Notes toward a rhetoric of animation: The Road Runner as cultural critique

–Recent studies have suggested the need to broaden our approaches to violence in children's programming. This paper uses the violence of “The Road Runner” cartoon series as a starting point for a mythico-rhetorical analysis of the message system contained in the cartoon. It explores how the animated short re-enacts the myth of Sisyphus in the context of the post-World War II technological boom in the United States. Technology is the source of most of the violence in the cartoon, and the violence is created by failures of technology. The use of a “children's” medium to critique our reliance on technology offers substantial freedom to the animator, and, in turn, to the viewer and the critic. Examination of “The Road Runner” yields insights into the meanings of cartoon violence, into how media reproduce mythic structures, and into the potentially rich message systems of children's media.     

Judging the Degree of Violence in Media Portrayals: A Cross-Genre Comparison

This study tests the relative importance of different factors of television narratives in how they influence people's judgments of how violent those narratives are. After watching 1 of 3 videotapes of a violent narrative, 99 college students answered a series of questions about their interpretations of the violence. It was found that participants' judgments about the degree of violence in the narratives were more strongly associated with their perceptions of the graphicness of the violent acts and the harm to the victims than with other factors such as the number of violent acts or the seriousness of those acts. Thus, people's judgments of the degree of violence in television programs differs from researchers' conceptualization. Implications of these differences are discussed.     

THE PERFECT GENTLEMAN

Erin Mackie explores how Mr Spectator became one persona through which James Boswell represents himself in his London Journal (1762–63), providing an antitype of the ‘rake’ persona which Boswell derives in part from Macheath in The Beggar's Opera. In this antithesis most attention falls on Macheath, but Mackie notes that in Tatler 27 Richard Steele creates a sentimental portrait of the rake as ‘the most agreeable of all Bad Characters’. Thus Boswell finds in the Tatler's rake an image of himself which stands in relation to the disapproving Mr Spectator. With this in mind, Mackie notes that the Spectator papers which describe the Mohock riots of March–April 1712 also characterize such displays as innocuous theatrical expressions of youthful ebullience. Boswell, then, finds acceptable dress for his criminal masculinity by casting himself into a ‘mock-heroic impersonation’ whilst using the narrative position provided by Mr Spectator to give himself ‘spectatorial immunity’.     

Deviant subjects in foucault and A Clockwork Orange: congruent critiques of criminological constructions of subjectivity

–The expansion of social scientific models for controlling crime and deviancy provided the context for both Stanley Kubrick's film A Clockwork Orange and much of Foucault's writing. This essay examines how Foucault's writings and Kubrick's film lay out congruent critiques of social scientific and criminological attempts to define and constitute deviancy and subjectivity. Foucault's texts and Kubrick's film ask us to remember the violence of our everyday existence and to recognize our modern nightmares as portents of what lies along the path that we have followed.     

The sub‐text: Unspoken communication

We rarely think of the possible beneficial results of training in something “everyone knows how to do”—such as learning from television. This article is drawn from Mr. May's M.A. thesis, completed in 1963 at the University of Maryland under the direction of Prof. George F. Batka. Mr. May is presently working toward a PhD. in the University of Wisconsin, as a teaching assistant in the Division of Radio‐Television‐Film.     

Border Patrolling and “Passing” in Eminem's 8 Mile

This essay argues that the semi-biographical film 8 Mile represents Eminem as being both racially distinctive and as possessing universal commercial appeal. 8 Mile accomplishes this paradoxical construction by portraying “Rabbit” as “white trash,” a discursively “dark” (white) object, and as an American mythological white subject. The film makes whiteness hyper-visible by subjecting it to raced and gendered struggles. Through real and symbolic violence, Rabbit battles “dark” villains and grapples with “dark” women, initiating a rite of passage. The film grounds Eminem's hip hop authenticity in Rabbit's discursive darkness, but attaches to this image the marketable allure of mythic whiteness. I conclude by contemplating how the film's conservatism reifies “blackness.”     

PERIODICALS,THE BOOK TRADE AND THE ‘BOURGEOIS PUBLIC SPHERE’

Despite recent assertions about the new prospects opened up by the literary periodicals which emerged in the years immediately following the expiry in 1695 of the Licensing of Print Act, it is apparent that, right through to the 1740s, writing for the stage remained the best prospect for a writer hoping to make a living by the pen. We should therefore be cautious before we make sweeping generalizations either about the profits to be made out of periodical publication or the expanding opportunities they presented for professional writers, let alone about the role of the periodical essays of Addison and Steele in the emergence of ‘a bourgeois public sphere’ in which hierarchy was suspended, and which was accessible to all. Despite The Spectator's advocacy of polite rational exchange, historical consideration of the periodical press at this time reveals a high degree of political partisanship.     

