Conscientious dissident or radical eccentric? Negotiation of mediated protest images in New Zealand

It is suggested that media contribute to the adoption of norms and behavioral expectations by showing symbolic rewards and punishments for particular attitudes and behaviors. Much research has found repeated cases of slanting, trivialization and outright omission of those who deviate from the norms of an elite media and participate in political protest. Yet, little research has examined how individuals negotiate and assimilate these representations into their personal view of protest and civic participation. This research examines how focus group participants responded to images that have been suggested by previous scholars to be “positive” and “negative” images of protest

An imperceptible difference: visual and textual constructions of femininity in Sports Illustrated and Sports Illustrated for Women

My surname changed from "Kensicki" to "Kenix". This article was published prior to my name change.The success of female athletes in the 1996 Olympics brought with it a great deal of optimism that women in sport would finally receive acceptance for their athletic talents. This optimism was concomitantly fueled by the rise of women’s sport magazines. This study was designed with two purposes. First, through an analysis of both visual and literal texts, we sought to replicate previous research in determining whether there had been any changes in the coverage of female sport and athletes in Sports Illustrated’s historically male-centered magazine. Second, the same standards of review were applied to Sports Illustrated for Women to discover if the mandates for marketing femininity are so strong that they have crossed over to this female-specific sport magazine as well. An analysis of content (1,105 articles and 1,745 photographs) within Sports Illustrated and Sports Illustrated for Women from 1997-1999 found that women continue to be underrepresented, portrayed in ‘traditionally-feminine sports’, or shown in non-sport related scenery in both media outlets. Within the pages of media explicitly focused on women’s issues within sport, successful female athletes continue to be constructed in stereotypical and traditional conceptions of femininity that supercede their athletic ability. It is suggested that this generally unoffensive, status-quo approach has been continued in order to maintain marketability to advertisers and to general sports readers

Nonprofit Organizations' Perceptions and Uses of the Internet

This research examines how nonprofit organizations perceive and utilize the internet through the framework of Habermas’s theory of the public sphere. In seven focus groups across the country, 52 people responsible for creating internet strategy and/or web content for nonprofit organizations participated. Claims of sweeping improvements in democratic participation through the internet were not supported. Almost no organizations utilized the technology for horizontal or vertical flows of communication, data communality, interactivity, or engaged participation. Furthermore, these nonprofit organizations believed the internet offered little democratizing power but paradoxically provided instant credibility. Those making communication decisions overwhelmingly performed in technical rather than strategic roles as they pushed their message out to the public without any regard to feedback or communication strategy. These individuals also believed the corporate model would drive future internet growth, although they rarely trained internet workers. Possible reasons for these findings and implications for nonprofit organizations are discussed

You are either with us or with us: Constructing Samoan national identity through inclusion at the Samoa Observer

This study will concentrate on the weight of research, which suggests that the exclusion/inclusion of others is central to the formation of a national identity in news content. Drawing from this review, this research will then truncate the exclusion/inclusion metanarrative research into four posited micronarratives. News content from Samoa, New Zealand and Australia will then be examined according to these micronarratives and discussed in relation to previous research that has examined national identity and journalism. This study does not aim to create an indigenous epistemological framework for deconstructing identity. However, this research will conclude by advocating a closer inspection of widely held Western conceptions of identity construction through media representation

No Cure for What Ails Us: The media-constructed disconnect between societal problems and possible solutions

I changed my surname from "Kensicki" to "Kenix." This article was published prior to my name change.This research examined the attributes of three social problems – pollution, poverty, and incarceration – in 300 news articles from 1995 to 2000. Content overwhelmingly indicated no specific cause, effect or responsible agent for the problem; rarely mentioned non-profit citizen organizations or the individual-level terms ‘environmentalist,’ ‘activist’ and ‘advocate’ in content. Media coverage also did not discuss any likelihood that these problems could be solved and did not report any calls for reader action. It is suggested that media content may have promoted political apathy due to a lack of connection between the social problem, non-profit citizen organization activities and individual behavior

Framing Science: Climate Change in the Mainstream and Alternative News of New Zealand

The public learns about climate change through the media. While mainstream media have been found to inadequately report on this issue in the United States, little research has examined how alternative media frame climate change, or how the mainstream press in other countries, are dealing with this important issue. In 2007, Professor Tim O’Riordan, the British Sustainability Commissioner and an advisor to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, gave a public speech arguing that climate change must be framed not as a sacrifice or a penalty but as an opportunity to benefit the future. Shortly after, Dr. Michael Nisbet and Chris Mooney wrote a much discussed article in Science that argued scientists must de-emphasize the ‘facts’ and focus more on ‘morality’ if important scientific problems are going to have any hope of abating. If such moralistic frames are to be found in the press, one might expect to see their presence initially in alternative outlets or in the mainstream press of countries that have a more receptive policy toward combating climate change. This research examines how Scoop, an independent news website based in New Zealand, and The New Zealand Herald, the most popular mainstream newspaper in New Zealand, framed the issue of climate change

Visual communication in large-circulation U.S. newspapers before and after September 11, 2001

Through an examination of 580 front-pages from ten large-circulation U.S. newspapers during the six months before and after September 11th, this research found an increase in the size and use of photographs, and a decrease in text content and graphics. Further, this research found an increased reliance on visual techniques and principles of composition in the 1,693 photographs and 222 graphics examined. Thus, this preliminary study finds that September 11th may have signaled a shift in the use and application of visual imagery within the daily large-circulation newspapers examined for this study

The homogenized imagery of non-profit organizations on the Internet

This research evaluates websites from 200 ‘non-deviant’ and 200 ‘deviant’ non-profit organizations to better understand the relationship between the type of advocacy group and the visual imagery used for self-representation. Seventeen of 21 variables measured for this study found no difference between non-deviant and deviant non-profit organizations’ visual representations on the Internet. These findings potentially complicate the notion of a diverse communicative sphere. As non-profits face the responsibility of representing themselves to potentially millions of viewers online, it is suggested that self-imposed ‘normalizing’ restrictions on visual constructions of organizational identity may be inevitable. The societal implications of homogenized imagery from non-profit organizations online are discussed

A historical framing analysis of liberalism in the U.S. Press (1978-2002)

While roughly half of American citizens continue to claim allegiance to the Democratic Party, there is a widely-held belief that ëliberalismí itself has seen a strong ideological denigration. This research examined 586 articles from newspapers (Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and New York Times), predominant news magazines (Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report) and ideologically-focused news magazines (The Nation and National Review) from 1978 to 2002 to determine if this ideological denigration exists in the press. It was found that liberalism was less likely to be framed positively than negatively in media coverage and was significantly less likely to be associated with positive attributes, such as humanitarianism, egalitarianism and democratic beliefs than with negative attributes, such as regulation, permissiveness, prodÈnte beliefs, multinationalism and centralism. It is suggested that the impact of this shift could be having profound impact on policy, ideological identification and the range of permissable debate available in our present American democracy. Further, such bias in coverage complicates the notion of an objective press

In search of utopia: an analysis of non-profit web pages

This research explores the practical application of a widely held, utopian belief that the Internet remains a strong democratizing tool because of its inherent interactive capabilities. Through an analysis of 70 non-profit web pages, this study examines how these organizations utilize the Internet as a deliberative public sphere; an opportunity for activism; an avenue for advertising and fundraising revenue; a space for marginalized voices; an interconnected, instantaneous portal for information; and as a medium to bolster organizational accountability. This represents fundamental baseline research that is needed if the field is to build theories of Internet efficacy – particularly as it pertains to the non-profit sector