bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Investigative Reporting
Authors: Aucoin James L.
Published: September 2017

Investigative journalism is the product of independent work by reporters and editors, which reveals a public or social issue that would otherwise remain unknown. Reporters produce original investigations for → newspapers, → magazines, → books, broadcast outlets (→ Radio; Television), newsletters, and news websites (→ Internet). The process of investigation may take days, months, or years and include reviewing public documents, conducting multiple interviews, surveying public opinion, analyzing databases, or the like. Investigative reports are usually comprehensive and much longer than other → news stories.
Issue Management in Politics
Authors: Kiousis Spiro
Published: September 2017

Issue management in politics refers to the process by which politicians, campaigns, parties, and other political groups identify, prioritize, develop, and convey positions on key issues. A fundamental early step in effective political issue management involves formative research where groups investigate the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of target audiences concerning policy preferences and problems. Some of the major research techniques used to gather such information include → Surveys, focus groups, content analysis, and in‐depth → interviews (→ Research Methods; Content Analysis, Qualitative; Content Analysis, Quantitative; Interview, Standardized; Interview, Qualitative). These same approaches are also used to evaluate the success of communication efforts for issue management purposes.
Issue Voting
Authors: Schmitt‐Beck Rüdiger
Published: September 2017

The notion of issue voting refers to electoral choices that are based on the substance of politics – collective problems for which solutions are expected from governments. That responsibility for solving problems is ascribed to the political system is not self‐evident. Political cultures differ with regard to the extent to which the state is commonly held responsible for dealing with citizens' grievances. Media reporting can stimulate the politicization of individually experienced problems by conveying the impression that they are not merely private concerns but shared by many people (Mutz 1994).
Italy: Media System
Authors: Mazzoleni Gianpietro
Published: September 2017

Italy (population 60 million) is one of the founding members of the EU. It is a parliamentary republic; general elections are held every five years. The electoral system, formerly a mix of majoritarian rule and proportional representation, was changed to purely proportional before the general election of 2006. Governments and political parties have always displayed an acute sensitivity over issues of communication and information, and have produced legislation and regulations that have allowed political power to exert tight control over the broadcasting media and to keep the press in check, mostly by means of thelottizzazione, a partitioning of the political parties' grasp on all sectors of communication. The “political parallelism” model (Hallin & Mancini 2004) explains such close connections between politics and news media in Italy.
Journalism
Authors: Barnhurst Kevin G. , Owens James
Published: September 2017

Journalism is a constellation of practices that have acquired special status within the larger domain of communication through a long history that separated out news sharing from its origins in → interpersonal communication. Telling others about events in one's social and physical surroundings is a common everyday activity in human cultures, and news as a → Genre of such interactions has the primary characteristic of being new to the listener. A main difficulty for sharing intelligence is ascertaining truth, or, put the other way round, distinguishing intelligence from gossip (Froissart 2002; → Rumor; Small Talk and Gossip; Truth and Media Content). Telling about events, supplying novelty, and, from the process, discerning factual truth are the main rudiments that came to define journalism as a cultural practice.
Journalism Education
Authors: Becker Lee B.
Published: September 2017

Journalism education is instruction for work in the news departments of media organizations, both print and electronic. The instruction can take place before journalists enter the workforce, during early employment, and at later career stages. It can involve practical training in the skills of the journalist and broader education about the context of that work (→ Professionalization of Journalism). The training can cover reporting (information gathering and evaluation), writing (language use and storytelling techniques, including photography and graphics), and editing (including story presentation and integration into the news format) skills. Education about the context of journalism can include topics such as the social setting and impact of news, journalism history and law, and news ethics.
Katz, Elihu
Authors: Livingstone Sonia
Published: September 2017

Over the past five decades, Elihu Katz (born in New York in 1926) has made a major contribution to the analysis of mass communication. Best known for the concept of the “two‐step flow of mass communication” (→ Two‐Step Flow of Communication) and for the theory of → “uses and gratifications” obtained by media audiences, Katz's work examines the relation between the individual and the group in the process of mass media influence, contributing to the understanding of the active television viewer, the diffusion of innovations (→ Diffusion of Information and Innovation), → Media Effects, → public opinion, and media imperialism. Professionally, Katz has divided his time between America (first the University of Chicago, later the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, then the University of Pennsylvania) and Israel (where he founded the Communications Institute at the Hebrew University, headed the Institute of Applied Social Research, and directed the task force charged with introducing television to Israel in the 1960s; → Communication as an Academic Field: Middle East, Israel).
Knowledge Interests
Authors: Wessler Hartmut
Published: September 2017

