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Child marriage is a problem that has continued to attract global attention. The media have been identified as critical to the fight against the scourge as it discusses the capacity to raise awareness of the issue as well as trigger action in solving the problem. The report of the alleged abduction of a minor, Ese Oruru by one Yunusa Dahiru for marriage jolted the nation and sparked public outcry for her release. This study explored newspaper framing of the incident. Drawing from qualitative frame analysis, it examined how Punch and Daily Trust newspapers framed the alleged abduction saga. The study found that there was contrastive framing of the incident with Punch newspaper portraying the issue as abduction while Daily Trust newspaper depicted it as elopement. The influence of socio-cultural leanings of these papers on the contrastive framing is discussed. The implication of the divergent framing of the saga on the fight against child marriage is highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the sociology of education, opponents of deficit thinking would be seen as important change agents, potentially inspiring radical policy change aimed at reducing systemic discrimination of specific sociodemographic groups. That is, contestation of deficit thinking can in theory lead to its destruction. In this paper, we argue that contestation can be overruled or downplayed via public discourses. From a discourse-historical approach, we illustrate how contestation was attenuated in the context of ethnicity in Flemish higher education in the period 1985–2020. We show how a variety of discursive processes eventually marginalize anti-deficit narratives in mass media texts, even though these stances were dominant at certain moments. The major contribution of our study is that it highlights important discursive mechanisms underlying the reproduction of deficit thinking in times of contestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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On 26 April 2007, US sportswriter Mike Penner told readershewas transsexual and thathewould return to the paper as Christine Daniels. Journalists immediately analysed and assessed this column. Three months later, Daniels' first byline appeared assheassumedherformer beats. Yet, after eight months in the spotlight, Daniels faded from view and, without explanation, Penner's name returned. Although the paper did not offer details on Penner's return,hisre-emergence proved newsworthy. While the byline appeared consistently, Penner rarely appeared in public. On 27 November 2009,hecommitted suicide. By interrogating the fragmented coverage of Penner/Daniels in these three periods of his/her life – transition, (re/de)transition and suicide – this paper argues that the media selectively framed Penner/Daniels's gender identity and used gender pronouns purposefully to create specific meanings. Few described Penner/Daniels in entirety; as a result, the life was flattened into a one-dimensional category of gender advocacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite both scholarly and popular claims that citizen journalism (CJ) represents a growing democratizing force in the journalistic field, recent scholarship in the area has noted the decline of the organizational population of CJ. In this paper, we investigate how individual characteristics of sites and the dynamics of larger organizational population affect a CJ site’s risk of experiencing a mortality. Drawing on the largest sample to date of US-based English-language CJ sites, this study examines the risk of site mortality through an event history framework. Findings indicate that the strongest predictor of a site’s mortality is the age of the site, consistent with organizational population theory’s ‘liability of newness.’ We also find that for-profit and community-based sites have lower rates of site mortality, indicating that adopting legitimate conventions of journalism may serve as a protective buffer to site death. The results offer mixed evidence on whether CJ has become more professionalized via attrition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the construction of avian influenza in Australian media and federal government policy, with a focus placed on discourses of contagion, preparedness and risk. The threat of an infectious disease outbreak, such as avian influenza, on social life is surrounded by a range of collective narratives which attempt to make it explicable. These narratives socially define the disease and provide explanations for its existence. The paper demonstrates that central to these narratives are depictions of the source of the outbreak and suggestions of appropriate responses to the threat. Methodologically, a narrative analysis of print media and government documents was conducted. This showed that conceptually both government and media discourses could be understood in terms of risk, contagion and blame. Furthermore, it was found that narratives linking the risk of avian influenza with globalised interconnectedness and contagion by the developing world underpin discourses of causation and frame the reactions to and preparation for a potential outbreak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2003, avian influenza has recently spread around the world sparking fears of a potential pandemic. As a result of this, a range of explanations and expectations surrounding the phenomenon were generated. Such social representations of disease depict the issue under discussion and frame reactions to the event. This paper explores the social representations surrounding avian influenza in Australia. Methodologically, a textual analysis of media and government documents was conducted in order to uncover the social representations implicit in these accounts. This demonstrated a symbolic framing of avian influenza with reference to the Spanish Influenza pandemic (1918). Analytically, the study draws upon the concepts of social representations from Durkheim and of risk and symbolic risk in the work of Beck. Overall, it is argued that the framing of avian influenza as a risk, mediated through the collective memory of Spanish Influenza, characterised the nature of the social representations surrounding the phenomenon. This resulted in the production of symbolic solutions to the threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an examination of the role of the mass media, and television in particular, in fostering or depressing citizens' community involvement and their involvement in the political process. The paper looked into 23 studies examining the link between media use and civic or political participation. It discusses three theoretical approaches to the civic engagement debate. An examination of how media use is defined and looks at how participation is defined. It also examines social capital as a series of intervening variables between media exposure and participation. Finally, it presents an assessment of the findings of empirical investigations.

