Bartwoski, John P., Xiaohe Xu, Martin L. Levin, and Heather Hanna. “Seasonality of Adolescent Suicides and Vehicular Fatalities.” Social Life and Death. (Unpublished Manuscript). This is a study on the two leading causes of death among teens. Temporal and gender statistics were used to identify whether or not there are seasonal or gender differences in rates of suicide and vehicular fatalities. Bartowski, et al. also discuss the magnitude of adolescent suicide and vehicular fatalities in society as well as suggestions about further research in this area that may lead to solutions or policies leading to a reduction in accidental deaths among teens.

Deery, Hamish. “Hazard and Risk Perception Among Young Novice Drivers.” Journal of Safety Research 30.4 (1994): 225-235. This is a research study on the effects of risk perception and lack of high order skills in young novice drivers as a major contributing factor in the overrepresentation of young drivers in road accidents. Too often age is the only factor examined and many fail to consider the level of inexperience of the driver and the lack of preparation for hazardous conditions. Deery argues that people must look at the whole picture when considering analysis of young drivers.

Deery does mention that other factors such as attitude, motivation and social influence may also provoke young drivers, males in particular, to accept or even seek risk in hazardous situations, though his main concern is risk perception in general.

Hunt, Arnold. “Moral Panic and Moral Language in the Media.” British Journal of Sociology 48.4 (1997): 629-649. Hunt traces the term “moral panic” through its history and talks about how it’s meaning has changed over time. He also talks about the increased usage of the term since the 1980s. One of Hunt’s main concerns is the power of the press to initiate moral panics, in addition to some other models, suggesting how moral panics may be generated to the media, which then simply assists in perpetuating them. Hunt argues that the term moral panic has become almost commonplace in today’s society, both in scholarly literature and the media, but despite changes in definition and frequency of the term, the idea of moral panic is here to stay.

Li, Guohua, Cyrus Shahpar, Jurek George Graboski, and Susan P. Baker. “Secular Trends of Motor Vehicle Mortality in the United States 1910-1994.” Accident and Analysis and Prevention 33 (2001): 423-432. Li, et al. complied annual population and mortality data from 1910 to 1994 in the United States to study the secular trends of motor vehicle fatalities, using age, period and cohort (birth period) as factors in their analyses. Their results showed that at certain points in history death rates peaked, yet in general death rates have decreased, especially among the elderly.

Their main findings were an increase in fatalities among youth. They found that while death rates have been declining in all other categories, they are on the rise for young drivers. Their hypothesis for this statistic is that licensure rates and average miles traveled for young adults have also been on the rise at a disproportionate level.

Mastonardi, Maria. “Adolescence and Media.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 22 (2003): 83-93. Mastonardi examines major trends of the media effects tradition arguing that more studies are required to explore the relationship between youth and the mass media. She talks about the view within media sources of teenagers as “troubled,” describing the period of adolescence as a time of “storm and stress”. In this article, Mastonardi asks that we be wary of the relentless focus on youth and their so called risky behaviors in the media, and that we also bear in mind that teenagers are not the only beings capable of risky behavior and that there may also be serious consequences of adult risky behaviors, such as an influence on young people. Mastonardi chose to augment her study by focusing on media consumption, media violence, sexuality, and media and young women, what she sees as the four key elements of effects research concerning adolescents.

McRobbie, Angela and Sarah L. Thornton. “Rethinking ‘moral panic’ for multi-mediated social worlds.” British Journal of Sociology 46.4 (1995): 559-574. McRobbie and Thornton also go to great lengths to discuss the origin and transformations of the term “moral panic” and its use in society and the media. The authors claim that moral panics have become a sort of familiar form of response to the way in which daily events are broadcast to attract attention. McRobbie and Thornton direct their study toward the focus on youth in particular in the topic of moral panics in society and the consequences that has on the way society sees adolescents in addition to the way they see themselves.

There also seems to be an increase in tabloid style headlines and pictures accompanying articles in the media, contributing to their effect as a moral panic and a way to grab attention.

Suchman, Edward A. “Accidents and Social Deviance.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 11.1 (1970): 4-15. The purpose of this article is to examine the influence of factors such as attitudes and self- image coupled with a variety of measures of deviant behavior on accidental injuries for High School and College students. Suchman developed a series of questions to examine the likelihood of accident causing behavior among youth. He found that when adolescents perceive themselves as deviants there was a profound impact on their likelihood of suffering accidental injuries. He suggested that despite driver training courses, improved vehicle and road design and enhanced safety measures, it may be that young people need to redefine their self image to help them establish norms of behavior. He leaves it up to us to help create a world in which young people can redefine themselves.

“The Council of Economic Advisors on Risk and Responsibility.” Population and Development Review 13.1 (19870: 171-179. The focus of this article is on the sometimes controversial roles of the government in the management of risk. There is a discussion about the increase in the frequency of the automobile travel and the overall decline of fatalities from 1940 to 1985. Drunk driving is listed as the leading cause of death among teens and alcohol is noted as a main contributor to accidents and injuries concerning over 50% of fatal automobile accidents.

Ungar, Sheldon. “Moral Panic versus the Risk Society: the Implications of the Changing Sites of Social Anxiety.” British Journal of Sociology 52.2 (2001): 271-291. Ungar also mentions the change in the term moral panic and the resounding focus on youth related topics. He accuses the use of moral panic to be a way to instill fear on society from other more serious and complex issues. Ungar also delves into the changing and broader focus of moral panics, leading to the creation of what he calls a risk society. He examines use of the term in literature, but also the use of term by people in society, further exemplifying it’s sort of commonplace nature.

US Bureau of the Census. “Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1992.” Washington D.C. 1992

US Census Bureau. “Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2002.” Washington D.C. 2001

Welch, Michael, Eric A. Price, Nana Yankey. “Moral Panic over Youth Violence: Wilding and the Manufacture of Menace in the Media.” Youth and Society 34.1 (2002): 3-30. The authors in this article focus on the development of a moral panic in relation to social wilding, seen as a derivative of the term. They lay out a step-by-step definition of the components necessary of a moral panic; including concern, consensus, hostility, disproportionality, and volatility. Welch, et al. also highlight a focus on youth considered deviants as a recurring topic related to moral panics. There is also a notion of the strategies for political advancement and new legislation brought about from heightened concern in society. Their focus is mainly on the use of the term “moral panic” in the media.

Sociology 243: Mass Media

Annotated Bibliography

November 5, 2003

Annotated Bibliography

Hegemony

Donaldson, M. “What is Hegemonic Masculinity?” Theory and Society (1993): 643-657.

Heterosexuality

Mennesson, Christine; Clément, Jean-Paul. “Homosociability and Homosexuality: The Case of Soccer Played by Women.” International Review For The Sociology Of Sport (2003): 311-330.

The above journal article analyzes the biographical and contextual elements favoring the involvement of female athletes playing high-level team sports in homosexual practices, a recurring issue in the sporting arena. The study in the article takes place in the world of soccer and rugby, in France where a male-oriented, homophobic sociability that is unfavorable to feminization of the sport exists. Based on in-depth interviews and on a long observation period, this study contributes to the current scientific debate regarding the construction of identity, specifically gender identity. The article focuses in particular on Becker and Goffman's work on the process of normative construction (Mennesson and Clément 2003).