The term “knowledge interests” (
Erkenntnisinteresse
) was coined by German philosopher and social theorist → Jürgen Habermas in his work
Knowledge and human interests
(Habermas 1968/1987). Habermas distinguished three kinds of knowledge interests constitutive for particular object domains and their scientific investigation. According to him, the interest of
control through prediction
is constitutive of the natural sciences, while the interest of
hermeneutical understanding
characterizes the humanities. The social sciences, in turn, follow the knowledge interest of
emancipation
in that they create awareness of the contingency and changeability of the social world and thus of societal alternatives (Jensen 1995, 93–95).
Knowledge Management
Authors: Heaton Lorna
Published: September 2017

Knowledge management (KM) is a key concept in today's business world. While there is an element of fashion in its appearance toward the end of the 1990s (Swan et al. 1999), many of the world's most successful corporations, businesses, and organizations are investing considerable resources in this enterprise (Alvesson & Karreman 2001). These knowledge projects include setting up intranets, using collaborative or workflow software, mentoring, and sharing information on best practices. Deeply rooted in practicality and typically tied to organizational objectives, these practices seek to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge throughout the organization (→ Organizational Communication).
Objectivity in Science
Authors: Anderson James A.
Published: September 2017

Objectivity has been a criterion of both science and its practice throughout the modern era. Its principal meaning is that the effect of the individual scientist has been removed from the findings and what is left can be considered both non‐ideological and agenda‐free. The term is used as a global epistemological principle across all traditional science and as a specific property within tests and measurements.
Observation
Authors: Quandt Thorsten
Published: September 2017

Observation is a very “natural” way of gathering data and information – probably everybody can identify situations where humans are scrutinizing their surroundings. Selltiz et al. note: “We are constantly observing – noticing what is going on around us … ; as long as we are awake, we are almost constantly engaged in observation. It is our basic method of getting information about the world around us” (Selltiz et al. 1967, 200). However, these everyday observations are not sufficient for social research, since their informational basis stems from unclear viewpoints, undocumented (re)constructions of the observer, and random events. So in order to become a scientific technique, an observation study has to follow some rules – most notably, it has to be systematic in both its planning and recording phases. This does not mean that it has to be standardized; however, even if an observation study collects information in an open way, it has to follow a clear research strategy.
Observation
Authors: Quandt Thorsten
Published: September 2017

Observation is a very “natural” way of gathering data and information – probably everybody can identify situations where humans scrutinize their surroundings. Selltiz et al. (1967) note: “We are constantly observing – noticing what is going on around us … as long as we are awake, we are almost constantly engaged in observation. It is our basic method of getting information about the world around us” (Selltiz et al. 1967, 200). However, these everyday observations are not sufficient for social scientific research, because their informational basis stems from unclear viewpoints, undocumented (re)constructions of the observer, and random events. So, in order to become a scientific technique, an observation study has to follow some rules – most notably, it has to be systematic in both its planning and recording phases. This does not mean that it has to be standardized but even if an observation study collects information in an open way, it has to follow a clear research strategy.
Online Journalism
Authors: Singer Jane B.
Published: September 2017

Online journalism involves the creation and delivery of news content through a networked, digital medium. Although citizen journalists also have emerged as important providers of some news and information (→ Citizen Journalism), this entry focuses on the work of practitioners of a more traditionally defined occupation. The → Internet and world wide web are primary vehicles for online journalism, but other options include mobile devices, personal digital assistants, and other emerging platforms.
Open Meetings Law
Authors: Kaye Janet
Published: September 2017

Open meetings law is predicated on the belief that government derives its power from the people in order to act on their behalf. For the government to remain accountable to the people, its processes must remain accessible to them, and to the news media, the people's watchdog (→ Freedom of the Press, Concept of; Journalism: Normative Theories).
Operationalization
Authors: Sargent Weaver Stephanie Lee
Published: September 2017

Operationalization is the process of translating abstract things into concrete, measurable variables (→ Measurement Theory). It is one of those things that is more easily said than done. It is quite simple to explain to someone the purpose and importance of operational definitions for variables and even to describe how operationalization generally takes place. But a researcher will quickly appreciate some of the subtle difficulties involved when he or she attempts to operationalize a complex variable. Operationalization is how researchers define things by what they do. In other words, the “operations” are the procedures or steps one must go through in order to observe the concept being defined (Babbie 2001; Katzer et al. 1998). To get to this point in the research process, we must first look at how research begins.
Operationalization
Authors: Weaver Stephanie Sargent
Published: September 2017

Operationalization is the process of translating abstract things into concrete, measurable variables (→ Measurement Theory). It is how researchers define things by what they do. In other words, the “operations” are the procedures or steps one must go through in order to observe the concept being defined (Katzer et al. 1998; Babbie 2013).
Opinion Leader
Authors: Weimann Gabriel
Published: September 2017