The influence of talk radio on political efficacy and participation

Talk radio has emerged as a major political force in the past few years, but there is little systematic evidence on how talk shows may affect listeners. The author uses national survey data to investigate how talk radio exposure may influence two important aspects of a healthy democracy: political efficacy and participation. The author concludes that talk radio is unrelated to self‐efficacy, the belief of one's own competence to deal with public affairs. However, attention to talk radio leads to less system efficacy, the belief in the responsiveness of government institutions and officials. Finally, exposure is found to be strongly related to participating in a number of conventional political activities.     

Critics’ and public perceptions of violence in television programs

The following article is one of the first fruits of a million dollars’ worth of research by some two dozen investigators that was sponsored by the Surgeon General's Scientific Advisory Committee in an attempt to examine the possible links between the mass media and violence. The research upon which this particular publication is based was performed pursuant to Contract No. HSM 42–70–32 with the National Institute of Mental Health, Health Services and Mental Health Administration, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Dr Greenberg, associate professor in the Department of Communication at Michigan State University, and a frequent contributor to the Journal, was the principal investigator. Mr. Gordon, a Ph.D. candidate, was senior research assistant in the same department.     

#MeToo as Connective Action: A Study of the Anti-Sexual Violence and Anti-Sexual Harassment Campaign on Chinese Social Media in 2018

ABSTRACT

In January, 2018, the global anti-sexual violence and anti-sexual harassment movement – popularly known as #MeToo – had its Chinese nascence. This study drew upon the theory of connective actions to investigate how digital technologies shift the way in which feminist activism takes place. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were employed to systematically analyse over 36,000 online articles related to the campaign. The study identified 48 cases of sexual violence and harassment allegations. Findings from time series analysis show that China's #MeToo campaign first emerged within educational institutions before gradually spreading to other sectors of society. Based on qualitative findings from the ten most controversial cases, this paper identifies a series of counter-censorship strategies. The study of how the #MeToo movement in China emerged, adapted, and grew within an authoritarian context reveals unique insights into how connective actions traverse various platforms and cultural contexts. Methodologically, this study demonstrates how mixed methods can be utilised to study connective actions on social media in China.     

“Not Just the Levees Broke”: Jazz Vernacular and the Rhetoric of the Dispossessed in Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke

This essay proposes the notion of the “jazz vernacular” as a tool specific to the Creole culture in New Orleans for understanding racial discourses of disposability both geographically and historically. We argue that the jazz vernacular is a discourse structured by musical repertoire. The jazz vernacular provides a channel for the historical pain of the black diaspora by playing in the background, both literally and figuratively, of communication in and about New Orleans. This essay considers Spike Lee's documentary When The Levees Broke to understand how the jazz vernacular frames hurricane Katrina as well as how it frames Lee's film as an intervention into “neoliberal” racial discourses. We argue that Lee's film utilizes the jazz vernacular as a metadiscourse to reinforce the ways in which residents used jazz to restructure cultural memory around the rhetoric of the dispossessed in New Orleans after Katrina. When the Levees Broke uses testimonials and affective communication to structure the narrative of Katrina through elements of the jazz vernacular like: displacement, embodiment, brashness, and improvisation to connect contemporary Creole New Orleanians to a long history of structural oppression and violence. By harnessing performative elements, Lee's film performs a jazz intervention into neoliberal discourses about freedom, defense, safety, and heroism that contrasts these discourses with the despair and the resistance of black America. Consequently, Lee's use of the jazz vernacular relies on native musical culture to recontextualize what neoliberalism had erased.     

IN THE EYE OF THE OCCUPIER

This paper investigates how a mainstream American newspaper (The New York Times) and an Indian counterpart (The Times of India) construct political violence within the American occupation of Iraq, and how they reconcile notions of democracy and occupation. For both newspapers, Saddam Hussein's execution is the reference point to guide news selection. Findings indicate some differences in the two papers’ coverage, partly explained by the countries’ military involvement in the conflict and their history with Iraq.     

An Evaluation of the Federal Communications Commission's 2007 Report on TV Violence

At the behest of 39 members of the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce, in 2007 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a report that addressed the effects of violent television on children, the constitutionality of various strategies for regulating children's exposure to violent television content, and the viability and benefit of a congressionally developed definition of excessively violent television programming. This review evaluates how well the FCC carried out the tasks assigned to it by Congress, particularly in regards to the FCC's assessment of the social scientific research on the effects of exposure to televised violence.     

