Showing papers in "Journal of Communication in 1999"
TL;DR: A process model of framing is developed, identifying four key processes that should be addressed in future research: frame building, frame setting, individual-level processes of framing, and a feedback loop from audiences to journalists.
Abstract: Research on framing is characterized by theoretical and empirical vagueness. This is due, in part, to the lack of a commonly shared theoretical model underlying framing research. Conceptual problems translate into operational problems, limiting the comparability of instruments and results. In this paper I systematize the fragmented approaches to framing in political communication and integrate them into a comprehensive model. I classify previous approaches to framing research along two dimensions: the type of frame examined (media frames vs. audience frames) and the way frames are operationalized (independent variable or dependent variable). I develop a process model of framing, identifying four key processes that should be addressed in future research: frame building, frame setting, individual-level processes of framing, and a feedback loop from audiences to journalists.
3,345 citations
TL;DR: This paper investigated the framing effects of television news coverage of an anarchist protest and found that status quo support had significant effects on viewers, leading them to be more critical of, and less likely to identify with, the protesters; less critical of the police; and more likely to support the protesters' expressive rights.
Abstract: We investigated framing effects of television news coverage of an anarchist protest. Three treatment stories differed in their level of status quo support. Status quo support had significant effects on viewers, leading them to be more critical of, and less likely to identify with, the protesters; less critical of the police; and less likely to support the protesters' expressive rights. Status quo support also produced lower estimates of the protest's effectiveness, public support, and perceptions of newsworthiness. The results substantiate concerns about status quo support by showing that it can influence audience perceptions.
395 citations
TL;DR: The authors used social comparison theory and critical viewing with a sample of 214 high school girls to predict adolescents' body-image disturbance and thin ideal endorsement and found that media variables accounted for 15% of the variance for drive for thinness, 17% for body dissatisfaction, 16% for bulimic behaviors, and 33% for thin ideal endorsements.
Abstract: The impact of media images on adolescents' body image and thin ideal endorsement has been consistently asserted in the body image literature, yet has remained inadequately tested. I used social comparison theory and critical viewing with a sample of 214 high school girls to predict adolescents' body-image disturbance and thin ideal endorsement. Media variables accounted fr 15% of the variance for drive for thinness, 17% for body dissatisfaction, 16% for bulimic behaviors, and 33% for thin ideal endorsement. Results suggest that body image processing is the boy to understanding how television images affect adolescent girls' body-image attitudes and behaviors.
382 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines claims of authenticity within hip-hop, African American culture and uses the conceptual apparatus of semantic dimensions to understand how a culture in danger of assimilation seeks to preserve its identity.
Abstract: This essay examines claims of authenticity within hip-hop, African American culture. In the mid- to late 1990s, authenticity claims have been pervasive within hip-hop music communities, which had previously existed on the margins of mainstream U.S. culture. By mapping the range of meanings associated with authenticity as they are invoked discursively, we can gain a better understanding of how a culture in danger of assimilation seeks to preserve its identity. The use of the conceptual apparatus of semantic dimensions highlights how that culture's most central and powerful symbols are organized and given meaning vis-a-vis authenticity within a discursive system.
340 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an analysis of the diversity principle in communications policy, focusing on diversity as a measurable concept, with potentially interacting dimensions and numerous means of assessment, in the spirit of the Federal Communication Commission's empirical commitment to diversity.
Abstract: This article presents an examination of the diversity principle in communications policy. Given the Federal Communication Commission's recent emphasis on diversity as a policy objective, diversity assessments must return to the forefront of communications policy analysis. To provide an analytical framework for such research, the diversity principle is broken into three distinct components (source, content, and exposure diversity), and multiple subcomponents. In the spirit of the FCC's empirical commitment to the diversity principle, this analysis focuses on diversity as a measurable concept, with potentially interacting dimensions and numerous means of assessment.
287 citations
TL;DR: This article developed a typology to describe the ways journalists use their public past and offer some insights about the process of collective memory development in the news media, including the role of journalists in rewrites of history.
Abstract: It has become cliched to assert that journalists write the first draft of history. Far less attention heas been paid to who does the rewrites. Frequently, second drafts of history are also written by journalists. The typology developed here describes the ways journalists use our public past and offers some insights about the process of collective memory development in the news media. Commemorative journalism seems to offer the best chance to reexamine our past, but may offer little incentive to do so. Historical analogies may not encourage us to contest the meaning of the past due to the simple, dramatic narratives of news reporting. Historical contexts may not encourage us to look closely at the meaning we ascribe to the past either, because they are presented as facts rather than interpretations.
258 citations
TL;DR: The authors consider the relationship between journalists and news sources within the social context of communities and their newspapers, and conclude that the relationship is shaped by the preferred meanings of a community's interpretive groups, including journalists and their news organizations.
