A New Window to Space

正China’s first coastal launch site is ready for blastoff Five years after construction began,China’s fourth and most advanced space center,the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center,has been completed and is ready to start operations,the People’s Daily newspaper reported on October 17.     

报纸副刊文化探源

本文着重研究在中国报纸副刊出现、发展过程中,显示出来的富有代表性的文化特征。确切地说,中国报纸副刊具有文化的软性色彩,针砭时弊,推进社会变革,同时形式活泼,是大众文化的载体。     

报刊文献的创新服务探索——以中国矿业大学图书馆报刊阅览室为例

中国矿业大学图书馆报刊阅览室是一个有创新服务意识的、有特色服务理念的对外开放的文献机构。这一报刊文献服务的特色主要体现在:报刊阅览室工作人员的大报刊服务理念和深层服务意识、过刊新的服务模式、将剪报作为报刊阅览室的特色服务等。     

Voices

正"Tibet has been visibly transformed by uninterrupted double-digit GDP growth over two decades and has entered a new stage of development…As a result of this development,Tibet’s interaction and integration with the rest of China has deepened and its isolation from the rest of the world has been decisively ended,"     

“Sorry,wrong number”: Why media polls on gun control are often unreliable

Abstract

How scientific are the polls reported in the media on the gun‐control issue? Without arguing for or against gun controls, this article examines the interviewing and sampling methods used by media polls and finds that some polls claiming impressive majorities in favor of severe gun controls may not be accurate.     

Editorials in national development: Perceptions of Nigerian journalists

This study examines the self‐reported perceptions of the role of editorials in national development for a purposive sample of 348 full‐time, salaried Nigerian journalists on nine national newspapers in two newspaper ownership groups: private and government. Three major findings are indicated.

The first finding is that, on seven‐statement comparisons of the role of editorials in national development, government journalists perceived their editorials as more supportive of the government than did private journalists, a result largely reflective of government newspapers’ persuasive role in behalf of government agencies.

The second finding is that ownership of newspapers is not a particularly strong factor in journalists’ perceptions of the role of editorials in development. Such a finding calls into question the rationale for the continuing case for private ownership of Africa's media institutions as a solution to the limitations of the region's media in exercising independent, effective, and persuasive influence on development.

Finally, because this study indicates that newspaper ownership is occasionally not a factor in the perception of the role of editorials in development, it questions the implications of the simple, traditional distinction between government and private newspapers for national development in sub‐Saharan Africa.     

Are non‐voters cynics anyway?

It has been argued that recent low turnouts for elections in Britain have been fostered by increased cynicism among voters, a cynicism that has been fostered by the increasingly critical tone in which politics are reported by the media. While survey data confirm that voters have become more cynical about politics, they provide little evidence that this trend was particularly strong between 1997 and 2001 among (regular) readers of the (tabloid) press or among regular watchers of television news. Nor do such data suggest that the rise in cynicism had much impact on the level of turnout for the 2001 general election. The biggest challenge facing coverage of politics in the media in general, and newspapers in particular, is not the impact that the tone of its coverage may be having on voters' attitudes towards how they are governed, but rather the increasing reluctance of voters with little interest in politics to read a newspaper at all. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

Discursive Construction of territorial disputes: foreign newspaper reporting on the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute

Most studies of the news discourse surrounding territorial disputes focus on the domestic newspapers of the conflicting countries from the perspective of “us” and “them”. This study examines how the newspapers of foreign countries discursively construct a territorial dispute within the framework of an intergroup conflict schema. A qualitative and quantitative analysis of articles on the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute published online in five newspapers of record (the New York Times, the Guardian, the Sydney Morning Herald, Le Monde, and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) reveals two main points: First, the articles published by these newspapers share a similar intergroup conflict schema that is based on competition and the pursuit of national interests as interpreted in conformance with the national interests of the respective countries (USA, UK, Australia, France, and Germany). Second, in terms of how news discourse is framed, there are noticeable differences between the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the other four which may reflect the influence of Germany’s socio-historical context on domestic public opinion.     

Negative Campaigning in Party-Controlled Communication Channels: Party Communication Strategies in Campaign Posters,Newspaper Advertisement,and Press Releases during the 2008 Austrian National Election Campaign

Politicians and people professionally involved in politics agree that negative campaigning is a frequently used campaign communication strategy by Austrian political parties. Yet, there is no empirical investigation of such claims. The present study examines party-controlled communication channels to identify the use of negative messaging strategies from a political actor's perspective. The data for this study come from a 6-week content analysis of campaign posters, newspaper advertisement and press releases of the 2008 Austrian National Elections. I examine the degree, source, target, and type of negativity. Results show that there are great differences in the degree and type of negativity between the three communication channels. Whereas in press releases all Austrian parties constantly engaged in going negative, campaign posters hardly contained any negative message. To a great extent negative campaign tactics are adjusted depending to whom the message is addressed to in the first place, the voter or the media. Concerning the source and target of negative appeals, results show that in particular, parties sitting in opposition employ negative campaigning. Yet, they are hardly ever the target of negative messages.