International Communication 2014 Abstracts
Markham Student Paper Competition
Aging: A Comparative Content Analysis of China Daily and The New York Times • Krystin Anderson, University of Florida; Anthony Eseke, University of Florida; Yiqian Ma, University of Florida • This study investigates coverage of population aging and older adults in The New York Times and the China Daily through content analysis of articles from October 1, 2012 through September 30, 2013. From a framing analysis perspective divided into main frame, identification of problem and solution, use of older adult sources, and article and source tone, this study finds a tendency to blame business in the Times, but an emphasis on empty nest concerns, more older adults sources, and a more positive tone in the Daily.
Going Global: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of East Asian Brands on Twitter • Krystin Anderson, University of Florida; Linwan Wu; Naa Amponsah Dodoo, University of Florida • This paper used Twitter as a platform to analyze the global branding strategies of nine East Asian brands, focusing especially on the use of cultural referents either to the nation of origin (NOO) or to an English-speaking nation (ESN), and the cultural values of individualism or collectivism. It used content analysis to compare brands originating in three different nations and three different industries and found significant differences in cultural referents along both dimensions.
Framing corruption in the Chinese government: A comparison of frames between media, government, and netizens • Simin Michelle Chen; Yadan Zhang • This use of microblogging sites frequently pose a challenge to the party’s ability to manipulate information and control its reputation in the event of malfeasance. This paper uses framing theory and content analysis to compare frames employed by the news media, government, and netizens on Sina Weibo, on the topic of corruption in the Chinese government. Results show partial differences in frames between netizens, government, and news media.
The Networked Interpretive Community: Online viewing of American late-night talk shows by young Chinese audience • Di Cui • This study examined how young online viewers in China made sense of American late-night talk shows. I conceptualize online viewers as a “networked interpretive community”, which is buttressed by high Internet connectedness and a relatively homogeneous online culture in China. By analyzing online comments, forum discussions, and interviews, I argue the networked interpretive community offered Chinese viewers two basic sense-making strategies—playfulness and contentiousness—to interpret late-night talk shows contextually. Implications are discussed.
Shifting Responsibilities: Women, Development and Video Games • Jolene Fisher • The Half the Sky Movement, aimed at “turning oppression into opportunity for women worldwide,” launched its awareness and fundraising Facebook game in 2013. With the popularity of social media games on the rise, this trend marks a new technological moment in the international development industry—one with interesting implications for how development is carried out, and by whom. This paper analyses the game and its impacts on international development and the role of women.
Colombian Journalists on Twitter: Objectivity, Gatekeeping and Transparency • Victor Garcia, University of Texas at Austin • This paper examines how the 100 most-followed Colombian journalists on Twitter move away from their traditional journalistic norms and practices when covering a controversial politician, former president Alvaro Uribe. Through a content analysis, this study shows that journalists negatively evaluate Uribe. They are also willing to openly share their opinion around the politician. It also found that journalists who work for elite-traditional media tend to be more in accord with norms compared with non-elite reporters.
Coupling From the Past: Sports Journalism, Collective Memory, and Globalization • Ju Oak Kim, Temple University • This article investigates the ways in which sports journalists make a pair of Major League Baseball players cross time and space in a history-making way. Narrative analysis was employed to examine the connection between two legendary players – Hyun-Jin Ryu and Chan-ho Park, Korean pitchers who played in MLB, and Clayton Kershaw and Sandy Koufax who are considered franchise stars of the LA Dodgers. News coverage of these players indicates how sports writers created the heroic narrative to maintain cultural traditions and social identities.
A Journey from Nepal to Exploitation: A Comparative Analysis of Labor Rights Coverage in the Guardian, Gulf Times, and The Kathmandu Post • Elizabeth Lance, Northwestern University in Qatar; Ivana Vasic Chalmers • Employing ethnographic content analysis within the context of media systems, this paper examines labor rights coverage in Qatar in three newspapers: The Guardian (Britain), Gulf Times (Qatar) and The Kathmandu Post (Nepal). By examining the predominant frames, themes and discourse as well as the broader media system in which the coverage was produced, this paper offers a striking illustration of how divergent interests in labor practices of three countries are reflected in their news coverage.
