Newspaper and Online News 2013 Abstracts
Open Competition
Political or Professional?: The Nineteenth Century National Editorial Association • Stephen Banning • In the nineteenth century the National Editorial Association grew from just over fifty editors to over 4,000 members representing 12,000 newspapers. This was a time when some state press associations were self identified as professionals. This research examines the National Editorial Association’s character and motivations to see if members were interested in professionalization as well. The National Editorial Association’s questionable connection with the 1992 World’s Fair is also examined.
It’s the leadership, stupid, not the economy: A framing study of newspaper endorsements of presidential candidates in the 2012 election • Kenneth Campbell, University of South Carolina; Ran Wei, University of South Carolina; Wan Chi Leung, University of South Carolina; Maia Mikashavidze, University of South Carolina • Though framing research has been robust, but no study has examined press endorsements of presidential candidates with a framing perspective. To fill the void, we pursued a framing analysis of presidential endorsements in the 2012 election. Moreover, the present study aims at overcoming some of the limitations in the existing literature with a framing analysis of the candidates and issues used by the newspaper endorsements in the tightly contested presidential contest between incumbent Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney in 2012. To achieve the objectives, a quantitative content analysis and qualitative framing analysis of 75 newspaper endorsements were conducted. Findings show that newspapers that endorsed Obama framed him as a leader based on his performance on a variety of national issues whereas newspapers that endorsed Romney framed him as their choice based primarily on the economy.
Fuzzy, transparent, and fast: Journalists and public relations practitioners characterize social media interactions • Aaron Chimbel; Tracy Everbach, University of North Texas; Jacqueline Lambiase • This mixed-methods study, based on a survey including open-ended responses from 167 journalists and PR practitioners, examines views on interacting through social media. Grounded in journalism ethics and news production research, the study examines how professionals navigate rapidly changing social media. Results show journalists and PR practitioners see themselves working in the same digital space. Journalists and PR professionals thought it was ethical to become social media “friends” and followers. Still, these relationships are evolving.
Is Google “Stealing” your Content? Examining How the News Industry Framed Google in an Era of News Aggregation • H. Iris Chyi, University of Texas at Austin; Seth Lewis; Nan Zheng, James Madison University • As online news aggregators outperform most traditional media sites, some news executives accuse Google News of stealing their content, even as they rely on Google for exposure. This quantitative content analysis examines how the news industry, during the 2008–2010 financial shock for U.S. newspapers, covered its delicate relationship with Google. While Google was often portrayed as the enemy, most coverage suggested that newspapers should work with Google, indicating the challenge in assessing Google’s role in an era of news aggregation.
This Just In: Examining the Presence of Spot News in Print and Online News Organizations • Jennifer Cox, Salisbury University • Newspapers are competing with online-only upstarts to provide spot news coverage that drives local readership prompting questions regarding the ways in which news is defined by both types of organizations. This study examined print and online content in four pairs of daily newspapers and online-only news organizations sharing a common home city. A content analysis of 1,965 news items revealed spot news appeared more frequently online than in print, though there was no significant difference regarding the presence of spot news between newspapers and their online-only competitors. Online-only publications provided spot news most on crime items, while newspapers provide it most in accident/disaster/public safety items. The majority of spot news items contained the timeliness and proximity news values. The results of this study indicate both organization types understand readers’ hunger for spot news online, though the types of spot news stories they include in their products tend to vary. An online emphasis on spot news may be indicative of a shift in news definitions that could impact readers’ perceptions of personal safety in their own communities.
Deciphering ‘Digital First’ During Football Season: A Study of Blogging Routines of Newspaper Sports Reporters • George Daniels, The University of Alabama; Marc Torrence, The University of Alabama • To understand how the newspaper industry’s “digital first” philosophy works for local newspaper writers covering football, this study surveyed local newspaper blogs in all 14 Southeastern Conference markets and 10 markets of SEC non-conference opponents. A follow-up content analysis during Week 6 of the 2012 season revealed 80% of posts were not on GameDay and most focused on hard news. For these bloggers, “digital first” mandates speed and a heavy reliance on news conference content.
Newspaper Coverage of the BP Oil Spill: Framing by Distance and Ownership • Ryan Broussard; Robert T. Buckman, Univ. of Louisiana at Lafayette; William R. Davie, Univ. of Louisiana at Lafayette • This study analyzed how twelve newspapers framed the BP oil spill in terms of environmental, government, and industrial factors. The environmental frame eclipsed the industrial and government frames. In addition, the newspaper’s status in terms of its corporate ownership and national scope shaped the coverage. This study reinforced and refined the research of Molotch and Lester by showing how news frames are subject to variables of proximity and newspaper ownership in covering such an environmental hazard.
