Video ethology: Television as a data base for cross-cultural studies in nonverbal displays

This demonstration study attempts to indicate how live television programming might provide an economical and easily-accessed source of material for cross-cultural investigation. This study compared the nonverbal displays of emotion for American and Canadian television game show contestants. Results suggested that although Americans and Canadians did not differ significantly in the types of emotions displayed, Americans were rated as being significantly more expressive in their emotional display. In addition, Americans differed from Canadians in their forms of nonverbal display. American females were seen as using their hands more than the Canadian females. American males were seen to smile more than their Canadian counterparts. Discussion explored how methodology introduced in this study could be conveniently expanded to more conclusively explore culturally determined display rules. Consideration of current video cassette technology facilitating this form of investigation was discussed.This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada under grant number 410-84-0640.     

Death rates,psychiatric commitments,blood pressure,and perceived crowding as a function of institutional crowding

The effects of crowding were examined in a prison system. Emphasis was directed toward three factors—social density (number of individuals in sleeping quarters), spatial density (space per person), and overall institutional population level. Archival data indicated that in prisons higher population years yielded higher death rates and higher rates of psychiatric commitments. Blood pressure measures were analyzed for inmates living in three types of housing that differed in degree of spatial and social density. Blood pressure was higher in more crowded housing. The degree of perceived crowding was more strongly related to space per person than number of occupants per housing unit.The assistance of Ben Judd and Robert Matthews in this research is appreciated.     

The communication industry in economic integration: The case of West Germany

National economies can be viewed as networks of interdependent relations among the firms, industries and sectors that make up the total economic system. Within this economic system. The communication industry plays a central role by providing message and media products and services, i.e. the linking and coordinating infrastructure.Some limited research has been conducted on the nature and importance of the communication industry in the total economic network of a nation. The study reported here, however, represents the first application of currently existing network analysis techniques to this problem on a large-scale basis. The data used for this study represent the interorganizational relationships among 365 West German firms, with a 1970-based stock value of $333,000 or more. Interorganizational linkages are a function of (1) direction of ownership, and (2) magnitude of ownership (percentage of stock owned weighted by the value of the owned firm).The data analysis reveals that there are a number of dominating industrial groups, including a communication industry. The inter-firm relationships of the communication industry have been mapped and measured. The analysis demonstrates that there is relatively little dominance in and widespread integration with other major economic clusters of the economy. These findings are considered as being preliminary since only publically reported data were available, i.e. privately controlled firms are not included in the analysis. A number of measures for connectedness and integrativeness are presented that suggest themselves in addition to the technique of network analysis per se as potential alternative measures. Media scholars as well as economists may want to utilize network analysis as a method to study various forms of economic concentration and ownership in national industries.