Excellence in Broadcasting? Rush Limbaugh and Image Repair in the Sandra Fluke Controversy

Rush Limbaugh is one of American radio's most successful performers, but that success has always come with controversy. In 2012, Limbaugh's comments about college student Sandra Fluke caused a public outcry and dozens of advertisers to suspend or end their participation on his daily program. This research, employing Benoit's image repair theory, examined how Limbaugh tried to deal with the fallout from his comments. The study found Limbaugh employed multiple strategies, including denial (shifting blame), evading responsibility (good intentions, provocation), reducing offensiveness (minimization, attacking one's accusers, transcendence) and mortification.     

Spreading the word? European Union agencies and social media attention

Public agencies need to distribute information to their manifold audience quickly and directly. The emergence of social media platforms has sparked positive projections about future government-public interactions via the internet and almost every EU agency has created social media presences on the leading social media platforms. However, social media accounts of agencies receive strongly varying amounts of public attention and therefore display varying degrees of usefulness to connect with the public. This research examines which factors influence how much long-standing and temporal attention social media accounts of EU agencies receive. Using an extensive Twitter dataset of EU agencies and a new methodology that employs supervised text classification through the novel BERT language model to classify agency tweets, possible explanations of social media attention are tested. Results show that long-standing social media attention (i.e., size of the followership) is mostly explained by salience in traditional news, account age, and tweeting frequency, whilst a more interactive communication style tends to yield more temporal attention (i.e., number of retweets). The findings underline previous assumptions that employing a more interactive communication style maximizes public organizations' potential to connect with their audiences on social media.     

Is the partnership working?: evaluating the approval plan vendor

An evaluation of a Blackwell U.S.–U.K. approval plan is ongoing during 1997–98. The goals of this evaluation are: to determine if appropriate books are being received in each subject; to obtain feedback from faculty members involved in selection; and to evaluate Blackwell as an approval plan vendor. The plan’s purpose and context are also being reviewed, especially budgetary and staffing issues. An evaluation procedure was written, statistical reports and lists of titles received on each profile were produced and distributed to departments, and discussions were held among liaison librarians and faculty members analyzing this data. Blackwell’s performance as an approval vendor will be measured against specific performance criteria, including publisher coverage and prevention of duplication. Results from the project to date include revision and improved coordination of subject profiles, experience using Blackwell’s Collection Manager Web site, and preparation for possible participation in an OhioLINK statewide approval plan.     

Ideology and foreign news coverage: Propaganda model re‐examined

By comparing and contrasting the New York Times and Newsweek's coverage of the 1980 South Korean student demonstrations and the 1989 Chinese student demonstrations, this study set out to examine two important concepts of Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model: political ideology and national interest. While the original model did not address situations where both factors are present, and at the same time contradicting each other, it is the purpose of this study to test the applicability of the model in general, and to clear up this issue in particular. Dichotomous treatments of the two student movements were found in the New York Times and Newsweek's coverage. Important findings of this study further suggest that in a cold war context, ideology serves as a more important news factor than national interest in influencing the American media's foreign news coverage.     

Verbal Aggression,Race, and Sex on Reality TV: Is This Really the Way It Is?

This content analysis examines verbal aggression, race, and gender presented in a composite week of popular reality TV programming on cable and broadcast television. Results show that African Americans were found to be overrepresented and depicted disproportionately as more verbally aggressive and more likely to be victims of verbal aggression than other races/ethnicities. African American women were more likely than men to be involved in verbal aggression, both as aggressor and victim. The results are discussed in terms of the potential effects of exposure to verbal aggression and the accompanying contextual factors found in reality TV programming.     

Counting publications and citations: Is more always better?

Is more always better? We address this question in the context of bibliometric indices that aim to assess the scientific impact of individual researchers by counting their number of highly cited publications. We propose a simple model in which the number of citations of a publication depends not only on the scientific impact of the publication but also on other ‘random’ factors. Our model indicates that more need not always be better. It turns out that the most influential researchers may have a systematically lower performance, in terms of highly cited publications, than some of their less influential colleagues. The model also suggests an improved way of counting highly cited publications.     

Perceptions of the Future of Cataloging: Is the Sky Really Falling?

Cataloging procedures have evolved in many academic research libraries over the past 10 years. Some predicted trends—outsourcing, original cataloging by paraprofessionals, more digital material—have been borne out. Others, such as a decline in the amount of material to catalog or in the number of professional catalogers, have not. Changes have been mostly procedural and have not affected the catalog itself. Recently, however, the emergence of powerful Internet search engines has allowed researchers to bypass the catalog. This has led some to question the wisdom of continuing it and others to vigorously defend current practice. In 2005–2007 this debate became especially heated, but a consensus appears to be emerging that although the character of the professional cataloger's job will continue to evolve over the next 5 to 10 years there will not be a revolution. The cataloger's basic skills will still be needed and the fundamental nature of cataloging will remain much as we know it.     

Textbook Affordability: Is There a Role for the Library?