Building an Agenda for Regulatory Change: The New York Times Targets Drug Abuse in Horse Racing • Bryan Denham • This article addresses the manner in which a New York Times investigative series on drug use and catastrophic breakdowns in U.S. horse racing influenced policy initiatives across a six-month period. Beginning with the March 25, 2012 expose’ “Mangled Horses, Maimed Jockeys,” the article analyzes how the Times helped to define policy conversations at both the state and national levels. The article also addresses how the Interstate Horseracing Improvement Act of 2011, a fledgling piece of legislation, became what Kingdon (2003) described as a “solution in search of a problem” and thus a political lever in policy deliberations. Long recognized for its capacity to influence the content of other news outlets, the article concludes, the New York Times can also play an important role in legislative arenas, informing lawmakers of salient issues as well as opportunities for substantive and symbolic policy actions.
Unnamed Attribution: A Historical Analysis of the Journalism Norms Surrounding the Use of Anonymous Sources • Matt Duffy, Georgia State University • This paper offers a historical examination of the journalistic norms surrounding the practice of citing anonymous sources. The author examines a variety of textbooks, guidebooks, trade press coverage, and codes of ethics over the past century. The analysis reveals that unnamed attribution, once scorned as a journalistic practice, has gained acceptance over time. As journalistic norms have evolved, the acceptance of the practice has spread beyond national government and international reporting to local coverage. Despite the general acceptance of this practice, journalistic norms surrounding when and how to use anonymous sources remain unsettled. This analysis also finds that journalism textbooks more often describe common practices of journalists rather than provide normative directives as to how journalists should act. Importantly, this study reveals that a journalistic tradition of independently verifying information from unnamed sources has dramatically diminished.
Reading the Truth-O-Meter: The influence of partisanship in interpreting the fact-check • David Wise, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Megan Duncan, University of Wisconsin; Thomas Jaime; David Coppini, University of Wisconsin Madison; Young Mie Kim, School of Journalism and Mass Communication • This study experimentally investigates the effects of fact-checking articles and partisanship in evaluating claims made in political attack ads and attitudes toward the targeted politician, the ad’s sponsor and the fact-checking organization. In a 2 (political party congruency) X 3 (fact-check rating) experiment, participants were randomly assigned to see one of two videos accusing a fictional politician of a financial scandal. The only difference between the two videos was the political party of the politician. After the video, participants read one of three randomly assigned fact-checks rating the ad either “true,” “half-true,” or “false.” In a post-test, participants answered questions about the ad, the targeted politician, the ad’s sponsor and the fact-checking organization. The results indicate that fact-check articles can affect evaluations of a political attack ad’s claims, as well as the targeted politician, ad sponsor, and the fact-checking organization’s adherence to traditional journalistic norms and standards. We also found that on some measures, partisans engage in motivated reasoning, which amplified party differences when the ad was ruled half-true, and in some cases, true. Our findings suggest that while fact checking can be effective at correcting misinformation, motivated reasoning among partisans plays a role in shaping the effects of fact-check rulings on attitudes toward the ad’s target, sponsor and the fact-checking organization.
If it bleeds, it leads: How cognition, motivation, and emotions influence our attention to the news • Margaret Flynn, University of Connecticut • The current study aims to provide a renewed examination of why certain news items are more attractive than others, or why the most “important” news is not always the most popular. Buck’s (1985) developmental interactionist theory provides a novel framework for examining this phenomenon of selective exposure. This perspective proposes that an individual’s emotions may direct their attention to a particular message, or in this case a news story. By employing an experimental methodology this paper demonstrates that complex combinations of emotions can influence what news information audiences select. Additionally, there is evidence here that suggests news information can alter mood and impact subsequent emotional states.
A ‘Sentimental’ Election: Emergent Framing and Public Sentiment in Social Media Content during the 2012 US Presidential Campaign • Jacob Groshek; Ahmed al-Rawi • By being embedded in everyday life, social networking sites (SNSs) have altered the way campaign politics are understood and engaged with by politicians and citizens alike. Somewhat paradoxically, though the features and influence of social media are regularly reported, the actual content of social media has remained a vast but somewhat amorphous and understudied entity. The study reported here thus examines public sentiment as it was expressed in just over 1.42 million social media units on Facebook and Twitter to provide broad insights into dominant topics and themes that were prevalent in the 2012 US election campaign online. Key findings include observed similarities and divergences across social networking sites and channels that cultivate a fuller understanding of what is being communicated in political social media content that is largely citizen and user-generated.
Who reads online news anyway? On and offline behaviors that predict reading of online newspapers. • Michael Horning, Bowling Green State University; SangHee Park, Bowling Green State University; Luyue Ma, Bowling Green State University; Fang Wang, Bowling Green State University • As newsrooms begin to develop content and user experiences designed for the Internet, new questions arise about the types of individuals reading online newspapers and the journalistic practices that might be appealing to online readers. This exploratory research assesses important predictors in online newspaper reading among college-aged students. Findings suggest that levels of civic engagement, public journalism interests, reading news on social media sites, and Internet use context are predictors of online newspaper use.
