The constant process of technology development offers Internet users new tools, allowing them to enjoy their right of free expression. One of the latest popular tools introduced for use by mass audience on the Internet is a weblog (or blog). There are more than 4.12 million blogs on the Internet maintained by different people with different purposes. Some of the bloggers manage to create an image that makes them "celebrities" among the community of bloggers. These are the people whose blogs are among the most well-known and also regularly linked by other bloggers. Besides, media's view of blogging comes directly from this select "A-list" of bloggers. This research intends to contribute to understanding of the characteristics of these popular bloggers. The purpose of this study is threefold. First, it adds to the knowledge of verbal and visual characteristics, as well as demographics of popular blogs. Second, this research investigates impression management tactics and strategies used by the popular blog authors. Finally, it provides data regarding the common elements of popular blogs (topics, style, visual communication elements, etc.) that create ground for future research on impression management, employing the research of blog authors and their motivations and reasoning for using particular blog elements, as well as for future investigation of popular blog readers, and their impressions and reasoning for reading the blogs.

The sports industry is big business just like any other big business. Sports organizations face various crises just as corporate America does. A survey of 345 professional and college level sports organizations revealed that 70% of them experienced a crisis in 1997, while the Los Angeles Times reported that 220 college athletes were the focus of criminal charges in 1995. "Sports crises are clearly more frequent today than ever before," said Kathleen Hessert. Mike Paul agrees with that trend based on his research, attributing the trend to poor life choices away from the sport. What is a crisis? A crisis is a situation that disrupts normal business operations, and has an uncertain and a potentially negative outcome. What are some crises within the sports industry? Crises can range from criminal charges, labor disputes, arena/stadium issues, politically incorrect statements or actions, accidental deaths and workplace violence. This thesis will examine how nine public relations practitioners in the sports industry handle crises, and compare the findings to the Gonzalez-Herrero and Pratt crisis management model. The nine sports organizations interviewed will gain insight into their practices concerning crises, thus, giving them the opportunity to improve communications with their publics whereby mutually valuable relationships can be formed. The findings of this thesis seem to support certain aspects of the crisis management model, however, none of the organizations follow the model exactly. The inability of all of these organizations to implement more proactive public relations or to conduct formal research causes these organizations to operate in a reactionary mode. The findings of this thesis point out the areas in which these sports organizations indeed do follow the Gonzalez-Herrero and Pratt crisis management model, and points out the areas in which these organizations' performance is lacking. The areas tended to be planning and research. Although these findings cannot be generalized to all sports organizations, those organizations can use these findings as an educational tool in which to enhance their own operations.

The Catalyst to Harm Standard is a specific standard that sets forth step-by-step criteria for the courts to follow so that they can factually determine if the speech in question falls into the category of protected or unprotected speech. This Standard labels certain speech as bad not because of its ideological or social content, but because it is speech that is linked to a definitive social harm that the legislature has the constitutional authority to prevent or punish. This Standard uses three criteria to determine the liability of speech that has allegedly caused harm. In order to meet these requirements, the plaintiff must establish the harm that actually resulted, establish the intent of the speaker, and establish a causal connection between the speech and the harm that occurred. While my Thesis is not the first research done on the topic of limiting harmful speech, it is the first research paper to develop generic, step-by-step criteria by which courts can legally punish speech that has caused harm. The Catalyst to Harm Standard does not require Brandenburgs notion of imminence because there is no need for the imminence requirement when punishing speech that has already resulted in harm. Instead, to impose liability, this standard focuses on other factors such as harm, intent, and causal connection. The purpose of the Catalyst to Harm Standard is not to impose an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech. Instead, this Standard only applies to speech that has facilitated and resulted in harm. In adhering to the marketplace doctrine, this Standard is a punishment only for certain speech that is too instrumental and intertwined with the performance of criminal activity to retain First Amendment protection.

This two-part study employed 11 qualitative interviews, the Defining Issues Test (DIT) and a quantitative version of the five-factor TARES test to complete the first cross-cultural analysis of the ethical decision-making patterns of public relations practitioners. The DIT is an instrument based on Kohlbergs (1969) moral development theory, the TARES test composed of 14 self-enforced, ethical consideration statements derived from the research of Baker and Martinson (2001). Results indicate no statistically significant difference in levels of moral development and ethical consideration between sampled practitioners in Australia, New Zealand and the United States (Lieber, 2003). This finding argues for a vocational uniformity in moral and ethical reasoning across these countries despite geographic, cultural, economic and ethnic disparities.