Wright, Jan; Clarke, Gill. “Sport, the Media and the Construction of Compulsory Heterosexuality: A Case Study of Women's Rugby Union.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport (1999): 227-243.

The above journal article argues that media representations of sport are particularly powerful in naturalizing and normalizing hegemonic meanings about the body and social relations. The article states that while there is a considerable amount of research analyzing how gender differences are constructed in the media’s coverage of sport, the hegemony of heterosexuality is seldom questioned. Here, this research is extended by exploring, through content analysis, how print media representations of sport contribute to the denial of lesbian sexuality and social relations in the case of female rugby union players. Its focus is on how choices in language and visual representations work to engage in a process of normalization whereby females playing the man's game of rugby are constituted in terms of hegemonic versions of heterosexual femininity (Wright and Gill 1999).

Masculinity

Bryson, Lois. “Sport and the Maintenance of Masculine Hegemony.” Women's Studies International Forum (1987): 349-360.

The above journal article argues that the sport construct supports masculine hegemony through two basic dimensions: one that links maleness with highly valued and visible skills and the positively sanctioned use of aggression, and another that inferiorizes women and their activities. The article goes on to explain that this monopolization is completed by a series of concrete processes that effectively marginalize women from sport participation through definition, direct control, ignoring, and trivialization. The article examines these processes in depth, and illustrates them with examples from the Australian sporting scene (Bryson 1987).

Bryson, Lois. “Sport and the Oppression of Women.” The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology (1983): 413-426.

The above journal article argues that, in general, sport contributes to male dominance by supporting an atmosphere of male superiority in publicly acclaimed skills. The article states that this leads to a male monopoly of aggression and violence. The article goes on to conclude that as a result of this, women and their skills are viewed as inferior, since they are isolated from this basis of social power- physical force (Bryson 1983).

Daddario, Gina. “Chilly Scenes of the 1992 Winter Games: The Mass Media and the Marginalization of Female Athletes.” Sociology of Sport Journal (1994): 275-288.

The above journal article examines the U.S. media coverage of female athletes during the 1992 winter Olympic Games by analyzing the broadcasting of the game’s events over a two week period. The article states that the results of this study demonstrates that, although females are depicted in physically challenging events that do challenge stereotypical notions of femininity, the sport coverage reinforced masculine sports hegemony through strategies of marginalization. The article states that these strategies included the application of condescending descriptors, the use of compensatory language, the construction of female athletes according to an adolescent ideal, and the presentation of female athletes as driven by cooperation rather than competition (Daddario 1994).

Eitzen, D Stanley; Zinn, Maxine Baca. “The De-Athleticization of Women: The Naming and Gender Marking of Collegiate Sport Teams.” Sociology of Sport Journal (1989): 362-370.

The above article discusses U.S. colleges and universities use of nicknames, colors, logos, and mascots as identifying and unifying symbols, especially concerning their athletic teams. This article argues that the patterns of the use of these identifying and unifying symbols in more than half of these institutions employ names, mascots, and logos that demean and derogate women's teams. The article also states that there are no significant differences in naming patterns by type of school, but that region is significant because southern schools are more likely to use sexist names than schools elsewhere. The article argues that these sexist naming practices contribute to the maintenance of male dominance within college athletics by defining women athletes and women's athletic programs as second-class and trivial (Eitzen and Zinn 1989).

Jansen, Sue Curry; Sabo, Don. “The Sport/War Metaphor: Hegemonic Masculinity, the Persian Gulf War, and the New World Order.” Sociology of Sport Journal (1994): 1-17.

The above journal article analyzes the language used during the coverage of the Persian Gulf War in electronic and print news media. The article also states that discourse in the sport industry and sport media is employed to demonstrate how sport/war metaphors are crucial rhetorical resources for mobilizing the patriarchal values that construct, mediate, and maintain hegemonic forms of masculinity. It is argued in this article that sport /war metaphors reflect and reinforce the multiple systems of domination that rationalize war and strengthen the hegemony of white Western male elites (Jansen and Sabo 1994).

Jones, Ray; Murrell, Audrey J; Jackson, Jennifer. “Pretty versus Powerful in the Sports Pages: Print Media Coverage of U.S. Women's Olympic Gold Medal Winning Teams.” Journal of Sport and Social Issues (1999): 183-192.

The above article examines how descriptions of the performance of female athletes are likely to reflect dominant beliefs about gender in society. The article looks to 769 passages of print media that focused on the U.S. women’s basketball, gymnastic, soccer, and softball teams from the 1996 Olympics and the U.S. women's hockey team from the 1998 Olympics for content analysis. The article explains that two dimensions were examined for each passage: task relevance and the use of gender stereotypes. The article included that consistent with expectations, female athletes in male sport were described by the print media using frequent male-to-female comparisons and comments that had little to do with sports or the athlete's performance. The article also suggests that the print media’s coverage of female athletes in female sport focused on performance while reinforcing female stereotypes. The article concludes that the implications of the images of female athletes portrayed by the print media supports masculine hegemony (Jones, et al. 1999).

Kuo, Liangwen. “Media Reproduction of Masculinity in Sports-A Case Study of New Zealand's Yacht Race Victory in the America's Cup.” National Taiwan University Journal of Sociology (1998): 323-374.

The above journal article examines the role of the media in the reproduction of masculinity in New Zealand's yacht race victory in the 1995 America's Cup in the context of several theses: sport as social institution, multiple masculinities, hegemonic masculinities, masculinity as a sign system, and consumer culture. Discussion in this article shows that the hegemonic masculinity of white upper and middle-class males is not just manifested in sport, but is actually reproduced by sport. It argues that the mechanism that effects this reproduction starts with the involvement of corporate interests and their alliance with the dominant media. The article argues that this controls and manipulates the development of sport events. It agues that the media not only tells New Zealanders what they want and how to participate, but also works to reproduce men's hegemonic masculinity through the construction of national identity (Kuo 1998).

Lenskj, Helen Jefferson. “'Inside Sport' or 'On the Margins'? Australian Women and the Sport Media.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport (1998): 19-32.

The above journal article analyzes the contradictory constructions of gender relations in the popular Australian sport magazine, Inside Sport. The investigation shows that, while sexual exploitation of women is still present, particularly in photographs, more complex marginalizing practices are also evident. Further, the article argues that the combination of critical text and exploitative graphics is organized to convey a sense of balanced coverage and representation of both sexes. It argues that the magazine's formula of men's sports/women's bodies reflects, constructs, and perpetuates beliefs about hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity in Australian society (Lenskj 1998).

Maas, Kay W; Hasbrook, Cynthia A. “Media Promotion of the Paradigm Citizen/Golfer: An Analysis of Golf Magazines' Representations of Disability, Gender, and Age.” Sociology of Sport Journal (2001): 21-36.

The above journal article describes the sport of golf as elitist, racist, and sexist. It argues that recently it has become clear that golf is also able-bodiest. The article tells the story of Casey Martin- a young, upper class, white, male golfer with a physical disability, who was featured in the media for challenging the Professional Golf Association (PGA) rules prohibiting the use of a golf cart during tournament play. This article draws on Connell's construct of hegemonic masculinity and Wendell's notion of the paradigm citizen. The article examines if and how hegemonic masculinity and the paradigm citizen are reinforced, maintained, and challenged within four issues of major golf magazines (including a special golfing issue of Sports Illustrated published around the time of the trial). The articles findings include that golfers with disabilities are absent from advertisements and photographs and are given minimal attention in articles. The data included in this article suggests that golf magazines continue to maintain and reinforce hegemonic masculinity and the paradigm citizen (Maas and Hasbrook 2001).

