General Communications

SELF, SYMBOLS & SOCIETY: AN INTRODUCTION TO MASS COMMUNICATION by Stanley J. Baran, et al. (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1984---price not given, paper)

TELECOMMUNICATIONS IN CRISIS: THE FIRST AMENDMENT, TECHNOLOGY, AND DEREGULATION by Edwin Diamond, et al. (Cato Institute, 224 Second St., S.E. Washington, D.C. 20003---$6.00, paper)

MEDIA INSURANCE: PROTECTING AGAINST HIGH JUDGEMENTS, PUNITIVE DAMAGES, AND DEFENSE COSTS (Practising Law Institute, 810 Seventh Ave., New York, N.Y. 10019---$35.00, paper)

LAW OF MASS COMMUNICATIONS: FREEDOM AND CONTROL OF PRINT AND BROADCAST MEDIA by Harold L. Nelson and Dwight L. Teeter, Jr. (Mineola, N.Y.: Foundation Press, 1982---$19.75)

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR ADVERTISING by Burleigh Gardner (Chicago: Crain Books, 1982---price not given)

MASS COMMUNICATION REVIEW YEARBOOK, VOLUME 4 edited by Ellen Wartella and D. Charles Whitney (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1983---price not given)     

Book of the Month

Television and Growing Up: The Impact of Televised Violence — Report to the Surgeon General from the Surgeon General's Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behavior (Washington: USGPO, 1972—$2.25, paper)     

When the home team is not featured: Comparison of two television network commentaries during broadcasts of the 2006 FIFA World Football Cup

Broadcast commentary of sport contests is often seen as biased or “one-eyed” for the “home team”. This study sought to determine if this labelling was correct. Two different broadcasts of the national Dutch team's games during the 2006 Federation Internationale de Football Association's (FIFA) World Cup in Germany were compared. Both the Dutch Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS) and Australian Special Broadcast Services (SBS) networks each televised this team's matches, together providing eight matches for analysis. First, the framing strategies used by each broadcaster were identified through a fourteen category thematic scale derived from the data. Secondly, a Chi-square analysis of the results revealed significant associations for the types of themes employed by the home network (NOS) and those of a neutral broadcaster (SBS). Results also revealed associations for the use of nationalistic themes in the commentary. These results have salience for sport management and sport media studies as audience size and therefore revenue generation is of import.     

The choose-short effect in pigeon memory for stimulus duration: Subjective shortening versus coding models

A symbolic delayed matching procedure may be used to study memory for stimulus duration in pigeons. Short and long presentations of a light sample stimulus are mapped onto the choke of visually differentiated comparison keys. When delay is varied in such a symbolic delayed matching procedure, pigeons show increasing preference for the short-sample key as the delay becomes longer (choose-short effect), even after a long sample stimulus has been presented. Two theoretical explanations of the choose-short effect are suggested. A subjective shortening model holds that the choose-short effect arises from progressive shortening of the memory of stimulus duration as the delay proceeds. An alternative coding model suggests that the choose-short effect arises from stimulus generalization after an initial response instruction to peck the long-sample key has been forgotten. These two models were tested by training pigeons to peck a third comparison key after no sample stimulus had been presented. Shifts in key preferences over delays ranging from 0 to 21 sec clearly supported the coding model.     

Alternative schools and the crisis of education in developed countries

One of the growing concerns of educationists is the rigidity of traditional educational systems and their apparent inability to respond to social change, much less to stimulate it. Out of this concern with the inadaptation, in particular of schools, to contemporary demands, have come a number of different responses, from the theoretical to the concrete, both reformist and revolutionary.Prospects has given considerable space to discussion of the inadequacy of formal schooling in many parts of the world; deschooling, ‘conscientization’, alternative models have been discussed in theory and practice in the pages of the journal. The following article by Dwight Allen describes one type of response to disenchantment with formal school schooling, spontaneous and increasingly widespread, by the clients—pupils and parents—of the school system in one highly developed country. It could be argued that the very existence of ‘alternative’ schools indicates an economic system advanced and healthy enough to absorb the products of a ‘non-traditional’ school, and that therefore the experiences sketched below are irrelevant to developing countries. It seems to us, on the contrary, that the issues raised are fundamental, relating to the very concept of educational systems. The style of the article is not controversial, but the implication of its arguments is very much so: the system and the experiences described by the author, although they are set in a specific social and educational system, are none the less interesting as indicators, reference points, for highly centralized systems and even more so for all those systems which are in the process of moulding themselves in the likeness of one or the other model. We hope our readers will express their opinions and thus carry the discussion farther afield, into the developing world.     

