Browsing by Subject "News"
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Item According to a new study : when bad journalism meets questionable science(2013-05) Burnson, Forrest Matthew; Dahlby, Tracy; Gil de Zúñiga, HomeroAccurately reporting scientific studies remains a challenge for journalists. Often lacking any formal background in science, journalists are expected to communicate the complex findings of scientific research in such a way that average readers can understand. As a result, news coverage tends to exaggerate, misrepresent, or sensationalize the findings of scientific studies. This report examines the common errors that journalists make when reporting on scientific studies, as well as the issues in modern scientific research that contribute to this problem. While total scientific literacy in journalism remains a lofty ideal, the democratizing force of the Internet not only holds journalists more accountable in their reporting, but also provides platforms for skeptics and experts to weigh in on the news treatment that studies receive.Item Assessing public support of government in democratic countries(2012-12) Shockley, William; Mayer, Lawrence C.; Patterson, Dennis; Murray, GreggA characteristic of democratic citizens is cynicism of their governments. “Critical Citizens” theory accredits this behavior to increased awareness of government performance, but holds that citizens have strong attachments toward democracy. “Critical Citizens” theory has largely unexplained the role of religion and news politics on public support for democracies. This work seeks to explain how religion and news politics affect public support of governments. In doing so I find that religious worship increases attachments toward authority and political leaders, implying that religion increases support of government. Additionally, I find that support of democracy increases the likelihood of news politics consumption, while support for political leaders decreases the likelihood one consumes news politics. These findings contribute to “Critical Citizens” theory by answering how religion and news politics affect public support of government.Item Civic engagement in a mobile landscape : testing the roles of duration and frequency in learning from news(2015-08) Molyneux, Logan Ken; Poindexter, Paula MaurieConsuming the news is often seen as preparing a person to participate in a democracy by giving them the information they need to make choices and provide input. This relationship has varied depending on the ways in which news is delivered, with different news platforms delivering different results in terms of learning from the news. As society changes and people's news consumption habits shift toward mobile, it is necessary to re-examine this relationship in a mobile age. This dissertation conducts surveys of two samples of U.S. adults one year apart in order to examine civic engagement in a mobile news landscape. Study 1, given to a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults in 2014, tests the Mobile News Dependency Model. The model predicts that reliance on mobile devices for news consumption will lead people to consume news in shorter, inattentive sessions, which should have detrimental effects on news knowledge and therefore civic engagement. Study 2, given in 2015 to a different sample of U.S. adults, refines the tests conducted in Study 1 using updated measures to identify those who snack on the news and compare them with those who get news in larger portions. Results show that news sessions on smartphone are indeed shorter than on other platforms, and that smartphone news use is associated with snacking on the news. But those who get news from smartphones are not significantly less knowledgeable and are in fact slightly more civically engaged than those who do not. Links between smartphone news use and short sessions or snacking are supported, but the overall Mobile News Dependency Model is not supported. The overall relationship between mobile news use and civic engagement appears to take a different path than the one specified. Finally, results show that most people consume news on multiple platforms, perhaps normalizing the effects of any one platform on knowledge. Implications for news consumers, news producers, and democracy in a mobile age are discussed.Item GLBTQ representation on children's television : an analysis of news coverage and cultural conservatism(2015-05) Mayer, Christopher John; Tyner, Kathleen R.; Fuller-Seeley, KathrynThe invisibility of GLBTQ characters on children's television stands in stark contrast to trends in adolescent and adult television over the past decade. A deep cultural ambivalence exists as to whether or not sexual identities are appropriate topics for young children on preschool television programming. For example, a marriage between Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie has been the topic of many petitions, political debates, and academic studies over the years. This analysis seeks to reconcile the cultural ambivalence through analysis of news coverage over the most prominent children's shows associated with latent and/or manifest GLBTQ content. New stories that make up the research sample are analyzed for "Anti-GLBTQ" logics, and placed in a broader discourse analysis of societal expectations for children’s television, and what is considered to be appropriate content. The goal of this study is to draw greater attention to debates over how to best serve the educational needs of young children, and posits that the increasing numbers of children living under same-sex parented households are underserved by the children's television industry. The ambivalence by the industry seems suspect given prior, and well established efforts, of children’s shows, such as Sesame Street, and the ability of educational programming to bridge cultural, class, and racial divides. This study represents a preliminary effort to extend the conversations about children’s television content to be more inclusive of GLBTQ identities.Item How do news issues help frame telenovela plots?: a framing analysis of Brazilian print national press and TV Globo’s 