This study draws upon the paradigm of parasocial interaction and incorporates the Source Credibility Scale (McCroskey, Hamilton, & Weiner, 1974), the Measure of Online Communication Attitude (Ledbetter, 2009), and the Parasocial Interaction measure (Auter & Palmgreen, 2000) in order to examine the extent to which online communication attitudes foster such interaction and shape perceptions of media figures' and celebrities' credibility. Data from 593 individuals were collected, and hypotheses and research questions were analyzed using regression analysis on a usable sample of 343 participants. Results indicate that parasocial interaction is always a positive predictor, and communication apprehension is an inverse predictor, of source credibility. These findings allow for more research to be conducted in the realm of social media.

This study considered the relationship between everyday talk and communication media, geographic distance, and closeness in the context of friendships. Participants included 213 adults from two colleges and those collected from the site Facebook.com. All participants completed surveys which included questions on their everyday talk use with friends across Facebook and face-to-face media, along with self-reports of closeness, relational length, and geographic distance of those friendships. Pearson's product-moment correlations supported both hypotheses, suggesting friends' use of Facebook and face-to-face everyday talk is positively associated with closeness. A series of Hotelling's t-tests for correlated correlations showed a stronger correlation between closeness and face-to-face everyday talk than closeness and Facebook everyday talk. These results showed the different types of everyday talk that friends engage in, specifically that long-distance friends were more likely to use Facebook task, relational, deep, superficial, and informal everyday talk in their relationship. A series of 2 (participant sex) X 2 (communication media) repeated measures of analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) were also run. One ANCOVA was conducted for each of the five everyday talk types, showing five significant interaction effects between medium and distance. Specifically, local friends engaged in more Facebook everyday talk whereas long-distance friends engaged in more face-to-face everyday talk, clarifying previous nonsignificant findings between distance and relationship characteristics.

The purpose of this study was to explore student characteristics that may predict how students express dissent in the classroom. Goodboy (2011a) defined instructional dissent as a student's expression of dissatisfaction with a class-related issue. According to Kassing's (1997) model of organizational dissent, individual factors such as temperament, traits, and personality may influence how students choose to express dissent. Student characteristics explored include aggressive communication (Infante & Rancer, 1982; Infante & Wigley, 1986), tolerance for disagreement (Knutson, McCroskey, Knutson, & Hurt, 1979; McCroskey & Wheeless, 1976; Teven, McCroskey, & Richmond, 1988), and academic locus of control (Trice, 1985). Results suggest that verbal aggressiveness is the best predictor of dissent in the instructional context. Future research should continue to examine Kassing's (1997) model of organizational dissent in the instructional context.

In the summer of 2002, Mukhtar Mai was gang raped by four men in revenge for a crime her 12-year old brother was accused of. She became the first person in her country to put the tribal system of justice on trial and win. The international media took great interest in the case, but the media only focused on one side of the story. This study analyzes the international media coverage of the Mukhtar Mai rape case by reviewing the content of more than 100 published articles and wire stories. This study uses the Mukhtar Mai case to illustrate the repercussions of deviating from basic principles of journalistic ethics as presented in ethics codes observed by professional newspeople in the United States and in other countries that honor Western ideas of press freedom and responsibility.

In an industry where public perception is at an all-time low, it is vital to evaluate the effectiveness of newspaper codes of ethics. Studies have evaluated the role of codes of ethics in the ethical decision-making process, but none have looked at the overall effectiveness of having a code. This study is a quantitative evaluation of one newspapers code of ethics, in relation to individuals ethical differences, code applicability and code agreement. Conducted at all bureaus of the Star-Telegram in Fort Worth, Texas, this study showed that employees think their code of ethics is effective mostly because it helps set guidelines and clear expectations of the employees. Although individual ethical differences (measured by locus of control) did not significantly predict effectiveness, age and tenure did have an effect, with the older and more tenured employees rating the code higher in effectiveness. Employees also commented on areas of the code with which they disagreed and revealed a discrepancy between their perception of code applicability to themselves as individuals and to those in other departments.

