Radio-TV Journalism 2004 Abstracts
Radio-TV Journalism Division
The Canadian News Directors Study: How Television Newsroom Decision Makers Understand Their Journalistic Roles • Marsha Barber and Ann Rauhala, Ryerson University • This is the first Canadian academic study to attempt to understand how news directors, the people who run Canada’s broadcast newsrooms, conceive the professional roles of the journalists who work for them. The research suggests that there are important differences between the way U.S. and Canadian journalists conceive their roles. In addition, it suggests that there are significant differences between public and private news directors’ conceptions of journalistic roles.
What’s Interesting: Local-news promos as a caricature of presumed audience preferences • Eran N. Ben-Porath, University of Pennsylvania • An analysis of local-news promos was conducted to answer the question “what do news-providers think their viewers find most interesting?” The content of 24 news programs is compared with the content of their corresponding promos. This comparison finds that promos caricature the news, accentuating its extremes, over-representing pragmatic information such as the weather and consumer tips, while under-representing policy issues. In a competitive television market, these discrepancies represent the news organizations’ perception of viewer preferences.
A Content Analysis of News Crawls on Three 24-hour News Networks • April Blackmon, Kimball Benson, and Susan Berhow, Kansas State University • This study’s purpose is to describe television news crawls through a content analysis of three 24-hour news networks. News crawl history, agenda setting theory and the Cultural Indicators paradigm are addressed. Topic and frequency of crawls was assessed using Deutschmann’s (1959) modified categories as used in Stempel’s (1988) work on news network topic choices. The researchers found that news crawls primarily featured hard news items and agenda setting could be observed within the crawl.
Down to the Wire: NPR’s “Morning Edition” Coverage of the 2000 Presidential Election Campaign • Timothy Boudreau, Central Michigan University • This content analysis examines how National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” news program covered the 2000 presidential election campaign. The study of 116 news stories over about a ten-week period found that NPR’s reporters relied heavily on traditional sources and provided similar tone of coverage to both Al Gore and George W. Bush. The study further noted a significant shift in coverage for Bush after the first presidential debate.
Local television news anchors’ usual tasks: Work roles, gender, and the factory analogy • Katherine A. Bradshaw and James C. Foust, Bowling Green State University; and Joseph P. Bernt, University of Ohio • Anchors regularly complete gatherer, manager, and performer tasks, and participate in multiple steps of the “news factory” analogy. Results further call into question the usefulness of the work roles typology of gatherer and manager, dispute the usefulness of the news factory analogy, and expand the discussion of gender and news anchors. Tasks completed vary significantly by years of experience by gender. Less experienced females perform more tasks and more experienced males perform more tasks. Experienced female anchors may disappear from the anchor desk, and those who stay may become less powerful as they gain experience. A survey of local anchors (895) resulted in 451 usable surveys, a 50.4% response rate.
How Network TV News Covered Breast Cancer, 1974 to 2003 • Sooyoung Cho and Sam H. Jeon, University of Missouri at Columbia • The present study content analyzed all the 602 news stories on breast cancer in three major TV networks over the past three decades (1974-2003). We found that the amount of news coverage increased during the time period. Sub-issues like prevention and treatment significantly increased, while issues like surgery and celebrities decreased. The proportion of the news coverage that included the thematic frame and research findings increased across time whereas some characteristics of the coverage has not changed, such as the dominant citation of medical doctors.
How Do We Select Them and Then What Do We Teach Them? A Survey of Success Factors for Student Broadcast Journalism Award Winners • Dale L. Edwards, C.A. Tuggle and Dan Kozlowski, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • How accurately admissions criteria predict student success has been thoroughly studied. However, little research has examined the connection between those criteria and journalism student success. We survey winners of student broadcast journalism awards to identify factors they believe led to their success. We conclude that standardized tests scores and grade point averages are mildly predictive, but that other factors were stronger predictors. Thus, rigid admissions criteria might exclude some students who would be highly successful.
