Cads,Dads, and Magazines: Women's Sexual Preferences and Articles about Sex and Relationships

The framing of sexual content in women's magazines reflect two different approaches to the selection of a romantic partner: the selection of (a) a stable partner for a long-term relationship vs. (b) an attractive rogue for a fling. The effects of such framing on women's partner preferences were explored in this laboratory experiment. Women with different relationship goals were randomly assigned to read an article from a women's lifestyle magazine (Cosmopolitan) that framed sex in either relational or recreational terms before completing explicit and implicit measures of partner trait preferences. Article frame did affect the importance of appearance-related traits in a potential romantic partner as well as implicit preferences for frame-consistent partner traits. Results are discussed in terms of media framing effects.     

The effect of plot explicit,educational explicit,and implicit inference information and coviewing on children's internal and external cognitive processing

Parental coviewing – the act of being present when a child is watching television – can influence the child’s cognitive processing and emotional reactions. This study investigated the role coviewing has on the child’s cognitive processing – which is evidenced by the phasic psychophysiological orienting response to three types of information: plot explicit, educational explicit, and implicit inference. An experiment was conducted that measured the heart rate of children (N?=?88; mean age?=?9.12 years) while watching messages either with or without a parent present in the room. It was predicted, and found, that coviewing leads to greater resource allocation to encoding the message – as indicated by phasic cardiac deceleration, and that information that required internal processing, such as plot explicit or implicit inferential content, leads to greater resources allocated to internal processing – as indicated by phasic cardiac acceleration. Implications for parental mediation strategies and educational television programming are given.     

Impact of Popularity Indications on Readers' Selective Exposure to Online News

Selecting news online may differ from traditional news choices, as most formal importance indicators in traditional media do not convert directly to online news. However, online portals feature news recommendations based on collaborative filtering. To investigate how recommendations affect information choices, 93 participants browsed online news that featured explicit (average rating) or implicit (times viewed) recommendations or no recommendations (control group) while news exposure was logged. Participants picked more articles if the portal featured explicit recommendations, and stronger explicit recommendations instigated longer exposure to associated articles. Implicit recommendations produced a curvilinear effect with longer exposure for low and high numbers.     

Boys Will Be Boys and Girls Better Be Prepared: An Analysis of the Rare Sexual Health Messages in Young Adolescents' Media

Despite concerns about high rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease in the United States, the mass media adolescents attend to most frequently include little accurate information about sexual health. In this study, a preliminary quantitative analysis of the sexual content in four media (television, magazines, music, and movies) popular among 3,261 Black and White adolescents (12–14 years old) found that less than one half of 1% of the content included information about or depictions of sexually healthy behavior. A qualitative analysis of the relatively rare instances of sexual health content revealed that across all four media the sexual health content was ambiguous and/or inaccurate, reinforced traditional gender stereotypes that males seek sex and females are responsible for protection against pregnancy, and presented puberty as funny and contraception as embarrassing or humiliating. These analyses suggest that significant changes in the media's presentations of sexuality would be required if the media are ever to be considered a healthy part of adolescents' sexual socialization.     

MEDIA COVERAGE AND THE FLOW OF VOTERS IN MULTIPARTY SYSTEMS: THE 1994 NATIONAL ELECTIONS IN HOLLAND AND GERMANY

Positive news is advantageous for a party, but the effects ofnegative news are less obvious, especially in a multiparty system.One possibility is an indecisionmodel in which negative informationwould push voters to the undecided category. An alternativeis a proportional model in which voters would move to otherparties in proportion to their share of the vote. A third scenariowould correspond to a proximity model in which the shift wouldbe to parties holding viewpoints similar to those of the criticizedparty. The three models were tested using the ideodynamic modelor the 1994 elections in the Netherlands and Germany. The explanatoryvariables were content analysis data obtained daily for majorprint and electronic news media. The dependent variable wasweekly survey data of party preferences of voters. The analysisshowed the proportional model to be the least plausible withthe proximity model being promising. Campaign strategists startingfrom the proximity model will both promote negative news aboutother parties and adopt their issue positions.     

