Newspaper 2008 Abstracts
Newspaper Division
1962-63 New York Newspaper Strike and Changing Journalists, Journalism and News Reading Patterns • Marilyn Greenwald, Ohio University and Joseph Bernt, Ohio University • The New York newspaper strike of 1962-63 did more than just stop the publication of nine newspapers in the New York City area for 114 days. The strike, which had dramatic ramifications for readers, businesses, and consumers, forced New Yorkers to alter the way they sought news and forced journalists to seek alternate ways to deliver the news.
A Comparison of Content Diversity in Online Citizen Diversity in Online Citizen Journalism and Online Newspaper Articles • Serena Carpenter, Arizona State University • A measure of content diversity was created to determine whether online citizen journalism and online newspaper publications featured a greater diversity of information. Based on the findings from the quantitative content analysis, online citizen journalism articles were more likely to feature a greater diversity of topics, information from outside sources and multimedia and interactive features. Thus, online citizen journalism content adds to the diversity of information available in the marketplace.
American Daily Newspapers’ Framing of the War in Iraq at the Times of Highest and Lowest Public Support for the War • Marc Seamon, Robert Morris University • This study involves a computerized analysis of the frames present in American daily newspaper coverage of the war in Iraq at the times of the highest and lowest public support for the war.
Audience Interactivity as Gratification-Seeking Process in the Online Newspaper • Chan Yoo, University of Kentucky • This study attempted to establish ‘audience interactivity’ as an intervening factor in the gratification-seeking process in an online newspaper. It examined the causal relationships between the motives for visiting an online newspaper, audience interactivity, gratifications obtained, attitude toward the online newspaper, and repeat visit intention using a structural equation model. Four primary motives were identified, and each gratification-seeking motive had different effect on human vs. medium interactivity.
Beyond the Hyperbole: A Textual Analysis of Four Newspapers’ Coverage of the SCHIP Debate • Karen M. Rowley, Louisiana State University and Lesa Hatley Major, Indiana University • A textual analysis of the coverage of the debate surrounding the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) uses Pan and Kosicki’s conceptual framework of news texts and finds five primary frames in the news stories that appear in the four newspapers that are the focus of this study. Those frames are emotional appeal, political rhetoric, political strategy, SCHIP as a symbol of a broader debate, and working together/bipartisanship.
Copy Editors and the Online Revolution: In the Trenches or Missing in Action? (Resubmitted) • John Russial, University of Oregon • What is the role of newspaper copy editors in the online era? This study, based on a national mail survey of U.S. newspaper copy chiefs and online editors, examines how copy editing is, or is not, being done for online publication. Results indicate that copy editing is not done as extensive for online-only stories as it typically is done for print. About half of the papers responding said online stories were “always” copy edited before publication.
Decade of Change: Newspaper Readership Choices Among College Students 1998-2008 • Carol Schlagheck, Eastern Michigan University • This investigation replicates a 1998 study of college students’ use of newspapers, using a subset of the original questions to survey students at the same mid-sized, Midwestern, public university a decade later. Comparisons reveal increases in use of the Internet, with three-quarters answering that it is easier to obtain news and information via the Internet than from newspapers. Eighty-three percent “never” buy a newspaper. The study supports a shift from paper to online newspapers.
Effects of Congruity, Sponsor Type, and News Story Valence on E-newspaper Outcomes • Kyle Heim, University of Missouri and Shelly Rodgers, University of Missouri • This study examined the effects of sponsorships on attitudes and behavioral intent toward electronic newspapers. The method was a 2 (sponsor congruity) x 2 (sponsor type) x 2 (news story valence) x 2 (news story topic) within-subjects experiment. Nonprofit sponsors and negative news stories yielded higher ratings of news story credibility, e-newspaper credibility, and attitude toward the e-newspaper than commercial sponsors and positive stories. No significant effects were found for sponsor congruity.
Fit To Print? An Analysis of Print and Online Newspaper Slogans • Salma Ghanem, University of Texas-Pan American and Kimberly Selber, The University of Texas-Pan American • This study explores the use of slogans in promoting both daily and weekly print and online newspapers. It not only provides benchmark data from which to track changes in the use of slogans, but also a snapshot of the current state of slogans in the news business. Newspapers scored low on brand identification, use of literary techniques, and in distinguishing themselves from competition.