The influence of warning messages on the public's perception of substance use: A theoretical framework

We bring different theories together to develop a theoretical framework that helps to understand how early warning messages about (new) dangerous drugs can influence the public's perception of substance use. We bring together the agenda setting theory, framing theory, dual processing theory, social learning theory, health belief model, theory of planned behavior, and cultivation theory in order to explain how warning messages diffused through the mass media can have an impact on the receivers' perceptions. Based on these insights we construct the Integrated Media Effect Framework (IMFE) that takes into account the role of cultural and structural contexts in the realm of early warning systems (EWS). Ultimately, this framework provides valuable guidelines for conceptualizing EWS and for developing applications by governments.     

Parents,ICTs, and Children's Prospects for Success: Interviews along the Digital “Access Rainbow”

Interviews with 52 parents of varying income levels and positions on the digital “access rainbow” are used to explore how parents discuss the widespread belief that ICT (information and communication technologies) access affects their children's prospects for success. While all parents agreed that ICT competence is important, differences emerged along socioeconomic lines regarding how parents conceptualized the computer/success relationship. While upper-income parents demonstrated greater ICT proficiency and access and assumed that their children needed ICT proficiency for success, parents in the lower-income groups saw the need for ICT proficiency as more context-dependent and adopted broader definitions of success. All parents expressed concerns about the negative attributes of ICTs as entertainment rather than educational media; for lower- and middle-income families, however, this objection justified limits on use or access among children.     

Introduction

A theoretical critique of Fishbein's conception of belief strength is advanced which examines the concept in the context of Hullian behaviorism. Fishbein's experimental support for the concept is questioned. Finally three studies are discussed that cast doubt on the importance of belief strength weights for attitude predictions.     

Scottish Archive of Print and Publishing History Records

‘It's important that we remember the past is not just dry facts and statistics but also the detailed lives of real people. SAPPHIRE aims to give a voice to these lives.’ The Scottish Archive of Print and Publishing History Records (SAPPHIRE), an initiative with Napier University as lead and Queen Margaret University College as main collaborative partner, is an oral history project which aims to record the social, economic and cultural heritage of the Scottish printing and publishing industry in the 20th century. Undertaken in partnership with a number of Scottish organizations, its results are providing a better understanding of an important and overlooked part of Scotland's heritage. Outcomes of the project include a permanent oral history archive stored at the Edward Clark Collection at Napier University, and exhibitions and publications on the history of the printing and publishing industry. The development and current activities of SAPPHIRE are described and reviewed.     

Economy & Pedagogy: Laboring to Learn in Camden County,North Carolina

This paper explores one interview participant's performances of memory as didactic efforts to resist a diverse range of public memories concerning school segregation and desegregation in rural North Carolina. By exploring Mr. Charlie's narratives, this essay provides critical insight into the articulations between capitalism, education, and white privilege, frayed by local resistant memories and community praxis. Mr. Charlie's memories provide the opportunity to reimagine received traditions of race, education, and equality as marked by alternate forms of economic and social relations. Specifically, he articulates a gray education and gray market, and their place outside of traditional white pedagogy and the capitalist economy. These gray pedagogies and economies present larger implications for the ways race has crossed all of our paths.     

Romantic Relationship and “Yuan”: A Preliminary Study of Chinese in Hong Kong

This study investigated how the traditional Chinese concept of “yuan” influences perceptions of romantic relationships. A small-scale survey of young people in Hong Kong indicated that the belief in yuan was prevalent among respondents. In addition, a significant, positive correlation was observed between participants' belief in yuan and relationship satisfaction. However, romantic love was a better predictor of satisfaction and commitment than was the belief in yuan.     

Communication Skills,Social Support,and Burnout among Advocates in a Domestic Violence Agency

Intimate partner violence affects millions of lives annually. Domestic violence advocates work to alleviate this problem; yet the nature of the work leaves them vulnerable to negative outcomes such as burnout. This study examined the relationships between communication anxiety, communication competence, perceived social support, and feelings of burnout among domestic violence advocates. Results from a survey of 69 individuals recruited from a US domestic violence agency show the combination of communication anxiety, communication competence, perceived emotional support, and perceived informational support accounted for approximately 13% of the variance in advocates' emotional exhaustion and 21% of the variance in advocates' experiences of reduced personal accomplishment. Responses also differ with the advocate's position in the agency. The following recommendations are offered: develop scenario-based communication skills training programs to reduce communication anxiety and increase communication competence, hold regular debriefing meetings to help advocates process their experiences and to receive peer support, and develop formalized mentoring programs that can provide social support for new workers.