Decades of social science research have demonstrated that there is a group of people in any community to whom others look to help them to form opinions on various issues and matters. Whether called “opinion leaders” or “influentials,” these people literally lead the formation of attitudes, public knowledge, and opinions. In the classic book
Personal influence
, opinion leadership is defined as “leadership at its simplest: it is casually exercised, sometimes unwitting and unbeknown, within the smallest groupings of friends, family members, and neighbors. It is not leadership on the high level of Churchill, nor of a local politico; it is the almost invisible, certainly inconspicuous form of leadership at the person‐to‐person level of ordinary, intimate, informal, everyday contact” (Katz & Lazarsfeld 1955, 138).
Order of Presentation
Authors: Schenk Michael
Published: September 2017

The effectiveness of a communication depends on a variety of factors. Among those concerning organization and procedure, order of presentation forms one of the major factors that influence the impact of communication on an → audience. It is to → Carl I. Hovland and team's credit that appropriate research questions and → experimental designs have been developed to test and acknowledge this effect (→ Persuasion; Media Effects). “Order” refers to two aspects of variation: “(1) the order of presenting a series of communications, and (2) the order of presenting the various elements within a single communication” (Hovland 1957; → Media Effects, History of).
Organizational Crises, Communication in
Authors: Sellnow Timothy L.
Published: September 2017

Advancing technology, global connectivity, and ethical lapses have resulted in an escalation in the frequency and intensity of organizational crises over the past two decades. Commensurate with the increase in crisis events, academic research in crisis communication has expanded, focusing predominantly on the role of communication in predicting, managing, and resolving crisis events (→ Disasters and Communication).
Organizational Culture
Authors: Keyton Joann
Published: September 2017

Organizational culture is the “set(s) of artifacts, values, and assumptions that emerge from the interactions of organizational members” (Keyton 2005, 1). These interactions create a social order or a communication construction of the organization. Thus, symbols, messages, and meaning create a continuous communication performance at work (→ Culture: Definitions and Concepts; Meaning). This is why it is frequently stated that an organization
is
culture rather than an organization
has
a culture (Smircich 1983). While the popular view of organizational culture is often that it is comprised of organizational members' shared assumptions, communication scholars have demonstrated that multiple shared patterns of organizational artifacts, values, and assumptions exist and are constantly being created and recreated through member interactions (→ Organizational Communication).
Organizational Culture
Authors: Keyton Joann
Published: September 2017

Organizational culture is the “set(s) of artifacts, values, and assumptions that emerge from the interactions of organizational members” (Keyton 2011, 1). These interactions create a social order or a communication construction of the organization. Thus, symbols, messages, and meaning create a continuous communication performance at work (→ Culture: Definitions and Concepts; Meaning). This is why it is frequently stated that an organization
is
culture rather than an organization
has
a culture (Smircich 1983). While the popular view of organizational culture is often that it is comprised of organizational members' shared assumptions, communication scholars have demonstrated that multiple shared patterns of organizational artifacts, values, and assumptions exist and are constantly being created and recreated through member interactions (→ Organizational Communication).
Organizational Discourse
Authors: Fairhurst Gail T.
Published: September 2017

Organizational discourse is a burgeoning area of study featuring the role of discourse and communication in organizational dynamics. While its rhetorical and literary roots date back to the ancient Greeks (→ Rhetorical Studies), a more recent impetus has been the analysis of professional talk in institutional settings, beginning in the 1970s, and the role of slogans, creeds, jokes, and stories as reflections of organizational culture in the 1980s (Putnam & Fairhurst 2001). From these early beginnings, organizational discourse analyses have taken on a number of forms.
Painting
Authors: Cunliffe Leslie
Published: September 2017

Understanding the historical practices of painting is significant for communication studies because in nearly all cultures these practices embody the origins and establishment of subsequent genres of picture‐making.
Paperback Fiction
Authors: Gelder Ken
Published: September 2017

There have been several “paperback revolutions” in fiction publishing, the first of which unfolded during the first half of the nineteenth century in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States (→ Fiction; Fictional Media Content). Cheap bulk postal costs encouraged American publishers to print royalty‐free foreign novels (those of Charles Dickens, for example) in lightweight large quarto or newspaper formats, offering cheap installments to subscribers. They could thus be claimed as periodicals, gaining access to third‐class postal rates and railroad distribution across the country. Schurman (1996, 63) notes that by the mid‐1840s in the United States, “paperback novels could be had through the mails at six cents each or sixteen for one dollar.” Park Benjamin had in fact issued what is generally taken to be the first paperbound full‐length novel in June 1840, Charles Lever's
Charles O'Malley
, a military romance. Smaller paperback quarto‐sized books followed, usually as part of an ongoing series of publications, like the Beadle Dime Novels of the 1860s and 1870s, with their sewn spines and woodcut cover illustrations.
Paradigm
Authors: Anderson James A.
Published: September 2017