Framing #VemPraRua: The 2013 Brazilian Protests on News Websites, Blogs And Twitter • Rachel Reis Mourao, The University of Texas at Austin • In 2013, thousands of Brazilians took to the streets in massive protests encompassing an array of grievances. Drawing on the work of Hertog and McLeod (2001), this paper compares the evolution of media and audience frames online as the protests unfolded. Computerized content analyses of news stories, blog entries and Twitter posts suggest that traditional media outlets predominantly used the “riot” frame, but increasingly adopted legitimizing frames as demands become more generalized and publically popular.
Mediating nation-ness: Nationhood and national identity in Indian and Pakistani media, 1947-1997 • Saif Shahin, The University of Texas at Austin; Paromita Pain, The University of Texas at Austin • This paper charts the role of news media in sustaining India and Pakistan as “nations” over a 50-year period since their independence. It develops a theoretical model to study the “mediation of nation-ness”—a complex process that requires both the reification of nationhood and the negotiation of national identities—and provides empirical support for it. It distinguishes different phases of national identity for each nation, illustrating the dialectical relationship between their “mediated” and “material” realities.
The Case of Female Genital Cutting: Newspaper Coverage in Ghana, The Gambia, Kenya and the United States • Meghan Sobel, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Media play an important role in explaining female genital cutting (FGC) to the public and policymakers. This quantitative content analysis analyzed 15 years of newspaper coverage of FGC in four countries with varying FGC rates: the U.S., Ghana, The Gambia and Kenya. The study found that coverage is minimal and inconsistent, so if media are to fulfill their watchdog role with regards to FGC, an increase in coverage and wider range of frames are needed.
Anti-Corruption Movement on Sina Weibo: Chinese Social Media and Citizen Empowerment • Yin Wu, Syracuse University • This qualitative study examines the role of Sina Weibo in a recent online anti-corruption movement, specifically about how it can empower each participant in civic engagement. Applying social movement theory and textual analysis, this study analyzes over 800 Weibo comments. The ordinary citizens are empowered to express independent opinions. Not very clear about the power of Weibo, they recognize that it facilitates the movement by allowing interactive communications, efficiently connecting them together.
Latin America in the Associated Press: A Longitudinal Analysis of Contextual Predictors of Visibility • Rodrigo Zamith • This study investigates the effects of five contextual factors on the visibility of 22 Latin American countries in the Associated Press over 30 years. Only one factor, diplomatic significance, was found to be a strong predictor over the entire timespan. Other factors, such as economic significance and geographic distance, exerted significant effects in some periods, but not others. These findings illustrate that while contextual factors may serve as useful predictors, their predictive capacities are volatile.
Robert L. Stevenson Open Paper Competition
Covering A Multi-Action Conflict As It Develops: An Examination of the Dynamic Framing of the Jos Crisis in Three Nigerian Newspapers • Ngozi Agwaziam, Southern Illinois University; Li Zeng, Arkansas State University • This study examines the coverage of the Jos crisis in a largely under-studied press, the Nigerian press. Using the theoretical framework of a two-dimensional frame-changing model by Chyi and McCombs (2004) and the three-stage crisis coverage model by Graber (2002), this study focuses on how three influential Nigerian daily newspapers (the Punch, the Guardian and Thisday) portrayed the 2010-2011 Jos crisis during its four-month lifespan. It suggests that an event with multiple action points will produce different frame-changing patterns compared to an event with a single point of action. The findings are also discussed with reference to the unique media landscape in Nigeria.
MEDIA AND POLITICS BEYOND POST-COMMUNISM: The impact of structural conditions on journalist-politician relationships in the Western Balkans • Lindita Camaj • This comparative study examines the relationship between journalists and politicians in South-Eastern Europe, emphasizing structural contexts. It is based on sixty in-depth interviews with journalists from Albania, Kosovo, and Montenegro. Journalist-politicians relationship has evolved into a complex two-way communication, marked by cooperation and tensions that derive from media instrumentalization and clientelist relationships. The lack of uniform relationship between journalists and political elites challenges assumptions that media clientelism in Eastern Europe is a stable and predictable system.
Paradigm Repair: The Indian News Media’s Response to the “Radia Tapes” Scandal • Kalyani Chadha, University of Maryland; Michael Koliska • In late 2010, a series of tapes containing damaging conversations between thirty Indian journalists and a leading lobbyist for major business interests became public. The tapes revealed how journalists violated fundamental norms of their professional paradigm such as impartiality and objectivity, in conversations where they agreed to act in ways helpful to the lobbyists’ clients. This paper explores how Indian news media responded to these revelations using the concept of paradigm repair through image restoration.
