Richland Social Sciences and Media Career Path Annotated Bibliography An annotated bibliography is an organizing tool that summarizes the central theme and

Richland Social Sciences and Media Career Path Annotated Bibliography An annotated bibliography is an organizing tool that summarizes the central theme and scope of each source in a list. Each student will create an annotated bibliography with a minimum of four (4) peer-reviewed journal articles from your Guided Pathways to Success career path. In one document, write # 1-4 for each of your 4 articles and submit.

Each annotation should include:

Career Path
Cite the article in proper ASA or APA format.
Provide a brief annotation that summarizes the article (approx. 3-5 sentences). You may quote from the source, but do not copy and paste the abstract. Ideally, all of the annotation should be in your own words.
In 1 or 2 sentences, explain the source’s relevance and importance or critique its applicability.

Special Note: Do not use the numbers like in the example, they are to illustrate what the above directions look like when written.

Annotated Bibliography Example

Social Science and Public Services Career Path
Battle, Ken. 2007. “Child poverty: The evolution and impact of child benefits.” Pp. 21-44 in A Question of Commitment: Children’s Rights in Canada, edited by K. Covell and R. B. Howe. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
Ken Battle draws on his research as an extensively-published policy analyst, and a close study of some government documents, to explain child benefits in Canada. He outlines some fundamental assumptions supporting the belief that all society members should contribute to the upbringing of children. His comparison of Canadian child poverty rates to those in other countries provides a useful wake-up to anyone assuming Canadian society is doing a good job of protecting children from want. He pays particular attention to the National Child Benefit (NCB), arguing that it did not deserve the criticism it received from politicians and journalists. He outlines the NCB’s development, costs, and benefits, including its dollar contribution to a typical recipient’s income. He laments that the Conservative government scaled back the program in favor of the Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB), and clearly explains why it is inferior.
Battle relies too heavily on his own work; he is the sole or primary author of almost half the sources in his bibliography. He could make this work stronger by drawing from the perspectives of others’ analyses. However, Battle does offer a valuable source for this essay, because the chapter provides a concise overview of government-funded assistance currently available to parents. feature article joshua gamson and pearl latteier
do media monsters devour diversity?
Photo by A. Pierce Bounds, Dickinson College
Politicians and critics have long lamented that the rise of huge media conglomerates means the death of diversity in newspapers and on the airwaves. But research suggests that media conglomeration, however distasteful, does not necessarily
reduce diversity.
At the Philadelphia airport, local and network media reporters await the return of Song Yongyi, a librarian
from Dickinson College who had been imprisoned in China while doing research on the Chinese Cultural
Revolution. Their reports will be shaped in part by the kinds of news organizations they work for.
Something odd is going on when Ted Turner, Trent Lott, Al
Franken, the National Rifle Association, Jesse Jackson and
Walter Cronkite agree. Opposition to media consolidation has
turned these adversaries on most issues into bedfellows. When
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) prepared to
further loosen restrictions on media ownership—a move
approved by the FCC in June 2003 and then blocked by a circuit
court three months later—the decision was met with a motley
chorus of criticism. FCC commissioner Jonathan Adelstein called
the problem “the McDonaldization of American media.”
Former Senator Carol Moseley-Braun stated that “we have to
ensure that there is a diversity of ownership, a diversity of voice.”
And Cronkite, the veteran and widely-respected news anchor,
declared concentration “an impediment to a free and independent press.” The new rules would “stifle debate, inhibit new
ideas, and shut out smaller businesses trying to compete,” said
Turner, whose vast holdings include CNN, TBS, and HannaBarbera cartoons, and who is a major shareholder in parent
company Time Warner AOL. “There are really five companies
that control 90 percent of what we read, see and hear. It’s not
healthy,” Turner added.
Critics and policymakers have long been troubled by consolidation among America’s mainstream media. Opponents of
the Communications Act of 1934—which established the FCC
and allocated the majority of the airwaves to commercial
broadcasters—warned that commercial, network-dominated
Contexts, Vol. 3, Issue 3, pp. 26-32, ISSN 1536-5042 electronic ISSN 153-6052© 2004 by the American Sociological Association. All rights reserved. Send requests
for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, Journals Division, 2000 Center Street, Suite 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223.
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contexts summer 2004
needs and interests of America’s diverse population, and not
just those of its elite. When a small group of “gatekeepers”
controls how information circulates, the spectrum of available
ideas, images and opinions narrows. Big media companies
prefer programming and voices that conform to their own
financial interests, and they make it nearly impossible for
smaller, independent companies to offer alternatives.
