Inside a News Item: A Dispute Over Framing

Trust in serious journalism is based on our belief in the professionalism of journalistic practice. We expect televisions evening news to select the most significant events of the day and tell them in a fair and accurate manner. Whereas academic research agrees that news value or newsworthiness should be the guiding principle for selectivity, the principle is rarely spelled out in detail. Occasional attempts to infer these values empirically from what gets published or from whats left on the floor conceal the process of negotiation and disagreement that goes on in the newsroom and between professional journalists and the interests of the channels private or public owners. The case study presented here uses inside information that emerged during the course of a public debate following the broadcasting of a news item on Israels Public Television featuring football fans at a victory celebration welcoming Prime Minister Netanyahu with racist shouts. The analysis demonstrates that the same event may evoke several competing frames and thus may be included or dropped, or appear at various spots in the lineup for different reasons. The paper raises the question of whether the authority of the news might not be enhanced on occasion by sharing competing frames with viewers.     

A Spiral of Cynicism for Some: The Contingent Effects of Campaign News Frames on Participation and Confidence in Government

This article explores the impact of strategy-based campaign coverage on turnout and confidence in government. Recent theoretical advances suggest that variables such as sophistication and involvement frequently moderate media exposure effects. We hypothesize that the impact of strategy frames will be moderated by political involvement and sophistication. In an experiment, we precisely isolate and manipulate particular story elements that have been said to foster public cynicism: the strategic interpretation of candidate motives, the presence of polling results, and the use of war or game metaphors to describe the campaign. Relative to the issue-oriented coverage, strategy frames boost the number of strategy-based comments people offer when describing the campaign and depress issue-based commentary. As expected, framing effects on turnout, trust in government, civic duty, and the perceived meaningfulness of elections are moderated by involvement and sophistication. Nonpartisans and those with less than a college degree are significantly demobilized and alienated by strategy-based coverage, while partisans and the highly educated are mostly unaffected.     

Advance Agent of the Truman Doctrine: The United States,The New York Times,and the Greek Civil War

Democratic theorists observe high correlations between public opinion and government policy, but it is difficult to determine the direction of causation. This article concerns the relative abilities of government officials and media owners to influence political discourse. Both affected The New York Times' coverage of the Greek civil war before the declaration of the Truman Doctrine. When the Truman administration leaked its intention to intervene in Greece and offered a new interpretation of the civil war, the Times instantly adopted the new theme. The Times had the resources and opportunity to challenge government arguments, but its correspondent in Athens suppressed available information that contradicted official statements, and the publisher supported his reporter despite obvious partisanship. Top reporters maintained close ties with government officials, and they promoted American interventionism in the pages of the newspaper. And a seamless connection between editorials and news coverage reflects ownership's support for the Truman Doctrine. Government's influence may be strongest when officials and media owners share interests and values. And the temporal order raises implications for the relationship between opinion and policy: Policymakers may select new policies first and then move public opinion to win support for planned policy changes.     

Constructing Explanations for U.S. State Governors’ Races: The Abortion Issue and the 1990 Gubernatorial Elections

Election results do not, by themselves, explain what specific policies voters want. So reporters and the politicians and activists they cover engage in a process of constructing explanations for the vote totals, to achieve their respective aims. This study examines the conditions in which a potentially influential issueabortion rights after the Webster decisionwas interpreted as an explanation for gubernatorial election outcomes in 1990. Data show that explanations constructed for the vote totals in newspaper coverage often differed from the findings of state exit polls. Abortion was more likely to be interpreted as a cause of the vote when the race was one-sided, when the candidates differed more clearly in their stands on abortion, and when some aspect of their stands fit the medias need to portray drama and conflict. Findings suggest that media norms as to what is news influence the process of constructing explanations for election results.     

