Evaluation of the speech dialect attitudinal scale

Listener groups employed the Speech Dialect Attitudinal Scale (SDAS) to rate speakers in a variety of situations. These involved: (A) foreign accent, (B) regional dialect, (C) speech pathology, (D) broadcast news reporting, and (E) use of obscene language. Reliability of ratings was consistently high, with a median of .98. Evidence of construct validity was provided by the factor structures of SDAS item scores. Except in the case of the speech pathology experiment, the factor analyses yielded a remarkably consistent three‐factor structure: Socio‐Intellectual Status, Aesthetic Quality, and Dynamism. In each case, analyses of variance and covariance of SDAS scores discriminated among speakers differentiated by linguistic variation, further supporting the validity of SDAS data.     

The armed forces radio service

Male and female university students and non‐students heard audiotapes containing a combination of two antagonistic persuasive speeches on the energy crisis: one with 12 obscene phrases, one with 12 parallel, non‐obscene phrases; one by a male speaker, one by a female; one pro‐environmentalists, one pro‐oil companies. Listener attitude was assessed on three dimensions using the Speech Dialect Attitudinal Scale. Analyses indicated that speakers were rated lower on Socio‐Intellectual Status and Aesthetic Quality when they used obscene language than when they did not; however, no difference was found on Dynamism. Other findings regarding speaker sex, listener group, and listener sex are discussed.     

Male/female language differences and effects in same‐sex and mixed‐sex dyads: The gender‐linked language effect

Ninety‐six university students (48 males, 48 females) were randomly assigned a partner (whom they did not know well), forming two dyad conditions: (a) same‐sex, and (b) mixed‐sex. The 48 dyads were audiotape‐recorded in 20‐minute problem solving interactions, from which 300‐word language samples were transcribed for analysis. In Study 1, 9 trained observers coded 12 language variables previously shown to distinguish male from female language use. Discriminant analysis results demonstrated that a weighted combination of 8 variables could differentiate male from female interactants: male indicators—interruptions, directives, and conjunctions/ fillers begin sentence; female indicators—questions, justifiers, intensive adverbs, personal pronouns, and adverbials begin sentence. An analysis of variance of individuals’ gender discriminant function scores showed greater differences in gender‐linked language behavior in same‐sex than in mixed‐sex dyads. In Study 2, 231 naive observers rated the 96 interactants, using the Speech Dialect Attitudinal Scale. MANOVA results showed that in same‐sex dyads, female interactants were rated higher on Socio‐Intellectual Status and Aesthetic Quality, but no gender difference was found on Dynamism. However, in mixed‐sex dyads, men were rated higher on Aesthetic Quality, whereas women were rated higher on Dynamism. Taken together, the analyses of the objective language data and the subjective attributional data provide partial support for the Gender‐Linked Language Effect in same‐sex dyads and for the attenuation of that effect in mixed‐sex dyads.     

At Hospitality's Threshold: From Social Inclusion to Exilic Education

Abstract Describing actual museum‐wide events developed for the culturally charged arena of the Brooklyn Children's Museum, this article explores the philosophical and pedagogical double binds that have brought multiculturalism to a political impasse. Museums have strived to be valued resources in an increasingly diverse society. In aspiring to broaden their audience base, their work has shifted from developing educational policies that are “object‐centered” to those that are “community‐centered” — a change of strategy affecting everything from programs to exhibit design. Children's museums — distinct (if not marginalized) from the serious work of the traditional art or ethnographic or natural history museum — know and indeed say in their very name — “children's museum” — that they are for the sake of someone and not about something. They have always already been attuned to the visitor at the threshold.     

