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.

This study seeks to show how Nike, Inc. has effectively followed a strategy to increase the sale of its products that can be characterized as propaganda. Regarding method, this is a qualitative study which applied the propaganda analysis plan developed by Jowett & O'Donnell (1992) to examine and describe (1) Nike's ideology, (2) corporate structure and culture, (3) purpose, (4) targeted audiences, (5) the dissemination of the propaganda, (6) techniques for increasing its effectiveness, (7) existing counterpropaganda and contradictions, and (8) the effectiveness of the campaign. The study provides evidence that Nike engages in propaganda through an organized, systematic, and deliberate attempt to influence the beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, and actions of specific audiences for the purpose of accomplishing fixed objectives.

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.

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.

A content analysis was conducted to determine the amount and type of causal explanation included in coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles riots in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and The Christian Science Monitor. The data were analyzed to determine whether causal explanations were primarily societal or individual/situational. The primary purpose was to examine whether the press has altered its reporting techniques since the Kerner Commission report criticized the narrow, descriptive-based reporting of the 1960s riots. Study results indicate riot coverage was predominantly descriptive and similar in content to that detailed by the Kerner Commission. The most frequently cited cause was the triggering event, the Rodney King acquittal verdict.