Browsing by Subject "journalism"
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Item Race, Gender, and Media Practices: A Critical Framing Analysis of the Media?s Coverage of USDA Worker Shirley Sherrod(2013-05-03) McGovney-Ingram, RebeccaOn July 19, 2010, conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted a story on his website claiming USDA worker Shirley Sherrod was racist in her work with farmers. The edited video included with the story as proof, showed Sherrod speaking at an NAACP banquet. Sherrod was subsequently vilified in the media and fired from her job, only to be exonerated and rehired later that week. Although the media claims their routine writing and reporting practices (such as newsworthiness, source selection, objectivity, and perpetual news cycle) make the industry better, researchers have shown that these practices lead to the use of shortcuts and stereotypes. This is especially detrimental to Black women because of the double-dose of stereotyping they are subject to when they are portrayed in the media. The purpose of this study was to understand how media practices influenced the framing of race and gender in the media coverage of Sherrod. In order to integrate key elements of critical theory (i.e. activism, intersectionality, speaking position, subjectivity) I chose a mixed-methods approach for my framing analysis. This included open-ended reading of the news stories, constant comparative analysis of possible frames, quantitative coding sheet, analysis of statistics in SPSS, and inclusion of qualitative examples. I analyzed a total of 93 news articles from 12 news sources for this study. Most of the news stories came from newer, online publications (n=67, 72.0%) and over half came from new sources with a liberal philosophy (n=47, 50.5%). I found three frames that were used to describe Sherrod in terms of race and gender: victim, good woman, and above her place. I also found that these frames were closely aligned with news values that help determine a story?s newsworthiness. I found seven sources were used repetitively and selectively associated with the frames. I also found differences in frames by news source type and philosophy. Finally, I found that the frames followed an identifiable news cycle. The results of this study show that the media do indeed utilize negative stereotypes of Black women in their products and that media?s use of routine writing and reporting practices exacerbate this problem.Item Source choice in agricultural news coverage: impacts of reporter specialization and newspaper location, ownership, and circulation(2009-05-15) White, Judith McIntoshThis study examined coverage of the December 2003 bovine spongiform encephalopathy event to discover reporters? sources for breaking agricultural news, the impact of reporter specialization on source choices, and the impact of newspaper differences, including location, circulation, and ownership, on coverage. Quantitative content analysis was performed on 62 stories selected through a keyword search for the period December 23, 2003 through October 31, 2004 from U.S. newspapers included in the LexisNexis database. These stories were divided into two equal groups based on reporter work-role identity and were analyzed by length, number of sources, and source variety, and by location, circulation, and ownership of the newspapers in which they appeared. ANOVA, bivariate correlation, and forced entry regression were statistical techniques used. Results indicated numbers of stories, story length, and numbers of sources per story appear related to newspaper location, and use of scientists and agricultural scientists as sources to be correlated with type of newspaper. Newspaper circulation and ownership type were found to explain a statistically significant amount of variance in number of sources used. No statistically significant differences between mean length or mean number of sources used were found between stories written by science-specialty beat reporters and those written by reporters not assigned to such beats, contradicting previous research. However, while mean overall source variety did not differ between the two reporters groups, work-role identity was found to be correlated with use of scientists and agricultural scientists as sources. Extrapolation from this study suggests it is open to question whether (a) reporters would be well-advised to pursue courses of study or to seek additional training to build defined areas of expertise, better equipping themselves to cover more complex issues; (b) editors should seek candidates with such special training and structure their newsroom routines to accommodate specialty reporters when considering adding employees to their reporting staffs; and (c) universities should offer journalism curricula that facilitate both acquisition of basic reporting skills and registration for substantive electives which build subject-matter knowledge. Answers to these questions should be actively pursued, since they may shape the future of journalism education and practice.