On April 30, 1997, for the first time in television history, an actress on a popular television sitcom announced to the world that both se and the character she played were lesbians. This study offers an interpretation of the significance of Ellen DeGeneres' coming through a cultural studies analysis of the April 14, 1997 Time magazine article in which DeGeneres comes out and the April 30, 1997 "Ellen" television episode in which DeGeneres brings her character, Ellen Morgan, out. The study revealed sites of ideological differences between the two texts that could point to a struggle over the meaning of gayness in modern American society. The results suggest that mainstream attitudes and beliefs could be in the process of shifting toward a more normalized view of homosexuality.

The problem of this study was an audience analysis of the weekly newspaper Outdoor Times, a Dallas based publication, by conducting a readership survey of randomly selected subscribers. The study also contains a brief history of the Outdoor Times, tracing its development since its inception to the present. The purposes of this study were (1) to examine the characteristics of a specialized, regional publication, the Outdoor Times, (2) to determine some characteristics of subscribers to the Outdoor Times, (3) to determine some reasons why readers subscribe to the Outdoor Times, (4) to examine subscribers' likes and dislikes concerning the Outdoor Times.

This study traces the history of the Plano Star-Courier. Information was obtained from newspaper files, interviews, and directories. The thesis is divided into six chapters: Chapter I introduces the study; Chapter II chronicles the founding of Plano and the first newspaper publications; Chapter III concerns consolidation of the newspapers in Plano; Chapter IV traces the changes in ownership; Chapter V describes the newspaper under family ownership and corporation ownership; Chapter VI summarizes the history, influence, and future of the Star-Courier. This thesis combines the history of the Plano Star- Courier and the previously unwritten history of the town. For 100 years, the Star-Courier reflected the attitudes, values, and needs of people in the community.