Annenberg School for Communication News

New book by Annenberg's Amy Jordan and Martin Fishbein

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Annenberg’s Amy Jordan, Ph.D., Director of the Media and the Developing Child research area of the Annenberg Public Policy Center; and Martin Fishbein, Ph.D., the Harry C. Coles Jr. Distinguished Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication, and director of the Health Communication area of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, have published the new book, Media Messages and Public Health (2008 Routledge). Their co-authors include Dale Kunkel, Ph.D., Professor of Communication at the University of Arizona; and Jennifer Manganello, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Health Policy, Management, and Behavior at the University at Albany.

Media Messages and Public Health addresses the full range of methodological and conceptual issues involved in content analysis research, specifically focused on public health-related messages and behaviors. Uniquely tailored to the challenges faced by content researchers interested in the study of public health topics, coverage includes:

Conceptual and methodological foundations involved in the practice of content analysis research used to examine public health issues.
Measurement challenges posed by the broad range of media.
Use of content analysis across multiple media types.
The potential for individual differences in audience interpretation of message content.
Case studies that examine public health issues in the media to illustrate the decisions that are made when developing content analysis studies.

The volume concludes with a set of guidelines for optimal content analysis research, and suggests ways in which the field can accommodate new technologies and new ways of using media. Developed for researchers in communication, media, and public health, this unique resource demonstrates how the variety of decisions researchers make along the way allows the exploration of traditions, assumptions and implications for each varying alternative and ultimately advances the science of content analysis research.

Annenberg’s CGCS to co-organize summer course in Budapest

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for Communication and the Center for Media and Communication Studies at the Central European University will co-sponsor a two-week summer course, “Media, Democratization, and International Development: Foundations for a More Robust Research Agenda,” next June 29 – July 15 at the Central European University, Budapest, Hungary.

This intensive summer school on media development is designed to help early-stage researchers gain an understanding of the history, theory, practice, and current trends in the media development sector. In the program, students will be exposed to a wide range of theoretical, methodological, and applied/practitioner perspectives from academics and professionals in the media development arena. As part of the course, participants will help develop a comparative research project, undertake field research, and assess and evaluate findings in a written report, fully supervised by a mentor.

More information is available at the CEU website, or download a detailed course description here.

Annenberg's Keith Hampton published in New Media & Society

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Keith N. Hampton, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Communication, has published a paper in the December 2008 issue of the journal New Media & Society along with Neeti Gupta, product manager at Microsoft Corp. The paper's title is "Community and social interaction in the wireless city: wi-fi use in public and semi-public spaces.

Abstract

A significant body of research has addressed whether fixed internet use increases, decreases or supplements the ways in which people engage in residential and workplace settings, but few studies have addressed how wireless internet use in public and semi-public spaces influences social life. Ubiquitous wi-fi adds a new dimension to the debate over how the internet may influence the structure of community. Will wireless internet use facilitate greater engagement with co-located others or encourage a form of 'public privatism'? This article reports the findings of an exploratory ethnographic study of how wi-fi was used and influenced social interactions in four different settings: paid and free wi-fi cafes in Boston, MA and Seattle,WA. This study found contrasting uses for wireless internet and competing implications for community. Two types of practices, typified in the behaviors of 'true mobiles' and 'placemakers', offer divergent futures for how wireless internet use may influence social relationships.

“Looking L.A., Talking Bombay”

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

“Looking L.A., Talking Bombay”

Aswin Punathambekar

That’s how Aswin Punathambekar describes Bollywood, India’s largest film producer and arguably one of the largest cinema empires in the world.

Aswin Punathambekar, Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI, discussed new media convergence in Bombay and the growing empire of Bollywood during his lecture, “From IndiaFM.com to Radio Ceylon: New Media and the Making of Bollywood” at the Annenberg School for Communication on September 19.

Unbeknownst to many Westerners, Bombay has long been a vibrant cultural center and major media capital. “Success in IT [Internet Technology] played a major role in shaping the county’s entry into the global arena,” said Professor Punathambekar, who argues that dot-com companies have influenced Bombay cinema’s globalization. Referring to IndiaFM.com, a leading Bollywood entertainment website, he pointed out how Internet companies have uniquely positioned themselves to reconfigure the overseas community to a transnational market. “Until 1998 and 1999, no one in Bollywood was interested in utilizing the web to promote their movies. Now, realizing the growing importance of web-based marketing and advertising, IndiaFm.com and other advertising websites are sought to put India on the world map.” The effort was also a means to target non-resident Indian audiences. By and large, this has become one of the leading contributive audiences to the Bollywood market.

Professor Punathambekar examined Radio Ceylon, the oldest radio station in Asia, and an earlier movement of global change. Broadcasting, he explained, began on an experimental basis in Ceylon (an island in South Asia) by the Telegraph Department in 1923, just three years after the initiation of broadcasting in Europe. After all India Radio placed restrictions on broadcasting film music, with nationalist elites deeming film music “vulgar and cheap,” Radio Ceylon emerged as the station of choice for millions of listeners across the subcontinent. Instead of the conservative reverberations of the Russian orchestra on All India Radio, listeners could tune in to Radio Ceylon.