“Paradigm” refers to a fundamental set of assumptions about reality and the appropriate ways of studying it. A discipline is said to be paradigmatic when there is general agreement within it as to basic statements of fact, background knowledge, research practices, warrants for claims and evidence, and criteria for accepting new knowledge.
Parasocial Interactions and Relationships
Authors: Schramm Holger
Published: September 2017

The term “parasocial interaction” (PSI) was first used by Horton and Wohl (1956) to describe viewers' responses to media characters (called “personae” in PSI research; singular: “persona”) during media consumption. Horton and Strauss (1957) set down the first systematic descriptions and observations of PSI as well as of more long‐term responses to personae, known as parasocial relationships (PSR). These two articles can be regarded as the beginnings of theorizing about PSI and PSR, as empirical data were still nonexistent.
Participatory Action Research
Authors: Jacobson Thomas
Published: September 2017

Participatory action research (PAR) is a methodological approach to research that breaks with standard social scientific practice in a number of ways (→ Research Methods). In standard practice, research into the behavior of social groups is conducted by university‐trained scientists, while in PAR research is conducted by the social groups themselves with the assistance of university‐trained scientists. In standard practice, research into the behavior of social groups is conducted with an attitude of scientific objectivity (→ Objectivity in Science), while in PAR research processes are conducted with a less objectivist attitude. Finally, in standard social scientific practice, the primary aim of research is the accumulation of knowledge, while in PAR the primary aim of research is improvement of social conditions, or social change (→ Communication Strategies for Empowerment; Social Mobilization). Given the aim of improving social conditions, much of PAR is conducted in the conditions of developing countries (→ Development Communication). However, action research approaches have been found useful worldwide in a broad range of contexts including education, urban planning, environmental conservation, and others. Journals, handbooks, and collected works on the subject are readily available.
Partisan Press
Authors: Stalker Jordan
Published: September 2017

The term “partisan press” commonly describes a pattern of organizing competing journalism outlets along party lines, but may also represent a period in emerging national journalism systems. In creating and distributing news, publishers and editors may work within or make arrangements with parties, resulting in reportage that openly espouses the positions of leaders or factions (→ Party–Press Parallelism; Political Communication). In most countries, from France to Japan to the United States, Indonesia, and Senegal, some form of partisan or party‐run press played a critical role in national political development. The partisan press, in both senses of the term, provides guidance to the general public and contributes to a country's political consciousness (→ Public Opinion).
Partisan Press
Authors: Stalker Jordan
Published: September 2017

The term “partisan press” commonly describes a pattern of organizing competing journalism outlets along party lines, but may also represent a period in emerging national journalism systems. In creating and distributing news, publishers and editors may work within or make arrangements with parties, resulting in reportage that openly espouses the positions of leaders or factions (→ Party–Press Parallelism; Political Communication). In most countries, from France to Japan to the United States, Indonesia, and Senegal, some form of partisan or party‐run press played a critical role in national political development. The partisan press, in both senses of the term, provides guidance to the general public and contributes to a country's political consciousness (→ Public Opinion).
Party Political Communication
Authors: Jarvis Sharon E.
Published: September 2017

Political parties are groups that organize to gain political office, control the governing process, mobilize majorities, organize dissent and opposition, and socialize voters. In democratic political systems parties have emerged as the natural evolution of like‐minded interests organizing for political influence. Election campaigns are one major battleground on which political parties compete for influence through political communication (→ Election Campaign Communication). Many election studies have compared the messages, advertisements, debate performances, issue preferences, and web pages of partisan candidates as well as the overall strategies of the parties themselves (→ Negative Campaigning; Political Advertising; Political Marketing; Issue Management in Politics; Televised Debates). In systems with primary elections, it is generally observed that campaign messages are more partisan in the intra‐party primary contest (featuring just candidates from one party) and more centrist during the general election campaign (featuring candidates from several parties).
Pathos and Rhetoric
Authors: Gross Daniel M.
Published: September 2017

Derived from the Greek verbpaskhein, meaning to be in a certain condition, to experience, or to suffer, pathos is one of the three principal sources of rhetorical proof along with ethos and logos (→ Ethos and Rhetoric; Logos and Rhetoric). Typically translated into English as → “emotion,” pathos is a key term in the ancient debate between philosophy and rhetoric because it tracks basic attitudes about human nature and civil society.
Penny Press
Authors: Nerone John
Published: September 2017