Abstract: In this essay we consider the relationship between journalists and news sources within the social context of communities and their newspapers. We portray these groups as interpretive communities, where shared meanings develop through on-going social interaction. We draw on literature related to news making, news sources, and community pluralism, concluding that the relationship between journalists and news sources is shaped by the preferred meanings of a community's interpretive groups, including journalists and their news organizations. We apply examples from interviews with journalists and news sources to illustrate and contextualize the discussion.
150 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze how technologies and users relate to each other in a national virtual community and argue that a mutual shaping perspective is best suited to capture the complexity, unpredictability, and recursivity of the interactions among technological features and users' discourses and practices.
Abstract: In this essay I analyze how technologies and users relate to each other in a national virtual community. I argue that a mutual shaping perspective is best suited to capture the complexity, unpredictability, and recursivity of the interactions among technological features and users' discourses and practices. Drawing from recent developments in the study of computer-mediated communication, mutidisciplinary technology scholarship, and social psychology of nationhood, I show the mutual shaping of hardware capabilities, national identities, collective remembering, software configurations, and coordination practices that took place during my investigation of the Argentine Mailing List.
140 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the relation between sensation seeking and exposure to violent and nonviolent television, and the subsequent role that violent television may play among high sensation-seeking adolescents in their exposure to risky behaviors.
Abstract: The uses-and-gratifications tradition posits that individual needs for stimulation and for information vary systematically. These needs may affect what media sources and other stimuli are accessed by individuals. In this study we sampled adolescents and college students to examine (a) the relation between sensation seeking and exposure to violent and nonviolent television, and (b) the subsequent role that violent television may play among high sensation-seeking adolescents in their exposure to risky behaviors. Two sensation-seeking dimensions, disinhibition (positively) and experience seeking (negatively), related to adolescents' exposure to violent television. In addition, among sensation seekers, those who exhibit risk-taking behavior were not similar to those who watched violent television, making it unlikely that the two sets of behaviors can compensate for one another. We discuss implications and directions for future research.
110 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined the influence of conservative elites' claims of a liberal media bias on public perceptions of news coverage during the 1988, 1992, and 1996 presidential elections and found that these criticisms of news media are at least partly strategic and reflect a dynamic relationship between political elites and journalists during a presidential campaign.
Abstract: Recent evidence suggests that conservative elites' claims of a liberal media are having an impact upon public perceptions of news coverage. With this in mind, we examined two related questions in the context of the 1988, 1992, and 1996 presidential elections. First, what factors may be prompting conservative elites to make allegations of liberal media bias? Second, what factors may influence when news media report these criticisms during presidential campaigns? Findings suggest that these criticisms of news media are at least partly strategic and reflect a dynamic relationship between political elites and journalists during a presidential campaign.
107 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined Caucasian viewers' identification memory of Black and White criminal suspects featured in a newscast and found that over time, participants who had seen the Caucasian suspect in the news story were increasingly likely to identify African Americans.
Abstract: This experiment was conducted to examine Caucasian viewers' identification memory of Black and White criminal suspects featured in a newscast. Viewers watched a news story about a murder that featured a wanted poster of either an African American or a Caucasian suspect. Immediately after viewing and again 3 months later, participants identified a series of photographs, indicating the extent to which they believed each one to be the same suspect pictured in the newscast. Over time, participants who had seen the Caucasian suspect in the news story were increasingly likely mistakenly to identify African Americans. In addition, endorsement of anti-Black attitudes was associated with decreases in misidentification of Caucasian photographs and increases in misidentification of African American photographs.
TL;DR: In this article, the effects of televised presidential reactions to compelling news events on memory, thought elaboration, and appropriateness evaluations made by subjects were investigated, and it was shown that emotional redundancy of images across valence-congruent message sequences improves memory.
Abstract: This study introduces the concept of the emotional appropriateness heuristic. An experiment investigated the effects of televised presidential reactions to compelling news events on memory, thought elaboration, and appropriateness evaluations made by subjects. Assessment of the news story-presidential reaction message sequences was conceptualized as an interactive cognitive process that uses the heuristic to categorize and evaluate the nonverbal behavior of the president. Negative and low intensity presidential reactions were expected and deemed appropriate. Positive or intense reactions tended to violate normative expectations and were classified as inappropriate. Findings also indicate that the emotional redundancy of images across valence-congruent message sequences improves memory. Results further suggest that the emotional appropriateness heuristic may help explain a process by which citizens can accurately assess the performance of leaders in a mass democracy, irrespective of political knowledge.
