Communication Commons^™

"Your Life Is Waiting!": Symbolic Meanings In Direct-To-Consumer Antidepressant Advertising, Jean M. Grow, Jin Seong Park, Xiaoqi Han

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

This semiotic analysis demonstrates how pharmaceutical companies strategically frame depression within the hotly contested terrain of direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising. The study tracks regulation of the pharmaceutical industry, relative to DTC advertising, including recent industry codes of conduct. Focusing on the antidepressant category, and its three major brands—Paxil (GlaxoSmithKline), Prozac (Eli Lilly), and Zoloft (Pfizer)—this comparative study analyzes 7 years of print advertising following deregulation in 1997. The authors glean themes from within the advertising texts, across the drug category and within individual-brand campaigns. The findings indicate that DTC advertising of antidepressants frames depression within the biochemical model of causation, privileges …

Living Our Mission: A Study Of University Mission Building, Sarah Bonewits Feldner

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

At the same time that organizational communication and management scholars are focusing attention on trends of spirituality in the workplace, faith-based organizations are taking up the question of how they might maintain a distinct spiritual identity. For these institutions, communicating mission becomes the defining feature of institutional identity. Explicitly religious organizations provide a venue for understanding the implications of incorporating spirituality in organizational discourse. This empirical study explores a mission-building conference and examines the ways in which communicating a spiritual mission simultaneously enriches and constrains both the individual members and the organizations as a whole.

In Search Of A Corporate Moral Compass, Kati Tusinski Berg

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Stories Of Community: The First Ten Years Of Nike Women's Advertising, Jean M. Grow

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

This semiotic analysis of early Nike women's advertising explores the evolution of the women's brand from its launch in 1990 through 2000, and includes twenty-seven print campaigns. The semiotic analysis is enhanced by in-depth interviews of the creative team. The study is framed by a single research question. What symbolically ties these ten years of advertising into a cohesive whole and how? Ultimately, three distinct mediated communities emerge. The story behind these communities, expressed semiotically and orally, suggests that the power of this advertising lies in its mediated construction of community life. The resonance of these ads is rooted in …

The Demise Of Native American Mascots: It's Time To Do The Right Thing, Joyce M. Wolburg

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

Purpose – The intent of this article is to show why the use of Native American mascots, logos, and nicknames by sports teams perpetuates depictions that are perceived as harmful and racist by Native Americans.

Design/methodology/approach – This article examines data from published research, personal correspondence, and essays by Native Americans so that non-natives can understand the issue from the native perspective. It also calls into question previous communication efforts that may have limited the voices of Native Americans.

Findings – By examining the meaning of warriors and other cultural symbols for Native Americans and by exploring the different views …

The Sulzer Hip Replacement Recall Crisis: A Patient's Perspective, Keri Stephens, Scott C. D'Urso, Penny Holmes

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

This case discusses a product recall that resulted from a manufacturing defect and the degree to which the company distributed accurate and timely information to affected patients. More specifically, the case examines the crisis communication of Sulzer Orthopedics and its efforts to negotiate the interests of various stakeholders, while limiting liability. Written from the perspective of a patient, the case raises interesting questions regarding organizational duties related to product liability. It also provides valuable insights into how organizational communication may have both short- and long-term effects on its relationship with patients and physicians, among others.

College Students’ Responses To Antismoking Messages: Denial, Defiance, And Other Boomerang Effects, Joyce M. Wolburg

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

Despite the success of antismoking campaigns that aim to prevent young teens from smoking, this qualitative study provides strong evidence that different initiatives are needed for college students, particularly those who already smoke. When asked for responses to current antismoking messages, nonsmokers generally championed the cause; however, smokers often responded with anger, defiance, denial, and other negative responses. Consumers who respond in this manner are not well served by existing strategies, and money used for such campaigns could be better spent. New strategies are offered in hopes that antismoking campaigns can communicate more effectively with one high-risk group—college student smokers.

Reconsidering Public Relations’ Infatuation With Dialogue: Why Engagement And Reconciliation Can Be More Ethical Than Symmetry And Reciprocity, Kevin L. Stoker, Kati Tusinski Berg

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

Advocates of dialogic communication have promoted two-way symmetrical communication as the most effective and ethical model for public relations. This article uses John Durham Peters’s critique of dialogic communication to reconsider this infatuation with dialogue. In this article, we argue that dialogue’s potential for selectivity and tyranny poses moral problems for public relations. Dialogue’s emphasis on reciprocal communication also saddles public relations with ethically questionable quid pro quo relationships. We contend that dissemination can be more just than dialogue because it demands more integrity of the source and recognizes the freedom and individuality of the source. The type of communication, …

History, Collective Memory, And The Appropriation Of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Reagan's Rhetorical Legacy, Denise M. Bostdorff, Steven R. Goldzwig

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

This article argues that President Ronald Reagan appropriated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s words and memory to suggest equal opportunity in the United States had been largely achieved. Individuals—rather than the government—now had to take responsibility for any additional progress. By arguing that the dismantling of federal civil rights laws and social programs was actually consistent with Dr. King's words, President Reagan advanced his own agenda for civil rights in direct violation of Dr. King's intentions, while narrowing the purview of civil rights to eliminate government intervention in employment, education, and other arenas.