Connecting Across Space: Toward a Theory of Media Dispersion • Brian Creech, Temple University • This essay considers the role of space in global media studies, offering the term dispersion as a conceptual category for dealing with the way media products spread that does not limit communication to a process dependent upon global forces. Instead, scholars need a conceptual vocabulary sensitive to scale in media processes that accounts for the conditions under which media practices and processes spread. To illustrate, three brief cases are discussed.
“Working with the People:” The Urban-Rural Media Divide in Post-genocide Rwanda • Sally Ann Cruikshank, Auburn University • Following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, in which the media played a significant role, the government enacted strict media laws that have led to a climate of self-censorship. This study examined the processes of agenda building and frame building from the perspective of Rwandan media professionals. According to respondents, the government strongly influences the media agenda, although differences emerged between rural and urban media outlets. The implications of these findings are discussed at length.
Visual Framing of Muslim Women in the Arab Spring • Shugofa Dastgeer, Graduate student at the University of Oklahoma; Peter Gade, Professor at the University of Oklahoma • This content analysis of still images explores how leading media from the U.S. and Middle East (CNN and Al-Jazeera) visually framed Muslim women during the Arab Spring. The findings indicate that both media framed Muslim women as active participants in the political unrest; however, Al-Jazeera portrayed Muslim women as active significantly more than CNN. The results contrast sharply with previous studies of portrayals of Muslim women in Western media, especially in the post 9/11 era.
Digital Advantage: Bilingual Arabic English Web Searchers Outperform Monolingual Arabic Speakers • Susan Dun, Northwestern University in Qatar; Hazar Eskandar, Northwestern University in Qatar • Internet users must be digitally literate to successfully utilize Web resources. Age, education, gender, and Web habits are related to digital literacy, but there have been few attempts to explore what difference language proficiency makes for surfing the Web efficiently. We predicted and found that bilingual Arabic English speaking Web searchers were more digitally literate than monolingual Arabic speakers using observational methods, suggesting that bilingualism does improve digital literacy levels among native Arabic speakers.
The Art of Visual Parody: African Cartoon Representations of African First Ladies. • Lyombe Eko • African cartoons were active participants in the struggle for freedom of expression and democracy in the post-cold War era. This study analyzed Sub-Saharan African print and online newspaper cartoon representations of African first ladies. The analysis was carried out within the framework of the perspective of gender and power and critical journalistic couching of reality. Cartoons of African first ladies were barbed visual narratives that satirized these powerful women whose lifestyles and high-profile political activities and abuse of power are contrary to that of the generous and nurturing “primordial mothers” that many Africans expected them to be.
Facebook Friends and the Perception of a Shrunken World • Michael Elasmar, Boston University • A 2011 study by a group of researchers working with Facebook analyzed connections among Facebook users and concluded that the distances among Facebook user –connections– were shrinking over time. The present study aims at uncovering how Facebook users perceive global distances in their minds. Self-report measures were designed to capture various aspects of Facebook usage and capture the users’ mental representation of distances on planet earth. The measures were administered to approximately 500 undergraduate students. A simple process model best describes the relationships uncovered: The more Facebook friends an individual has, the more likely he/she also has Facebook friends living in other countries. The more Facebook friends from other countries an individual has, the more likely she/he is exposed to information about the lives of these friends shared on Facebook. The more exposed an individual is to information about the lives of Facebook friends from other countries, the more this individual is aware of what is going on in the lives of these friends who live in other countries. And the more aware an individual is of what is going on in the lives of his/her Facebook friends who live in other countries, the shorter are the distances in this individual’s cognitive world map. In effect, these findings strongly suggest that using Facebook can contribute to a shrinking of the world as viewed by the minds of Facebook users. The effect detected is most likely part of a process labeled: Incidental Volume-Driven Modification of Cognitive Structures.
