When Poststructural Theory and Contemporary Politics Collide—The Vexed Case of Global Warming

Policy debate about global warming has been framed in the public sphere in the manner of most political topics, as a matter of “skeptics” and “supporters,” making it very difficult for many US publics to know what to believe. This essay critically reads a preeminent public policy debate—that of global warming—with a twofold purpose. I first array the extensive commercial and political efforts to manipulate public information about global warming in order to illustrate that this debate is a “disingenuous” or “pseudo-controversy,” which can be seen in the asymmetrical resources, motives, and authority behind the scenes. Second, I ask what institutional and discursive conditions have enabled this moment, in which the ideals of academic freedom and protocols of scientific inquiry hold precarious authority in the public arena, and argue that contemporary critical perspectives on knowledge and truth have been co-opted in public discourse, making it more difficult to intervention in commercial and political efforts to obfuscate and mislead US publics.     

Understanding Celebrity Endorsers in Cross-cultural Contexts: A Content Analysis of South Korean and US Newspaper Advertising

Based largely on McCracken's ‘cultural meaning transfer’ model (1989), which stresses the cultural meanings of celebrity endorsers, this study explores the characteristics that differentiate celebrity-endorser strategies in South Korean newspaper ads from those in US newspaper ads. With Hofstede's cultural typology—uncertainty avoidance and power distance—as a theoretical framework, this study finds that ads in South Korea with a high uncertainty avoidance and a high power distance culture present a higher proportion of celebrity endorsers than those in the US with a low uncertainty avoidance and a low power distance culture. However, US ads have a greater proportion of product-related celebrity endorsers in both high- and low-involvement product ads. The study also provides detailed information on foreign celebrity endorsers presented in international product ads.     

社会信息化之信息资源测度指标构建及发展水平测度研究

我们正处在信息社会的发展历程中,信息化测度成为社会发展的研究热点。而信息资源是社会信息化的基础,文章通过“驱动力——响应——影响——状态表征”这样的逻辑结构,提出了一个包含9项指标的信息资源测度体系。并且用SPSS12.0统计工具对我国31个省市、自治区、直辖市2000-2005年的信息资源指标数据进行了主成分分析,在此基础之上,对测度结果进行了分析。数据表明测度结果基本反映我国信息化建设的现状,提出在未来的发展中更要重视信息资源的开发和利用,以推进地区的协调发展。     

When the Gated Misbehave

This study analyzes online reader comments on top US newspapers’ stories related to former congressman, Anthony Weiner’s, August 2016 sexting scandal. Audience gatekeeping was seen through such discussion themes as gender bias and sexism, political scandals, and sex addiction. The analysis revealed that the majority of reader comments significantly diverged from the news topic, and many comments about US politicians were uncivil. Furthermore, online discussions “drowned out” newspapers’ intended message about Weiner’s inclusion of his toddler son into a sexually explicit selfie. This study argues that online commentary should not be perceived as a dichotomy—a negative or positive development, a contributor or preventer of public discourse—but rather as a continuum of citizen engagement.     

Metacoverage and Mediatization in US Presidential Elections

This article develops a theoretical model consisting of three mechanisms that link metacoverage, a type of election campaign news, to mediatization, a meta-process in which media organizations influence politics. The mechanisms hinge on the point that metacoverage—consisting of both topics and frames—constitutes a rich set of process-oriented cues that influence how campaign organizations adjust to the media logic in the course of performing functions associated with the office-seeking political campaign logic. A case study of 2012 US presidential election news was conducted to illustrate how metacoverage influences campaign strategies.     

美国妇女选举权档案开发利用的特色分析及启示

美国国家档案馆为纪念宪法《第十九条修正案》100周年,发起一项为期18个月的全国性倡议,带动各州庆祝妇女选举权。本文分析指出美国妇女选举权档案开发利用的内容特色——主题集中、关注个体和突出人物;方式特色——多媒介、数字化和关联式开发并行,最后总结出对我国的启示——档案开发利用宜主题集中、方式多样、把握时机的持续性。     

Faculty and Instructor Perceptions of Open Educational Resources in Engineering

As open education initiatives aiming to lower the cost of course materials appeared at two universities, librarians became involved in identifying open educational resources (OERs) for university courses. However, when considering a number of subject areas—particularly in colleges focused on upper-division instruction—librarians encountered problems related to the availability of resources and materials selection processes. For this project, librarians selected one prominent subject area at their respective institutions—engineering—and worked to identify best practices for introducing OERs into courses. They surveyed engineering faculty and instructors to better understand their perceptions and needs related to OERs and, based on this work, they suggest best practices for liaison librarians in specialized fields who wish to incorporate OERs into their outreach work with a focus on upper-division courses.     