8 p.m. telenovela Duas caras [Two faced/s](2009-12) Cantrell, Tania Heather; Straubhaar, Joseph D.; Reese, Stephen D.This study examines how news issues help frame telenovela plots and compares how the print media and telenovelas frame several key social and political issues. Secondary systematic sampling of the Brazilian leading daily newspaper O Jornal do Brasil and newsmagazine Veja/Veja-Rio from January 2007 to April 2008 generated 313 news stories along with 292 photos for analysis. A five-composite week sample of TV Globo’s 8 p.m. hit telenovela Duas Caras resulted in 31 episodes — including its premiere and finale — or a total of 1,051 scenes to explore. Applying framing theory (Reese, 2003) through a reciprocal and dynamic comparative narrative analysis (Berger, 2005; Berger, 1997) to this body of materials suggests the telenovela, compared to news, is a more progressive storyteller with regard to race, class and gender news issues. Salient latent news frames The Government is the family and Brazilian democracy is more social than racial emerge from this study’s news portion. These are compared with the emergent salient latent novela frames Family first, family forever and It’s not the position that rules, but the influence. For the first time in TV Globo’s history, an Afro-Brazilian is an 8 p.m. telenovela hero. In addition, Duas Caras highlights his successful municipal election campaign, right around the time municipal election campaigns in Brazil were gearing up and while U.S. citizens were considering then electing their first Afro- American president. Duas Caras also sanitizes favelas, or Brazilians shantytowns, contrasting the fictive locale of Portelinha against marginalized portrayals of favelas and their residents in the news. In a diversifying media environment where lines between fact and fiction are increasingly less apparent, Brazilian (alternative) news studies, such as social marketing themes in telenovelas, are critical measures of the state of media opening in Brazil (Porto, 2007). They also reveal from which source(s) Brazilians receive their news information, raising the question, Do telenovelas help frame news issues?Item The instability of incivility : how news frames and citizen perceptions shape conflict in American politics(2013-12) Muddiman, Ashley Rae; Stroud, Natalie JominiPoliticians and media elites have been calling for a return to civility in United States politics, and the vast majority of citizens agree that civility is necessary for a strong democracy. Yet incivility is an ever-present and misunderstood part of politics. In my dissertation, I focus on news, politics, and incivility by asking three questions. First, to what extent does news coverage portray political conflict as uncivil? Second, what political behaviors do citizens perceive as uncivil? Finally, how does news that portrays politics as uncivil affect citizens? I used a mixed method approach to answer these questions. I, first, conducted a content analysis of news surrounding four high-conflict political events to determine whether two conflict frames (interpersonal-level and public-level conflict) emerged. Second, I conducted two experiments and drew from social judgment theory to determine whether citizens perceived multiple types of incivility and whether their partisanship influenced how acceptable they found political behaviors to be. In a final experiment, I tested whether exposure to mediated conflict frames prompted perceptions of incivility from citizens and affected their reactions to politics. This project makes clear that news coverage of conflict emphasizes incivility and negatively affects citizens. Media elites shape political conflict using interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames. Citizens perceive both types of conflict, as well, and tend to think that likeminded partisans are behaving appropriately while counter-attitudinal partisans are behaving badly. Finally, and importantly, the coverage of political conflict affects citizens in troublesome ways. Particularly when both types of conflict frames are present in the news, citizens feel more anxiety and aversion, have decreased levels of favorability toward political institutions, and think of political arguments in partisan ways. Overall, I conclude that incivility is not stable. Instead, incivility is a two-dimensional concept that is shaped by the media, perceived by citizens, and advanced by partisans. By recognizing these dimensions of incivility, researchers may find new and important effects of incivility, and people interested in ridding politics of incivility may be more successful by beginning with the recognition that what is uncivil to one person is not always uncivil to another.Item Making Korean American news : Korean American journalists and their news media(2010-08) Bai, Sang Y.; McCombs, Maxwell E.; Straubhaar, Joseph; Lasorsa, Dominic L.; Rodriguez, America; Coleman, RenitaOne of the main purposes of this dissertation is to examine who Korean American diaspora-oriented journalists are and how they make news, taking into account several forces on the individual, organizational, extramedia, and social system levels that influence the gatekeeping processes and news content. In addition, this dissertation investigates what interests Korean American diaspora-oriented journalists mainly serve. The author surveyed journalists working for major Korean diaspora-oriented media in Los Angeles and conducted in-depth interviews with experienced personnel involved in the Korean diasporic journalism industry. In addition, two major Korean diasporic dailies were content-analyzed. The basic characteristics of the majority of Korean American-oriented journalists in 2008 are depicted as follows: male Korean Americans, 30 to 40 years old, born in Korea, with a bachelor’s degree, in the United States and working as journalists for less than 15 years, politically liberal, Protestant religious backgrounds, with previous journalism experience at another media organization. Korean diaspora-oriented journalists place emphasis on three major news topics: immigration, business/economy, and