Gessoes in Portuguese Baroque gilding grounds,part 1: A study of historical documentary sources

The surviving gilded and polychrome altarpieces and sculptures in Portuguese churches, and the historical documents relating to them, offer an opportunity for understanding material and technological choices regarding gesso grounds. This paper focuses on the historical documentary research about gessoes — one aspect of a wider research project which also involved investigation of physical/chemical evidence, and archaeological reconstructions of gilded gesso grounds. Documentary research sheds light on the meaning of the terms used in historical documents, and on artists’ choice of materials and practices, production, and trade patterns of materials. It informs technological investigations and conservation decisions. The paper also stresses the importance of the evidence gained by using the historical and archaeological methodology applied in material culture studies, in which documentary, analytical, and experimental information complement and/or elucidate each other, leading to a comprehensive understanding of this technology.     

The Challenges of Understanding Science Learning in Informal Environments

Abstract The National Research Council report Learning Science in Informal Environments provides a much‐needed synthesis of what research says about informal learning. LSIE makes key observations about science learning and emphasizes the challenges faced in trying to understand and document those complex processes. Yet assumptions about how—and under what conditions—people learn science are not necessarily universal constructs. Such assumptions are driven by the theoretical perspectives of the researchers, as well as the culture of the learners themselves. The limited scope of the volume prohibits it from fully addressing such cultural and historical contexts, and the subsequent implications for methodological approaches. Nevertheless, the report is an important starting point for informing educators, researchers, and policy‐makers who work with or within informal science institutions.     

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.     

John Wesley on rhetoric and belles lettres

Students of public address have long admired the rhetorical works of two of the leading ministers of the eighteenth century—Hugh Blair and George Campbell. Little has been said, however, about the rhetorical theory of another eighteenth‐century preacher, John Wesley. The purpose of this paper is to analyze Wesley's views on rhetoric and belles lettres. Since most of the subjects covered by Blair in his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres were also discussed by Wesley in his Journal, Letters, and essays, Blair's pattern of organization is followed here. Hence the study considers Wesley's precepts on taste, genius, style, the speaker's content and organization, delivery, poetry, and historical and philosophical writing.     

Changes in confidence during a period of speech training: Transfer of training and comparison of improved and non‐improved groups on the bell adjustment inventory

The Examiner papers, the Conduct of the Allies, the History of the Four Last Years of the Queen, and the other productions which Jonathan Swift composed during his years as chief publicist for the Tory administration of Harley and St. John (1710–1714) are among the most effective examples of persuasive discourse in the history of British political pamphleteering. Much of this effectiveness is attributable to the skill with which Swift‐steadily aware of the prejudices and demands of his predominantly rural and conservative audience—manipulated such specific rhetorical devices as imagery, anecdote, analogy, historical example, allegory, insinuation, and other such items from the vast catalogue available to the polemicist.     

Unfolding narrative meaning over time: The contributions of mother–daughter conversations of difficulty on daughter narrative sense-making and well-being

Recent narrative theorizing suggests that humans process their difficult experiences by not only creating stories—called individual narrative sense-making (NSM)—but also by telling those stories with others—called communicated narrative sense-making (CNSM). The present study investigated the relationship between individual and communicated NSM to understand the effects of interpersonal communication on intrapersonal meaning-making and well-being. In this longitudinal, laboratory-based study, 62 mother–daughter pairs wrote and discussed stories of daughters’ difficulty. Findings revealed that CNSM—particularly turn-taking, coherence, and daughters’ perspective-taking—predicted increased positivity in daughters’ stories over time, suggesting that CNSM contributes to “re-authoring” of individual stories. Limited effects emerged for CNSM and well-being. Findings expanded knowledge about the interconnections between intrapersonal and interpersonal communication, and well-being.     

The basis of liability for broadcasting defamatory remarks

In an article that appeared in Winter 1958–1959 issue of the Journal of Broadcasting, Profesor Gordon Greb added a new contender for the title of “oldest station in the nation.”; As a result, KQW has joined KDKA, WHA and WWJ as a candidate for the honor of primacy in American radio broadcasting. Although Greb's article created as much interest and controversy as any that has appeared in the Journal, it did not—and could not—still the confidence of the other claimants.