WRNO Worldwide: A case study in licensing private us international broadcast stations

This article examines the licensing of radio station WRNO—the first private US international station constructed in 20 years and the only such station to operate commercially with a popular music format.     

(De)stabilizing Sexual Violence Discourse: Masculinization of Victimhood,Organizational Blame,and Labile Imperialism

Following calls to center nation, we analyze sexual violence discourse in the US Peace Corps. The texts we consider deploy three typical dichotomies—public/private, self/other, and agent/victim—that, in this case, reveal inconsistencies at the intersections of race and gender. We argue that these inconsistencies are evidence of lability, counterintuitive discursive shifts necessary to maintain white heteromasculine dominance. Instead of blaming individual victims of rape and assault, the masculinization of victimhood shifts culpability to the Peace Corps. This organizational blame maintains the moral position of the US and legitimates imperialism. By marking these instabilities, we trace the solidity and vulnerability of sexual violence discourse as it organizes global power.     

New materials,new processes: implementing digital imaging projects into existing workflow

Electronic resources and multimedia databases are quickly becoming an integral part of library collections. These electronic resources are forcing libraries to look at many parts of their organization—in particular, technical services—and to begin planning and implementing available technology for the organization and management of these materials. Designing and re-designing workflow will be a critical component in the successful access to and integration of electronic resources with existing materials and workflow. This article draws on the authors’ own experiences designing, planning and implementing workflow for two digital imaging projects, including using an SGML/XML metadata standard to provide access to digitized resources in all formats. The authors will share the challenges of learning new technology to organize and manage these resources (with no increase in staff), show how technology can be applied for increased efficiency, and discuss future possibilities.     

NEWS ACCURACY IN SWITZERLAND AND ITALY

Nearly 80 years of accuracy research in the United States has documented that the press frequently errs, but empirical study about news accuracy elsewhere in the world is absent. This article presents an accuracy audit of Swiss and Italian daily regional newspapers. Replicating US research, the study offers a trans-Atlantic perspective of news accuracy. To compare newspaper accuracy in Switzerland and Italy to longitudinal accuracy research in the United States, the study followed closely the methodology pioneered by Charnley (1936) and adapted by Maier (2005). News sources found factual inaccuracy in 60 percent of Swiss newspaper stories they reviewed, compared to 48 percent of US and 52 percent of Italian newspapers examined. The results show that newspaper inaccuracy—and its corrosive effect on media credibility—transcends national borders and journalism cultures. Nowadays, digitization offers new ways of implementing correction policies. Media organizations need, however, to adapt to these changes and to adapt their structures in particular to new forms of participative and interactive two-way communication.     

Essential Collaboration

Abstract

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as part of the academic library is central on the campus and succeeds with collaboration—in the library, across campus, in the community and region, throughout the state, and at the national level. The integrated components of GIS—hardware, software, data, people, and methods—provide a framework for collaboration. Initiated in 2001, the Geographic Information Systems & Maps Program at the University of Arkansas (UA) Libraries resulted from and developed through collaborative opportunities. The program, which is primarily web based, incorporates locally developed yet nationally recognized resources including Starting the Hunt—a guide to geospatial data on the Web—and GeoStor—a statewide, comprehensive and seamless geospatial data warehouse and delivery system. A model incorporating spheres of collaboration describes the nature and benefits of collaboration at the five different levels, as experienced in the UA Libraries. The model can guide other libraries proactively seeking opportunities of collaboration, in order to develop resources and services for a successful GIS program.     