This frightening vision is intuitively reasonable. But a close
look at decades of scholarship on the relationship between
media ownership and content diversity uncovers a surprising
story—one much more complicated than the vision of media
monsters gobbling up diversity. Scholars have zeroed in on
three broadly defined types of diversity in media: format diversity, demographic diversity and idea diversity. The research suggests that when it comes to “diversity,” media-consolidation
critics are, if not barking up the wrong tree, at least in need of
a more nuanced, sharper, more carefully directed bark. Indeed,
effective opposition to media ownership consolidation may
require, ironically, acknowledging the ways media giants
sometimes promote diverse content.
format diversity
Offices in Berkeley, California for KPFA, the flagship radio station
of the independent Pacifica Broadcasting Network. Consolidated
ownership of many local radio stations, most notably by Clear
Channel Communications, has dramatically decreased local programming while increasing the number of syndicated shows that
air simultaneously in multiple markets.
radio would squelch, as the ACLU director then put it, the few
small stations that “voice critical or radical views.” And in
1978, the Supreme Court ruled “it is unrealistic to expect true
diversity from a commonly owned station-newspaper combination.” Nonetheless, during the past two decades—and with
a big boost from the Telecommunications Act of 1996—media
ownership has become increasingly concentrated in fewer and
fewer hands. Time and Warner Brothers merged into the
world’s biggest media company in 1989. A decade later,
Viacom and CBS set a new record for the largest corporate
merger ever. And the 2000 AOL-TimeWarner merger was several times bigger than that.
The critics’ logic is this: Citizens need access to diverse
sources of news and opinions to make well-informed decisions
about how to vote and live. Also, media should address the
Suppose you turn on your TV after dinner, and every single channel is broadcasting either an American Idol spin-off or
a makeover show. That would mean the after-dinner time slot
in your area lacks “format diversity”—or variety in programming—turning everything into, as FCC commissioner
Adelstein describes it, “Big Mac, fries and a Coke.” In particular, observers worry that consolidation undercuts local content. Most experts agree that this has happened to radio since
the late 1990s, as Clear Channel Communications has gobbled up stations throughout the country. Programming that
was once determined locally is now overseen by Clear Channel
programmers headquartered elsewhere, and local disc jockeys have been replaced by a single show that plays simultaneously in multiple markets. Consolidation of radio ownership
encourages this centralized, cost-cutting format. The same
logic would be expected in newspapers and television; running wire service copy is cheaper than employing staff
reporters, and standardized production is less expensive than
hiring a team of local broadcasters.
Of course, because different audiences are attracted to different content and format types, it also makes business sense
for a conglomerate to maintain different sorts of programming—including locally produced content—just as General
Motors produces lines of cars for different types of customers.
This can actually promote format diversity. In a market with
three competing stations, argues communications law expert
summer 2004 contexts
27
A bank of television sets that are all tuned to the same station in an electronics store in Emeryville, California. Consolidation among
media companies does not simply increase or decrease the diversity of media content and formats. Some large companies homogenize
their offerings, but others diversify to attract different audiences.
Edwin Baker, each station will try to attract the largest possible audience by providing fare that the majority prefers. The
stations will wind up sounding pretty similar. In contrast, if all
three stations are owned by the same company, ownership
has no incentive to compete against itself, and will try to make
the stations dissimilar in order to attract different audiences.
Similarly, it makes sense for entertainment conglomerates to
make their various holdings more rather than less distinct in
format, and to build a “diverse portfolio” of media properties.
Viacom does not want its UPN (“America’s Top Model,” “The
Parkers,” “WWE Smackdown”) to be like its CBS (“CSI,”
“Judging Amy,” “Late Show with David Letterman”), its
Sundance Channel (documentaries on HIV/AIDS, the films of
Patrice Chereau) to air the same kind of material as its Spike
TV (“Sports Illustrated’s 40th Anniversary Swimsuit Special”),
or its Downtown Press (“chick-lit” like Alexandra Potter’s
Calling Romeo) to publish what its Atria Press does (“academic” titles like bell hooks’ The Will to Change). This multiple-brand logic promotes rather than reduces format diversity.
Research suggests that media consolidation does not simply increase or decrease format diversity. Some studies compare the fate of local or public-affairs programming in
independent versus conglomerated companies. Others look
for shifts in content after a publication is bought by a bigger
company. The results are tellingly mixed. Some find big differences between the offerings of independent and corporate-
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contexts summer 2004
owned outlets, but ambiguous effects on format diversity.
