Patrick R. Parsons

Self-Regulation and Magazine Advertising

Abstract Asking the motives and nature of standards for deciding which ads are acceptable for publication, detailed descriptions of the standards, guidelines and day-to-day concerns were gathered from publishers and advertising managers of 164 magazines.

Self-Regulation and Television Advertising

Abstract Media owners and managers possess great power to select (and reject) advertising submissions. Regardless of the directives (or absence) of any self-regulation code, no television station must accept any commercial advertising it does not wish to carry. This study requested descriptions of the standards, guidelines and day-to-day concerns from U.S. commercial broadcast stations, asking the policies, procedures and nature of standards for deriding which commercials are acceptable for broadcast.

Horizontal Integration in the Cable Television Industry: History and Context

This article offers an historical review and analysis of horizontal integration in the cable television industry. It traces ownership patterns from the inception of the earliest multiple system operators (MSOs) to the formation of todays industry behemoths. It is a business history that provides a panoramic view of the slow but steady concentration of holdings in the industry and looks at the contemporaneous forces that either accelerated or retarded such formation at given points in its development.

R. Budd Dwyer: A case study in newsroom decision making

In late January of 1987, the State Treasurer of Pennsylvania, R. Budd Dwyer, shot himself to death in front of a dozen reporters and camera crews during a news conference in his office. Much was subsequently made in the popular press, and within the profession, about the difficult ethical decision television journalists were faced with in determining how much of the very graphic suicide tape to air. A review of the literature in this area suggests, however, that journalists have established a set of relatively detailed conventions for dealing with events involving graphic depictions of death. Analysis of the Dwyer tape and interviews conducted with Pennsylvania television news directors show that eighteen of the twenty stations in the state that carry news used basically the same type and amount of footage in their evening newscasts. One decided to use no tape. One showed the moment of death. When the story broke around noon, two additional stations showed the moment of suicide, but they revised their sto...

The Evolution of the Cable-Satellite Distribution System

The television industry began a dramatic transformation in the mid 7 970s following the creation of the cable-satellite programming distribution system. This paper details the evolution of the cable-satellite link, from its conceptual roots in the 7 9605, through pioneering efforts by Teleprompter Corp., to the eventual involvement of Home Box Office. It offers a narrative and analysis that fills a gap in the existing historical record and provides an illustration of several themes involving the social evolution of technology.

‘Checking’ and googling: Stages of news consumption among young adults:

In the changing news environment, young adult audiences, often dubbed ‘the Internet generation’, have increasingly gravitated toward online sources of news and information, raising questions about the nature and amount of news consumed. This study joins many others in looking at the emerging processes of news consumption among, in this case, college students, using focus group interviews to further examine how they go about obtaining news. Drawing upon literature in the areas of news consumption, media habits, generational change and news repertoire, this study identifies an emerging three-stage process of consumption that includes the following: routine surveillance, incidental consumption, and directed consumption, each conditioned by various forms of new media use. It suggests continued research in the interaction of a changing media ecology with generational adoption of news habits and the implications of this interaction for news and news engagement.

Two tales of a city: John Walson, Sr., Mahanoy city, and the “founding”; of cable TV

For the last 20 years, scholarly and popular accounts of the development of cable television have recounted the story of John Walson, Sr., who claimed to have started the first CATV system in June of 1948 in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania. When Walson died in March of 1993, newspapers around the country credited him with starting the nations first cable system and even “founding”; the industry. The claim, however, has always been clouded by questions and a lack of documentation. This paper reports the results of an investigation of the Walson story. It concludes that, as bright and promising as the Walson tale may be, it probably is not true. At the very least, the preponderance of evidence suggests that Walson got his start in the community antenna television business in late 1950, about the same time as many others around the country and, importantly, probably after another group of businessmen already had begun a system in Mahanoy City itself.