Try searching the library catalog, as many students do each semester for the latest version of the textbook being used in a class at many universities and you will likely come up empty-handed. Many academic libraries—due to high prices, frequently issued new editions, and a tendency to go missing from the collection—have justifiably chosen to play only a marginal role in the provision of textbooks on campus. However, the dynamics of the textbook market are changing rapidly and this presentation explored the question: Should libraries reconsider the roles they play in the provision of course materials on campus? This session focused on the issue of affordability in the context of the rapid evolution and increased availability of e-textbooks (electronic versions of textbooks). Topics covered included: an overview of the e-textbook market, purchasing options and outlets for e-textbooks, new business models for institutional access to e-textbooks, potential savings from e-textbook adoptions, information on negotiating with publishers and platform providers, and why the library is well-positioned to play a prominent role in the provision of e-textbooks.     

The War of the Airwaves in Portugal: Foreign Propaganda on Short and Medium Waves, 1933–1945

This article focuses on the start of the “war of the airwaves” in Portugal. It provides data on the first foreign shortwave broadcasts in Portuguese, describing the background to those initial broadcasts and also analyzing their impact on Portuguese public opinion, as well as the degree of importance afforded such broadcasts by the Allies and the Axis Powers during World War II. Moreover, the article also details some of the strategies used by the warring nations to influence the editorial line of Portuguese radio stations.     

The US and UNESCO: Is it time to rejoin?

After a brief analysis of the founding and history of UNESCO, “The US and UNESCO: Is It Time to Rejoin?” examines the political, administrative and budgetary reasons why the United States withdrew from UNESCO in 1984, the several reforms undertaken by Director General Mayor in the last 2 years and whether the changes to date warrant US re-entry.After considering the arguments of both proponents and opponents, the paper sets forth three major criteria for rejoining: (1) budgetary and financial reform of UNESCO; (2) thorough reform of the secretariat; and (3) major programmatic changes with the intention of “returning UNESCO to the original ideals of its Charter”.While giving high marks to the personal integrity and remarkable energy of Director General Mayor, the paper questions whether he can persuade the organization to accept the radical reform he is proposing, noting the negative and even hostile response of the Executive Board and the General Conference to his Mid-term Plan.The paper concludes that it is premature for the US to make any definitive decision at this time, but predicts that the US will rejoin if the organization returns to its roots and concentrates on “practical achieveable projects”, not the “pretentious unrealistic goals” that have too often attracted UNESCO members and management.     

Evaluating research and researchers by the journal impact factor: Is it better than coin flipping?

The journal impact factor (JIF) is the average of the number of citations of the papers published in a journal, calculated according to a specific formula; it is extensively used for the evaluation of research and researchers. The method assumes that all papers in a journal have the same scientific merit, which is measured by the JIF of the publishing journal. This implies that the number of citations measures scientific merits but the JIF does not evaluate each individual paper by its own number of citations. Therefore, in the comparative evaluation of two papers, the use of the JIF implies a risk of failure, which occurs when a paper in the journal with the lower JIF is compared to another with fewer citations in the journal with the higher JIF. To quantify this risk of failure, this study calculates the failure probabilities, taking advantage of the lognormal distribution of citations. In two journals whose JIFs are ten-fold different, the failure probability is low. However, in most cases when two papers are compared, the JIFs of the journals are not so different. Then, the failure probability can be close to 0.5, which is equivalent to evaluating by coin flipping.     

Adolescents and Movie Ratings: Is Psychological Reactance a Theoretical Explanation for the Forbidden Fruit Effect?

Adolescents were recruited to participate in an experiment to assess whether psychological reactance can provide a theoretical explanation for the forbidden fruit effect in the context of movie rating restrictions. In addition to examining if movie ratings served as antecedents to freedom threat perceptions, we investigated the role authoritarian parents had on freedom threat perception and reactance arousal. Results indicated that a movie with an NC-17 rating was perceived as a stronger freedom threat than R and PG-13 rated movies. Interestingly, adolescents who perceived their parents to be authoritarian were less likely to view movie ratings as a freedom threat. As expected, freedom threat perceptions were positively associated with psychological reactance. Reactance, in turn, was positively associated with both first and third person attitudes. The results are discussed with an emphasis on the theoretical and practical implications of the findings.     

Radio and Localism: Has the FCC Dropped the Ball?

Although no news of the FCC task force initiative on localism came forth between 2004 and 2006, members of Congress have taken an interest in the effects of localism in radio broadcasting. This interest can be attributed to the view that radio consolidation has minimized local radio service. As well, satellite-delivered radio has begun to encroach on local radio as it now provides traffic and weather updates in selected metropolitan markets. This article investigates the status of radio and localism, an issue that affects listeners across the nation.     

Libraries and value propositions: Worth the investment?

What is a library worth? This question has implications for all libraries and the clientele they serve, especially in times of economic uncertainty when libraries often have to justify their existence and demonstrate their worth. One method of assessing this worth is through value propositions, which have been primarily associated with the business sector, wherein an exploratory process is used to discover what customers need from an organization. This article will show how libraries can utilize value proposition strategies to think differently about how their resources and services create value for their respective patron segments. This renewed perspective may encourage librarians to reimagine their purpose, reorganize their focus, and redefine their worth.