Professor Punathambekar has published articles in Biblio, International Journal of Cultural Studies, and Gazette: International Journal for Communication Studies, and has also co-edited an anthology of essays (Global Bollywood, NYU Press, 2008). He blogs at BollySpace 2.0.

Annenberg’s Katherine Sender Published in the Journal of Media & Cultural Studies

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Katherine Sender, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Communication, was published in a recent edition of the Journal of Media & Cultural Studies (Routledge, Volume 22, Number 4) for an article titled “Epidemics of will, failures of self-esteem: Responding to fat bodies in The Biggest Loser and What Not to Wear.” The article, which is available here, reports on a survey of individuals who have watched those television programs. The survey was done as part of a larger project on reality television. Dr. Sender's co-author on the article was Margaret Sullivan (MA '07).

Panel Discussion: Women Who Rule

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Amy Gutmann, Ph.D., Penn President and Christopher H. Browne Professor of Political Science (Left photo, center), shares a laugh with Rebecca Bushnell, Ph.D., Dean and Thomas S. Gates, Jr. Professor, School of Arts and Sciences and Professor of English (right), during the “Women Who Rule” seminar at Annenberg on Wednesday, Oct. 15. To Dr. Gutmann’s right is Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Ph.D., the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication and Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. Additional panelists included Mary Frances Berry, Ph.D., JD, Segal Professor of American Social Thought and Professor of History; and Ruth M.S. Fischer, MD, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Training and Supervising Analyst, Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia. In the photo to the right are Drs. Fischer (left) and Berry. Coverage of the seminar can be found in the Daily Pennsylvanian.

$1 Billion Wasted? Annenberg-led evaluation study finds fault with long-term federal anti-drug campaign

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

PHILADELPHIA (October 15, 2008) – A five-year, $1 billion anti-drug advertising campaign by the U.S. Government was ineffective, and may have actually done more harm than good.

That was the finding from a long-term examination of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. Robert C. Hornik, Ph.D., the Wilbur Schramm Professor of Communication and Health Policy at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, was Scientific Director and lead author for the evaluation study. Major findings of the evaluation will be reported in the December issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

“The evidence does not support a claim that the campaign produced anti-marijuana effects,” wrote the authors. Professor Hornik was the lead author, along with, among others, Lela Jacobsohn, Ph.D., also from Annenberg.

The evaluation found that the target audience did recall the advertisements. Overall, 94 percent of youths reported general exposure to one or more anti-drug messages per month, with a median frequency of about two or three ads per week. However the message did not get through.

“There is little evidence for a contemporaneous association between exposure to anti-drug advertising and any of the outcomes … Nonusers who reported more exposure to anti-drug messages were no more likely to express anti-drug beliefs than were youths who were less exposed,” said the authors. Additionally, the Congressionally-mandated evaluation showed the 12.5-18 year old youths who reported seeing the advertisements more often were actually more likely to intend to use drugs at a later date.

The anti-drug advertising campaign was supervised by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Overall management was conducted by the advertising firm Ogilvy and Mather. Advertising messages promoted resistance skills, education and positive alternatives, and negative consequences of drug use. The target audiences were non- and occasional drug users. One of the more recognizable elements in the campaign advertisements was a youth brand phrase: “____: My Anti-Drug,” (with something like “Soccer” filling in the blank). Congress mandated the evaluation to evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign.

More than 8,000 youths aged 9 to 18 and more than 6000 of their parents were interviewed up to four times between 1999 and 2004. The analyses were based on three types of measures – recalled exposure to anti-drug messages aired by the campaign and other sources; cognitions and behavior related to marijuana, as outcomes; and individual and household characteristics. These associations reported in the study were adjusted for other possible influences on youth exposure to advertising.

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Colloquium event - Russia's Heroic Spuds

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Russia’s Heroic Spuds

In Russia, the potato is considered a sacred, versatile crop that, according to Nancy Ries, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Anthropology and Peace and Conflict Studies at Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., “is a tool of political and social leverage.”

As part of a series of colloquia at the Annenberg School for Communication, and co-sponsored by the Department of Slavic Language and Literature at Colgate University; Professor Ries examined several concepts of potato subsistence in Russia during her recent lecture at Annenberg, titled, “Potato Ontology: Surviving Postsocialism in Russia” on Thursday, September 25. The talk was part of the Annenberg School for Communication's ongoing noontime colloquium events.

Research on her current project, “Power and Potato,” led Professor Ries to Moscow where she interviewed people on economic frugalities in a postsocialist era. What she discovered was a populace that attributes its very survival to a simple, starchy vegetable: the potato. “The science of frugality is a process of the body politic,” she said, identifying the common practice of scraping off only the slightest layer of peel to avoid waste as one example. Amid the millions of residents still suffering economically in Russia, it is easy to see why not wasting food is an embedded norm.

