Essays on media
mass communications research papers
What are the dimensions of its role? How powerful is it in shaping political action, and under what circumstances does it have (or not have) independent influence on politics? Does the press, in fact, directly influence the precipitation, timing, or results of realignments and the new agenda they bring—or does it primarily reflect or ratify the activities of other institutions? Do significant changes in the political content of mass communications actually occur in a buildup period prior to realignment that can induce or propel the coming of a major new policy agenda?
mass media essays
The Great Depression revealed severe, unresolved problems in the ecopolitical system and produced, first, demands for governmental action, second, political polarization by both political elites and mass population over proposed solutions, and, third, a new, clearly defined policy agenda in the Democratic New Deal. These stages offer, then, a sequence in which we can examine the press's role as a political force in the relatively recent past and as a benchmark for examining later journalistic impact on the political process. In brief, what was the nature of mass communications in the important decades before, during, and after the New Deal? What, if anything, can we learn from this period about the role of the press in shaping broad shifts in the political agenda?
essays on media
While such an effort at understanding the press's role in political change is difficult, a serious attempt can be made through a systematic content analysis of major newspapers over time. Examination of front-page news stories of major circulation newspapers between 1920 and 1940 sheds much light on the relationship between the press's own news agenda and the specific political agenda as it unfolded during the New Deal. What topics did the press treat during this period, what did the newspapers deem important, and how can we link the press's sense of a news agenda—the content of mass communications—to the political activities of the period?
essays on media violence
Contrary to the findings in the Albert experiment (where no provocations were employed), justified fantasy aggression in the BerkowitzRawlings study did not increase the college students' unfriendliness toward the test examiner when they had not been insulted by him. The previous theoretical analysis of media violence suggests several reasons for this difference. For one, the Berkowitz-Rawlings subjects, being considerably older than Albert's third and fourth graders, undoubtedly were more likely to have discounted the movie scene as make-believe. That is, they established a somewhat greater differentiation between the fantasy and real-life worlds so that for them there was less generalization from the film to the audience's own situation.
essays on medicare
Second, Medicare's current prospective payment system may promote discrimination against certain groups of patients. Because that system controls only Medicare prices, it may make elderly patients less desirable than privately insured persons, leading to a tendency to discharge Medicare beneficiaries sicker and quicker than other individuals. The PPS will encourage hospitals to favor admission of Medicare patients who are in more profitable diagnostic groups and who are less severely ill. Uninsured patients also suffer under this system as it is increasingly difficult to cross-subsidize their care from hidden surpluses built into Medicare and other fees.
free research papers on medicare vs. Medicaid
Each year, the federal government should set a target budget for hospital payments for each state. The states should then be empowered to devise ways to keep Medicare hospital costs within that target or they should be required to make up the difference from their own resources. To achieve this goal, the states should have wide discretion in determining how hospitals within their boundaries will be paid for providing services to Medicare beneficiaries. In designing payment systems, however, the states should meet certain federal / requirements. All payers within their jurisdiction should use the same method for paying for hospital care and rates for different payers should reflect the costs of treating such patients--not the market power or negotiating skill of the payers.
research papers on medicare vs. Medicaid
Nevertheless, as most of our experience with HMOs involves working populations rather than retirees, some caution is indicated in applying that experience to the Medicare population. The very high costs of caring for some elderly patients may encourage prepaid health care organizations to selectively enroll healthy Medicare patients, channelling more costly patients into the fee-for-service system. If HMOs are paid the average cost of treating a Medicare patient in the traditional system, but they enroll only patients who are healthier than average, overall Medicare expenses may increase and care of the healthiest elders may be inappropriately subsidized.
essays on merchant of Venice
What would the world of music think of a composer who wrote, unsolicited, a fifth movement for Beethoven Eroica or the Fifth Symphony? He would probably be judged mad. Nevertheless, a number of writers have written appendices to The Merchant of Venice, including in their ranks several with considerable literary reputation in the twentieth century. Oscar F. Adams wrote a sequel which he actually called The Merchant of Venice, Act VI, to show Shylock becoming converted, still despised by Christians, still planning revenge, and still remaining a Jew at heart. St. John Ervine, who as dramatic critic was normally quite harsh in his judgment of his contemporaries, has written The Lady of Belmont, a play in five acts, which has been presented on several occasions.
essays on obsession
One might assume that Senator Hickenlooper's obsession with secrecy and security would disappear once it had been revealed that the Russians had actually produced and exploded an atomic bomb. But no! the Senator immediately sought to make political capital of the announcement by charging that the Russians had the secret only because Congress and the American people had not listened to his prior warnings and dire misgivings. To plague her beating heart, wrote Wordsworth, "fear hath a hundred eyes." Fear with its hundred eyes can never be appeased. No security system would ever satisfy the Senator from Iowa, for his fears, like those of his colleagues, are functional; that is, they are strictly political.
essays on poverty
Since these remedial measures cannot remove the fundamental causes of poverty, it becomes necessary to look elsewhere for effective preventive measures. In the course of our search we must consider as to what measures, if any, can have any material effect in preventing poverty, and if there is any ground for hoping that poverty can sometime be entirely abolished. Let us consider first certain measures, some of which we have already mentioned, which are frequently called preventive measures. Social work nowadays is more or less pervaded with the idea of prevention. For example, the social settlements are endeavoring mainly to change the general living conditions of the dwellers in their neighborhoods, rather than to aid individual indigents.