Presidential Influence of the News Media: The Case of the Press Conference

Can presidents influence news coverage through their press conferences? Scant research has explored this question leaving two possible answers. On the one hand, presidential news management efforts, combined with norms of journalistic professionalism and the cost of producing news, suggest that the nightly news will cover presidential press conferences. On the other hand, the costs of delivering press conferences espoused by some scholars insinuate that press conferences will have little impact on news coverage. To determine whether the press conference influences news coverage, I use plagiarism detection software to assess the propensity of television news to incorporate the president's rhetoric into stories that cover the president's press conferences. I find that news reports on the press conference rely heavily on the president's words, indicating that it is an important event for presidential influence of the news media and perhaps eventually the public.     

The Mass Media as Sentinel: Why Bad News About Issues is Good News for Participation

This article argues that negative news coverage of politically relevant social issues stimulates political participation by shaping citizen awareness of collective problems and interest in politics. By drawing citizen attention to social problems that government may attend to, the press acts as a sentinel for the mass public, cuing them to periods when participation is more important. Drawing on an analysis of the 1974 National Election Study in combination with the Center for Political Studies' content analysis of newspapers, I find evidence that bad news about issues is good news for participation.     

A model for the translation of news agency texts (Sapa) for radio (OFM) news

Abstract

Radio news differs from news provided by other media. According to Oosthuizen (1996), radio is an alerting medium. Leiter, Harriss and Johnson (2000) refer to this attribute as immediacy. The time available to news is very limited and this is why radio news stories are condensed into only a few sentences. Furthermore, news for broadcast is written in a conversational style, because it is heard and not read. Simple, short sentences are used; adjectives and adverbs are kept to a minimum; and strong, active verbs are used rather than passives. In the case of news wires, such as the South African Press Association (known as Sapa), news reports are written for print media. Therefore, bulletin producers need to edit these texts according to the requirements for radio news. In a bilingual or multilingual newsroom a more problematic situation arises, namely that all these texts (originally intended for use in print) need to be translated for a radio news bulletin and the radio station's specific audience. This article aims to describe how translation is used in the operational functioning of a radio newsroom, with a specific focus on OFM – a bilingual commercial radio station broadcasting to the Free State, Northern Cape, North West and southern parts of Gauteng, in South Africa. OFM's bulletin producers therefore not only edit news texts, but also translate them from English into Afrikaans. Certain strategies are followed to edit the original texts, but as there are also translation processes involved and specific translation problems which need to be addressed, appropriate translation strategies need to be identified. This study uses Christiane Nord's functionalist model (specifically her looping model) to describe the broad methodological framework in which these translating and editing (or transediting) processes take place at OFM. The study and findings will also show how certain elements of the looping model need to be adjusted in the translation of Sapa texts for OFM News.     

Hermeneutical dimensions of a media ethic

Abstract

This article explores the concept of a communication ethic, with specific reference to news practice. Can communication be ethically neutral? I would argue that it cannot and will show that certain hermeneutical elements (or aspects of interpretation theory) not only make communication possible, but morally accountable as well. Guided by the philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer, I will draw on a recent presentation by Donald Matheson, who teaches journalism at Canterbury University, in New Zealand. Three obstacles in the path towards a fuller ethical vision of news practice are initially examined: an emphasis on verification of factual presentation at the expense of meaning-making, the inadequacy of ethical discourses of independence and distrust of sources, and the methodological relationship between ethical discourse and practice. An alternative conceptualisation of news practice challenges the bias against understanding implicit in traditional news practice, discovers an intrinsic role for the subjectivity of the journalist and comes to recognise the importance of what Jake Lynch terms an ‘ethic of responsibility’. To the same end of a more accountable media ethic, certain key concepts of Gadamer's hermeneutical philosophy, such as openness, listening, close distance and self-knowledge, are introduced and briefly discussed.     