Others find little or no difference at all. For example, a 1995
study found that two years after Gannett—owner of USA
Today, among many other papers—bought the Louisville
Courier-Journal, the paper devoted almost 30 percent more
space to news than it had before, and 7 percent less space to
advertising. On the other hand, the average story became
shorter, the percentage of hard-news stories smaller, and wire
stories came to outnumber staff-written ones. Within the
expanded news reporting, the proportions of local, national,
and international news changed little. The paper became
more like USA Today, but simultaneously the “news hole”—
the amount of content consisting of news reporting—
increased from when it was independently owned. Other
studies of Gannett-bought papers—in Arkansas and Florida—
found that international and national news decreased after
the company took over. Local news, often in the form of crime
or disaster stories, actually increased after consolidation.
A recent large-scale, five-year study by the Project for
Excellence in Journalism also found mixed results. The
researchers asked who produces “higher quality” local television news, which they defined as news that “covers the whole
community,” is “significant and informative,” demonstrates
“enterprise and courage,” and is “fair, balanced, and accurate,” “authoritative” and “highly local.” Although they did
not isolate “format diversity” in their study, they nonetheless
offer some clues about the relationship between ownership
and formats. On the one hand, just as anti-consolidation critics would predict, of 172 newscasts and 23,000 stories,
researchers found the “best” programs overall tended to
come from smaller station groups or from stations affiliated
with but not owned by networks. On the other hand, they also
found that “local ownership offered little protection against
newscasts being very poor.” As an evening’s cursory viewing
might confirm, local news is weak regardless of whether or
not it is part of a conglomerate. Even more to the point, the
researchers found that stations whose parent companies
owned a newspaper in the same market—exactly the kind of
“cross-ownership” that consolidation critics worry about—
produced “higher-quality” newscasts, including more locally
relevant content. They ran more stories on “important community issues” and fewer celebrity and human-interest stories.
Cross-ownership shifted the types of programming provided,
but in the direction most critics of cross-ownership seem to
favor. Moreover, being owned by a small company, while an
advantage when it came to “quality,” was certainly no guar-
antee of a diverse mix of local and non-local content.
For a glimpse of how big media corporations—aided by
government deregulation—sometimes do reduce format diversity, look at the current state of commercial radio. In a series of
scathing articles for Salon, Eric Boehlert exposed Clear Channel
as “radio’s big bully,” known for “allowing animals to be killed
live on the air, severing long-standing ties with community and
charity events, laying off thousands of workers, homogenizing
playlists, and a corporate culture in which dirty tricks are a way
of life.” Concentrated, conglomerate ownership is certainly a
prerequisite for being a big bully, and Clear Channel has used
its power to undercut local programming and standardize
rather than diversify both music and talk on radio. But radio’s
striking homogeneity is not just the result of concentrated
ownership. As Boehlert wrote in 2001, radio “sucks” (similarsounding songs, cookie-cutter stars) because record companies, through independent promoters, pay radio stations huge
amounts to get their songs on playlists. With or without Clear
Channel, material without money behind it—alternative styles
of music, music by artists who do not fit the standard celebrity
Mergers and acquisitions in the media industry changed ownership of the cables attached to this television set four
times in the past 12 years. Each change involved the purchase of a smaller company by a larger one. Each change
also increased the number of channels available to subscribers and the cost of monthly service.
summer 2004 contexts
29
Photo by Mr. Kenn
Even though critics worry about cross-ownership of news outlets, television stations whose parent companies own a newspaper in the same market may produce higher quality broadcasts.
model, innovative and therefore risky formats—does not get
airplay. It is not that ownership has no effect on format diversity, only that the impact is neither uniform nor inevitable. It is
instead influenced by particular corporate strategies and the
inner-workings of particular media industries.
demographic diversity
In everyday conversations, diversity usually refers to demographics: whether a workplace employs or a school enrolls
people of various racial, ethnic, gender and economic categories. How the media represents and addresses the interests
of America’s diverse populations—who gets seen and heard—
is, appropriately, often in question. Studies routinely find that
the individuals appearing in mass media are disproportionately
white, middle-class men between the ages of 20 and 60. But
they have not figured out how, if at all, concentrated corporate ownership affects representation. This should not be surprising. A gap between the diversity of the population and
media images of that population existed long before the rise
of the media giants. And it clearly cuts across commercial and
non-commercial media: studies of public broadcasting’s guests
show little demographic diversity, while daytime talk shows
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contexts summer 2004
produced by for-profit conglomerates—however tawdry—
offer some of the greatest demographic diversity on television.
