European Journal of Communication

The feminist monthly Opzij is the only general audience feminist publication in the Netherlands. Its readership is growing steadily. Because there are few studies of feminist magazines or their readership and because of the monopoly held by the magazine, the authors decided to research both the reception and content of Opzij, focusing on how feminism and a feminist identity are constructed by the text and by its readers. Eleven female and three male readers — who responded to an advertisement in the national dailies — were interviewed and ten volumes (1981-90) were analysed. Six `interpretive repertoires' used by readers are described, as well as the main trend and themes in Opzij's content.

The concept of anticipatory socialization has been under-utilized in communication research. Combining the Uses and Gratifications approach with the theories of Bourdieu and Passeron it is argued that, during adolescence, media use is related to the anticipated future as well as to the past. A theoretical model postulating school achievement, school satisfaction and anticipated school future as significant mediating factors in adolescents' tastes in music is tested by means of ANOVA and LISREL analyses of data from a survey of 1334 Swedish adolescents. The results provide qualified support for the model. The implications for theoretical development are discussed.

Newspaper articles on social conflict are mainly constructed from direct and indirect quotes from actors involved in the conflict, combined with statements made by the editor. The selection of these statements represents a specific range of different viewpoints concerning some `newsworthy' event. But the preferred meaning of a news article as a whole depends not only on the selection but also on the presentation of these selected statements in the text. The pivot of journalistic montage practice may therefore be defined as the way in which these elements are combined in sequential patterns within a specific news discourse. This article explores the possibilities of analysing this practice of contextualization by means of a sequential analysis of different statements on a particular news topic, within the newspaper articles. The results of the sequential analysis show that the way in which viewpoints are presented strongly depends on the editorial definition of the news event. We conclude with a methodological discussion on the perspectives of this method of sequential analysis for the analysis of news discourse.

British television coverage of the 1990 soccer World Cup provides a context in which to explore some of the ways in which television seeks to construct coherent narratives about ongoing events. In telling such stories television draws upon distinctive narrative strategies and on extensive reservoirs of stereotypes. This is seen in elementary form in the techniques by which television commentary defines and develops particular `characters', and more elaborately in the construction of extended narrative accounts of the activities of national teams — notably, in this paper, Cameroon and England. These accounts are seen to be rooted in discourses that formulate key distinctions in terms of race and national identity, and, by circulating applications of such systems of stereotypes, television contributes to the production and reproduction of our everyday knowledge of `Them' and `Us'.

Irish is the official first language of Ireland but until the establishment of Raidió na Gaeltachta (RNG) in 1972, state-run televison and radio had broadcast mainly in English. This article traces the development of RNG, the first all-Irish language radio service, and considers its contribution to the preservation and spread of the language. It has carved its own distinctive and highly-regarded niche and helped sustain and revitalize the language. However, cultural dependency may prove the dominant force in the long-run; RNG's audience may dwindle in the face of fierce competition from the majority cultural services. Crucially, younger people seem less interested in speaking Irish and are proving a difficult audience to reach. To avoid long-term extinction, RNG may have to compromise and admit some English use, especially in pop music, a strategy which also threatens the dilution of the language.