Book review

Douglas, S. J. (1994). Where the girls are: Growing up female with the mass mediay. New York: Times Books. 340 pages.

Lang, A. (Ed.). (1994). Measuring psychological responses to media messages. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 244 pages.

Cosby, C. O. (1994). Television's imageable influences: The self‐perceptions of young African Americans. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. 172 pages.

Kern‐Foxworth, M. (1994). Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, and Rastus: Blacks in advertising, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. 205 pages.

Fiske, J. (1994). Media matters: Everyday culture and political change. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 253 pages.

Johnson, L. L. (1994). Toward competition in cable television. Cambridge, MA & Washington, DC: MIT Press & AEI Press. 214 pages.

Krattenmaker, T. G., & Powe, L. A., Jr. (1994). Regulating broadcast programming. Cambridge, MA & Washington, DC: MIT Press & AEI Press. 369 pages.

Moores, S. (1993). Interpreting audiences: The ethnography of media consumption. London: Sage. 140 pages.     

Book review

Kamalipour, Y. R., & Mowlana, H. (Eds.). (1994). Mass media in the Middle East: A comprehensive handbook. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press. 333 pages.

Boyd, D. (1993). Broadcasting in the Arab world: A survey of the electronic media in the Middle East (2nd ed.). Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press. 386 pages.

Hoyer, S., Lauk, E., & Vihalemm, P. (Eds.). (1993). Towards a civic society: The Baltic media's long road to freedom. Tartu, Estonia: Baltic Association for Media Research. 366 pages.

Silj, A. (Ed). (1992). The new television in Europe. London: John Libbey. 644 pages.

Noam, E., Komatsuzaki, S., & Conn, D. (Eds.). (1994). Telecommunications in the Pacific Basin. New York: Oxford University Press. 514 pages.

Englis, B. G. (Ed.). (1994). Global and multinational advertising. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 266 pages.     

Book reviews

Zillmann, D., Bryant, J., & Huston, A. C. (Eds.). (1994). Media, children, and the family: Social scientific, psychodynamic, and clinical perspectives. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 351 pages.

Grant, A. E. (Ed.). (1994). Communication technology update (3rd Ed). Boston: Focal Press. 389 pages.

Jankowski, C. F., & Fuchs, D. C. (1995). Television today and tomorrow: It won't be what you think. New York: Oxford University Press. 237 pages.

Braun, M. J. (1994). AM stereo and the FCC: Case study of a marketplace shibboleth. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. 206 pages.     

Wired But Not Connected

Summary

The main library Web pages representing Yahoo!'s list of the “100 Most Wired Colleges” were analyzed for accessibility to people with disabilities. Forty of the pages were judged accessible using Bobby, the online automated service developed by the Center for Applied Special Technology. Frequencies of accessibility errors, recommendations, questions, tips, and browser compatibility errors are provided. The study found no relationship between accessibility of the library home pages and indicators of institutional resources, as represented by Yahoo! ranking (computer resources), Association of Research Libraries composite ranking (extent of library resources), and Carnegie Classification (range and extent of academic and research resources). Guidelines for accessible Web pages and an Adaptive PC Computer Workstation are included.     

Reviews

Bruce M. Owen and Steven S. Wildman. Video Economics. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992. 364 pages.

Carol Smith and Carolyn Stewart Dyer. “Taking Stock, Placing Orders: A Historiographic Essay on the Business History of the Newspaper.” Journalism Monographs No. 132 (April 1992). 56 pages.

Albert N. Greco. Advertising Management and the Business Publishing Industry: Marketing Notes and Cases. New York: New York University Press, 1991. 301 pages.     

Book reviews

Webster, J. G., & Lichty, L. W. (1991). Ratings analysis: Theory and practice. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 290 pages.

Turow, J. (1992). Media systems in society: Understanding industries, strategies, and power. New York: Longman. 265 pages.

Blanchard, R. O., & Christ, W. G. (1993). Media education and the liberal arts: A blueprint for the new professionalism. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 187 pages.     

The speech of diplomacy as a field for research

BLEEDING KANSAS, by Alice Nichols. … 5 5/8” × 8 5/8”, $4.50 …. Oxford University Press

ESSENTIALS OF DISCUSSION AND DEBATE by Halbert E. Gulley, University of Illinois … March 1955, 160 pages, paper‐bound, probable price $1.50 … Henry Holt and Company.

