ESPN's SportsCenter and Coverage of Women's Athletics: "It's a Boys' Club"

Since the passage of Title IX in 1972, participation in women's sports has grown dramatically. But despite the growing level of participation by female athletes at all competition levels and documented fan interest in women's athletics, coverage of women's sports remains inferior to that given male sports across all media. Tuggle's (1997) study showed that two national highlights programs (CNN's Sports Tonight and ESPN's SportsCenter) devoted only 5% of their airtime to women's athletics. This study is a replication of Tuggle's original study to determine whether the existence of two women's professional sports leagues has resulted in increased coverage of female athletics. Results of the 2002 study show that the answer is no. Indeed there was less coverage of women on SportsCenter during the 2002 study than there was during the earlier examination.     

TweetStorm in #ferguson: How News Organizations Framed Dominant Authority,Anti-Authority,and Political Figures in a Restive Community

After Officer Darren Wilson fatally shot African American teen Michael Brown in August 2014, rioters unleashed their anger on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri. Using content analysis and framing theory, this study analyzed how news organizations covered events in Ferguson on Twitter over the course of a month immediately following the shooting. Protesters were framed as troublemakers; but community leaders were not framed as “rabble-rousers.” Journalists continued to rely on official sources more than alternate sources in spite of criticism of law enforcement and other political elites, but nearly 10% of the coded tweets that relied on official sources included some element of skepticism. Tweets from cable news outlets did not show partisan bias in any significant amount; and traditional legacy news media sources utilized the Twitter platform enhancements—such as article links, photos, links to other content, or hashtags—more than their new digital media counterparts. As Twitter launched #ferguson into the national consciousness, it is quite plausible that the framing of the tweets by news agencies may have molded perceptions of larger issues about the racial health of the nation, established policies of law enforcement, and the challenge of elected leaders to resolve explosive domestic problems.     

Emotionally Charged: Exploring the Role of Emotion in Online News Information Seeking and Processing

This study examines how news stories framed in terms of discrete emotions (anger, fear, hope) influence online news message processing and information seeking. Results revealed that participants who read the approach emotion stories (anger and especially hope) spent more time on the story page than those who read the avoidant emotion (fear) story. These two emotional frames also differentially affected the information that people selected post-exposure in emotion-consistent ways. Overall, the findings deepen our understanding of the role that the emotional framing of news stories plays in determining how consumers respond to and selectively engage with online news content.     

LEGITIMIZING WIKIPEDIA

Within only a few years, the collaborative online encyclopedia Wikipedia has become one of the most popular websites in the world. At the same time, Wikipedia has become the subject of much controversy because of inaccuracies and hoaxes found in some of its entries. Journalists, therefore, have remained skeptical about the reliability and accuracy of Wikipedia's information, despite the fact that research has consistently shown an overall high level of accuracy compared to traditional encyclopedia. This study analyzed the framing of Wikipedia and its use as a news source by five US national newspapers over an eight-year period. A content analysis of 1486 Wikipedia references in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and The Christian Science Monitor found that Wikipedia is framed predominantly neutral and positive, and that it is increasingly used as a news source. By framing Wikipedia as credible and accurate, the newspapers help legitimize the use of the online encyclopedia. By allowing Wikipedia to influence their news agendas as a source, the newspapers confirm the growing reliability of Wikipedia.     

Framing Analysis of a Conflict: How Newspapers in Five Asian Countries Covered the Iraq War

This five-country study examined the extent to which the news coverage of the Iraq war by newspapers from India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and the Philippines and by one news agency from Pakistan is framed according to the principles of war/peace journalism outlined by Johan Galtung. The findings, based on a content analysis of 442 stories from eight newspapers, suggest a slight peace journalism framing. Two important factors shaping the news framing of the conflict and support for the war and for the protagonists in the war (Americans/British vs. Iraqis) are religion and sourcing. Newspapers from the non-Muslim countries, except the Philippines, have a stronger war journalism framing, and are more supportive of the war and of the Americans/British than the newspapers from the Muslim countries, which are more supportive of the Iraqis. Stories produced by foreign wire services have a stronger war journalism framing, and show more support for the war and for the Americans/British than stories written by the newspapers’ own correspondents.     