The Symbolic Construction of Rival Nations: Radio Japan's Coverage of U.S.-Japanese Trade Disputes

Although there is an extensive research literature on the ideological uses of news particularly during times of war there has been little investigation of how media present news in support of their nations' position in international economic conflicts This study analyzes the newscasts of Radio Japan during a period of major trade disputes between Japan and the United States It identi fies the way in which a clear and serviceable image of an international trade rival can be constructed as a cumulative product over an extended period of newscasts     

(Ms)taking Context for Content: Framing the Fourth World Conference on Women

This article analyzes journalistic framing of the 1995 Fourth UN World Conference on Women in two mainstream American newspapers, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times . The research identified recurrent themes used by the two newspapers to frame the event before, during, and after it took place. Content analysis of all conference-related stories in both papers showed that journalists focused on incidents and problems related to logistics rather than on the issues the conference was convened to consider. When substantive issues were mentioned, they were accompanied by little or no background analysis. Further, journalists often framed the conference by its geographical and ideological contexts, emphasizing the diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China. Stories tended to marginalize and stereotype certain institutions and political groups, and journalists were unlikely to cover the event by seeking a diversity of voices from among its participants. Results also suggest that the repeated association of themes with particular individuals and groups is an important contribution to the construction and ultimate salience of news frames.     

Family ties: A case study of coverage of families and friends during the hijacking of TWA flight 847

When U.S. citizens are held hostage in a foreign land, U.S. journalists have problems making the story meaningful for their readers. The hostages are usually not accessible. The political causes are far too complex to translate well into 90‐second nightly news stories or 20‐inch newspaper articles. Friends and families of the hostages provide journalists with a way for focusing on the human element of the story. This case study of the 1985 hijacking of TWA 847 illustrates how such a focus can lead to exploitation of friends and family to manipulation of news media.     

革新时期的越南新闻教育:改革与探索

越南新闻本科教育起步于革新后,存在着设施、教材、师资等方面的不足,培养的人才尚不能适应实际工作的需求。目前,越南在坚持社会主义、爱国主义新闻教育理念的前提下,吸收现代新闻教育理念,对现有大学新闻教育模式进行改革和探索;同时重视对现有新闻队伍的短期培训。     

The interconnections of political power,psychotherapy, and world community

This study of the main evening television news programs in four European countries focuses on the framing of news surrounding a major European event, the January 1, 1999, introduction of the common European currency, the euro. We investigated the visibility of political and economic news in general and of the launch of the euro in particular. We found variations across countries in the emphasis on political and economic news, with the proportion of the newscast normally devoted to these subjects ranging from 45% to 60%. Journalists in all countries were more likely to emphasize conflict (rather than economic consequences) in framing general political and economic news. In the coverage of the launch of the euro, there was a greater emphasis on framing the news in terms of economic consequences. The findings are discussed in terms of influences on framing practices internal and external to journalism and the value of the cross-national comparative approach.     

Assessing Americans' Opinions About the News Media's Fairness in 1996 and 1998

This article reports an analysis of Americans' opinions about the news media's fairness in covering public affairs. The data come from the 1996 and 1998 National Election Studies, which contained variables tapping exposure to and opinions about the news media, as well as key political dispositions?partisanship, ideology, and opinion about presidential and congressional job performance?and a plethora of demographic variables. The data show that people who adhere to traditional moral codes and are misanthropic tend not to trust the news media to cover politics fairly. In a presidential election year, opinion about the president's job performance affects perceptions of the press's fairness. In an off-year election, however, opinion about the president's job performance is replaced by opinion about how the Congress has been doing its job. In addition, perception of how the media covered the Lewinsky scandal also influenced opinion about the press's fairness in general.     

Television and attitudes toward foreign countries: A report on a survey of Scandinavian children

Children of all ages are more likely to use electronic sources of information such as television and radio-than they are print sources-such as newspapers and magazines-according to a variety of studies. This study examines whether this tendency continues if the children are forced by their primary and secondary school teachers to use multiple news sources-of their own choice-to follow an election campaign. Based on responses from an extraordinarily large sample of 24,348 children, this study focuses on media use by participants in the Kids Voting USA civics education program. Study results demonstrate that even when seeking campaign information in 1994, a non-presidential election year when the emphasis was more on state and local races, children overwhelmingly preferred television and radio as sources of information. Newspaper usage trailed both electronic forms even when a child's family subscribed to a paper. The study found no significant difference between White and non-White children in their choices and uses of information sources. The large sample size also allowed for a detailed look at often neglected subgroups such as Native American children (n = 1,114) and Asian-American children (n = 768).     