Islamophobia in China: news coverage,stereotypes, and Chinese Muslims’ perceptions of themselves and Islam

An analysis spanning 10 years of news reports about Muslims and Islam in Chinese state news media (N?=?15,427) demonstrates that Chinese news reports project an overall negative view of Muslims. An implicit association test performed in the non-Muslim Chinese population (N?=?1479) reveals negative stereotypes of Muslims. In addition, a survey of Chinese Muslims (N?=?384) shows that they perceive negative coverage of Muslims and Islam in Chinese media, and that real-life discrimination might be a consequence of such negative stereotyping. This study reveals that (1) there is an overall negative framing of news coverage of Muslims and Islam; (2) non-Muslim Chinese hold a negative stereotype of Muslims and Islam; (3) Chinese Muslims are cognizant of a negative media portrayal of Islam and of themselves; and (4) some Muslim Chinese experience discrimination in their daily lives. The present study contributes to the literature on global Islamophobia, a phenomenon that is understudied in China.     

Mirroring the Media: The Relationship Between Media Consumption,Media Internalization,and Profile Picture Characteristics on Facebook

Social cognitive theory suggests that stereotypes of attractiveness from mainstream media may function as models for online profile pictures. The present study explores the relationship between media consumption, internalization, and body-ism, clothing, and gaze through a content analysis of the Facebook profile pictures of 288 students, and a survey to assess their media consumption and internalization. The relationship between magazine exposure and pictures was mediated by internalization: magazine readers who internalized media ideals were more likely to select pictures showing their body in revealing clothing. Television viewing had a direct effect on picture selection, but was not mediated by internalization.     

THE PRESS AND THE POLLS IN GERMANY, 1980-1994 POLL COVERAGE AS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF ELECTION CAMPAIGN REPORTING

Since their beginnings pre-election polls have been under attackfrom politicians and journalists. One of the most fundamentalcriticisms of polls is that they can influence the outcome ofelections. This article investigates news media reporting ofpoll results and comments on public opinion research beforeFederal elections in Germany. It presents empirical findingsfor the quantity as well as the formal and substantial qualityof this press coverage. The database is a content analysis of443 pre-election poll articles published in Germany's leadingdailies Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Frankfurter Rundschau(FR), Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), and Die Welt (Welt) between1980 and 1994. The quantity of news media reporting of publicopinion polls has improved over the years. Now, poll storiesare a standard feature of German newspapers. The frequency ofreports depends on the conditions of each election—e.g.on the expected closeness of the election outcome. The formalquality could be better—that is the conformity to AAPORstandards. Horse-race journalism isn't found as often as inthe USA. Journalists often use poll results to predict an electionoutcome. Moreover, the analysis revealed an ambivalent relationshipbetween liberal journalists and polls, while the reporting ofconservative journalists is more in favor of opinion research.     

Competing Ethos: Reliance on Profit Versus Social Responsibility By Laypeople Planning a Television Newscast

The criterion that news be socially responsible at times conflicts with the criterion that the news be profitable. Working in groups, laypeople constructed a local newscast, choosing from 27 hypothetical but realistic news stories. Their negotiations reflected an implicit (and sometimes explicit) conflict between social responsibility and profitability as criteria for their decisions. Ultimately, the profitability criterion remained unquestioned, and participants' sense that the news should be socially responsible was conflicted and ambivalent.     

Writing About Women: An Examination of How Content for Women Is Determined in Newspapers

This study examines how news producers determine content that particularly interests women readers, along with how community- and organizational-level factors may influence those depictions. A Web survey of 145 newspaper editors and reporters found that newspapers that focus on enterprise reporting also subscribe to the importance of content for women, as do newspapers with editors who believe that women's topics are important to readers. Implications for the findings are discussed.     

Television Doctors: An Analysis of Physicians in Fictional and Non-Fictional Television Programs

Although fictional television traditionally has portrayed doctors positively, recent fictional programming appears to portray physicians in a less positive manner. It has also been suggested that these images may conflict with depictions of doctors found on non-fictional television. A content analysis conducted here indicates that television's physician portrayals are less positive than they were in 1992, contemporary genres differ in their physician depictions, and television's doctor portrayals do not differ according to sex or race.     