The “SomeTimes Picayune:” Comparing the online and print offerings of the New Orleans’ newspaper before and after the print reduction • Young Kim, Louisiana State University; Andrea Miller, LSU • This study compared the online and print news of New Orleans’ Times-Picayune before and after print publication moved from seven days a week to three. A content analysis found each venue offered different content, contradicting existing research touting news homogeneity. Print offered more public affairs and global news while online offered more local and entertainment news. Findings are discussed within the frameworks of social responsibility and local news value.
News Consumption in the Age of Content Aggregation: The Case of Yahoo, Google and Huffington Post • Angela Lee, University of Texas at Austin; H. Iris Chyi, University of Texas at Austin • In the pre-Internet era, the role of news providers in the media market was clearly defined. Media companies produced content as suppliers of news and information and competed with other media firms in their geographic market for audience and/or advertising share in either inter- or intra-competition scenarios. But the Internet has brought about revolutionary changes to this media landscape. One major change is the rise of content aggregators. While traditional news firms are still struggling with the economics of their online ventures, these news aggregators have become a major source of online news for American audiences. This exploratory study, through an online survey of 1,143 respondents, empirically examines the relationship between use of three major news aggregators—Yahoo, Google, and Huffington Post— and 13 major news media outlets operated by print, broadcast, cable and electronic news media. The goal is to offer an extensive overview of competition among key players in contemporary news ecology. Findings of this study suggest a symbiotic relationship between all three news aggregator sites and 13 major news outlets across different news industries. Such findings are at odds with industry sentiment, or hostility toward news aggregators, and news organizations are encouraged to reassess their relationship with news aggregators in the attempt to find better revenue models rather than casting blames that have no empirical basis.
How Journalists Value Positive News: The Influence of Professional Beliefs, Market Considerations, and Political Attitudes • Ka Kuen Leung, School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Lap Fung Lee, School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong • While the negativity bias of the news media is generally recognized in many countries around the world, various types of positive news, ranging from touching human interests stories to news about national or community achievement, also feature regularly in the news media. Yet few scholarly analyses have examined whether and how professional journalists value positive news. This article examines Hong Kong journalists’ perceptions of the values of five types of positive news. It is hypothesized that professional beliefs about media roles in society, market considerations, and political attitudes would be related to perceived value of positive news. Analysis of data from a journalist survey shows that Hong Kong journalists do regard news stories that tell touching stories and promote social values and norms as important, but they do not see news stories that promote national development and achievement as important. Belief in the cultural role of the press, acknowledgement of market influence on the media, and national and local identification are significant predicts of perceived value of positive news. Implications of the findings are discussed.
The News Re-imagined: The Promise of Local Foundation-Funded Journalism • Suzanne Lysak, Syracuse University; Michael Cremedas, Syracuse University • This research surveyed 207 local newspaper and television news managers to measure reaction to a Federal Communications Commission proposal aimed at improving quality, in-depth reporting at the local level. In its landmark 2011 report, “Information Needs of Communities: The Changing Media Landscape in a Broadband Age, the FCC called for a national program that would place reporters in local newsrooms, with the reporters’ salaries partially or fully paid by local community foundations.
Experimental Psychology Applied: Assessing NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof’s strategies to overcome psychic numbing • Scott Maier, University of Oregon • People relate to one death as a tragedy but tune out the loss of thousands as a statistic, a phenomenon documented by psychology experiments that suggest “the more who die, the less we care.” This sobering finding has influenced New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in his reporting on Darfur, human trafficking and other mass suffering. Drawing from behavioral research, Kristof says he now goes out of his way to find just the right person who illuminates the larger story. Reframing his journalistic approach, Kristof also seeks to move his readers by reporting on people who overcome adversity or offer real solutions. Content analysis and Internet metrics are used to assess whether Kristof adheres to these principles, and, more importantly, whether this kind of reporting engenders reader response. The findings offer guidance on how the media can overcome psychic numbing and compassion fatigue.
Online Story Commenting: An Experimental Test of Conversational Journalism and Trust • Doreen Marchionni, Pacific Lutheran University • Online story commenting offers a form of citizen engagement on news sites potentially important to democratic discourse. Yet few issues vex newsrooms more because of abusive rants, often from unnamed sources. This controlled experiment set out to test the “conversationalness” of commenting, using newly identified variables that theoretically measure the concept of journalism as a conversation. The study also tested whether commenting might help with reader trust. The data show that commenting’s best indicators of conversation are perceived friendliness and social presence. But comments do not appear to help with journalism’s most important values of perceived credibility and expertise.
Editorials, privilege and shield law Post-Branzburg: Forty years of newspaper narratives • Sandra Mardenfeld, Long Island University • As the prosecution against whistleblower Bradley Manning unfolds, the importance of confidential sources and their value to society once again is scrutinized. This study seeks to discover the discussions four major metro papers have within their commentary pages from 1972, the year of the pivotal Supreme Court case Branzburg v. Hayes, to 2012. What does the media say about issues such as reporter’s privilege and shield laws within their editorial section? A discussion of the three major themes uncovered leads to suggestions for future treatment.