A cross‐cultural comparison of implicit theories of requesting

The primary aim of this paper is to identify cross‐cultural similarities and differences in people's implicit theories of requesting. Implicit theories are conceptualized as containing information about five interactive constraints that influence choices about requests: (1) Clarity, (2) Perceived imposition, (3) Consideration for the other's feelings, (4) Risking disapproval for self, and (5) Effectiveness. The paper compares how these five constraints are perceived and rated across cultures and traces possible links between the constraints and perceptions of the likelihood of using various request strategies. Participants are a total of 595 undergraduates: 296 Koreans (native speakers of Korean) and 299 Americans (native American English speakers) studying in their respective countries. After reading a hypothetical request situation, participants evaluated request strategies along the five constraint dimensions as well as for likelihood of use. The rank‐ordering of the request strategies along the dimensions were similar across cultures except for effectiveness of strategies. Striking cross‐cultural differences were found in the rank and mean strategy ratings for effectiveness judgments: U.S. participants considered the direct statement strategy as the most effective way of making a request, while Korean participants rated it as the least effective strategy. Regarding the incompatibility among interactive constraints, U.S. participants saw clarity to be closely related to effectiveness of strategies; for Korean participants clarity of strategies was counterproductive to effectiveness. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Staging of Agency in Girls Gone Wild

This paper addresses the ambivalence produced by Girls Gone Wild (GGW) as both text and social practice by interrogating the ways in which it functions hegemonically by staging an effect of agency. I draw on Bakhtin's notion of the carnivalesque as a means to examine how contradictory spatio-temporal contexts of GGW function as spaces that offer the opportunity to momentarily transgress—yet simultaneously reify—white, bourgeois norms of femininity. The videos reinforce a neoliberalist mentality of personal responsibility through the inclusion of the consent—and dissent—processes on camera. After analyzing how postfeminist discourses emphasizing “individual choice” justify GGW as a mode of female empowerment, I turn to a complementary textual analysis of GGW's role-reversal counterpart, Guys Gone Wild (2004), in an effort to show the ways in which this “mirror image” text ultimately reinforces the structure of exploitation in the original.     

Toward a broader conceptualization of jealousy in close relationships: Two exploratory studies

The study of jealousy is typically restricted to the examination of a third‐party threat to one's romantic relationship. In contrast to this rather narrow view, two studies were undertaken to examine the possibility (a) that individuals experience jealousy over a variety of issues, and (b) that jealousy‐of any type—occurs and is expressed in non‐romantic relationships such as cross‐sex friendship. The goal of Study I was to assess the realism of hypothetical situations representing six different types of jealousy suggested within the literature. These included: friend jealousy, arising from an individual's relationships with friends; family jealousy, arising from a partner's relationships with family members; activity jealousy, occurring when a partner is involved in activities such as school, work, or hobbies; power jealousy, arising from influence over a partner being lost to others; intimacy jealousy, arising when one feels that more advice is sought from or disclosed to others; and romantic jealousy, involving a (perceived) third‐party threat to a relationship's exclusive nature. In Study II, participants were presented with the finalized versions of these jealousy‐evoking scenarios and asked to imagine their cross‐sex friends engaging in such behavior. Respondents then rated the degree of jealousy‐related emotions they would experience in response to each situation and reported how they would express such jealousy. Results indicated that individuals’ emotional reactions and response modes differed according to the type of jealousy encountered. In particular, participants reported the most intense reactions to intimacy jealousy and felt that it was best dealt with by direct modes of communication. Implications of these findings for the study of jealousy in close relationships are discussed.     

Children's wishful identification and parasocial interaction with favorite television characters

Children aged 7 to 12 were interviewed about their favorite TV character. Nearly all boys and about half of the girls selected same‐sex favorites. Regression analyses used perceived character traits (attractiveness, strength, humor, intelligence, social behavior) to predict wishful identification and parasocial interaction with characters. For male characters, wishful identification was predicted by intelligence and (for girls only) humor; parasocial interaction was predicted by intelligence, attractiveness, and (for boys only) strength. In marked contrast, for female characters (chosen only by girls), attractiveness was the only significant predictor. Although girls rated female characters as more intelligent than male characters, this trait apparently was not an important determinant of attraction. Interpretations of the findings and implications for socialization effects are discussed.     