Reporting on Two Presidencies: News Coverage of George W. Bush’s First Year in Office • Stephen J. Farnsworth, Mary Washington College; and S. Robert Lichter, Center for Media and Public Affairs • Personal coverage of President Bush during 2001 on network television and in six U.S. newspapers became far more positive after September 11, 2001, with the largest gains found in network television coverage. Coverage of the rest of the Bush administration, in contrast, became distinctly more negative after the terrorist attacks. The vast majority of the executive branch coverage both before and after the terrorist attacks in all media outlets focused on job performance, not the questions of character, ethics and political conduct that often dominate presidential campaign coverage.
Partisan and Structural Balance of Local Television Election Coverage of Incumbent and Open Gubernatorial Elections • Frederick Fico, Geri Alumit Zeldes, and Arvind Diddi, Michigan State University • Local television stories and segments covering the 2002 open race for governor in Michigan were compared with the same stations’ coverage of the 1998 election in which an incumbent governor ran against a challenger. Coverage of the 2002 race was more even handed toward the Republican and Democratic candidates, as predicted. Overall, multi-story segments making up a day’s news coverage were more balanced than the individual stories, consistent with previous research in 1998. Stories and segments leading newscasts were more balanced than those run inside. Election stories that ran alone in a day’s newscast were also more balanced. However, stories covered by reporters were less likely to be balanced than stories covered by anchors, contrary to predictions.
The “I” of Embedded Reporting • Julia Fox and Byungho Park, University of Indiana • This study compares the use of personal pronouns in embedded and non-embedded reports during the “Shock and Awe” campaign to investigate whether embedded reporters’ objectivity was compromised during the Iraq War. The results indicate that critics were warranted in their concerns that embedding reporters in troops would make the reporters part of the story and thus compromise their objectivity, given the increased use of the indexical referential “I” in embedded reporting.
Intermedia Agenda Setting and Global News Coverage: Assessing the Influence of The New York Times on Three Network Television Evening News Programs • Guy Golan, Louisiana State University • For several decades, media scholars have attempted to identify the key variables that shape the complicated international news selection process. At the heart of the research lies the question of what makes a nation or an international event newsworthy? Research findings point to several key determinants of international news coverage including deviance, relevance, cultural affinity and location in the hierarchy of nations. The current study suggests that the newsworthiness of international events may result from an intermedia agenda setting process.
Developing a New Measurement for Television News Accuracy • Gary Hanson and Stanley Wearden, Kent State University • This research study seeks to develop a workable measure of TV news accuracy by asking sources to describe perceived errors using a standardized form and to rate their seriousness and impact. This paper replicates the basic methods of the 2002 study with a new set of questions that examine stories for specific factual errors and for errors in the visual elements: video, graphics and on-camera interviews.
The Impact of Local, Network, and Cable News Dependence during the Iraq War on Attitudes, Interest in the War, Preference for Visual Complexity, and Central vs. Peripheral News Features • Yan Jin and Esther Thorson, University of Missouri; and Michael Antecol, Frank N. Magid Associates, Inc. • With online survey data from the first week of the 2003 U.S.-Iraq War, this study uses the Elaboration Likelihood Model and research on the processing of TV structural variables, especially visual complexity, to ask how people with news dependency on local, network and cable television differ. Those who indicated the most preference for “central” information and high visual complexity chose cable television to get their war news. Type of television news dependence was not differentially associated with preference for “peripheral” information.
Caught on Tape: A Case Study of How Three Local TV Stations Used a Dramatic Amateur Videotape in Reporting Crime • Stan Ketterer, Marc A. Krein and Tom Weir, Oklahoma State University • This case study examines the use of a dramatic amateur videotape in local television news reporting of a crime story involving a police “rough arrest.” The results indicate three stations in Oklahoma City used the dramatic videotape because it was available, but the extent of usage depended on the station. The researchers found the three network affiliates differed dramatically in story placement, video usage, and presentation. However, all stations showed police hitting the suspect with batons more times in a single newscast than in the original tape. Although news executives said sweeps month did not affect coverage, the station using the tape the most had the highest ratings.