Vicariously Rejected: Political-Sex-Scandal News Coverages Primes Negative Attitude Toward Sexual Betrayal • Gina Masullo Chen, The University of Southern Mississippi, School of Mass Communication and Journalism; Hinda Mandell, Rochester Institute of Technology, Department of Communication; John Wolf, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Department of Humanities • An online experiment (N = 231) reveals that reading news stories about political sex scandals prime negative attitudes toward sexual betrayal. Seeing sexual infidelity as humiliating is mediated through relationship satisfaction and attitudes toward sexual behavior. Results are discussed in relation to priming theory.
Breaking news and problems definitions from school shootings, 1996-2012 • Michael McCluskey • Problem definitions in the news provide explanations for tragic events like school shootings. This study examines nine problem definitions in the breaking news coverage (N = 311) of 11 school shootings between 1996 and 2012. Guns, teen life and school security were the most prominent problem definitions. Analysis shows differences by the audience orientation of the newspapers and by contextual factors in the shootings.
“Evil Visited this Community Today”: News Media Framing of the Sandy Hook School Shooting • Dylan McLemore, University of Alabama; Kimberly Bissell, University of Alabama • A content analysis of seven newspapers’ coverage of the Sandy Hook school shooting in December 2012 assessed how news outlets contextualized the story for readers in the week following the event. The results revealed that the Sandy Hook shooting was most commonly framed in terms of the victims. Gun control became the central frame through which blame was attributed. A mental health frame was also evident, in line with prior shootings but despite a lack of evidence in this particular case. The findings suggest an enduring stigma surrounding mental health, and a continued association of mental illness with violent behavior. Findings are elaborated upon by considering frame valence, sourcing, and the passage of time.
Page One or Six: A proposition for a news type index • Patrick Merle, Florida State University; Clay Craig, Coastal Carolina University • This research proposes an updated instrument to measure news preferences. To date, the literature features two scales designed for a media landscape removed from today’s multi-screen environment. Beyond the obsolete nature of their scales, prior authors omitted the dimensions of style and timeliness, prevalent facets in today’s interactive context. Exploratory data from a survey (N = 317) reviewed through structural equation modeling start a scale developmental effort to discuss a valid measurement of news types.
Cranks or Community: Describing those who comment on news stories • Hans Meyer, Ohio University; Michael Clay Carey, Ohio University • By offering comments at the end of stories, news organizations are allowing readers to engage in the news. But few journalists say the read or appreciate the comments their stories receive because they say comments are, for the most part, junk. This study used a nationwide survey to describe the people who post comments at the end of new stories and suggests that news professionals may be the largest determinant in the quality of comments they receive. A hierarchical regression model predicting participation suggests that noticing moderation in forums and the importance readers place on moderation is the most important element that leads to participation. Noticing moderation and giving it high importance can also mediate the influence of other participation antecedents, such as the value of anonymity and the importance of civility. It also mediates the influence of most demographic variables besides age.
Nate Silver and the rise of the poll aggregators: How they proved their worth to news media in the 2012 election • Brad Scharlott, Northern Kentucky University; Nikhil Moro, University of North Texas • Prominent poll aggregators such as Nate Silver proved their worth in the 2012 election with forecasts that were far more accurate than the typical pollster’s. In future election cycles, cash-strapped newspapers that formerly commissioned pollsters may decide that their resources would be better spent licensing a poll aggregator, as The New York Times did with Silver, thereby also boosting traffic to their websites. They may also hire statisticians to start their own in-house poll-aggregation operations. The public interest in the work of poll aggregators seems certain to rise in coming election cycles as more and more people come to see in them a gold standard of election prognostication. But if there will be fewer pollsters out there generating data to analyze, then poll aggregators’ results may not be as robust in the future as they were in the 2012 election cycle.
Prescribing the News: Newsroom size and journalistic experience as key factors in the interaction between health journalists and public health organizations • Gregory Perreault; Shelly Rodgers; Jon Stemmle • A phone survey of 142 Midwestern journalists and editors was conducted to examine awareness and use of and knowledge about health literacy programs and initiatives in the State of Missouri. Journalists’ self-efficacy, reader-friendly writing behaviors on the topic of public health, and time spent and experience writing about health and science news were examined. We compared larger versus smaller newsrooms in terms of awareness and use of materials from health-related news services. Results suggest that two factors, newspaper size and experience, proved to be useful in making predictions about awareness and use of health-related news services and use of reader-friendly writing behaviors.