Traditional agenda-setting studies have usually focused on the influence of the media on the public agenda. However, little or no research attention has been paid to agenda-setting as process. The authors contend that the persuasive power of the news media is embedded in the structure of news definition and presentation, with sources exploiting such institutionalized aspects of news coverage to influence the determination of news. As such, it will not be proper to ascribe agenda-setting power to the media alone, but it will be appropriate to examine the process of this influence in a new analysis of the role of the media in agenda-setting. This paper is an attempt to stake out a new conceptual approach to media agenda-setting effects, emphasizing the process rat bet than the effects of this influence. it calls for a shift from the "effect-centric" focus of present agenda-setting research to a process-effect oriented approach. It argues that for the actual agenda-setting effects to be determined, it is necessary to find the focus of this influence-i.e., the actual agenda-setters. In essence, the paper asks the question, who sets the agenda of the media? To answer this question, the paper proposes a paradigm that would identify crucial and contingent conditions, and would explain their roles and sequential effects in the agenda-setting process. The proposed paradigm identifies three distinct stages in the agenda- setting process: Issue Creation, issue Expansion and Issue Consumption, and three involved constituencies; Interest Groups (politicians and bureaucrats, etc.), Media and Audience The paper points out that the three constituencies play active roles at the three stages. It argues, however, that some constituencies are more active than others at some stages. The paradigm, the authors suggest. could be operationalized in two different ways: (1) a combinatorial method, or (2) a quasi-experimental method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Loïc Wacquant has made a widely read and debated contribution to critical research on contemporary urban marginality. A central part of the theoretical framework is that residents of deprived areas internalize territorial stigmatization, which then has a range of negative effects. Based on empirical research this paper assesses Wacquant's conception of territorial stigmatization and suggests some points where urban sociology might go beyond or adjust Wacquant. The empirical research focuses on Aalborg East, a deprived area in the northern part of Denmark. Through media analysis it is documented that Aalborg East is subject to territorial stigmatization, and it is suggested that cultural racism plays an important role. Qualitative interview data suggest, however, that the residents do not internalize or resign to the stigma. They become sad or angry when confronted with the stigma, but they have an either positive or ambivalent view of the area and most of them are content to live there. This finding is validated by survey data. Wacquant's conception cannot be entirely rejected, though, as the construction of internal dividing lines in some interviews can be interpreted as a way of managing territorial stigmatization. Nevertheless, the data provide little support for a theory of clear-cut internalization of territorial stigmatization in the case of Aalborg East. This conclusion leads to three discussions: a confirmation of Wacquant's claim that the role of the state matters; a discussion of the specific political culture of Scandinavian societies; and a problematization of Wacquant's reliance on Bourdieu's conception of symbolic violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New medicines represent exciting possibilities to individual patients for improved futures through reduced morbidity, as well as the potential for disappointment where promised outcomes are not forthcoming. For healthcare systems these technologies can enable enhanced effectiveness as well as spiralling costs, depending on value-for-money offered. Amidst uncertainty over efficacy and pricing, institutions such as the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence have been set up to regulate the cost-effectiveness of new products. The increased transparency of this new regulation, combined with inescapable uncertainties, leads to the heightened politicisation of decision-making and an insidious subjectivity beneath a veneer of rational-bureaucracy. This paper develops a theoretical framework for understanding the influence of hope within such contexts. Conceptualised here as ideological, affective and prone to lapsing into trust, hope is considered to shape the lifeworld-background of regulatory decisions and mask uncertainty around effectiveness. These processes challenge regulator legitimacy and effectiveness within polycentric regimes, through the distortion of communication and the manipulation of blame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a critical review of engagements between the sociology of mass media and risk research. Attention is focused upon the ways in which sociologists and experts in media/communication studies have worked to bring a more socially dynamic and culturally nuanced account of the ways in which people interpret and respond to the content of news media within the field of risk analysis. I argue that, if taken seriously, this endeavour serves more to frustrate than advance the aims and objectives of risk communication. This leads me to question the role played by sociology in the context of risk analysis and to the critical suggestion that sociological reflexivity is bound to disrupt the domain assumptions and pervading ethos of this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines disability terminology to explore how the news media frame cultural representations of the disability community. More