education. Cultural proximity rather than geographical proximity significantly influence the degree of newsworthiness of a news story. Newsworthiness is highest when an event/issue has both high cultural proximity and geographical proximity. When geographical proximity is low and cultural proximity is high, newsworthiness in Korean American-oriented journalism is moderately high. If the degree of cultural proximity is low, however, it does not matter whether the news story occurred in Los Angeles or other states or countries in determining the degree of newsworthiness. The Korean American journalists value the interracial harmonizer function most, followed by the disseminator, ethnic consolidator, and interpreter functions. The finding suggests that Korean diaspora-oriented journalists keep in mind that their foremost responsibility is to help Korean immigrants settle smoothly in their new host country and to live in harmony with other racial groups. The longer a Korean journalist has lived in the U.S., the more he or she tends to embrace the interracial harmonizer and ethnic consolidator functions. In other words, the longer Korean American journalists stay in the U.S., the more sensitive they become both to racial issues and to their own ethnic identities.Item Seriously social : crafting opinion leaders to spur a two-step flow of news(2011-05) Kaufhold, William Thomas; Lasorsa, Dominic L.Since the 1960s, the United States has experienced steady declines in news consumption and commensurate attrition in civic engagement and political participation. Americans read newspapers at less than one fourth the rate of 60 years ago; voter turnout has fallen to the point where the U.S. ranks 23 out of 24 established democracies; signing petitions, volunteering for a civic organization like the PTA and political party affiliation are all at contemporary lows. But these indicators only tell half the story…the younger half. Because among Americans over age 50, attrition in all these areas is much milder; among those under age 30 they are much steeper. So do young adults get news? If so, how do they get news? If not, how do they find out about things? A 21-year old journalism student reported that: “I usually just hear it from friends, when I talk to friends.” The present study employed four methods: Secondary analysis of longitudinal Pew data; interviews and focus groups about news consumption and media use habits, including social media and wireless devices; a survey on social media use and its relationship to news and news knowledge; and an experiment testing a novel game as a way to convey news and civics knowledge, all involving students at three large state universities. Findings include the following: students often rank social media use, like Facebook, as their most important and most-used media; social media are negatively related with traditional news use and with news knowledge; students draw clear and important distinctions between news and information; one method of teaching (direct instruction) works well while another (a news game) works, but not as well. Of particular interest is the role of opinion leaders in the two-step flow of news, and the role of relevance and need for orientation in agenda setting. Novel contributions include a clearer definition of students’ distinction between news and important information as they define it, a framework by which to experiment with creating an interactive game using news to promote news seeking, and some provocative recommendations for future research.Item A visual-verbal agenda : the interaction of news stories and photographs on second-level agenda setting(2014-05) Yaschur, Carolyn J.; Coleman, RenitaThis research explores the second-level agenda-setting effects of news photographs and news stories, separately and when presented together. The tone of photos and stories each independently influence public opinion on an affective level. Negative stories and photographs elicited negative opinions and emotions about the issue presented, while positive responses resulted from positive stories and photographs. When congruently toned stories and photos were presented together their affective agenda-setting effects were amplified. Positive stories paired with positive photos created stronger positive affect than negative stories and photos, which precipitated a strong negative response. However, because of the negativity bias, no significant differences were found between negative stories paired with negative photos and negative stories with positive photos. Audiences felt negative, regardless of the valence of the photo. When stories and photos were of incongruent tone, the audience's opinion about the issue followed the tone of the story. Findings from this study also confirmed that need for orientation was not a component of second-level agenda setting. However, a relationship was established between need for orientation and elaboration. Those with high need for orientation were more likely to process the information deeply than those with low need for orientation, thereby drawing ties between agenda-setting theory and the Elaboration Likelihood Model.Item WHAT DO EDITORS AND THE PUBLIC WANT FROM ONLINE COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS? GATEKEEPING IN SOCIAL MEDIA(2016-10-31) Kuhles-Heiney, Elizabeth Mary; Funk, Marcus; Kim, Nam Y.; White, ChristopherIn this digital era, there are many channels that have opened for the creation and distribution of information, especially under the moniker of “news.” This new wave of journalism is challenging the traditional gatekeeping role of media, especially at the community newspaper level. This study explores the theory of network gatekeeping in local news through social media, examining the role of editors and users in creating news in their community through the use of Facebook and Twitter. The key feature of this new genre is interaction, with editor using social media to identify and distribute stories through daily monitoring, crowdsourcing, and viral posts, and readers using these channels to read, share, and comment on the news of the day and to set an agenda for public discussion.