A slow response to Quick Response: Diffusion of QR technology on U.S. newspaper front pages • Chris Roberts, University of Alabama; Keith Saint, University of Alabama • A three-week constructed sample shows that few newspaper publish Quick Response (QR) codes on front pages, and many codes were beyond newsroom control. Content analysis describes QR use by papers in the context of diffusion of innovation and niche gratification theories, and compares published “deep” links to randomly selected pages. Interviews with newspaper executives reveal institutional isomorphism reasons for QR adoption and the belief that QR has little widespread acceptance by readers or the industry.
Anonymous User Comments and the Influence on Fan Identity and Sports Article Credibility • Sean Sadri, University of Florida • The present study examined how anonymous user comment tone can impact group identity, sports article credibility, and attitudes towards a sports news source. Participants were randomly assigned a sports article, where the article was indicated to have appeared on one of four sports sources with positive, negative, or no comments. Scores on a user identification scale were significantly higher for the positive comments than for negative comments. User comments were not shown to affect credibility.
Scanning and Sharing But Little Engagement: Newspaper Reporters’ Use Of Social Media • Arthur Santana, University of Houston • A national survey of newspaper reporters at large and mid-size U.S. newspapers reveals that the frequency with which they use Facebook and Twitter to supplement their reporting is minimal, especially among older, more experienced reporters at large dailies. Findings demonstrate that reporters are infrequently engaging the social networking sites to support some of their reporting duties and are instead more apt to scan the sites and use them as promotional tools.
A Predictive Model of Story Prominence in U.S. Daily Newspapers • Frederick Schiff, University of Houston; David Llanos, University of Houston • This study compares two exhaustive models of news content to predict story prominence. Both models were derived from eight leading theories of news play. Hierarchical Linear Modeling specified story-level, newspaper-level, ownership-level and cross-level variables. A Factor Analysis Model found five “common-sense” story types. Coders analyzed 6,090 stories, using a random stratified sample of 114 newspapers and 59 ownership groups. According to OLS, a combined model (HLM and FAM) yielded an Adjusted R2 of 19.5%.
The Power of the Impulse: The Flow of Content Communities and Online News Consumption • Amy Schmitz Weiss; Valerie Barker, Journalism & Media Studies SDSU; David Dozier; Diane Borden • This study examines how U.S. adults consume news content from various communities online (ranging from YouTube to news websites) and how they access this information from digital devices (e.g. laptops, desktops, smartphones, tablets). Based on a national telephone survey conducted of U.S. adults, this study identifies that people are consuming different kinds of news content online and doing so in a state of Flow via their digital devices. Using the theory of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975), this study aims to see how an online user can engage in an impulse form of news consumption (through various content communities) via digital devices (e.g. laptops, smartphones, tablets and desktop computers). Implications of the findings are addressed and future research directions for examining online news consumption through this lens are discussed.
Generating “New” News or Recycling Old News?: News Diversity and the World Wide Web • Charlene Simmons, U of Tennessee at Chattanooga • The Web has been heralded as an alternative to traditional media, providing users with diverse information and perspectives not previously available. Web usage studies have demonstrated that users do not spend time on alternative sites, but rather they spend the majority of their time on just a handful of popular Web sites. This study explores whether popular news sites act as new sources of diverse information or whether they repurpose content available from other sources.
Journalism’s thin line: A case study of suburban news and the news divide • Edgar Simpson, Central Michigan University • This exploratory study examined the news environment in a county where a daily newspaper had closed. Using the theories of the public sphere and geographic-based public affairs journalism as a key structural element in invigorating the sphere, the study mapped out the public affairs news in an Ohio suburban county where a daily newspaper closed. Overall, this study, offered as a case to explore vexing national issues, found that regional and metro daily newspapers have largely retreated to their cores, despite having significant circulation in the county, and that commercial television rarely ventured into the area, even though the county is part of their Designated Market Areas. The study found weekly print operations provided the majority of public affairs journalism. Further, this study found Web-only start-ups were not a factor in public affairs news and that the weekly operations provided a higher quality of coverage, in terms of sourcing and depth, than all other media.
Making Change: Diffusion of Technological, Relational, and Cultural Innovation in the Newsroom • Jane B. Singer, University of Iowa; Melissa Tully, University of Iowa; Shawn Harmsen, University of Iowa; Brian Ekdale, University of Iowa • Diffusion of innovations theory typically has been applied to the spread of a particular technology or practice. This paper seeks to obtain a deeper understanding of the multi-faceted nature of upheaval in the news industry by considering the diffusion of three distinct but related changes: technological, relational, and cultural. It does so through a case study, based on quantitative and qualitative data, of a Midwestern news company undergoing successive waves of significant change.