Phases of Mediatization

As election campaigns changed substantially in Western countries, it is generally hypothesized that this change in campaign communication is rooted in a revolution in communications, with the media rejecting its former role as mere transmitters and becoming a major actor in the campaigning process. Regarding the analysis of the “mediatization of politics”, Strömbäck presented a four phases model which offers a way to explore such a process in an explicit and systematic fashion. The resulting struggle between political parties and the media over who shall control the agendas of campaigns forces politicians to adapt to and, finally, to adopt media logic. By operationalizing these four phases in order to allow for empirical research, we investigated the roles of the news media and the political parties in Austrian campaign communication in the last four decades. Taking the agenda-setting power as an indicator for changes in this relationship, our study is based on the concepts of agenda-building and policy agenda-setting as extensions of the agenda-setting model. To establish party and media agendas, a content analysis was conducted on news releases of all Austrian parliamentary parties, the main evening newscasts of all Austrian broadcasters, as well as the political coverage of two quality papers and two major tabloids during the “hot phase” of the campaign. For examining the “struggle over agendas”, a time-series cross-section design (including data on 20 different policy dimensions) was applied. First results are based on the analysis of five election campaigns in 1970, 1983, 1990, 1999, and 2008.     

The third-level agenda-setting study: an examination of media,implicit, and explicit public agendas in China

Through two separate studies in the context of Hong Kong, a Chinese society, this research tests the third-level agenda-setting effects and examines the differences between the explicit and implicit public agendas based on the attributes consciously and unconsciously reported by the public. A total of 1667 news reports and 680 responses to a public survey are collected for analysis. Evidence from both studies shows strong attribute agenda-setting effects at the third level, no matter the focus of the issue is obtrusive or unobtrusive. Results also demonstrate that the media agenda is positively associated at a higher level with the implicit public agenda than the explicit one. Findings well extend the network agenda-setting research.     

THE JOURNALISTIC GUT FEELING

What goes on in editorial conferences and how do news journalists decide what is newsworthy? The journalistic “gut feeling” is an important part of the professional self-understanding of journalists and editors expressing how news judgements seem self-evident and self-explaining to the practitioners. This article presents an analysis of everyday news work drawing on the theoretical framework of Pierre Bourdieu and using ethnographic material from observations of editorial practices in a Danish television newsroom as a case study. The analytical concepts “journalistic doxa”, “news habitus” and “editorial capital” are put to empirical work on close-up observations of journalistic practices in editorial conferences and two types of news values are identified as part of the journalistic “gut feeling”: the explicit orthodox/heterodox news values which are part of the sphere of journalistic judgement, and the implicit, silent doxic news values which are part of the sphere of journalistic doxa. An important task for future studies of journalistic practice is to investigate the seemingly self-evident orthodox news values as well as making visible the doxic news values imbedded in journalistic practice.     

Asia through time: Asian news in time magazine

Twenty years ago, the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems determined that 68 per cent of the world's population, comprising the developing world, accounted for only 10 to 30 per cent of reported world news. This imbalance in the flow of international news, combined with a Western news ethic that tends to emphasize the aberrational, has been blamed for presenting a skewed view of the developing world. This paper employs content analysis conducted at ten year intervals to determine how Time magazine has stood in the light of this argument over the years.     

Breaking Down Barriers: Making it Easier for Academic Librarians of Color to Stay

The strength of every nation lies in its people. In America, that strength can be found in the rich cultural heritage of a diverse nation. Unfortunately, diversity does not permeate all facets of life–specifically in academia and its libraries. The question continues to be asked: where are all of the academic librarians of color? For the ones who are tenured or who are seeking tenure, how can they be retained within the ranks of academia? The focus of this study is to explore and define some of the explicit and implicit barriers faced by academic librarians of color through a review of the literature. Many of the explicit barriers stem directly from racism and from being perceived as the “other” while implicit barriers are more subtle and stem from the covert damage that toxic environmental forces have on shaping the career and work experiences of librarians of color. This analysis also offers methods for breaking down these barriers (through ways such as mentoring) for institutions to consider—along with some strategies to empower librarians of color themselves.     