Frame Intensity Effects of Television News Stories About a High-Visibility Protest Issue

This study investigated the effects of the intensity of the protest paradigm frame in news stories about social protests. In contrast to previous research, this experiment examined framing effects in the context of a highly visible and familiar issue. The intensity of the application of the protest paradigm frame and its attendant signifying elements and framing devices were manipulated in television news stories about pro-choice and pro-life protests. Specifically, the high-intensity protest paradigm frame conditions were more critical of the protesters. We tested six hypotheses regarding whether this greater frame intensity would lead viewers to be more negative toward the protesters. Results showed significant main effects of frame intensity for some dependent measures but not others. The findings offer more evidence of framing effects but also suggest limitations on their influence.     

Reflections on healing: framing strategies utilized by acquaintance rape survivors

This study examines the stories acquaintance rape victims tell through semi-structured interviews. Acquaintance rape, viewed here as a particularly paradoxical crime, creates a need for women to resolve the inconsistency of their experience. By conducting interviews with victims and analyzing their verbal communication, this project explores how victims frame their rape experience. Framing strategies used by victims of sexual harassment served as a guide for the initial identification of framing strategies for victims of acquaintance rape. Women in this study utilized strategies of paradox management to assess blame, define, and reframe their experiences. Recognition of these management strategies can assist social support networks and law enforcement professionals in identifying the communicative strategies of female victims of varying types of violence.     

Reflections on healing: framing strategies utilized by acquaintance rape survivors

This study examines the stories acquaintance rape victims tell through semi-structured interviews. Acquaintance rape, viewed here as a particularly paradoxical crime, creates a need for women to resolve the inconsistency of their experience. By conducting interviews with victims and analyzing their verbal communication, this project explores how victims frame their rape experience. Framing strategies used by victims of sexual harassment served as a guide for the initial identification of framing strategies for victims of acquaintance rape. Women in this study utilized strategies of paradox management to assess blame, define, and reframe their experiences. Recognition of these management strategies can assist social support networks and law enforcement professionals in identifying the communicative strategies of female victims of varying types of violence.     

Framing Refuge: Media,Framing, and Sanctuary Cities

The refugee sanctuary movement in the United States has shifted to include undocumented immigrants fleeing violence and economic strife. Given the negative tenor of coverage of undocumented immigration, and ties between framing and policy views on immigration, how the media frames sanctuary cities is likely to impact public perceptions of these cities and their policies. To assess media coverage of sanctuary policies, we analyzed articles from five national newspapers from 1980 to 2017 with both human content analysis and dictionary-based computational analysis. We find that framing around religion/morality and conflict has decreased, while stories focusing on crime and partisanship have increased. We discuss implications for public opinion and the likelihood that the American public will take their cues from media framing and elite discourse when it comes to sanctuary policies.     

If it Bleeds it Leads

This paper examines newspaper coverage of sexual and reproductive health and violence against women, from 1995 until 2015, in two print newspapers from Buenos Aires, Argentina. The analysis shows that while coverage of violence against women increased over the 20-year period, coverage of sexual and reproductive health did not. Moreover, drawing on framing theory, content analysis indicates that, regardless of the level of coverage, throughout the period examined, articles on these topics tended to eschew a gender equality approach, and to be framed in episodic, rather than thematic frames. Finally, articles about violence against women are significantly less likely to use either the equality frame or the thematic frame than stories about sexual and reproductive health. This paper draws on these findings to reflect on the relevance of portraying these issues as social concerns with impact in gender equality.     