Presidential silence,C. Everett Koop,and the surgeon general's report on AIDS

On October 22, 1986, C. Everett Koop released the Surgeon General's Report on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. This essay examines that report as a rhetorical watershed in the national dialogue about AIDS. We suggest that this report—and the media attention that attended it—dramatically shifted the socio‐political environment concerning AIDS and contextual‐izfd Reagan's silence concerning the disease as a lack of presidential leadership on the issue.     

The Relationship of Competition and Financial Commitment Revisited: A Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis in European Newspaper Markets

The Cincinnati Post published its last edition on New Year's Eve 2007, leaving the Cincinnati Enquirer as the only daily newspaper in the market. The next year, fewer candidates ran for municipal office in the Kentucky suburbs most reliant on the Post, incumbents became more likely to win reelection, and voter turnout and campaign spending fell. These changes happened even though the Enquirer at least temporarily increased its coverage of the Post's former strongholds. Voter turnout remained depressed through 2010, nearly three years after the Post closed, but the other effects diminished with time. The authors exploited a difference-in-differences strategy and the fact that the Post's closing date was fixed 30 years in advance to rule out some noncausal explanations for their results. Although their findings are statistically imprecise, they suggest that newspapers—even underdogs such as the Post, which had a circulation of just 27,000 when it closed—can have a substantial and measurable impact on public life.     

Perceived confidence as a function of self‐image

The hypothesis that a speaker's perceived confidence is a function of his self‐image was studied in this investigation. Seventeen matched pairs of subjects were picked on the basis of a pretest of the Personal Report of Confidence as a Speaker index. The experimental subjects were given indirect suggestion that their audiences viewed them as confident speakers. Posttest differences between treatments was significant at the 5% level of confidence.     

Vocational Anticipatory Socialization of Adolescents: Messages,Sources, and Frameworks That Influence Interest in STEM Careers

By high school, many students have dropped out of the pipeline that will lead to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) occupations. We examine the role of vocational anticipatory socialization (VAS)—the types of messages adolescents receive, message sources, and adolescents' frameworks—on youth's educational and vocational interests. Adolescents (37 focus groups, N = 229) reported that they received two types of VAS messages: personal fulfillment (advising students to prioritize their well-being) and career detail (advising students about specific aspects of an occupation). Adolescents used three career frameworks (enjoyment, ability, and goal) that filtered and often magnified VAS messages and experiences. We extend VAS research by identifying two primary purposes of the career advice embedded in VAS messages and three career frameworks. Practical implication are that parents can affect adolescents' beliefs about their abilities and potential enjoyment of STEM careers by supplementing personal fulfillment messages with career detail messages. Individuals in STEM occupations are in the best position to encourage adolescents by offering career detail, discussing how their career can be rewarding and how math and science classes can influence their career attainment.     

News Stories on the Facebook Platform: Millennials’ Perceived Credibility of Online News Sponsored by News and Non-News Companies

ABSTRACT

This experimental study examined whether stories presented on Facebook that appeared to be from a news organization were rated as higher in perceived credibility than stories that appeared to be from a non-news organization. One-hundred-and-seven participants took part in the online study. One group saw stories that appeared to be from a news organization and another group saw the same stories that appeared to be from a non-news organization. Both groups rated the stories the same in terms of perceived credibility. The study also found that the higher the participants rated the stories in terms of perceived credibility, the higher they rated the organization’s perceived credibility. These findings point to potential implications for traditional journalistic outlets regarding their ability to be seen as credible, reliable online news sources—particularly through a social media platform like Facebook.     

Programmer's choice: Eight factors in program decision‐making

In the introduction to Charles Woodliff's “Catch Me if You Can” in the Fall, 1965 issue of the Journal it was, prophesied that it would be not “the last that will be published on the question of the proper curriculum for training professional broadcasters.” In this issue, on the preceding pages, is an article by Professor John Pennybacker answering Professor Woodliff's article disagreeing with the one that started it all, Pennybacker's “Working with Universities.” The following comment by Woodliff is intended only as a brief comment upon Pennybacker's “Leadership and the Educator: The Middle Way” and does not, of course, attempt to make full reply in this brief form. Professor Woodliff (Assistant Professor in the Department of Radio‐Television‐Film at the University of Denver) hopes that the dialogue between him and Dr. Pennybacker represents their respective points of view fairly—and that other positions will be heard from in the future. The airing of these points of view is not just another rehash of the old “liberal arts vs. professionalism” debate. Recent surveys have shown that broadcasting education has not yet made its mark on the industry—if it is to do so in the future, teachers of broadcasting must constantly reassess their goals and the means to achieve these goals.     