In the instant article, Mr. R. Franklin Smith does the field of historical radio research a service by setting forth, for the first time, a logical set of criteria by which to judge these conflicting claims. To illustrate he has utilized early records of WHA. Using these criteria, it is shown that WHA cannot claim to have been a true broadcasting station before the latter part of 1920. Comparison of the claims of the several contenders is outside the scope of this article. However, it would be extremely interesting if these criteria were applied to the conflicting claims by persons having access to the detailed station records and other data necessary for thorough analysis.

Perhaps Mr. Smith has given us the impetus and the tools necessary for determining which station really was the “oldest in the nation.”     

When is Fiction as Good as Fact? Comparing the Influence of Documentary and Historical Reenactment Films on Engagement,Affect, Issue Interest,and Learning

This study advances documentary film effects research by comparing the influence of a political documentary with a historical reenactment film on narrative engagement, affect, learning, and interest. Using the Rwandan genocide as a context of study, a documentary film, The Triumph of Evil, and the historical reenactment fictional film, Hotel Rwanda, were examined. Results revealed significant differences between documentary and historical reenactment film exposure for affective responses and issue knowledge gain. However, increased issue interest and narrative engagement were not significantly different for the two stimulus groups, suggesting that dramatic fictional reenactments of socio-political events lead to increased issue interest as much or more than the live footage and factual account of events offered in a documentary. The results of this study are discussed in terms of their importance for key democratic outcome variables (e.g., knowledge and participation), along with suggestions for future documentary film research.     

EBSCO's Communication & Mass Media Complete: An Appreciable Improvement Over Previous Communication Studies Indexing?

ABSTRACT

In a prior edition of this study, we examined whether the established online communication studies indexes—Communication Abstracts, ComIndex, and ComAbstracts—provided a good avenue of access to the journal literature that researchers in the field cite and whether, where the current journal literature was concerned, that avenue of access might be equal or superior to that provided by large, multisubject online indexes. In this iteration of the study, we similarly address EBSCO's new product for communication studies, Communication & Mass Media Complete.     

Narrative Transportation in Radio Advertising: A Study of the Effects of Dispositional Traits on Mental Transportation

This study examined the impact of 3 individual traits—namely need for cognition, vivid mental imagery ability, and transportability—on one's psychological transportation and ensuing belief change subsequent to listening to a narrative radio advertisement. The study demonstrated that both vivid mental imagery ability and transportability tend to significantly influence one's degree of transportedness. Moreover, the study showed that a higher degree of transportedness leads to a more potent persuasive impact on one's affective and conative responses to narrative radio advertising.     

Gregory Bateson,Niklas Luhmann,and Ecological Communication

Cognizant of the evolving academic discipline of ecological communication (EC), I offer this essay as a follow-up to my previous publication—a critical exegesis of Niklas Luhmann's Ecological Communication (1989)—in this journal. Hoping to throw more light on Luhmann's formulations, I introduce and interpret those writings of Gregory Bateson that apparently influenced the former—and/or attempted to link ecology with communication. While I do not necessarily advocate either of these two thinkers' overall philosophical frameworks, I believe that they deserve attention—at the least insofar as they provide a measure of contrast to the contemporary academic discourse of EC (which remains shallow, intellectually parochial, and nonrigorous). That aside, many specific ideas developed by these two thinkers will interest a wide range of constituencies—especially those devoted to the study of information, communication, and ecology.     

On the Use of Beats-Per-Minute and Interbeat Interval in the Analysis of Cardiac Responses to Mediated Messages

The measurement of an individual’s heart rate has many relevant theoretical implications for communication research. However, there are reasons to believe that the most common way of reporting cardiac response—beats per minute (BPM)—might not be appropriate for all methodological situations. This article presents an overview of the historical use of cardiac activity within communication research, and provides a summary of the current conceptualizations of attention and resource allocation. To fully understand the difference between BPM and interbeat interval (IBI)—an alternate method for reporting cardiac response—a comparative analysis was performed on a data set from a previously published study. This article concludes with a set of suggestions that researchers may want to consider when utilizing BPM or IBI within communication research.     

A Lineage of Leakers?

This study draws on the theoretical framework of collective memory to ascertain the ways in which a story from journalism’s past—Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers—was brought to bear in coverage and commentary of a broadly analogous story in journalism’s present—WikiLeaks, Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, and Edward Snowden. The discourse was far from uniform, which we see as indicative of the contingencies of collective memory. We find four themes: (1) lack of consensus on whether Ellsberg, Manning, and Snowden constituted a lineage of leakers, as some journalists contended, or if there are distinctions to be drawn; (2) discussion about the contingencies of historical representation and awareness of the role of “victors” in shaping history; (3) celebrations of journalism and its storied history amid a backdrop of flux; and (4) discussion of changes in technology and how they impacted the methods of the leakers. Theoretical and methodological implications for the study of journalism and collective memory are discussed.     

