Browsing by Subject "Framing"
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Item A Case Study and Framing Analysis of the 2008 Salmonella Outbreak(Texas Tech University, 2009-08) Irlbeck, Erica; Akers, Cindy; Baker, Matt; Brashears, Mindy M.; Burris, Scott; Duemer, Lee S.In April 2008, the United States Food and Drug Administration began investigating a potential Salmonella outbreak in Texas in New Mexico. Initially, tomatoes were the suspected carrier of the pathogen; however, after three months of investigation, the FDA determined jalapenos grown in Mexico were the culprit. Tomato growers across the United States reported losses of $250 million. The purpose of this study was to examine television news coverage of the Salmonella outbreak through a case study using framing theory in order to gain an understanding of how reporters’ ideologies, attitudes, and corporate pressures influenced the frames that were reported on the ABC, CBS, and NBC news networks. A qualitative case study using interviews with reporters and content analysis was used to investigate the research questions. The reporters revealed they supported the farmers, they wanted change within the FDA, and they had confidence in the U.S. food supply. The frames presented in the television news coverage were health risk, financial impact, devastation of tomato growers, and frustration with the FDA. The frames that were built by reporters’ inputs were devastation of the tomato grower and frustration with the FDA. This dissertation concluded that in some instances, television news frames are influenced by the reporters’ attitudes and ideologies, and in other instances, they are not.Item American capital punishment and the promise of "closure"(2011-05) Dirks, Danielle; Warr, Mark, 1952-Several justifications exist for the death penalty, yet it is only recently that the concept of “closure” has come to serve as a rationale for American capital punishment. This contemporary justification promises murder victims’ families that the execution of their loved one’s murderer should provide them with “closure”—a contested word that typically denotes an end to the pain associated with their loved one’s murder. How and when this new narrative came about has garnered little scholarly attention, particularly as murder victims’ families begin to challenge closure as relevant to their healing. The goals of the current study seek to: 1) elucidate how closure entered the American death penalty debate; 2) illustrate the myriad meanings assigned to closure, identifying how various stakeholders have trafficked in the term’s use; 3) examine how closure has been used politically to legitimize death penalty practices and the state’s right to take life; and 4) critically analyze claims that closure has “symbolically transformed” the American death penalty today. The study employs discursive textual analysis of nearly 2500 American newspaper stories from 1989 to 2008, legislative hearings, legal case histories, academic and popular sources, and archival materials from American death penalty and victims’ rights groups during this twenty year period. The findings illustrate that closure entered death penalty discourse in the late 1980s, and reached a tipping point in news coverage in 2001 with Timothy McVeigh’s execution. While the term was used in nearly every way imaginable, the findings illustrate it was most prominently used in supporting secondary victims’ “right to view” the executions of their loved ones’ murderers and in justifying Timothy McVeigh’s execution for his role in the Oklahoma City Bombing. I argue that the media’s sensational portrayals of such historical moments allowed them to serve as “galvanizing events” ushering in closure as a powerful symbol in justifying the state’s right to take life and the view that executions are a form of “therapeutic justice.” Despite closure being used to support certain death penalty practices, the analyses presented here provide little support for the notion that closure has “symbolically transformed” American capital punishment today as has been suggested by some scholars. Closure is a small blip in print news coverage and does not resonate strongly with Americans’ support for capital punishment in national opinion polls. The study concludes with a critical examination of the role of closure as a contemporary, and empirically unchallenged, justification for the death penalty—one that serves as an empty promise for murder victims’ loved ones.Item An intercultural exploration of journalistic framing of immigration in the Mexican Press and United States press(2008-08) Madison, Thomas Phillip; Wilkinson, Kent; Chambers, Todd; Johnson, TomSince the mid-1990s, immigration through and from Mexico to the U.S. has increased. This has led to a good deal of controversy on the issue for all sectors of life, and is immediately apparent in newspaper reporting. In 2006, with proposed changes to federal immigration policy on the legislative table, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people took to the streets and protested these changes. For this study, a sample of 1028 newspaper articles dealing with immigrants and immigration was taken from both U.S. and Mexican newspapers between October, 2005 and September, 2006. The articles were analyzed for journalistic frame, tone, attitude toward immigrants and immigration, objectivity, and number and types of news sources used by the journalists. Several differences between U.S. and Mexican journalists’ coverage of the protests emerged, and were considered as part of the larger context of a year’s worth of reporting.Item "Arming the Good Guys?": An Examination of Racial Framing in Students for Concealed Carry on Campus(2014-07-25) Couch, ToddOver the last several decades, issues relating to gun rights have received growing attention from the academic community. Much of this research focuses on the importance of masculinity and violence and shaping modern gun culture in the United States. While these studies are important, they fail to analyze the importance of race in development of the modern gun rights organization. Addressing this gap in the literature, I engaged in 30 in-depth interviews with members of the student-based gun rights organization Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC). Based on my conversations with the members of SCCC, I discovered a very intense pro-white/anti-other racial framing guiding much of SCCC membership.Item The blind leading the blind : frame alignment and membership meetness(2014-08) Jeang, Janice Pam; Young, Michael P.Membership in a social movement organization (SMO) and membership discourse provide space for participants to name and reconstitute their experiences, bodies, and self-images through an embodiment of organizational frames. This reconstitution is especially affirmed in the interaction of marginalized groups, such as individuals with disabilities, whom make up disability focused organizations and social movements. As a group with multiple intersectionalities, as well as an even smaller subsection of various marginalized populations, individuals with blindness face unique barriers when consideration of participants' identities and self-understandings is central in understanding entry as well as ongoing participation in organizations. Disability based organizations, represented by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), must carefully frame the organizational membership of certain individuals whom could threaten cohesion through differing understanding of identities, not revolving around disability. This thesis is an examination of the organizational discourse and the "membership meetness" of participating persons in the NFB. Goffman’s notion of “breaking frame” theoretically informs this analysis of organizational discourse produced by the 'collective blind' in one of the oldest American disability social movement organizations to date. The NFB’s attempt to mitigate the “broken frame” introduced by the incorporation of members whom are not seemingly suitable and do not self identify as blind, into an overwhelmingly blindness based enterprise is to strategically mend existing frames to reinterpret extant social norms. The purpose of this thesis is to use a grounded theory approach, to tease out how membership is framed. In the NFB, frame alignment is accomplished by: framing blindness through allies transformed as friends, framing blindness as a characteristic, framing blindness as respectability, and framing blindness through rhetorical humor in narrative. The above four frames to disability based social movements offers researchers the opportunity to understand how groups attempt to integrate into their activities members who lack “membership meetness” while simultaneously garnering support and advancing interests within the larger movement.Item Climate change framing in the New York Times : the media’s impact on a polarized public(2015-12) Goff, Paepin D.; Jensen, Robert, 1958-; Wilson, KristopherWhile the threat of climate change grows stronger along with the consensus of scientists about the certainty of anthropogenic causes, researchers observe an opposite effect in the public’s acceptance of climate science. While climate change is a salient topic in society, the media’s presentation of climate change has varied over time and the public remains politically divided on the issue. This content analysis of 134 New York Times’ climate change articles between 2001 and 2013 identified six different types of media frames associated with climate change coverage and investigated the presentation of scientific information within those frames. This study also investigated the congruence between scientific consensus regarding climate change, the public’s perception of current scientific knowledge and the way climate change is talked about in the media.Item Frame contestation between government, media and the public the controversy over Maoming PX manufacturing(2015-12) Tu, Fangjing; Chen, Wenhong; Wilkins, KarinThis study integrates indexing, cascading activation, and integrative model to examine a central question in risk society: how social actors’ definitions over environmental issues are contested and changed through their interactions in the public arena? Empirical evidence comes from the controversies over Maoming PX case (PX is chemical produced in the oil refining process and is used for the production of polyester clothes, plastic bottles and other daily necessities) where the definition of harm for PX project is ambiguous. News coverage and Sina Weibo posts about Maoming PX issue are collected and analyzed with framing analysis which bridges content analysis with interpretive analysis. A pair of merged frame and counter frame, science frame and public accountability frame, has been developed. Science frame attributes responsibility to the public’s ignorance about the low toxicity of PX and advocates the security aspect of PX projects. Public accountability frame blames on the poor credibility of local government. It appeals for public participation and information transparency on chemical projects. The study argues the government cascades its frames to the media. Media follows the government