Clash of Coverage: Cultural Framing in U.S. Newspaper Reporting on the 2011 Protests in Bahrain

Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilizations paradigm was established after the Cold War to explain an emerging new world order and was utilized in the cultural framing hypothesis’ explanation of U.S. news coverage of conflicts. Through content analysis of three major U.S. newspapers’ coverage of the 2011 protests in Bahrain, this study uses the cultural framing hypothesis to determine if a clash of civilizations shaped news stories. The results largely support the hypothesis and Huntington’s paradigm

An Andragogical Approach to Developing Dialogic Learning through Wikis

This article examines the effectiveness of using wikis for collaborative projects in college journalism classrooms, with the principles of andragogy as a framework. The use of wikis in two journalism courses at a large university in the American Midwest illustrates how wikis can encourage learners to become more self-directed by engaging in online collaborative writing about how best to produce reports about diverse populations. Two case studies are related to journalistic best practices in the coverage of two sensitive topics: Islam and immigration. The content of these wikis was compiled into best-practices documents that informed the students’ subsequent coursework. The documents were also published online for use in classrooms and newsrooms, offering a “real world” audience for the work. This article provides educators with an outline for engaging students in similar projects to improve their application skills as well as critical thinking

The Influence of Female Lead Characters in Political TV Shows: Links to Political Engagement

© 2019, © 2019 Broadcast Education Association. This study examined political television dramas with lead female characters, proposing a model that links viewing of these shows with political engagement. A survey revealed that regular viewers of Madam Secretary, The Good Wife, or Scandal reported feeling transported by these programs’ narratives and parasocial relationships with the main characters (i.e., women in positions of political leadership). These responses were also related to increases in political interest and self-efficacy, with interest predicting real-world political participation. The findings illustrate that these political dramas have prosocial implications, including the non-stereotypical representation of women as well as increased political engagement among viewers

News bias perceptions as impacted by source cues, content cues, and media bias ratings

Using three experimental studies, this research considers whether exposure to source cues, content cues, and media bias ratings impacts perceptions of ideological bias in news stories. As a possible news media literacy intervention strategy, viewing a media bias ratings chart after reading a news story had limited influence on assessments of bias. Source cues consistently influenced bias perceptions. Study 1 and Study 2 revealed evidence of the relative hostile media perception, where Republicans and Democrats perceived the news stories as biased in the same direction but to a significantly different degree. This finding did not replicate in Study 3, where content cues were held constant. Thus, content cues, alongside source cues, appear necessary in facilitating the relative hostile media perception.</p

Reporting on Immigration: A Content Analysis of Major U.S. Newspapers' Coverage of Mexican Immigration

Immigration in the U.S. is an issue that has polarizing political implications at the national and local levels. Reports by the press shape how the public perceives immigration and influence public policy regarding immigrants and immigration. This study examines the stories about Mexican immigration published by four major U.S. newspapers by analyzing their patterns, frequency, length, topics, and framing. This research seeks to shed light on the national print news media's coverage of Mexican immigration to the United States as well as any of its perceived attempts to influence public opinion and public policy.La inmigración en Estados Unidos conlleva implicaciones políticas polarizantes en los niveles locales y nacional. Los informes de prensa moldean la percepción pública sobre el tema e influyen en las políticas locales hacia los inmigrantes y la inmigración. Este artículo examina las historias que sobre la inmigración mexicana presentan cuatro de los principales diarios estadunidenses al analizar sus patrones, frecuencia, tamaño, principales temas y contexto. Busca echar luz sobre la cobertura de las noticias impresas sobre la inmigración mexicana hacia Estados Unidos, así como los intentos de estos medios para influir en la opinión pública y en las políticas públicas

First-Person Effects of Emotional and Informational Messages in Strategic Environmental Communications Campaigns

<p>This study examined the first- and third-person effects of emotional and informational messages, particularly relating to the critical issue areas of energy, the environment, and global warming. Due to intense political polarization on such issues, it also explored the role of political party identification. The results of an experiment indicated that informational messages about the environment produced third-person effects, while environmental advertisements meant to evoke emotion caused first-person effects. Moreover, emotional environmental advertisements appealed more to Republicans and those who did not support a political party. As such, indirect, emotional messages appear to represent an opportunity for strategic environmental communicators to design campaigns that resonate with potentially unreceptive audiences.</p

A Pedagogical Approach to Developing Journalistic Best Practices Through Wikis

Two journalism courses at a large Midwestern university utilized wikis (websites that interlink content contributions) to engage students in a virtual discussion of how to best report on diverse groups of people. The contents of the wikis were compiled into best practices documents that are available online for use both in classrooms and newsrooms. This paper presents a use of media technology that fosters student interaction and growth and provides educators with an outline for how to create similar devices to improve the news coverage produced by their students, who represent the future of journalism. It simultaneously argues for a closer examination of the coverage of specific populations and the development of best practices documents to facilitate better coverage of such populations