Journalism

IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST-III: A REPORT BY THE NATIONAL NEWS COUNCIL, 1979-4983 (National News Council, 805 Third Ave., New York, NY 10022---$10.00, paper)

VIDEOTEX JOURNALISM: TELETEXT, VIEWDATA, AND THE NEWS by David H. Weaver (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1984---$18.00)

THE NEW BUSINESS JOURNALISM: AN INSIDER'S LOOK AT THE WORKINGS OF AMERICA'S BUSINESS PRESS by Don Gussow (San Diego: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1984---$14.95)

STRAIGHT STUFF: THE REPORTERS, THE WHITE HOUSE AND THE TRUTH by James Deakin (New York: Morrow, 1984---$17.95)

COVERING CAMPAIGNS: JOURNALISM IN CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS by Peter Clarke and ' H. Evans (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University 1983---$17.50)

TERRORISM: THE MEDIA AND THE LAW, edited by Abraham H. Miller (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Transnational Publishers, 1982---$25.00, with paperback available)

THE DISSIDENT PRESS: ALTERNATIVE JOURNALISM IN AMERICAN HISTORY by Lauren Kessler (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1984---$8.95, paper)

AGENTS OF POWER: THE ROLE OF THE NEWS MEDIA IN HUMAN AFFAIRS by J. Herbert Altschull (New York: Longman, 1984---$29.95)

THE PROCESS OF ELECTRONIC NEWS GATHERING by Frederick Shook (1982, 180 pp.---no price given, paper)

THE BROADCAST NEWS PROCESS by Frederick Shook and Dan Lattimore (1982, 375 pp.---no price given, spiral bound, plus a short “Instructor's Manual”)     

Extending the understanding of mobile banking adoption: When UTAUT meets TTF and ITM

Mobile banking (mBanking) enables customers to carry out their banking tasks via mobile devices. We advance the extant body of knowledge about mBanking adoption by proposing a model for understanding the importance and relationship between the user perception of mBanking, initial trust in mBanking services, and the fit between the technology and mBanking task characteristics. We synergistically combine the strengths of three IS theories – task technology fit (TTF) model, unified theory of acceptance and usage of technology (UTAUT), and initial trust model (ITM). The model was tested in a study conducted in Portugal, one of the European Union (EU) countries with the highest mobile phone adoption. Based on the sample of 194 individuals we applied partial least squares (PLS) to test the conceptual model propose. The path significance levels were estimated using the bootstrapping method (500 resamples). The study found that facilitating conditions and behavioral intentions directly influence mBanking adoption. Initial trust, performance expectancy, technology characteristics, and task technology fit have total effect on behavioral intention. The paper offers valuable insights to decision-makers involved in the implementation and deployment of mBanking services. For researchers, the paper highlights the usefulness of integrating TTF, UTAUT and ITM in the development of a decision support framework to study the adoption of new technologies.     

Shedding further light on the effects of various types and quality of early child care on infant-mother attachment relationship: the Haifa Study of Early Child Care

The Haifa Study of Early Child Care recruited a large-scale sample (N = 758) that represented the full SES spectrum in Israel, to examine the unique contribution of various child-care-related correlates to infant attachment. After controlling for other potential contributing variables--including mother characteristics, mother-child interaction, mother-father relationship, infant characteristics and development, and the environment--this study found that center-care, in and of itself, adversely increased the likelihood of infants developing insecure attachment to their mothers as compared with infants who were either in maternal care, individual nonparental care with a relative, individual nonparental care with a paid caregiver, or family day-care. The results suggest that it is the poor quality of center-care and the high infant-caregiver ratio that accounted for this increased level of attachment insecurity among center-care infants.     