In the early to mid‐nineteenth century, in most western countries but especially those with press freedom, a cheap popular press appeared. The term “penny press” is associated with a famous generation of US newspapers that appeared in the 1830s, but the notion of penny publications has a longer lineage. The penny papers of the 1830s and their British counterparts have been credited with effecting a revolution in journalism, and in fact with the invention of journalism itself as well as of neutrality or objectivity (→ Journalism, History of; Objectivity in Reporting). This famous generation of penny papers also had successors that were spectacular in their own day but have escaped the attention of journalism historians. Echoes of the penny press formula – particularly the combination of sensational news with mass market appeal, large‐scale industrial production, and economies of scale – have continued to appear. The relationships between popular journalism and populism, on the one hand, and journalism, on the other, remain controversial.
People‐Meter
Authors: Webster James G.
Published: September 2017

A people‐meter is an electronic device that records when media are being used and who is using them. It is the preferred method of audience ratings companies that provide “third‐party” estimates of audience size and composition to various clients (→ Audience Research; Rating Methods), and the principal means of national television audience measurement around the world. People‐meters are constantly being enhanced and adapted to capture other forms of media use.
Perceived Realism as a Decision Process
Authors: Shapiro Michael A.
Published: September 2017

What do we mean when we say a story is realistic? At first, that may seem simple. One possibility is that realism is a characteristic of the genre – news is real and a → soap opera is not. That explanation may work in many cases, but → fiction is intended to capture aspects of reality that are not easily depicted in the news. A soap‐opera depiction of a sexual infidelity may capture the emotional reality of that betrayal better than a documentary on the topic. Another possibility is that people think if something looks real, it is real. Certainly, appearance is a cue to realism. For example, each new generation of → 
Video
game uses increased computer power to make the games look more realistic. But appearance of a video game or television show does not provide a complete picture of the problem. While young children tend to think that what looks real is real, adults know that what something looks like does not always reflect its true nature. No matter how realistic a dragon may look, an adult knows that dragons do not exist.
Perceived Reality: Meta‐Analyses
Authors: Hayes Andrew F. , Reineke Jason B.
Published: September 2017

Meta‐analyses have been conducted within the last twenty years in four areas in the field of perceived social reality (→ Meta‐Analysis; Perceived Reality as a Social Process; Perceived Reality as a Communication Process). Their results will be summarized here. It has to be noted from the start, though, that any meta‐analysis summarizes only the existing literature at the time. The findings reported here should not be taken to reflect current knowledge or thinking in the area, but instead, only the state of knowledge as of the respective dates of publication of the meta‐analyses.
Perceived Reality as a Social Process
Authors: Swol Lyn Van
Published: September 2017

Research on small group communication has a long history of examining how participation in groups affects perceived reality. Groups often create a
shared reality
in which to work, interact, and complete their tasks. As Herbert J. Simon (1976, 23) states, “A man does not live for months or years in a particular position in an organization, exposed to some streams of communication, shielded from others, without the most profound effects upon what he knows, believes, attends to, hopes, wishes, emphasizes, fears, and proposes.” There are three major approaches that address how the perception of reality is a social process within groups: social comparison theory, social proof, and shared mental models (→ Social Perception).
Personal Publishing
Authors: Brake David
Published: September 2017

Personal publishing by an individual or small group – generally not for profit and generally not aimed at a mass audience or utilizing mainstream publishers – has occurred for centuries. In its early years it took the form of, e.g., small‐scale pamphleteering, the circulation of diaries within faith‐based or friendship communities, or the publication of books of family history or autobiography using the “vanity” press (publishers whose income comes primarily from authors). Because of the economics of publishing, however, these practices tended to be marginal. With the advent of the personal computer and inexpensive desktop publishing tools, small‐scale personal publication became easier and a variety of small‐scale magazines sprang up (→ Zines). It has been the diffusion of access to the Internet in recent years across much of the world (→ Digital Divide), however, that has enabled a flourishing of online personal publishing and inspired a greater academic focus on this area. This started with personal Internet home pages in the mid‐1990s and has continued in the form of the “weblog” (a site consisting of items published in reverse chronological order) and, most recently, of profiles on social networking services like MySpace and Facebook.
Personal Publishing
Authors: Brake David
Published: September 2017