A Review of: “Digitizing the News: Innovation in Online Newspapers,by Pablo J. Boczkowski”

This study examines the way in which USA Today used tracking poll data in its strategy‐oriented coverage of the 1992 presidential campaign. Scrutiny of the methodological features of tracking polls suggests the news media's potential misuses of them. Studies on media polling lead to the general hypothesis that tracking polls serve the mass media as a device for generating news accounts that focus on candidate strategy. Using the ARIMA modeling technique, I conclude that as changes in the margin of difference between Bush and Clinton in the Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll increased, USA Today cited the poll results more frequently. The increase in the number of tracking poll references corresponded to an increase in the number of strategy‐oriented words in USA Today's campaign coverage. I discuss the implications within the context of the 1992 election campaign coverage.     

Greasing the squeaky wheel: News media coverage and us development aid, 1977–1992

This study explores the role that news media coverage plays in influencing US foreign policy in general, and foreign aid policy in particular. It is expected that foreign policy officials will be responsive to the content of the domestic news media and will attempt to align their actions with what they expect is the public's perception of the importance of a particular issue. In this study, it is hypothesized that that higher levels of news coverage of a potential recipient country will lead to higher aid commitments. The analysis examines the levels of US aid commitments to those it provided aid during the period 1977–1992. Even with an admittedly simple measure of news media coverage, the empirical findings are clear. The level of news coverage is a statistically significant factor in the levels of aid offered by the US. Thus a domestic political motive may be considered to be operative along with more widely studied determinants of aid based upon humanitarian motives and national self‐interests.     

Milton's army: The white house press corps

White House reporters follow a path constructed by presidential advisers that they hope will lead them to fulfill goals set by their news organizations. White House officials ration them facilities for work, access to newsworthy people, and reportable information in amounts that depend on the importance to the President of the type of media they work in, the status of their particular news organization, and the staff's respect for the influence and competence of a particular individual. In this context, several constraints that affect White House reporting are discussed here: those placed on reporters by their organizations; by the way their type of media covers the White House; by their relations with each other; and by their concepts of what they are required to do. The framework for this discussion and analysis is a classification by type of media and news organizations that assign journalists to the White House. Of the resulting six categories, the first three have the most structural and organizational influence and are given the most attention. The special status, unique history, and influence of photographers at the White House require that they be treated separately.     

Privacy,the news media,and the courts

Abstract

This article is concerned with the conflict between the news media's position that the public has a ‘'right to know'’ under the free press provision of the First Amendment and the right to privacy under the tort law. The constitutional issue is raised whenever the media print or broadcast accurate, but often embarrassing, facts about a person, or whenever personal information is publicized which an individual prefers not to share with the general public.

In unwanted publicity and public disclosure cases, the courts have accorded greater weight to the defendant defenses of consent, news‐worthiness, and media privilege than to the plaintiff's invasion of privacy claim. To remedy this inequity, a two‐tier judicial model is proposed that would have courts balance the two competing interests in such a manner as to enhance individual privacy without diminishing the informational function of the news media.     

International news as a reflection of cosmopolitan ideology: Coverage of the Ivorian crisis by CNN and the BBC

Abstract

International news discourse is often framed with ideological underpinnings. Ideology as a system of ideas or beliefs or ways of thinking not only helps, defines and explains, but also makes value judgements about that world (Croteau 2012; Van Dijk 1995). The author 's aim was to find out to what extent international news discourse reflects a cosmopolitanist ideology. The article looks at the extent to which the discourse of international news meets Tomlinson's (1999) postulation that cosmopolitanism should involve an intellectual and aesthetic stance of ‘openness’ towards people, places and different cultures – especially those from different ‘nations’. Using framing theory and critical discourse analysis as the theoretical basis for examining international news, the aim is to determine whether international news encourages or discourages a cosmopolitanist outlook during periods of political crisis. The author argues that Western media reportage on events in Ivory Coast to a large extent reflected a cosmopolitanist outlook.     

