Cox broadcasting corporation: A group‐ownership case study

One of the oldest and largest of the group owners in radio and television is historically traced in this article, taken from the author's dissertation on group ownership in television, written under the direction of past BEA‐President Rod Right‐mire at Ohio University. The author is on the broadcasting faculty at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.     

Single versus multiple‐system cable television

The senior author is an assistant professor of radio‐television at Indiana University, where Robert Blau is working toward a PhD. The article which follows is based on research done originally for an Indiana cable company for which the authors served as consultants.     

Research in radio,television, and film by graduate students in speech

Speech graduate students perform varied types of research in the radio‐television‐film field. An analysis of the nature of this research suggests some important conclusions.     

Uruguay's utopian broadcasting: Political and artistic freedom

It is perhaps inevitable, but none the less disturbing to discover errors, in standard reference works. The source of the error may be well hidden, but it is the responsibility of each researcher to check “accepted” findings, whenever opportunity presents itself. This is as true with respect to bibliographic citations as to research data or analysis. This “research coup” by Frank Kahn is one of several comments on Lawrence Lichty's “Who's Who on Firsts: A Search for Challengers” published in the Winter, 1965–66 issue of the Journal. Many corrections or additions were published in the Spring, 1966, issue, and readers are urged to send in other “challenges” as soon as possible. Mr. Kahn, Lecturer in radio and television at Queens College, has contributed to the Journal of Broadcasting in the past.     

Fan mail to Liberace

Although stations, networks and advertisers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on various rating services and audience measurement surveys, they often overlook a gold mine of voluntarily submitted feedback from their audience: the fan letter. It is true that the “pan” letter condemning a program often gets inordinate attention on decision‐making levels, but the run‐of‐the‐mill fan letter, if properly analyzed, can provide a wealth of information about the effect of a program upon its audience. Charles Winick is author of Taste and the Censor in Television (an Occasional Paper for the Fund for the Republic) and numerous articles in publications dealing with the mass media, such as Gazette, and the Journal op Broadcasting (“Censor and Sensibility,” Spring, 1962). Dr. Winick is a research psychologist and children's television program consultant at NBC who has taught and conducted research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University and New York University.     

Radio,TV and literacy in Mexico

When radio and television are touted as the “greatest media for education” or the “promoting of social change” that the world has ever known, the need of the developing countries of the world for these media is often cited. It is probable that most citizens of the United States think of “developing nations” as those newly‐formed countries of Asia and Africa whose political, social and economic problems often are featured in the day's news reports. However, there are more than a score of developing nations in the western hemisphere, and one of these is right at the back door of the U. S. This country, Mexico, has been using radio and television effectively for a major literacy program since 1965, and the following article describes that program. Dennis Lowry is a doctoral candidate in mass communication in the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Information for this article was gathered during a six‐week study trip to Mexico in the summer of 1968.     

A statement on the “fairness doctrine”

Although it is only a dozen years old, Britain's commercial television service is a powerful example of the way in which a system, different from that familiar to broadcasters in the United States, can evolve. Actually, the IT A was designed to avoid the very difficulties that the U.S. system acquired through 40 years of trial‐and‐error. Some of the research for this comparative study of two different kinds of commercial television broadcasting was conducted while the author was studying in Great Britain on a research grant. Robert P. Crawford received his Ph.D. from the University of Utah, and is Director of the College Center for Radio‐Television at Queens College, New York.     

Evaluation of television drama: Interaction of acting styles and shot selection

That television is basically a low‐key and close‐up medium is demonstrated in the following research undertaken by two members of the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences of Queens College, City University of New York. Alan H. Wurtzel is an instructor at Queens while working on a doctorate at New York University. Dr. Joseph R. Dominick is assistant professor and holds the Ph.D. from Michigan State University. Both authors wish to acknowledge the assistance of their colleague, Dr. Gary Gumpert.     