TL;DR: The authors trace the changes in Native American imagery over time, with particular emphasis on the role of gender, and how Native American men and women have become sexualized in relation to the White gaze, which is an important component of colonial domination.
Abstract: Contemporary popular culture is permeated with images of Native Americans, who have become symbols of wisdom, beauty, peace, and nostalgia. In this paper, I trace the changes in this imagery over time, with particular emphasis on the role of gender, and how Native American men and women have become sexualized in relation to the White gaze, which is an important component of colonial domination. Many other Americans never encounter a Native American, and media fill a knowledge vacuum with outmoded and limited stereotypes. The 1990s lovely princess and Native American stud may be more benign images than the earlier squaw or crazed savage, but they are equally unreal and dehumanizing.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed the use of the marketplace of ideas metaphor over the past 33 years by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and found no significant relationship between the type of regulatory action taken and the theoretical interpretation of the metaphor employed.
Abstract: The ‘marketplace of ideas’ metaphor has been interpreted from democratic and economic theory perspectives. These different interpretive approaches emphasize different policy objectives and have been associated with divergent regulatory philosophies. To reach a deeper understanding of how regulators have interpreted and applied the marketplace of ideas metaphor, I analyzed the use of the metaphor over the past 33 years by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). I conducted content analysis on each FCC decision, from mid-1965 through mid-1998, in which the ‘marketplace of ideas’ terminology was used. The results suggest that the metaphor typically has been used within the context of deregulatory actions, and that, in recent years, the Commission increasingly has focused on the economic theory dimension of the metaphor. However, the results for the 33-year period indicate no significant relationship between the type of regulatory action taken and the theoretical interpretation of the marketplace of ideas metaphor employed.
TL;DR: The most important characteristics for both Dutch and U.S. children were comprehensibility and action, closely followed by humor, interestingness, innocuousness, realism, violence, and romance as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: We investigated which program characteristics in children's entertainment television programs children between 6 and 11 years of age value. We collected data by means of questionnaires among 100 Dutch and 100 U.S. first through fourth graders. The most important characteristics for both Dutch and U.S. children were comprehensibility and action, closely followed by humor, interestingness, innocuousness, realism, violence, and romance, respectively. Compared to Dutch children, U.S. children attached more value to realism, innocuousness, and interestingness. Boys in both samples attached more value to action and violence in a children's program, whereas girls in both samples attached more value to innocuousness and comprehensibility.
TL;DR: This article examined the reception of imported Mills & Boon romance novels among women in post-colonial urban India and found that readers viewed romance novels as resources to improve English language skills and used romance reading to bolster their identities as modern and cosmopolitan women.
Abstract: In this study I took an ethnographic approach to examine the reception of imported Mills & Boon romance novels among women in postcolonial urban India. My approach included intensive interviews and participant observation among a group of young, middle- and upper-class women in Hyderabad, a city in South India. My analysis of young women's responses revealed the social construction of these Western romance novels as English-language media. Romance novels were pleasurable because they were an extension of Indian women's childhood English-language reading. Readers viewed romance novels as resources to improve English-language skills and used romance reading to bolster their identities as modern and cosmopolitan women. In conclusion, I consider the implications of the study for media globalization and ethnographic audience research.
TL;DR: In this article, a review of 262 population health and nutrition projects implemented outside of North America and Western Europe since 1975 is presented, where the authors explore the nature of institutional discourse on development communication and the role of gender in creating constructions of project beneficiaries.
Abstract: This exploration of the nature of institutional discourse on development communication opens with a brief introduction and then locates the theoretical framework used within the "recent tradition" of using the context of institutional discourse to analyze development. Next the article focuses on historical shifts in the development discourse on women and gender and on how communication interventions affect social change. The article then considers how this discourse articulates both the role of gender as it creates constructions of project beneficiaries and the role of communication as a strategy for social change. The analysis is informed by a review of 262 population health and nutrition projects implemented outside of North America and Western Europe since 1975. Findings reveal 1) assumptions made about the potential for communication interventions to affect social change 2) how gender works as a mode of categorization in constructions of beneficiaries 3) patterns of discourse about social change and beneficiaries across organizational contexts and 4) changes in intervention strategies and constructed beneficiaries across time. The final section looks at the implications of gendered constructions of beneficiaries and of different approaches to strategic communication intervention and concludes that development communication is not a direct cause for the failure of development efforts to improve womens conditions. Instead it is recommended that development discourse and practice be broadened to privilege individual consumption and structural privatization.
TL;DR: The theory of media events developed by Dayan and Katz is extended in an analysis of Franklin Roosevelt's first eight fireside chats as discussed by the authors, which were useful in dramatizing a new symbolic geography of the American imagined community for the mass public, and thus in introducing to this public a set of new identities and practices appropriate to 20th century mass politics.
