Scholars and news media alike acknowledge that one of the main problems in education today is the minority achievement gaps in national testing. Although many education scholars have compiled several in-depth reasons as to why minorities, particularly African-American students, seem to generally lag behind their white counterparts, television news fails to give its audiences a comprehensive view of why minority achievement gaps are so prevalent in United States secondary public education. The purpose of this study was to examine where news consumers perceive television news places blame for problems in public education with regards to race. Studying how people perceive where television news places blame for minority gaps in academic achievement will build on the arguments of previous research that minorities are underrepresented as victims of social and political problems. Through a descriptive online survey of quantitative responses, this study assesses respondents political affiliations and perspectives, their views on race, racial achievement gaps and television news coverage of those gaps. This study will discuss some of the major research on why African-Americans and other minorities struggle with academic achievement more than Whites and how television news rarely, if ever, covers these issues nor provide context to stories on African-Americans and education.

This study examines how the institutional characteristics of local television news stations affect the stations coverage of state legislative news. Focusing on the state of Louisiana, the researcher conducts in-depth interviews with news workers from the seven media markets in the state. The interviews were focused toward the decision makers in the newsroom in order to examine the process that determines the newscast the audience receives. The interview discussions centered on the news making process. In addition, the interviews focused explicitly on the effect of proximity to the state capitol; coverage of state level news versus community level or national level news; and the effect of gubernatorial coverage on the topics within state legislative news. The findings suggest that local television news media hold distinct institutional characteristics that determine the extent of legislative news coverage provided. Proximity affects commitment to state government news. Also, news workers tend to cover the governor more than state legislative news. Finally, the findings of this study suggest that the structure of local television news is not optimal or even sufficient for serving the public in state legislative news.

This study examined the maiden and whore characters in The Golden Girls, Designing Women, and Sex and the City. Using a textual analysis and discourse analysis approach, I examined the two characters comparing them to the definitions of archetype and stereotype provided by Jungian theory and feminist film theory. I analyzed ten randomly selected episodes from the second season excluding both the premier and the finale. Three of the research questions were rooted in central ideas found in the shows: outward appearance, language and conversation, and sexual relationships. The last research question determined whether or not the characters were archetypes or stereotypes. Ultimately, the study found that the maiden and whore characters in the three shows were archetypes that are neutral as explained and defined in Jungian theory.

This study looked at sports websites to see how the variables information, humor, entertainment, community, and credibility affected sports website users intentions to use and re-use sports websites. Three groups of 25 and one group of 30 participants each completed a website viewing activity and corresponding survey. There were four website viewing activities (one for each group). The activities led participants on tours of ESPN.com, Deadspin.com, Football Outsiders, and Yahoo! Sports. Furthermore, the tours were designed to expose participants to the variables (as defined under disposition theory and uses and gratifications). Likewise, the corresponding survey assessed participants intentions to use each of the four websites based on the degrees to which they perceived each variable to be present. In addition to the surveys, the study utilized focus group discussion data as a secondary method. Five focus groups and one interviewee each answered eight open-ended questions. All answers were analyzed according to which of the variables were important to participants on sports websites. Results of the survey data showed that humor and entertainment content had the most positive effect on sports website users intents to use, whereas information and credibility content scored highest among the discussion participants. The community variable ranked last via both methods. The ramifications for this study are that sports websites should develop their humorous and entertaining content regarding athletes and sports figures. Website partnerships with informative and credible sites should be formed to maintain sports information links.

American youth and adolescents have the highest rate of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections in the industrialized world. Entertainment media, the preferred genre of todays adolescents, depicts sex, drugs, and alcohol use at a greater rate than any other genre of programming. What are health communication strategists doing to counter the widespread, inaccurate portrayals often depicted in this type of programming? With previous knowledge gap and health communication research failing to examine youth oriented and racial targeted entertainment programming, this study utilizes a survey to analyze BET, MTV, and VH1 audiences health knowledge, recall, and attitude toward PSAs to identify lapses in health communication strategy. This study distributed an Internet survey to a large southern university undergraduate population to capture the perceptions of BET, MTV, and VH1 target audiences. Respondents with low viewing habits of MTV and VH1 exhibited greater knowledge of HIV and alcohol. No difference in knowledge was found among high and low viewers of BET. Respondents reported their perceptions of the effectiveness of three PSAs. The most effective PSA utilized the fear and loss appeal. This PSA also portrayed real life consequences not often portrayed in entertainment programming. Finally, the PSA that utilized the informational appeal was more effective in promoting the advocated behavior among female respondents. Contrasting previous social identity theory research, the inclusion of same-ethnicity models within the PSAs was not indicative of perceived effectiveness of the message. Interestingly, ethnic-related impressions did influence respondents perception of the PSAs personal relevance. The survey provided support for third-person effects with respondents overestimating others viewing habits. The results of the study indicate a greater need of informational HIV and alcohol PSAs on VH1 and MTV. The gaps in knowledge exhibited by the respondent group reveal the lapses in health communication broadcasted on the selected cable-music channels. In addition, the results illustrate the ideal frames and themes deemed effective by youth audiences. The ideal youth and adolescent targeted PSA would include same-ethnicity models, a strong informational argument, a strong emotional appeal, portrayal of real life risks, and inclusion of a loss-frame appeal associated with the risky behavior.

