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Karen Callaghan

Bio: Karen Callaghan is an academic researcher from Texas Southern University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Framing (social sciences) & Dialogical self. The author has an hindex of 4, co-authored 5 publications receiving 448 citations.

Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examined 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, finding that both sets of political players employed several interpretative issue frames and worked hard to put their preferred themes on the agenda.
Abstract: 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...

334 citations

Book
01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: Framing American Politics as discussed by the authors explores the roles that interest groups, political elites, and the media play in framing political issues for the mass public, focusing on both the origins and process of framing and its effects on citizens.
Abstract: Most issues in American political life are complex and multifaceted, subject to multiple interpretations and points of view. How issues are framed matters enormously for the way they are understood and debated. For example, is affirmative action a just means toward a diverse society, or is it reverse discrimination? Is the war on terror a defense of freedom and liberty, or is it an attack on privacy and other cherished constitutional rights? Bringing together some of the leading researchers in American politics, Framing American Politics explores the roles that interest groups, political elites, and the media play in framing political issues for the mass public. The contributors address some of the most hotly debated foreign and domestic policies in contemporary American life, focusing on both the origins and process of framing and its effects on citizens. In so doing, these scholars clearly demonstrate how frames can both enhance and hinder political participation and understanding.

90 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article examined the influence of issue frames and their messenger on a variety of dependent variables and found that credible sources significantly augment the effects of a frame while spokespersons with a perceived bias tend to weaken the frame's arguments and impact.
Abstract: Issue frames (i.e., the thematic slants that elites use to structure issue debates) have been shown to alter how citizens think about social policy issues. However, support for a social policy issue not only depends on how the issue is framed, but also on the source or “messenger” associated with the frame. For the most part, issue frames have been faceless and research has failed to consider how characteristics of the frame's messenger such as expertise and trustworthiness influence citizens. The present study examines the influence that gun control frames and their messengers have on a variety of dependent variables. The results show that source cues moderate the impact of the frames, even when controlling for other variables. Specifically, credible sources significantly augment the effects of a frame while spokespersons with a perceived bias tend to weaken the frame's arguments and impact. These results point toward a more complex framing theory: public support for social issues depends on how the issue is framed, as well as who presents the message.

34 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors explored the consequences of group labeling for the women's movement and found that group labels negatively affect related attitudes and impair the cognitive processing of additional information about women's movements, such as women concerned about equality, feminists, and radical feminists.
Abstract: In this article we explore the consequences of group labeling for the women's movement. We consider citizens' demand for cognitive simplicity and the vulnerability that such abbreviation engenders. To the extent that group labels such as “feminists,” “radical feminists,” and “women concerned about gender equality” are used to summarize the movement's beliefs and actions, they serve as a shorthand for the movement, becoming detached from the full range of knowledge available about the movement. Using an Analysis of Variance, we investigate the results from two experiments that manipulate the type and number of feminist labels to which participants are exposed. Our results indicate that group labels about the women's movement negatively affect related attitudes and impair the cognitive processing of additional information about the women's movement. Furthermore, the different group labels utilized in the study-women concerned about equality, feminists, and radical feministselicit identical attitudi...

10 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion by John Zaller (1992) as discussed by the authors is a model of mass opinion formation that offers readers an introduction to the prevailing theory of opinion formation.
Abstract: Originally published in Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 1994, Vol 39(2), 225. Reviews the book, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion by John Zaller (1992). The author's commendable effort to specify a model of mass opinion formation offers readers an introduction to the prevailing vi

3,150 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors compare the deliberative to the liberal and the republican models of democracy, and consider possible references to empirical research and then examine what empirical evidence there is for the assumption that political deliberation develops a truth-tracking potential.
Abstract: I first compare the deliberative to the liberal and the republican models of democracy, and consider possible references to empirical research and then examine what empirical evidence there is for the assumption that political deliberation develops a truth-tracking potential. The main parts of the paper serve to dispel prima facie doubts about the empirical content and the applicability of the communication model of deliberative politics. It moreover highlights 2 critical conditions: mediated political communication in the public sphere can facilitate deliberative legitimation processes in complex societies only if a self-regulating media system gains independence from its social environments and if anonymous audiences grant a feedback between an informed elite discourse and a responsive civil society. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2885.2006.00280.x In Aristotle’s Politics, normative theorizing and empirical research go hand in hand. Yet, contemporary theories of liberal democracy express a demanding ‘‘ought’’ that faces the sobering ‘‘is’’ of ever more complex societies. Especially, the deliberative model of democracy, which claims an epistemic dimension for the democratic procedures of legitimation, appears to exemplify the widening gap between normative and empirical approaches toward politics. Let me first compare the deliberative to the liberal and the republican models of democracy, and consider possible references to empirical research. I will then examine what empirical evidence there is for the assumption that political deliberation develops a truth-tracking potential. The main parts of the paper serve to dispel prima facie doubts about the empirical content and the applicability of the deliberative model. The communication model of deliberative politics that I wish to present highlights two critical conditions: Mediated political communication in the public sphere can facilitate deliberative legitimation processes in complex societies only if

1,348 citations

01 Jan 1992
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a framework for media assessment based on the notion of objective concepts of news as information measuring objectivity and evaluate the dimension of news in the context of mass media.
Abstract: PART ONE: MASS COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY Public Communication and Public Interest Contested Territory Media Performance Traditions of Enquiry The `Public Interest' in Communication PART TWO: MEDIA PERFORMANCE NORMS Performance Norms in Media Policy Discourse The Newspaper Press Performance Norms in Media Policy Discourse Broadcasting A Framework of Principle for Media Assessment PART THREE: RESEARCH MODELS AND METHODS Media Organizational Performance Models and Research Options PART FOUR: MEDIA FREEDOM Concepts and Models of Media Freedom Media Freedom From Structure to Performance Media Freedom The Organizational Environment PART FIVE: DIVERSITY Varieties and Processes of Diversity Taking the Measure of Diversity Media Reflection Media Access and Audience Choice PART SIX: OBJECTIVITY Concepts of Objectivity A Framework for Objectivity Research Measuring Objectivity News as Information Measuring Objectivity The Evaluative Dimension of News PART SEVEN: MASS MEDIA, ORDER AND SOCIAL CONTROL Media and the Maintenance of Public Order Policing the Symbolic Environment Solidarity and Social Identity PART EIGHT: MEDIA AND CULTURE Questions of Culture and Mass Communication Cultural Identity and Autonomy Whose Media Culture? PART NINE: IN CONCLUSION Changing Media, Changing Mores Implications for Assessment

738 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors discusses similarities and differences between second-level agenda setting and framing, and between priming and agenda setting, and offers some conclusions about the cognitive processes involved in the two tasks.
Abstract: This article discusses similarities and differences between “second-level” agenda setting and framing, and between priming and agenda setting. It presents data on the number of studies of agenda setting, framing, and priming indexed by Communication Abstract from 1971 to 2005, and it offers some conclusions about the cognitive processes involved in agenda setting, priming and framing.

718 citations