Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Journalism’s adaptation to television fundamentally changed the nature and shape of journalistic work. This paper addresses one of the ways in which journalism changed as a result of the introduction of television technology: the focus on the appearance of TV journalists. This is an element of the journalist’s job that is unsettled within the American journalistic community and with which the community continues to grapple. The journalist’s appearance became central to the journalist’s job through the visual imagery of television, marking a departure from the attributes commonly associated with journalists more generally. Of all those practicing journalism in the television era, the struggle between the time-honored principles of print and radio journalism and these new elements introduced by television is experienced to the greatest degree by the TV news anchors themselves. The television news anchor embodies the effect of television technology on journalism through traits associated with his or her visual presence, qualities related to personalization, and other aspects of a particular kind of relay of news to audiences. Anchors are also important to consider, for when it comes to anchors, the journalistic community is schizophrenic; externally, it uses anchors for community promotion and reaps the positive benefits of power, adulation, and affirmation of authority that anchors afford. But internally, the community feels that anchors, and the appearance of anchors in particular, undermine many key journalistic values. This paper uses the anchor as a lens through which to examine the journalistic community’s struggle brought on by the wedding of journalism and television technology, as manifested in discussion about anchors’ appearances.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The traditional view of suburbs as being peripheral to central cities has long been incorrect: metropolitan areas today are often seen as sprawling aggregations with little discernible spatial form or structure. Yet there is structure. Central urban functions are increasingly drawn out of central cities by the very factor that are held to make cities grow – the easy accessibility that creates centrality – with the air-auto nexus becoming the new key point of centrality. Using data form the 1995 and 2002 Zip Business Patterns (ZBP), we find new evidence about transportation breaks and urban form. We document that major commercial airports are acting as regional anchors and key urban organizers, similar to ports and major railroad terminals in earlier eras. We also find qualifying evidence that previously built-over land surrounding airports, high symbolic value of central city, and remote airport sites diminish the effect of airports on 21st century urban form.

Publication Type: Paper/Poster Proposal
Abstract: Research on news credibility and its antecedents consistently shows perception or judgment of news credibility is both subjective and relativistic. Even though this subjectivity and relativity element of news credibility judgment are key theoretical components in research on media bias perception, they have not been conceptually developed and empirically tested in the research. For example, some scholar measures media bias perception by asking respondents to evaluate whether a given article was neutral, or biased in favor of one side or the other, while others measure news bias perception as asking respondents to evaluate news slant compared to their own views. In addition, different but similar concepts such bias, slant, trust, and credibility have been used without any clear conceptual distinction. To address these measurement and conceptualization problems in the research on media bias perception, this study distinguished media bias perception into two different components – news discrepancy perception and news credibility judgment and then tested the role of the self as a comparison anchor in audience judgmental process of news credibility. Specifically, we constructed two different news discrepancy perceptions – news discrepancy from neutral point and news discrepancy from one’s own view and examined the relationships of each discrepancy perception to both its antecedents (e.g., issue involvement, political ideology, and strength of political ideology) and news credibility judgment.
A Web-based survey with the issue of revision of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) spurred by U.S military vehicle accident in South Korea are used to test several hypothesized relationships among the main variables. Findings reveal that neither antecedent variables of the model nor news credibility were related to perceived news discrepancy from neutral point. In contrast, perceived news discrepancy from one’s own views had strong relationship to issue involvement, political ideology, strength of political ideology, as well as news credibility.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: To address the issue of question-order effect in the third-person effect research, this study explores whether and how question order affects both individual message effect estimates and the underlying cognitive mechanisms leading to those estimates. Analyzing data from a web-based experiment with three different messages (reality TV shows, Internet pornography materials, and Public Service announcements), this study finds that question order does have a significant impact on not only the size of perceptual gaps but also the magnitude of the estimated effects on self and others respectively: Estimates effects on a peer are significantly greater in distant-other-first question order condition than self-first condition, while estimated effects on self do not vary across question-order conditions. In addition, the results also show that question order has some effect on cognitive mechanisms leading to the perceived message effects. For socially undesirable messages, the causal structures linking cognitive antecedents and perceived media effect on a peer are significantly different between two question-order conditions. Implications of these results for understanding the third-person effect and directions for future studies are discussed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The governments of most accession Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries have shown keen interest to adopt the Euro soon after EU accession. This interest is motivated, on the one hand, by want for a strong political signal, namely of an irrevocable “return to Europe”. The interest is motivated as well by a search for a reform anchor that imposes a binding constraint on fiscal policy and wage bargains at home. This keen interest has been persevered despite the fact that the rules of the EMU club were written without considering the CEE countries’ future membership. This paper conceptualises hegemony as a specific transfer of political property rights. This captures both the use of delegation as a commitment device and the problematique of disenfranchisement that such delegation entails. The dilemma of CEE countries in joining a hegemonic club is explored with reference to Poland, the largest candidate country.