frame, but has different strategies in selection and modification of government frames across time. The public is a strong competing force to government and media frame. However, their voice has a limited opportunity to be heard by the media and the government.Item How disaster relief organizations solicit funds : the effects of disaster presence, message framing, and source credibility on an individual’s intention to donate(2013-05) Schlimbach, Hilary Jennet; Stephens, Keri K.This exploratory study examined the interaction and effect of message characteristics, organizational credibility, and the presence of disaster on intention to donate to a Disaster Relief Organization (DRO). The Elaboration Likelihood Model and the Theory of Planned Behavior were used to theorize and test participant's message processing and donation behaviors. The study design incorporated random assignment into one of eight conditions. Findings reveal (a) participants have a higher donation intention when a disaster is present, (b) negative framing, when compared with positive framing, yielded the highest intention to donate when a disaster was present, (c) when no disaster is present, participants expressed a higher intention to donate to a highly credible DRO over a DRO that lacked credibility, (d) perception of DRO credibility is mediated by presence of a disaster, and (e) social media is being used in addition to more commonly found traditionally mass media for information during a disaster. In summary, this study extends previous research on processing and donation behaviors by examining the interaction of message characteristics and source credibility both during a disaster and without a current disaster. The study contributes to the growing body of research on disaster donations by incorporating social media use.Item Palestine Media Watch and the U.S. news media : strategies for change and resistance(2010-05) Handley, Robert Lyle; Reese, Stephen D.; Jensen, Robert; Harp, Dustin; Wilkins, Karin; Henry, ClementToward the start of the Palestinian Intifada in 2000, activists formed a media watchdog group called Palestine Media Watch (PMW) to challenge U.S. news coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Tired of coverage that blamed the conflict on Palestinian terrorism, PMW monitored news coverage, met with newsworkers, and bombarded news organizations with complaints in an attempt to root the conflict’s cause in Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories. I study PMW’s efforts to produce change in coverage, and examine its campaigns’ effects. Most critical research examines the news system’s production of “propaganda” and news models suggest that media monitoring is one mechanism through which an entire “ideological air” is supported. “Guardian watchdogs,” like the Israel lobby, guard the ideological boundaries around news content that are erected by others. This study considers PMW’s efforts in terms articulated by the dialogic and dialectical models, which gives agency to dissident movements and requires study of the strategic interactions between media and movements to understand framing struggles. These models suggest that “dissident watchdogs,” like PMW, can affect news coverage. What is not clear is the extent to which dissident watchdogs can affect news content when they can make appeals that resonate with professional journalism but that do not resonate with the country’s ideological air. I examine PMW’s strategies to produce content changes between 2000 and 2004, detail the group’s interactions with newsworkers, and document the outcomes of those interactions to understand the struggle to affect media framing. The watchdog, when it systematically monitored coverage and individually critiqued news staff, produced substantive changes in content and practice but these were limited in number. When the watchdog bombarded news organizations with complaints it was able to produce several superficial changes, but these changes resulted in no meaningful impact on the news frame. These findings indicate that the dominant narrative is incorporative enough to accommodate “journalistically useful” points without resulting in a fundamental or substantive change in the frames that inform newswork. Thus, the emergence of dissident media monitors to “neutralize” guardian monitors is only one step toward affecting the entire “ideological air” that informs newswork of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other issues.Item Public memory and political history : news media and collective memory construction after the deaths of former presidents(2014-05) Patterson, Jeffery Randolph; Johnson, Thomas J., 1960-In recent years, scholars have shown increasing interest in the concept of collective memory for structuring modern social understanding and political dialogue. However, surprisingly few studies have looked at the role that news media play the processes of collective political memory construction, reinterpretation, and change. This study contributes to the literature on collective memory construction, by helping clarify the means by which different news media serve as a site where collective memory is constructed, reinforced, and revised; and, 2) to identify which political actors and institutions act as sources to assert particular memory frames and what media subsidies they offer to influence the memory construction process. Specifically, the study undertook a two-stage longitudinal content analysis of news media to discern the ways former U.S. presidents (i.e., Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, and Ford) were memorialized in