Browsing by Subject "Television news"
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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 Perpetuating stereotypes in television news : the influence of interracial contact on content(2012-12) Free, David Alan; Lasorsa, Dominic L.; Buckley, Cynthia J; Burd, Gene A; Coleman, Renita B; Poindexter, Paula MPrevious research indicates stereotypes of minorities are persistent in television news stories. Can personal familiarity with different racial/ethnic groups influence the selection of non-stereotypical news images? Supported by theories of the personal contact hypothesis, framing, priming, schema, and stereotyping, this study hypothesized that student journalists with a high level of personal contact with different races/ethnicities would select non-stereotypical images to help illustrate television news stories focusing on social issues and hypothesized that student journalists with a low level of personal contact would select non-stereotypical images for the same texts when primed to think about facts countering common misconceptions of racial/ethnic stereotypes. Also, will the level of personal contact with different races/ethnicities and the self-identified race of the student journalist influence non-stereotypical image selection? A two-part experiment tested 128 student journalists with an online pre-test measuring the level of personal contact in social activities with different races/ethnicities. Later, a substantive in-person experiment required participants to select from a set of four photographs, the photo that they believed best represented the content of a news story in which race played a possible role. This task was conducted five times with five different news stories and five different sets of photographs. The independent variables were the level of personal contact and whether or not the participant was first primed to think about facts countering common racial/ethnic misconceptions. The dependent variable was the selection of either a non-stereotypical or stereotypical photo. A two-way between-subjects analysis of variance was used. Results showed no significant difference in photo selection attributed to the level of personal contact or to prior priming to think non-stereotypically. There was no significant difference between prior priming and photo selection. Additionally, the race of the participant made no difference in photo selection. While these results are contrary to existing theory, research, pedagogy and intuition. It is worth noting that finding no statistical significance does not necessarily mean that the phenomenon is not happening in reality. Responses to open ended questions within the manipulation tests were qualitatively analyzed and showed that although the 14 participants enrolled in a university liberal arts course were able to recognize the racial stereotypes within the news stories, some chose stereotypical images contrary to their stated criterion for selecting a non-stereotypical image. Future research should test the hypotheses with subjects from more heterogeneous regions of the country, and recruit professional and student journalists as study participants and compare generational differences in cultural, racial, and ethnic understanding, education, and tolerance.Item Re-thinking journalism : how young adults want their news(2009-12) Zerba, Amy Elizabeth; Poindexter, Paula MaurieThe term "young adults" is often used loosely without a clear definition of who this demographic is. This study defines young adults by examining generational differences, their beliefs, uses and nonuses of media, news interests, wants, values for following the news, and expectations and reading experiences of news stories. The uses and gratifications approach and expectancy-value theory provided a framework for this study. Three methodological approaches were used: a secondary data analysis of three national surveys, focus groups and an experiment. The secondary data analysis findings showed the youngest age group (18-24) is leading the new news routine online with news aggregator sites, major and local news sites. The two youngest age groups (18-24 and 25-29) differ from each other and older age groups in their worries, goals, perspectives, beliefs, news interests, media uses, nonuses and political knowledge, and should be studied separately. Stances on social issues and technology are not as clearly defined by age. The findings suggest one's life stage is behind some of the differences. Since no published study to date has conducted focus groups exclusively with nonreaders of print newspapers ages 18-29 to examine their news consumption and nonuses of print newspapers, the present study broke new ground. The findings showed these young adults want searchable, effortless, shorter, more local, accessible anytime news. Both groups (18-24 and 25-29) wanted less negative news, but the younger group justified crime coverage. A few younger group participants expressed a difficult time reading the news and a bias in coverage, especially politics. The experiment used storytelling devices in an attempt to make news writing more digestible, interesting, relevant to young adults' lives, and informative. The findings showed "chunking" text improved perceived comprehension. The device of adding background information, context and a definition improved text recall. The experiment also examined expectations that young adults have prior to reading hard news. For a politics story, experimental group participants expected to understand the story less and have less of an interest than they did. Using these findings, this study suggests ways to get more of this audience (18-29) to tune into the news.