利用USPTO网站资源检索美国专利信息

在对美国专利与商标局于因特网上公开的专利信息特色资源进行简要介绍的基础上,指出利用网站提供的数据库及网站提供的其他专利信息相关服务,从多个途径检索美国专利引文信息、专利权属信息、专利文献中序列信息等内容的具体方法,并对每一种途径均分别提供相应的检索实例。     

Necropolitical voices and bodies in the rhetorical reception of Iranian women's asylum claims

In the mid-1990s, US immigration courts were introduced to a group of Iranian women who claimed that they feared persecution because of their “pro-Western and feminist” political opinions and because of the way they performed gender on their bodies. The claims were, in total, unsuccessful bids to asylum. Analyzing these cases set against the geopolitical background of US–Iranian history and contemporary relations, I argue that their denials illustrate three important dynamics. First, building on rhetorical theorizing of voice and body, this essay demonstrates the uneasy reception in US law and politics of willful noncitizen women of color with explicit political voices and bodies, and second, the consequential racialization of these subjects as willful, unorderable migrant subjects too akin in their sovereignty to their state of birth. Third, this analysis adds to the field's attentiveness to geopolitics by consequently demonstrating US necropolitical desires toward Iran in the state's engagement with these cases. I argue that for the United States to recognize these claimants as having political voices contrary to their state would be to recognize the presence and legitimacy of that state—a sovereign that challenges US power and modernity on the global stage.     

Beyond Walter Cronkite’s “And That’s The Way It Is”

Television anchors are key public figures in the American news media, vital for the ratings success of their outlets. This study uses content analysis and framing theory to examine US network news anchors’ role at a pivotal career moment—the last minutes in the all-powerful anchor chair—their swan songs. These final words are examined for messages as anchors express gratitude, sum up careers, provide journalism insights, and pronounce final words of wisdom. The textual analysis revealed several dominant frames—becoming one with the audience, expressions of gratitude to staff and viewers, the anchors’ perception of their historical role noting predecessors and successors, and insightful wisdom about journalism’s role in society. The visual analysis showed a style reinforcing a professional presence, signaling authority, and objectivity. Each American lodestar anchor was different, yet they were similar in how they said goodbye and how they wanted to be remembered.     

Building Political Support for Your Library Through Surfacing

Abstract

This column describes “surfacing”—a technique commonly used in political campaigns to raise awareness about a candidate or cause long before election day—and explores ways in which it applies to campaigns for library funding or initiatives. Surfacing is most effective during the earliest phase of a campaign to ensure that a candidate or cause is viable and has the resources needed to move the political agenda forward. EveryLibrary, a national organization dedicated to building voter support for libraries, has used the surfacing approach successfully, helping public libraries across the U.S. gather the resources they need to win or successfully move an initiative forward.     

Managing Masculinities: The Metrosexual Moment

In this essay, I explore the historical moment of metrosexuality in popular culture that, I argue, rather than simply a fad, constituted a logical premise vital to assuaging the “crisis” in masculinity engendered by the phenomenon of commercial masculinity. I trace the ways in which the fleeting trend of metrosexuality was articulated rhetorically in US popular culture in such a way as to rationalise commercial masculinity in targeted, explicit ways. I argue that metrosexuality served a crucial rhetorical function for the reconciliation of commercial masculinity with normative masculinity by organising homosociality in strategic ways. Accordingly, I suggest that apparently transient popular cultural trends might best be understood in terms of their location in—and strategic rhetorical function for—broader cultural discourses.     

Reconciling Hall with discourse,written in the shadows of ‘“Confederate” and Rainbow Flags

ABSTRACT

This essay addresses Stuart Hall and discourse theory, focusing on his essay “Signification, representation, ideology.” Reflecting upon recent events involving representation and identity—US legalization of gay marriage, murders at a gay nightclub, removal of the “Rebel Flag” from the South Carolina state capitol, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign—I attempt to destabilize the counterproductive dualism of material/discourse in Hall’s critique of poststructural discourse theory. Finding amenability between Hall and Foucaultian discourse theory, I describe Hall’s utility for discourse scholars, such as his perspectives on ideological practices and generation of new discourses as an interventionist act.     

International graduate students in the United States: Research processes and challenges

International students enrolled in graduate programs in the United States struggle with conducting academic research and can benefit from specialized library support. This qualitative study uses critical incident technique to explore how these students complete research assignments and use library and other resources in the process. Many participants described similar research processes, beginning with selecting a research topic and ending with cutting and pasting text from sources deemed to be useful. Two-thirds described using specific library resources—usually online resources—for their research. Some described broader research difficulties, such as coming up with a good idea, and others struggled with more specific skills like data analysis. Half of the participants had received some sort of library instruction, but they did not have particularly positive responses to these sessions. The findings of this study may be of use to academic librarians who wish to better understand international students and improve research support for this user population.