Social Media References in Newspapers

Social media are increasingly being used as sources in mainstream news coverage. Yet, while the research so far has focused mainly on the use of social media in particular situations, such as breaking news coverage, during crisis news events or in times of elections, little attention is paid to journalists' routine, day-to-day monitoring of social media platforms. The aim of this study is to examine the use and selection of social media as sources in routine newspaper coverage. First, it presents a quantitative overview of all the articles published between January 2006 and December 2013 in the print editions of two Flemish (north Belgian) quality newspapers, De Standaard and De Morgen, that explicitly refer to Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. Next, a content analysis is conducted of a sample of newspaper articles published in 2013 that explicitly mention Facebook, Twitter or YouTube as sources of information. The goal of this content analysis is to examine the different appearances and functions of social media references in the news. The study thus provides a first insight into Belgian newspaper journalists' regular sourcing routines in relation to social media.     

Deep Participation in Underserved Communities: A Quantitative Analysis of Hearken’s Model for Engagement Journalism

ABSTRACT

Hearken is a proprietary news engagement platform growing in popularity. Under the Hearken approach, audience members are invited to participate in the newsmaking process. Hearken strives to assist news organizations in providing local and hyperlocal content that meets audience needs and demands while preserving elements of the journalist’s role as gatekeeper. Hearken has also worked to help news organizations reach underrepresented populations with mixed results per its own anecdotal analyses. This study employs a quantitative content analysis comparing one year’s worth of coverage at four different local NPR affiliates in the United States to provide a breakdown of Hearken content versus traditional reporter-driven content in the following four categories: emphasis on hyperlocal coverage, story topic prevalence within local and hyperlocal coverage, emphasis on coverage of underrepresented communities, and story topic prevalence within coverage of underrepresented communities. Findings reveal listener-driven Hearken content favors hyperlocal news on lifestyle issues while reporter-driven stories emphasize state-level governance and politics as well as local crime. These indicate a stark contrast between the content audiences want and that which journalists tend to report. The nuanced normative implications, possibilities and limitations of Hearken’s model of “deep participation” are addressed in some detail.     

HOSTING THE PUBLIC DISCOURSE,HOSTING THE PUBLIC

In this paper, we examine the inverse and converging movement of two sets of institutions: news organizations, as they find that part of their mission necessarily includes hosting an unruly user community that does not always play by the norms of journalism; and online media platforms and social networks designed for users to share content, as they find that the content being shared is often much like news, some of which challenges their established user guidelines. We draw on in-depth interviews to understand how each industry is finding itself increasingly on the other's turf and facing the challenges and tensions the other has long coped with, but from its own distinct vantage point. From this we explore the ways in which the roles of news provision and community management are increasingly intermingled—in ways that will continue to have an impact on both news organizations and social media platforms, along with their audiences and users.     

The Role of Engagement in Learning From Active and Incidental News Exposure on Social Media

The growing reliance on social media as news platforms may lead to more passive news consumption but also offers greater potential for engaging in news. This study investigates the role of engagement with news content on Facebook and Twitter between news exposure and current events knowledge. An online survey (N = 400) tests the relationships between social media news seeking, incidental exposure to news on social media, engagement in shared news content, cognitive elaboration, and current events knowledge. The results show that both active seeking of and incidental exposure to news on both sites are linked to engagement, which is linked to greater cognitive elaboration about the content. Furthermore, engagement mediates the relationship between both types of news exposure and cognitive elaboration. However, engagement and elaboration are not related to knowledge. These results indicate that the key role of social media in news content is not knowledge gain but the ability to engage users who may be passively receiving news on these sites. This study extends the cognitive mediation model of learning from the news in the context of current social media, with updated news consumption norms such as engagement with news on these sites, and incidental news exposure.