specifically, the paper examines the impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act on journalist's language choices about disability topics. A content analysis of news stories using disability terms in The Washington Post and The New York Times during the past decade was conducted. The paper illustrates that disability community identity continues to be formed, transformed and maintained through news media presentations of disability terminology. The paper argues that the US Disability Rights Movement had some success during the 1990s in putting forth language that advances its aims, though the study also suggests that some journalists continue to use terms that perpetuate limiting, narrow stereotypes about people with disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A distinctive dimension of political life, power as the capacity for people to act in concert, was a key in understanding one of the major transformations of the late twentieth century—the democratic aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet empire in central Europe. In this paper, the way this dimension—the politics of small things—provides alternatives in the United States is analyzed. A new media regime, with significant interactions between virtual and embodied social interactions, has opened up the opportunity for a new democratic politics. The antiwar movement and the Dean campaign are shown to have constituted alternative political possibilities for those critical of hegemonic discourses and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the work of Michel de Certeau (1988) to argue that it is possible to distinguish between "expert" or "authorised" approaches to media theory, construed as existing "strategically" within the "proper place" of the academy, and "tactical" appropriations of media theory operating in audience discourses. It takes media fan audiences as one case study in relation to this process, arguing that fans should be viewed as "poaching" from "official" media theory as well as from "official" media texts. It then goes on to suggest that we should not univocally celebrate or romanticise fans' uses of media theory, but should remain alert to the sociological and cultural reproductions that otherwise "tactical" media theory can participate in. This means rethinking fans' "tactics" not merely as the "arts of the weak" (de Certeau 1988, 37), but simultaneously as forms of appropriation that might enact forms of (sub)cultural power for fans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an introduction to the issues that are addressed in the journal "Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies." The authors venture into new territory for the journal, with six papers around the theme of global communication governance. It notes that the convergence of technologies seems to have produced an equally important social and cultural convergence where nongovernmental organizations, governments, business and civil society groups come together to find a satisfactory means of governing the flows of information in an information society.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including focus on media sociology; dispute over air quality between the U.S. and Chinese governments; and social support networks through the use of digital media technologies like Skype and Facebook.

Newspapers in Kenya are written for men, and about the affairs of men, whereas women remain invisible in relation to the serious issues of the day. But there have been efforts to cover women's issues, and to sell newspapers to Kenyan women. These have taken the form of having separate and detached 'women's pages' slotted into the main newspapers. The supplements are filled with stereotyped roles of domesticity, beauty, and fantasy, thus denying women's productive role in society. This article analyses the negative and stereotyped portrayal of women in the Kenyan print media, and considers what implications this has for the country's development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During 1978 the publication of the periodical "Sociological Quarterly" suffered production delays. The volume 20, number one issue reestablishes the journal on its staged publication schedule. The editors are thabnking subscribvers who have tolerated this inconvenience, most of whom said nothing and the others raising only a mild question about delivery dates.

Based on the communication-acculturation perspective, this study assumed active roles of mass media during the acculturation process among foreign immigrants. Employing major postulates and methodologies used in the "cultivation" hypothesis, surveys among two Korean communities in the U.S. found little substantial support for the cultivation hypothesis in general, nor (or the "resonance effect" in particular. While the inter- cultural testing of the hypothesis failed to find evidence for television's perceptual influence, the study generally supported previous findings showing positive associations of various media orientations with antecedent factors such as perceived language proficiency, length of stay, educational background and gratifications sought from media exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the topics featured in the July 2004 issue of the periodical "Political Communication." This issue devotes to the contribution of sociology in the study of political communication. Dietram Scheufele and his colleagues advance the understanding of how social variables such as the location, frequency, and group heterogeneity of organized settings where people talk politics, influence their news media use and their political participation. Of all the papers in this issue, Rodney Benson's work most directly tackles the question of sociology's successes and failures in understanding political communication.

