Equal Time in Prime Time? Scheduling Favoritism and Gender on the Broadcast Networks

This study examines the relationship between broadcast network scheduling practices and representation of women on screen and behind the scenes in the 7999-2000 prime-time season. Drawing on previous re- search of scheduling practices and organizational theory, the researchers posited and found that programs airing on the weblets (WB, UPN) employ greater percentages of women on screen and behind the scenes than the big three networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) or Fox. In addition, women working behind the scenes on the weblets correlated with higher representation of female characters when compared to the big three networks and Fox. Moreover, weblet programs featuring women on screen and behind the scenes enjoyed more favorable scheduling practices than those on the big three networks and Fox. The authors concluded that the weblets provide a more hospitable environment for women than the more established networks.     

Make or Buy? A Qualitative Analysis of the Organisational Handling of Digital Innovations in the German Book Publishing Sector

Traditional media have been changing in response to digitisation processes and the spread of the internet. This article looks at the consequences of technological change for the organisational structures of publishing houses in Germany, most of which are small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Following any decision to produce digital content, new tasks emerge which need to be fulfilled and publishing houses have to re-allocate appropriate responsibilities. The context of the preference for in-house or for external production is explored as is the precise identification of the managerial and technical skills demanded by a switch to digital publishing. The findings suggest the important role of strategic partnerships with service providers as well as with other publishing houses, especially for larger projects beyond the capabilities of SMEs.     

Does Media Consumption Make Us Happy? Evidence for Spain

This article concerns the study of the impact of media consumption on happiness in Spain using data from the fourth wave of the European Social Survey, distinguishing between watching TV, listening to the radio, reading newspapers, and using the Internet. A negative effect of TV watching was found on individual happiness, mainly among women; those with higher incomes; and those with paying jobs—that is, among those with a higher opportunity cost of time. However, this negative effect on happiness does not appear for radio listening, newspaper reading, or Internet usage.     

What Does It Take to Make a Great Library?

No abstract available for this article.     

Prevention of Substance Abuse: Can Museums Make a Difference?

After declining during the 1980s, use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs is again rising in junior and senior high schools nationwide. A field-trip program developed at the Hall of Health (HOH) in Berkeley, California, attempts to reverse or lessen this trend by communicating in a museum setting the dangers of drugs and addiction. Pre-visit and post-visit surveys collected from 823 students in fifth through eighth grade showed the HOH program had an immediate, significant impact on statements of intent to use alcohol, tobacco, diet pills, downers, and inhalants as well as illegal drugs in high school. Two weeks after the field trip in a follow-up study of 172 students, those who initially intended to experiment with drugs still showed a significant reduction in their original intent (as indicated in their pre-visit survey) to use 12 of 15 drugs. The program may serve as a model for museums desirous of reversing the trend toward drug use by young people.     

Gender differences in research areas,methods and topics: Can people and thing orientations explain the results?

Although the gender gap in academia has narrowed, females are underrepresented within some fields in the USA. Prior research suggests that the imbalances between science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields may be partly due to greater male interest in things and greater female interest in people, or to off-putting masculine cultures in some disciplines. To seek more detailed insights across all subjects, this article compares practising US male and female researchers between and within 285 narrow Scopus fields inside 26 broad fields from their first-authored articles published in 2017. The comparison is based on publishing fields and the words used in article titles, abstracts, and keywords. The results cannot be fully explained by the people/thing dimensions. Exceptions include greater female interest in veterinary science and cell biology and greater male interest in abstraction, patients, and power/control fields, such as politics and law. These may be due to other factors, such as the ability of a career to provide status or social impact or the availability of alternative careers. As a possible side effect of the partial people/thing relationship, females are more likely to use exploratory and qualitative methods and males are more likely to use quantitative methods. The results suggest that the necessary steps of eliminating explicit and implicit gender bias in academia are insufficient and might be complemented by measures to make fields more attractive to minority genders.     

Gender and research publishing in India: Uniformly high inequality?

Women’s access to academic careers has been historically limited by discrimination and cultural constraints. Comprehensive information about gender inequality within disciplines is needed to understand the problem and target remedial action. India is the fifth largest research producer but has a low international index of gender inequality and so is an important case. This study assesses gender inequalities in Indian journal article publishing in 2017 for 186 research fields. It also seeks overall gender differences in interests across academia by comparing the terms used in 27,710 articles with an Indian male or female first author. The data show that there are at least 1.5 male first authors per female first author in each of 26 broad fields and 2.8 male first authors per female first author overall. Compared to the USA, India has a much lower share of female first authors but smaller variations in gender differences between broad fields. Dentistry, Economics and Maths are all more female in India, but Veterinary is much less female than in the USA. There is a tendency for males to research thing-oriented topics and for females to research helping people and some life science topics. More initiatives to promote gender equality in science are needed to address the overall imbalance, but care should be taken to avoid creating the larger between-field gender differences found in the USA.     

