, methods, and findings of such research and suggests that negative relational effects are confined to narrow situational boundary conditions. Alternatively, it is suggested that communicators develop individuating impressions of others through accumulated CMC messages. Based upon these impressions, users may develop relationships and express multidimensional relational messages through verbal or textual cues. Predictions regarding these processes are suggested, and future research incorporating these points is urged.
Communication and the Elderly
Authors: HUMMERT MARY LEE , NUSSBAUM JON F. , WIEMANN JOHN M.
Published: March 2007

This article provides an overview of research on communication and the aging process, focusing on the three areas addressed in this special issue: cognition, language, and relationships. The overview illustrates how the articles in this special issue extend prior research on communication and aging. In addition, the authors address two issues of general concern to researchers: (a) appropriate methodologies for the study of communication and aging and (b) the relationship between theories of aging and communication research.
The Effects of Scene Changes and Semantic Relatedness on Attention to Television
Authors: GEIGER SETH , REEVES BYRON
Published: March 2007

Two laboratory experiments tested the proposition that attention to television is the product of an interaction between message structure and content. Cuts (structure) were hypothesized to affect attention differently, depending on whether they linked related or unrelated content. Subjects viewed six semantically related and six semantically unrelated sequences of television. In Experiment 1, attention was measured using reaction times to a secondary task at one video frame, 1 second and 2 seconds following a cut. Unrelated sequences required more attention 1 second after the cut. Attention to related sequences decreased over the course of the entire sequence, whereas attention to unrelated sequences remained constant over time. Experiment 2 assessed attention during the first second after the cut. Related sequences produced longer reaction times immediately following the cut at 10 and 20 frames; unrelated sequences produced longer reaction times further from the cut, at 20 frames, and 1 second. This pattern of results is explained using a dual process model of attention to television.
Processes and Effects in the Construction of Social Reality
Authors: SHRUM L. J. , O'GUINN THOMAS C.
Published: March 2007

This study conceptualizes the cultivation effect in terms of the accessibility of information in memory. Contemporary social cognition research indicates that individuals consistenly use the most accessible information in memory as a basis for a variety of judgments. Consistent with this body of literature, the current study demonstrates that, based on a reaction time task, those subjects who watch comparatively more television not only overestimate frequency or probability but also give faster responses to various types of cultivation questions. These results support the notion that relevant information, presumably “cultivated” from television viewing, is more accessible in memory for heavier viewers, and, consistent with predictions made by the availability heuristic literature, overestimations of frequency or probability are associated with this enhanced accessibility. Moreover, when controlling for speed of response in the correlation between television viewing and social reality estimates, the relationship is diminished or disappears entirely, suggesting that enhanced accessibility of relevant information for heavier viewers can at least partially account for the cultivation effect.
Self-Efficacy and Call-in Political Television Show Use
Authors: NEWHAGEN JOHN E.
Published: March 2007

A survey examines call-in political television show use prior to the 1992 presidential election in a large racially and economically diverse suburb of Washington, D.C. Self-efficacy, or the sense of being able to cope with the political system, predicts call-in use. This is true even after other media use is taken into account. Social class is not a strong predictor of call-in use, despite evidence that it is important to other news media use. Blacks use call-in programs more than do Whites, and Black members of the middle class report the highest use of call-in shows of any groups. Results are discussed in terms of the interactive nature of the call-in shows, a characteristic not present in traditional mass media.
Panacea or Panopticon?
Authors: SPEARS RUSSELL , LEA MARTIN
Published: March 2007

This article examines how interaction by means of computer-mediated communication (CMC) affects the operation of both status differentials and power relations. The authors attempt to provide a corrective to the dominant assessment, particularly within social psychological analyses, that CMC tends to equalize status, decentralize and democratize decision making, and thus empower and liberate the individual user. This emphasis contrasts with sociological critiques employing the Foucauldian metaphor of the panopticon, claiming that power relations can actually be reinforced in CMC. The authors argue that prevailing conceptualizations of influence and power within social psychology have tended to prefigure the more optimistic account, and outline a theoretical framework in which processes of “panoptic power” in CMC are given a more concrete social psychological foundation.
Exaggerated Versus Representative Exemplification in News Reports
Authors: GIBSON RHONDA , ZILLMANN DOLF
Published: March 2007