In this essay, I attempt to shed light on Michael Schudson's theoretical and political position vis-àvis commercialism as a shaping force of journalism. I document and analyze Schudson's criticisms of market pressures on journalism, his criticisms of other critics of commercialism whom he sees as going too far and then, the limits of the position he stakes out for himself--which is effectively, given his position as the authoritative synthesizer of the sociology of news, a position for journalism studies as a whole. In homage to Schudson's classic alliterative model of "How Culture Works," through five magic "R" words (rhetorical force, resolution, retrievability, retention and resonance), I argue that the letter "C" unites the five reasons why Schudson is reluctant to overemphasize commercialism's negative effects on journalism. It's Complicated. There are Countervailing forces outside of the market and even when there are not, the market itself is self-Contradictory. Don't underestimate the power of Contingency. And if all else fails, blame it on Culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article charts the career of Robert Reiner, the pioneering British police researcher and prolific writer on mass media, popular culture, political economy, law and order, crime and justice. It surveys his life and work focusing on his contribution to the sociology of policing. The article examines Reiner’s empirical and theoretical studies of policing and the ways in which his work has shaped the discipline.The Politics of the Police, published nearly 30 years ago and now in its fourth edition, is the finest, most authoritative and comprehensive account of British policing in the post-war period and remains the standard work in the field. The article explores the historical, sociological, cultural and social-legal facets of Reiner’s work that have decisively shaped our thinking about policing, how it should be defined, understood and studied. The legacy of Reiner’s work is a tradition of policing scholarship that embraces a fully social and democratic sensibility of what the police are for in order to show how policing can best be performed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Choice and control for birthing women have recently come under the global spotlight as a human rights issue, and are likely to remain so while midwives are being targetted for providing home birth care. While focussing on these issues appears to further widen the dichotomy between medicine and midwifery, understanding how this divide is maintained is necessary if we are to move beyond it. This article, utilising Foucault's theory of genealogy, recapitulates how midwifery knowledge came to be subjugated by a dominant medical discourse, particularly through the process of hospitalising birth. The submission of the Australian Medical Association to a government enquiry into maternity services is then examined to illustrate how discourse is perpetuated, and how medicine still configures itself as the dominant birth discourse in Australia. The importance of focussing on midwifery specific knowledge, using the notion of embodiment, is put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Obesity has become a mainstay of media in all its forms and sociologists and others have increasingly sought to understand what reporting on obesity can tell us about the construction of social problems, health, and health policy. In this commentary, I review recent social science writing on the representation of obesity in the media. I explore three dominant themes in this research, the framing of obesity in the media, media reporting of obesity research, and media characterizations of and reporting on obesity policy. I highlight the strengths of these studies and conclude with suggestions for further avenues of research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Higher income societies have moved from institutional to community-based care for people experiencing mental illness. However, stigma and discrimination persists and undermines help-seeking, recovery and life chances. Mental illness prevalence is higher amongst communities that face multiple prejudices and disadvantages within society, including Black and minority ethnic communities who may experience migration trauma, racism, acculturation and adverse social circumstances. This study examines beliefs, stigma and the effectiveness of existing national mental health campaigns with Pakistani, Indian and Chinese heritage communities in Scotland, UK, using community based participatory research. Community organisers were trained and supported to co-facilitate focus groups with 87 people using a range of languages. Whilst diversity within and between communities was apparent, important trends emerged. People with mental illness experience high levels of stigma from communities. Families experience significant associated stigma. This shame combines with culturally inappropriate services to reduce help-seeking from mental health services, friends and families. Existing anti-stigma campaigns have failed to reach or engage with communities due to a combination of practical issues such as the use of inappropriate language, imagery and media, but also due to assuming western medical concepts of illness. Participants suggested a new model for national campaigns placing greater emphasis upon community development, cultural events, positive contact and dialogue with families, faith leaders and youth groups. National anti-stigma programmes must develop more effective partnerships with communities or risk magnifying existing inequalities. Despite a range of national programmes to address stigma towards people with mental illness, it remains as the major barrier to social inclusion for people with mental illness living in communities. Stigma is particularly severe if people have a mental illness and are also economically disadvantaged or face multiple stigmas. By adopting community based participatory research (CBPR) approaches with three Black and ethnic minority communities in Scotland, this study makes the case that stigma can only be understood and effectively addressed with reference to its socio-cultural context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that mass media have the ability to frame a sociopolitical issue in specific ways, which can have considerable impact on the public's thoughts and perceptions regarding the issue. Through analyzing coverage of capital punishment in the New York Times since 1960 and then conducting an experiment in which we assessed individual-level responses to differently framed news stories, we show (a) the dramatic emergence of a new "innocence frame" within the past 10 years that accentuates imperfections in the justice system, and (b) the much greater impact of this frame on individuals' thoughts - in particular on those who favor the death penalty - when compared to the traditional morality-based frame. We suggest that the latter finding can be explained because individuals tend to resist changing their interpretations of issues based on arguments that contradict their core moral or religious beliefs; however, they seem quite receptive to new