This study focuses on how African-Americans and Hispanics perceive their racial equality in American advertising. A survey was conducted to find out the African-American and the Hispanic perceptions about how these ethnic groups saw themselves depicted, and the way they are stereotyped by the U.S. media. Overall, the study found that there was no difference between race and the level of perception between these two ethnic groups. However, age appears to be the only demographic variable that affects the African-American and Hispanic perception of discrimination. In addition, the study also exposed that African-Americans are mostly portrayed in the athletic advertising industry. Hispanics, on the other hand, appear most often in family-oriented and business-oriented ads.

Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs receives significant attention from academic researchers. Advertising, however, is not the only way prescription drugs are discussed in the public sphere. Many Americans learn about science through mass media. Additionally, researchers believe readers place more trust in editorial content than in advertisements. This study took a quantitative and qualitative approach to content analysis of prescription drug coverage to examine the effects of the highly publicized and controversial Vioxx recall on the news. Significant changes in framing, drugs mentioned, and prominence of story placement were shown. There were no changes in sources used in prescription drug coverage, and the absence of personal stories in news coverage was an important discovery, which may help explain the drop in prominence of articles in newspapers.

A comparative analysis of presidential press conferences was conducted to determine whether the previously established adversarial relationship between the United States president and the American press was alleviated to some degree by the presence of a foreign dignitary. The study applied a system for quantifying adversarial behaviors exhibited by the press to questions asked of President George W. Bush in solo conferences and where he was joined by another head-of-state in joint press conference sessions. Questions from selected conferences during his first term were coded according to four indicators of adversarialness: initiative, directness, assertiveness and adversarialness. Results showed that the president-press relationship is indeed less adversarial in joint press conferences than in solo. This conclusion may serve as justification for increases in general press conference frequency in the last three administrations and the disproportionate increase in joint sessions.

Minority and other race recruitment have become a significant part of general recruitment efforts at many predominantly white institutions (PWIs) and historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Despite increased efforts, some universities have not been successful at increasing diversity on campus. This study relies on the use of in-depth interviews to document, describe and understand the similar and differing characteristics of minority and other race recruitment tactics being used at PWIs and HBCUs. The researcher conducted interviews at four public institutions of higher education; two of which are HBCUs, and two of which are PWIs. The researcher also sought to determine if the universities in the study created their recruiting techniques as a self-presentation tactic. The findings of this study reveal that although similarities exist in general recruitment practices at PWIs and HBCUs, many recruiters and university administrators note the necessity to approach prospective minority and other race students differently than majority students. Secondly, findings suggest negative perceptions of institutions may hinder minority recruitment efforts. Findings also suggest that the universities are putting forth effort in attempts to overcome this problem; therefore, this study supports the idea that universities practice self-presentation in efforts to overcome negative images and poor minority enrollment.

The purpose of this study was to find out if either The New York Times or The Washington Times participated in unbalanced media coverage during the last two weeks of the 2004 Presidential Election. Through content analysis paragraph tone was used to evaluate news stories, columns, and editorials as positive, negative or neutral from a composite week sample. Scholars, politicians, the public as well as journalists have long argued about the existence or not of media bias and whether it is in support of liberal or conservative politics. This study was not an attempt to pick a side in that confrontation. Instead, a goal of this research was to provide additional data along with testing methodology, in the hope that it would contribute to the work that has already been accomplished in moving toward evaluation criteria for identifying media bias. The findings from this study provided evidence of unbalanced media coverage from both news organizations during the particular period of study. The biggest surprise was that The Washington Times was more unbalanced than The New York Times, 64.9% to 56.3%. Data from this study supports the previous research that claims a presence of liberal bias as well as a possible attempt by conservative elites to create and support a perception of media bias. The evidence uncovered also supports agenda setting and priming as well as some agenda setting effects.

