Indiana University School of Journalism » Research news:

Fulbright chair Johnson busy with conferences

Gena Asher — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:20:49 +0000

Associate professor Owen V. Johnson has been busy as he has spent the semester in Poland as part of his duties as Fulbright Distinguished Chair in East European Studies at the University of Warsaw.

Nov. 18, he chaired a panel on "Polish-U.S. Academic Partnership Programs: State of the Art & Perspectives" at the Perspectives in Polish-U.S. Academic Exchanges conference organized by the Polish-U.S. Fulbright Commission, Warsaw. (Connect here to see a photo report.)

His paper, "Journalism in Slovakia 1948-68: A Force for Change," will be presented at Institute of History, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Nov. 24.

He also will give the keynote address, "Defining the People, Serving the State: Slovak Mass Media, 1989-2009," for the Transformation of Media in Slovakia & the Countries of Central & Eastern Europe After 1989 conference Nov. 26-27 held in conjunction with the celebration of the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Bratislava School of Law.

Martin article on college coaches in research journal (Nov. 17)
Kothari paper on framing Darfur set for publication (Nov. 12)
Adjuncts' work in IU alumni magazine (Nov. 12)

Faculty, grad students participate in MAPOR conference

Gena Asher — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:46:25 +0000

Fulbright chair Johnson busy with conferences (Nov. 23)
Martin article on college coaches in research journal (Nov. 17)
Kothari paper on framing Darfur set for publication (Nov. 12)

Three faculty members and seven graduate students head to Chicago Friday and Saturday to attend the 2009 Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research conference in Chicago.

Roy W. Howard Professor David Weaver said this is the highest number of journalism researchers to attend the conference in his 33 years of participation.

Here’s the line up:

Weaver is one of the judges of the MAPOR Fellows Student Paper Competition and is attending the meeting.
Professor Lars Willnat will present a paper entitled “How the World Sees America: Political and Cultural Dimensions of Anti-Americanism.”
Assistant professor Joann Wong will present a paper entitled “How Newspapers and Voter Contact Impact Voters: Testing a Model of Political Knowledge and Voter Turnout.”
Doctoral student Jason Martin’s paper is "Predicting Political Knowledge from Online Media Use and Discussion." He also will moderate a paper session on political participation and public opinion that includes Wong’s paper.
Doctoral student Lanier Holt will present two papers: “Ladies First? Did Gender and Incumbency Make a Difference in the Newspaper Coverage of Two 2006 Senate Elections?” and “Black Like Me? Comparing and Contrasting How the Media Framed the Campaign Coverage of Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama.” He also will moderate a research paper session on views of country, home and abroad that includes papers by Willnat and Yunjuan Luo.
Doctoral students Seong Choul Hong and Chang Hee Choi will present a jointly authored paper, “Inter-Media Frame Building: The U.S. Beef Import Case in South Korea.”
Doctoral student Mohammed al-Azdee’s paper is "Agenda-Setting Theory in 2008 when President Bush was in His Last Year in Office."
Doctoral student Yunjuan Luo’s paper is "International News Exposure and the American Public’s Perceptions of China." Yunjuan Luo also is moderating a paper session on international public opinion.
Master’s student Shin Haeng Lee’s paper is "Selective Exposure to News Media: Individual Predispositions and Online News Consumption." The paper was based on a final paper for J660 Public Opinion. Lee said professor Lars Willnat’s comments on the paper helped shape the final product.

Martin article on college coaches in research journal

Gena Asher — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:48:29 +0000

Doctoral student Jason Martin’s article, "When It Comes to Headlines, Winning Really is Everything," was published in the fall 2009 edition of the Newspaper Research Journal.

The article examines the visibility of college football coaches in newspaper sports journalism. A survey of national print media found strong correlations between a coach’s career longevity, his won-loss record, and the number of his team’s appearances in the Associated Press poll rating the top 25 college football teams and the number of times that coach was mentioned in newspaper and wire reports.

The article began as Martin’s master’s thesis under the direction of Roy Howard Professor David Weaver.

Fulbright chair Johnson busy with conferences (Nov. 23)
Kothari paper on framing Darfur set for publication (Nov. 12)
Adjuncts' work in IU alumni magazine (Nov. 12)

Kothari paper on framing Darfur set for publication

Gena Asher — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:30:57 +0000

Doctoral student Ammina Kothari’s paper "Framing of Darfur Conflict in The New York Times: 2003-2006,” has been accepted for publication for the April 2010 issue of the Journalism Studies journal.

The paper, which won second top student award in the International Communications Division at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication conference last summer, is based on research from Kothari’s master’s thesis completed at the University of Oregon and revised during an independent study with associate professor Amy Reynolds.

Fulbright chair Johnson busy with conferences (Nov. 23)
Martin article on college coaches in research journal (Nov. 17)
Adjuncts' work in IU alumni magazine (Nov. 12)

Duvall to serve as panelist at NCA conference

Gena Asher — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:14:14 +0000

Doctoral student Spring-Serenity Duvall will serve on a panel entitled "Celebrity at the Margins" in the Critical and Cultural Studies Division at the annual conference of the National Communication Association in Chicago in November.