Civic Engagement in the Era of Big Stories

Most scholars agree that news coverage of politics is the product of complicated interaction between journalists and politicians. Yet, we know little about how the interaction affects the coverage. Our analysis examines U.S. senators' press events and subsequent national network coverage from 1980–1996. Our evidence suggests that all senators can increase journalists' interest in their press events by carefully choosing the type of event and which politicians attend. In turn, such interest often translates into actual news stories, although that coverage is not guaranteed. Thus, senators can structure press events in order to increase the likelihood of coverage, but reporters understandably resist their attempts to do so. As a result, the most newsworthy press events require senators to give up control over content, creating more potential for revealing unexpected information.     

Assessing the Democratic Debate: How the News Media Frame Elite Policy Discourse

This article examines the way in which the news media frame public policy issues and the extent to which other political players (e.g., interest groups, politicians) influence this issue framing process. Our analysis focuses on the issue of gun control, comparing the rhetoric generated by interest groups and public officials on the Brady Bill and Assault Weapons Ban with actual network news coverage of this legislation from 1988 to 1996. Results indicate that both sets of political players employed several interpretative issue frames and worked hard to put their preferred themes on the agenda. However, at times, the media intervened in the framing process, especially as the debate matured. Specifically, the news media (a) structured the overall tone of the gun control debate, (b) adopted a distribution of framing perspectives different from that of politicians and interest groups, and (c) packaged policy discourse more often than not in terms of the "culture of violence" theme. These findings point toward previously ignored media effects and attest to the potential role the media play in shaping public policy debates.     

中国新闻出版业向东盟“走出去”发展研究

中国新闻出版业向东盟"走出去"极具重要性,但当前存在受文化差异影响较大、出版单位文化创新能力较差、人才缺乏和认识上的不足等方面的问题。在政策支持进一步加强、中国—东盟自由贸易区建成等有利条件下,应充分响应国家相关政策,增强向东盟"走出去"的主动性;发挥广西的平台作用,增强新闻出版整体实力;增强新闻出版业"走出去"的能力;加强新闻出版人才培养;为新闻出版业"走出去"提供法律和机制保障。     

How Much Is Too Much? Media Attention and Popular Support for an Insurgent Party

It is commonly observed that parties and candidates tend to receive coverage in the news media and attention in proportion to their electoral support. Although this norm serves to ensure that coverage is balanced or fair, news values often produce a different pattern of coverage in the television news media. This article considers the dynamic relationship between coverage in the news media and popular support for an insurgent party - the Reform party - in the 1993 Canadian election campaign. The analysis shows that coverage of Reform in the news media underwent an important change during the campaign that appears to have occurred before any change in popular support. While this change in attention to Reform was critical for Reform's ability to mobilize its potential electoral support, it also provides empirical support for the argument that there is an underlying equilibrium between the amount of coverage a party receives and its political support. Data for this analysis come from a campaign wave survey of vote intentions as part of the 1993 Canadian Election Study and a television content analysis of campaign news. The analysis applies an error-correction approach, which assumes an underlying equilibrium relationship, to model media access and vote intentions. The article thus expands the current applications of the error-correction technique while offering substantively important evidence of the political impacts of media decisions for the electoral support of new parties.     

论中国—东盟新闻报道的价值取向

中国—东盟自由贸易区的国家战略意义决定了中国—东盟新闻报道的宣传价值取向,媒体应从宣传的角度来确立中国—东盟新闻报道的思路和方法,把宣传价值放在第一位,同时也要看到中国—东盟报道的新闻特点,要处理好宣传与新闻、宣传价值与新闻价值的关系。     

Quiet diplomacy in a television era: The media and U.S. policy toward the republic of Korea

This study examines the role of television coverage in U.S. policy toward South Korea, focusing on the May 1980 Kwangji incident and the subsequent visit of South Korean president Chun Doo Hwan to the White House in February of 1981. It explores these two episodes in the context of major dimensions of U.S. policy toward Korea and the themes developed through sporadic, low‐level coverage of Korea by mainstream American media over the years. The analysis underscores the political impact of television's dramatic visual focus, its use of consistent visual images, its expansion of the geopolitical scope of the policy process, and its personalization of policy. The dramatically different public interpretations of the Kwangju incident and Chun visit in Korea versus the United States suggests that President Reagan's first major state visit, during which he declared that his administration would pursue “quiet diplomacy” on human rights in Korea, while successful within the United States and in the short term, was damaging over the long term.