Personal publishing – publishing by an individual or small group, generally not for profit and not aimed at a mass audience – has occurred for centuries. In its early years it took the form of, e.g., small‐scale pamphleteering, the circulation of diaries within faith‐based or friendship communities, or the publication of books of family history or autobiography using the “vanity” press (publishers whose income comes primarily from authors). Because of the economics of publishing, until recently these practices were not available to a broad range of people and the circulation of these texts was limited. With the advent of the personal computer, photocopier, and inexpensive desktop publishing tools, however, small‐scale personal publication became easier and a variety of small‐scale magazines sprang up (→ Zines). It has been the diffusion of access to the Internet in recent years across much of the world (→ Digital Divide), however, that has enabled a flourishing of online personal publishing and inspired a greater academic focus on this area. This started with personal Internet home pages in the mid‐1990s and has continued in the form of the “weblog” (a site consisting of items published in reverse chronological order) and, most recently, of profiles on social networking services (SNSs) like Facebook.
Personality Development and Communication
Authors: Weaver James B.
Published: September 2017

The idea that an individual's personality is “inherently intertwined” with how they communicate has intrigued scholars since the late 1920s (Daly 2002). Indeed, many have observed that through our social interactions we drop clues about the essence of our personality and, in turn, learn about others. Everyday parlance is, in fact, filled with terms and phrases categorizing individuals' personalities. Across essentially every human culture, for example, colloquial expressions like “He's so quiet,” “She's very assertive and to the point,” and “They just love to talk,” illustrate how attention to communicative perceptions and behaviors punctuates personality discernment in daily life (Weaver 1998).
Personality and Exposure to Communication
Authors: Oliver Mary Beth
Published: September 2017

Variations in preferences for media content highlight the importance of how the diversity of the viewing audience affects exposure and responses to media content. Among the limitless ways in which audience members may differ, the personality characteristics of the viewer provide a vast and diverse means of predicting individuals' uses of, preferences for, and reactions to media content.
Perspective, Pictorial
Authors: Neiva Eduardo
Published: September 2017

Perspective refers to the graphic representation on a flat surface of an optical sense of depth associated with natural stereoscopic vision (→ Visual Representation). This translation of three‐dimensional visual perception onto a two‐dimensional picture plane is accomplished through a variety of techniques for composing the pictorial space, including: (1) diminishing scale, (2) the occlusion of figures and shapes, (3) atmospheric blurring or color variation from foreground to background, and (4) the converging of parallel lines at vanishing points along an imaginary horizon line. From the fifteenth century in Europe, artists increasingly used a combination of such techniques to create formal systems of perspective designed to present the picture plane as a kind of window, through which one views a visible world implied beyond the plane of the picture frame (→ Painting). Tied to the notion that a picture could, and should, imitate natural appearances, European drawing, painting, and print‐making (→ Prints; Printing, History of) following the Renaissance conventionally organized the lines, shapes, and colors of the picture plane to appear to proceed outward from an observer's unique point of view. The viewer sees depicted objects and space from the single
perspective
of the viewer's unique position, as if the visible world was unified along the sight lines of this imagined observer. The representation of vision is stable and monocular. The point of view of the painter coincides with the beholder. Although recent polemical analyses have suggested that mirrors and lenses could have been used to produce the impression of perspective, Renaissance treatises advanced a conception of vision that followed mathematical projections and geometrical deductions, as illustrated in Dürer's engraving of a man drawing a lute (Fig. 1; Hockney 2001; Hockney & Falco 2003; Neiva 2005).
Persuasion
Authors: O'Keefe Daniel J.
Published: September 2017

Persuasion is a communicative function that can be pursued in many different settings, ranging from face‐to‐face interaction to mass communication. Mass media persuasion takes three primary overt forms: commercial advertising (of consumer products and services), pro‐social advertising, and political advertising. On each of these subjects, there is extensive empirical research and theorizing (→ Strategic Communication).
Persuasion and Resistance
Authors: Nabi Robin L.
Published: September 2017

In → Persuasion research, the concept of resistance generally refers to → audiences withstanding attempts to change their beliefs, → attitudes, or behaviors. Resistance, however, can actually be conceptualized in multiple ways. For example, it can be thought of as simply an
outcome
of a persuasive attempt (i.e., no change in attitude in the face of a persuasive message). It might also be considered a
motivation
, or goal of the audience (e.g., to maintain or protect their initial beliefs). Resistance might also reflect the
process
through which persuasive attempts are thwarted (e.g., disagreement with a message position or denigration of a message source). Finally, resistance might be reflected by the qualities of either attitudes (e.g., attitude strength) or people (e.g., dogmatic personalities) that limit persuasive effect (see Knowles & Linn 2004).
Phenomenology
Authors: Lanigan Richard Leo
Published: September 2017

Phenomenology is a movement in philosophy associated with the human sciences as a qualitative approach to the study of human conscious experience. Research → validity and →  reliability are assessed as functions of logic, not mathematics or statistics (→ Qualitative Methodology; Research Methods).
Photography
Authors: Horak Jan‐Christopher
Published: September 2017