McKay, Jim; Rowe, David. “Ideology, the Media, and Australian Sport.” Sociology of Sport Journal (1987): 258-273.

The above journal article focuses on the ideological relationships between the media and Australian sport as examined from a critical perspective. The article first outlines the contributions of political economy, structuralism, and cultural studies to the critical model. It then argues that the Australian media have two main ideological effects: they legitimate masculine hegemony, capitalist rationality, consensus, and militaristic nationalism and they marginalize, trivialize, and fragment alternative ideologies of sport. This article also argues that the politicizing of media representations of sport is an important part of the counter-hegemonic struggle in patriarchal, capitalist societies (McKay and Rowe 1987).

Pedersen, Paul Mark. “Examining Equity in Newspaper Photographs: A Content Analysis of the Print Media Photographic Coverage of Interscholastic Athletics.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport (2002): 303-318.

The above journal article argues that because of hegemonic masculinity females have encountered countless obstacles in their quest to participate in and receive the benefits from sport. The article goes on to ague that the mass media have aided in the establishment of these barriers with their biased coverage of sports. The article states that while the existence of under-representative and stereotyped coverage of females has been documented across various types of media, there has not been any determination of equitable coverage at the interscholastic level. This content analysis, through its investigation of the newspaper photographic coverage given to high school athletics, seeks to fill this void. The study found that female athletics were significantly under-represented in number of photographs and total photographic column inches. The study also concluded that male athletics, not only received more photographic coverage but their photographs were also better positioned and more likely to be in color. The study found that collectively, the newspapers upheld hegemonic masculinity through their under-representation and marginalization of high school female athletics (Pedersen 2002).

11/5/03

Soc. 243

Annotated Bibliography

1. Armstrong, G. M. & Brucks, M. (1988). Dealing With Children’s Advertising: Public Policy Issues and Alternatives. Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 7, 98-113.

The authors look into past regulations involving advertising to children on television. In 1974 the FTC made a policy against overcommercialization. A decade later this was lifted in the defense that market forces would protect children. Several parties, such as the ACT then pressured the FTC to reopen this issue along with banning toy-based programs. However, everyone agreed with the current research that children are a special advertising audience with vulnerabilities, and care must be taken in designating and presenting television advertising to children, but they disagree on the solutions to this. The solution that the authors suggest to the problems of children’s advertising is in the direction that something must be done to filter out children’s exposure to it. They suggest that everyone should work together including the all consumers (parents, children, public interest groups), and government regulators (FTC, FCC).

2. Atkin, C. K., “Effects of Television Advertising on Children,” Children and the Faces of Television: Teaching, Violence, Selling, Palmer, E. L. & Dorr, A. New York: Academic Press, Inc., 1981, 287-305.

Atkin explores how advertisements negatively impact families and leave children unhappy. This was found to be due to, and is consistent with other scholarly research, parents not complying with one-half the requests children make for certain advertised products, one-third to one-half of the children who were denied products become unhappy, disappointed, or angry, and advertising interruptions of television programs result in irritation of the viewers. This information was found to be more likely amongst children who watched considerably more advertising, but was however not significant with age differences. This finding was not in agreement amongst all other studies conducted, there was mixed agreement amongst researchers for this. Atkin also found that aggressive and hostile responses were the result when products were exaggerated and children were not satisfied in their use, aggressive acts were portrayed in the advertisements, and fast-paced and exciting commercials emotionally aroused viewers.

3. Barcus, F. E., “The Nature of Television Advertising to Children,” Children and the Faces of Television: Teaching, Violence, Selling, Palmer, E. L. & Dorr, A. New York: Academic Press, Inc., 1981, 273-285.

In This study Barcus looked into the content characteristics of Children’s advertisements, which include types of products advertised, the manner in which they are presented, attention-getting devices, and the types of verbal disclosures. These were then determined if they were in the best interests of children. Barcus found that children develop brand preferences due to advertisements and then pressure parents to buy them. Barcus also found that through advertisements and children developing a preference for brand name products, their world gets illustrated based on the advertisements.

4. Brand, J. E. & Greenberg, B. S. (1994). Commercials in the Classroom: The Impact of ChannelOne Advertising. Journal of Advertising Research, 34, 18-27.

The authors are in agreement that advertising produces excessive desires in preadolescents and adolescents, but sought out to prove this by studying the effects of Channel One advertising in school on its young viewers. The authors studied three categories that have been previously proven to be effected by advertising presented to youth in the home: affective, behavioral, and cognitive. The authors found that all three were impacted, especially for affective. Viewers expressed stronger consumption-oriented values than non-viewers. For behavioral, the purchasing habits of the children for effected in that they purchased more. Lastly for cognition, advertising on Channel One showed to produce stronger desires for the products.

5. Cullingford, Cedric (1984). Children and Television. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Cullingford examines what children expect from television, what children see in television, what children learn from television, and what children take from television. He notes that the effects of television on children lie in the formation of general attitudes and styles of interpretation that are similar to those of adults such as, they have a prominent desire for entertainment that fulfills familiar norms. Therefore children approach television in a fairly sophisticated adult way and do not believe everything they see. Cullingford notes that what makes an advertisement a child’s favorite is not the product being advertised but the style of the presentation. Children also relate and respond more to advertisements that involve an identifiable cartoon character. Their liking for the advertisements has an ambiguous relationship to their knowledge of what is being advertised. Cullingford also found which is consistent with other studies that children’s knowledge of brand names is extensive. Children are also shown that even though they know they are being persuaded toward they advertised product they succumb to it anyway, which is consistent with some previous research but not all. Lastly Cullingford found that a child is more responsive to advertisements that have been repeated, which is consistent with other findings.

6. Doubleday, C. & Droege, K., “Cognitive Developmental Influences on children’s Understanding of Television,” Children & Television: Images in a Cultural Sociocultural World, Berry, G. L. & Asamen, J. K., Newbury Park, California: SAGE Publications, Inc., 1993, 23-35.

Doubleday and Droege focus their study on the cognitive processes and understandings that children experience at the developmental stages of preschoolers, young children, and older children. The authors are in agreement with what children are learning from television creates implications of the already learned information for a particular developmental stage. Preschoolers of the ages of 4 or 5 can distinguish between television and commercials, but are more heavily affected by various production factors, have higher trust in commercials, and lower recall and understanding of commercial messages than older children. By the time children reach the ages of 5 to 7 they still respond to commercials like preschoolers, but are beginning to be able to understand the persuasive intent in advertising. When children finally reach the ages of 8 to 14 they readily see the differences between television programs and commercials, are less affected by production factors, have lower trust in commercials, and better recall and understand persuasive intent.

7. Goldberg, Marvin E. (1990). A Quasi-Experiment Assessing the Effectiveness of TV Advertising Directed to Children. Journal of marketing Research, 27, 445-454.

Goldberg sought to determine if television advertising impacts the decision making of children when determining what kinds of toys they want. The researchers are in agreement with past studies that commercials influence children considerably. Goldberg’s results showed that when comparing French speaking children from Quebec who live under the Quebec law banning advertising to children on television to English speaking children in Montreal who have access to U.S. television stations, the English speaking children watched more American television and were able to recognize significantly more toys available in stores.