Today, listening to radio is typically a secondary activity since people tend to tune in while doing something else. This is a far cry from the Golden Age of Radio when people paid close attention to what was broadcast and relied on their imaginations to visualize scenes and characters. Ironically, it appears that technology is enabling listeners to experience radio much like they did over 60 years ago. Through podcasting, individuals can control not only what they hear, but also when and where it is heard, which enhances opportunities for attentive listening and mental imagery. By relying on the uses and gratifications approach, this study reveals that people attentively listen to and visualize content from podcast programs which contain aural characteristics similar to shows aired during the Golden Age of Radio. The research findings are based on responses gathered from online surveys completed by individuals who listen to the podcast version of the popular public radio program, <em>This American Life</em>.

This study explores and analyzes marketing strategies of renewable energy by selected companies in Bangladesh and the United States. The study identified, compared and contrasted different marketing strategies by the participating companies. The study was also taken to a normative level where the author recommended improvements to renewable energy marketing. Company officials representing six different companies - three from Bangladesh and three from the United States - were interviewed for the study. The author assigned pseudonyms for the companies and did not reveal the identity of the interviewees in order to protect confidential proprietary information provided by the companies. While there are differences found in marketing strategies of the companies from the two very different countries, there are also commonalities, especially when the companies are serving similar target groups. High initial costs and lack of awareness of renewables are the two major challenges identified in the study. All the participating companies reaffirmed that better education and better government incentives on renewables along with appropriate marketing strategies by the companies can take renewable energy a long way. Renewable energy technology could be a vital force in alleviating the ongoing global energy crisis.

This study examines music coverage in 1960s Time and Newsweek magazines, to determine whether pop/rock coverage surpassed classical coverage during the decade, and if so, when the shift in coverage occurred and whether it was sustained. No prior studies on music coverage in 1960s Time and/or Newsweek magazines have been found. A content analysis was conducted using a stratified sample of one issue per month for each magazine from January 1960 to December 1969. The column inches were measured for each piece of music coverage, and the number of photos in each music-oriented article was counted. The results showed that there were no statistically significant changes in the amount of rock/pop coverage compared to classical coverage, though there was an increase in the number of rock and pop stories near the end of the decade. Classical coverage remained the dominant music coverage through the 1960s.

This case study examined a peer-evaluation program at The Advocate newspaper in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in which employees took turns serving on committees that critiqued each days coverage. Their critique reports, containing both negative and positive comments on all elements of the news pages, were distributed to each employee of the news department. The purpose of the study was to examine the content of the critique reports and to determine whether the participants and the editors thought the program improved the newspaper, whether they wanted to continue it and what changes might improve it. The research methods included a survey of the news staff, a content analysis of the critique reports the staff wrote during a ine-year period, and interviews with the editors. Results showed a majority of the staff mildly favored the program, thought it improved the newspaper and wanted to continue it with some revisions. The staff particularly favored more feedback from the top editors. The content analysis indicated that staffers addressed a broad range of journalistic issues and often offered solutions to the problems they pointed out. The editors generally agreed with the findings and planned to continue the program. The findings suggested that other newspapers attempting staffwide critique programs should provide specific training in critique techniques, write detailed guidelines for conducting the critiques, focus on problem areas instead of discussing everything in the news pages, require positive as well as negative comments, encourage critics to offer solutions to problems they find, and ensure management has a strong role to use the critiques to correct repeated problems and to encourage good work.

A study of Forbes, Fortune, and Black Enterprise magazines finds that the two mainstream business publicationsForbes and Fortuneprovide virtually no coverage of Blacks and the black business community, thereby helping to perpetuate the white-dominated view of society that places minorities in generaland Blacks in particularoutside the norm. Black Enterprise, on the other hand, continues in the long tradition of the black press, providing an alternative view of society through its focus on the black business community.