Framing Blogs: How Did the U.S. Traditional and Online Media Report on the Blogging Phenomenon? • Eunseong Kim, Eastern Illinois University, Elizabeth K. Viall, Eastern Illinois University and Deborah Chung, University of Kentucky • This study examines both traditional and online media to determine how the U.S. media reported on the blogging phenomenon. The articles focusing on blogs, bloggers and/or blogging published in three major newspapers (the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the USA Today) and two online publications (Slate Magazine and Salon.com) were analyzed.
Framing the Right to Know: An Analysis of Statewide Records Audits • Emily Erickson, Louisiana State University • This study examines press coverage of statewide records audits to examine how journalists, ostensibly trained to at least pay lip service to the ideals of objectivity, handle coverage of an issue in which they — and arguably they alone — have an intrinsically vested interest? In this case, framing analysis demonstrates how the press invokes the rights of citizens to amplify the salience of an issue that is dear to its own institutional heart.
Gatekeepers in India: Factors influencing newspaper editors’ news selection • Bridgette Colaco, Troy University and Jyotika Ramaprasad, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale • This paper focused on understanding what factors influenced editors’ selection and rejection of news stories and how these factors are culturally relevant to the Indian print media industry. This was done by examining how newspaper editors in India prepared the daily news. A triangulation method was used for this study.
Generational divide: Young and old journalists grapple with newspaper online strategies and organizational transformation • Scott Reinardy, University of Kansas • Interviews with 48 journalists from 23 different newspapers throughout the United States reveal that along with online initiatives, newsrooms are experiencing other transformations as well. Using organizational development theory, this study indicates that newsroom cultural change is not occurring in the Breed (1955) model of top-down managerial mandates, adopted by veteran journalists that created a culture of conformity among young journalists.
How Unnamed and Anonymous Sources Shaped the Debate Over Invading Iraq: A Content Analysis of News in 22 Newspapers From 11 Countries • John Hatcher, University of Minnesota, Duluth • A study of 528 news items from 11 countries explores how the use of anonymous and unnamed sources influences news content. One research question and four hypotheses are tested and find that a third of all sources were not identified by name and that the use of these sources meant fewer ideas opposing the war were found in content and that the tone of news items presented the war as being more positive and unavoidable.
Is every online newspaper credible? • Chung Joo Chung, State University of New York at Buffalo and Yoonjae Nam, State University of New York at Buffalo • This study investigated which factors contribute to the credibility of online newspapers and how credibility of news differs according to the type of online newspapers: mainstream, independent, and index type. The survey instrument revised by authors included a credibility scale and technological characteristics of online newspapers adapted from research on online news credibility and technology; trustworthiness, expertise, interactivity, hypertextuality, and multimediality.
It’s all in the audience: How the news media portrayed women and girls during two 2006 school shootings • Cory Armstrong, University of Florida • Using the backdrop of two school shootings in Colorado and Pennsylvania in the fall of 2006, this study examines the portrayal of women in news content immediately after those events occurred. Findings suggested that story location, audience and frame of news story affected proportion of women in the story. Similarly, the type of source employed in the story differed by geographic region. Implications were discussed.
Journalism’s counterinsurgency against “free space”: the ANPA Anti-Publicity Bulletins of 1921-1926 • Burton St. John, Old Dominion University • The years immediately after World War I revealed two associated dynamics concerning the professionalization of communication in the American public sphere. First, as an outgrowth of successful war propaganda practices pursued by the U.S. government’s Committee on Public Information (CPI), professional persuaders — gradually becoming known as public relations practitioners — began to integrate propaganda strategies and tactics into their publicity efforts.
My Prerogative: Perceptions and Attitudes of Black Journalists in the Tallahassee Democrat Newsroom, 2001-2005 • Meredith Clark, Tallahassee Democrat • In April 2005, the American Society of Newspaper Editors reported a net 34 black journalists had been added to the staff of more than 1,000 U.S. daily newspapers between 2001 and 2005. Using Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory and Samuelson and Bramlett-Solomon’s research on job satisfaction among journalists, this case study examined the perceptions and attitudes of black journalists in a single newsroom between 2001 and 2005 to determine factors that influenced their retention and recruitment.
Obesity in the News: How U.S. and British Elite Press Covers the Public Health Issue? • Kuang-Kuo Chang, Michigan State University, Fu-Jung Chen, Michigan State University, Eric Freedman, Michigan State University, and Tien-Tsung Lee, University of Kansas • Guided by the principles of the general system theory, this research reviews first the health-related literature on obesity and then conducts a content analysis of how four U.S. and British elite newspapers have covered the obesity issue. Though unsatisfactory, three of the four newspapers have met the principles of presenting interactive forces, multiple and circular causations and a hierarchal subsystems at work.
