Ron F. Smith

African-American Photo Coverage in "Life,""Newsweek," and "Time," 1937-1988.

This content analysis of the pictures in three major magazines for an entire year for each of 11 sampled years in the 1937 through 1988 period shows that African Americans increased visibility from a low of 1.1% to a high of 8.8% of all photographs. This included the presence of African Americans on covers, in advertisements, sports, everyday life, and in other areas. The authors found the African-American photos could be grouped into periods of stereotyping (1937–1952), civil rights (1957–1972), and working within the system (1978–1988).

Of Lasting Interest? A Study of Change in the Content of the Reader's Digest

,The Reader’s Digest is a giant in the magazine field. Each month Americans purchase more than 17 million copies. The Digest’s circulation is second only to TV Guide. The Digest is also one of the most popular magazines in other countries. Nearly 100 million people in foreign lands read the Digest, which is published in about 17 languages. Despite its enormous success among readers, the magazine has not been without critics. Early critics attacked it for falsely keeping the appearance of being a digest offering readers condensed versions of the most important articles from hundreds of magazines scanned by Digest editors. The Digest’s cover boasted that the articles were selected because they were “of lasting interest.” However, critics pointed out that many articles were actually plants. Digest editors commissioned articles. and allowed them to appear in other publications. The Digest then reprinted them. Due to printing schedules, the planted articles sometimes appeared in the Digest before the “original publica-

Faculty Members in Ad/PR Perceive Discrimination in Academia.

Abstract The members of AEJMCs Advertising and Public Relations Divisions say they are treated fairly by their chairs, but are not always respected and treated fairly by others. When asked about 10 aspects of academia, members of the Public Relations Division said their schools favor their news/editorial faculties in 9 of the areas.

Influence of appearance on readers' impressions of newspapers

There is a suspicion among some newspaper editors and designers that newspapers that use large amounts of color and contemporary designs may be taken seriously by their readers. This idea was given some support by an earlier study that found readers considered traditionally designed newspapers more valuable and accurate than modem or modular papers. The study suggested that readers may perceive papers that use color as less accurate. The current study is a modified replication of that study. The concerns raised in the prior research were not bom out by this study. Its findings suggests that found that respondents who regularly read newspapers that are leaders in color and contemporary design did not perceive there to be significant differences in journalistic value or accuracy related to the design formats of newspapers. Instead, readers in the present study liked color. They rated papers that used spot color higher in many categories like interest, freshness and excitement. Nor were they bothered about t...

Time and "Newsweek" Favor John F. Kennedy, Criticize Robert and Edward Kennedy.

w Time and Newsweek magazines are enormously successful and enormously influential. Together, the two magazines reach about 40 million Americans every week. But a former writer for Time complained the magazine was “dishonestly written” and, “Every single story carries the slant of the editor, Henry Luce.”l Author David Halberstam called Luce a “national propagandist,” and, as a recent article in the Los Angeles Times explained, “Henry Luce was a Calvinist and a conservative, and his view of the world was Time’s view of the world-morally, socially, intellectually and, most important of all, politically.”2 Time’s editors insist the magazine has become more objective. Other journalists rely upon Time, and many now consider it one of the nation’sfairest and most reliable publications.)

Newspaper Stylistic Codes: A Hindrance to Understanding.

b Newspaper stylistic codes present the reader with a lot of information in an abbreviated and rather idiosyncratic manner. These codes developed as editors imposed their personal preferences on newsrooms and as they adopted practices to facilitate typesetting or to coincide with wire service stylebooks. Editors apparently assumed that readers who depended on newspapers for the news would learn these stylistic codes and understand the information contained in them. However, as the growth in newspaper reading has not matched the growth in the