Srinivas R. Melkote

Viewing and avoidance of the Al-Jazeera satellite television channel in Kuwait: a uses and gratifications perspective

Employing the uses and gratifications perspective, this study examined factors that motivated Kuwaitis to watch or avoid watching the Al-Jazeera satellite channel and their relationships with political interest and trust in government. Viewers obtained several gratifications that included opinion leadership, free marketplace of information, and surveillance. Those who avoided watching Al-Jazeera did so for partisanship, biased coverage and political apathy. The relationships between gratifications derived from watching Al-Jazeera with political interest and trust in government revealed that those who were very interested in politics were more likely to watch Al-Jazeera for its opinion leadership and surveillance functions. Importantly, the results of this study showed that trust in government was negatively associated with Al-Jazeeras role as a free marketplace of information, its credibility in news presentation, and Kuwaits image in the Arab world. The results of this study support and reinforce our understanding of the various postulates of the uses and gratifications theory. Satellite television networks such as Al-Jazeera have created a free marketplace of ideas and information that would eventually engender citizens to speak for themselves rather than allow authorities to speak for them. Furthermore, these networks have become open forums for average Arabs to express their ideas and exchange views.

Leisure time and channel repertoire in a Multichannel environment

A telephone survey of 197 respondents measured leisure time activities (television viewing versus all other activities). An analysis of four groups (low TV/low other, low TV/high other, high TV/low other, and high TV/high other) looked for group differences in two types of channel repertoire: broadcast channel repertoire (BCR) and cable channel repertoire (CCR). CCR differed between the first and fourth groups (low/low and high/high), but there were no differences in BCR. Age was found to be a significant covariate. These findings support the idea that people who are active in general tend to watch cable channels in particular.

News Framing During a Time of Impending War An Examination of Coverage in The New York Times prior to the 2003 Iraq War

This article is an empirical analysis that falls under the category of media criticism and accountability. Specifically, the study investigated the manner in which The New York Times framed the events, issues and actors during the month prior to the start of the 2003 war with Iraq. The study focused on: Saddam Hussein, George Bush Jr, the United Nations, weapons of mass destruction, the US Armed Forces (in Iraq) and France, Germany and Russia. The study discovered negative bias in the coverage, especially toward Saddam Hussein, WMDs, the UN and France, Germany and Russia.

International agenda-setting effects of Saudi Arabian media: A case study

The purpose of the present study was to examine the impact of Saudi Arabian media in setting the intrapersonal, interpersonal and international agenda for the civil servant employees in Riyadh, the capital city. Al-Riyadh and Al-Sharq Al-Awsat were selected for analysis as they were reported to be the most popular Arabic language newspapers in Riyadh. In addition, the two television channels in Saudi Arabia were also examined for their agenda- setting effects. The results of our study indicated that while the mass media were not successful in influencing the intrapersonal and interpersonal agendas of the public, they were very effective in influencing the salience of issues in the publics international agenda. The crosslagged correlations showed that the direction of influence was from the mass media to the public and not vice-versa. The findings of this study have important implications for the agenda-setting functions and impact of the media in countries with a tightly controlled information processing and disseminating system. It is hoped that testing the agenda-setting effects in Saudi Arabia may suggest some generalities that may be relevant to other countries in the Third World with similar socio-political systems.

Providing Care to Persons with Stigmatised Illnesses Implications for Participatory Communication

Public health challenges such as AIDS, tuberculosis, plague, and leprosy have implicitly assumed stigmatisation of patients. This article is about stigmatised illnesses, a disease where patients face medical and social challenges. Today, diseases such as leprosy, TB are curable if detected early. However, the social problem of stigma still persists. Why is it that despite the availability of treatment, persons with diseases continue to be ostracised by the community? What is the role of the health-workers? Should they be effective distributor of medicines and methods of cure or should they also empower the community to examine and reflect upon this medical cum sociological phenomenon and help the community to devise methods of providing cure as well as providing care? What are the best practices the community can follow to deal with leprosy and its social ramifications? Importantly, what are the implications for participatory communication and for effective interventions in the future? This article discusses several core themes that suggest some answers to these questions.