One Country, Two Eras: How Three Egyptian Newspapers Framed Two Presidents • Mohamad Elmasry, The University of North Alabama; Mohammed el-Nawawy, Queens University of Charlotte • This content analysis of three elite Egyptian dailies contributes to the ongoing debate about media freedom and performance during Egypt’s one-year Mohamed Morsi era by providing an empirical measure of Morsi era press coverage patterns. The content analysis uses a coding scheme developed by Elmasry (2012), who designed the coding scheme to study the Egyptian press in 2008, late in the Hosni Mubarak era. In an effort to provide a type of direct, before-and-after comparison, this research explicitly compares findings from the 2013 Morsi era to those found by Elmasry (2012) representing the 2008 Mubarak era. Results suggest that there may have been greater degrees of political diversity, openness, and inclusiveness in Egypt in 2013 than in 2008. In 2013, the Morsi administration was covered in a highly critical manner by the independent Al-Masry al-Yom and opposition Al-Wafd. Reportage in both papers tended to be significantly more critical of Morsi in 2013 than of Mubarak in 2008. Also, the government-owned Al-Ahram seemed to abandon – to a considerable extent – the government mouthpiece role it maintained during the Mubarak era.
The Framing of China in the Opinion Pages of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal • Guy J. Golan, Syracuse University; Josephine Lukito, Syracuse University • Newspaper editorials and Op-Ed provide an important platform for the debate of salient issues that informs both elites and newspaper readers. The current study examines how two elite American newspapers framed China in their opinion pages. The results of our content analysis of 249 editorials and Op-Eds point to similarities in the overall framing of China in the two ideologically divergent newspapers. Both newspapers focused their discussion of China on the nation’s economy, relations with the United States and internal political issues. The tone of coverage in both newspapers was mostly negative where China was presented as a rival rather than a friend. The results of our analysis are discussed in the context of government-media elite discourse and its potential implications on public opinion.
Developing an Analytical Model of Transnational Journalism Culture • Lea Hellmueller • National borders may no longer draw distinctions among journalism cultures, but differences in journalism cultures might be based on cultural, linguistic, and ethnic criteria, which may cross over national borders and affect the way we conceptualize journalism culture. This paper develops an analytical model of transnational journalism, an undertaking much needed to set a theoretical framework to empirically investigate transnational journalism cultures and to understand how globalization has affected the core of journalism—its culture.
Exploring the Role of Internet Use on Citizen Attitudes toward Democracy in Six Arabic Countries • Toby Hopp; Jolene Fisher • The current study explored the relationship between Internet use, national Internet penetration rate, and citizen attitudes toward democracy in six Arabic countries. Using a series of multi-level models and representative samples from Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Yemen, and Palestine (total n = 6,902), the results suggested that individual Internet use is positively related to the development of democratic attitudes but that this relationship diminishes as national Internet penetration rate rises.
Borrowing the news and spreading officialdom: the work of the Big Three • Beverly Horvit, University of Missouri; Mikkel Christensen, University of Missouri • A content analysis of a random 28-day sample of Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters international news stories (N=450) shows that one-third of their reports include news “borrowed” from domestic news organizations. The most borrowed news came from Western Europe. Official sources also led coverage almost regardless of a story’s subject. The Associated Press used significantly more U.S. official sources than its European peers and also domesticated its stories for a U.S. audience significantly more.
Social Capital and Relationship Maintenance: Uses of Social Media among the South Asian Diaspora in the U.S. • Delwar Hossain, Southern Illinois University Carbondale; Aaron Veenstra, Southern Illinois University Carbondale • This study uses the framework of bridging and bonding social capital to explore how South Asian immigrants to the U.S. negotiate relationships amongst three social groups: their ties in their home country, their ties to Americans, and their ties to other South Asian immigrants living in the U.S. In so doing, it develops a model for immigrant social media use that contributes to an ongoing reassessment of the notion of community.
Empowering the Public to Challenge the Status Quo? Online Political Expression, Nationalism, and System Support in China • Ki Deuk Hyun; Jinhee Kim • To illuminate the role of user-generated online communication for social change and control in China, this study investigates how online political expression among Chinese Internet users relates to their nationalistic attitudes and support of the status quo. An analysis of survey data demonstrates that online political expression, facilitated by news consumption, enhances support for the existing sociopolitical system both directly and indirectly through nationalism.
The Scramble for African Media: Reuters, Thomson and Britain in the 1960s • John Jenks • In the early post-colonial Africa the British government encouraged and subsidized London-based media to expand in Africa to forestall competitors and preserve British influence in a classic case of media imperialism. The Reuters news agency used a secret subsidy to widen its coverage, add French services, and sign most independent governments as clients. Canadian newspaper millionaire Roy Thomson invested heavily in African media and education in the 1960s as he sought and won a peerage.
