An examination of motivations for using the World Wide Web

Using data collected from students at a fully networked university community, this study examines patterns of World Wide Web use and how they may relate to gratifications people seek from traditional media. Path analyses show that beliefs about the Web predict gratifications sought, and that the latter predict gratifications obtained, with considerable reliability. More importantly, entertainment, surveillance, and passing time—gratifications typically associated with television and newspaper use—prove to be significant predictors of World Wide Web site visitation. Thus, the data indicate that Internet use may be understood and predicted through the application of traditional gratification typologies.     

The association of socio‐communicative style and relational type on perceptions of nonverbal immediacy

This study examined how an individual's perceived use of nonverbal immediacy is related to his or her perceived socio‐communicative style, and whether the use of nonverbal immediacy behaviors differs across relational types. Reflecting on a recent interaction, participants (N = 309) completed the Assertiveness‐Responsiveness measure (Richmond & McCroskey, 1990) and a modified version of the Nonverbal Immediacy Behaviors instrument (Richmond, Gorham, & McCroskey, 1987). Results indicate that (a) competent communicators differ from noncompetent, submissive, and aggressive communicators across ten nonverbal immediacy behaviors and (b) the use of nonverbal immediacy behaviors differs across relational types.     

Competition between the cable and broadcast industries: A niche analysis

The authors show that although there is increasing competition between cable television, broadcast television, and radio, broadcast television remains a strong competitor and has not yet been displaced by cable television in the advertising market. Radio still remains competitive, but not to the degree of broadcast television. The authors suggest that cable television will not rapidly overwhelm and push broadcast industries out of the market.     

Learning More About How They Think: Information Literacy Instruction in a Campus-Wide Critical Thinking Project

ABSTRACT

Critical thinking and information literacy are strongly connected. At Washington State University, librarians have been involved with first-year experience programs and with a grant-funded critical thinking project that enhanced the library instruction and outreach efforts and has led to increased involvement with new initiatives on campus.     

Finding Our Way as “Embedded Librarians”

ABSTRACT

Librarians at the University of Central Missouri were invited to provide research assistance for an online history course delivered through the Blackboard course management system. In consultation with the course instructor, it was decided that we would serve as “embedded librarians,” offering online tutorials on library resources and providing research assistance to students as they worked on a short research paper assignment. Our experiences with the course instructor and with students have provided us with some clear insights into the particular challenges that librarians face in an online course environment.     

Media Commons and the Sad Decline of Vancouver Indymedia

The author argues that the concept commons is a productive way of thinking about and practicing democratic and participatory media. He begins by defining media commons in such a way as to emphasize the relational and regulated nature of commons. Such a definition critiques the idea that commons are resources available to a public without limits as well as the tendency to define commons in terms of the essential characteristics of the resources in question. Next, the author's experience in the Indymedia movement is summarized to suggest that the failure of Vancouver Indymedia was due, in part, to the general inability to establish effective commons within the collective and over the website. He concludes the article by offering a survey and critique of tendencies in the formulation of the commons within wider academic and activist literatures, as well as its use in work more specifically focused on media and communication.     

6. GENERAL MEDIA

Robert D. Singer and Robert M. Kaplan, eds. &;ldquo;Television and Social Behavior,&;rdquo; The Journal of Social Issues 32:4 (Fall 1976, $4.00 per copy from Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, Publication Office, Box 1248, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106)

Jon Baggaley and Steve Duck's Dynamics of Television (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books [D.C. Heath] , 1977—$15.00

Symposium on Television Violence(Ottawa: Printing and Publishing Supply and Services Canada, 1976—$5.00 in Canada; $6.00 to other countries, paper [also available in the U.S. from Unipub in New York—for $9.25, paper] )

Toward a National Endowment for Children's Broadcasting (Center for Action Research, 20 Nassau St. [Suite 211] , Princeton, N.J. 08540—apparently free on request)

Maureen Harmonay, ed. ACT's Guide to TV Programming for Children— Promise and Performance: Children with Special Needs (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger Publishing Co. [Lippincott] , 1977—$1230/6.95)

Scott H. Robb's Television/ Radio Age Communications Coursebook (Communications Research Institute, 25 Central Park West [Suite 1B] , New York, N.Y. 10023—$14.50, looseleaf format).

Claude and Barbara Hall's This Business of Radio Programming (Billboard Publications, 1515 Broadway, New York 10036—$15.95)

Frazier, Gross &; Clay Inc.'s Raio in 1985 (Washington: National Association of Broadcasters, 1977—$10.00 to non-members; $5.00 to members, paper)

Traveling F.M. Radio Guide (And/or Press, P.O. Box 2246, Berkeley, Calif. 94702— $2.95, paper     

Reference Works

UNION LIST OF FILM PERIODICALS: HOLDINGS OF SELECTED AMERICAN COLLECTIONS, by Anna Brady (compiler and editor), Richard Wall (assistant editor), and Carolyn Newitt Weiner (computer editor), (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1984—$35.00)

THE CIRCULATING FILM LIBRARY CATALOG, (Publication and Sales, The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10019—$12.95 to the general public and $9.71 to members)

THE D.W. GRIFFITH PAPERS, (available on 36 microfilm reels, with printed guide and index from University Publications of America, 44 North Market Street, Frederick, Maryland 21701—$2,300.00)

THE NORTH DAKOTA QUARTERLY of Summer 1983 (but issued in the summer of 1984)

THE ANNUAL INDEX TO MOTION PICTURE CREDITS, edited by Byerly Woodward (Los Angeles: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 1984 —$80.00)

WHAT A BUNCH OF CHARACTERS! AN ENTERTAINING GUIDE TO WHO PLAYED WHAT IN THE MOVIES by Tom Scott Cadden (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall, 1984 — $9.95 paper)