A news report on carjacking, presented in magazine format, was manipulated to create versions differing in exemplar distortion (minimally, mildly, substantially, and extremely) and precision of base rate information (imprecise, precise). Time of assessment (immediate, delayed) was varied as well. Readers evaluated carjacking as a national issue, as likely to worsen, as a local danger, and as a personal threat. They also estimated the proportion of carjacking victims suffering injury. The readers eventually rated aspects of the news report. Readers of news featuring extreme exemplar distortion considered carjacking to be a more serious national problem than did readers of news featuring minimally, mildly, or substantially distorted exemplars. This effect was uniform for precision of base rate information and was stable over time. Readers presented with exemplars of people killed during carjackings grossly overestimated the incidence of such an outcome. Additionally, they found the report more upsetting than did readers presented with less extreme exemplars. There were no significant differences, however, in evaluations of newsworthiness, importance, or accuracy of the various versions of the report.
Artifactual Study in the Analysis of Culture
Authors: THOMAS SARI
Published: March 2007

Although both modern and postmodern scholars have criticized the method of content analysis with allegations of reductionism and other epistemological limitations, it is argued here that these criticisms are ill founded. In building an argument for the validity of content analysis, the general value of artifact or text study is first considered.
Information Cues and Indicators of the Climate of Opinion
Authors: SHAMIR JACOB
Published: March 2007

This article explores the informational assumptions in Noelle-Neumann's spiral of silence theory. It is based empirically on data from in-depth interviews employing the “thinking aloud” protocols methodology, and survey data from Israel during the Intifada. Our respondents base their estimates of the climate of opinion on a broader, sounder, and more robust information array than the rather narrow and socially based overt opinion expression cues assumed by Noelle-Neumann. Different information cues are used for assessing opinion distributions and opinion trends. Aggregate trend analysis further supports the inconsistency between these alternative indicators of the climate of opinion. These results are discussed within the framework of structural constraints and major competing approaches to public opinion. The information environment is suggested to be the primary factor in specifying the role of social adjustment mechanisms versus event information in determining the direction in which public opinion evolves.
The Influence of Television on Children's Daydreaming Styles
Authors: VALKENBURG PATTI M. , VAN DER VOORT TOM H. A.
Published: March 2007

The study was designed to establish the longitudinal relationships between the frequency with which children watch violent and nonviolent dramatic programs and three types of daydreaming styles: positive-intense, aggressive-heroic, and dysphoric. A sample of Dutch children (N = 744) was surveyed when they were in grades 3 and 5 and resurveyed 1 year later. Results indicate that children's daydreaming styles in Year 1 did not affect their television viewing in Year 2. However, television viewing in Year 1 did influence children's daydreaming in Year 2. Whereas earlier studies provided only evidence that certain types of television content can stimulate daydreaming about themes that correspond to that content, the present study provides indications that television programs can also repress daydreaming. A positive-intense daydreaming style was found to be stimulated by watching nonviolent children's programs and to be inhibited by watching violent dramatic programs. An aggressive-heroic daydreaming style was stimulated by watching violent dramatic programs and inhibited by watching nonviolent programs.
The Variable Influence of Audience Activity on Media Effects
Authors: KIM JUNGKEE , RUBIN ALAN M.
Published: March 2007

Audience activity in the media transaction may function to promote or to deter media effects. Facilitative activity includes selectivity, attention, and involvement. Inhibitory activity includes avoidance, distraction, and skepticism. The authors expected instrumental media motivation, selectivity, attention, and involvement to be positive predictors of satisfaction, parasocial interaction, and cultivation effects from watching daytime television serials. They expected avoidance, distraction, and skepticism to be negative predictors of those effects. Three path analyses largely supported their expectations. The authors observed direct links between instrumental motivation and media effects, and indirect links that operated through audience activity. Such variations in audience activity help explain how and why people respond differently to media messages.
Children's Comforting of Frightened Coviewers
Authors: HOFFNER CYNTHIA , HAEFNER MARGARET J.
Published: March 2007

Children in first to sixth grade recalled a time they had watched television with someone who became scared, described how (if at all) they comforted the coviewer, and rated other aspects of the viewing situation. Children also described how they would comfort a hypothetical friend, whose age (younger, peer) and sex (same, opposite) were varied. Finally, they completed a self-report measure of empathy. Comforting messages were coded for their level of sensitivity using a nine-level hierarchy employed by Burleson. As expected, empathy was positively related to comforting level in both situations. Comforting level also increased with grade level, but only for the hypothetical situation. Higher level comforting messages were suggested for same-sex peers, but comforting was unaffected by the younger friend's sex. Emotions played a significant role in the real situation, with higher level messages used by less frightened children and offered to more frightened coviewers.
A Japan-U.S. Comparison of Apology Styles
Authors: SUGIMOTO NAOMI
Published: March 2007