Facsimiles,fakes, and forgeries: Concerning punctuation in Shakespeare's King Richard II

While T. M. Parrott's proposal that Shakespeare may have written the title‐role of King Richard II "for his own interpretation as an actor” suggests an interesting area of bibliographical research, the prevailing unreliability of facsimile editions of Shakespearean quartos makes investigation of presumed authorial pointing in Q₁ —theoretically rhetorical or dramatic, rather than syntactical—both hazardous and frustrating. Still, the neophyte American bibliographer (who must resort to such texts), if forewarned concerning the nature of tamperings in photo‐lithographic facsimiles—made‐up lines, editorial “emendations” of original punctuation, occasional alteration of details in printers’ ornaments, and sometimes even outright forgeries—should find the liabilities well worth braving.     

4. FOREIGN/COMPARATIVE MEDIA SYSTEMS

James Duncan Jr.'s American Radio: Spring '77 Report (Gilmore Advertising, 200 Michigan Bldg., Kalamazoo, Mich. 49006—$37.00 with a university rate of $28.00, paper)

F. Earle Barcus' Commercial Children's Television on Weekends and Weekday Afternoons (Action for Children's Television, 46 Austin Street, Newtonville, Mass. 02160— $25.00, paper)

Elmo I. Ellis' Opportunities in Broadcasting (Skokie, Ill.: National Textbook Co., 1977—$5.50/3.95)     

Objective Vitality as Moderator of Ethnolinguistic Identity Gratifications

This article examines the role of subjective and objective determinants of ethnolinguistic identity gratifications among Swedish speakers in Finland (N = 703) and French speakers in Canada (N = 4969). As expected, in both settings, the results demonstrated that ethnolinguistic identity as well as ethnolinguistic vitality significantly predicted the linguistic patterns of TV use; furthermore, a significant interaction between identity and vitality indicated that the effect of identity on TV is greater in areas where objective vitality is higher and the TV access in the given ethnic language is greater. Findings and implications are discussed.     

Partisans and Controversial News Online: Comparing Perceptions of Bias and Credibility in News Content From Blogs and Mainstream Media

Based on the hostile media effect (HME), this 2 (partisan opinion) × 2 (news source) × 2 (content valence) factorial experiment investigated how partisans (N = 132), in terms of perceived bias and credibility, assess same-sex marriage coverage by either an online mainstream news source or a citizen blog. Partisans who disagreed with the content's valence evaluated both mainstream online news and the blog posting as more biased and less credible than did partisans who agreed with the content's valence. The perceived reach of blog postings appears to generate a relative HME similar to that triggered by mainstream news. In particular, this study suggests that user-generated content—specifically blog postings—might generate a stronger relative HME than that observed with mainstream news.     

2. CBQ REVIEW ESSAY: Reporting Wars and the Military (Part 1)

Leslie Halliwell's The Filmgoer's Companion (New York: Hill and Wang, 1974—$25.00)

Ray Armes' Film and Reality: An Historical Survey (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1974—$1.95, paper)

Peter Harcourt 's Six European Directors: Essays on the Meaning of Film Style (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1974—$2.50, paper)

James Robert Parish' The RKO Gals (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1974—$14.95)

Lee R. Bowker's Elements of Film (New York: Harcourt Brace Javanovich, 1974—$5.95, paper)

Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Cinema (3138 West Schubert, Chicago, Ill. 60647—$3.00 for 6 issues a year, or 50c each)

William Kuhns' Themes Two (Dayton, Ohio: Pflaum/Standard, 1974—$4.95, paper)

Raoul Walsh's Each Man in His Time: The Life Story of a Director (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974– $10.00)