This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 18 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the status, function, and perceived needs of journalism in the high schools of West Virginia; (2) environmental pollution news coverage; (3) a critical history of "Scribner's" magazine; (4) gatekeeping by the Canadian Press News Agency; (5) newspaper coverage of the aged; (6) New England journalism and the questions of slavery, the South, and abolitionism (1820-1861); (7) content analyses of Illinois rural weeklies in 1882, the "Pennsylvania Freeman" between 1836 and 1854, and "La Democracia" (Puerto Rico) between 1895 and 1914; (8) the social responsibility of the press; (9) British-American Whig Political Rhetoric in three newspapers, 1756-1776; (10) international communications decision making; (11) a black newspaper's reports of educational controversy; (12) cameras in the courtroom; (13) press commentary and the 1972 United States presidential elections; (14) television journalists and their audience expectations of local news; (15) newspaper readership in two New England counties; and (16) the image of the Jew in the American periodical press, 1881-1921. (RL)