Research of crime news suggests that Blacks are over represented as criminals when compared to crime reports; study of race and crime judgments reveals that viewers with heavy amounts of television news viewing associate Blacks with crime more often than viewers who watch lower amounts of television news. Further complicating the perception of Blacks is their lack of diversified coverage in the news. Most coverage of Blacks frames them as liabilities to their communities, while offering few positive depictions to counter the Black criminality frame. The Internet may aid in exacerbating stereotypes of Blacks by allowing users to selectively expose themselves to more crime news than they would receive from traditional media. Prior studies of race and crime coverage have analyzed Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia news. The current study seeks to reveal if Baton Rouge, Louisianas local news websites present an accurate reflection of the crime committed in Baton Rouge and endeavors to reveal the amount of positive, counteractive depictions of Blacks present on such websites.

The video game industry makes more than $10 billion a year in the United States alone. It is a young and booming medium. Growing alongside the video game business is the video game media, a niche form of journalism comprised mostly of gaming websites and a few reporters in traditional media. This thesis examines the young gaming news industry through in-depth interviews conducted with six journalists from various news outlets. The research focused on two things: if game journalists followed the same norms and routines as news journalists and if game companies were able to influence what game journalists wrote through public relations efforts. To determine what standards game journalists followed, the researcher asked the participants about each of the journalistic norm and routines. The norms of journalism are news value, objectivity, balance and fairness, professionalism, watchdog role, enduring values, style and format, scoop, and professional cooperation. To find out about outside influence affecting the work of the journalists, the researcher asked participants questions about their interaction with PR workers, how they perceived themselves being influence, and how they perceived other being influenced. The researcher found that video game journalists followed the norms and routines of news journalism and that game journalists are perceived themselves to be free from the influence of video game companies.

Sports fandom research often states sports fans know and understand facts surrounding various sports, teams, leagues, and players. College sports literature argues that media involvement increases popularity and revenues, and as a result, competition, controversy, and complexity. The Elaboration Likelihood Model posits that when involvement in a subject is high, so too is motivation and ability to comprehend, and as a result, cognition increases. Given this, results show that sports fandom acts similarly to issue involvement, leading to increased sports-media consumption. Together, both fandom and consumption lead to increased knowledge of facts surrounding college sports. Results imply that general interest in sports leads to knowledge acquisition of facts related to college sports, independent of a preference for college sports. Due to the pervasiveness of college sports in sports-media, those who value sports and attend to sports-media as a result, come to learn about college sports through mere exposure. Results speak to the popularity of college sports and indicate that sports fans remain aware of characteristics unique to college sports and accompanying discussion that takes place within sports-media. Results, however, also indicate that college sports-media consumption is niche-specific, as individuals who placed the most value in college sports scored the highest, signifying that selective exposure to college sports leads to heightened knowledge. Thus, results imply that media do provide incisive information about the complex nature of college sports and fandom does influence behaviors and reinforces preferences. Individuals ultimately control the information they receive, selectively attending to content that coincides with their preferences while avoiding exposure to that which does not. Sports remain another way for individuals to reinforce niche preferences and ultimately learn.

Nearly 27 million people in North America played fantasy sports in 2009. This quantitative study examined how a persons level of participation in fantasy football affects team identification, team loyalty, fandom of the National Football League (NFL), and consumer behavior. I also looked at whether fantasy football participants prefer a win by their fantasy team or their favorite team. An online survey was conducted using a snowball sample. I found higher participation levels result in higher team identification, higher team loyalty, and higher fandom, where fandom of the NFL is higher than team identification. Higher levels of participation also led to more time spent watching NFL games as well as more time spent online researching and updating their fantasy football team. I also found that over 41% of fantasy football participants prefer a win by their fantasy team, instead of their favorite team. A win preference of fantasy team resulted in lower team identification and team loyalty, which could have major implications on ticket sales, team merchandise sales, and sponsorship sales.

As baby boomers age and the hospice industry grows to meet the demands for care, it is important that these organizations reach their consumers in sensitive and responsible ways. Building caring and mutually beneficial relationships with these consumers is important. Social media can give these organizations the platforms to build and maintain these relationships, but most of the hospice organizations in this qualitative study did not make good use of the opportunities online to relate to their publics. Using public relationships and relationship management measurements, this study monitored the online activity of seven hospice organizations. In general, these organizations under used all available online media. Two hospice organizations, Alive Hospice and Vitas Hospice, most appropriately used the media to interact with their publics online.