The Fairness Doctrine Redux: Media Bias And The Rights Of Broadcasters, Erik Ugland

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Service Learning Across The Curriculum: A Collaboration To Promote Smoking Cessation, Jean M. Grow, Joyce M. Wolburg

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

This paper focuses on how pedagogy, service, and scholarship can be combined across the advertising curriculum through service learning, which invigorates collaboration among faculty members, student teams, and advertising professionals. The authors demonstrate how service learning projects integrate curricula using a community-based client, ultimately leading to scholarship and professional outcomes. Specifically, this study analyzes the launch of a service learning-based smoking cessation campaign on a Midwest college campus.

How Responsible Are “Responsible” Drinking Campaigns For Preventing Alcohol Abuse?, Joyce M. Wolburg

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

Purpose

– The purpose of this article is to question the misplaced efforts to curb alcohol abuse through “responsible” drinking messages from the alcohol industry, asking how responsible this strategy really is.

Design/methodology/approach

– This article cites published research that calls into question the effectiveness of “responsible” messages, particularly those that situate the problem of alcohol abuse within drunk driving and underage drinking without addressing heavy consumption. Examples of “responsible” messages are drawn from websites of three major beer companies.

Findings

– Problems with “responsible” drinking are identified, including the fact that such messages place the problem within the user …

Taming The Wildest: What We've Made Of Louis Prima, John J. Pauly

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Lockouts, Protests, And Scabs: A Critical Assessment Of The "Los Angeles Herald Examiner" Strike [Article], Bonnie Brennen

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

This essay uses the case of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner strike, 1967–1977, to show how a critical labor perspective offers historically grounded, politically informed, and culturally situated analyses of media practices and uses. The decade-long strike analyzed here, which has been virtually ignored by media historians, highlights the devastating economic consequences for both the newspaper and the Guild. This essay focuses on the political and cultural implications of class conflict, read through the power struggle between Los Angeles Newspaper Guild members and the Hearst-owned Herald Examiner over issues of identity, work, and economics.

Drawing The Line Between Targeting And Patronizing: How “Vulnerable” Are The Vulnerable?, Joyce M. Wolburg

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

Purpose – This article aims to address the nature of vulnerability and the basis for protecting certain audiences from targeted goods and services. It aims to evaluate the need for protection as well as marketers’ defense that protection merely patronizes audiences.

Design/methodology/approach – This article cites published research that offers guidelines for determining vulnerability in the marketplace and examines conclusions from a case study that argue for holding companies to have standards of both individual and collective responsibility.

Findings – Categories of vulnerability are offered, and distinctions are drawn between the vulnerable and the disadvantaged to provide a rationale for …

Construction Of Readership In Ebony, Essence, And O, The Oprah Magazine, Lee Miller, Bonnie Brennen, Brenda Edgerton-Webster

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

Miller et al examine the construction of readership in Ebony, Essence and O, The Oprah magazine, three popular magazines that purport to be a vehicle of identity and awareness for their target audience. Upon evaluation, they found that Ebony and Essence both challenge the hegemonic process with the incorporation of cultural artifacts that call upon collective memory to form reader association.

Inaugurating The Second Reconstruction: President Truman’S Committee On Civil Rights, Steven R. Goldzwig

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Conflicted Interests, Contested Terrain: Journalism Ethics Codes Then And Now, Lee Wilkins, Bonnie Brennen

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

By analyzing ethics codes, a professional statement of what constitutes good work, this essay links codes to a theory of culture and history. It considers two early journalism ethics codes and assesses the latest New York Times code in the light of philosophical theory. The paper suggests that professional tensions outlined in Good Work are reified in the Times code—and that history and culture may be less supportive of a positive outcome of this struggle over values than the insights of psychology might suggest.

Testing The Robustness Of A Risk Information Processing Model, Robert J. Griffin, Maria Powell, Sharon Dunwoody, Kurt Neuwirth, David E. Clark, Vladimir Novotny

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

Two survey data sets test a model of Risk Information Seeking and Processing, informed by Eagly and Chaiken’s (1993) Heuristic-Systematic model, that describes characteristics of individuals that predispose them to seek and process information about health and environmental risks in different ways. Results indicate that information insufficiency relates positively with active seeking and systematic processing of risk information and negatively with avoidance and heuristic processing of it. Individuals are more likely to process systematically if they believe that media channels contain essential validity cues.