On a Longer but Stronger Leash: Sourcing Over Time in Pulitzer-Prize Winning New York Times Foreign News • Raluca Cozma, Louisiana State University, John Maxwell Hamilton, Louisiana State University, and Regina G. Lawrence, Louisiana State University • A content analysis of New York Times Pulitzer-winning foreign news over eight decades reveals that modern correspondence employs more and a broader range of sources than in the past. The number of official sources has remained the same, the voice of average witnesses has increased, and citing of local media from foreign capitals has decreased. Foreign news in the past focused more on politics and included a stronger reporter’s voice.
Patterns of Visibility: Source Selection Habits of Newspaper and Wire Sports Journalists • Jason Martin, Indiana University • This content analysis revealed that historical rather than contemporary factors had greater influence on visibility rates of national newspaper and wire coverage of college football coaches. Regression analysis indicated that historical postseason appearances were the strongest predictor of coverage and not other measures of more immediate success. The results raise questions about whether national reporters, free from local coverage obligations or biases, use habit and familiarity rather than considering newsworthiness when selecting sources.
Peace or war journalism? How The New York Times and The Associated Press framed Iraq in 2006 • Amy Youngblood, Texas Christian University, and Beverly Horvit, Texas Christian University • A content analysis of a random 28-day sample of New York Times and Associated Press coverage of Iraq in 2006 (N=145) showed a majority of stories were framed as peace journalism, as defined by Galtung. The two news organizations did not vary significantly in their use of peace or war frames. The most prevalent war-journalism traits included an elite-oriented focus, and the most prevalent peace-journalism traits included avoiding victimizing language and using objective, moderate language.
Press coverage of outsourcing: sourcing pattern in US national and local newspapers • Di Zhang, Syracuse University • In 2004, the presidential election year, outsourcing became a popular topic in American households and media. This content analysis of two national newspapers and four local newspapers examines the press coverage of outsourcing by focusing on the story sourcing pattern.
Proximity and framing in news media: Effects on credibility, bias, recall, and reader intentions • Rachel DeLauder, Virginia Tech, Joshua DeLung, Virginia Tech, Roxana Maiorescu, Virginia Tech, and Robert Magee, Virginia Tech • A writer’s decision to localize a news article and the valence of the frame the writer employs can affect readers’ perceptions of credibility and bias as well as readers’ factual recall and the likelihood that readers would want to read the newspaper further. A 2 (proximity: local, nonlocal) x 3 (frame valence: positive, neutral, negative) factorial experiment (N = 136) tested the effects of proximity and frame valence on credibility, bias, recall, and reading intentions.
Quantitative Media Literacy: How Readers Deal With Numbers In News Reports • Coy Callison, Texas Tech University, Rhonda Gibson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Dolf Zillmann • A test of arithmetic aptitude (AA) was developed and validated. The consequences of individual differences in this quantitative literacy were then determined for attention to, and recall of, numeric quantities embedded in printed news reports. Persons of high AA were found to recall frequencies and ratios more accurately, both in precise and approximate terms, than were persons of low AA. Also examined were the effects of various presentational formats of numerical values within the news reports.
School Board Campaigns and the Media Agenda: Information Subsidies and Local Election Coverage • Jeffrey Cannon, Indiana University • This study looks at an underexamined area of political life, the relationship between local campaigns and local news coverage, specifically media agenda setting effects. Using Newman’s five “cognitive domains driving voting behavior” as an analytical framework, candidate information subsidies were collected from more than 50 candidates in 23 nonpartisan school board races, from which “issues” and “attribute” agendas were established and subsequently compared against parallel data collected from coverage in six local/regional newspapers.
The 1980 Cleveland newspaper market revisited: Analysis finds vibrant agenda diversity, robust marketplace of ideas • Steve Hallock, Point Park University • A partial replication and reanalysis of the Cleveland newspaper market of 1980, prior to the closure of the Cleveland Press, differs with the conclusions of previous content analyses of two-daily communities that have become monopoly markets. A 1987 replication in Cleveland of a study of competitive newspaper markets in Canada found similar content in the surviving newspaper before and after the closure of its rival and similar content in the two competing newspapers before the closure.
The Convergence Continuum Redux: Does the Web Jeopardize Newspaper-Television Partnerships? • Larry Dailey, University of Nevada, Reno, Lori Demo, Ball State University, and Mary M. Spillman, Ball State University • Convergence partnerships between television and newspaper newsrooms made headlines at the turn of the millennium, but the move toward the Web as a primary news delivery system could put these partnerships in jeopardy. A new survey shows cooperation between partners has not increased significantly. This study suggests that as newspapers train reporters in multimedia acquisition, partnership behaviors first identified in the 2003 Convergence Continuum may soon be practiced internally instead of with a television partner.
