In the area of mass communications and media sociology, connections between theoretical claims and empirical evidence have often been tenuous. Using American national Election Study data gathered by the Center for Political Studies, this dissertation tests a series of hypotheses about the political impact of the mass media. The work profiles the news audience, and examines the public's reliance upon television and newspapers as sources of political information. Next, evidence is brought to bear upon the set of pessimistic assumptions that television news personnel hold about the tastes and capacities of the news audience. Finally, a crucial test is developed in order to evaluate five competing and contradictory hypotheses, all attempting to explain the relationships between the consumption of political materials through the mass media, political interest, and political participation. Of the previously untested claims assessed in the thesis, few were supported by the evidence gathered in research.

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University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Communication

This study examined sports photographs in fifty-two issues (thirteen issues each) of The Source Sports, Sports Illustrated for Women. Sports Illustrated and ESPN Magazine for gender differences in the way athletes are visually portrayed. Duncan and Sayaovong's 1990 study was used as the foundation for this new study.The content analysis revealed quantitative differences in photographic depictions of female and male athletes. Like the previous study, gender differences were found in the overall number of photographs of female and male athletes. These photographs were then broken down into one-half page, full-page and pull-out photographs. Gender differences were also found in the number of male and female athletes on the cover of the magazines, and the level of activity or inactivity associated with athletes. Unlike the previous study, the researcher found no gender differences in prominent and supporting positions when both men and women were featured in a photograph and no difference in camera angles. / Department of Journalism

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Communication

The purpose of this study was to investigate how rural Ugandan women engage with discussions of HIV and AIDS on community radio. It explored how this audience may relate such broadcast discussions to their own lived experience of HIV and AIDS. It is explained in the study that, while the Uganda government has an official policy of openly discussing matters of HIV and AIDS, health communication strategies still operate within a context where there is an underlying "culture of silence" that discourages openness about sexual matters. It is also pointed out that there are widespread gender disparities among rural communities, which severely limit women's ability to make use of health communication initiatives aimed at educating them. Against this backdrop, the study sets out to explore audience responses to a particular example of Speak Out and Listen, a weekly programme broadcast on Mama FM, a Kampala-based radio station managed by the Uganda Media Women's Association (UMWA). The study maps out responses to the programme by a particular group of rural women. It is argued that these research participants' comments confirm the importance, noted in literature dealing with health education, of drawing for content on what members of an audience have to say about their own lived context. It is proposed that, despite the existence of a 'culture of silence', the women's comments demonstrate an ability to speak with confidence about their experience of living with HIV and AIDS. Thcy are able, more particularly to discuss the constraints placed by gendered power relations on women's ability to draw on the educational content of programming that targets people living with HIV and AIDS. As such, the comments that such women offer represent a valuable resource for HIV and AIDS related programming. The principal conclusion of the study is that health communication initiatives such as Speak Out and Listen would benefit from facilitating conversations with their target audience about their lived experience of HIV and AIDS, and incorporating such discussion into their programmes

Tabloid journalism has and continues to spark controversy. Scholarly considerations of tabloid journalism often question its contribution to democratic causes. However, little academic attention has been given to the question of how tabloids are understood and evaluated by their audiences. This study considered a range of audience responses to the Daily Sun by analysing the way some of its readers understand and evaluate it. The study examined the appeal of this popular tabloid to some Grahamstown readers. Reception analysis was employed to determine why these people read the Daily Sun. In particular, the active audience theory was used as a framework to conduct the research. To achieve the objectives of the study, qualitative research methods such as focus group interviews and individual in-depth interviews were employed. Looking at the findings, many of the respondents acknowledged they read the tabloid for interpersonal communication, diversion and entertainment. The results also revealed that their lived context plays a major role in their reading of stories. In a wider context, the research contributes to an understanding of the popularity of tabloid newspapers.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Ninety-eight empirical effects examining the impact of pretrial publicity (PTP) on perceptions of guilt were meta-analytically analyzed. As hypothesized, results suggested that anti-defendant PTP was associated with increased perceptions of defendant guilt, whereas pro-defendant PTP was associated with decreased perceptions of defendant guilt. Additionally, several moderator variables were examined. The results suggested that the size of the effect of PTP is dependent upon several variables, including the level of the analysis (jury-level vs. juror level), the type of crime involved in the case, the nature of the information provided to the participants in the control condition, the reality of the case used in the study, the delay between PTP exposure and the collection of the verdict preference, the medium of the PTP presentation, the publication status of the data source, and the outcome measure utilized.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / While the Arab spring succeeded in ousting the long-term dictator led governments from power in many Arab countries, leading the way to a new democratic process to develop in the Arab world, it did not end the old suspicions between Arab Muslims and the West. This research investigates the beginning of the relations between the Arab Muslims and the West as they have developed over time, and then focuses its analysis on perceptions from both sides beginning with 9/11 through the events known as the Arab spring. The framework for analysis is a communication perspective, as embodied in the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM). According to CMM, communication can be understood as forms of interactions that both constitute and frame reality. The study posits the analysis that the current Arab Muslim-West divide, is often a conversation that is consistent with what CMM labels as the ethnocentric pattern. This analysis will suggest a new pathway, one that follows the CMM cosmopolitan form, as a more fruitful pattern for the future of Arab Muslim-West relations. This research emphasizes the factors fueling this ethnocentric pattern, in addition to ways of bringing the Islamic world and the West to understand each other with a more cosmopolitan approach, which, among other things, accepts mutual differences while fostering agreements. To reach this core, the study will apply a direct communicative engagement between the Islamic world and the West to foster trusted relations, between the two.