Air Mail: NPR Sees "Community" in Letters From Listeners

This study of National Public Radio's "letters from listeners" segments applies two theoretical frameworks–imagined community and news work–to suggest that the practice of "imagining community" is a distinct practice of journalism. The findings suggest that NPR producers use letters segments to encourage listeners to feel as if they are part of a community. In selecting and packaging those comments, producers construct an imagined community that reflects the producers' own journalistic values, such as balance, accountability, and accuracy. The conclusion suggests that community-imagining might be especially difficult and abstract for large news media organizations serving massive and dispersed audiences.     

Academic Reference Centre access for UK universities

Describes the Academic Reference Centre, a collaborative project enabling universities on the JANET and SuperJANET network to access and search a selection of over sixty databases from within the university.     

Media Nostalgia

Frank Buxton and Bill Owen's The Big Broadcast: 1920-1950 (New York: Viking Press, 1972---$12.95)

Summers' A Thirty-Year History of Programs Carried on National Radio Networks in the United States (1958: reprinted by Arno Press, 1971---$10.00)

Hello Again (Mr. Jay Hickerson, 6 Koczak Court, North Haven, Conn. 06473)

Mary E. Bickel's George W. Trendle: An Authorized Biography (Jericho, N.Y.: Exposition Press, 1972---$5.00)

Joe Morella, Edward Z. Epstein, and Eleanor Clark's Those Great Movie Ads (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1972--- $14.95)

Ron Goulart's Cheap Thrills: an Informal History of the Pulp Magazines (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1972---$7.95)     

Popular Illustration

Posterbooks, a roundup of seven paperback titles

Images of an Era: The American Poster, 1945-75 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1975---$12.50, paper)

Harry Harrison's Mechanismo (London: Pierrot Publishing Ltd./Morgans Run, Danbury, N.H.: Reed Books (Addison House)

John Lewis' Typography: Design and Practice (New York: Taplinger, 1978---$17.50 with a paperback also apparently available)

W.R. Miller et al's Graphic Arts (Bloomington, Ind.: McNight Publishing Co. (distributed by Taplinger in New York), 1978--- $3.96/2.64)

Bill Gray's More Studio Tips for Artists and Graphic Designers (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1978---$4.95, paper)     

Popular Illustration

The Cartoon Connection: The Art of Personal Humour (London, and North Pomfret, Vt.: Hamish Hamilton, 1978—E5.50/$14.50)

The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics edited by Bill Blackbeard and Martin Williams (Washington/New York: Smithsonian Press/Harry Abrams, 1977—price not given but about $25/12.95 for the two formats)

Ring Lardner's You Know Me Al: The Comic Strip Adventures of Jack Keefe (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Harvest Books, 1979—$6.95, paper)

Erving Goffman's Gender Advertisements (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979—$12.50)     

Law and Policy

THE LAW OF PUBLIC COMMUNICATION by Kent Middleton and Bill Chamberlin (New York: Longman, 1988—$34.95)

SEVEN DIRTY WORDS AND SIX OTHER STORIES: CONTROLLING THE CONTENT OF PRINT AND BROADCAST by Matthew Spitzer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986—$15.00)

THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS DEREGULATION SOURCEBOOK edited by Stuart N. Brotman (Boston: Artech House, 1987—$60.00)

Besen, two Rand reports on intellectual property

GOVERNMENT INFORMATION: AN ENDANGERED RESOURCE OF THE ELECTRONIC AGE—THE FIRST ANNUAL STATE-OF-THE-ART INSTITUTE ( Special Libaries Assn, 1700 18th St NW, Washington, DC 20009—$21.75, paper)