Booknotes: Remembering Dr. Fishbein

The Annenberg community is deeply saddened by the passing of Martin Fishbein, the Harry C. Coles, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication.

Dr. Fishbein is best known for his landmark theories in the field of social psychology, namely the expectancy-value theory which he developed in the early 1970s, and later, the theory of reasoned-action. The concepts of the former theory can be found in the monograph, Belief, Attitude, Intention, and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research (1975), which he co-authored with Icek Ajzen. It is out of print but can be found at Dr. Ajzen's website in its entirety (broken up into chapters).

Later, in the 1970's and early 80's, EVT was expanded into the theory of reasoned action (TRA), credited to Drs. Fishbein and Ajzen. Their work could not be more contemporary however, as the the two had just published Predicting and changing behavior: The reasoned action approach (2010, Psychology Press,Taylor & Francis). Copies of the book can be found in Van Pelt and ASC Reserve.

These 1975 and 2010 titles bookend a prolific and astonishingly influential career that nourished the diverse fields of health communication, marketing, child psychology, consumer psychology, organizational communication and audience studies. Dr. Fishbein will be sorely missed around the School and University, but his work is here to stay.

NPR Transcripts

As part of National Public Radio's site relaunch in July came a new free-text policy for transcripts. More than 80,000 transcripts are now available going back to May 2005 (they used to charge for them). Observes Susanne Bjorner, writing in The CyberSkeptics Guide to Internet Research (October 2009), "NPR says that transcripts are 'largely accurate' but acknowledges that there may be some spelling or grammatical errors and that, in some cases the text may not align perfectly with the audio" Some random testing on her part "indicates that available transcripts are indexed by every word, making the backfile a major new free source for research in news, business, and culture."

NPR transcripts are also available at LexisNexis (see previous post) but you may want to go straight to the horse's mouth from now on.

Preschool Children's Television Viewing in Child Care Settings

From Pediatrics, November 2009, research on the difference between preschool home-based and center-based childcare in terms of television viewing.

Article: Preschool-Aged Children’s Television Viewing in Child Care Settings

Authors: Dimitri A. Christakis, MD, and Michelle M Garrison, PhD

Abstract
Objective The goal was to quantify television viewing in day care settings and to investigate the characteristics of programs that predict viewing.

Methods A telephone survey of licensed child care programs in Michigan, Washington, Florida, and Massachusetts was performed. The frequency and quantity of television viewing for infants, toddlers, and preschool-aged children were assessed.

Results With the exception of infants, children in home-based child care programs were exposed to significantly more television on an average day than were children in center-based programs (infants: 0.2 vs 0 hours; toddlers: 1.6 vs 0.1 hours; preschool-aged children: 2.4 vs 0.4 hours). In a regression analysis of daily television time for preschool-aged children in child care, center-based programs were found to have an average of 1.84 fewer hours of television each day, controlling for the other covariates. Significant effect modification was found, in that the impact of home-based versus center-based child care programs differed somewhat depending on educational levels for staff members; having a 2- or 4-year college degree was associated with 1.41 fewer hours of television per day in home-based programs, but no impact of staff education on television use was observed in center-based programs.

Journalism Blogs

Here's list of top Journalism blogs from a new Journalism blog, Journalism Journeyman, on the scene. Of course all the sites that are included on the list are promoting this blog, including yours truly.

Two New Internet Reports

Two recent reports of interest:

Technorati's State of the Blogosphere 2009

Since 2004... annual study has followed the growth and trends in the blogosphere. [The 2009 report] dives deeper dive into the entire blogosphere, with a focus on professional bloggers. This year’s topics include: professional blogging activities, brands in the blogosphere, monetization, twitter & micro-blogging and bloggers’ impact on US and World events.

You can see the other reports going back to 2004 at the site as well.

2009 Digital Influence in News and Politics Report October 2009, Sparxoo

Abstract

Never before have so many tools been available to analyze and clarify digital influence. The 2009 Digital Influence in News and Politics Report leverages these tools to measure the influence of those best-in-class media companies in the digital sphere.

Sparxoo evaluated over 100 news and politics media outlets (from the New York Times to the Daily Beast to NPR) in a comprehensive study of content, social and multimedia influence.

The Report crowns CNN as the #1 digital influencer, followed by The New York Times (a pleasant surprise for “The Gray Lady”). The Digital Influencer in News and Politics Report confirms and debunks many of the long-held media myths perpetuated by marketers, brand managers and other business leaders. It is through these findings that we can re-align the media compass to find tomorrow’s true north.