Evil Literature

Much of the focus on the closure of the News of the World in 2011 was in the context of the newspaper as a national publication in the UK. The News of the World, however, had a significant history in Ireland. This article focuses on one aspect of that history culminating in the banning of the newspaper in 1930 at a time when it was the best-selling title in the Irish market. The prohibition followed an almost two-decade campaign against ‘dirty’ publications led by the Catholic Church and its supporters so as to safeguard sexual morality in Ireland against ‘alien’ influences. Understanding the rationale for targeting the News of the World and other popular British newspapers is central to fully considering the censorship campaign as well as the work of the government-appointed Committee on Evil Literature in 1927. Given the emboldened outlook of the Catholic Church following independence from the UK in 1922, the highly effective censorship campaign met little public or political resistance despite the popularity of the News of the World. Along with offering a deeper understanding of this specific censorship campaign against the press, this article also explores the role of British newspapers beyond their core domestic market.     

Change and the News Library

Abstract

As a special library, the news library has undergone dramatic changes in the last decade. Technological advances have almost totally transformed the news library's environment, collections, and operations. The major changes include the use of commercial and in-house electronic database systems to store full-text news story and other necessary information, and the retrieval of them by librarians or journalists. In other words, computerized database has been exchanged for file drawer filing and retrieving. This paper will address the evolution of the traditional news library and its impact on news librarians.     

Mourning “Men Joined in Peril and Purpose”: Working-Class Heroism in News Repair of the Sago Miners’ Story

Initially promising to replicate the story of the 2002 rescue at the Quecreek mine in Pennsylvania, news coverage of the January 2006 coal mine accident in Sago, WV, went terribly wrong when journalists incorrectly reported the miners’ “miracle” survival. Analysis of 761 newspaper, newsmagazine, and broadcast news reports illustrates how journalists corrected a mishandled story, and offers a glimpse into their broader role in constructing politically affirming national mythology. The final story of Sago was one of a rural community with class pride, distinct gender roles, and other “traditional” values presumed lost—a nostalgic parable of blue-collar patriotic sacrifice.     

Frame Diversity and Citizen Competence: Towards a Critical Approach to News Quality

This article identifies two basic models of citizen competence (the ignorant citizen and the rational citizen) in which normative theories of journalism and standards of news quality are grounded. I propose the interpreting citizen as an alternative view of citizen competence. According to this model, the availability of diverse interpretive frames in the public realm, particularly in the news media, is an important precondition for enhancing citizen competence. Given flaws in existing standards for evaluating journalism quality, the news media should be judged in terms of their performance in presenting diverse interpretive frames, rather than in terms of informational goals.     

The relationship of supportive communication to sex discussion in the home

Supportive communication was examined as a component of mothers’ sex discussion with children. Results demonstrated that mothers who communicated supportively were more open and disclosing when discussing sex and were more likely to provide sons with birth control information and instruction than mothers who communicated nonsupportively. The study concludes by raising several issues for future research and sex education pro‐ams for parents.     

Majority/minority size and the evaluations of persuasive arguments

The present study examines the influence of relative minority size on perceptions of argument quality and attitude change. Strong and weak arguments for both cautious and risky positions were presented in conjunction with information describing the size of minority factions as either small or large. Results demonstrated that cautious argument quality influenced perceptions of argument quality only when the majority advocated a cautious position or when the minority faction was large. Results are discussed in light of their implications for normative and informational influences in group polarization.     

A Patient-centered Approach to Breaking Bad News: Communication Guidelines for Health Care Providers

This investigation takes a patient-centered approach to examining strategies physicians use to deliver bad news to patients. Qualitative data were obtained from 68 patients who had received a message they perceived as negative information from a health care provider. Through grounded theory methodology, patient accounts were examined to reveal four provider strategies for breaking bad news. This investigation underscores the importance of using effective communication strategies to achieve patient satisfaction and compliance.     

To Hope or to Know: Coping with Uncertainty and Ambivalence in Women's Magazine Breast Cancer Articles

Breast cancer is one of the most feared diseases in contemporary Western society. Popular women's magazines are important sources of information about and orientation to the disease. The current study applies problematic integration theory in an interpretive analysis of all breast cancer articles appearing in five top-circulating women's magazines between 1997 and 2002. In so doing, the study illuminates two major challenges (uncertainty and ambivalence) and several imperfect approaches to coping constructed in this discourse (simplification, information-seeking/provision, affect management, trusting intuition, sustaining hope, and metaphoric reframing). These results have several clear and important practical implications and highlight a major and largely untried direction for future research.     

立片言以警策:新闻标题的炼字锻句问题

现代传播媒介已不仅限于传统的平面媒体(报纸)一端,传媒形式的多样化特别是网络的发达,使得各种新闻的总量成为真正的海量。在这信息爆炸的时代,在各种新闻"泛滥成灾"的情况下,如何将某一有价值的新闻及时有效地传达给受众,让其发挥应有的作用,就成为考验新闻写作者或新闻编辑者语言表达智慧的一道无可回避的试题。为了使所要传播的新闻最大限度地为受众了解,新闻写作者或新闻编辑者就必须在新闻标题的炼字锻句方面下功夫,注意表达技巧,在第一时间内迅速抓住受众的注意力。新闻标题需要讲究表达技巧,但要遵循"自然"、"贴切"的原则,不能"为修辞而修辞"。     

“People Killing People on the News”: Young Children's Descriptions of Frightening Television News Content

This article investigated children's fear responses to everyday exposure to the news in the absence of a recent crisis or major event. From March to May 2006, a survey was conducted of 218 kindergarten through 6th-grade children regarding their fright reactions to the news. Results showed that 35.3% of children reported being frightened by the news. Reporting on what frightened them in their own words, children most frequently mentioned natural disasters (24.7% of children frightened), followed by kidnappings (10.4% of children frightened), the Iraq War (7.8%), and burglaries (7.8%). A qualitative analysis suggests that some children have vivid memories of disturbing news content. The accessibility of television in children's households was not related to news exposure or fear. Implications for parental guidance and research methods are discussed.