8. Greenfield, P. M., Yut, E., Chung, M., Land, D., Kreider, H., Pantoja, M. & Horsley, K. (1990). The Program Length Commercial: A Study of the Effects of Television/Toy Tie-Ins on Imaginative Play. Children & Television: Images in a Cultural Sociocultural World, Berry, G. L. & Asamen, J. K., Newbury Park, California: SAGE Publications, Inc., 1993, 53-72.

The Authors of this study look into how television has become a major tool for marketing to children through the use of commercials. This is shown through the use of toys in television programs. The authors are in agreement with other scholars that when the television industry and toy marketers join up to produce television shows with product-based cartoons the results are an inhibitive creative imagination and a stimulated imitative imagination in children. Imitative imagination was shown through television eliciting more recall-oriented responses than creative responses. The authors also show that when program based toys are linked to a show, they act as a constraint on creative imagination.

9. Isler, L., Popper, E. T. & Ward, S. (1987) Children’s Purchase Requests and parental Responses: Results From A Diary Study. Journal of Advertising Research, 27, 28-40.

Previous research shows that the frequency of requests for toys, food, etc. decline with age and 62% of parents complied with their children’s requests. The authors of this study sought out to get the precise frequency of requests for toys, food, etc. It was observed that over a 28-day period, 13.5 requests per child were made. It was also observed that requests declined with age, which is consistent with previous research. Most requests occurred at home, but a large percentage of requests for younger children were made while shopping, which is also consistent with previous research. The results also showed that when parent’s refused to comply with their children’s requests conflicts were rare. It was also reported that citing television advertisements when a child wanted a product decreased with age, which also happens to be consistent with previous research.

10. Levin, S. R., Petros, T. V. & Petrella, F. W. (1982). Preschoolers’ Awareness of Television Advertising. Child Development, 53, 933-937.

The authors of this study sought out to examine the ability of preschool children to correctly identify television advertisements as programs in an actual television-viewing situation. Past studies have revealed that children are influenced by television advertisements as soon as they begin to watch television. This has shown that children ask more for toys they had seen on television. However, past research has also revealed that children’s visual attention levels with commercial onset indicate that young children can distinguish between programs and commercials. The results of this present study reveal that children are able to understand the terms commercial and program and can use them to discriminate between the two. However, the results also show that the distinction between awareness and understanding of television advertising for children is nonexistent. Children’s ability to identify commercials on television does not imply that they understand the intent and motives of commercials. These results are consistent with other research conducted.

11. Kunkel, D. & Roberts, D. (1991). Young minds and Marketplace Values: Issues in children’s Television Advertising. Journal of Social Issues, 47, 57-72.

The authors are in agreement with past research of the issue of children’s vulnerability to commercial persuasion was overlooked throughout television’s early years. Not until 1960 did the attention to children’s television change do to different practices in broadcasting for children. In 1972 studies were published stating that children up to age 5 had a hard time distinguishing between commercials and programs. The researchers also noted that past research showed that children did not understand the persuasive intent of advertising until age 7-8 and did not fully understand it until several years later. Other past research revealed that children who area unaware of the persuasive intent of television advertising tend to express greater belief in commercials and a higher frequency of purchase requests. In 1978 the FTC proposed to either ban of severely restrict all television advertising to children. Corporate conglomerates opposed this. In the 1980s a shift toward the “marketplace approach” was made emphasizing open market competition.

12. Kurdek, L. A. & Rodgon, M. M. (1975). Perceptual, Cognitive, and Affective Perspective Taking in Kindergarten Through Sixth-Grade Children. Developmental Psychology, 11, 643-650.

Previous research has shown that children’s social interaction influences and is influenced by their ability to take another’s perspective. Perspective taking has usually been considered as a summary variable, obscuring the possible multidimensional nature of the cognitive skill. This present study hypothesized that perceptual, cognitive, and affective perspective taking would increase with grade level. The results showed that perceptual perspective taking increased with older children, cognitive perspective taking increased in basically all children, and affective perspective taking in situations minimizing the likelihood that children would project their own affective responses to a story character decreased with grade level. These results support previous research done in this area, and it supports the view that perspective taking is a multidimensional social-cognitive construct.

13. Macklin, M. Carole (1985). Do Young Children Understand the Selling intent of Commercials? The Journal of Consumer Affairs, 19, 293-340.

In 1978 research conducted by the FTC concluded that children under the age of 8 could not understand the selling intent of television advertisements. Later research conducted showed that this was not true and that children do have some idea of the selling intent of advertisement. The Purpose of Macklin’s research was to re-examine the use of non-verbal measures that were used to prove that children could comprehend the intent of commercial advertisements. The results showed that opposite of the previous research in that children are unable to understand the intent of television advertisement.

14. Pine, K. J. & Nash, A. (2002). Dear Santa: The Effects of Television Advertising on Young Children. International Journal on Young Children, 26, 529-539.

The authors of this study were in agreement with other researchers in that children are exposed to the selling messages of advertisers through television in their everyday lives. The authors sought to explore how toy advertising affects children by studying their requests to Santa Clause, monitoring toy commercials, and collecting television-viewing data. The results revealed that children who watched more television commercials were found to request more products from Santa Clause. They also requested more brand name products as well. This information parallels the results of many other researchers studying what children ask their parents to buy them. The results also showed that watching television alone produced more requests suggesting that children have better recall when alone and that children are more susceptible to advertising when alone.

15. Roedder, D. L., Sternthal, B. & Calder, B. J. (1983) Attitude-Behavior Consistency in Children’s Responses to Television Advertising. Journal of Marketing Research, 20, 337-349.

Past research has indicated that children have certain limitations in their processing abilities, younger children are unable to discriminate between programs and commercials, are less aware of advertisements persuasive intent, pay more attention to commercials than their older counterparts, can be persuaded by advertising, and can product choice can be affected through advertisement. This present study looks to apply this current information on the effectiveness of television advertisements on children to making children’s ability to making decisions among alternatives. In other words are children’s attitudes consistent with choices in response to advertisements. The results showed that when choice alternatives are similar, many in number, or require the processing of detailed information, their comparison abilities become overwhelmed. From this we are able to see that the deficit in children’s comparative skills could be a prevalent as the deficits in processing in advertising messages, which is then consistent with previous research.

16. Ross, R. P., Campbell, T., Wright, J. C., Huston, A. C., Rice, M. L. & Turk, P. (1984). When Celebrities Talk, Children Listen: An Experimental Analysis of Children’s Responses to TV Ads With Celebrity Endorsement. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 5, 185-202.

The Authors looked into if celebrity endorsements of products on television impact children. Currently there is a prohibition on celebrity endorsement during times when television is mostly geared towards young children. This was put into effect because previous research showed children not having enough cognitive development to fully understand what is going on. The results of this study supported past research in that celebrity endorsements influenced children’s perceptual and cognitive responses to advertisements. It made them perceive the product in an exaggerated way and made them less likely to understand the ad was staged and synthetic. The results however showed that age did not matter which is inconsistent with previous research that suggested that the effects are independent of cognitive and metacognitive developmental changes.

17. Rossiter, J. R. & Robertson, T. S. (1974). Children’s TV Commercials: Testing the Defenses. Journal of Communication, 24, 137-144.