Walking in Step to the Future: Views of Journalism Education by Practitioners and Educators • Ernest F. Martin, Jr., Debora H. Wenger, Jeff C. South and Paula I. Otto, Virginia Commonwealth University • This study, based on an Internet survey of 317 educational administrators, television news executives, newspaper editors and online executives during first quarter 2004, contrasts views about preparation of students for current and future jobs by showing gaps between what employers’ value most in job applicants and what educational programs are providing. Second, it addresses newsroom challenges that are shaping the industry and journalism education.
How Would Aristotle Evaluate the Quality of Contemporary Political Discourse Over the Broadcast/Cable Media? • David Martinson, Florida International University • This paper contends that Aristotle’s discussion of what is termed the golden mean can be utilized in attempting to evaluate, from an ethical and public interest perspective, the manner in which the broadcast and cable media provide coverage of contemporary political and public affairs issues. It suggests that an Aristotelian perspective can be particularly helpful in light of the virtual explosion of political discussion/debate over the broadcast airwaves and cable channels in recent years.
“…A Suit That Touches Caesar Nearer”: Television Breaking News And The Relevance Effect • Andrea Miller and David D. Perlmutter, Louisiana State University • The visual clutter and hyperkinetic pace and action of the modern news broadcast and cablecast challenge the distinctiveness of the “breaking news” story. We submit that in the era of visual overload, the key criterion for a successful breaking news story will be “relevance.” Relevance theory asserts that human beings use visual and cognitive cues to attend to items in the environment that are most relevant to them. In our study, we surveyed undergraduates and asked them for the criteria for which, and the degree to which, they would pay attention to hypothetical breaking news stories. We found that it does not matter what story breaks into programming, viewers just want it to be personally relevant to them.
Middletown Media Studies: A Comparison of TV News and TV Use Across Three Research Methodologies • Robert A. Papper, Michael E. Holmes; and Mark N. Popovich, Ball State University • Three studies of television news and other media in “Middletown” are reported: a telephone survey, a diary study, and an observation study. The studies reveal people spend almost triple (193.8 percent) the time with television news than they think they do. That inability to identify time spent with media was common across most media. Overall, people were observed spending an average of 11.7 hours a day using one or more media. Because of media multitasking, total time in media usage is less than the sum of its parts. Simply summing all media use by medium results in a staggering 15.4 hours per day. Diary tabulations of media use documented more usage than did the telephone survey, but it was still 12.9 percent below observed use overall.
Local Television Sports: Band-aids for a Compound Fracture • Brad Schultz, University of Mississippi; and Mary Lou Sheffer, Louisiana State University • A content analysis was conducted in six different television markets to study the sports segment of the local television newscast. The stations say they are making changes to attract new audiences, but data indicated the changes were both minor and ineffectual. Results also showed that such strategies have failed in terms of building ratings. Implications were discussed, including stations eliminating local sports or outsourcing its production.
A Lopsided Deal: The Recent Application of the Equal Opportunities Doctrine • W. Joann Wong, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This study suggests that the original idea of equal opportunities doctrine has been undermined by its application. This study, which analyzes all federal cases on the equal opportunities doctrine over the past decade, reveals that the Federal Communications Commission’s and the federal courts’ rulings on the doctrine have expanded the scope of the exemptions for bona fide news. Therefore, most broadcasters now can easily fit their telecasts into one of the exemption categories. As a result, the fundamental purposes of the equal opportunities doctrine – the equality of candidates’ use of broadcasting facilities and the audiences’ maximum access to election information – have not been served effectively. The equal opportunities doctrine has become a lopsided deal between broadcasters and political candidates.
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