This article compares U.S. and Japanese styles of apology. 200 U.S. and 181 Japanese college students were asked to construct messages indicating what the offender would say in response to potentially offending situations. The messages were deconstructed into minimal meaningful segments and were coded to indicate the apology strategies used. Members of both cultures reported that the offender would be more likely to respond than not. Beyond these basic norms of apology shared by the two cultures, cultural differences emerged in the use of various apology strategies. More U.S. than Japanese participants included accounts in their messages, whereas Japanese participants were more likely than U.S. participants to employ strategies such as statements of remorse, reparation, compensation, promise not to repeat the same offense, and requests for forgiveness. Given these findings, this study questions some of the presuppositions previously held regarding U.S. and Japanese communicative patterns.
Effects of Background Television on Phonological and Visuo-Spatial Working Memory
Authors: ARMSTRONG G. BLAKE , SOPORY PRADEEP
Published: March 2007

Research during the 1990s has demonstrated the potential of television-as-background to interfere with performance on concurrent cognitive processing tasks. An experiment examined hypothesized structural interference effects of background television on working memory. To assess effects on phonologically based working memory, participants were tested on their memory for lists of letters and digits. Background television caused stronger deleterious effects on the primacy component of verbal working memory. Participants were tested for effects on visuo-spatial working memory using the Brooks spatial sentence memory task. Where participants were left to choose their own strategy for performing the Brooks task, no significant influence of background television emerged. When participants were instructed in the specific memory technique to use in the Brooks visuo-spatial working memory task, background television had a significant negative effect on performance. However, stronger effects appeared when using a verbally based memory technique than a spatially based technique.
Achieving Improvements in Overall Health Orientation
Authors: RIMAL RAJIV N. , FLORA JUNE A. , SCHOOLER CAROLINE
Published: March 2007

Public health campaign success is conceptualized in terms of improvements in three cardiovascular disease-related behaviors (diet, exercise, and smoking) and their precursors, including knowledge and self-efficacy. Two cross-sectional data waves (baseline and sixth year, N = 4,214) from the Stanford Five-City Project (FCP) are analyzed to test a model of campaign influences. Exposure to FCP campaign messages is correlated with health information seeking and interpersonal communication, which in turn are correlated with health behaviors. The central premise of the model is then tested on a longitudinal sample (N = 1,225) over a 3-year period with similar results. An overall health orientation index is introduced and recommendations are made for enhancing public health campaign effectiveness.
Differential Support for Police Use of Force, the Death Penalty, and Perceived Harshness of the Courts
Authors: HALIM SHAHEEN , STILES BEVERLY L.
Published: March 2007

Logistic regression models were estimated using the 1994 General Social Survey to examine effects of race, gender, and geographical region on support for various criminal justice policies. Dependent variables included support for capital punishment, perceived harshness of courts, and support for police use of force under five conditions of escalating severity. African Americans were less likely to support capital punishment and police use of force than their counterparts. These results were enhanced when re-estimated using only the southern sample. Thus, regional prejudices affect minorities' perceptions of bias in criminal justice policy and practices. However, although African Americans were less likely to endorse police use of force in general, we found situationally specific instances in which African Americans did endorse police use of force.
The Model Muddle in Co-Corrections
Authors: SMYKLA JOHN ORTIZ
Published: March 2007

Shifting correctional philosophies and institutional policies have contributed to what psychiatrist Humphry Osmond calls the “model muddle.” The present article, based on analysis and speculation of a few investigations in the field of sexually integrated prisons (co-corrections), finds that co-correctional institutions suffer from a unique muddle of programmatic and nonprogrammatic models that clash over institutional goals to value the male-female relationship on the one hand and to serve system needs on the other.
Portrait of a Courtroom
Authors: AUSTIN W. T.
Published: March 2007

This research focuses on status and territory within a North Carolina Superior Court. An effort is made to determine which court members are the most dominant and how such dominance is associated with spatial and organizational characteristics of the courtroom. A critique is given of the adversary relationship between the prosecution and the defense, and several inequities in this relationship are outlined. Territorially, the structure of the courtroom is found to be weighted in favor of the prosecution. This partial ethnography reveals several potential fallacies in the courtroom physical and organizational structure and suggests areas for future research.