Nancy Ries during her colloquium talk at Annenberg

Professor Ries exposed the ubiquitous connection of potato subsistence to Russian poverty, noting that the process of maintaining this proverbial crop is seen as a primitive social reproduction. “Though its labor is socially divisive due to the grueling, backbreaking work it requires; potato labor also is a nationalist demarcation that establishes you as a moral person.” Professor Ries said she had just heard that even the head of the Russian McDonalds restaurant grows his own potatoes.

Depicting the potato industry in Russia as a life-preserving, fruitful labor of familial habit and national philosophy; Professor Ries addressed the inherent spin by political leaders that keep the spud’s invincible reputation in tact. “A typical line of spin maintains that the average potato grower lives seven to ten years longer than the individual who doesn’t grow potatoes,” she said. “President Putin even thanked potato laborers during a national speech, adding that his parents worked in the potato field and made him do the same.”

Empirically, the idea of growing potatoes culminated from avoiding political and economic disaster and providing nourishment for an entire nation. “There’s a history of famine that brought upon the potato, not only as a symbol of Russian identity but one of survival as well,” said Professor Ries.

Nancy Ries obtained her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Cornell University in 1993. Her research interests include the study of social and cultural transformation in contemporary Russia; the anthropology of language, narrative, and identity; conflict and terror, weapons and war; and the comparative anthropology of post-socialism. Her many publications include "Everyday Comfort and Terror: Anthropology and Local Theory" in New Literary History (Fall 2002); "Honest Bandits' and 'Warped People': Russian Narratives about Money, Corruption, and Moral Decay" in Ethnography in Unstable Places (Duke University Press, 2002); "Russia," chapter in Encyclopedia of National Cultures (MacMillan, 2001); and a very well received book “Russian Talk: Culture and Conversation during Perestroika,” (Cornell University Press, 1997). “Russian Talk” received the Barbara Heldt Prize in 1997 for the Best Book by a Woman in Slavic and East European Studies, and a Russian translation as published in Moscow in 2005. Since 2000, Ries has been the co-editor of a major series at Cornell University Press on “Culture and Society after Socialism.”

Book by Annenberg’s Krippendorff, Bock cited in The New York Times

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The Content Analysis Reader (SAGE Publications 2008), by Klaus Krippendorff, Ph.D., the Gregory Bateson Professor of Cybernetics, Language, and Culture; and Annenberg doctoral student Mary Bock, was referenced in an article in the October 14, 2008 edition of The New York Times. The article, “He Counts Your Words (Even Those Pronouns),” looks at the text analysis research conducted by University of Texas Professor James W. Pennebaker, Ph.D.

Andrew Gelman's Book Explains the U.S. Red-Blue Divide

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Andrew Gelman’s Book Explains the U.S. Red-Blue Divide

“…there are two Americas…and a cultural war is happening…”

Author Andrew Gelman discusses his book during a visit to Annenberg

Debunking America’s common political misconceptions, Andrew Gelman, Professor of Statistics and Political Science at Columbia University, discussed his new book, Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do on September 22 at the Annenberg School for Communication. The lecture was jointly sponsored by the Department of Biostatistics, Department of Political Science, and Department of Statistics at the University of Pennsylvania and as part of an occasional speaker series at the Annenberg School for Communication.

Emphasizing the deepening polarization of political views across the country, Professor Gelman argued that how wealthy you are affects how you vote and think. “If rich people were a state,” said Professor Gelman, “they would vote Alabama, Kansas, or Texas,” exposing the conservative presence in those states.

Using aggregated statistics and defining state incomes based on current national percentiles, he concluded that the rich in poorer states are more economically conservative, and in rich states, the rich are more economically conservative, but they’re more socially liberal, too. “State income predicts how the ‘culturally elite’ [rich people] vote,” said Professor Gelman. “It does not predict the poor person’s vote.” He offered that middle-income and rich voters are as Republican now as ever before, which is the polar opposite of a widely-maintained myth that high-income voters “are a bunch of liberal Democrats.”

Professor Gelman underlined the omnipresent divide of political parties in the United States, noting that parties may merge on economic issues but differ greatly on social issues. “Parties are more divided than ever,” he said. “Since the 1970s, politics have become much more ideological. There is a yawning chasm where there never used to be.”

The following are some of the myths and facts that Professor Gelman, along with coauthors David Park, Boris Shor, Joseph Bafumi, and Jeronimo Cortina, exposed in their analytical 240-page book:

Myth: The rich vote based on economics, the poor vote "God, guns, and gays."
Fact: Church attendance predicts Republican voting much more among rich than poor.

Myth: A political divide exists between working-class "red America" and rich "blue America."
Fact: Within any state, more rich people vote Republican. The real divide is between higher-income voters in red and blue states.

Myth: Rich people vote for the Democrats.
Fact: George W. Bush won more than 60 percent of high-income voters.

Andrew Gelman has received the Outstanding Statistical Application award from the American Statistical Association, the award for best article published in the American Political Science Review, and the Council of Presidents of Statistical Societies award for outstanding contributions by a person under the age of 40. His previous books include Bayesian Data Analysis and Teaching Statistics: A Bag of Tricks.

Visit http://redbluerichpoor.com/ for more information on Professor Gelman’s book, “Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do,”