information along dimensions that they previously had not considered. This research also implies that U.S. trends toward lower sentencing rates and eventual public opinion changes are likely to continue as long as media and public discussion remains focused on questions regarding flaws in the justice system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional newspapers have been shown to improve knowledge about politics and other societal issues and to widen the perceived public agenda, but what of their online counterparts and other news sites on the Internet? The consequences of differences in presentation style are addressed. A large survey representative of the Dutch adult population is used to examine how much print newspapers and online news expand the perceived public agenda, both in terms of its extent in general and within politics in particular. Our results show that printed newspapers are more effective than online newspapers in increasing the overall number of perceived topics and the number of political topics, but only if readers are interested and rely on newspapers. Nonpaper news sites, however, seem to widen the overall and the political public agenda even without specific interest and reliance of their users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a statewide telephone survey before the 2004 presidential election, this study probes Ohioans' attention to and perception of campaign advertising and the perceived effects of those negative political ads. Citizens in this "battleground" state had a very high level of awareness of campaign advertising, characterizing it as more negative than in the past. Self-reported attention to the campaign and measured use of local and national television news were related to perceived campaign negativity. Evidence of a third-person effect regarding a specific type of negative advertising was found. However, the effect was moderated by candidate choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined whether the candidate-controlled public relations tools of political ads and candidate blogs were successful in influencing the issue and news agenda of the major television news networks during the 2004 presidential election. Data showed strong correlations between blogs and the media agenda. Advertisements did not correlate with the media agenda. Cross-lag analyses showed that the media set the candidates' agenda. The authors suggest intermedia agenda setting occurred as the media transferred their agenda to campaign blogs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of the mass media in the discursive field of civil society in Hong Kong with reference to three case studies. The civil space is defined and redefined through the interplay between a dominant discourse of order versus chaos on the one hand and an opposition discourse of civil society on the other, the latter being mixed with certain ideological, pragmatic and marketing considerations by the mass media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses on the case study of the Oak Ridges Moraine (ORM) planning issue in Canada. The analysis focuses if how print media play in the outcome of the ORM debate which became an environmental issue. There are avenues of research used in the study, a literature review, a content analysis of the Toronto Star's Oak Ridges coverage, and interviews with people involved. The study shows that, the development industry sees the media as skewed towards an environmental point-of-view.

This article presents a new institutionalism approach to news grounded in sociological and historical approaches to new institutionalism and argues that this approach to news production has several advantages. Among them are that it encourages analysts to see the news as an outcome of interaction between journalists and other political actors, that it allows for variance in news coverage around a general tendency toward homogeneity in the news, and, finally, that it encourages scholars to examine the full range of news outlets in the media universe rather than to concentrate their attention on the narrow world of mainstream elite media. This approach is compared and contrasted with that offered by Sparrow elsewhere in this issue, and future directions for research are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All of these writers – Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Shklovsky and Brecht – allow us to sense in different ways the ineluctable significance of the uncanny as a means of thinking about so-called 'real life', the ordinary, the familiar and everyday. (Royle, 2003, pp. 5–6) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay, based on a preliminary study,[ 1 ] examines the increase of female representations within media discourse and the simultaneous increase in female attendance at games, as the latter proves to be methodologically necessary to an understanding of how media representations are socially articulated. The results reveal two main lines of discussion: firstly, that of practical experience that brings with it features of exclusion, and secondly that of media representations that indicate an inclusive tendency. After a brief reference to the significance of football as a widespread practice in Argentina, our main hypothesis is presented, which is related to masculinity as a tendency towards hegemonic symbolization in this field. The practice of going to football grounds is described from the point of view of female subjects, before the essay proceeds to explore shifts in female representations. Finally, I point out some issues raised by this research, which are not only methodological and theoretical, but also political. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there has been a great deal of research on the impact of new media on the ways in which presidents present themselves, less attention has been given to the ways in which these media shape the social construction of the president. This study focuses on how one public, those who write letters to presidents, expresses their sense of the role of the president in different media environments. Letters written to Lincoln, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and London Johnson were examined for clues as to how changes in media environments were linked to changes in the letter-writers’ constructions of presidents. The results of this research suggest that changes in the media environment do indeed have an impact on the social construction of the president. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on Rodney Benson's study "Bringing the Sociology of Media Back In," that raises very stimulating and challenging questions about sociology's place in the study of political communication. Benson is right to criticize most social research's mushy references to media and culture. To compare media cross nationally, it is clear that there is a need to understand institutions and institutional differences. A focus on institutions could be one of sociology's unique contributions to research in political communication. Benson's essay points out an absolutely crucial moment in any analysis of political communication: the structures of media institutions.