The former broadcast employee: A report from the APBE‐NAB employment study

Today, when most Americans get most of their news from the broadcast media, we tend to forget just how recent a development this has been. Broadcast journalism is far from celebrating its 50th anniversary as a major source of news, since it did not develop until the mid‐1930s. The early relationships between the older print media and the newer medium of radio were not friendly, and the fledgling broadcast journalists needed considerable diplomatic skill in dealing with the wire services and their own employers, as well as pastepot and scissors to deal with the day's events. The story of how broadcast journalism became strong enough to cover so effectively the stories of World War II is inexorably tied to the “war” between promoters and detractors of news broadcasting during the 1930s.

George Lott. has studied at William and Mary and Michigan State University, where he is working on a Ph.D. in speech. He presently is assistant professor in the Department of Theatre and Speech at the College of William and Mary.     

Stereotype change following exposure to counter‐stereotypical media heroes

During his 1966–69 tenure as director of research for the Lutheran Council in the U.S.A., Ronald L. Johnstone helped plan and conduct the research reported here which is based on a sizable national sample. In the article, he constructs a profile of the typical religious radio program listener. Dr. Johnstone earned the Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1963 and is now associate professor of sociology at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant.     

Instruction in radio and television in twenty‐five selected universities

The mushroom growth of radio and television instruction taking place since the end of World War II has left in its wake a patch‐work guilt of academic programs in colleges and universities from coast to coast. The importance of trying to answer the question ‘Where are we going?”; indicates a need for realistic stock‐taking and thorough curriculum evaluation.

In keeping with its policy of seeking to advance the field of knowledge as to education for broadcasting, the Journal presents a special report on the current state of the curriculum which, it is hoped, will prove of value to all those interested in education for broadcasting.     

Censorship of AFVN news in Vietnam

In this time of increasing pressure against incumbent licensees at renewal time, all aspects of the renewal process have come into sharper focus and importance. One topic of special interest has been the licensee's “Ascertainment of Community Needs”; section of his renewal form. Hoping to make the process more realistic, the FCC issued revised guidelines on the ascertainment process early in 1971. This issue of the Journal offers four articles exploring the present status of ascertainment, beginning with this overview of a sample of western television licensees which compares ascertainment filings in 1968 (before the FCC Primer) and 1971 (among the first filed afterwards) and demonstrates that the new FCC policy is having a telling effect. Dr. Joseph Foley is assistant professor of speech communications at Ohio State University.     

Fourth annual survey of colleges and universities offering course work in radio and television, 1959–1959

The possibility that one mass medium might be used to stimulate another has been only imperfectly explored. For instance, a campaign by radio personality Jean Shepherd some years ago led to the birth of the monumental spoof that was the novel I, Libertine by “Frederick R. Ewing.” The delight of Shepherd's “night people” at being able to demonstrate their numbers was matched by the consternation of booksellers all over the city who impotently thumbed through their catalogs . . . until Shepherd took pity on them and arranged for the book to be written and published. In another instance, a participant on a late‐evening network program casually commented on a book that had caught his eye—and it was a national best‐seller within 24 hours.

The research reported in the following article attempts to discover whether this “touting” function of the broadcast media can be used systematically. A number of informal observations following “book review” or “library” programs on both radio and television would tend to support this idea. However, the following study was specifically designed to generate data that would demonstrate to broadcaster and librarian alike whether radio programs could be used by librarians (and presumably booksellers as well) to promote selection by the audience of pre‐determined books.     

Broadcasters’ attitudes toward public responsibility: An Ohio case study

Certainly one key to a licensee's response to community needs is the perception by top station executives of their station's role in the community. The following article is an adaptation of some research findings of a dissertation conducted under the supervision of Professor Walter B. Emery at Ohio State University in 1971. The author, now an assistant professor in the department of speech and dramatic art at the University of Iowa, received a research grant from the National Association of Broadcasters to help conduct the study.     