The effects of computer animation on the particulate mental models of college chemistry students

Modern chemistry concepts have the particulate nature of matter at their core. Chemists explain most phenomena in terms of atomic and molecular models. The lack of understanding of chemistry concepts may be linked to the students' inability to build complete mental models that visualize particulate behavior. With computer animation technology, dynamic and three-dimensional presentations are possible. This study explores the effect of computer animations depicting the particulate nature of matter on college students' mental models of the chemical phenomena. A Particulate Nature of Matter Evaluation Test (PNMET) instrument was used to determine the nature of the students' visualizations and, therefore, their comprehension of the chemical concept studied. Animations were used in two treatment situations: (a) as a supplement in large-group lectures, and (b) as both the lecture supplement and an assigned individual activity in a computer laboratory. These two experimental treatments were compared to a control group. Both treatment groups received significantly higher conceptual understanding scores on the PNMET than did the control group. This increased understanding may be due to the superiority of the formation of more expertlike, dynamic mental models of particle behavior in these chemical processes.     

The triad-iodine deficiency,hyperlipidaemia, high coronary risk— in a ‘maternal-neonate’ population of rural Africa

In order to see the pattern of changes in differential serum lipid and lipoprotein fractions as a risk marker of coronary complication in paired ‘maternal—neonate’ blood samples in an iodine deficient zone, 26 pregnant women and their corresponding new born infants at term delivery from the iodine deficient Bassa region of Plateau state, Nigeria were assessed and the results were compared with those seen in a similar 44 group of women and their newborns assessed in non lodine deficient region of Jos. The serum thyroid function and lipid and lipoprotein profiles were determined by ‘ELISA’ and ‘enzymatic’ methods respectively. Urinary iodide excretion level was also measured in 14 pregnant women in Bassa, 23 pregnant women in Jos and 16 non pregnant control from Jos. Results indicate that the pregnant women assessed in Bassa were iodine deficient (P<0.01) and their thyroid status was strikingly reduced as reflected by a drop in serum level of T4/TBG ratio (P<0.01) and a rise in TSH (P<0.005) in comparison to that seen in Jos. There was marked hypertriglyceridaemia and total hypercholesterolaemia (P<0.005), with differential significant rise in LDL cholestotol fraction (P<0.005) in the women assessed in Bassa as compared to Jos. The HDL cholesterol however dropped less significantly in the group (P<0.05) with a concurrent marked rise (P<0.001) in the serum ratio of LDL cholesterol/HDL cholesterol, total cholesterol/HDL cholesterol and triglycerides/HDL cholesterol in the lodine deficient group. A similar pattern of changes were seen in the corresponding neonates in the Bassa group as compared to Jos group. It is concluded that the pregnant women and their newborn offsprings living in a longstanding environmental iodine deficiency run a higher risk of developing coronary complications than those living in non endemic region. It is striking that such newborns surrounded by a continued state of lodine deficient may at a later adult-period of life develop marked risk of coronary complication and other features of hyperlipidaemias associated with varying thyroid insufficiency and accompanied iodine deficiency disorders. Prophylaxis measures as intervention has been highlighted.     

The Andamans as a “sea of islands”: reconnecting old geographies through poaching

The rise of military and political tensions in the Indo-Pacific maritime zone has brought new attention to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. With this visibility has come a disturbing awareness in some quarters that this Indian archipelago is qualitatively different from the rest of the country. Whether defined in terms of unorthodox cultural practices or the unauthorized presence of other national bodies, the multicultural habitus of the Andamans is deeply unsettling from a geopolitical standpoint that imagines the islands as a natural extension of a homogeneous national-territorial space. This article argues that the persistence of cultural and other heterogeneities in the Andamans should be read as a trace of histories that are intimately tied to the location of this archipelago. Framing the archipelago as a “sea of islands” lying off the littoral of the Andaman Sea rather than as an extension of Indian national space permits unauthorized social relations to become visible again. Once we redraw island geographies, spectral presences begin to appear, taking the form of both foreign bodies as well as narrative contradictions. Currently, these specters are interpellated under the sign of “poaching,” a portmanteau of activities that joins indigenous, settlers, outsiders, and Nature in an illicit assemblage that is presumed to lie outside the law. Contradictions of the poaching discourse should be read as signs of recalcitrance: the complexity of the Andamans that cannot be erased by the violence of denial.