Effect of Television News Viewing on Risk Perception: Focusing on the Coverage of Mad Cow Disease in South Korea • Eun-Hwa Jung, The Pennsylvania State University; Jinhong Ha, Daegu University • This study examined how watching television news coverage of mad cow disease influenced risk perception of the disease. By employing the uses and gratifications perspective and cultivation theory, a survey revealed that individuals motivated by information seeking perceived more risk toward the mad cow disease. Additionally, the viewing satisfaction and frequency of television news coverage of mad cow disease lead to greater risk perception. The research implications and limitations are discussed for future research.
Country Reputation Management: Developing a Scale for Measuring the Reputation of Four African Countries in the United States • Dane Kiambi, College of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Autumn Shafer, Texas Tech University • This study extends the development of country reputation measurement to other cultural contexts, specifically among African countries that have spent millions of dollars in an effort to improve their reputations in the U.S. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis was conducted using second-order latent variables, and based on the goodness-of-fit indices, it was established that all the four models of the four countries – Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, and Angola – met the data fit criteria thus validating the instrument.
The Transparency Norm in German Newsrooms • Michael Koliska; Kalyani Chadha, University of Maryland • Transparency as a new norm in journalism is gaining increasingly wider institutional acceptance in particular in the United States. In contrast very little is known how news organizations abroad embrace this new norm. This paper explores how transparency is perceived and implemented in newsrooms in Germany. Interviews with journalists from ten leading news organizations indicate that transparency in Germany has still a long way to go before it can be considered an institutional norm.
Role of Elite News Sources in Shaping Coverage of HIV/AIDS • Ammina Kothari, Rochester Institute of Technology • This study examines the role of news sources as gatekeepers in shaping the coverage of HIV/AIDS stories in Tanzania. Interviews with sources most frequently quoted in the stories published by two mainstream newspapers show how organizations use media training opportunities and seminars to recruit a loyal group of journalists. As a result, journalists are turned into advocates for evolving causes via their participation in various seminars and training programs focusing on specific goals of individual organizations.
Youth, Digital Literacy & Divides: A U.S. – China Comparative Study • Yunjuan Luo, Texas Tech University; Randy Reddick, Texas Tech University; Sha Li, Texas Tech University • This study compares levels of digital literacy between Americans and Chinese 18-29 years old and explores cross-cultural differences and similarities in how contingent factors (e.g. social demographics, learning source) impact digital literacy. Through national surveys in both countries, the study found that American youth had a higher level of digital literacy than did Chinese youth. Education, home device availability, and self-taught learning were found to positively affect digital literacy in both U.S. and China.
Elections as conflict: Framing study of the 2012 Parliamentary Elections in Georgia • Maia Mikashavidze, University of South Carolina; Nino Danelia, University of South Carolina; Sei-Hill Kim • This study analyzes news frames used in the coverage of the 2012 Parliamentary Elections in Georgia by pro-government 24 Saati (n=137) and critical Resonansi (n=225). The newspapers were most likely to frame the elections in a conflict between the government and the opposition, rather than presenting them as strategic game or issue frames. These findings can be explained by the leader-oriented politics and the lack of democratic tradition in the post-Soviet world.
Individual or Social? News Framing of Obesity in the United States and Japan • Suman Mishra, Southern Illinois University; Hiromi Maenaka, Akita International University • Japan has an obesity problem of only 3.4% in its populous but has instituted one of the strictest laws on obesity in the world, while in the United States obesity affects nearly 34.3% of the population yet there is still a debate on what policies to implement. This study aims to understand how national context, culture, economics and politics shape news framing of obesity in United States and Japan. It compares obesity-related news reports from United States and Japan to understand similarities and differences in problem definition, causal interpretation, and/or solution. The findings show that culture and political interests shape news reporting on obesity.
International Trust and Public Diplomacy • kirsten Mogensen, Roskilde University • “Countries struggle to find ways to be perceived as trustworthy by people around the world because trust is linked to efficiency, business opportunities and political influence. This paper is based on case studies of five Public Diplomacy activities: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s letter in The Washington Post (2013); Denmark’s trust-building effort in Pakistan following the so-called “Muhammad crisis” (from 2010); The British Council’s strategy for trust-building in China (2012); Russian President Vladimir Putin’s letter in The New York Times (2013), and the USA’s trust-building effort in Turkey (from 2006). The best results have been obtained where Public Diplomacy has been linked to successful traditional diplomacy at state-level (Iran) or has created a framework for people-to-people relations (Denmark, UK and USA). A backlash was experienced in the case where a foreign state leader patronized the national leader (Russia). In all cases, respect for people in other countries despite differences in culture seems fundamental for a Public Diplomacy initiative to succeed. A central concept in the paper is International Trust as described by Brewer, Gross, Aday and Willnat (2004).