news media coverage at the time of their funerals, and then again in subsequent news media stories through 2012. The content analysis identified dominant news media frames and secondary attribute sub-frames as applied to former U.S. Presidents, and which news media sources and frame advocates are engaged in setting those frames. As a result, the study identified patterns of change and resilience in particular presidential memory frames as represented in news media, and found journalists—beyond other sources and frame advocates—play a significant role in both creating and revising those memories over time. A range of opportunities for further research are discussed.Item A Social Network Analysis of Edward Snowden and the Diffusion of Different Media Frames(2014-08) Wu, Jin, active 21st century; Atkinson, LucindaThis paper provides insights on how five different frames of the Edward Snowden issue (Hero, Patriot, Traitor, Whistleblower, Dissident) have been diffused on the Twitter platform. This study uses NodeXL to collect, analyze and visualize all the tweets including the keyword “Edward Snowden” from February 17 to April 10, 2014 to examine the flow of information and the interaction between opinion leaders along with the characteristics of opinion leaders in this specific issue. Findings provide insight about future strategic communication for general branding and public image maintenance.Item Trust me : how the GOP talked Americans out of trusting(2016-05) Stephens, Maegan Ryan; Jarvis, Sharon E., 1969-; Stroud , Natalie J; Brummett, Barry; Johnson, ThomasPolitical scholars have long viewed trust as central to democratic political systems because people must have it, to some degree, to function together in a civil society. As of 2016, however, it is difficult to find trust anywhere. Guided by framing theory as advanced by Gamson (1992) and Entman (1993), this dissertation complements trust studies by asking a language-based question: “How have elites invited audiences to think about trust?” This longitudinal project assesses elite trust-talk from 1948 – 2012 by using a combination of content analysis (n = 1,990) and thematic analysis. After identifying the prominent frequencies and significant differences within each chapter, I returned to the tokens-in-context to better understand elite frame-building surrounding trust. The themes and sub-themes are organized into four analysis chapters: candidates during campaigns (Chapter 3), presidents during governing moments (Chapter 4), journalists during campaigns (Chapter 5), and journalists during governing moments (Chapter 6). Chapter 3 reveals that candidates (namely Republicans) made trust relational. Conversely, Chapter 4 shows how presidents (again Republicans) led the charge with their institutional trust-talk. The data in Chapter 5 reveals that journalists politicized trust during campaigns and then broaden the narrative during governing moments (Chapter 6). By listening to voices across time and circumstance, I found that Republican politicians offered the public a rather dysfunctional relationship with respect to trust. The media often recirculated the toxic trust-talk and did very little to invite a more secure connection.Item Variations in diagnostic and prognostic framing in the EZLN movement(2009-05-15) Pinnick, Aaron CorbettThe Zapatista movement of southern Mexico has received little analytical attention focused on the myriad of writings issued by the movement. To help fill this gap, this study uses David Snow and Robert Benford?s concept of framing as a theoretical basis, and performs a systematic and discursive analysis of the communiqu?s issued by the Zapatista movement in order to understand how the movement framed itself over its thirteen-year existence. Communiqu?s were coded by noting evocations of the diagnostic frames of corrupt government, violent government, and neoliberal government and in terms of prognostic framing, general democracy, small-scale democracy, and revolutionary frames. This research concludes that the prognostic frame of general democracy was very high in the initial years of the movement, and shifted towards the small-scale democracy frame after the election of Vicente Fox in 2000. The diagnostic frames dealt with in this research showed a slight downward trend as Mexico democratized, but there is significant inter-year variation in the prevalence diagnostic frames that seems to be related to specific acts of government repression, or other government actions. This research also concludes that a portion of the EZLN?s success and long existence can be attributed to the movement?s ability to modify its diagnostic and prognostic frames to match the changing political and societal context that the movement existed in.Item What are they saying : content analysis of domestic violence messaging via Twitter(2015-05) Cicatello, Grace Ann; Stout, Patricia A.Domestic violence is a pervasive socio-economic issue. This exploratory research studied the relationship between Twitter and conversations about domestic violence, and what the relationship might indicate for future communication efforts. A random sample of tweets were collected and analyzed via SAS Text Miner. Results showed that Twitter is perceived as a news information source per uses and gratifications theory, which discouraged personal disclosure of experience with domestic violence. As such conversations about domestic violence on Twitter were more civic and legal in nature, indicating that Twitter is being utilized more as an agenda setting platform with messages being carefully framed depending on intended audience.