Media and the institutional perspective: U.S. and Canadian coverage of terrorism

Abstract

This paper reports data from a content analysis of television news coverage of terrorism. A proposed typology of terrorism and media coverage is tested with stories from network news in the United States and Canada. The typology posits that media coverage of terrorism depends on the act's relation to institutional power bases. The two types of terrorism outlined either seek out or avoid media coverage, depending on whether they challenge or reinforce institutional power. Because of media's interrelationship with the economic and political institutions, coverage of terrorism will take on the flavor of these institutions’ perspective. The data show that although media cover terrorist acts that are linked to U.S. institutional interests, the tone of such coverage casts uncritical perspective. The implications for the general message system of news, with particular regard to the media's contribution to international understanding, are explored.     

The Truths/Fictions/Traumas of Marikana: Exploring Violence and Trauma in Three Films,The Marikana Massacre: Through The Lens (2013), Miners Shot Down (2014), and Night is Coming: A Threnody for the Victims of Marikana (2014)

ABSTRACT

By exploring three films that centre on the Marikana strikes and killings of 2012, I seek to examine both the representations of violence as trauma, and the trauma of representing violence, within the context of visual, cinematic texts. I position Marikana, and the trauma of Marikana, as both a highly significant moment, and also as representative of deeper social and political traumas and injustices. I ask whether and how these films create a narrative context for this pivotal moment in South African history. I also question the effects of cinematic style and genre in the depictions of trauma and violence. The institutional context in which each film originated and developed is important, and I argue that the audience's expectations of the genre of documentary film also play a significant role in the way in which the films process trauma. I situate my paper in conversation with previous articles by Lucy Graham and Helene Strauss among others, that deal with cinematic portrayals of Marikana. By examining the selected films alongside each other, and through the lens of Decolonial Trauma Studies, I hope to elucidate the ways in which these South African films deal with and work through trauma.     

From Women of the Year to “Soccer Moms”: The Case of the Incredible Shrinking Women

In the 1992 U.S. election year, mainstream print and television news coverage was replete with hosannas for female politicians, praised as strong and politically powerful figures during this so-called ''Year of the Woman.'' Just 4 years later, 1996 election news reports relied upon a very different image to describe women vis-à-vis electoral politics: soccer moms. Soccer mom was the term used most recurrently in mainstream television and print media to refer to an aggregate of women, vis-à-vis electoral politics, who were described as crucial to the success of either presidential candidate: President Clinton or Robert Dole. This period of time represents a dramatic shift in news discourse: from discussing women as political power wielders (Women of the Year) to discussing women as a group of swing voters defined primarily by their filial obligations. This article considers some possible implications of this shift and argues that it represents a discursive connection between women voters reduced to a demographic category characterized by womens relationships to their children and an ideology of consumerism that reduces electoral politics to personal choices around product consumption and lifestyle.     

Mobilizing Information: Local News and the Formation of a Viable Political Community

This article offers a rhetorical understanding of the practices and influences of news media on democratic citizenship during an environmental conflict. I compared two newspapers' ability to foster and suppress the formation and activation potential of citizens to participate in the decision-making process of a solid waste facility siting. One newspaper used language that fostered the formation of community by overcoming apathy and encouraging residents to act collectively. In contrast, the other newspaper's coverage suppressed the formation of community by reinforcing the belief that residents were powerless against the entrenched economic and political power base. This research also establishes a rationale for why it is important to the discipline to expand the definition of mobilizing information in the news media.     

Learning from the news: Experiments in media,modality, and reporting about star wars

This study explores what ordinary American adults learn from news reported in different communications modalities and media. In the first experiment, the text of news items about Star Wars is held constant but the communications modality varies. In the second experiment, news reports reflect the journalistic style of television, newspaper, and magazine reporting. In the modality experiment, subjects learned equally well from the audiovisual, audio, or print versions of the stories. In the media experiment, subjects in the magazine and television conditions gained substantially more information than those in the newspaper condition; but when subjects were asked to apply information to policy judgments about Star Wars, magazine readers were more dovish than television viewers. For Star Wars news, it appears that the content and characteristic style of a news medium have important effects on news comprehension, particularly for the least informed and least interested members of the public.     