Bias in newspaper reporting: a content analysis of the coverage of Korean Airlines and Iran airbus shootings in the U.S. elite press

The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a difference in the way the U.S. elite press reported crises if the nationality of the perpetrators were different, and in what ways this bias occurred, if it did. This was accomplished through the examination of three prestigious U.S. newspapers, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, in their coverage of two similar events: the shooting of the Korean Airliner, Flight 007 by the Soviets in 1983, and the shooting of Iran Air, Flight 655 by the Americans in 1988. The premise was that similar events would be covered in similar fashion, assuming that &dquo;objectivity&dquo; was observed. To detect news bias, articles and sentences in the ten days following each event were content analysed for extent of coverage, reporting style, slant and degree of imbalance in reporting, and the identity of primary news sources. Reporting style and slant were examined as they related to five defined objects: the KAL shooting, U.S.S.R., Iran Air shooting, U.S., and Iran. To measure the degree of imbalance toward each object, a statistical procedure called &dquo;Coefficient of Imbalance&dquo; was used in the study. Results indicated a difference in the way the two events were reported. The KAL incident received more than double the coverage that the Iran Air incident did. The act of shooting the KAL, and the Soviets in the KAL incident were portrayed negatively, whereas, their counterparts in the Iran Air incident were depicted positively. A difference in reporting style was also detected. A higher proportion of inferences and judgments were made in the coverage of the KAL incident than in the coverage of the Iran Air incident. The findings suggested that bias existed in the press coverage of the two events. Is there a difference in the way the press in the United States would report international crises if the nationality of the perpetrators were different and especially if the foreign countries involved were not allies of the United States? If the coverage is different, then how would the bias occur? This study set out to examine the treatment given to two similar incidents by the U.S. elite press. The parallel case studies selected for examination were: the shooting of the Korean Airliner (KAL) by the Soviets in 1983, and the shooting of the Iran Airbus by the United States in 1988. These incidents at SAGE Publications on December 6, 2012 gaz.sagepub.com Downloaded from

Everett M. Rogers and His Contributions to the Field of Communication and Social Change in Developing Countries

The death of Professor Everett M. Rogers in 2004 was a profound loss to the scholarly communications fraternety in general and the development communications community in particular. From the early 1960s up to his last days, Professor Rogers’ scholarly writings and research influenced the fields of development communication, diffusion of innovations, communication technology, research and theory, as well as five generations of scholars in these fields. In this article I summarize the literature and development in developing countries, highlighting Professor Rogers’ seminal contributions to the body of this work.

What Makes an Effective HIV/AIDS Prevention Communication Campaign? Insights from Theory and Practice

The lack of a medical cure for AIDS puts the spotlight on preventive efforts. Therefore, an enormous responsibility is placed on communication since it plays an important role in disseminating information that may prevent risky behaviour as well as help in reducing stigma of AIDS patients. In this article, we wish to highlight what we consider to be important elements in a successful or effective campaign. The article will begin with an overview of important models/theories that are related to HIV/AIDS prevention noting their theoretical contributions as well as some of their weaknesses in addressing pertinent factors. This will be followed by our description of an effective HIV/AIDS prevention campaign. This article also underlines the importance of local stakeholders. The challenge for communication and programme managers/practitioners is to identify and seek collaboration of important local stakeholders.

Attitude and Perceptual Factors in the Adoption of Computers in a School System A Case Study of Trinidad and Tobago

The advent of new communication technologies has significantly influenced the direction of diffusion research. Initially, the focus was on adoption with individuals as its units. However, with the increasing importance of new communication technologies, it is now considered the responsibility of organizations. As a result, current research in diffusion is mainly concerned with implementation since the innovation process in organizations is only considered successful if it leads to implementation and possibly institutionalization. This article examines the relationship between the independent variables (teachers’ attitudes towards computers and perceived innovation characteristics) and the dependent variables (teacher satisfaction and utilization). Ten hypotheses were formulated to examine the relationship between the variables. Using regression analysis, seven hypotheses related to perceived innovation characteristics were supported. One hypothesis related to attitudes was also supported. The results demonstrate that the implementation of educational computing was successful. This achievement can be attributed more to the importance of attitudinal and perceptual factors than the prescribed linear approach to the diffusion process in organizations. More specifically, the findings emphasize that the degree of implementation is a critical variable in diffusion research.

Biases in development support communication: Revealing the comprehension gap

An increasingly common experience in the Third World countries deals with the fact that their development goals increased productivity, improved health status, enhanced quality of life are proving frustratingly illusive and the plight of rural peasants and urban poor has become, if anything, somewhat worse than it was in the 1960s (Weaver et al., 1978 ; Seers, 1977a). A number of communication scholars have begun to identify certain biases in the approaches of communicating new knowledge and skills to the rural people of the Third World which may be acting to frustrate the best efforts of development agencies. The present author proposes to review the main development communication strategies attempted during the past two decades in an effort to determine the number and nature of these biases and their effect on the process of adoption of innovations. A close examination of these biases, if indeed they exist, would also indicate the extent to which communication strategies have attempted to bring about democratization and more broad-based involvement of local people in decision-making.