Microblogging the News: Covering a Crisis When Twitter is the Only Option • Amanda Sturgill, Elon University; Rajat Agarwal, Elon University • As news media are evolving strategies for incorporating new technologies for gathering and disseminating the news, social media have become a part of the mix. Because the ability to tell stories over social media is not restricted to experts, scholars have suggested that social media are more useful for engaging users and for creating a sense of community around issues in a particular area. One aspect of news in the emerging social news environment that has not been as well studied is the coverage of breaking news. This paper examines the coverage of a shooting during a unique event in which a college newspaper was locked down and only able to communicate via Twitter. Content analysis of the newspaper’s tweet stream suggests that the coverage fits largely into patterns found in coverage of other breaking news, although a significant number of tweets were used to push users to the newspaper’s regular web presence, once it again became available.
Frames of Mental Illness in an Indian Daily Newspaper • Roma Subramanian, University of Missouri, School of Journalism • Through a framing analysis of news stories about mental illness in The Times of India, an elite daily newspaper in India, this study aimed to understand how the Indian news media influence the public’s perception of mental illness. The following themes were identified: crime, suicide, prevention/treatment/recovery, simplistic/inadequate explanations, stigma, and mental health care system issues. Overall, while some stories perpetuate mental illness stigma, there is an attempt to raise the public’s awareness about mental illness.
The “militant” Chicago Defender: A study of editorials and letters to the editor in 1968 • Brian Thornton, University of North Florida • The “radical” Chicago Defender: A study of the newspapers editorials and letters to the editor in 1968. There is almost a mythological narrative surrounding the Chicago Defender, one of the most influential black newspapers in the U.S. In its heyday the paper, hailed by Langston Hughes as “the journalistic voice of a largely voiceless people,” was a “must read” for many African-Americans, not just in the Midwest, but also throughout the country, especially in the Deep South. The Defender is credited with playing a major role in influencing the Great Migration of African-Americans from the rural South to the urban North from 1915 to 1925. The paper was militant, if not radical, in its early days in demands for racial justice and social change. But what kind of editorial stance did the paper take in the late 1960s, at the height of the Black Power/Black Panther social phenomenon? Did the paper call for massive social change, or defend the status quo? It might surprise some readers to discover that the Defender called for the death penalty for black teens who committed murder in 1968. This research examined all the editorials and letters to the editor published in the Chicago Defender from Jan. 1, through Dec. 31 1968, with a view towards understanding what stances the paper and its readers took in discussions of such important topics as race, social change, Black pride, equal employment opportunities and black culture. A total of 395 editorials were published in the paper that year and all were closely read and analyzed along with 35 letters to the editor.
When Critical Voices Should Speak Up: Patterns in News Coverage of Unofficial Sources During the BP Oil Spill • Brendan Watson, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities • Media routines suggest that journalists’ BP oil spill coverage would rely heavily on official sources. Yet, unofficial sources are most likely to offer critical perspectives that could help avoid similar accidents from occurring. Some deride the media’s initial crisis coverage as speculative and inaccurate. This study, however, found support for a positive effect of the disaster: it momentarily dislodged media routines, and prior to the emergence of an official narrative, news coverage was more inclusive of critical voices.
Examining the Behavioral Consequences of the First-person Effect of Newspaper Endorsements in the 2012 Presidential Election • Ran Wei, University of South Carolina; Ven-Hwei Lo; Chingching Chang • Research examining the perceptions of media influences of political messages on the self relative to others (Davison, 1983) has documented both third-person (e.g., a greater perceived effect on others than self) and first-person perceptions (e.g., a greater perceived effect on self than others). As a new direction of research, increasing scholarly attention (Golan & Day, 2008) is being paid to investigating the antecedents of the first-person effect and its consequences on behavior. However, empirical research of the first-person effect is still limited; no study has examined the behavioral consequences of first-person perceptions on voter behavior. To fill the void, the present study examines the perceived influences of newspaper endorsements of presidential candidate in the 2012 election. Data collected from a random sample of 520 respondents supported third-person perception regarding the influence of newspaper endorsements of presidential candidate. However, findings also show that the more credible the newspaper endorsements, the greater the perceived influence on self. Furthermore, first-person perception was found as a positive predictor of the intention to boycott newspapers that endorsed the opposing candidate and the likelihood of voting for the candidate who received more newspaper endorsements.
MacDougall Student Paper Competition
The Social Mediation of News and Political Rumors • Soo Young Bae, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor • This study investigates the dynamics between news media use and political rumors in the current information environment on the Internet, with a particular focus on the implications of the newly emerged social networking sites. By examining survey data of online social media users, this study highlights the contrasting implications of the traditional news media and social media as news sources in shaping the users’ perceptions about political rumors, and reveals the significant consequences of the homogeneity of the users’ online social networks.
Three Days a Week: Has A New Production Cycle Altered The Times-Picayune’s News Coverage? • David Bockino, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill • This study explores the difference in print and online news coverage by the New Orleans-based newspaper The Times-Picayune before and after the implementation of a new production cycle. While print coverage has remained relatively static in terms of both topic and type category, there are differences between both the paper’s print and online coverage as well as its online coverage on days with a print edition and days without a print edition.