The word photography comes from the Greek

(photos) and

(graphein), meaning to write with light. From its invention in the early 1800s to the beginning of the twenty‐first century, photography referred to a photo‐chemically based system of analog and indexical still image production that resulted in an optical reproduction of the space in front of the lens. In the first five years of the new millennium analog photography was almost completely supplanted by electronically based digital systems that calibrate light intensities in terms of logarithms. For most of the nineteenth century, photographs were produced by specialists, using a variety of chemical formulae to make and develop light‐sensitive surfaces. As artist‐technicians, their primary concern was to document the world of appearances, although aesthetic manipulation of reality became an ever‐growing trend.
Photojournalism
Authors: Newton Julianne H.
Published: September 2017

Photojournalism means reporting visually. Yet this simple definition belies the complexity of a professional media practice whose core mission to show the world what it needs to see remains constant, while the means of fulfilling that mission and the degree to which one believes it can be fulfilled shift along with technology, culture, and perception.
Picture Magazines
Authors: Hardt Hanno
Published: September 2017

The development of picture magazines is a twentieth‐century phenomenon, aided by print technologies that offered quality reproduction of photographs in large numbers and in a short time, like rotogravure, which had yielded high quality reproduction using a single plate for type and photo since 1910 (→ Magazine, History of). Earlier, photographs had been used for wood‐engraved illustrations in many magazines, including the
Leipziger Illustrirte
(Germany, 1843),
L'Illustration
(France, 1843
), Illustrated London News
(UK, 1842),
L'Illustracion
(Spain, 1849), th
e Saturday Evening
Post (USA, 1821)
, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper
(USA, 1855),
Harper's Weekly
(USA, 1857), and the
Weekly Illustrated of India
(India, 1880). The
Canadian Illustrated News
(1869) featured a half‐tone on its first cover, only a few years after the
Illustrated London News
(1842) had been launched with 32 woodcuts on 16 pages.
Playing
Authors: Ohler Peter
Published: September 2017

Playing is always communication. It does not matter whether a child interacts in solitary play with a pretend object, whether a group of children is engaged in role‐play, or whether an online community meets at a virtual playground, as in the massively multi‐player online games (MMOGs). Each form of playing is communication. Some fields of communication and media sciences can profit from the view that forms of computer‐mediated communication should be analyzed not only from the perspective of media communication but also from that of play. The analysis of interactive media entertainment especially can be based on a play frame (e.g., Vorderer 2001; Ohler & Nieding 2006). Play research can contribute to various fields of the communication sciences; therefore it is necessary to take playfulness seriously.
Pluralistic Ignorance and Ideological Biases
Authors: Lichter S. Robert
Published: September 2017

An ideology is a consistent set of related ideas about the nature and goals of society, such as liberalism, conservatism, or socialism. Ideological bias refers to the skewed thoughts and perceptions that such perspectives can produce. One such misperception is → pluralistic ignorance, an inaccurate perception of how a group member's own opinions relate to those of the larger group. The communications media are widely believed to produce biases in → public opinion, but the extent and direction of media content and effects are still contested by both scholars and political actors (→ Social Perception).
Politainment
Authors: Nieland Jörg‐Uwe
Published: September 2017

Politainment refers to the blending of politics and entertainment into a new type of political communication. The portmanteau word is composed of “politics” and “entertainment,” analogously to the term → infotainment. As well as infotainment, which is used as a label for a specific television program type, the term “politainment” denotes, in a broader sense, the entangling of political actors, topics, and processes with the entertainment culture. According to Dörner (2001), two different, though interrelated forms (or levels) of politainment may be distinguished: entertaining politics and political entertainment. Both take advantage of the mass media's potential to attract wide audiences and to create celebrity (→ Celebrity Culture). Politainment may be seen as resulting from an increasing mediatization and professionalization of politics that characterize modern democracies (→ Mediatization of Politics; Political Consultant; Spin Doctor). Governments, parties, and politicians cope with these developments by adapting to the → media logic, particularly to the selection criteria and presentation formats of → Television (→ Television News; Television News, Visual Components of).
Politeness Theory
Authors: Jones Susanne M.
Published: September 2017

