Advertising, which is an important sales tool for brands to the masses, may produce lasting impressions of a company and its products. These impressions rely on a consistent message over time to maintain a brand's image. This study examines how Ralph Lauren's advertising images have changed from a country club lifestyle image to urban/hip. In addition, the study examines the increased use of nudity and sexual imagery in Lauren's advertising. The findings were obtained by content analyzing all Ralph Lauren advertisements appearing in Gentlemen's Quarterly magazine from 1980 to 2000 (N=283). The study finds that Ralph Lauren lifestyle images have become more urban/hip, and that Lauren's advertising is utilizing more nudity, sexual interaction, and homoerotic imagery. By examining Ralph Lauren's shifting brand image via its advertising, this study contributes to a greater understanding of the connection between advertising and a company's brand image.

Media sociologists have produced much research on the systems of production of media content. Photojournalism, however, largely has been ignored in these studies. This paper presents the findings of an ethnographic study of work routines and photojournalism practices at three newspapers. The study explored the extent to which routines and practices are affected by professional norms and values and organizational needs and beliefs. The study also explored how these factors influence the content and aesthetic qualities of newspaper photographs. Findings suggest that photo editors and photojournalists operate under many of the same constraints as other media workers. The findings also show that photojournalists are socialized to newspapers. expectations by fellow photographers and photo editors. To gauge professional accomplishments, photojournalists rely on peers, professional organizations and competitions.

Through historical and content analyses of war coverage, this study qualitatively addresses emotional quality, use of sources, and implied use of technology to better understand the tension between Vietnam and Afghanistan war correspondents and their military counterparts. Early American democracy aspired to give total freedom to its people. But the American military, in its quest to uphold the ideas of democracy, has often challenged the freedom of press clause set forth by the United States Constitution. Since the Vietnam era, the relationship between the military and the media has been plagued by questions of censorship, assertions of falsehood, and threats to national security. But it is the technological advancements in both reporting and combat techniques that have caused a disappearance of the nostalgic war coverage that American correspondents once prospered from. The possibility of returning to journalists' vision of unrestricted press access is all but lost due to such advancements.

Today, both the way a story is told and how long the viewer's attention can be held are often as important as the story itself. This study shows how online media sets new standards for narrative and continues some print traditions. This study focuses on the dialogue between print and online media. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of this dialogue through story length, readability, shovelware and story packaging shows the numerous effects the Internet has had on news media content.

Since abolition, women have used the media to bring attention to causes and injustices in society. Issues faced by these women are some of the same issues faced by women in public relations today and possibly the future. This paper is the history of the women of pre-professional public relations in relation to their use of the media to bring about change and communicate with an audience. It also discusses the evolution of the public relations profession as it pertains to the parallel issues that the women of the first wave faced in relation to the second wave, or professional era. The paper will then synthesize these two eras in public relations and discuss the future of women in the profession as seen by researchers and women practicing at this time.

Data obtained through content analysis of articles about or concerning President Reagan in Newsweek, Time and U.S. News & World Report during two time periods indicated that no relationship existed between time and variance of news coverage given to Reagan. Three content analysis measures were used: comparison of favorable and unfavorable statements, amount of coverage and number of quoted words. The study is composed of four chapters: Chapter I introduces the study, Chapter II presents the data, Chapter III evaluates the data and Chapter IV summarizes and makes recommendations.

Content analysis of The Dallas Morning News focuses on sources, bylines, photographs, and main characters to determine the quantity and quality of portrayals of women. The study included front pages and main local news pages during one week each from 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, and 1990. Change was charted by year for both sexes. In 1950, few representations of women were included and many were stereotypical. Some stereotyping persisted in 1990, and men outnumbered women more than 3 to 1 as story sources, nearly 3 to 1 in front-page bylines, more than 2 to 1 in photographs, and more than 2 to 1 as main characters. Women still lag behind men, despite feminists' efforts to improve coverage.

Adolf Hitler advocated total control of the press for many years before he was elected Führer. Almost immediately after he assumed power in 1932, Hitler began writing new laws and regulations that totally exorcised all freedoms from the German press. This study follows the path that Hitler took to control the German press from 1920 until the end of World War II. It utilized translations of documents and statements by men whom Hitler appointed to control the press and books written by experts in the fields of communications as well as men who prosecuted Nazi war criminals after World War II. The study found that the control of the press was indeed a very necessary ingredient in Hitler's climb to power and remained crucial during his reign as Führer.