Reviewing Social Democratic Corporatism: Differentiation Theory and the Norwegian Labor Press

This article reviews the problem of disciplinary isolation in the human sciences, especially as it relates to psychology, and outlines how this problem can be addressed with the help of ideas of two figures—L. S. Vygotsky and M. M. Bakhtin. Vygotsky's claims about the social origins of individual mental functioning and his analyses of how cultural tools mediate social and individual functioning provide a means for relating individual mental functioning to cultural, historical, and institutional settings. Bakhtin's ideas about dialogicality, multivoicedness, and related phenomena complement and extend Vygotsky's claims and provide further theoretical means for integrating various disciplines’ contributions to the human sciences through the study of communication. After reviewing the contributions of Vygotsky and Bakhtin, an illustration concerned with multivoicedness in historical representation is provided.     

Structure or Predisposition? Exploring the Interaction Effect of Discussion Orientation and Discussion Heterogeneity on Political Participation

Past research on how discussions with non-like-minded others impacts political participation has focused mostly on structural attributes of discussion networks, and—as a result—has produced inconsistent findings. This study, therefore, introduced the concept of discussion orientation—one's willingness to express and listen in political discussion, even when disagreement exists—as a predispositional explanation of the impact of discussion heterogeneity on political participation. Based on the national telephone survey data, during the course of the 2004 election, we find a strong main effect of individual predisposition to express different opinions on political participation. In addition, the link between discussion heterogeneity and political participation is significantly stronger for those respondents who exhibit a willingness to express different opinions during those conversations.     

Gender,Media and Protest

This article traces the ways in which the British suffragette Emily Wilding Davison was represented in national newspapers between 1913—the year she died—and 2013, the centenary of her death. We identify three key discourses through which Davison has been represented in four British newspapers throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first: delegitimisation, recuperation and trivialisation. In doing so, this paper provides original insights into the ways that the fight for women’s rights has been figured in different historical moments. A key argument is that over time, Davison’s militant actions—once cast as those of a hysterical lunatic—have slowly come to be recuperated and legitimised as part of the story of British democracy. However, this discursive shift cannot be straightforwardly celebrated as a progressive move in representations of women’s movements, as Davison is frequently invoked to delegitimise contemporary feminism. Our analysis charts the extent to which Davison has been visible (or not) in newspapers through different historical periods; the specific ways in which Davison’s image was transformed along with broader changes in women’s status; and it considers the political implications of these (in)visibilities and representations for contemporary feminism.     

Personal Beliefs and National Stories: Theater in Museums as a Tool for Exploring Historical Memory

How does what we remember about history relate to true historical understanding, and how can the museum become a location for these conversations? During the summer of 2011, the National Museum of American History challenged audiences to consider issues of historical memory and national history through the performance of an interactive museum theater program, The Time Trial of John Brown. Using the Time Trial approach as a case study, this article reveals that interactive theater in museums can provide a platform from which audiences assert their own historical understanding while learning firsthand about their role in creating a shared knowledge of American history. As the role of museums evolves in the twenty‐first century, new attention must be paid to this personal process of examining and creating history and memory through performance. It is through performance and participation that history and memory are both examined and created by the audience.     

The Tyranny of the Empty Frame

This study explores the notion of the “tyranny of the empty frame” within the online departments of the two leading Slovenian newspapers, Delo and Dnevnik, where online journalists—newsworkers with little or no training or experience in photojournalism—are required to provide each news item with at least one photograph. By adopting newsroom observation and in-depth interviews with online journalists working for Delo and Dnevnik, we investigate paradoxes associated with this imperative. Despite often being faced with a desperate search for “any image,” online journalists at both institutions are reluctant to use citizen-produced photographs—their use appears to be an aberration rather than a norm. Instead, they frequently resort to using what they refer to as a “symbolic photograph” to overcome the lack of visual material originating from the reported event. This move from indexical–iconic nexus to metaphoric visual communication signals challenges to the dominant paradigm of press photography. At the same time, we suggest that we should not view the phenomena of citizen photojournalism as a radical break with the past but as the latest development in a series of interrelated processes, intellectual projects of modernity, such as ocularcentrism, journalism, capitalism and the nation state.