Media Publicity and the Voluntary Sector: The Case of Nonprofit Organizations in New York City

Media publicity is an important resource for contemporary voluntary associations, but very little is actually known about the resources and organizational characteristics that are most important for getting media attention. To address this question, we collected and analyzed data on the organizational attributes and news publicity of 739 nonprofit organizations in New York City. We find that an organization's income, paid staff, membership size, and library resources are significantly related to getting media publicity, whereas the number of chapter affiliations is inversely related to publicity. Association type is also a significant factor that influences an organization's ability to get publicity. We discuss the implications that these findings have for current debates about advocacy and civic engagement in the nonprofit sector.     

Trends in online media relations: Web-based corporate press rooms in leading international companies

An analysis of 120 corporate websites from Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Singapore, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States reveals, for the first time, international results about the implementation and use of virtual press rooms. This article shows the importance that large international companies attribute to Web-based media centers to achieve organizational objectives and to meet journalists’ demands for information and audiovisual resources. The study also shows, however, that most press rooms are far from being complete, efficient, easy-to-use, reliable and updated on a daily basis. In fact, there is not a single country from those analyzed that consistently stands out from the rest. In most of them, good results in certain areas coexist with significant shortcomings in others, resulting in some cases in poor press rooms that may not achieve the desired public relations objectives.     

Monitoring and evaluation of loveLife's AIDS prevention and advocacy activities in South Africa, 1999–2001

loveLife is the largest effort ever launched in South Africa to change adolescent sexual behaviour with the aim of reducing the rate of HIV infection among 15–20 year olds by 50%, reducing other STIs, and reducing the incidence of teenage pregnancy. loveLife combines high-powered media awareness and education, development of adolescent-friendly reproductive health services, and outreach and support programmes. The 5-year research and evaluation plan includes a multi-year comprehensive observational study, tracking change in a range of behavioural indicators and in sexual health outcomes. In its first 2 years, loveLife reached more than 4 million youth. Sixty-two percent of youth and 59% of their parents/guardians recognize the brand, while the vast majority of parents (97%) and youth (89%) exposed to loveLife, identified loveLife as being positive. Challenges in the next years are the continued roll out of the programme, and the development of institutional support and behaviour change.     

Communicating Global Activism

Many observers doubt the capacity of digital media to change the political game. The rise of a transnational activism that is aimed beyond states and directly at corporations, trade and development regimes offers a fruitful area for understanding how communication practices can help create a new politics. The Internet is implicated in the new global activism far beyond merely reducing the costs of communication, or transcending the geographical and temporal barriers associated with other communication media. Various uses of the Internet and digital media facilitate the loosely structured networks, the weak identity ties, and the patterns of issue and demonstration organizing that define a new global protest politics. Analysis of various cases shows how digital network configurations can facilitate: permanent campaigns; the growth of broad networks despite relatively weak social identity and ideology ties; transformation of individual member organizations and whole networks; and the capacity to communicate messages from desktops to television screens. The same qualities that make these communication-based politics durable also make them vulnerable to problems of control, decision-making and collective identity.     

Changes in anti-fat weight bias in women after exposure to thin and plus-sized models

We examined whether exposing women to female models with different body sizes lead to changes in weight-based attitudes and whether evaluation focus altered the effects. Female college students (N = 214) were exposed to 22 images of either thin or overweight models. Participants rated models on either appearance or non-appearance characteristics and completed measures of anti-fat attitudes, thin ideal internalization, and demographics. Participants rated thin and overweight models equally attractive and sexy. Viewing overweight models showed a significant reduction in anti-fat attitudes. There were no effects for thin models or evaluation ratings. Discussion focuses on the implications of positive images of overweight individuals on social attitudes.     

论新媒体冲击下纸媒的生存与发展——以报纸为例

互联网的发展、智能手机的普及使传统的传媒环境和格局发生了翻天覆地的变化。新媒体的崛起与壮大给以纸媒为代表的传统媒体带来了前所未有的冲击，但不可否认的是，纸媒自身依然有不可替代的优势。本文主要以报纸为例，从纸媒传播内容的深度和可信度、纸媒对于受众文化素质的要求以及纸媒的表现形式、和受众的互动等方面的特点入手，分析在新媒体的冲击下纸媒所面临的生存现状，并且在此基础上指出将来纸媒应该如何利用新媒体的技术来促进自身的发展，更好地实现新媒体与传统媒体的融合。     

自媒体环境下隐私信息的公开化及其治理

自媒体环境下隐私信息具有公开化的趋势,表现为隐私信息传播的去边缘化,隐私所有人成为主导者,隐私公开成常态。阴私、身份、财富和观念是公开化的主要隐私类型。传播隐私信息对抗伦理道德可以轻易引起社会关注和自媒体把关权弱化,传播自由度增大是隐私信息公开化的主要原因。隐私信息公开化过度放大了娱乐信息,导致严肃信息失语;强调了传播的自主性,忽略了对"他"者的影响。促进自媒体的发展和媒介生态的净化,需要媒介监管者对信息进行分级,自媒体经营者履行"把关权"职责并适当地引导用户,自媒体用户提高自身媒介素养。     

博客“热”的“冷”思考 ——对新闻博客的传播学解读

2005年被称为“博客元年”,博客及其所代表的传播现象引起了新闻传播理论界的关注。对这一新的传播现象需要科学、理性和冷静的分析:博客既是个人传播的工具也是社会舆论阵地;新闻博客的自发性、自主性和随意性使它不可能取代大众传媒;公民记者和公民新闻有利于调动公民参与社会公共事务和管理的积极性,是对大众传媒的补充,但需要进行有效的监督和管理。     

网络集群的自组织特征 —— 以“南京梧桐树事件”的微博维权为个案

近年来,伴随着急剧的社会结构转型,我国新的社会身份和社会认同群体也随之产生,在网络中的政治表达和利益维护活动增多,在这些网络讨论的集群内部,参与者会自发形成一定的秩序,推动事件的进行。本研究利用自组织理论作为分析框架,选取"南京梧桐树事件"的微博维权集群为研究对象,重点考察网络集群参与者之间从无序到有序的互动过程、整个系统的演变规律及其与外界的互动机制,由此总结出网络集群中的自组织特征,从而相对准确地把握虚拟社区系统的发展、演化阶段,为更好地理解互联网的社会功能起到借鉴作用,也为政府有关部门做好群体事件的预防工作提供理论和策略上的支持。     

The effect of media sexism on women’s political ambition: evidence from a worldwide study

This paper presents results from one of the first global studies on the relationship between media sexism and the share of candidates for the lower chamber of national parliaments who are women. Data on media sexism come from the Global Media Monitoring Project, the most reliable worldwide source for media coverage from a gender perspective. The data on share of female political candidates come from the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The results show that that there is, even when controlling for the number of women in parliament, electoral system, gender quotas, level of human development, level of women’s rights, freedom from corruption, and media access, a significant relationship between media sexism—measured as (i) the share of all news subjects that are women and (ii) the share of all news subjects portrayed in the function of experts who are women—and the share of women candidates for parliament: the higher the level of media sexism, the lower the share of women candidates. The theory discussed zooms in on a bystander effect: We hypothesize that sexist portrayals of women in the media stifle ambition among women who, in a less sexist media environment, would be willing to stand as political candidates.