Testing The Robustness Of A Risk Information Processing Model, Robert J. Griffin, Maria Powell, Sharon Dunwoody, Kurt Neuwirth, Vladimir Novotny

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

Two survey data sets test a model of Risk Information Seeking and Processing, informed by Eagly and Chaiken’s (1993) Heuristic-Systematic model, that describes characteristics of individuals that predispose them to seek and process information about health and environmental risks in different ways. Results indicate that information insufficiency relates positively with active seeking and systematic processing of risk information and negatively with avoidance and heuristic processing of it. Individuals are more likely to process systematically if they believe that media channels contain essential validity cues.

Research And The Bottom Line In Today’S University, Sarah Bonewits Feldner, Lawrence Soley

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

Citing examples of corporate involvement in university research and decision making, the authors argue that today’s university is characterized by a web of symbiotic relationships which may turn them away from other important priorities, particularly teaching. When universities are scrambling for corporate support, the missions that become most important are conducting research that attracts corporate sponsors, developing marketable products and technologies, maintaining and cultivating ties with the private sector, and fashioning imaginative partnerships with corporate patrons.

Review Of Presidential Speechwriting: From The New Deal To The Reagan Revolution And Beyond, Steven R. Goldzwig

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

The Need For New Anti‐Smoking Advertising Strategies That Do Not Provoke Smoker Defiance, Joyce M. Wolburg

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

The misguided effort to change the smoking behavior of college students using the same anti‐smoking messages created for young teens apparently stems from the misplaced marketing belief that ads designed to prevent young teens from smoking can also effectively encourage college‐student smokers to quit. When college students were asked to respond to current anti‐smoking messages, non‐smokers championed the anti‐smoking cause while smokers responded with defiance, denial, and other counter‐productive behaviors. These studies show that persuading legal‐age young adults to quit would require new message strategies which show greater respect for the individual, greater support for the effort in quitting, and …

Voices About Choices: The Role Of Female Networks In Affirming Life Choices In The Academy, Karrin Vasby Anderson, Sarah Bonewits Feldner, Kelly C. Mcdorman, Jennifer B. Pierce, Claire Procopio, Kristina K. Horn Sheeler, Helen Tate

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

This essay addresses the topic of women's professional development in the academy, noting the critical roles fulfilled by support networks. Research and personal narratives explore the diverse choices women make, the resistance they sometimes face, and the need to find validation for those choices. Recognizing the importance of women's achievement of tenure and publication, the authors also challenge the notion that those traditional measures of academic success are the only, or the best, way to assess women's professional development.

Media Studies And The Dialogue Of Democracy, John J. Pauly

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Lbj, The Rhetoric Of Transcendence, And The Civil Rights Act Of 1968, Steven R. Goldzwig

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

The Civil Rights Act of 1968 was the result of a complex convergence of presidential public persuasion in a context of increasing domestic violence associated with a series of summer disturbances and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Analysis of Lyndon Johnson's public discourse supporting the 1968 Civil Rights Act reveals that rhetorical transcendence was employed as a recurrent strategy in attempts to pass legislation.

Studying Heuristic-Systematic Processing Of Risk Communication, Lee Ann Kahlor, Sharon Dunwoody, Robert J. Griffin, Kurt Neuwirth, James K. Giese

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

Using a model of risk information seeking and processing developed by Griffin, Dunwoody, and Neuwirth (1999), this study looks at predictors of the processing strategies that people apply to health risk information. Specifically, this article focuses on one relationship within the model—the relationship between perceived amount of information needed to deal with a risk and heuristic-systematic processing. Perceived amount of information needed refers to the gap between one's understanding of a risk and the level of understanding that one needs in order to make a decision about that risk. Building on the work of Chaiken (cf. 1980), the Griffin et …

Review Of Harry Truman And Civil Rights: Moral Courage And Political Risks, Steven R. Goldzwig

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Campbell-Ewald [Encyclopedia Entry], James Pokrywczynski

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Misplaced Marketing Colas Big And Little: Anti‐Trust Laws, Non‐Regulation And The Disabled Marketing Of Small Brands, Joyce M. Wolburg

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

Shelf access fees and cooperative merchandising agreements are tactics that clearly give power to big business, and nowhere is this more evident than in the soft drink wars. The lack of legal protection against these tactics by US regulators can squeeze small brands out of the retail environment and effectively disable the marketing strategy of small soft drink companies and other small businesses. Thus, marketing becomes not only misplaced, but irrelevant.