A survey with 293 American and 68 international LSU students and two focus groups with American students and one with international students were conducted between November 2005 and February 2006 to determine the difference in media use between American and international LSU students in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: What were students main sources of information after the storm? What were their sources when electricity was out? Which source of information helped students feel less lonely? Which source of information helped students fell less stressful? Finally, which medium did the students believe, when compared to others, did the best job reporting on Hurricane Katrina? Second, the study explored how female LSU students differed from male students in media use and satisfaction after the storm. Survey results showed that television was the primary source of information for both American and international students. For American students, coverage by local TV was both informative and comforting, and coverage of national TV was more informative. For international students, both local and national coverage were more informative. More American students listened to the radio as more of them did not have electricity. International students went online more to contact their friends and family abroad, and American students used cell phones to talk to family members. Friends were the primary stress relief for both groups of students and the source that helped them feel less lonely. The largest number of both groups of students agreed that local TV did the best job in reporting on Hurricane Katrina. Overall, students gave the average grade B to American news media reports on Katrina. International students said they were more comforted using American media and got more information from them than from their native language media. When considering gender, there was a statistically significant difference between males and females in using mobile phones, sending text messages and getting information from family members.

This study examines how and to what extent nonprofit organizations are using their Web sites to fulfill their organizational goals and missions through volunteerism and fundraising. Through in-depth interviews of communication/public relations managers and executive directors at nonprofit organizations new information reveals factors that negatively affect nonprofits organizations growth in Web site development and technology, as well as those factors that push nonprofits to break the digital divide. Four nonprofit organizations that provide youth services in Memphis, Tennessee were selected.

This study examined the content of 200 commercials from the 2004 season of Monday Night Football documenting sexual content, violence, and gender role stereotypes. The data revealed that despite the fact that men appeared twice as often as women, women were more likely to be stereotyped than men. About one quarter of the commercials contained sexual content and about one-fifth contained violence. Beer ads were more sexual than other ads but were not significantly more violent than other ads. There was no clear pattern of variance in the amount of sexual and violent commercials across quarters. Programming commercials were far more sexual and violent than other commercials and were most likely to appear last in the pod. These findings have relevance for recency effects of ad recall as well as social learning theory and gender schema theory. The present data indicate a decline in sexual content, violence, and gender stereotypes compared to previous television advertising studies. Possible reasons for the decline include recent political and social pressure and increased female viewership of NFL games. Despite apparent declines in sexual and violent content, this study alerts us to lingering concerns about commercial content, and raises the possibility that the networks themselves may be the worst offenders.

Several Lighten Up programs around the United States were qualitatively studied in efforts to determine their target audiences and the communication channels used to reach these audiences. To guide this study, principles from the social marketing framework and the diffusion of innovations theory were applied. Several Lighten Up program executive directors and other high-ranking individuals in charge of the programs were interviewed in-depth to answer questions pertaining to target audiences and communication channels. Inductive data analysis illustrated that programs did not segment their target audiences, that more programs depended on interpersonal and group communication than mass communication, and finally, that programs relied on opinion leaders, innovators, and early adopters to diffuse the program. This one-dimensional view of the audience and the lack of research also found caused the Lighten Up programs studied to have two of the symptoms of organization-centered programs.

This study content analyzed print media coverage of government response from four newspapers in the five weeks immediately after Hurricane Katrina, looking for common frames, attribute agenda setting, and tone. In addition, it assessed week-to-week differences throughout coverage. Findings indicate that the order of Semetko and Valkenburg's (2000) common frames changed, emphasizing human interest first. Conflict, attribution of responsibility, economic consequences, and morality frames followed. Media's use of attribute agenda setting was evident throughout coverage, primarily emphasizing the issues, relief and rescue, economic, negative timeliness, and rebuilding and repairing. Media's tone of government response was moderately neutral with federal tone covered more positively, and local tone covered more negatively. Frames and issue attribute varied throughout coverage, however, tone did not. This study recognized media's use of framing, attribute agenda setting, and tone, thereby offering a better understanding of how print media portray government response during a natural disaster.