THE FUNK &; WAGNALLS BOOK OF PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE, by Lawrence W. Bridge, Certified Parliamentarian, Member of the National Association of Parliamentarians … 192 pages, 5 1/2 × 7 5/8, charts, tables, index, $3.00 … Funk &; Wagnalls Company.

HOW TO THINK CREATIVELY, by Eliot D. Hutchinson … 237 pages, $2.75 … Abingdon Press

HOW TO SPEAK—HERE, THERE, AND ON THE AIR, by John Dixon … 249 pages, $2.75 … Abingdon Press.

TELEVISION BROADCASTING, by Howard A. Chinn: Chief Engineer, Audio‐Video Division, General Engineering Department, Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. … 695 pages, 6x9, 342 illus., $10.00 … McGraw‐Hill Series in Speech.

SPEECH IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, by Mardel Ogilvie: Assistant Professor of Speech, Queens College … 318 pages, 6 × 9, 22 illus., $4.50 … McGraw‐Hill Series in Speech.     

Book reviews

Meheroo Jussawalla, Donald M. Lamberton, and Neil D. Karunaratne, eds., The Cost of Thinking: Information Economies of Ten Pacific Countries. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing, 1988. 272 pages, $29.50.

Vincent Mosco and Janet Wasko, eds., The Political Economy of Information. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. 368 pages, $40.

Robert G. Picard, James P. Winter, Maxwell McCombs, and Stephen Lacy, eds., Press Concentration and Monopoly: New Perspectives on Newspaper Ownership and Operation. Norwood, N. J.: Ablex Publishing, 1988. 231 pages, $39.50.     

A future for the journal

Huston, A.C., Donnerstein, E., Fairchild, H., Feshbach, N.D., Katz, P.A., Murray, J.P., Rubinstein, E.A., Wilcox, B.L., &; Zuckerman, D. (1992). Big world, small screen: The role of television in American society. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 195 pages.

Blumler, J.G. (Ed.). (1992). Television and the public interest: Vulnerable values in West European broadcasting. London: Sage. 242 pages.

Dayan, D., &; Katz, E. (1992). Media events: The live broadcasting of history. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 306 pages.     

Putting Students in the Driver's Seat

Abstract

Library Web pages are increasingly designed to be the initial entry point for research, whether used from the library or off campus. But the pages must be intuitive and easy to use or students may bypass them completely, in favor of more familiar Web resources. This article presents the process, results, and evaluation of a Web usability study conducted at Linfield College with undergraduate participants. Web usability testing was a relatively quick and inexpensive way to find out how students used the library Web pages, information that proved invaluable in making effective modifications to them. In the process, researchers gained insights into student online searching and research patterns that have informed reference and teaching activities as well.     

In it for the Long Run?

While previous research has focused on the uses of a variety of online services—such as Web pages and, more recently, Twitter—by media organizations and their audiences, a rather limited amount of empirical inquiry has been directed towards the often more and broadly used Facebook platform. The current paper contributes to the research field by providing a longitudinal study of journalist and audience engagement on the Facebook pages of Sweden's four major newspapers—Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Expressen and Svenska Dagbladet. Employing state-of-the-art methods for data collection, the results indicate that while audiences appear to be increasing their engagement with news organizations on Facebook—albeit mostly through so-called “likes”—the media organizations themselves are decreasing their engagement with audiences.     

The Future of Academic Publishing: A View From the Top

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the transition that publishers have had to make in the process of converting print journals and reference books to an online format. It was originally thought that making content available online would save publishing costs, but the changes made to production cycles and the needs of making content widely available, updated, and housed on online platforms are sometimes more expensive than the print process alone. Publishers have responded with new pricing models, and they are working more closely with libraries to deliver content to a wider audience while competing with search engines and other online content providers. Additionally, publishers have a new responsibility to manage the quality and accuracy of content given that so much information is now available to readers.

This article originally published in Journal of Library Administration, Vol. 49, Issue 4, pages 439–458, 2009. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01930820902832579.     

