Behaviorism, Functionalism, and Mass Communications Policy

This article compares the functionalist and behaviorist approachesto mass communications research and examines their respectivepolicy-making implications and limitations.     

Images of Women in Mexican Comic Books*

Comic books are read on a regular basis by young and old, rich and poor, urban and rural Mexicans. Humor, adventure, police, fantastic and political comic books are but a few types of these popular publications found at newsstands on busy downtown street corners or laid out on sidewalks in quiet neighborhoods. Because of their immense popularity, their content merits serious attention. Harold Hinds and Charles Tatum study the images of women in four comic books—Kaliman, Lagrimas, risas y amor, La familia Burron and El Payo—and assess the degree to which these images conform to or deviate from traditional stereotypes of Mexican women. They find that in some cases these stereotypical images are not found: but in most, readers encounter submissive, passive and long-suffering females dependent upon males for their self-esteem; or at least woman as ideal fiancee-spouse, as mistress-sex-object and as witch. Two women—Borola of La familia Burron and Lupe of El Payo—are more assertive and not cast in the same mold as most other comic book women.     

The value of symmetric and asymmetric indices of segregation constructed from MCD data

People studying rural communities typically limit their analyses to single communities or to comparatively large units, such as counties. This information is important, but it is in local subcounty areas where rural people live and work. We examine the appropriateness of minor civil divisions (MCD's) as a small ecological unit in nonmetropolitan areas to measure segregation between poor and nonpoor people. The index of dissimilarity (D) and P^*-type contiguity indices are evaluated for the nonmetro portions of Mississippi and Wisconsin. MCD's are different in the two states, which affects the interpretation of the indices. We found that segregation, as measured by D, was low in both states. The low value of D in Mississippi may have resulted from how the state's MCD's were delineated. Although the P^* indices are highly correlated with the poverty rate, they do provide more information than the poverty rate alone.     

Portents or Confessions: Authoritative Readings of a Dream Text

As a cultural and historical phenomenon, dreams are universally endowed with significance. Yet, their interpretations have varied widely—in the ascribed “meanings” of dreams and in the ramifications for dreamers. In this article, we examine the social trajectory of a contemporary “dream” that came to light in the context of a police investigation of a murder. We analyze the various institutional codes that refracted this “dream” through their particular vocabularies of motive, agency, and meaning. The case under investigation provides an opportunity to test a working hypothesis about a generalized modern attitude toward dreams; the two aspects of that attitude are that dreams are no longer viewed as revelatory of future events, and that dreams have been privatized. Evidence from this case confounds these expectations and leads us to develop a theory of coexisting institutional paradigms of interpretation of dreams and of the authority structures that compete for interpretive dominance. Our analysis has yielded insights into situational aspects of cultural phenomena.     

Child therapy outcome in a community mental health center

Studies by the Davis Child Therapy Effectiveness Project reveal that brief therapy is the norm. A retrospective outcome study in one mental health center shows a large proportion of adjustment reactions. Outcome ratings from therapists, parents and patients show fairly high levels of outcome and significant improvement in rated impairment. The children who were more impaired at intake were found to have the most visits and numbers of visits were unrelated to success in treatment. Examples are provided illustrating the use of parent responses to modify center practices.