The authors of this study looked into the persuasion process of children’s susceptibility to television advertising focusing on the cognitive and behavioral impacts of commercials. Previous research showed that children’s mental capability to understand the commercial concept progresses with age and grade level. The results of this study show that children with the strongest defenses to commercials became ineffective predictors of toy preference after exposing the children to a strong amount of advertisements. The results also show there was a shift from attitudinal defenses to cognitive defenses with increasing grade level. Cognitive may therefore be a higher order construct that attitude.

18. Seiter, Ellen (1993). Sold Separately. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Seiter examines the controversy over television advertising to children; specifically what commercials look like to children and why they find them entertaining. She argues that commercials are ideological and are open to many interpretations by all. Seiter also argues that parents and children negotiate all kinds of deals over television and toys which are primarily based on what kinds and how many commercials the child is exposed to, along with parents income, cultural capital, workload, and beliefs about the nature of childhood. Seiter agrees with other scholars in that commercials distort gender and racial differences among the way it is expressed and organized, but she disagrees with what scholars have said about commercials being bad moral judgments. Seiter does however note that commercial television places a burden on mothers and puts children at a disadvantage when parents do not have the money and time to provide the approved alternatives to the commercialized toys.

19. Ward, S., Wackman, D. B. & Wartella, E. (1977). How Children Learn to Buy: The Development of Consumer Information-Processing Skills. Beverly Hills, California: SAGE Publications, Inc.

The authors explore how children acquire the knowledge and skills relevant to consumer behavior. This is done through how children process information relevant to consumer decisions. The authors also look into how the influence of television advertising and the influence of the family influence consumer socialization. They found that Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory in regards to that younger children have a tendency to respond more to the immediate perceptual aspects of stimuli in television advertising. Another finding was that age does not make a difference with children’s capacity to learn consumption related skills. This seems to be consistent with only some other studies conducted within this field. The authors also found that when parent’s declined to buy their children the products advertised, their cognitive abilities did not allow them to fully understand why, but when children are exposed to the dangers of advertising, they are able to understand better why parent’s tell them no.

20. Ward, S. & Wackmen, D. B. (1972). Children’s Purchase Influence Attempts and Parental Yielding. Journal of marketing Research, 9, 316-319.

The research presented in this study sought to examine second-order consequences, focusing on the impact of television advertising on mother-child interaction. Specifically, children’s attempts to influence mothers’ purchases of products and mothers’ yielding to the attempts was looked at. Past research was able to relate children’s mass media use to parent-child interaction. Other research indicates that mothers feel television commercials influence their children. The results of this study showed that children’s purchasing influence attempts decrease with age, but mothers’ yielding to requests increases with age. Parent-child conflict was shown to have some relation to influence attempts and yielding. Other results showed that parents who restrict viewing are likely not to yield to purchase influence attempts.

21. Ward, S., Wackman, D., & Wartella, E. (1975). Children Learning To Buy: The Development of Consumer Information Processing Skills. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Marketing Science Institute.

The authors of this book have looked to characterize and increase the understanding of processes that children acquire consumer attitudes and behaviors. Stage theories of cognitive development have been used as a tool to guide age related changes in the information processing strategies that children utilize. Research focused on children’s attention behavior aspect of the cognitive development model show that age related differences have been found in their attention to television commercials relative to programming and depends on the degree of audio and visual complexity. The authors show that children’s exposure to commercials at certain ages is a socializing agent when it comes to consumerism. They are more likely to base attitudes toward specific commercials on message characteristics than on attitudes toward the product itself, and are less likely to feel that commercials always tell the truth.

22. Ward, S., Wackman, D. B. & Wartella, E. (1977). How Children Learn to Buy: The Development of Consumer Information-Processing Skills. Beverly Hills, California: SAGE Publications, Inc.

The authors explore how children acquire the knowledge and skills relevant to consumer behavior. This is done through how children process information relevant to consumer decisions. The authors also look into how the influence of television advertising and the influence of the family influence consumer socialization. They found that Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory in regards to that younger children have a tendency to respond more to the immediate perceptual aspects of stimuli in television advertising. Another finding was that age does not make a difference with children’s capacity to learn consumption related skills. This seems to be consistent with only some other studies conducted within this field. The authors also found that when parent’s declined to buy their children the products advertised, their cognitive abilities did not allow them to fully understand why, but when children are exposed to the dangers of advertising, they are able to understand better why parent’s tell them no.

23. Wartella, Ellen, “Individual Differences in Children’s Responses to Television Advertising,” Children and the Faces of Television: Teaching, Violence, Selling, Palmer, E. L. & Dorr, A. New York: Academic Press, Inc., 1981, 307-322.

The Impact of television advertising on children’s consumer product decision making showed that the major individual difference that mediates advertising’s influence is the age of the viewers as opposed to sex, race, and social class. This then dealt with the level of development of the children’s information processing abilities. Amongst the factors that Wartella explored in this study such as desire for advertised products, memory for advertised information, requests for products, and comprehension of the purpose of advertising, the only variable that showed to be consistent with other studies that mediates individual differences of preferences for advertisements was age. Younger children’s attention to commercials appears to be more heavily influenced by various production factors, they have a lower understanding of advertising claims, and their trust in advertising is greater.

24. Young, Brian M. (1990). Television Advertising and Children. New York: Oxford University Press.

Young looks at how children are not constant, immutable and unchangeable, but are social constructions that will redefine themselves depending on how the socially constructed aspects of society drift and change. He argues that when advertising is aimed at children the relationship between the two becomes a “psychological minefield” (16). Because of this children thus need protection. Protection is needed is argued through other scholars’ research in that advertising enhances and emphasizes selfishness and self-centeredness. Also advertising is regarded to influence the criteria we use when we make decisions. Advertising is also looked upon as promoting a materialistic society with goods and services that encourage certain beliefs about society. Young is in agreement with what other scholars have found in that when children are at young ages they have a hard time understanding why commercials are on T.V., are not aware of what commercials are, and what commercials try to do. Young also argues that children are unable to tell when a T.V. program ended and a commercial began leaving children vulnerable to the stimulus properties of the ad.

THE FIRST AMENDMENT v. THE SIXTH AMENDMENT:

Can Scott Peterson Receive a Fair Trial?

Campbell, Douglas S. Free Press V. Fair Trial: Supreme Court Decisions since 1807. London, Praeger Publishers. 1994.

Campbell has put together an entire book of relevant Supreme Court cases which involve the issue of fair trials and free press. The historical work of the court are necessary in answering the question of how to achieve a balance between amendments 1 and 6, as there is obviously no higher court, and in order to assess whose argument is better- that of the defendant feeling his constitutional rights have been violated or the media feeling the same- it is important to understand and cite what the highest court has ruled in the past.

Chiasson Jr., Lloyd. The Press on Trial: Crimes and Trials as Media Events. Westport, Greenwood Press. 1997.

Mr. Chiasson looks at 15 cases and the impact that the media had on how the case was carried out, the public response, and the verdict. One of the cases examined by Chiasson was that of OJ Simpson, which is of particular interest given advances in media technology that were more apparent than in much earlier cases written about in the book.

Freedman, Warren. Press and Media Access to the Criminal Courtroom. New York, Quorum Books. 1988.