Internet wags the world: Understanding web-credibility in the context of citizen journalism, micro-blogs, and the Iranian Green Revolution • Shahira Fahmy, University of Arizona; Rico Neumann, UN mandated University for Peace • The current experiment examines how webpage type (Twitter; Blog) and journalist type (Citizen; Traditional) influence both source and information credibility of a story embedded in a conflict setting: the Iranian election protests (2009-2010). Results indicate that participants could not differentiate between journalist types, providing evidence that the use of the Internet for such news is blurring the line between these types of journalists. The current study found that both source and information credibility were higher in the blog condition, compared to the Twitter condition. Interest in the Iranian Green Revolution was positively associated with source and information credibility. Overall results offer a broader understanding of the intertwined relationship among level of expertise, channel characteristics, and conflict. The current study contributes to the extant web credibility research through the examination of how message characteristics influence source and information credibility within public upheavals and crisis settings.
Image of an “Unfriendly” Neighbor: Coverage of China in the Philippine Press • Zengjun Peng, St Cloud State University, Xi’an International Studies University; Yu Chen, Xi’an International Studies University; Wei Li • By content analyzing news stories form two elite Philippine newspapers, this study examined the pattern and characteristics underlying representation of China in the Philippine news media. Results show a dominance of conflict stories and a heavy reliance on Western news agencies in the overall coverage. The tone of coverage was more negative than positive. No significant differences were found between the staff stories and the wire stories.
Acceptance of American Values among Croatian Adolescents: A Test of Cognitive-Functional Theory of Television Effects • Iveta Imre, Western Carolina University; Ivanka Pjesivac, University of Georgia, Athens • This survey (N= 487) examined the extent to which Croatian adolescents accepted American cultural values portrayed on television programs. Testing the cognitive-functional theory of media effects, the study found that young Croatians completely internalized five values: enjoyment of wealth, acceptance of change, equality, individualism, and obedience of authority. The study shows influence of American television on acceptance of cultural values, most of which were not previously present in the culture of this Eastern European country.
Comparing Metropolitan Journalism: An analysis of news in Toulouse, France and Seattle, Washington • Matthew Powers, University of Washington; Olivier Baisnee; Sandra Vera Zambrano • This paper presents the first stage of a comparative analysis of metropolitan journalism in Toulouse, France and Seattle, Washington. Drawing on interviews and publicly available data, it shows that the nature and extent of the crisis is greatest in Seattle; that enduring national regulatory contexts shape different responses to the financial challenges facing news organizations in both cities; and that national models of “quality” journalism do not correspond to metropolitan visions in either case.
Covering Africa (2004-2013): U.S. linkages in New York Times coverage of Nigeria, Ethiopia and Botswana • Meghan Sobel, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Daniel Riffe, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This study revisits the role of conflict and U.S. interests in New York Times international coverage, focusing on Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Botswana, three nations with varying levels of economic ties to the U.S. Data demonstrate that country’s economic ties relate to amount of coverage, and that an event’s explicitly reported “linkage” to U.S. interests relates to diverse topics covered. Coverage produced by Times staff was twice as likely as wire services to indicate linkage.
Differential Effects of Information-rich and Information-poor Internet Use on Citizens’ Demand for Democracy • Elizabeth Stoycheff, Wayne State University; Erik Nisbet; Dmitry Epstein • This study seeks to reconcile the competing perspectives of Internet utopians and dystopians who fundamentally disagree with the role new media plays in the democratic process. Using a comparative survey of Internet users in two nondemocratic Eastern European countries, we classified online behavior as either information-rich or information-poor. Information-rich Internet use had a conditional positive effect on democratic attitudes, while information-poor Internet use lead to more entrenched authoritarian worldviews.
Audience Fragmentation On The World Wide Web • harsh taneja • Audience fragmentation is a highly visible outcome of the explosion in media choices. Given the ubiquitous availability of the World Wide Web, fragmentation is now visible on a global scale, but has been rarely studied in a global context. This study addresses the gap by advocating a framework that integrates theories of media choice with theories of global cultural consumption. It analyzes audience traffic between the top 1000 websites globally, using network analysis. The findings suggest that audiences fragment according to language and geography of the websites rather than their content genres.
