Notes on recent dissertations

The growing popularity and use of news Web sites around the world provides new possibilities for studying the position of the United States in the world system charted by digital news items. In this article, we look at 35 popular news sites in 10 different languages over a 2-year period, in order to assess the position of the United States in world news as well as to identify possible explanations for it. Our findings show that the United States is by far the most prominent country in the news sites that we studied from around the world, except for the French and Arabic ones. The network structure of news links clearly exhibits its key position as the centerpiece of a global system. Economic factors better explain America's news prominence than political, social, and geographical factors. Yet, none of the many variables we examined could explain the large gap between the news prominence of the United States and that of the rest of the world. We discuss possible reasons for these findings and suggest directions for further studies in the field.

[Supplementary material is available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Political Communication for the following free supplemental resource: network data.]     

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.     

Terrorism as treated by the Christian science monitor, 1977–1987

Standing uniquely apart from journalistic sensationalism in its reportage of terrorism, the Christian Science Monitor (CSM/“The Monitor”) has taken a stance of trying to keep perspective on what individual events mean in terms of a wider framework.

It is perhaps critical to state at the outset that this researcher is not of the Christian Science faith, but has been a faithful reader of the Monitor for 15 years. When approached several years ago by The Terrorism and the News Media Research Project to contribute to that scholarship, an immediate response was that her primary newspaper would be inadequate to the task. A preliminary check into the Christian Science Monitor Index confirmed that fact: there were no entries under the heading of “terrorism” for 1975, 1976, 1977, and for 1978 it directed the researcher to see “violence”.

But then some dramatic changes took place in the mid‐1980s. The newspaper was undergoing major transitions internally, and terrorism was becoming an increasingly hot topic internationally.

This paper discusses terrorism as treated by the Christian Science Monitor, 1977–1987 both quantitatively and qualitatively. The approach is to delineate some of the underpinning philosophy of the newspaper, to discuss its chronological treatment of terrorism, and then to draw some implications from the study.     

Local Television and Newspaper Coverage of Political Advertising

How often do the news media cover the advertising of political candidates? And how do the characteristics of the news outlet, the media market, the race, and the advertisements themselves influence the extent to which this ad amplification takes place? Examining Senate and gubernatorial campaign coverage by several newspapers and local television stations in five midwestern states in 2006, we find that coverage of advertising is quite extensive, most of it is low quality, and its volume depends both on the size of the market and the tone of the spots aired. Surprisingly, however, television stations were not more likely than newspapers to cover advertising, though television does appear to be more sensitive to negative advertising, consistent with our theory.     

Bridging Gaps in Cross-Cutting Media Exposure: The Role of Public Service Broadcasting

Previous studies show that individual political interest is an antecedent of news media exposure, particularly of exposure to differing views. Nevertheless, little is known about this effect from a comparative perspective: How do media institutions affect the relationship between political interest and exposure to cross-cutting viewpoints? One institutional feature that varies between countries is the ownership of broadcast media. This study investigates the extent to which the relative dominance of public service broadcasting alters the relationship between political interest and non-like-minded, or cross-cutting, news media exposure across 27 European Union countries. The analyses employ survey data from 27,079 individuals and media content from 48,983 news stories. The results confirm that the extent to which political interest contributes to cross-cutting exposure is contingent on the strength of public service broadcasting. The stronger the broadcaster, the smaller the gaps between the most and least politically engaged individuals.     

从“重庆周克华案”谈突发事件现场的新闻管理

突发事件的发生现场是突发事件处置工作的第一现场,同时也是突发事件相关信息的汇集地。作为处置突发事件的主要政府部门之一,公安机关如何在现场对媒体记者进行有效的新闻管理,对于突发事件最终的处置结果将起到至关重要的作用。本文结合轰动全国的＂重庆周克华案＂,对公安机关在突发事件现场的新闻管理问题进行分析和探讨。     

写好民生新闻 增强媒体吸引力

民生新闻本着贴近群众、贴近实际、贴近生活的原则,创新观念、创新思维,不断满足广大人民群众的诉求和愿望,实现自身又好又快的发展。     

以国家安全为视角论新闻自由的法律规制

新闻自由是作为法人的新闻媒体所享有的对于事实真相客观公正地报道不受阻碍的权利,新闻传播对于国家安全有着巨大的影响,如果新闻自由被滥用,会对一国的国家安全产生负面影响,威胁一国的国家安全。中国现有的对于新闻自由的限制性、禁止性规定较为分散,未形成系统的法律规范,且法律效力较低。因此,应当完善我国的立法,制定效力更高、更为系统的法律规定,以维护我国的国家安全。     

Caricaturing “traitors”: Communal reactions to indigenous collaboration in Japanese-occupied Korea

Under foreign rule, indigenous collaborators pose a serious challenge that betrays the trust and faith of their compatriots with whom they have long shared experiences. This being the case, the question arises concerning how the occupied define “betrayal” and execute their sense of morality and justice against those considered as switching allegiance from being their fellow nationals to being considered as outsiders. For this analysis, I investigate the practice of the Korean news media under Japanese colonial rule, developing the concept of verbal caricature. I find that the indigenous media create outrageous verbal images of collaborators: (1) sinners, (2) pawns, and (3) criminals. By exploring the media's social justice under political constraint, this project contributes to the accumulation of knowledge on the unique practices of deviance-making, prompting a dialog between the two isolated research realms – social deviance and foreign occupation.