Profit (f)or the Public Good?

From the Sunday Pictorial's 1952 ‘Evil Men’ series, the first postwar exposé on homosexuality to appear in the British popular press, to the 1964 achievement by its stable mate the Daily Mirror of record circulation figures, both papers commodified and sensationalized homosexuality for consumption by mass newspaper audiences. Sensationalism was combined with homosexuality as a deliberate strategy to succeed in Britain's highly competitive postwar circulation wars and also to promote particular personal and political agendas of key directors. But historians have tended to focus on the vitriol of sensationalism, emphasizing its homophobic content, without fully interrogating the tactic itself. This paper looks at the origins of sensationalism as a strategy at Mirror Group newspapers, asserting that sensational treatments of homosexuality concretely illuminate the multiple interactions between subjective beliefs and the seemingly objective profit motive. At the Daily Mirror and Sunday Pictorial, homosexuals held a negative moral, political, and social value, but critically, they also held a high commercial value.     

Online Celebrity Bashing: Wrecking Ball or Good for You? Adolescent Girls’ Attitudes Toward the Media and Public Bashing of Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez

Journalists and readers of celebrity news regularly bash celebrities online, a behavior that is easily accepted among adolescents. This study investigates whether these attitudes of acceptance differ according to the perpetrator of the bashing (media versus public) and the likeability of the involved celebrity (liked versus disliked). Using a vignette study, we examine adolescent girls’ attitudes toward media (journalists’) and public (readers’) bashing of a generally disliked celebrity (Miley Cyrus) and a generally liked celebrity (Selena Gomez). All participants read an identical negative news story (media bashing) and two related negative reader comments (public bashing). Participants were randomly assigned to read this information about either Miley Cyrus or Selena Gomez. Results of a mixed-design ANOVA showed that the girls had less negative attitudes toward media bashing compared with public bashing. Moreover, they more easily accepted the bashing of a disliked celebrity than the bashing of a liked celebrity.     

The Future of the Library: What Is a Public Library For?

The author suggests that libraries have been transformed a third time. Originally, libraries were the only place that valuable, handwritten, rare books could be found. As mass production kicked in post-Gutenberg, the library became an efficient way for the community to access knowledge. Today, though, in a post-paper world, the library must adopt a new role, a place where the community finds ideas, inspiration and others on a similar journey. The librarian is no longer a guardian of valuable books, but a curator of curiosity, passion and interest.     

Public Trust or Mistrust? Perceptions of Media Credibility in the Information Age

This article explores perceptions of news credibility for television, newspapers, and online news. A survey was administered to a randomly selected sample of residents in Austin, Texas, to assess people's attitudes toward these 3 media channels. Contingent factors that might influence news credibility perceptions, such as media use and interpersonal discussion of news, were incorporated into the analysis. Findings suggest that people are generally skeptical of news emanating from all 3 media channels but do rate newspapers with the highest credibility, followed by online news and television news, respectively. Furthermore, opinions about news credibility seem to be correlated across media outlets. The data also show a moderate negative linkage between interpersonal discussion of news and perceptions of media credibility for television news but not for newspapers. When controlling for basic demographics, a positive correlation was found between interpersonal communication and online news credibility. Finally, a marginal association was noted between media use and public perceptions of credibility across all 3 media channels.     

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: Celebrity Media Diet and the Cultivation of Emerging Adults’ Materialism

The present study used cultivation theory to explore the relationships between celebrity media diet and materialism for a sample of 224 emerging adults. Results indicated main effects between both celebrity magazine consumption and celebrity TV news consumption on materialism. Total celebrity media diet was also significantly related to materialism. Findings suggest that a media diet high in celebrity culture and lifestyle has significant impact on emerging adults’ preoccupation with consumerism, particularly for women. This research contributes to a growing body of literature on the effects of a celebrity-saturated media environment and the cultivation of materialistic attitudes.     

