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Finds that the societal factor has the strongest impact on journalists' views about media roles, the organizational factor has a significant but weak impact, and individual factor has virtually no impact. Contrasts two competing models within the societal factor (political determinism vs. cultural determinism) and provides clear-cut evidence in favor of the former. (SR)

This study examined the methodology journalism scholars use when studying significant samples, or "those persons who have attained an unusually pervasive and lasting reputation, regardless of whether that reputation be great or small." Using Simonton's work as the theoretical guide, the study content analyzed a census of articles published in 10 major journalism journals from 2000 to 2014. Results showed that the typical study examining significant samples is psychometric and is also quantitative, nomothetic, longitudinal, singularly focused, and exploratory. In addition, it uses macro units and observes the subject indirectly. The study also found similarities between the study of significant samples and extant work in terms of the preponderance of quantitative methods and the use of content analysis as a data collection method. The ramifications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information on foreign affairs reaches Americans primarily through the news media, yet we know little about why some global actors receive more attention than others. We constructed a new data set describing media attention to, and US state actions and discourse about, foreign leaders from 1950 to 2008 to assess which leaders receive more attention and why. The results of our analyses suggest that media attention is disproportionately allotted to (1) leaders of the most powerful countries in the international system; (2) leaders of countries experiencing instability and violence; (3) leaders of countries that domestic political elites (Congress and the president) pay attention to, or where the US is currently fighting a war; and (4) leaders of countries whose connections to global networks signal positions of neutrality vis-à-vis the Cold War superpowers. We do not find any evidence that media attention diffuses through connections in the world polity. We conclude that media attention to foreign leaders is a reflection of the dynamics of geopolitical struggles and conflicts rather than global interconnectedness. Thus, in the context of attention to world leaders, news values favoring conflict and struggle resonate more than news values favoring connections and cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In November 2010, WikiLeaks released over a quarter of a million US State Department diplomatic cables to the world’s media, exposing private communications between diplomatic officials at US embassies across the globe and the State Department at Washington, DC. This study analyzes the WikiLeaks controversy through institutional views of the US news media. Our analysis of 83 newspaper editorials found four prominent themes in US newspaper discourse: (1) The contrast between the “discretion and maturity” of traditional journalism and the rash actions of WikiLeaks; (2) The need for “old media” in a new media landscape; (3) The tension between the public’s right to know and national security; and (4) The invocation of the Pentagon Papers as a way of drawing clear lines of difference between journalism’s past and its possible future. Our findings indicate ongoing tension between “old” and “new” media at a time when definitions of journalism are increasingly diffuse. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Synthesizing several theories about the likely impact of case reports in the news, we propose that the impact of featuring identified victims in a news story is contingent on the degree of similarity between the audience member and the identified victims. We execute a population-based survey experiment involving immigration policy to examine our theory. Our results suggest that featuring specific, identified victims in a news story will promote more supportive policy opinions than otherwise identical stories about unidentified victims, but only when the victim is highly similar to the audience member. Conversely, case reports featuring identified people who are dissimilar to the audience member will decrease the extent to which the story encourages victim-supportive policy attitudes. Overall, our experimental findings shed light on the conditions under which the inclusion of case reports increases versus decreases the policy relevance of news stories. Our findings also help explain previous inconsistencies in findings about the impact of case reports. Additional analyses allow us to speculate as to the reasons for the differential direction of effects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, we develop and test an economic theory of Supreme Court news. We hypothesize that information about the Third Branch is newsworthy when it has lower production costs and qualities attractive to the audiences and advertisers desired by news organizations. We examine Supreme Court news in elite newspapers, television news broadcasts, and online news sources during the October 2008 and 2010 terms. The results of our quantitative analyses indicate that all three types of news outlets are more likely to provide content about Supreme Court decisions with substantive importance but vary in their responses to costs and qualities appealing to the lay audience. We conclude by discussing the similarities and differences among news outlets with regard to their selection of Supreme Court information as news content. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This survey asked reporters who cover medical topics at U.S. newspapers about their opinion leaders. More than 75 percent said they are lone wolves, unaffected by the work of any other journalists. Of those who reported some influence, most named only one or two other reporters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A majority of photo editors from U.S. newspapers of more than 30,000 report photo staff members now shoot and edit video as well as provide photo galleries and slideshows; yet most have accepted their expanded role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis of newspaper coverage of the Colorado Roadless Rule, a federal land use policy specific to the state, found almost equal use of governmental sources and non-governmental groups, such as environmentalists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how The New York Times covered Guantanamo Bay between 2004 and 2009. The findings show that The Times intensely challenged the pro-Gitmo frame advanced by the Bush administration. By contrast, since 2009 the anti-Gitmo frame became less prominent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commentators have become a widely used news source and popular work force in many news organizations. Previous research, however, has done little to help describe and discuss the background for the rise, reach and relevance of commentators in a specific journalistic context—even though many commentators have originally worked as journalists, depend on journalistic work as daily points of reference and appear in journalistic settings, whenever they comment on politics. This neglect is addressed in this article that takes the biography and bibliography of Walter Lippmann as a starting point for analyzing the popularization of political commentators. Building on Lippmann's life and the books, columns and other texts he produced during his career, this article presents a new analytical framework that might help explain the practical and principal potentials—and problems—those past and present commentators represent in a journalistic context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A study is presented concerning how the media frames food safety articles, with particular focus on the Food and Drug Administration recalls of spinach in 2006 and peanuts in 2009. The author examines newspaper stories in regards to the tone of the coverage, the types of frames employed, and the credibility of the sources. The findings of the study conclude that the most common theme used to discuss the food recalls is the health frame, followed by the political strategy frame and the business ethics frame, that the tone of coverage was usually negative, and that stories didn't focus on the cause of the recall.