Fostering social development through block play

Playing with blocks can help develop social skills and give children an opportunity to practice positive behavior.Dwight L. Rogers is an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.     

Basic needs: New approach to development — But new approach to education?

The article is an examination of what has been called the basic needs approach to development and the implications of adopting such an approach for education.The authors trace briefly the sequence by which the basic needs approach reached the corridors of international development policy. This sequence, together with an analysis of some of the conceptual underpinnings of the basic needs approach, suggest that the approach may be biased toward the experience of the Western industrial nations, and some aspects may be inappropriate for the social realities found in developing countries.The authors take up the question of how education relates to the basic needs philosophy. They look at attempts to fashion a conception of education for basic needs and how such conceptions compare to the prevailing notions of basic education. Finally, the authors identify some key issues where, conceivably, education for basic needs could emerge as distinct from basic education and become consistent with the aspirations of the basic needs approach taken as a whole.

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Zusammenfassung In diesem Artikel werden der sogenannte Grundbedarfsansatz zur Entwicklung und die Implikationen seiner Übernahme auf das Bildungswesen untersucht.Die Verfasser zeigen kurz den Weg auf, auf dem der Grundbedarfsansatz in die Korridore der internationalen Entwicklungspolitik eindrang. Dieser Weg sowie eine Analyse der konzeptuellen Untermauerungen des Ansatzes deuten darauf hin, daß er vorrangig auf die in den westlichen Industriestaaten gemachten Erfahrungen ausgerichtet ist, und daß einige seiner Aspekte für die soziale Wirklichkeit in Entwicklungsländern ungeeignet sein dürften.Dann greifen die Autoren die Frage auf, wie sich das Bildungswesen zur Grundbedarfs-Philosophie verhält. Versuche, eine Konzeption der Erziehung für Grundbedürfnisse zu erarbeiten, werden besprochen und Vergleiche solcher Konzeptionen mit den bestehenden Vorstellungen von Grunderziehung angestellt. Schließlich identifizieren die Verfasser einige Schlüsselgebiete, auf denen sich möglicherweise die Erziehung für Grundbedürfnisse als unterschiedlich von der Grunderziehung erweisen und mit den Bestrebungen des Grundbedarfsansatzes als Ganzem übereinstimmen könnte.

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Résumé Les auteurs de cet article examinent ce qu'il est convenu d'appeler l'approche du développement sous l'angle des besoins essentiels ainsi que les répercussions que pourrait avoir l'adoption de cette approche sur l'éducation.Ils relatent brièvement comment l'étude des besoins essentiels en arriva, par des étapes successives, à déboucher sur la voie de la conception du développement international. Ce cheminement et l'analyse de quelques uns des fondements conceptuels de l'abord des besoins essentiels, amènent à penser que l'approche pourrait être prédisposée en faveur de l'expérience des nations industrialisées de l'Occident et que certains aspects ne sont peut-être pas appropriés aux réalités sociales des pays en développement.Les auteurs envisagent la question des relations entre l'éducation et la philosophie des besoins essentiels. Ils considèrent les tentatives d'élaboration d'une conception de l'éducation réondant aux besoins essentiels et la confrontation de cette conception avec les notions prédominantes de l'éducation de base. Enfin, ils identifient quelques points clefs où, d'une façon concevable, l'éducation répondant aux besoins essentiels pourrait se dégager de l'éducation de base, devenir distincte et compatible avec les aspirations de l'approche des besoins essentiels que l'on envisagerait alors comme un tout.