Mr. Freedman asks whether the entertainment that the media must harness in order to improve ratings violates the 6th amendment. The article also looks at the workings of the English Parliament in determining where the critical balance can be achieved. Further, his work on technological advances in both media and in the courtroom itself is useful in drawing conclusions about why the problem of unfair trials in the name of interesting news broadcasts came to exist at all.

Gerald, J. Edward. News of Crime: Courts and Press in Conflict. Westport, Greenwood Press. 1983.

Mr. Gerald also looks at the complex relationship between the courts and the press in terms of constitutional amendments 1, 6, and 14. He focuses also on how court cases become huge media events, as in one media outlet capturing the public’s interest in a particular case, which then spreads to other media outlets causing for an all-out media frenzy.

Graber Doris A. Mass Media & American Politics. Washington D.C., CQ Press. 2002

Graber has written a comprehensive look at the media and its effects on politics as a whole, with a section on the effects of the media on American courts. She gives a history of courtroom coverage and a general outline of different sides involved in the debate: that is of whether the media’s right to free press outweighs the defendant’s right to a fair trial.

Haiman, Franklyn S. and Kane, Peter E. Murder, Courts, and the Press: Issues in Free Press/Fair Trial. Carbondale, Southern Illinois Press. 1986.

Haiman and Kane uses case studies to look at how the media works to distort the leal process in many ways, including the ways that a defendant’s social rank affects the type of investigation and trial that follows indictment. He also writes of the media’s treatment of jurors and how the court’s response to free press in terms of juror identification and otherwise addresses the importance of juror annomydity. Also, the role of the surrounding environment makes for more public trials in many cases, as well as in cases where the victims or defendents are public figures (eg Sharon Tate).

Hardaway, Robert and Tummnello. PRETRIAL PUBLICITY IN CRIMINAL CASES OF NATIONAL NOTORIETY: CONSTRUCTING A REMEDY FOR THE REMEDILESS WRONG American University Law Review. October, 1996

This article also examines how and why trials in the public eye are problematic for their constitutionality. Hardaway and Tumminello write that there are four types of trials which become of national concern: “(1) tabloid-type cases typically involving unusually sordid facts appealing to the nation's voyeuristic tendencies, such as the Pamela Smart murder trial; (2) cases in which the nature of the crime is so heinous or shocking that the nation's media follow it closely, such as Charles Manson's murder trial, Jeffrey Dahmer's murder trial, and the Oklahoma City Federal Center bombing; (3) cases in which the defendants are celebrities, such as O.J. Simpson's double-murder trial; and (4) cases in which the victims are celebrities, such as the trial of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.” They argue that there are not nearly enough standards in how courts establish a jury that is truly unbiased and as such, public opinion becomes far too important a factor in determining the verdict in any of the types of trials which are under the media spotlight.

Hengstler, Gary A. The Media’s Role in Changing the Face of U.S. Courts. An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State. Volume 8, Number 1, May 2003

Mr. Hengstler examines the changing face of US courts in terms of how media has influenced many aspects of the judicial process, from how judges react to increased media coverage in a way which protects the media’s first amendment right to free press and the defendant’s sixth amendment right to a fair and public trial. He outlines alternative methods for the courts to manage achieving a fair balance between both interests, and explores the effectiveness of “court public information officers” who have been created to address this problem.

Linton, James M. Camera Access to Courtrooms: Canadian, U.S., and Australian Experiences. Canadian Journal of Communication. Volume 18, Number 1, 1993

Article compares the extent to which the media can access courtroom proceedings in the US, Canada, and Australia. Given that access is most restricted in Australia and least restricted in the United States, conclusions about the culture as a whole can be drawn if one agrees with the research that has been done showing that with more restrictions on media access into courts comes more fair trials. Pressures in America, including the amount of emphasis placed on profits and indeed much higher profits in general, have led to an increase in courtroom media coverage at the expense of fair trials.

Rosman, Katherine. “JonBenet, Inc.” Brill’s Content, February 2000, pp. 96-107, 128.

Used in class, this article attempts to answer the question of why the murder of Jon Benet was a bigger deal than any murders documented on Court TV by the dozen every day, and applies directly to the case against Scott Peterson, which is experiencing essentially the same type of extreme media coverage given no extraordinary fame or nature of the crime.

Thaler, Paul. The Spectacle: Media and the Making of the O.J. Simpson Story. London, Praeger. 1997

In this book, Thaler looks at particularly why the media turned the OJ Simpson trial into the media explosion that it was. He writes: “The media failed to understand the nature of what they are and how they work. They failed to see the powerful influence of their technology, not only on the Simpson story but on the Simpson trial. And so they followed their machines into the courtroom believing in technology's inherent goodness. But as the case slips into the folds of history, the question hauntingly remains: Would the criminal trial of O. J. Simpson have come to a different, more complete closure had a rather inconspicuous machine--a television camera--been absent from Department 103?” He looks also at the failings of Judge Ito and the influence that race played in leading to a bias which may have allowed for a constitutional trial if it were held before the introduction of mass media into American courtrooms, but certainly not after.

Thaler, Paul. The Watchful Eye: American Justice in the Age of the Television Trial. London, Praeger Publishers. 1994.

This work focuses primarily on New York’s decision to allow cameras in courtrooms and the effect this policy has had. He contends that many of the problems created by a television trial, as well as the benefits, are accepted or dismissed by the American public in the name of a blind and undying faith in technology as the natural path of all. He also looks at the establishment and rise of Court TV, which at this point is central to the public’s understanding of the legal system given its easy accessibility. He asserts that often, trials become spectacles when the issues in the trial itself involve issues that are of great public importance and part of other, larger debates, as with domestic violence, insider trading, etc.

Wasserman, Jim. “DNA in Scott Peterson hearing becoming mainstream justice tool” Assocated Press, 11/03/03. Associated Press.

There are thousands and thousands of current news articles, several of which will be used in the final paper, though this particular article is of interest because it explains how Peterson’s defense team is challenging the use of a specific type of DNA that has only recently been disputed. Though current news articles are not included in this draft of the bibliography, this article is particularly interesting because if this were not a mainstream case, to challenge a DNA type that has consistently been used since DNA has been introduced as evidence raises questions about the future of forensic science in court as well as the media’s impact on this issue.

Bruschke, Jon and Loges, William E. The Effect of Pretrial Publicity on Trial Outcomes

found at: http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/jbruschke/PTP%20revision%20as%20of%205-22-98.htm.

*not sure how to cite this source...

Proves using empirical data that the following is true: “(a) greater probability of conviction is associated with low rather than high levels of publicity, (b) defendants fared better under moderate rather than no publicity levels, and (c) for those defendants who are convicted, any degree of pretrial publicity is associated with longer sentences.” Important to use real testable data in paper, and this is arguably the best tests that have been conducted in this area.