The article explores whether U.S. citizens favor domestic news stories over international issues and if they prefer human interest articles over timely information. The authors analyze information from the research institute the Pew Research Center's News Interest Index, focus on the topic of economic news throughout American media outlets, and provide a research experiment that evaluates which type of economic news is most memorable to the public. Their findings claim that business journalists should provide a balance of economic hard facts and human interest stories.

The article examines the perceived credibility of citizen-produced news among young adults, with particular focus on internet news web sites "The Huffington Post," "CNN.com" and "Patch.com." The authors present a study in which they survey college students on news credibility. Their research findings include that the students did not differentiate between news articles that were written by professional journalists or an untrained citizen, that readers usually do not care about the professional norms that go into writing a news article, and that students who trust the mainstream media assigned higher credibility to news content.

The article presents newspaper journalism research comparing reporting on the medical care and health insurance legislation proposed by U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1003 to that of reporting on health insurance legislation proposed by President Barack Obama in 2009. Similarities in public opinion polls from each period indicating dissatisfaction with the amount of information available about the legislation are noted. A change in emphasis in reporting is found in which coverage of the political debate and its implications was dominant during coverage of the Clinton proposals, while reporting on the actual content of the Obama proposal and its implications for consumers increased in volume compared to 1993.

Analyzing newspaper articles and television news transcripts (N = 484), this study explores how American news media have framed the issue of illegal immigration. More specifically, we analyze the way the media present the questions of why illegal immigration is a problem, what the causes are, and how to fix the problem. We also make a comparison across different media outlets (border-state newspapers vs. papers elsewhere; newspapers vs. television news), looking at whether news coverage of the issue has been consistent across the media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, two competing claims have arisen that attempt to explain the role of political sophistication in media effectiveness. I reassess the positive versus negative impacts of political sophistication on media priming effects by considering a curvilinear approach. I combine public opinion data (National Election Studies) on candidate selection criteria in 1992 and 2000 presidential elections with content analyses of campaign news coverage to see which segment of voters at different sophistication levels is most susceptible to media agendas. Quadratic regression analyses reveal that an inverted U-shaped relationship exists between voters' susceptibility to campaign news and their level of political sophistication. Such a curvilinear relationship means that the moderately sophisticated are more likely to accept news agendas than the least or most sophisticated. The findings illuminate the long-standing debate about the inconsistent linear relationships between the two variables, providing a more cogent explanation underlying media priming effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents research on journalism in U.S. newspapers considering how sex is portrayed in news reports. Newspapers of various circulation sizes from four different U.S. regions published from 2004-2006 are studied for their depictions of sex in various forms of coverage including crime reporting, medical journalism and commercial journalism. The survey found that there were significant regional differences in the amount of stories dealing with sex, with Southern States newspapers presenting the most such stories, but that reporting on sex crimes was the most common form of article in which sex was a topic.