Her presentation, "Agitating at the Margins: The Radicalization of Celebrity Activism in U.S. Media," is part of her dissertation research under the advisement of associate professor Radhika Parameswaran.

Fulbright chair Johnson busy with conferences (Nov. 23)
Martin article on college coaches in research journal (Nov. 17)
Kothari paper on framing Darfur set for publication (Nov. 12)

Camaj work accepted for Gazette publication

Gena Asher — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:29:10 +0000

Doctoral student Lindita Camaj is author of "Media Framing through Stages of a Political Discourse: International News Agencies’ Coverage of Kosovo’s Status Negotiations," which has been accepted for publication by the International Communication Gazette. The paper is the product of class work in theory and quantitative methods.

Fulbright chair Johnson busy with conferences (Nov. 23)
Martin article on college coaches in research journal (Nov. 17)
Kothari paper on framing Darfur set for publication (Nov. 12)

Faculty, student work in journalism encyclopedia

Gena Asher — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:26:45 +0000

Ogan

The Encyclopedia of Journalism, Sage Reference, will be released Oct. 14 and features several contributors from the School of Journalism.

Professor Emerita Christine Ogan is a member of the advisory board and author of an entry. Other entry authors include Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies Michael Evans, professor Lars Willnat, associate professor Tony Fargo, alumnus Janis Cakars and graduate student Yunjuan (Lily) Luo.

The book is edited by Christopher H. Sterling of George Washington University.

Fulbright chair Johnson busy with conferences (Nov. 23)
Martin article on college coaches in research journal (Nov. 17)
Kothari paper on framing Darfur set for publication (Nov. 12)

Faculty, students to participate in journalism conference

Gena Asher — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:39:58 +0000

Several faculty and graduate students are heading to the American Journalism Historians Association annual conference in Birmingham, Ala., Oct. 8-10.

Assistant professor Mike Conway is producing a panel as well as serving as a panelist for "Refocusing the Eye: New Research and Perspectives on CBS News."
IUPUI professor Jonas Bjork will present "Newspaper Medicine: Medical Journals Attack the Press, 1893-1913."
Graduate student William Gillis is a panelist for "Journalism in a Time of Crisis."

Fulbright chair Johnson busy with conferences (Nov. 23)
Martin article on college coaches in research journal (Nov. 17)
Kothari paper on framing Darfur set for publication (Nov. 12)

New monograph looks at advertising, skin-lightening products in India

Rosemary Pennington — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:46:43 +0000

Photo by James Brosher

Researchers Kavitha Cardoza of WAMU and associate professor Radhika Parameswaran studied advertisements for skin-lightening products and India’s expanding role in global economics for their monograph published this month. Cardoza visited campus last week.

See an online ad for Fair and Lovely.
Fulbright chair Johnson busy with conferences (Nov. 23)
Martin article on college coaches in research journal (Nov. 17)
Kothari paper on framing Darfur set for publication (Nov. 12)

Growing up in Hyderabad, India, School of Journalism associate professor Radhika Parameswaran learned early on that her dark skin was not something people were going to envy her for.

“I had a friend, growing up, named Radhika too,” Parameswaran said. “We were Radhika-squared. And I knew, even though no one said this, I knew that she was Light Radhika and I was Dark Radhika. Being the dark one wasn’t good.”

For centuries in India, no one’s really sure why, what has been considered good for women is light skin. Light-skinned women are considered the most beautiful. It is much easier for women with light skin to find husbands than those who are darker.

“I just remember a lot of stories,” Parameswaran said, “where women would be preparing to be married and then the marriage would be denied because their skin was too dark. It was very hurtful for them. There’s a lot of pain in that.”

That pain of being dark has led Indian women to look for ways of lightening their skin. Time-honored methods involve using turmeric and lemon juice. But for those with a little money to burn, a plethora of products on store shelves promise lighter skin in a bottle.

Parameswaran and research partner Kavitha Cardoza, a senior reporter at National Public Radio affiliate WAMU in Washington, D.C., decided to examine how these skin lightening agents, with names like Fair and Lovely, are marketed to women in India.

Cardoza visited the School of Journalism last week to speak to students in a number of different classes, including those enrolled in Parameswaran’s J510 Media and Society. With the students, she shared her experiences in the field, as well as her experience working with their professor.

There were a number of things that surprised Cardoza as she and Parameswaran compiled their research. There was also a lot that irritated her.

“You know, the one person who really angers me is Aishwarya Rai,” Cardoza said, referring to the former Miss World from India. Rai often is touted as the most beautiful woman in the world, she said. “Rai is naturally very light skinned. You see her with her family and they’re all darker, but she is very light. And you have this light-skinned woman who is selling these skin lightening creams. She doesn’t use them, but she’s telling dark skinned women they should buy them and they can be light and beautiful like her.”

