An Analysis of Front Page News Pertaining to Juveniles in South Dakota Daily Newspapers for the First Three Months of 1960 with Regard to Favorable and Unfavorable Content

Newspapers have often been accused of emphasizing the sensational giving minimum attention to the non-violent or “good” news in which young people are involved. Evidence to support or to disprove such accusations has, however, been lacking. The accusations have evidently been made on a basis of casual, informal observation of the media and on the basis of public opinion polls. The teen age group, then, is in the public eye and the impression which the public gets is perhaps obtained largely through the mass media. The question which arises would be, “is the press fair in its presentation by Gilbert suggest, present a one sided picture?” It was hoped that through such a study it would be possible to determine the extent of difference, if say, between display treatments given front page stories juveniles in socially approved roles and stories monitoring juveniles in socially disapproved roles. Each story mentioning teen-agers which appeared on the front page of a South Dakota daily newspaper during the three month period was studied in terms of the news role played by the youth, and the space and display given the story by the newspaper