This investigation sought to describe the organization, function, and scope of the internal public affairs program of Carswell Air Force Base, Texas. Data came from in-depth interviews, office files, and military publications. The Carswell Air Force Base internal public affairs program appeared to be without direction and reactive in nature. Personnel had little or no formal journalism or public relations training and demonstrated only a vague awareness of the relationships between publics, tools, and activities. Still, the job seemed to get done, although perhaps not as well or as efficiently as possible. This raises the question: Where does formal journalism or public relations training fit into the running of a public affairs/relations office?

This study determined attitudes held by television reporters nationwide toward PR practitioners' demonstrated knowledge of the technical side of television news. Findings. that emerged from the study were: 1. Television reporters were undecided whether practitioners needed an educational background in PR, and believed they needed an educational but not a professional background in television reporting. 2. They believed practitioners knew too little and should improve their knowledge, and that practitioners' employers would benefit therefrom. 3. They valued the assistance of practitioners. 4. There were moderate degrees of off-the-job contact and interest therein. 5. They divided evenly on the question concerning practitioners' specific demonstrated knowledge of the technical side of television news.

The study was designed to identify the public relations structures at eight Dallas hotels, their functions and activities, and if public relations effectiveness is evaluated. Findings were based on sixteen interviews with senior management and public relations coordinators. The study concluded that public relations programs are structured by either separate public relations department, public relations activities combined with other department, or an external agency. The public relations functions range from image-building to participation in sales and marketing with primary responsibility of promotion and publicity dominated by economic considerations. One weakness is the lack of formal research methods to discern public opinion. There is a lack of understanding by hotel management of the potential and scope of public relations programs.

Changes of ownership, a seeming lack of interest in history, several deaths, and a fire prompted this study into the history of The Weatherford Democrat. Data for the thesis came from back issues of The Democrat, Ayer Directory of Newspapers and Periodicals, letters from former publishers, and personal observations and experiences of the writer, who worked on the paper 14 years. All but about a dozen years of the back issues are available. The thesis is written in chronological order, dating from the beginning in 1895 to 1967, when the Donrey Media Group gained control, ending local ownership. The Democrat is the survivor of more than 20 newspaper ventures in the city and is still the principal county paper.

The study examined the similarities and differences in the public relations programs of the six Southern Baptist Convention-owned seminaries. Using data collected from surveys and interviews, the study found the general perception of public relations at each seminary good, although some constituencies did not understand the public relations program's purpose. Cooperation among the six seminaries was limited, and most respondents said individual needs kept the seminaries from working more cooperatively. The diversity of primary job responsibilities makes cooperation limited since all programs do not share the same assignments. Limited historical documentation is available on the growth of the public relations programs. The study includes four chapters: a general introduction; an historical overview; analysis of data; and conclusions and recommendation for further study.

This study was concerned with determining how the Algerian dailies, El Moudjahid, and El Djomhouria, and the United States dailies, The New York Times and The Christian Science Monitor, which function in two different press systems, compare in reporting international news in terms of type and tension. This study concludes that the four dailies are similar in type of news; they report more news than editorials, more straight news than in-depth reports, more news of elites than common people, and more news from the Third World than from the Western World or the socialist bloc, and they differ in tension in that the tension within international news was higher in the two United States dailies than in the two Algerian dailies.

This study compared the public relations efforts in three Dallas retirement facilities against suggested standards of professional public relations practitioners to determine which standards each facility utilized. Externally, all three facilities related to the community in an "above average" way, as indicated by their utilization of the twenty-two suggested standards. Internally, two facilities related to residents and staff in a "superior" way, and one facility related in an "average way," as indicated by their utilization of the twenty-two suggested external standards and twenty suggested internal standards. The conclusions drawn from this study are that retirement facility administrators, in general, are not fully aware of the internal and external public relations strategies that could benefit them within the community and with residents.