Inclusion or Illusion? An Analysis of the FCC's Public Hearings on Media Ownership 2006–2007

An assessment of the extent of public involvement in the FCC's media ownership hearings in 2006–07 was conducted through an analysis of the hearings' structure, the 732 public comments made in them, and the FCC's ensuing Report & Order (R&O). In light of the rising call for pluralism, direct democracy and public involvement in policy deliberations, the results reveal that the FCC consistently hindered public participation in the hearing process it initiated and managed through limited advance notice, inconvenient timing, a hearing structure that subordinated the public to experts and stakeholders, and scarce mention of public comment in the final report.     

Just another Brick in the Wall … or Not? A Paradigm Introduction Activity

Courses: Research Methods; Theory

Objectives: To begin the semester with an engaging activity that introduces students to basic metatheoretical assumptions and help them find themselves in the world of research     

Back to the 1990s? Comparing the Discourses of 20th- and 21st-Century Digital Image Ethics Debates

In 2010, New York Times photographer Damon Winter sparked controversy when he used an iPhone equipped with the Hipstamatic application to produce heavily filtered, Polaroid-style front-page photographs of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The debate over whether such images were photojournalism, or merely photographs, was reignited the next year as some of his images were honored in one of the country's most prestigious photojournalism competitions, and the practice of using filter-friendly apps for journalism spread. This article compares professional discourses around such journalistic use of smartphone apps with discourses that developed earlier in the digital era around digital image manipulation in Photoshop, with the goal of proposing ways to interrogate imaging technology controversies yet to come.     

Public libraries and blind people: what kind of relationship?

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Where Does it Hurt? Identifying the Real Concerns in the Ethics of Reference Service

No abstract available for this article.     

Stealing From the Rich to Entertain the Poor?: A Survey of Literature on the Ethics of Digital Piracy

The backlash against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)/Protect IP Act (PIPA) legislation brings to light a battle that has been raging between Hollywood and Silicon Valley ever since technology made it easy to illegally copy and distribute copyrighted material. Many studies have been done on digital pirates in order to create a demographic, psychological, and ethical profile of them. This article compares these studies and examines the assumption that many of them are based on; namely, that digital piracy is always unethical or criminal in today's world. It also discusses alternative delivery methods that have been used by content creators and the implications for the future.     

What Underlies the False Consensus Effect? How Personal Opinion and Disagreement Affect Perception of Public Opinion

This study draws on a sample of participants in online groupsto analyze the interaction between individual-level and communicative-levelfactors that affect public opinion perception. We first assessthe association between individual views on several issues—thedeath penalty, gun regulation and teaching morality in publicschools—and false consensus, i.e., the tendency to attributeown views to others. We also examine whether the associationbetween individual opinion and false consensus is mitigatedby perceived disagreement with offline discussion networks andwith participants in online discussion groups. As expected,not only is there a correlation between personal and perceivedopinion, but also those who strongly favor the three policiesestimate public support to be higher than do those who are unfavorableor moderate. Multivariate models further show that encounteringdisagreement, online or offline, attenuates the associationbetween the individual opinion and false consensus. Theoreticaland practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Can Inoculation Work Against the Spiral of Silence? A Study of Public Opinion on the Future of Taiwan

This study explores the relationships between inoculation andthe spiral of silence theories. Inoculation strategies wereemployed to mitigate the process of the spiral of silence, especiallyfocusing on resistance to counter-attitudinal attack, attitudinalconfidence, willingness to speak out, fear of isolation, andchange of attitude. A field experiment was conducted in a two-wavesurvey of randomly sampled citizens in Taiwan. The issue employedwas Taiwan's political future in relation to the People's Republicof China. Results are consistent with major inoculation findingsand support the study's core hypotheses: Inoculation treatmentsenhanced people's resistance to attitude change. People whoreceived an inoculation pre-treatment, as compared with thosewho did not, became more confident in their attitude over time,more willing to speak out on behalf of one's attitudes, andmore likely to overtly resist the counter-attitudinal attemptsof others to influence oneself. Received for publication November 21, 2002. Revision received August 14, 2006. Accepted for publication November 28, 2004.