I decided to put these sources in the order of their use in my research paper. There will be an introduction explaining the film industry, specifically advertisement. But beyond that we dive right in, to the new way for a film to make money. Hype:

The term has been used more recently because of the internet. This appears to be the fastest growing form of advertising, not counting pop up ads. I’m talking about undercover sites. http://www.insideresidentevil.com/

This site is author free, claiming that if they knew what I’ve done I could be in trouble, and so on. But this frequently maintained site has the highest quality of photos and news for the upcoming action movie, Resident Evil. Bad HTML coding is no disguise for a studio run/fake movie-spy website. This is the most recent and clever concepts being used to hype up movies. People think they have some kind of in, classified information, photos that aren’t supposed to be seen, jokes on them.

http://www.thematrix.com

Very successful film, The Matrix, has an incredibly huge website. But beyond that of the normal interface is a secret binary code access mainframe. In the theme of the movies, web heads can hack their way into loads of secret information, pictures, clips, and interviews. AINT IT COOL NEWS (the Website) The most geek driven message board in the world is full of information. Run by super geek and author, Harry Knowles, this serves as a melting pot for loads of hype, made up of legit nerds, or the occasional Hollywood nerd, (one employed by the system plugging the movie) This new style of online advertisement is done in a hit or miss fashion. Its safe to say that hype does have an impact, recently seen with the hit and flop at the same time Hulk. It’s a sketchy world, the world of the internet. But as it grows more and more with each day, the power that it has will soon be used to the fullest. But we are starting to see the new wave of things even today.

Trailers and Teasers: http://www.moceanvenice.com This is the only resource for this new but impressive trailer company. They have answered several of my questions regarding, super-teasers, and how much of an impact and important trailers have become in a money standpoint. Case Studies: Signs: A very successful film that didn’t advertise using start power (Mel Gibson). A short Video Documentary “Signs: The Advertising” dives into the plan the producers and advertising team used to market the film. 12 Monkeys: A mediocre success, but owing a lot to clever advertising, discussed by director (Terry Gilliam, of Monty Python fame), producers, and the advertising team, in the documentary “The Hamster Wheel”. Other Sources Film Art by David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson • This text I’m very familiar with due to its use in film school, CSF. The book explains thoroughly how movies are created. Starting with pre-production, advertising is one of the first things a producer must deal with. The understanding of who the movie is intended for, and how can attract more than just the targeted audience are a few of the tackled concepts. These ideas are greater shown in the case studies, where we see first hand how the team puts together posters, trailers, and taglines to get people to see the movie. Ain't It Cool? Hollywood's Redheaded Stepchild Speaks Out (the Book) Both by Harry Knowles • While Harry himself has recently become a producer, all because of a website full of honesty. The book expresses Harry’s beliefs in a more professional manor; he rambles but also covers the problems that Hollywood has. His dislikes and hates. Box Office Mojo • A great database for numbers, broken down to the dollar. Enabling one to compare the cost of commercials to posters, and budget to profit. IMDB • Another online database covering more than money, but al aspects of whatever, film specific. Including a collection of news (old and related) as well as posters and comments from fellow webbies.

I also found teh first really scholarly text, "Selling the Sizzle" by Barry Avrich, though im only half through it is proving to be a great use.

Carragee, K., Meinhofer, W., Ryan, C. (2001). Theory into practice: Framing, the news media, and collective action. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 45 (1), 175.

This journal relates the concept of framing as applied to the interaction between social movements and the media. The Media Research and Action Project is the center of the article, where the authors write about how project uses frame analysis to assist social movements and groups to get further in obtaining their goals through the use of the media. Basically, the MRAP helps organizations frame their theories in the media. This article is a review of the process the MRAP uses and the outcomes that it sees.

Goldberg, B. (2002). Promoting life on the front page (Pro-life and the mass media). National Right to Life News, 29 (2), pNA.

A journal article evaluating pro-life in the mass media. The author is obviously pro-life, seeing what journal it comes from, and he evaluates how media covers pro-life movements, or the lack thereof. Goldberg also suggests ways of getting more coverage as well as positive coverage for the pro-life movement. He argues that there is a liberal bias in the mass media, but the more mainstream community that you live in, the more balanced the coverage on abortion is.

Lomicky, C., & Salestrom, C. (1998). Anti-Abortion Advertising and Access to the Airwaves: A Public Interest Doctrine Dilemma. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 42 (4), 491.

This article explores the public interest dilemma involving two competing
interests: the concern for the welfare of children and the public interest in informed political debate. The spark for this paper was the ruling by a federal court that broadcasters cannot refuse daytime or prime time television federal candidates' political
advertisements containing abortion images. The problem that broadcasters had with these advertisements was a moral issue and this article discusses that. This article is an example of the problems that pro-life organizations or believers face in the mass media. This was more of an evaluation on the court case and the legal aspects, but also showed the fight that people have to go through to get the abortion topic in the media.

Norris, Pippa (ed.) 1996. Women, media, and politics. New York: Oxford University Press.

The core purpose of this book is to bring together the separate disciplines of women’s rights to provide a “comprehensive and systematic understanding of the relationship between women, the media, and American politics.” The book uses many methods including surveying, interviewing journalists and broadcasters, focus groups and experimentation with people and their reactions to media messages. It also uses content analysis, and research of the nature of press coverage. Chapter 6 and chapter 10 are the most relevant to the media-framing topic. The former speaks of the gender gap in framing, and the social movements that come with such. The latter speaks of feminists and feminism in the news and how they and their opinion on things such as abortion are framed.

Olasky, Marvin. 1988. The Press and abortion, 1938-1988. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

This book discusses the history of abortion in the mass media. The author researched the different views that the press held on abortion throughout the years, and discussed different time period events that were going on that also influenced how abortion was depicted in the press. It reports on the sensationalism of abortion stories in the 19th century, and discusses the issue of the press backing away from anti-abortion coverage that may have alienated some of their readers and advertisers. The book also discusses how coverage went against the pro-life movement, then against the pro-choice movement and then swung into a more neutral zone. This book is a historical review of abortion and print media, and is dominated by the press-coverage in the New York area. The author gave both sides of the debate fair coverage.

Scheufele, D.A. (1999). Framing as a theory of media effects. Journal of Communication, 49 (1), 103-122.
This article systematizes approaches to framing in political communication and attempts to integrate them into a comprehensive model that can be shared throughout academia without the vagueness of what it actually is. Scheufele developed a framing model with four key processes to be addressed: frame building, frame setting, individual-level processes of framing, and a feedback loop from audiences to journalists. This is a very good article that helps conceptualize framing analysis.

Shaw, D. (1990). Abortion coverage: balanced or tilted? A little of both. The Quill, 78 (8), 32-35.

This is a journal article that analyzed abortion coverage in mass media, as well as journalist’s attitudes and objectivity when it comes to abortion. Shaw argues that most journalists do not oppose abortion because it is not the legitimate thing to do, and that they mostly see abortion opposers as religious fanatics. Shaw includes names and opinions of reporters who have done a lot of coverage on abortion. These journalists relate their experience with abortion in the newsroom. Shaw analyzes the different sides of the abortion issue, and gives each side equal weight in the article. Shaw argues that bias does often exist.

Sobel, M., & Mouw, T. (2001). Culture Wars and Opinion Polarization: The Case of Abortion. The American Journal of Sociology, 106(4), 913.

The authors of this article use polarization analysis to evaluate what is known as culture wars and to research opinion polarization. They approach abortion as a moral issue that many people have different opinions on this issue, and not just the clear cut for or against attitude. The authors argue that abortion is not becoming increasingly polarized as some may think and that America is not any more divided on this topic than in the past. This article deals less with abortion in the media, but more with how abortion is viewed by the American public, and this helps me realize how the framing of abortion begins.