Iraq—managing the peace

In a little over three weeks in March and April 2003 American-led Coalition forces invaded Iraq, defeated the Iraqi Armed Forces, removed Saddam Hussein's regime and occupied a country the size of France. In terms of military power and political will, it was a display of extraordinary detemination and might. To have achieved it in such a short time, with almost negligible military casualties and with limited war damage to the country's infrastructure was a feat of almost unimaginable military precision and planning. To have further avoided the dire consequences of the much talked of 'Stalingrad scenario' in and around the built-up areas of Baghdad and Basra displayed maturity and wisdom in the senior military leadership. That conditions for success were set, irrespective of outside pressures to act, is both commendable and surprising in a time of instant news, instant reaction and demands for instant success.     

From the 'Olympic Formula' to the Beijing Games: Towards Greater Integration across the Taiwan Strait?

The award of the 2008 Olympic Games to Beijing has animated the people of China, but has raised hopes as well as fears among people in Taiwan. The Olympic movement has enabled both countries to participate in international sports under the so-called 'Olympic formula'. It has also stimulated cooperation between them in such areas as science and trade. Can the Beijing Games bring the two sides closer together through the co-hosting of some events? Three issues may stand in the way: operational feasibility, juridical consent and political agreement. The most intractable problem is the 'one China' principle, a condition set by Beijing for further cooperation. The co-hosting project is not impossible, provided both sides have the political will to make it work. At the moment, however, this political will seems to be wanting.     

Longing for home: The Tosa Diary's funa uta and Heian popular song

Less discussed than its other noteworthy characteristics is the degree to which Tosa nikki marks the ways that song permeated Heian culture. A particularly valuable example is provided by the funa uta or ‘boat songs’ that are transcribed in the diary, which are the only extant examples of this genre. Moreover, they represent a rare instance of popular songs from the period that are sung by commoners rather than professional performers or aristocratic amateurs, making them truly distinctive within the corpus of Heian song-texts that have survived. This article seeks to flesh out our understanding of the diary's funa uta through a close reading of their formal features as they relate to other types of Heian song and their content as it relates to their historical context. In doing so, it will present new hypotheses about their characteristics as a distinct genre whose signature refrains expressing a desire to return home operated on the level of meaning as much as musicality in binding together their lyrics, and whose concern with the forms of alienation that extreme mobility engender is particularly suited to shipborne travel and the sorts of exchanges between unrelated parties that it entailed.     

South African news in international radio broadcasting: a comparative analysis

SUMMARY

This is a comparative content analysis, over a five year period from 1987 to 1991, of the coverage of South African news in international radio broadcasting, specifically Voice of America, Radio Moscow and Radio RSA. This study takes as its point of departure the premise that different ideologies produce differing concepts of news, and this in turn will produce differing images of South Africa in that news. As there is no suitable theory to explain the findings of this study, a triadic model of international radio broadcasting news has been constructed, based on a Three World's taxonomy. This study establishes the importance of South Africa to international radio news, the topics covered, and determines the trends and differences in that coverage over the study period. These findings are discussed in terms of ideologically determined news values.     

Questioning the media and democracy relationship: the case of South Africa

This article addresses normative ideas around the role of journalism and the news media's links to the democratic process in South Africa and many other post-colonial societies in the Global South. In particular, the article addresses questions around the news media's role as the Fourth Estate and its claims to public representation, as well as the role that new media and social media in particular play in the media-politics nexus and in the strengthening of democracy (in its many guises). The article assesses the contextual factors that need to be considered in the analysis of media development and the roles and functions ascribed to the news media from within the context of the post-colony and young democracies in the Global South.