Both government agencies and scholars have assumed
that the key to ensuring demographically diverse content is
demographically diverse ownership. Until recently, the FCC
and the courts attempted to promote this kind of diversity by
giving licensing preferences to minority-owned (and sometimes female-owned) broadcast stations. The FCC halted the
licensing preferences in 1995, and the rapid consolidation of
deregulated media companies makes it even less likely that
companies and stations will be minority-owned today.
Although it might seem reasonable to think that fewer minority-owned companies will mean less demographically diverse
content—in surveys, minority owners do report being more
likely to produce “minority” programming—studies of content do not back up such claims. Two studies comparing
minority-owned (African American and Latino) radio stations
to white-owned stations in the 1980s found that owners’ ethnic backgrounds did not significantly affect demographic representation in their programming. There are many good
reasons to pursue affirmative action in media ownership and
employment, but ensuring diversity in media content is not
one of them.
If anything has promoted demographic diversity in media
content, it is the rise of niche-marketing and narrow-casting,
which target previously excluded demographic groups with
images of themselves. Although minority owners often typically
start that process—gay marketers tapping the gay niche, Latino
publishers targeting Latino readers—it proceeds regardless of
whether they remain owners. Indeed, niche marketing has
become a media-giant staple: Time Warner AOL started the
highly successful People en Español in 1996, NBC-owned Bravo
produced the summer 2003 hit “Queer Eye for the Straight
Guy,” Robert Johnson became the first AfricanAmerican billionaire when he sold Black Entertainment
Television to Viacom in 2002, and the largest shareholder of radio’s Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation is
Clear Channel. Multicultural content and oligopoly
media ownership are clearly not incompatible.
harder to discern. Generally speaking, one might observe that
the American media environment has been an inhospitable place
for radical, dissenting voices before, during and after the rise of
media giants. More specifically, scholars have found that viewpoint diversity does not line up neatly with particular ownership
structures. For example, the recent Project for Excellence in
Journalism study of local television measured how many sources
were cited in a story and how many points of view were represented in stories involving a dispute or controversy. Locally owned
stations presented no more viewpoint diversity than non-locally
idea diversity
Almost everyone pays lip service to the notion
that citizenship thrives when people are exposed to a
variety of contending viewpoints. As the number of
owners decreases, critics of media conglomeration
argue, so does the number of voices contributing to
the “marketplace of ideas.” Media conglomerates
with holdings in all kinds of other media and nonmedia industries have the power to censor the news
in accordance with their interests. There is plenty of
anecdotal evidence that consolidation tips content
against ideas critical of the corporate owners. The Los
Angeles Times, for example, failed in 1980 to cover a
taxpayer-funded $2 billion water project that stood
to benefit the Times-Mirror Company. Likewise, NBC A newspaper stand offering both mainstream and alternative publications.
remained silent on the 1990 boycott of their owner Studies of newspaper content suggest that independently owned papers are
no more likely to include diverse ideas and perspectives than are papers
GE. And CBS’s America Tonight show had a proowned by conglomerates.
tobacco bias in the mid-1990s, when the Loews
Corporation, owner of Lorillard Tobacco, held a conowned ones, and small companies no more than big ones.
trolling interest in CBS. Disney-owned ABC News even canNetwork-owned-and-operated stations did better than smaller,
celled an investigative report about sloppy background checks
less well-funded affiliates. The weak connection between viewat Disneyworld. A recent study also found a “synergy bias”
point diversity and monopoly ownership is actually old news. In
among media giants, in which media companies slip unana classic 1985 study, Robert Entman examined the first page and
nounced promotions of their other products and services into
editorial section of 91 newspapers in three types of markets:
newscasts—as when ABC devoted two hours of Good
competitive local markets with multiple, separately owned
Morning America to Disneyworld’s 25th Anniversary. In short,
papers; monopolistic markets with only one local newspaper;
media corporations act in their own special interests, promote
and “quasi-monopolies,” where joint-owned or joint-operated
ideas that suit those interests, and sometimes “spike” stories
papers share a market. He measured diversity as the number of
through self-censorship.
people or organizations mentioned in each story, and the numBeyond these forms of direct self-interest, though, the conber of stories that presented conflicting opinions. The study
nection between ownership concentration and idea diversity is
summer 2004 contexts
31
found that on no measure did independent papers present more
diversity than papers in monopoly or quasi-monopoly…
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