The Evolution of ‘the Toy Department:’ A Content Analysis of Newspaper Sports Sections Since 1956 • John Carvalho, Auburn University • This paper presents an analysis of sports sections in eight metropolitan newspapers over six decades, from 1956 until 2006. Results demonstrated that newspapers devoted more space to sports and used more locally written articles on their section front. Spectator sports coverage increased over the period, at the expense of participant sports.
The Use of Design Technology in the Classroom: A Switch from QuarkXPress to InDesign? • Jennifer Wood Adams, Auburn University;, and Melissa L. Voynich • This nationwide study examines the use of newspaper design technology in undergraduate journalism courses. In a survey of journalism educators who teach newspaper design (52.7% response rate) almost two-thirds report using Adobe InDesign. The study reports the perceptions of journalism educators toward implementing the software into their classrooms and if they feel there a preference in the newspaper industry for their majors to know a particular application. Differences between ACEJMC-accredited.
Third-Party Gubernatorial Candidates and the Press • John Kirch, University of Maryland-College Park • This paper examines how third-party gubernatorial candidates are covered by the news media, focusing on the 2002 races in California, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Maine.
We Regret the Error: Changes in Correction of Error Practices of the New York Times and Washington Post • Neil Nemeth, Purdue University-Calumet and Craig Sanders, Cleveland State University • This article examines published corrections in the New York Times and Washington Post in 2007 and 1997. The Times corrected more than twice as many errors in 2007 than in 1997. Wrong descriptions and spelling/typographical errors constituted the bulk of these additional errors. The Post corrected slightly more errors in 2007 than in 1997. Objective errors, mostly notably wrong descriptions, wrong names, wrong numbers and wrong explanations, were the most corrected errors in both years.
What Statewide Audits Tell Us About Access, Privacy and Political Culture • Emily Erickson, Louisiana State University • Press coverage of statewide records audits has emphasized agency performance rather than the nature of the records being tested. Grouping compliance rates from these audits by record type shows that the tension between privacy and access is not just found in the policymaking arena, but also manifested in the behavior of records custodians. This study also considers state political culture, and finds a weak correlation between compliance rates and records that might raise privacy concerns.
Special Call: Industry Research
Are Young Adults’ Reasons for Not Reading a News Medium, Medium-Specific? • Amy Zerba, University of Texas at Austin • This study compared young adults’ reasons for not reading news across three media: print daily newspaper, college newspaper and news Web sites. The study also examined the type of reader/nonreader and reasons for not reading print dailies as well as the likelihood of reading them with certain changes. A major finding showed inconvenience, other media use and lack of time were cited more by nonreaders of print newspapers than nonreaders of other media.
Reexamining Predictors of Print and Online Newspaper Readership • Steven Collins, University of Central Florida • As the newspaper industry undergoes rapid change, it is worthwhile to reexamine old assumptions regarding predictors of traditional newspaper readership. At the same time, scholars must consider if old patterns will hold true when predicting readership of online newspapers. The current study sought to do just that by utilizing survey data collected in three different parts of the United States and considering measures of exposure to both traditional print newspapers and their online counterparts.
What ARE they reading? News selections by college students • Jack Rosenberry, St. John Fisher College • It has been well documented that college students and young adults are infrequent readers of newspapers. But when they do pick up a paper or surf to a news-oriented Web site, what draws their attention? An analysis of more than 1,500 article summaries prepared by college students over a two-month period shows a special interest in news items that the students feel closeness with or attachment toward, either geographically or psychographically.
Special Call:
Newspaper Multimedia Practices
Emerging Models of Newspaper Multimedia Journalism: A Content Analysis of Multimedia Packages Published on nytimes.com • Susan Jacobson, Temple University • Conventional wisdom dictates that the future of newspaper journalism is online. But what does this “new” form of journalism look like? What are some of the narrative and formal qualities of multimedia stories published on the Web?
Newspapers and Online Content: Platform Agnostic or Sectarian? • John Russial, University of Oregon • How much cross-platform content is being produced by U.S. daily newspapers? This study, based on a stratified random sample of U.S. newspapers over 30,000 circulation, finds that the amount of multimedia content such as staff-produced audio and video is not great. Most newspapers, for example, are doing only “a few” staff videos a week, and photographers are shooting video at more papers than reporters are.
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