A comparative content analysis was conducted to determine whether the Russian (ITAR-TASS) and the American (UPI) wire service coverage of President Boris Yeltsin in the April 25, 1993, referendum was balanced and unbiased. Also, the amount of space dedicated to this topic was measured. Study results indicate that ITAR-TASS was more critical of Yeltsin prior to the referendum than UPI, and that there was no statistically important difference between the two wire services in their post referendum coverage. UPI articles were almost 30% longer than the ITAR-TASS articles. Each UPI article was on an average more than 220 words longer than were the ITAR-TASS articles.

This study examined promoting recorded country music from Atlanta, Georgia, and explored why Atlanta is important in this field. It was learned, through interviews, that promoters wanted radio airplay and top trade publication chart ratings. Radio station program directors decided upon playlists from reading trade publications, efforts by record promoters, listener requests and focus groups, and from reported sales. Stores used album and poster displays, charts, and played music for promotion. The business is one of personalities and experience, as much as product promoted. Large conglomerates are fast changing it.

This study compared the editorial positions of two magazines, The Christian Century and Christianity Today, on seven social and moral issues, then compared each magazine's positions with the opinions of their intended audiences. A directional content analysis was conducted that determined the editorial positions. On all four issues for which comparison was possible, the magazines demonstrated a marked difference in direction. These positions were compared with the published opinions of those social groups identified as representative of each magazine's intended audience. There was marked disagreement between each magazine and its intended audience on three of the five issues for which comparison was possible.

With her Book Club, talk show host Oprah Winfrey has used the relatively new technology of television to revive literature. Despite the odds against her--selecting hard-to-read, quirky books by generally unknown authors--Winfrey has successfully created women's spaces for the 1990s, not so different from the American women's social clubs from the late 1800s and early 1900s, and the French salons of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This study will show how Oprah's Book Club allows readers, especially women, to use the psychological processes of transference and transactional reading by using fictional literature from the Book Club to discuss sensitive areas of their lives.

The purposes of this study were to determine the characteristics of the subscribers to the local community newspaper, to determine what the subscribers read most and what they read the least in the local publication, and to determine the role of the small newspaper within the metropolitan area.

The once private traditional written diary is shifting to an electronic storytelling tradition. Online diaries or weblogs are a growing phenomenon that scholars have ignored until recently. This qualitative project uses narrative and rhetorical analysis to focus on storytelling themes in weblogs, rituals in storytelling and the similarities and differences from traditional written diaries. In this study, 30 weblogs were chosen from three web domains: livejournal.com, blogger.com and diarest.net. The findings show that weblogs are filled with rich storytelling that emulates many qualities of traditional diaries. In general, weblogs authors are communicating stories online to an interactive mass audience and forming new rituals in a new electronic forum.

This study is a content analysis of the coverage in Time, Newsweek, and U. S. News & World Report on Spiro Agnew from August 13 to October 22, 1973, and is concerned with the use of leaks as determined by analyzing the levels of attribution and the attitudes of the magazines toward leaks. All three magazines used approximately equivalent amounts of material from concealed sources. Time and Newsweek defended the use of leaks; U. S. News & World Report attacked their use. The perils inherent in using information from concealed sources make it necessary to consult as many sources as feasible when following a controversial story.

This study explains the development of Business Week from its beginning in 1929 to 1975 and its changes over this forty-five-year period in format, content and editors. The study shows how Business Week developed, reflecting the history of American business, industry, labor, and the rise of the consumer, and recorded the growth and changes in the magazine's format, news departments, services and features, and staff. The study traces the development of Business Week in three periods, 1929, 1930-1950, and 1955-1975; and concludes that Business Week is the leading magazine publication in the business press. The sources of data for this study primarily include the executives of Business Week and the magazine itself.

The problem of this study was an audience analysis of Dallas' weekly underground newspaper Iconoclast. A readership survey was mailed to 200 randomly selected subscribers to Iconoclast. Data were taken from the ninety useable questionnaires of those returned. The study is organized into four chapters. Chapter I discusses problems, procedures, introductory material and recent and related studies. Chapter II is a history of Iconoclast. Chapter III is an analysis of data. Chapter IV presents summary, conclusions, and recommendations. The data revealed the typical subscriber as having a mean age of 28.7, some college education, and higher than $10,000 yearly income. He obtains both exclusive and supplementary information from Iconoclast, and considers it an important but biased news source.