Politeness theory is a sociolinguistic theory in the pragmatic tradition that was developed by Brown and Levinson, who extended Goffman's dramaturgical approach. Using Durkheim's work on social rituals, Goffman examined how people manage their public identities, which he labeled
face
. When in the presence of others, one's face is always on display and others will form impressions and respond to these impressions (→ Impression Management; Self‐Presentation). Face, then, becomes a situated social identity that is not owned, but rather resides in the flow of human interaction. To have one's face invalidated by others means to lose face; to have it sanctioned is to have face. Face must therefore be maintained and is subject to constant threats. The process by which people maintain face is called
facework
. Because people are mutually concerned with maintaining each other's face, facework becomes a necessary social ritual that provides the cooperative mechanism for interaction order as opposed to interaction chaos. Considerable research in interpersonal communication has used politeness theory and facework to examine the communicative strategies people use to enact, support, or challenge face.
Political Cognitions
Authors: Graber Doris A. , Holyk Gregory G.
Published: September 2017

“Political cognitions” refers to the ability of human beings to acquire and possess → political knowledge through perception, reasoning, or intuition. Citizens' cognitions about politics come mainly from information supplied by the mass media – television, newspapers, magazines, or the Internet – because most political happenings are beyond the day‐to‐day experiences of citizens. Dependence on mass media has consequences for peoples' cognitions about politics and makes it important to investigate what kinds of information mass media produce.
Political Communication Culture
Authors: Pfetsch Barbara
Published: September 2017

How does the way people think about politics influence the way and the means by which politics is communicated? And how does the communication of politics impact on political orientations and symbols? These questions are at the core of political communication culture, which refers to the forms of expression and the attitudinal milieu in which politics and media interact. The study of the interaction of media and politics with regard to the cultural roots of political communication was introduced by Gurevitch and Blumler (1977). Their aim was to identify and to analyze key dimensions along which political culture impacts on the processes and outcomes of political communication. Political culture refers to the → meanings attributed to politics. The study of political communication cultures has turned out to be most fruitful as a comparative framework. The investigation of political communication cultures across countries, social segments, or time may provide us with a better understanding of the processes of encoding and decoding political messages, the vocabulary of politics, the culture of journalism, the interrelationships between media and politics, and the relations between citizens and political elites (→ Political Communication).
Political Communication Systems
Authors: Pfetsch Barbara
Published: September 2017

Looking at political communication phenomena in a systems framework is a common approach in this field of study. The term “system,” in its general meaning, denotes a multitude of component parts, depending on each other, and functioning as a whole (→ Systems Theory). The nature of the political communication system is thought of as a structure of producing, processing, and communicating political messages. As Blumler and Gurevitch (1977) point out, adapting the systems approach to political communication processes implies the assumption that variation in one of its component parts would be associated with variation in other components.
Political Consultant
Authors: Plasser Fritz
Published: September 2017

A political consultant is a paid, outside advisor to candidates, political parties, or interest groups. The rise of political consultants started in the United States when Whitaker and Baxter formed Campaign Inc. in the mid‐1930s, which is considered the first political consulting firm. But while in the late 1950s only roughly thirty or forty individuals acted as professional political consultants, the industry has seen tremendous overall growth since the late 1960s. Three developments contributed to this rise of the political consultancy business.
Political Cynicism
Authors: de Vreese Claes H.
Published: September 2017

Political cynicism is recognized as an important political sentiment. However, there is little agreement about the nature, measurement, and consequences of political cynicism.Webster's Dictionarydefines a cynic as “one who believes that human conduct is motivated wholly by self‐interest. A person who expects nothing but the worst of human conduct and motives.” Cappella and Jamieson (1997, 166) definedpoliticalcynicism as “mistrust generalized from particular leaders or political groups to the political process as a whole – a process perceived to corrupt the persons who participate in it and that draws corrupt persons as participants.” Cynicism has been defined as oppositional to → political efficacy (e.g., Niemi et al. 1991) and as inversely related to trust in different social, economic, and political institutions.
Political Discourse
Authors: Wessler Hartmut
Published: September 2017

In general usage, political discourse comprises all forms of communication in and by political institutions or actors and all communication with reference to political matters. Thus, political public relations, both internal and external, news, commentary, film, talk shows, citizens' everyday talk about politics etc. are all sites of political discourse. Different sites follow different rules of selection and construction of political reality, including, for example, news management techniques, news values, frames of interpretation, and heuristics of political judgment. General usage also acknowledges the fact that political discourse is often thematically structured, as in reference to “globalization discourse,” “abortion discourse,” and so on.
Political Economy of the Media
Authors: Mosco Vincent
Published: September 2017

Political economy is the study of the social relations, particularly the power relations, that mutually constitute the production, distribution, and consumption of resources, including communication resources (→ Media Economics). This formulation has a certain practical value because it calls attention to how the communication business operates, for example, how communications products move through a chain of producers such as a → Hollywood film studio, to wholesalers, retailers, and, finally consumers, whose purchases, rentals, and attention are fed back into new processes of production.