Insights into How HIAs are Characterized in the Press: Findings from a Media Analysis of Widely Circulated United States Newspapers

Background: Health impact assessments (HIAs) are burgeoning tools in the policy process, where the media plays a critical role by focusing attention on issues, informing consumers, and influencing positions. Examining how media portrays HIAs is critical to understanding HIAs in the policy context. Methods: This study considered how widely circulated, U.S. newspapers represent HIAs. After searching newspaper databases, we used a qualitative document analysis method consisting of open and axial coding to examine specific phrases of HIA depictions. Results: In coding over 1,000 unique phrases from the 62 documents generated in our search, we found an uptick in HIA-related publications since 2010. Coding these documents identified 46 distinct codes across 10 different themes. The two most prominent HIA-centered themes focused on HIA engagement and the HIA setting. While themes of policy and science, health determinants, and explanations of HIAs were also frequently featured, specific mentions of projected impacts, HIA processes, HIA values, and health outcomes were less prevalent. Conclusions: HIA media portrayals warrant further inquiry from researchers and practitioners. Focusing on how media portrays HIAs is consistent with several HIA steps. It is also important for a broader strategy to educate stakeholders about HIAs and to understand HIAs’ utility. HIA practitioners should develop and implement guidelines for media interaction and tracking that encourage practitioners to seek additional media attention and to focus such attention on health impacts and outcomes, HIA recommendations, and HIA values. Building on our work, researchers should examine HIA media portrayals beyond the context of this study

Insights into How HIAs are Characterized in the Press: Findings from a Media Analysis of Widely Circulated United States Newspapers

Background: Health impact assessments (HIAs) are burgeoning tools in the policy arena, where media plays an important role by focusing attention on issues, informing the public, and influencing positions. Examining how media portrays HIAs is critical to understanding HIAs in the policy context. Methods: This study considered how widely circulated, U.S. newspapers represent HIAs. After searching newspaper databases, we used a qualitative document analysis method consisting of open and axial coding to examine specific phrases of HIA depictions. Results: In coding over 1,000 unique phrases from the 62 documents generated in our search, we found an uptick in HIA-related publications since 2010. Coding these documents identified 46 distinct codes across 10 different themes. The two most prominent HIA-centered themes focused on HIA engagement and the HIA setting. While themes of policy and science, health determinants, and explanations of HIAs were also frequently featured, specific mentions of projected impacts, HIA processes, HIA values, and health outcomes were less prevalent. Conclusion: HIA media portrayals warrant further inquiry by researchers and practitioners. Focusing on how media portrays HIAs is consistent with several HIA steps. It is also important for a broader strategy to educate stakeholders about HIAs and to understand HIAs’ utility. HIA practitioners should develop and implement guidelines for media interaction and tracking that encourage practitioners to seek additional media attention and to focus such attention on health impacts and outcomes, HIA recommendations, and HIA values. Building on our work, researchers should examine HIA media portrayals beyond the context of this study

The Future of Personalisation at News Websites: Lessons from a Longitudinal Study

This paper tracks the recent history of personalization at national news websites in the United Kingdom and United States, allowing an analysis to be made of the reasons for and implications of the adoption of this form of adaptive interactivity. Using three content surveys conducted over three and a half years, the study records—at an unprecedented level of detail—the range of personalization features offered by contemporary news websites, and demonstrates how news organizations increasingly rely on software algorithms to predict readers’ content preferences. The results also detail how news organizations’ deployment of personalization on mobile devices, and in conjunction with social networking platforms, is still at an early stage. In addressing the under-researched but important—and increasingly prevalent—phenomenon of personalization, this paper contributes to debates on journalism’s future funding, transparency, and societal benefits

Making 'The Daily Me': Technology, economics and habit in the mainstream assimilation of personalized news

The mechanisms of personalization deployed by news websites are resulting in an increasing number of editorial decisions being taken by computer algorithms — many of which are under the control of external companies — and by end users. Despite its prevalence, personalization has yet to be addressed fully by the journalism studies literature. This study defines personalization as a distinct form of interactivity and classifies its explicit and implicit forms. Using this taxonomy, it surveys the use of personalization at 11 national news websites in the UK and USA. Research interviews bring a qualitative dimension to the analysis, acknowledging the influence that institutional contexts and journalists’ attitudes have on the adoption of technology. The study shows how: personalization informs debates on news consumption, content diversity, and the economic context for journalism; and how it challenges the continuing relevance of established theories of journalistic gate-keeping

Portrayal and Perception: Two Audits of News Media Reporting on African American Men and Boys

The Heinz Endowments' African American Men and Boys Task Force conducted an audit of media reporting on black men and boys in Pittsburgh. Based on content analysis of newspapers and evening newscasts, in addition to a survey and video interviews, the findings highlight a media scene that underrepresents African-Americans males, especially in terms of their positive achievements

Recommendation System for News Reader

Recommendation Systems help users to find information and make decisions where they lack the required knowledge to judge a particular product. Also, the information dataset available can be huge and recommendation systems help in filtering this data according to users‟ needs. Recommendation systems can be used in various different ways to facilitate its users with effective information sorting. For a person who loves reading, this paper presents the research and implementation of a Recommendation System for a NewsReader Application using Android Platform. The NewsReader Application proactively recommends news articles as per the reading habits of the user, recorded over a period of time and also recommends the currently trending articles. Recommendation systems and their implementations using various algorithms is the primary area of study for this project. This research paper compares and details popular recommendation algorithms viz. Content based recommendation systems, Collaborative recommendation systems etc. Moreover, it also presents a more efficient Hybrid approach that absorbs the best aspects from both the algorithms mentioned above, while trying to eliminate all the potential drawbacks observed

Investigating ‘Churnalism’ in real time news

Language Use in Past and Presen

Why ownership pluralism still matters in a multi-platform world

This chapter examines the effects of changing technology on landscapes of media provision and consumption and considers whether the greater choice made possible by digital technology and changing patterns of consumption obviate the need for special interventions to restrict media ownership for the sake of pluralism. News Corporation's bid for BSkyB in 2011 clearly exemplified how, not least in times of technological change, patterns of ownership are shaped by economic and strategic factors. Digitisation has encouraged greater cross-sectoral convergence providing an extra spur towards strategies of diversification and multi-platform expansion in the media industry. Even so, and despite the transition to a more web-connected era, as this chapter argues there remain good grounds for concerns about the power wielded by dominant media organisations in relation to production and circulation of news, ideas and cultural and political values within contemporary societies

Reinvigorating Journalism Education: A Review of News21, 2005-2011

Examines the impact on students and direction of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative for the Future of Journalism Education's fellowship program for investigative reporting projects. Includes industry leaders' views on journalism schools and recommendations