Statutory reform of the U.S. Government printing office A view from the GPO

Legislation has been introduced in the 104th Congress that would make sweeping changes to Title 44 of the U.S. Code, the authorizing laws for the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). An analysis of this legislation, which was originally provided to Congress in August 1995 during hearings before the Committee on House Oversight, shows that it would have a substantially negative impact on government printing and distribution, in terms of increasing costs and reducing public access to government information. GPO today faces three major challenges: cutting costs, expanding the dissemination of government information in electronic formats, and combatting the decentralization of federal printing and distribution activities, which increases costs and impairs public access to government information through GPO's Federal Depository Library Program. The question is whether a complete overhaul of Title 44 would be more likely to place at risk a system of cost-effective, comprehensive, and equitable public access to government information that currently serves the nation well. This article suggests that the alternative is to continue with the program of downsizing and technological innovation and to seek statutory changes that would be consistent with GPO's strategic direction and that would recognize GPO's role in the emergent information age.     

Improving the Effectiveness of Fundraising Messages: The Impact of Charity Goal Attainment,Message Framing,and Evidence on Persuasion

This experimental study assessed the effectiveness of fundraising messages. Based on recent findings regarding the effects of message framing and evidence, effective fundraising messages should combine abstract, statistical information with a negative message frame and anecdotal evidence with a positive message frame. In addition, building on research into social dilemmas, it was hypothesized that information about charity goal attainment (e.g., the contributions of others) should increase donation intentions. The hypotheses were tested in a 2 (goal attainment: yes/no)×2 (framing: positive/negative)×2 (evidence: statistical/anecdotal) factorial design. Abstract information was more effective when combined with a negatively framed message, whereas anecdotal information was more effective when combined with a positive frame. In addition, donation intentions were higher for messages that addressed charity goal attainment issues.     

Subconscious Gatekeeping: The Effect of Death Thoughts on Bias Toward Outgroups in News Writing

This content analysis examined framing and second-level agenda setting in U.S. newspaper pre-election coverage of the 2006 Mexican presidential elections and the new Mexican expatriate voting law. The authors conducted a quantitative analysis of 161 articles and a qualitative analysis of 36 articles in U.S. newspapers from August 2005 through mid-April 2006. Findings indicated that Andrés Manuel López Obrador received more coverage (59.6%) than Roberto Madrazo (27.8%) or the eventual winner, Felipe Calderón (29.1%). Candidate attributes were highlighted more than Mexican domestic or Mexico–U.S. issues. The dominant procedural frame was the election horse race. The main substantive frames were the election as an extension of U.S.–Mexico economic relations and the election as an extension of Latin American leftist/populist movements. The expatriate voting law was characterized as unsuccessful and blamed on apathetic voters, the Mexican government's faulty implementation, and a corrupt system.     

The Role of Language in a Journalistic Interpretive Community

Drawing on anniversary-edition articles and interviews with journalists at Jakarta Post, Indonesia’s largest English-language news outlet, we argue that language of publication directly informs the narratives a journalistic interpretive community [Zelizer, Barbie. 1993. “Journalists as Interpretive Communities.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 10: 219–237] develops to position itself as a news authority. Analysis showed that associations with English as a foreign language in Indonesia influenced stories of the newspaper’s professional values and practice, and the ways it conceptualized readership. The study contributes to the growing body of literature that examines intersections of journalism and language—in this case, English as a language of publication in a global context.     

Framing the crisis by one's seat: a comparative study of newspaper frames of the Asiana crash in the USA,Korea, and China

This study compared newspaper frames of the 2013 Asiana Airlines crash in the three countries involved: the USA, Korea, and China. The results revealed distinct patterns of news coverage under the particular influence of national interests. The responsibility frame was the most frequently used, but the attribution of responsibility varied across the three countries. US newspapers overwhelmingly attributed the causation to pilot error, Korean media framed the causation as being open to multiple explanations, and Chinese newspapers were less likely to speculate about causation before the final official conclusion was reached. US and Korean media maintained a negative tone toward each other, while Chinese newspapers took a similar standpoint as the US media but were slightly less negative toward Korea. Further, divergence of news frames used across countries was associated with the different use of sources by different newspapers across countries. In particular, Korean media indicated reluctance to use US officials and a preference to cite alternative sources which offered diverse opinions regarding the attribution of responsibility. Finally, emotions of the crash stories varied by attributions of causation in Korean but not in the other countries’ news reports.     