“Double Duty”: A Suggested Activity for Meeting the Challenge of Teaching and Performing the Freshman Public Speaking Course

Objective: This article should encourage students to explore various teaching styles and delivery methods in film and in their own lived experiences

Courses: Public Speaking for Freshman and/or Education Majors     

Public Journalism Through the Lens: How Television Broadcasters Covered Campaign ‘96

Public journalism has had a less measurable impact in local television newsrooms than in newspapers. A study of 1996 election coverage found that broadcasters who committed to practice public journalism devoted more airtime to policy issues and less to election polls than other stations. But the differences in coverage were so small they fell short of statistical significance. In contrast, coverage in newspapers Committed to public journalism was substantively different from other papers.     

Through the ‘I’ of the beholder: A rationale for physicalization in performance of narratives

This article presents a rationale for physicalization in performance of narrative prose based on the literary convention of “point of view.” It explores a variety of narrative voices and attempts to illustrate, through example, how narrators rely on both imitation and narration to present story to audience.     

Does Title-By-Title Selection Make a Difference? A Usage Analysis on Print Monograph Purchasing

This article compares the usage of print monographs acquired through firm orders and approval plans to determine whether title-by-title book selection makes a difference. The circulation data of print monographs acquired in a four-year period were extracted and separated according to their acquisition methods. Usage data were analyzed according to the Library of Congress Classification system and library's three subject area groups (Humanities, Social Sciences, and Sciences). The results indicate that books acquired via firm orders had a higher circulation rate in almost all subject areas. The authors discuss how the findings can be used to inform future collection practices.     

You Can Lead Students to Sources,but Can You Make Them Think?

ABSTRACT

In developing and teaching a new first-year psychology course that integrates information literacy skills, a librarian and a psychologist learned the importance of teaching critical thinking skills explicitly, rather than implicitly. Students learned how to use the library resources and learned concepts in psychology, but until critical thinking was taught explicitly, students did not understand the value of what they were learning. In this article, implicit versus explicit learning is defined, and psychological principles are applied to demonstrate how critical thinking can be used to teach library and information skills.     

Gender differences in information behavior concerning Wikipedia,an unorthodox information source?

This study examined gender differences in information behavior concerning Wikipedia. Data were collected using a Web survey in spring 2008. The study used a convenient sample that consisted of students who had taken an introductory undergraduate course at a large public university in the Midwestern United States. A total of 134 out of 409 students participated in the study. As information consumers, male students used Wikipedia more frequently than their female counterparts did. With respect to the purposes of Wikipedia use, male students used Wikipedia for entertainment or idle reading more than their female counterparts, while there were no gender differences regarding Wikipedia use for other purposes. Male students were more likely to discount the risks involved when using Wikipedia information compared to their female counterparts. Furthermore, male students had higher ratings than female students regarding most aspects of Wikipedia, including outcome expectations, perceptions about its information quality, belief in the Wikipedia project itself, emotional states while using Wikipedia, confidence in evaluating information quality, and further exploration. Finally, there was no gender difference regarding the number of years of Wikipedia use. However, male students reported having more positive experiences with the information quality of Wikipedia than their female counterparts. Overall, the findings of this study were consistent with those of previous studies concerning gender. Given the acknowledgment of the knowledge value of Wikipedia in recent literature, it seems that there are more advantages to using Wikipedia than there are disadvantages. The current study shows that male students seem to enjoy such benefits more than female students and may have more opportunities to develop their information literacy skills than female students by actively using Wikipedia. This suggests that educators need to encourage female students in particular to explore Wikipedia strategically as an initial information source so that they can develop their information literacy skills for unconventional sources.     

I’m New…Again: Reconceptualizing the Socialization Process Through Rotational Programs

Communication scholars have studied how organizations socialize new employees in breadth, but we know less about how employees adapt to multiple roles rather than just one position. With the rise of rotational programs, which introduce newcomers to several different jobs within a brief time, socialization theory should be expanded. This study focused on people’s experiences in rotational programs to provide a more accurate picture of this complex socialization process. Longitudinal, qualitative data from employees during their first and second job rotation revealed that such employees’ socialization differs from traditional employees’ experiences. The results suggested a Model of Rotational Socialization that more accurately portrays the socialization process by accounting for the contrast between role and organizational socialization.