The studys purpose was to discover if two Louisiana newspapers gave Louisiana State Universitys football team more favorable coverage than that of the team from Southern University, a historically black university. A content analysis of articles published in The Advocate (Baton Rouge) and the Times-Picayune (New Orleans) from the 1995 and 1998 seasons when Southern Universitys team accomplished greater success than LSUs team, and the 2003 season when both teams won national championship titles revealed that while LSUs team did not receive more prominent coverage and praise than Southern Universitys team, racial stereotypes appeared throughout the 667 articles analyzed. Although each team has a predominant number of black players, characteristics stereotypical of white players (intelligence, hard work) were used to describe LSUs football team, which represents a predominantly white university. Characteristics stereotypical of black players (athletic ability) were used in describing Southerns football team, which represents a historically black university. Although there was not significantly more black stereotypes used to describe Southern than LSU, LSU players were framed significantly more often as intelligent and hard working than were Southern players. These findings are consistent with modern racism theory.

This is a follow up study to a 2000 report, which measured and compared Illinois state legislators attitudes and perceptions toward constituent e-mail, and its impact on personal political agendas. Along with measuring attitudes, this study sought to measure and compare the impact of advances in e-mail technology on Illinois legislators use of e-mail as a political tool of communication. The panel comparison consisted of 59% of respondents who participated in both the 2000 and the 2004 study. A survey conducted in February 2000 showed that 89% of Illinois legislators had an active e-mail address, but only 65% of those legislators agreed that they were using e-mail to communicate with constituents, albeit very infrequently. Legislators inability to determine the origin of e-mail negatively affected constituent e-mails impact on legislators personal political agendas. Despite this minimal impact, legislators indicated a strong future reliance on e-mail as a form of communication. Improvements in e-mail technology, especially filtering systems like Echo-mail, could greatly affect legislators attitudes and perceptions, thus changing constituent e-mails impact on legislators political agendas. This study aspires to gauge the impact of advancing e-mail technology on Illinois legislators perceptions and attitudes toward constituent e-mail.

The purpose of this thesis was to determine whether online versions of printed magazines shared an overall purpose. Guided by grounded theory, interviews were conducted of publishers and staff members from the Web sites of 15 printed magazines. The analysis of the interviews suggested that the overall purpose of online versions of magazines is marketing of the printed magazine, and that the sites also are intended to accomplish a number of secondary purposes.

This study is a content analysis of newspaper coverage of baseball and steroids. The data are a random sample from four newspapers: Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Washington Post. The period under study consists of 77 weeks, from April 10th, 2003, to December 9th, 2004. The results supported four hypotheses and negated one. Analysis showed that the issue of baseball and steroids was not institution-driven news; it was the result of governmental action, events outside of government, and local interest. The number of stories rose after governmental action. It also rose after an event, but faded away quickly from the news. Other findings indicated that political reporters rely on government sources more than sports reporters do. They rely as heavily on sports and professional sources as they do on government sources. The results took the form of descriptive statistics. For statistical significance, the study used SPSS software to run an F-test and a paired-sample t-test.

Crime news is an important component of local news. A literature review suggested that the medias coverage of crime news can reveal vital information about media routines and biases. The main issue in this study is race and the media. The subtext of crime news and how the media cover different races when dealing with crime can speak to the larger issues of race and the media. The primary focus of this study was to examine how the media cover victims of murder, but more specifically to investigate any differences that may exist in how they cover White and Black victims. The study also looked for differences in coverage according to gender and social class. A content analysis looked at articles about homicide victims from The Advocate. Interviews with reporters were conducted to determine how these reporters approach and cover murders. Interviews with police media relations officers revealed how these officers disseminate information. This study concluded that the media give White murder victims more prominent coverage than Black victims and female victims better coverage than male victims. The content analysis demonstrates that those who are most likely to be victimized, Black males, receive the least prominent coverage.

An experiment with 98 participants was conducted to explore the effects of government versus multiple sources on perceived credibility and interest when applied to the same risk stories. It also analyzed the effects of source treatment on participants' assessment of government credibility and source reasonableness. The study investigated the effects of demographic characteristics of participants (age, gender, media use) on the same variables, and tried to determine if there was any statistical correlation between the two dependent variables of credibility and interest. It also analyzed the effects of human-interest reports on credibility and interest. Overall, the study found that participants who read stories with multiple sources (government, industry, expert), perceived the risk stories (two about HIV epidemic, and two about coastal erosion in Louisiana) as more credible and more interesting than the participants who received only government sources. Age appeared to affect the two dependent variables, as well as media use and the anecdotal (human-interest) frame. The study also found that participants liked and believed the health stories more than the environmental stories.