Volume 30, Issue 1

This article presents a series of experiments which were conducted among native speakers of German to determine the influence of different types of German generics on the cognitive inclusion of women. Results indicate that the inclusion of women is higher with ‘non-sexist’ alternatives than with masculine generics, a tendency which was consistent across different studies. The different alternatives, however, showed different effects which also varied depending on the context. These results are discussed with regard to their practical consequences in situations such as nominating women and men for awards or political offices.

In many European countries the question of cultural identity has gained special importance due to the increase of globalization, the position of the United States, and the European unification. How can political leaders deal with these developments without alienating their people? In what ways do they express national identity in popular communication? Is nationalism a characteristic of their rhetoric? These questions are asked in regard to thirty-six New Year's speeches held by the last five French presidents. By answering these questions we will develop a perspective on the concepts of national identity and nationalism. Discourse analysis shows a typical discourse for every president, in which nationalist rhetoric appears to play a role. Above all, differences between three structures of significance, or frames, are distinguished, which can be described as ‘sense of belonging’ or ‘paternal protection’, ‘the myth of French values’, and ‘the significant other’.

Research suggests that online newspapers are not as good as their printed counterparts in widening the range of topics their audience is aware of. But should we be concerned about that? So far, visiting online newspapers does not seem to be a substitute for reading traditional newspapers. But the evidence is scarce; only a few studies specifically look at the impact of online newspapers. In this study we look at to what extent online newspapers ‘take over’ from printed newspapers and other information channels. We investigate the relation between using online newspapers and other media channels, and look into the usefulness of online newspapers for different types of information compared to their offline counterparts and other information channels. A recent survey of almost 1,000 respondents, representative for the Dutch adult population, shows that visiting online newspapers is negatively related to using print newspapers among the young, and more time spent on them seems to reduce the time spent watching television, at least, among males and lower educated respondents. Online newspapers do not seem to diminish the use of other media or the time spent on them though. On the contrary, their visitors use some information channels more often and more extensively, even after other plausible reasons for media use are controlled for. Furthermore, they regard printed newspapers and television as better suited for their information needs.

The aim of these two studies was to test to what extent television advertisements reflect gender-role differentiation in two countries: Poland and Britain. British (Adult = 50; Child = 39) and Polish (Adult = 48; Child = 47) samples of television advertisements were analyzed and compared with previous studies. The results show slightly more gender-role stereotyping in Polish television advertisements, and a slight decline of stereotyping in Britain. The second study was conducted on children's advertisements following Furnham, Abramsky, and Gunter's (1997) content analytic study. In general, there were more advertisements oriented towards both girls and boys, and there were more males as central figures. The differences between two countries were not major, suggesting that levels of gender-stereotyping in Poland and Britain are similar, with slightly more stereotyping present in Polish advertisements.

This research note investigates the socio-demographics of one aspect of the ‘digital divide’, namely computer use and attitudes. The results are drawn from a large-scale survey of computer use and attitudes among the adult population of Flanders. They show that computer non-use and negative attitudes towards digital developments, far from being limited to relatively small segments of society, are reported by over 40% of respondents. Regression analyses indicate that level of education is the strongest predictor variable of computer disquietude, followed by age and then gender. The implications of these results are briefly discussed.

What is the current state of film studies? How do you enter this field from a media studies background? Is it worthwhile for media scholars to engage in this neighboring field? Can you get a grasp of the key issues, theoretical currents, and analytical approaches consulting a limited number of publications? I will try to answer these questions in an extensive review essay on four fairly recent film studies books. The (British and American) books approach the field on different levels. Two introductory textbooks supply the basics for beginning students. An anthology of ‘classical’ texts provides an overview of the various theoretical and methodological currents. And a reader with key figures in the field offers state of the art research in search of ‘really useful theory’. This material is of great interest to media studies scholars. As the authors of the books considered here acknowledge, film studies can no longer afford to ignore its interdisciplinary location, intersecting with neighboring disciplines such as media studies and cultural studies, in an engagement with film as popular and mass culture.

Literature on media ethics often tries to close the gap between theory and professional practice. So do three new books by T. Harcup, K. Sanders, and S. L. Bracci and C. G. Christians, of which only Sanders stably positions herself on both sides. She offers outlines of moral philosophical positions where she favors the virtue ethics approach that deals with a person's character and moral abilities. At the same time Sanders analyzes typical conflicts that arise in the everyday work of journalists. Sanders and the more practical oriented former journalist Harcup follow the same fundamental question: "What is journalism for?", but they give different answers. To Harcup, the basic task of journalism lies in the effort to create publicness, i. e., to override barriers of social communication. To Sanders, journalism exists just to tell the truth. Much can be learned from the ‘theorists for contemporary ethics’, such as Charles Taylor and Jurgen Habermas, who are presented and interpreted in Bracci and Christian's collection, about the relationship between truth and publicness and how this relationship might stimulate the practice of journalism. Journalists' consideration of truth cannot be the necessary prerequisite for the publication of information; instead, the freedom of discourse is the necessary precondition to ensure that the decision whether and to what extent an information is of public interest remains in the hands of the public itself.