Eyes 1, Brain 0: Securitization in text, image and news topic • Fred Vultee, Wayne State University; Marta Lukacovic, Wayne State University; Ryan Stouffer • This study seeks to extend the connections between securitization theory and the study of media framing. An experiment using news stories addressing international and transnational topics finds a broad overall effect of securitizing discourse on perceptions of threat and urgency. Addressing calls to consider the impact of images as well as language, the study also finds that image choice affects news processing and, depending on the reader’s political orientation, the effectiveness of a mediated securitizing move.
Role of information processing sources on knowledge of climate change: A Singapore perspective • Xiaohui Wang, Nanyang Technological University; Sherly Haristya, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information, Nanyang Technological University; Khasfariyati Razikin, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University; Shirley Ho, Nanyang Technological University • In this paper, we utilize the heuristic-systematic information processing model (HSM) to explain the ways in which Singaporeans obtain information and acquire knowledge on climate change from different sources. The first contribution is to examine the involvement of interpersonal discussion and news for climate change knowledge. The second contribution is to understand the differences between heuristic and systematic processing for climate change. Our analyses showed that there are differences in the way climate change issues are processed.
Digital Women Around the World: An Exploration of Their Attitudes Toward Mobile Life • Regina Lewis, The University of Alabama; Brandi Watkins, Virginia Tech • Segmentation is conducted on women aged 18-49 in the United States, China, Japan, Spain and the United Kingdom. Also, this study addresses attitudes held by “digital native” mobile users and “digital immigrant” mobile users (Shade, 2007). Analysis reveals four distinct U.S. clusters of mobile women, and finds that group membership varies widely across countries. The authors[s] also identify mobile aesthetic, social, and stress creation variables, and find distinct attitudinal differences across age groups.
Crisis Communication in Context: Cultural influence and institutional impact underpinning Chinese public relations practice • Yi-Hui Huang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Fang Wu; Yang Cheng • This study describes crisis communication in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan by analyzing academic articles published between 1999 and 2012. Crisis communication is studied in these regions in an attempt to see how it interacts with both culture and politics. Findings suggested that governmental crisis communication is paramount, most likely due to the following characteristics of Chinese CCS: governmental authoritarianism suppresses uncertainty and causes unhealthy corporate-government relationships, leading to unique Chinese PR strategies.
Framing the crisis by one’s seat: A comparative study of newspaper frames of the Asiana Crash in the U.S., Korea, and China • Yan Yan; Yeojin Kim, University of Alabama; Yuhong Dong • This study compared newspaper frames of the 2013 Asiana Airlines crash in the three countries involved: the U.S., Korea, and China. The results revealed distinct patterns of news coverage under the particular influence of national interests. News frames, sources, story valence, attribution of responsibility, and story emotion were all varied across countries. U.S. and Korean took opposite side against each other, while Chinese newspapers were relatively neutral in news coverage of the crash.
The Globalization of Chinese News Programs: Challenges and Opportunities—A Country of Origin Perspective • Kenneth “C.C.” Yang, The University of Texas at El Paso; Yowei Kang • This study employed theoretical constructs from country-of-origin and cultural proximity literatures to explain U.S. audience’s perceptions of Chinese news programs and contents. Our study used an online questionnaire survey method to collect data from 236 students in a large public U.S. university. Linear regression analyses found that, cultural proximity was an important predictor. However, perceived animosity was not found to be a significant predictor of U.S. audience’s viewing behaviors of news programs and contents from China.
Information control and negotiations: Political impression management of the Chinese Premier’s Press Conference • YAN YI, Department of Politics, East China Normal University • By addressing political impression management according to the two most influential symbolic interactionist viewpoints—the dramaturgical approach and the negotiated order approach, this study seeks to explore those backstage behaviors concerning information control and negotiations between the Chinese government and journalists from different places over the questioning opportunities, to ascertain how the Chinese political images have been managed through the Chinese Premier’s Press Conference (CPPC) over the past 20 years. Given the CPPC’s specific overlapping structural and situational contexts, I argue that some unwritten rules, for example, the countries or regions the journalists come from, the media properties and the personal relationships, play a crucial role in deciding and negotiating “who can ask” and “what to ask” at the press conference. As such, part of the organization of the CPPC could be considered as the result of negotiated order. This leads us to rethink how political power exercises in a special-cultural context through controlling, influencing, and sustaining definitions of a situation, in conformity with which others can only act in the manner prescribed.
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