Project “listening post”: An experiment in education for broadcasting

For almost two decades, researchers have been following in the footsteps of Paul Lazarsfeld in asking members of the public comparative questions about the mass media. However, fewer studies have inquired as to opinions held toward a particular type of program or feature in one particular medium. Recent research indicates that, despite the growth of television, radio news has “held its own” as a valuable source of information to the American people.     

Book review

Kamalipour, Y. R., & Mowlana, H. (Eds.). (1994). Mass media in the Middle East: A comprehensive handbook. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press. 333 pages.

Boyd, D. (1993). Broadcasting in the Arab world: A survey of the electronic media in the Middle East (2nd ed.). Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press. 386 pages.

Hoyer, S., Lauk, E., & Vihalemm, P. (Eds.). (1993). Towards a civic society: The Baltic media's long road to freedom. Tartu, Estonia: Baltic Association for Media Research. 366 pages.

Silj, A. (Ed). (1992). The new television in Europe. London: John Libbey. 644 pages.

Noam, E., Komatsuzaki, S., & Conn, D. (Eds.). (1994). Telecommunications in the Pacific Basin. New York: Oxford University Press. 514 pages.

Englis, B. G. (Ed.). (1994). Global and multinational advertising. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 266 pages.     

Sequential structure in televised social behavior

Karl Erik Rosengren, Lawrence A. Wenner, &; Philip Palmgreen (Eds.). Media gratifications research: Current perspectives. Beverly Hills: Sage, 1985. 312 pp. $25.00 (cloth)

James A. Anderson. Communication research: Issues and methods. New York: McGraw‐Hill, 1987.423 pp. $32.95 (cloth)

Joseph R. Dominick &; James E. Fletcher (Eds.). Broadcasting research methods. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1985. 330 pp. $38.50 (cloth)

Roger D. Wimmer &; Joseph R. Dominick. Mass media research: An introduction (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1987. 514 pp. $36.00 (cloth)

Renata Adler. Reckless disregard: Westmoreland v. CBS, et al. and Sharon v. Time. New York: Knopf, 1986. 243 pp. $16.95 (cloth)

Rodney A. Smolla. Suing the press. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. 277 pp. $19.95 (cloth)

L. Rowell Huesmann &; Leonard D. Eron (Eds.). Television and the aggressive child: A cross‐national comparison. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1986. 314 pp. $36.00 (cloth)

Tannis MacBeth Williams (Ed.). The impact of television: A natural experiment in three communities. Orlando, FL: Academic Press, 1986.446 pp. $53.00 (cloth), $34.95 (paper)

Margaret B. W. Graham. RCA and the videodisc player: The business of research. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. 258 pp. $19.95 (cloth)     

Radio production courses: A survey of current practice

With the domination of broadcasting by television in the 1950s and since, academics of both teaching and research persuasions have tended to ignore the older and larger (in number of stations) medium of radio. Courses in radio announcing and production, usually the oldest in most schools’ curricula, were summarily suspended or simply faded away for lack of student and faculty interest. Meanwhile, of course, radio continued to grow, and with the resurgence of FM and interest in high‐fidelity sound in the mid‐sixties, students in both film and broadcasting courses began to request more audio training and practice. In the following article, the author surveys current practices in radio production based on returns to a nationwide request for data. Throughout, comparison is made with the APBE composite course outline for such a course, published in 1970. Dr. Martin is associate professor in the department of radio‐TV at California State College—Long Beach.     

Factors related to attention to the first Kennedy‐Nixon debate

A recent survey by Broadcasting of television programming personnel indicates that professionals in the broadcasting field agree with the general public in holding that the Kennedy‐Nixon debates during the late presidential election campaign were among the most exciting programs ever presented on television. We know that the audiences to these “great debates” were among the largest ever recorded, but sheer numbers do not tell us why audiences paid attention to these debates in the first place, much less the potential and actual effects of these programs.

The following article is one of a number being prepared by the members of the Communications Research Center at Michigan State University, covering a great many facets of political behavior in the 1960 campaign and election. The author of the following article, Dr. Lionel C. Barrow, Jr., is Assistant Professor in the Communications Research Center.