Generating Visits through Facebook: The Ambivalent Role of Engagement • Jan Boehmer, Michigan State University • In the present study, I investigate the effects of engagement with news content posted on Facebook. More specifically, I look at how different levels of engagement affect the number of individuals who click on the posted link, as well as the visits that are created on the website it refers to. I also look at the number of pages seen during visits, and the duration of the visits. I find that while the number of individuals who click on a link on Facebook does not increase due to higher levels of engagement, an increase in visits is evident. However, contradictory to common believe, higher levels of engagement affected the number of pages visited, and the time spent on the website, negatively. Finally, I discuss potential reasons for why the engagement created on Facebook can not be easily transferred to a website.
Capitalism, Crisis & Custom Content • Kyle Brown • This paper will offer a theoretical framework of the symbiotic relationship between newspapers and advertisers within a market journalism structure, and seek to identify and define standard journalistic ethics. It will then place custom content, a recent and emerging advertising endeavor that further blurs the lines between ad and editorial, within that theoretical discussion and offer discussion on the ethical dilemmas of the production of such disguised content, at both the institutional and individual levels.
Trust Me, I Am Your News: Media Credibility across News Platforms in U.S. & South Korea • Yunmi Choi, University of Florida; Daniel Axelrod, University of Florida; Jihyun Kim • International surveys measured American and Korean college students’ respective media usage habits, preferences and their views on the credibility of news offered by various media platforms. Specifically, this study examined the students’ habits with, and preferences for, news from the TV, radio, newspapers, the Internet, and mobile devices. Though Korean and American college students prefer either online or mobile news, Korean students assigned traditional media outlets much higher credibility ratings than those from U.S. students.
Human Trafficking in the Elite Press: A Content Analysis of Newspapers in the West • Irma Fisher, University of Oregon; Tobias Hopp, University of Oregon • This study analyzed the human trafficking coverage found in six elite newspapers in the U.S. UK, and Canada. Using a sample of 327 articles, we content analyzed the presentation of human trafficking as a domestic/national or international issue. The results indicated significant differences in the handling of the issue on the basis of article type, article focus, and press nationality. Furthermore, between-newspaper differences were identified.
Lifecycle of Obesity Coverage: Comparing Attributions of Child and Adult Obesity • Se Na Lim, University of Alabama; Virginia Johnson, The University of Alabama; Adam Sharples, The University of Alabama; Richard Rush, The University of Alabama; Rosanne Rumstay, The University of Alabama • This study examined how the media report on obesity and compared and contrasted frames of responsibility used in the reporting of child and non-child obesity. Using framing theory and looking specifically at individual health and public health frames, this study researched how newspapers represent the prevalence, causes, consequences, and solutions of child and non-child obesity. Two research questions were posed: First, what type of content (among prevalence, consequence, cause, and solution) most frequently appears in news articles and what frames are used for describing those contents? Second, what differences exist among child obesity, adult obesity, and obesity in general in regard to content types and frame level? A content analysis was conducted of six national newspapers reporting on obesity in the year 2011. A total of 382 mentions of obesity in 80 articles were coded and analyzed. Results indicated that prevalence and solution/prevention of obesity are mentioned most frequently. These two content types are also most frequently described in a public health frame, while consequence and cause are most frequently described in an individual health frame. Among mentions of childhood obesity, solution/prevention were the most frequent content types, while prevalence and content were most frequently mentioned for adult obesity. Mentions of child obesity were framed in public frames and individual health frames in the same proportion, but obesity in general was more frequently described using a public health frame. Limitations of this study and directions for future research in this area are discussed.
Technological and sociological motivations: Predictors of online content curation platform acceptance among journalists • Angela Lee, University of Texas at Austin; Vittoria Sacco; Marco Giardina • While the nature of social media encourages and facilitates real-time news distribution, information overload on social media sites is challenging journalists’ gatekeeping role in filtering out relevant news information for the public in an increasingly speed-driven online news cycle. Online media content curation platforms — based on principles of museum curation that knit technological and human skills for selecting, classifying, preserving, contextualizing and crafting content from various online sources in curated narratives — have been identified by mainstream news organizations such as Al Jazeera and freelance journalists as a solution to this problem. Applying an adapted version of the technology acceptance model (TAM) through survey research, this exploratory study examines Swiss journalists’ acceptance of media content curation platforms. The results suggest: (1) positive associations between motivations variables and attitudes; (2) positive associations between attitudes and intention to use media content curation and, contrasting previous findings, (3) no effect of perceived attractiveness on attitudes. This study’s findings suggest new ways to encourage acceptance and use of media content curation platforms among journalists. Professional and theoretical implications are also discussed.
Stay Tuned for More News from Your Friends • Seok Ho Lee, University of Texas at Austin • This study employs an attribute of social network, the strength of closeness, as a predictor for news consumption on Facebook. The evidence suggests that strength of closeness on Facebook contributes to positive attitude and behavioral change on news consumption on Facebook. And, individuals are found to rely on their social relations as news sources as the closeness of friendship grows. Meanwhile, the strength of closeness on Facebook has negative association with heterogeneous news consumption.