A case study on the abortion debate. (2001) Retrieved October 27, 2003 from http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=csd

This case study analyzes media framing literature to discuss how certain social movements create their frames in response to opposition in order to get media coverage. It also analyzes how the movement’s organizational structure and identity can facilitate or constrain its media coverage. The findings the author reports is that the organizations framing strategy matters in getting coverage, but its structure and identity does affect this coverage.

Frame analysis. (n.d.) Retrieved October 22, 2003 from http://www.bechervaise.com/DBAR4.htm

The author of this article conceptualizes frame analysis, how it was coined and the influential people involved with its development. Not only is frame analysis discussed, but it is also applied to business in the article to show how useful it is in many areas. The article delves into a discussion about the influential people involved with frame analysis development, including Erving Goffman. Frame analysis was portrayed as a formalized and disciplined approach in this article. The author argues that the frame provides the rules and principles, which guides one towards understanding the meaning of experienced events.

How the media frames political issues. (n.d.) Retrieved October 22, 2003 from http://www.scottlondon.com/reports/frames.html

The author of this article claims that news frames are cultural and are attuned to the greater social themes. He claims that journalists frame the news in objective and episodic formats. London analyzes the news through research, and presents his opinion in this paper.

Locating Frames in the Discursive Universe. (1997). Retrieved October 22, 2003 from http://www.socresonline.org.uk/2/3/4.html.
This article was retrieved from a website titles Sociological Research Online, and is an academic site. The article analyzes framing literature. The author then develops a theoretical case for defining frames as “semi-structured elements of discourse which people use to make sense of information they encounter.” The article analyzes a number of authors and their approaches to framing analysis. The author agrees with most of the points that he presented about the other authors’ views on frame analysis. He argues that discursive structural frames and cultural frames constitute two of the forms of discourse in any society. He also argues that frame analysis has its limits and that these need to be recognized.

Shaping Abortion Discourse. (2002). Retrieved October 27, 2003 from http://assets.cambridge.org/052179045X/sample/052179045XWS.pdf

This book compares Germany and the United States and their abortion policies and debates on these policies. The book focuses more on the abortion talk rather than the policy and how cultural discourse on abortion is shaped. The authors studied the media content as a way of assessing the cultural impact of this highly political, and moral, debate and they analysis abortion through public discourse. The chapter that was the most important to this topic was the chapter on theoretical framework where the authors discuss the mass media as an arena for public discourse to take place. They claim that issue frames call the readers attention to certain events and their causes and consequences and then direct our attention away from others. This book provides a comparative overview of framing that is used in both countries. Included in this article are some of their interviews with journalists who write extensively on abortion in the media.

Barker, Martin and Petley, Julian (eds.). Ill Effects: The Media/ Violence Debate. New York, Routeledge: 2001.

The authors of the book liken the ‘violence in the media’ debate to the witch hunts in early America, emphasizing that the question ‘what are the effects of violence’ is a bogus one, but although the answer may never be truley found the “endless subsequent claims about media violence perform crucial social and political functions.” The authors evaluate the problems of defining violence and media effects in an effort to show readers the contradictions that exist in the debate.

Berger, Gilda. Violence and the Media. New York, Franklin Watts: 1989

The author points out how much time Americans spend in front of the television, and the amount of violence portrayed in the programs. The increasing prevalence of violence in television has desensitized us tp violence to the point at which we almost do not notice it or ignore it easily. She explains the one argument that defenders of violence on television have, and also the many arguments against violence o television. She includes recommendations for dealing with and portraying violence on television.

Carter, Cynthia and Weaver, C. Kay. Violence and the Media. Philadelphia, Open University Press: 2003.

With a critical look into violence portrayed in the news, television programs, and advertisements, the authors explain far different theories involving violent television and it’s effect on society; the behavioral effects theory, the desensitization theory, the cultivation theory, and the limited effects argument. Each of these theories is explained in great depth to show their contrasting natures, their successes, and their shortcomings.

Freedman, Jonathan L. Media, Violence, and It’s Effect on Aggression. University of Toronto: 2002.

With a close look into empirical studies concerning the relationship between violence on television and real violence in society, Freedman makes his stance very clear: there is no direct correlation. The author looks to other ills of society such as poverty as influences on violence in society and illustrates how, despite the increasing amount of violence in television, there has been a dramatic decrease in crime. He emphasizes that the research done shows no direct relationship.

Goldstein, Jeffrey. Why We Watch: The Attractions of Violent Entertainment. New York, Oxford Press: 1998

The editor of this book talks about how violence appeals to the general public, and how those who speak out against violence in the media are neglecting the people’s taste for such stimuli. The book seeks to solve the mystery of why people are so drawn to violence and the social implications of this obsession with violence. The authors note the need for a focus on both production and reception of violence through the media, instead of following the tradition of studying simply what comes out of the media. The book covers a range of topics involving violent entertainment and our society’s affinity for it.

Howitt, Dennis. Mass Media, Violence and Society. New York, Halsted: 1975.

Writing in the mid-1970's, Howitt argues that the public debate on violence, which was fueled by massive amounts of government funding, have failed to show a direct causal relationship between violence in the media, specifically television, and violence in reality. He is speaking in a time when violence in real life was at an all time high in the U.S., and violence in the media, although small in our perspectives, was increasing also. The general public opinion was that the two were directly related. By examining the individual worth of each study devoted to the matter of finding causal relationships, Howitt illustrates quite clearly the invalidity of their claims.

Larson, Otto N. (Ed) Violence and the Mass Media. New York, Harper and Row: 1968

The author pays close attention to fictional violence in television and the media, and it’s effects on violence in the real world. He emphasizes the entertainment aspects of the mass media, particularly television, leaving news and information programs on the back burner. He finds it important to survey how and if mass communication affects public opinion and further, public policy. Like others, he points out that the controversies over violence in television and mass media prove to be beneficial to society.

Lemert, James B. “Does Mass Communication Change Public Opinion after all?” Chicago, Nelson-Hall: 1981.

The author examines the need for a new approach to the question in the title. The book sheds light on the different problems and difficulties with the research on this topic. The author makes it clear that public opinion and widely shared attitudes toward specific issues do not correspond with eachother as many social scientists had hoped.

Potter, James W. The 11 Myths of Media Violence. California, Sage Publications: 2003.

The author, in a very persausive tone and format, argues his position on violence and the media; that they are closely interrelated. He point out that the majority of the country agrees with him. He presents eleven myths involving media violence, ranging from beliefs that the media doesn’t effect people, to the belief that there is nothing individuals can do to solve the problem. Potter writes in a very revolutionary way that calls society to action.

Potter, James W. On Media Violence. California, Sage Publications: 1999.

With a close eye on the environments in which violent media are viewed and the certain types of viewers, Potter explains many possible short term and long term effects that media violence has on viewers. He is very careful to point out that the right research methods are necessary to produce uncontradictory results and theories, and how methodological tasks must be addressed to guarantee success.

Strasburger, Victor C. Adolescents and the Media; Medical and Psychological Impact. Volume 33. California, Sage Publications: 1995. Ch.2.

The author illustrates a positive correlation between media violence and aggressive behavior, and uses the data from many studies to prove his point, which is that television, and more broadly, all mass media, trigger aggressive and antisocial behavior when containing such behaviors. He lists many circumstances in which violence has a bigger effect, including justifying violence, violence with no consequences, and the viewer being similar to the violent person. He points out that although some studies have contradicted his findings, they don’t hold enough ground to render his theories inconclusive.