A top-down communication model failed in an examination of news coverage and public opinion about the use of human embryos for stem cell research. The study covered three years leading to Bush's veto of a bill to remove research restrictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Continuing prior research on print news, a content analysis provides baseline data on Internet news for 2001. By that year, a point when most of the U.S. press had moved online, the “who, what, when, where, why, and how” of stories continued the trends found previously. Stories grew longer and had more explanations of how and why. They emphasized more groups than individuals, and more individuals were officials or outside sources. The changes suggest that news after moving onto Web 1.0 continued its former trajectory, enhancing the professional authority of journalists. But once online, the newspapers began refocusing on local markets and on the idea of connecting events. News stories included many more events and linked them to others in history. And the locations of news stories moved closer to the places where people act as citizens, reversing a century-long trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compares the content of five prominent web news sites to the front-page news of a broad cross-section of U.S. daily newspapers. Results show that newspapers offer depth and breadth unmatched by the online sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines cross-national and cross-media differences in framing, particularly regarding the salience of collectivistic storytelling, based on the US and Korean newspapers and blogs about the Virginia Tech campus shooting incident. Although collectivistic storytelling is a common practice of news domestication, the degree of its salience is affected by a nation's orientation toward collectivism. Cross-media level of difference also exists because journalistic perspectives and the public's interpretation of those perspectives, as reflected in newspapers and blogs, are different. Findings indicate that while there are some consistent framing patterns, the degree of collectivism was different between the two nations and between the two media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While classic market economic theory argues that competition among media is better for consumers, preliminary research in emerging media markets suggests otherwise. High levels of competition in markets with limited advertising revenues may lead to poorer journalistic performance. This study tests that argument using secondary analysis of data from a purposive sample of countries where measures of news media performance and market competition exist. The authors find a curvilinear relationship between competition and the quality of the journalistic product, with moderate competition leading to higher-quality journalism products and higher levels of competition leading to journalistic products that do not serve society well. The implications of the findings for media assistance initiatives are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although most sports reporters said they were familiar with Title IX, attitudes toward the law and other gender-related issues differed based on reporters' gender and age and newspapers' circulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though we live in a global world cross-cultural comparisons of journalism practice remain rare. This study analyzed the use of sources in newspaper coverage in Sweden and the United States. Rather than focusing on one single event, the comparison utilizes data from a number of different events: the 2003 Iraq War, the 2002 national election in Sweden and the 2004 presidential election in the United States, and the 2005/2006 international controversy stemming from the publication of the Mohammad Cartoons. Some interesting patterns across the three events emerged for the use of government officials, academic experts and citizens as sources. The findings are discussed in the context of news reporting and journalism within a distinct national political and media system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores media research studies in the academic field of sociology. An historical overview of mass communication research at the University of Chicago is provided and its shift towards public opinion research is mentioned. The relationship between sources of academic funding and interdisciplinary social science study is analyzed. The authors contend that sociological scholars in the U.S. abandoned mass communication research to professional schools of journalism in the 1950s. Other topics addressed include internet research, the media as an agent of social integration, and survey-based research.

This article details the events, individuals, and issues connected with the start of "Sex on Tuesday," the first and longest-running college newspaper sex column nationwide, which was (and continues to be) published in The Daily Californian, the independent student newspaper at the University of California. Utilizing an examination of the first semester's sixteen columns and interviews with editors of the paper as well as the first columnist, the study shows that the staff's chief legacy was its recognition of, and courage to act upon, the students' interest in sex even though some readers were alienated. The column is significant for pioneering content that continues to reverberate in academic, journalistic, and larger societal pools, existing over the past decade as one of the most publicized, electrifying, and divisive phenomena in student journalism at the higher education level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which explored the news flow through the Associated Press (AP) from Latin America to the U.S. The study conducted interviews with the writers and editor of the news in Latin America, observed four AP Latin American bureaus, and performed a content analysis of the copy which the Latin American bureaus transmitted. Results showed that over one third of a million words were able to be transmitted to the New York office from Latin American bureaus from June 28, 1971 to July 19, 1971. The study also revealed that the flow of news are not changing from Mondays to Saturdays.

This article focuses on the areas of research in mass communication and journalism, which need attention in the U.S. A review of trends in journalism and mass communication research in the past 200 years indicates that certain areas need more systematic study, prolonged attention and long-range funding. Some of the areas are impacts of the social-intellectual climate on journalistic values, attitudes and performance; impacts of new technology on journalism and on society at large.

The article presents information regarding a study on news research released by American Newspaper Publishers Association in the United States. It reveals that the public generally perceives both newspapers and television as safe, convenient and available media, which are flexible, direct, fast, active and real. The title of the study is "The Popular Meaning of Media Credibility." The study investigates the distinct criteria people in general use for attributing credibility to print arid broadcast media based on interviews in a probability sample of 278 non-student households.