Parameswaran and Cardoza conducted a textual analysis of print and television advertisements for these “fairness” products, looking for thematic glue that might bind them altogether into a kind of narrative whole. Their findings are being published this month in Journalism & Communication Monographs. Published only four times a year, the journal was started in 1966 and is considered one of the flagship publications of the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

“It’s very prestigious,” said David Weaver, the School of Journalism’s Roy W. Howard Research Professor. “Monographs are rarer than journal articles. They’re somewhere between article length and book length. They’re one of the few places you can publish research that’s too long for general journals. And they typically have very low acceptance rates.” He said 10 years ago, the journal had an acceptance rate of only 15 percent.

Parameswaran joins only a handful of School of Journalism faculty members who have published in Journalism & Communication Monographs. Her predecessors include Weaver and professor David Nord as well as retired faculty members professors Cleveland Wilhoit and Dan Drew.

Parameswaran and Cardoza’s study, “Melanin on the Margins: Advertising and the Cultural Politics of Fair/Light/White Beauty in India,” took almost seven years to complete and another two years to get published. The study was an attempt to make sense of the ads not only in light of views of beauty, but also in light of India’s expanding role in global economics.

“India’s role on the world stage is changing,” Parameswaran said. “It’s becoming a bigger player in the global economy, is moving from Third World to First World. And, so, these ads are telling people that they need to become modern, that, in order to become part of ‘New India,’ they need to buy these products. This becomes an issue of social mobility, the idea that if you have lighter skin you are more beautiful, you will be more successful, you will be able to change your place in society more easily.”

One fact Parameswaran brings up again and again when talking about her research is that skin lightening products now make up 40 to 50 percent of the cosmetics market in India. They’re also beginning to gobble up a larger share of the market in other Asian nations as well.

Gender Studies assistant professor Brenda Weber says that’s because people everywhere are feeling pressure to change their image to get ahead in the global marketplace. But it’s not just women who are seeking ways to change how they look.

“The number of men seeking plastic surgery in the United States has gone up 700 percent,” Weber said. “Men are increasingly being made to feel like they need cosmetics, so you have them purchasing, and using, products that code ‘feminine’ and that includes these skin lightening products.”

Exploring how skin lightening products are being marketed toward men is certainly something Parameswaran is interested in looking at the road. But one thing she and Cardoza want to emphasize about the research being published now is that, although women are buying things like Fair and Lovely, it’s not necessarily because they think the products are going to work.

“You know, in India, they have these little shampoo sachets, single servings,” Cardoza said, “and now these lightening creams are also selling these sachets of their products. They cost like 50 cents or something and they’re marketed toward poor women. You’re not going to get your skin lighter in a single serving.”

“In fact, they often know they won’t work,” Parameswaran agreed. “But that’s not what matters.”

Photo by James Brosher

WAMU’s Kavitha Cardoza spoke to Parameswaran’s J510 Media and Society class last week. She and Parameswaran spent seven years researching material for their study.

That’s because these products are as much about status as they are about skin.

“It’s about the fact they have disposable income at all. They can buy things they don’t need. Look at these things,” Parameswaran said, pointing to her earrings, “I don’t need them. I can’t eat them. I don’t want to admit how many of these I own. I buy them because I can. It’s kind of the same with Fair and Lovely. They may know it doesn’t work, but they buy it anyway. Because they can. For the fun of it.”

“I think this is really exciting,” Weber said of Parameswaran and Cardoza’s monograph. Weber says while there is a wealth of research about the intersection of beauty and advertising, the majority of it has been approached from a Western perspective.

Parameswaran and Cardoza’s work examines the issue from an Indian perspective and in Weber’s mind, “It’s something anyone engaged with these issues should be interested in. It can really expand opportunities for understanding and give us tools for re-assessing our own experiences.”

Parameswaran gave a number of talks on the study before the findings were published, including one at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School of Communication. It was part of a series organized by the Annenberg Scholars Program in Culture and Communication. Parameswaran spent last spring semester at Annenberg as a guest of the program conducting research and teaching.

Now that she’s back in Bloomington, and her monograph is being published, Parameswaran’s focusing on where her research will take her next. One thing’s for sure, though, it will almost certainly involve a trip or two back to India.

“The nice thing about my research is that I get to go back home,” Parameswaran said as she pointed to a picture of her niece hanging above the desk in her office. “And I get to see that little person. She means the world to me.”

Alumna’s work in communication journal

Gena Asher — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:52:27 +0000

Fulbright chair Johnson busy with conferences (Nov. 23)
Martin article on college coaches in research journal (Nov. 17)
Kothari paper on framing Darfur set for publication (Nov. 12)

Jihyang Choi, a master’s student from Korea who graduated in 2007, has an article based on her master’s thesis in the latest edition of the International Communication Gazette journal (Vol. 71, No. 6, 2009) entitled "Diversity in Foreign News in U.S. Newspapers Before and After the Invasion of Iraq."

Roy W. Howard Professor David Weaver directed her thesis. Jihyang Choi has returned to Korea and now works as a reporter at the Hanook Ilbo newspaper in Seoul.

Indiana University School of Journalism » Research news:

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