A space for countering colorblind discourse: constructions of police-perpetrated homicides of African-American males

This qualitative study assesses how police-perpetrated homicides of African-American males are constructed in the public sphere. Similar studies on the discourse surrounding the topic have focused on newspaper articles as the discourse unit. In this article, I argue that the opinion-editorial (op-ed) pages of newspapers are a space for challenging colorblind frames invoked the discourse about police use of force that dominates in the print media. To demonstrate this point, I conducted an ethnographic content analysis of 168 op-eds from five different U.S. newspapers: Contra Costa Times, New York Times, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Salt Lake Tribune, and Washington Post. The op-eds focused on the police-perpetrated homicides of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice in 2014. The findings from this study indicate that the op-ed pages provide a unique opportunity for Black voices to be heard, as well as a space for dominant frames about police-perpetrated homicides to be challenged. Paradoxically, the results also impugn the sequestering of Black voices into the openly subjective spaces of print media.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: THE MANUAL OF MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS: Barry Lord and Gail Dexter Lord, editors. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2002, 570 pages. Illustrated. Soft cover: $44.95. Hard cover: $90.00. ADULT MUSEUM PROGRAMS: DESIGNING MEANINGFUL EXPERIENCES: Bonnie Sachatello‐Sawyer, Robert A. Fellenz, Hanly Burton, Laura Gittings‐Carlson, Janet Lewis‐Mahony, Walter Woolbaugh. Walnut Creek, CA: Alta‐Mira Press, 2002, 184 pages. Soft cover: $24.95. Hard cover: $69.00.     

Rank-Stability and Rank-Similarity of Link-Based Web Ranking Algorithms in Authority-Connected Graphs

Web search algorithms that rank Web pages by examining the link structure of the Web are attractive from both theoretical and practical aspects. Todays prevailing link-based ranking algorithms rank Web pages by using the dominant eigenvector of certain matrices—like the co-citation matrix or variations thereof. Recent analyses of ranking algorithms have focused attention on the case where the corresponding matrices are irreducible, thus avoiding singularities of reducible matrices. Consequently, rank analysis has been concentrated on authority connected graphs, which are graphs whose co-citation matrix is irreducible (after deleting zero rows and columns). Such graphs conceptually correspond to thematically related collections, in which most pages pertain to a single, dominant topic of interest.A link-based search algorithm A is rank-stable if minor changes in the link structure of the input graph, which is usually a subgraph of the Web, do not affect the ranking it produces; algorithms A,B are rank-similar if they produce similar rankings. These concepts were introduced and studied recently for various existing search algorithms.This paper studies the rank-stability and rank-similarity of three link-based ranking algorithms—PageRank, HITS and SALSA—in authority connected graphs. For this class of graphs, we show that neither HITS nor PageRank is rank stable. We then show that HITS and PageRank are not rank similar on this class, nor is any of them rank similar to SALSA.This research was supported by the Fund for the Promotion of Research at the Technion, and by the Barnard Elkin Chair in Computer Science.     

Literacy,Culture and History

The World on Paper. David R. Olson. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994, 318 + xix pages. ISBN: 0–521–44311–3.     

Books

Civilizing the Museum: The Collected Writings of Elaine Heumann Gurian: Elaine Heumann Gurian London and New York: Routledge, 2006. Paperback, 208 pages. $35.95     

The Asian broadcasting union

Little is known in the United States of the various regional broadcasting associations. Even such basic volumes as Emery's National and International Systems of Broadcasting cover the major organizations—European Broadcasting Union, International Radio and Television Organization (OIRT), URTNA (Africa), Inter‐American Broadcast Association, and Asian Broadcasting Union (ABU)—in fewer than a dozen pages. The Journal of Broadcasting only has published materials on the first two of these. As global broadcasting over domestic channels becomes a satellite‐borne reality, this lack of information is bound to become more and more embarrassing.     

Film Directors

Andrew Sinclair, John Ford (New York: The Dial Press, 1979 – $11.95)

Jeanne Basinger, Anthony Mann (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979 – $10.95)

Richard Leiterman by Alison Reid (120 pages, $5.50 in paper)

Federico Fellini: A Guide to References and Resources by John C. Stubbs with Constance D. Markley and Marc Lenzini (246 pages, $30.00)

Richard Lester: A Guide to References and Resources by Diane Rosenfeldt (152 pages, $15.00)

Ernest Lubitsch: A Guide to References and Resources by Robert Carringer and Barry Sabath (262 pages, $20.00)

Sidney Lumet: A Guide to References and Resources by Stephen E. Bowles (151 pages, $15.50)

Ken Russell: A Guide to References and Resources by Diane Rosenfeldt (140 pages, $14.00)

John Schlesinger: A Guide to References and Resources by Nancy J. Brooker (130 pages, $14.00)

Frederick Wiseman: A Guide to References and Resources by Liz Ellsworth (212 pages, $ 24.95)