Popular Culture and Advertising

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MADISON AVENUE? ADVERTISING IN THE '90s by Martin Mayer (Boston: Little, Brown, 1991—$22.95, ISBN 0-316- 55154-6, 269 pp.)

THE CODES OF ADVERTISING: FETISHISM AND THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MEANING IN THE CONSUMER SOCIETY by Sut Jhally (New York: Routledge, 1990—price not given, paper, ISBN 0-415-90353-X, 225 pp.)

ROCK AROUND THE BLOCK: A HISTORY OF ROCK MUSIC IN EASTERN EUROPE AND THE SOVIET UNION by Timothy W. Ryback (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990—$21.95, ISBN 0-19-505633-7, 272 pp.)

MUSIC AT THE MARGINS: POPULAR MUSIC AND GLOBAL CULTURAL DIVERSITY by Deanna Campbell Robinson, Elizabeth B. Buck, and Marlene Cuthbert (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1991—$39.95/19.95, ISBN 0-8039- 3192-1 hard, 0-8039-3193-X paper, 312 pp.)

THE MANY LIVES OF THE BATMAN: CRITICAL APPROACHES TO A SUPERHERO AND HIS MEDIA edited by Roberta E. Pearson and William Uricchio (New York: Routledge, 1991—$39.95/13.95, ISBN 0-415-90346-7 hard, 0-415-90347-5 paper, 213 pp.)

BROADCAST ADVERTISING: A COMPREHENSIVE WORKING TEXTBOOK by Sherilyn K. Zeigler and Herbert H. Howard (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1991—$34.95, ISBN 0-8138-0072-2, 358 pp.)

FUNDAMENTALS OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH by Alan Fletcher and Thomas Bowers (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1991—price not given, ISBN 0-534-14778-X, 364 pp.)

THIS BUSINESS OF MUSIC by Sidney Shemel and M. William Krasilovsky (New York: Billboard/Watson-Guptill, 1991—$27.50, ISBN 0-8230-7706-3, 688 pp.)     

The Strategic Rhetoric of an “At-Risk” Educational Identity: Interviewing Jane

This essay explores how communication research on “at-risk” students relies on under-theorized understandings of identity as seemingly stable traits and characteristics. In this sense, “at-riskness,” as a cultural identity, is dangerous precisely because it encourages researchers to link identity difference with failure, rather than to explore the presence and perpetuation of particular ideologies. We illuminate such ideological tensions through our analysis of a complex educational identity—an in-depth interview with an “at-risk” student—where we locate strategic rhetorics (i.e., discursive constructions that reify normalized assumptions about educational success and failure) that demonstrate how ideology constitutes the phenomenon of educational risk.     

A Moral and Legal Obligation

The Commission on Preservation and Access and the Research Libraries Group (both US organizations) created a task force to study the requirements for preserving digital information. The report, published in May 1996, recommends a certification process for digital archives and calls for a legal authority to rescue digital files in danger of being lost. The paper reviews the reactions of the library, archival, and educational communities and describes the current actions being taken.     

Correction to: Choose Your Evidence

Science & Education -     

Dialogic argumentation as a bridge to argumentative thinking and writing / La argumentación dialógica como puente para el pensamiento y la escritura argumentativa

Abstract

Argumentation has been claimed to be ‘the more general human process of which more specific forms of reasoning are a part’. The educational context in which argument is most often practised and assessed is individual expository writing — a skill that teachers routinely report as their most challenging to teach and one in which students typically perform poorly. It becomes increasingly important with advancing grade and by the post-secondary level is crucial to academic success. We describe the dialogic method we have developed to foster young adolescents’ argument skills. Its essence is to engage students in rich and extended dialogues with one another on significant topics. We review evidence that the method, implemented in extended form over two or more years, produces positive outcomes in argumentative discourse, in individual writing and in meta-level understandings of argumentative discourse and evaluations of argument. In this study, we elaborate on these results and on the promise and challenges the method poses.     

Using an inoculation message approach to promote public confidence in protective agencies

This investigation tested the effectiveness of inoculation as a pre-crisis strategy in combating the effects of politically motivated violent acts. A four-phase experiment was conducted involving 355 national consumer panel participants. The findings indicate that inoculation can be an effective pre-crisis message strategy as it was successful in enhancing public beliefs in the ability of government agencies to prevent, and minimize the effects of, violent acts. This strategy also created a ‘blanket of protection’ that extended beyond the focal politically motivated attack event as it enhanced the confidence in government agencies to manage national crises in general. Inoculation was also effective in lowering the intensity of experienced fear evoked by the threat of violent attacks and it enhanced the ability of individuals to cope with the aftermath of a crisis.     

Expanding the Scope of Instructional Communication Research: Looking Beyond Classroom Contexts

The bulk of instructional communication research to date examines communication among teachers and students in conventional classroom contexts. Although past and present research is prolific and informative, it is also somewhat limiting. With a specific unifying focus on affective, cognitive, and behavioral learning as outcome variables, we begin this article with a brief history of instructional communication research, as well as examples of research and practice in conventional classroom settings. We then outline, review, and explain four distinct contexts where we believe future instructional communication research and practice is likely to be fruitful: risk and crisis situations, technology-enhanced environments, digital games, and forensics education.