Journalism Endures: Has Twitter Changed the News Product? • Shin Haeng Lee • This study examines the effect of social media use by news agencies on their journalistic norms and practices: public service orientation, objectivity, and transparency or accountability. The data are 1,141 stories posted by six mainstream media organizations on Twitter over one constructed week in 2012. Findings show a tendency toward professional, hierarchical journalism; even blog posts have not led to innovative adoption of the horizontal communication patterns of social media. Traditional newsrooms rather co-opt the new technology to connect with digital media users. This study concludes that journalism as an institution normalizes rather than adjusts to the changing media landscape.
The Challenge of Interactive News for a Public Caught in an Online Identity Crisis • Megan Mallicoat, University of Florida • This study examines the effect of publicness on how people interact with online news. In this exploratory experimental study, participants in three conditions were asked to read 10 articles from a news website and write comments on five articles of their choosing. The findings show participants’ personal interests could significantly predict news selection. They also show attempts at self-presentation in comments most frequently utilized the strategies of ingratiation and competence, but intimidation was present also.
The Effect of Heuristic Processing of Online News Columns on Source Credibility and Message Believability Ratings • Amna Al-Abri; Alexandra Merceron, University of Connecticut • This paper draws on established theories of stereotyping to explore how heuristic processing of online news columns influences ratings of source credibility, likability, and dynamism as well as message believability through the activation of stereotypical perceptions.
What journalists retweet: Opinion, humor and brand development on Twitter • Logan Molyneux, University of Texas • Previous studies on Twitter have been quantitative and have found a loosening of traditional journalistic norms on social media. This qualitative study of journalists’ activity on Twitter takes an inductive approach to learn what new behaviors are present there. Findings include a prevalence of opinion and humor, contrary to the journalistic norm of objectivity, but also something new: personal brand development. The concept of brand development on social media is explicated and its implications explored.
Reshaping the journalists-audience relationship. National survey of journalists and their use of Twitter • Magdalena Saldaña, The University of Texas at Austin • Through a national on-line survey of journalists with Twitter accounts, this paper study how journalists use Twitter as a reporting tool, how likely they are to gather information from it, and how they see their followers. From the hierarchical model of influences’ perspective, results show journalists see Twitter as a valid source of ideas and news sources, and their audiences are becoming central to the way they report the news and produce news media content.
Whose public sphere? An analysis of the final comments on a community newspaper’s online forum • Shannon Sindorf, University of Colorado; Anthony Collebrusco, University of Colorado • This paper used content analysis and textual analysis to examine posts made to the online comments forum of a community newspaper after the board was shut down due to editors’ claims that its contents were too uncivil. Comments were analyzed for the amount of substance and civility present. The findings indicate that the majority of posts on the forum were both civil and substantive in nature. Only a handful of users posted most of the comments, indicating that the viewpoints expressed were limited to a very small group. Textual analysis found that discussion of local issues was conducted differently than that surrounding broader, national topics. Local discussion was more measured in tone and generated more civil discourse than did debates over national issues.
Whom do you trust? Comparing the credibility of citizen and traditional journalists • Alecia Swasy; Manu Bhandari, University of Missouri; Edson Tandoc, University of Missouri-Columbia; rachel davis, University of Missouri • Anybody with a video camera and Internet access can become a citizen journalist. But do readers trust untrained citizens to deliver credible news? Using the framework of the MAIN model, this study explored the effects of traditional journalism cues on how young news consumers evaluate online news. Participants rated traditional journalists to be more credible than citizen journalists. Participants also rated straight news articles to be more credible than opinion pieces.
Framing the Egyptian Revolution: An Analysis of the U.K. and U.S. Elite Press • Rodrigo Zamith, University of Minnesota; Stephen Bennett, University of Minnesota; Xiaofei He, University of Minnesota • This study seeks to analyze and compare the coverage of the Egyptian revolution by the elite press in the United Kingdom and the United States. Drawing from framing theory, the authors employ a manual holistic approach to content analysis to assess the salience of frames, the depiction of actors, and selection of sources. The findings reveal an appreciable level of congruence in the coverage, both in terms of the frames they used and the sources they turned to in shaping the coverage. However, significant differences were found for the depictions of the key actors in the revolution and the domestication of the issue.
American Copy Editors Society (ACES) Competition
Are Online Newspapers Inferior Goods or Public Goods? • Louisa Ha, Bowling Green State University; XIAOQUN ZHANG • This study of general population and college students in 2012 in a local newspaper market examines the use of online and print newspapers to determine the relationship between online and print newspaper readership and whether online newspapers are inferior goods or public goods. The data did not support the inferior good hypothesis in both samples, contradicting the findings of earlier research. Newspaper executives are recommended to set different expectations for their print products and online products.
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