News Management as News

Abstract

This paper argues that the widely noticed increase in news reports about news management, government publicity and media relations must be seen as a logical outgrowth of a new, modernized and media-centred approach to policy-making and campaigning. It offers a systematic introduction to the concepts of media politics and metacoverage, develops a theoretical model to examine their relationship and applies it to the political communication dynamics of Great Britain. This paper breaks new ground in two respects: it broadens our understanding of what counter-measures media professionals take in response to political news management, and it lays out a comprehensive theoretical scheme of how the mediatization of politics leads to a mediatization of political coverage.     

No News Is News: Nonignorable Nonresponse in Roll‐Call Data Analysis

Roll‐call votes are widely employed to infer the ideological proclivities of legislators. However, many roll‐call matrices are characterized by high levels of nonresponse. Under many circumstances, nonresponse cannot be assumed to be ignorable. We examine the consequences of violating the ignorability assumption that underlies current methods of roll‐call analysis. We present a basic estimation framework to model nonresponse and vote choice concurrently, build a model that captures the logic of competing principals that underlies accounts of nonresponse in many legislatures, and illustrate the payoff of addressing nonignorable nonresponse through both simulated and real data. We conclude that modeling presumed patterns of nonignorable nonresponse can yield important inferential payoffs over current models that assume random missingness, but we also emphasize that the decision to model nonresponse should be based on theoretical grounds since one cannot rely on measures of goodness of fit for the purpose of model comparison.     

News Management and New Managerialism

Abstract

This article examines the public communication activities of “Quangos” (Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organizations). These non-elected organizations fulfill diverse public functions-such as, providing services, advising policy makers, regulating other institutions, representing the interests of certain social and cultural groups, supporting private enterprise, and promoting pro-social values and practices.

Focusing mainly on news management strategies in the sector, the article shows that the popular image of quangos as highly introverted organizations needs revision, and that many place considerable emphasis on public communication issues. However, this recognition contextualises rather than invalidates concerns about accountability within this tier of government, as publicity activities in the sector are geared towards facilitating the external promotion of organizations' roles rather than scrutiny of their conduct.     

新闻专业课堂教学法改革探索

改变传统的教学方法和教学手段,鼓励教师创新教学已经成为当今新闻教学势在必行的一大课题。新闻专业教学以培养能力、提升素质为根本,以追求互动、新颖为方法,探索出一条较为行之有效的课题教学模式。笔者根据自己的教学经历总结了一些行之有效的教学方法：案例教学法、小组活动教学法、情景设置教学法、课堂讨论教学法。     

News Media and Peace Building in Asymmetrical Conflicts: The Flow of News between Jordan and Israel

This study explores the role of the news media in asymmetrical conflicts after countries have signed a peace agreement. While most research has focused on the inherently negative role the press plays in attempts to bring peace, this study attempts to look at this issue using a more dynamic perspective. The theoretical argument focuses on how political factors affect the quantity and quality of the news flow and some of the ways in which leaders can sometimes overcome the obstacles they face in promoting encouraging news about peace. The model considers two political factors that have a major impact on media performance: the relative level of political power of the two sides and the varying amount of hostility. To illustrate the importance of these factors we focus on the flow of news between Jordan and Israel between 1999 and 2002. The major findings from content analyses of news articles ( N  = 859) appearing in both countries show that while Jordanians are exposed to massive amounts of mostly negative information about Israel, the Israeli public reads almost nothing about Jordan. Despite all this, it was also found that the initiation of diplomatic relations between the former enemies allowed for the creation of important 'news slots' that were previously unavailable. This development created space for less threatening types of news and also allowed leaders from both Jordan and Israel to initiate some positive stories about peace, even during some of the darkest periods.