General Mass Communications

Jerry Robinson's The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art (New York: Putnam, 1974—$15.00)

A History of the Comic Strip [Crown, 1968—$3.95, paper]

Perry and Aldridge's The Penguin Book of Comics [Penguin, 1967—$4.95, paper]

Reitberger and Fuchs' Comics: Anatomy of a Mass Medium Little, Brown, 1972— 6.95, paper—this last is discussed in 4:6:4 ; of which the latter appears the best competition to this new volume)

Arthur Asa Berger's The Comic-Stripped American (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1974—$2.95, paper)

Eli M. Oboler's The Fear of the Word: Censorship and Sex (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1974—$10.00)

The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (3937 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19104—$4.00/3.00 per issue)

Ted Klein and Fred Danzig's How to Be Heard: Making the Media Work for You (New York: Macmillan, 1974—$9.95)

Douglas R. Berdie and John F. Anderson's Questionnaires: Design and Use (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1974—$7.50)

S.H. Steinberg's Five Hundred Years of Printing (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1974— $3.25, paper)     

Broadcasting and Telecommunications

Arthur Hezlet's Electronics and Sea Power (New York: Stein & Day, 1975—$15.00)

W.M. Dalton's The Story of Radio (London: Adam Hilger Ltd., 1975—about $9.00 for each of three volumes)

Anita Klever's Women in Television (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975—$5.95)

Donald L. Guimary's Citizen's GrouRs and Broadcasting (New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1975—$14.00)

John Blair & Co.'s Statistical-Trends in Broadcasting 1975: 11th Edition (New York: John Blair & Co., 1975—$2.50, paper)

Natan Katzman's Public Television Program Content: 1974 (Washington: Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 1975—price not given, paper)

James W. Brown (ed.) Educational Media Yearbook: 1975-76 (New York: R.R. Bowker, 1975—$21.95)

Alan Bermingham et al. The Small TV Studio: Equipment and Facilities (New York: Hastings House, 1975—$7.95, paper)

John H. Barwick and Stewart Kranz's Profiles in Video: Who's Using Television and How (White Plains, N.Y.: Knowledge Industries Publications, 1975— $27.50)     

Advertising

How it Was in Advertising: 1776-1976 ($6.95, paper, 110 pp.)

Vernon Fryburger, The New World of Advertising ($6.95, paper, 129 pp.)

William A. Robinson, 100 Best Sales Promotions (annual, $19.95, about 140 pp. each)

Herbert S. Gardner Jr. The Advertising Agency Business ($19.95, 211 pp.)

Jack Z. Sissors and E.R. Petray Advertising Media Planning ($12.95, 341 pp.)

Arthur Bellaire Controlling Your TV Commercial Costs ($19.95, 166 pp.)

Julie M. Moss '77 Ayer Public Relations and Publicity Style Book (Ayer Press, 210 West Washington Square, Philadelphia, Pa. 19106—$9.95)     

Practical Guides

THE ART AND SCIENCE OF RADIO, by Linda Busby and Donald Parker (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1984-$20.00).

ELECTRONIC ARTS OF SOUND AND LIGHT, by Ronald Pellegrino (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1983—$28.50).

TELECONFERENCING HANDBOOK: A GUIDE TO COST-EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION, by Ellen Lazar et al. (White Plains, New York: Knowledge Industry Publications, 1983—$34.95).

THE CREATIVE CONNECTION: ADVERTISING COPYWRITING AND IDEA VISUALIZATION, by Arthur A. Winters and Shirley F. Milton (New York: Fairchild Publications, 1982—$16.50).

BROADCAST NEWSWRITING AS PROCESS and BROADCAST COPYWRITING AS PROCESS by J. Clark Weaver (New York: Longman, 1984—price not given, paper).

PUBLIC RELATIONS/PUBLICITY: A KEY LINK IN COMMUNICATIONS, by Lois Ehrenkranz and Gilbert Kahn (New York: Fairchild, 1983—$14.50).

EXPERTS IN ACTION: INSIDE PUBLIC RELATIONS, by Bill Cantor (New York: Longman, 1984—$29.95/ 14.95).     

Communication and marital satisfaction: Social desirability and nonlinearity

In this paper two possible limitations with much of the traditional research on communication and marital satisfaction are explored: The failure to test for social desirability bias and nonlinear effects. Fitzpatrick's RDI, social desirability, and marital satisfaction questionnaires were administered to one hundred seventy‐one couples. The results suggest that social desirability bias may inflate correlations between sharing, traditionalism and marital satisfaction. Further, “traditional” couples were no more satisfied than “independent” couples when social desirability is controlled. Several nonlinear quadratic effects were obtained between sharing, traditionalism and marital satisfaction.     

Reconceptualizing and Reexamining Suspense as a Predictor of Mediated Sports Enjoyment

Suspense is a driving force behind media entertainment consumption. However, previous explorations of the role of suspense in the enjoyment of mediated sports have not fully relied upon the richness of research from other genres. The current study seeks to correct this oversight by using the lens of fictional drama to reconceptualize and reexamine suspense as a factor in the enjoyment of sports programming. A total of 161 participants viewed and rated 1 of 7 men's basketball games. The results suggest that a measure of the unfolding nature of suspense is a stronger predictor of mediated sports enjoyment than those used previously.     

Teacher Practices and Middle‐school Science Achievements

We report on the construction and application on an instrument entitled the “Science Achievement Influences Survey” to assess combined effects of student attitudes about science, peer interaction, and home support, and the frequency of student‐centred and teacher‐centred instructional practices on student achievement. Controlling for pre‐test content knowledge, results indicated that student‐centred teaching practices have a positive association with student achievement (p < .01; i.e., group experiments) and a negative association with teacher‐centred teaching practices (p < .01; i.e., copying notes). Additionally, student attitudes about science were positively associated with student‐centred teaching practices (p < .01) and negatively associated with teacher‐centred teaching practices (p < .01). Most significantly, this study documents the predicted gains in science achievement associated with frequency of specific instructional practices used by middle‐school science teachers. Especially noteworthy and significant is the finding that near‐daily implementation of group experiments and reduction of extensive note‐copying during class yield the greatest positive impact on student achievement. Outside of school, peer interaction and home support were not significantly associated (p > .05) with student achievement. The student sample included 611 middle‐school science students with a wide range of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds.