Philip Merrill College of Journalism

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/1629

The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.

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Start date: 1990End date: 1999

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Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Women Journalists and the Municipal Housekeeping Movement: Case Studies of Jane Cunningham Croly, Helen M. Winslow and Rheta Childe Dorr
    (1992) Gottlieb, Agnes Hooper; Beasley, Maurine Hoffman; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
    While suffragists in the late nineteenth century commanded a high profile in their fight for the vote, other less militant women also advocated a wider sphere for women. These semi-traditional women believed a woman's place was in her home, but defined women's "homes" as the cities in which they lived. Their natural "sphere," therefore, involved "municipal housekeeping" chores, which included helping women and children and rooting out corruption, crime, filth and immorality in the cities. This dissertation uses a case study approach to illustrate the involvement of three women journalists, Jane Cunningham Croly, Helen M. Winslow and Rheta Childe Dorr, in the municipal housekeeping movement. These women were chosen because their careers, taken as a whole, show how writing about municipal housekeeping evolved over time from a plea for women to become more socially responsible into a logical argument for suffrage. Croly, a founder of the women's club movement in the United States in 1868, advocated a more public role for women in her newspaper and magazine work, especially in her magazines for club women, The Woman's Cycle, The Home-Maker, and The New Cycle. Winslow, editor and publisher of The Club Woman, and Dorr, a writer on reform for Hampton's magazine, were affected by Croly's ideas and, in turn, expanded them into publicity for women to assume a wider sphere in public affairs. The work of these women from Croly's articles in the 1860s to Dorr's militant reform writing in the 1900s illustrates how journalists portrayed the municipal housekeeping movement. All three believed in the concept of a separate sphere for women, but they sought to expand its limits. Croly's gentle reminders that women should seek interests outside the home gradually gave way to Winslow's argument in favor of women's involvement in municipal government, which in turn was only a step away from Dorr's advocacy of equal rights, including the vote, for women. Thus, the municipal housekeeping journalism of Croly and Winslow gradually merged into the suffrage journalism of Dorr.
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    The Washington, D.C. 1991 Riots in Mount Pleasant: An Analysis of Local Press Coverage
    (1993) Lima, Christina C.; Gurevitch, Michael; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
    Studies in the field of communication have found that the U.S.A. mainstream (English-language) news media coverage of minorities is characterized primarily by the portrayal of minorities only in the context of the problems or difficulties that they pose to society. In addition, because of cultural values and customs, the media, when covering minorities, tend to focus on the event itself rather than on the underlying causes of the event. Thus the coverage tends to be stereotypical. In order to address these issues, this thesis analyses the content of coverage of the 1991, Washington, D.C. Mount Pleasant civil disturbances in two English- and two Spanish-language newspapers. A quantitative content analysis was employed in order to determine the extent and type of coverage provided to Latinos two weeks before the disturbances, the week of the disturbances, and the week after the disturbances. For the same period, a thematic content analysis was used to contrast the frameworks used by the English-language press in comparison to the Spanish-language press. The assumption was that by having cultural proximity to and understanding of the Latino Community, the Spanish-language press provided a more thorough coverage of the event. The results, however, show that both presses failed to provide a comprehensive coverage of the event. In fact, the results seem to indicate that both presses followed journalistic news values and patterns more closely than they followed cultural values. The most notable difference between the two presses was that they incorporated the news values and patterns into their own cultural bias.
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    Disability Magazine and Newsletter Editors: Perceptions of the Disability Press, Community, Advocacy, Mainstreaming, and Diversity
    (1996) Ransom, Lillie Sharon; McAdams, Katherine; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
    There is a growing body of scholarly information about media and disability. To date, the majority of this information discusses how people with disabilities have been portrayed in mainstream media. Very few scholars have studied media produced by and for people with disabilities. This dissertation is one of the first attempts to do so, and to analyze how these publications may help forge group identity. The study examines the tensions of liberal-pluralism and Marxist theories and their ability to explain the function of disability publications in American society. The researcher explored disability publication editors' perceptions about disability related issues, and examined how disability related publications are similar to feminist and African American publications.
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    International Public Relations: A Theoretical Approach to Excellence Based on a Worldwide Delphi Study
    (1997) Wakefield, Robert Irwin; Grunig, James E.; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
    International public relations is one of the fastest growing areas in the public relations field. With 40,000 transnational organizations in operation, and with the myriad complexities of the international arena, there never has been a greater need for public relations practitioners who understand cultures, political systems, media, and other factors that affect these organizations. And more and more organizations and practitioners now are jumping into international public relations. Despite the rapid growth, there are no adequate guides for those who practice internationally. Most articles on international public relations are anecdotal and offer little theoretical understanding of how to effectively practice. The few theoretical examinations mostly compare public relations from one country to the next. Virtually no one has examined the pertinent influences and necessary elements of an effective public relations program in a transnational organization. The purpose of this study was to gather theories and principles that could apply to international public relations and, by exposing them to a global panel of scholars and practitioners, to create a theoretical framework for practice and research in this expanding field. The study generated fourteen propositions from related disciplines about what constitutes effective international practice. The literature implied that effective practice would balance global imperatives with factors that affect local implementation. The study thus distinguished between generic propositions, or those that may be universal, and specific propositions, or the cultures, political systems, and other factors that influence local practice. To determine if certain principles were indeed universal, and also to examine the specific influences, the propositions were "tested" through a Delphi panel of public relations experts from eighteen different countries. The results of the study indicated that the generic variables can be universally applied. The study also verified the influence of culture, language, political systems, development, the media, and activism on local and global strategies. International public relations was seen as different from domestic public relations in its increased complexities. The two-way symmetrical model of communication was accepted as the normative basis for effective public relations, and was viewed as more important for multinational entities than for exclusively domestic organizations.
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    The Ethyl Controversy: How the news media set the agenda for a public health controversy over leaded gasoline, 1924-1926
    (1993) Kovarik, Wiliam J.; Journalism
    This dissertation is a history of the public health controversy surrounding the introduction of Ethyl leaded gasoline between 1924 and 1926. It is the first historical study of the newspaper coverage of the Ethyl controversy and the first time that the news media have been used to establish a more comprehensive history of this controversy. The dissertation includes a content analysis of articles about the controversy printed by New York City daily newspapers between 1924 and 1926. The analysis concludes that the news media invested far more credibility in industry sources than in any other category of source, although Walter Lippmann's World newspaper gave significantly more space to university scientists critical of Ethyl leaded gasoline. The news media did not understand the scientific issues, however, and fell back on seemingly familiar political alignments when forced to decide between conflicting scientific experts of equal stature. Also, the news media failed to evaluate industry scientists' claim that no alternatives to Ethyl leaded gasoline were known to science. Actually, General Motors and Standard Oil Co. (N.J.) had patented and researched dozens of alternatives, and information about this work was available had the news media searched for it. The dissertation also analyzes primary industry documents made public in 1992 concerning the development of leaded gasoline. It concludes that G.M.'s original special motive for developing leaded gasoline was to gradually adapt automotive engines for higher quality alternative fuels of the future (especially ethyl alcohol from cellulose) in anticipation of the depletion of U.S. petroleum supplies. G.M.'s Charles Kettering and others saw leaded gasoline as temporary bridge to non-petroleum fuels, not a permanent part of the fuel supply. Standard Oil, on the other hand, resisted alternative fuels. These private corporate ideas and strategies were not reflected in the public controversy in part because the news media had difficulty understanding scientific and technological issues.