Stages of a Crisis and Media Frames and Functions: U.S. Television Coverage of the 9/11 Incident During the First 24 Hours

This study examined how five U.S. television outlets framed the 9/11 incident during the first 24 hours and how stages of the crisis affected media frames and functions. The study found media frames were dynamic rather than static, especially when events changed rapidly. Television served primarily to inform rather than provide guidance and consolation, and its functions changed according to its priority in the coverage during the different stages of the crisis. Use of a wider range of sources led to a diminished role of government sources in the coverage of this rapidly changing crisis of national magnitude.     

Media Framing of Capital Punishment and Its Impact on Individuals' Cognitive Responses

It is well known that mass media have the ability to frame a sociopolitical issue in specific ways, which can have considerable impact on the public's thoughts and perceptions regarding the issue. Through analyzing coverage of capital punishment in the New York Times since 1960 and then conducting an experiment in which we assessed individual-level responses to differently framed news stories, we show (a) the dramatic emergence of a new “innocence frame” within the past 10 years that accentuates imperfections in the justice system, and (b) the much greater impact of this frame on individuals' thoughts—in particular on those who favor the death penalty—when compared to the traditional morality-based frame. We suggest that the latter finding can be explained because individuals tend to resist changing their interpretations of issues based on arguments that contradict their core moral or religious beliefs; however, they seem quite receptive to new information along dimensions that they previously had not considered. This research also implies that U.S. trends toward lower sentencing rates and eventual public opinion changes are likely to continue as long as media and public discussion remains focused on questions regarding flaws in the justice system.     

When Corporate Social Responsibility Messages Enter the News: Examining the Effects of CSR-Framed News on Product Purchasing Intentions and the Mediating Role of Company and Product Attitudes

Journalists are frequently reporting about new and innovative products in news articles. Oftentimes, journalists use specific company and product information provided by enterprises that highlight a corporation’s social responsibility (CSR) activities. Based on framing theory and theory of reasoned action, an experiment was conducted to examine how types of CSR-framed news (either highlighting ethical, ecological, or philanthropic responsibilities of a company) affect news recipients’ product purchasing intentions. A mediation analysis showed that CSR-framed news indirectly and positively affected individuals’ purchasing intentions via company and product attitudes. No relevant differences could be detected for the specific type of CSR frame. Implications of the results are discussed.     

Marginalization Devices in U.S. Press Coverage of Iraq War Protest: A Content Analysis

Although a great deal of research has identified ways in which mass media can delegitimize social protest groups, little effort has been given to examining the relative prevalence of each of these mechanisms (labeled marginalization devices in this study) in media coverage of protest movements. By employing an innovative typology, the author examined the prominence of these devices in noneditorial coverage of Iraq War protest in 3 major U.S. newspapers over a 1-year period. In addition to gauging the prevalence of each device, the study also determined which specific devices were associated with either a positive or negative overall story tone toward the protesters. Although coverage in general was not more likely to be either negative or positive toward war-protest groups, stories containing the most commonly implemented devices were more likely to be negative in overall tone. Practical and scholarly implications are discussed in scrutinizing the mass media's role in shaping interpretations of sociopolitical issues.     

The Syrian Crisis in the News

Drawing on scholarship on framing, sourcing, and war journalism, this content analysis explores how The New York Times and The Washington Post covered the international reaction to Syria's use of chemical weapons against its own citizens in August 2013. The analysis found that stories in the month following the event focused primarily on diplomacy efforts and stopped paying attention to the ongoing civil war. Despite that, conflict framing was still dominant. The stories were generally thematic and richly sourced. The analysis lends support to the literature on the relationship between sourcing and framing as well as to the indexing hypothesis.