In political communication research, news media tend to be studied more as a dependent than independent variable. That is, few studies link structural characteristics of media systems to the production of journalistic discourse about politics. One reason for this relative silence is the inadequacy of prevalent theories. Influential scholars in sociology and political communication such as Jürgen Habermas, Manuel Castells, and William Gamson provide only sketchy, institutionally underspecified accounts of media systems. Likewise, models in the sociology of news have tended to either aggregate societal level influences (chiefly political and economic) that are analytically and often empirically quite distinct or overemphasize micro-level influences (news routines, bureaucratic pressures). In between such micro- and macro-influences, the mezzo-level "journalistic field" represents an important shaping factor heretofore largely ignored. As path-dependent institutional logics, fields help ground cultural analysis; as interorganizational spatial environments varying in their level of concentration, they explain heretofore undertheorized aspects of news production. Drawing on the sociology of news and field theory (Bourdieu and American new institutionalism), this essay offers a series of hypotheses about how variable characteristics of media systems shape news discourse. Since variation at the system level is most clearly seen via cross-national comparative studies, international research is best positioned to build more generalizable theory about the production of journalistically mediated political discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking a comparative approach to critical semiotics, I describe reciprocal relations between media representation of body idiom in platform events and the interaction order of social relations among people in Hong Kong. I argue that two conflicting representations of body idiom vie for supremacy in the former colony, in broadcast television as well as in print media, business, government and education. These can be related to monofocal and polyfocal platform formats. The predominant semiotic representation of the postural presentation of self in international media, the monofocal platform format, grows out of what we call the Utilitarian Discourse System, and is in a problematic dialectical relationship with Hong Kong and other societies. This model of the monologue is articulated by Dale Carnegie in his 1937 book How to Win Friends and Influence People, which advocates establishing and maintaining eye contact and a friendly manner. On the part of the audience, it requires accepting the fiction of a dialogue that is in fact vicarious. I argue that this acceptance evolved in Europe during the Enlightenment in what Foucault described as the disciplines of panopticism, but did not evolve in Hong Kong or China. I sketch the historical development of Hong Kong media and society in an attempt to explain the disjunction between media representation and interaction order, and conclude that critical social semiotics can make a contribution in disentangling these disparate interaction orders and media representations of body idiom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores journalistic quoting practices as an interface between written and oral modes of communication, or between text and talk. Examining both the prescriptive and performative dimensions of journalistic quoting across media, the article demonstrates that when quoting, journalists do not adopt modes of communication relative to the medium being employed but instead creatively mix and meld text and talk, regardless of the medium. The article suggests that this invocation of both modes of communication renders a distinction between text and talk invalid in contemporary news discourse. It further suggests that the cogency of news presentation might depend on the interchangeability of both modalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the images of power and professional status of women in contemporary media organizations in the U.S. Radical improvement in the cultural visibility of women; Impact of liberal feminist on communication research; Accounts on the social perspectives of sociology.

ABSTRACT The present article examines how American and German sociological theories deal with the concept of nature and with environmental problems. The results of an analysis of professional sociological publications are presented. Various conceptions of sociological theorists are discussed focussing on nature and environmental problems. It is argued that the social sciences and the mass media are becoming more and more intertwined, increasingly coming to comprise 'parallel systems of meaning production' (Gamson and Modgliani, 1989). The basic cultural orientations (subsystems) determine how the concept of nature is discussed. It is suggested to investigate how different conceptions of nature are used in social actions and social situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]