Abstract: The theory of media events developed by Dayan and Katz is extended in an analysis of Franklin Roosevelt's first eight fireside chats. Roosevelt's fireside chats were structured in both form and content by the new mode of publicness initiated by the culture industries in the 20th century. Roosevelt employed the idioms of mass culture to close the perceptual gap between him and his mass audience. As media events, the chats were useful in dramatizing a new symbolic geography of the American imagined community for the mass public, and thus in introducing to this public a set of new identities and practices appropriate to 20th-century mass politics.
TL;DR: This article examined how country video portrayed female artists and characters and found that most female artists' videos portrayed women progressively, whereas male artists portrayed them stereotypically, and the ratio of male to female artists" videos was 3 to 1.
Abstract: Because of the success of its new female stars, the country music industry declared 1997 its Year of the Woman. We examined how country video portrays female artists and characters. Research on other genres suggests that women are symbolically annihilated in music video. By analyzing 285 CMT videos, we found that most female artists' videos portrayed women progressively, whereas male artists portrayed them stereotypically. The ratio of male to female artists' videos was 3 to 1. Although the data suggest country videos similar to pop or rock video of the mid-1980s, the country videos were qualitatively different in their portrayal of gender roles.
TL;DR: The authors found that attack ads mostly discourage independent voters from voting and reinforce the loyalties of Republicans and Democrats in a special election in the state of Oregon. But they also found that Republicans, independents, and Democrats who felt Wyden had lived up to his pledge were more likely to vote for Wyden.
Abstract: The authors sampled registered voters who had, and had not, voted in a vote-by-mail special election. They tested Ansolabehere and Iyengar's (1995) conclusion that attack ads mostly discourage independents from voting and reinforce the loyalties of Republicans and Democrats. Democrat Ron Wyden, the narrow winner of the election, pledged late in the campaign that he would no longer ‘go negative.’ Republican Gordon Smith did not follow suit. Only Republicans's participation clearly fell with reported exposure to Smith's attack ads. Republicans, independents, and Democrats who felt Wyden had lived up to his pledge were more likely to vote for Wyden.
TL;DR: The authors argue that one way to comprehend popular discourse about new technologies is to explore the meanings of the term technology and develop the need to interrogate the meaning of technology by contrasting studies of technological discourse with studies of scientific discourse.
Abstract: In this essay I argue that one way to comprehend popular discourse about new technologies is to explore the meanings of the term technology I develop the need to interrogate the meaning of technology by contrasting studies of technological discourse with studies of scientific discourse I delineate three meanings of technology assumed in popular and academic discourse: technology-as-instrumentality, technology-as-industrialization, and technology-as-novelty Finally, I examine the deployment of these definitions by the Clinton administration as it promulgates and defends its policies regarding the Internet I conclude by reflecting on the significance of popular equivocation on the meaning of technology for understanding the ideology of technology
TL;DR: A mnemonic dispute between interpretive communities about the process of commemoration and the forms of remembrance has taken place since the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995 as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Since the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995, a fierce struggle have taken place over his commemoration. This is a mnemonic dispute between interpretive communities about the process of commemoration and the forms of remembrance. The media, especially television, took part in this memory dispute. They became the main mnemonic site and the most influential mnemonic agent. Promoting commemorative ceremonies served several professional and functional needs. These ceremonies project desired social cohesiveness and solidarity. In return, the media, as the major agent of meaning, received legitimacy. Rabin's assassination was especially significant because Rabin's myth is a nation-constituting myth, and his assassination took place on the backdrop of a deeply divided society.
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TL;DR: This article argued that polling is not just an instrumental means to manipulate or reflect public attitudes, but is also a cultural form that sustains and affirms deeply held founding mythologies about community, democracy, and vox populi.
Abstract: In contemporary U.S. politics, the practice of consulting the latest poll has become a ritual like consulting the oracle was to the Ancient Greeks. In this esay, the author argues that polling is not just an instrumental means to manipulate or reflect public attitudes, but is also a cultural form that sustains and affirms deeply held founding mythologies about community, democracy, and vox populi. By appropriating and controlling the terms of dissent, polling ritual enables the national congregation to affirm its unity in spite of difference. Thus, what is constructed through polling ritual is social solidarity rather than public policy.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compared social orientations toward television sets in public location, such as malls, airports, and restaurants in Hamburg, Germany and Indianapolis, Indiana (United States), and found that publicly placed television sets served three commercial purposes that differed from their functions for the general public.
Abstract: The authors compared social orientations toward television sets in public location, such as malls, airports, and restaurants in Hamburg, Germany and Indianapolis, Indiana (United States). In addition to television's increasing proliferation in out-of-home sites in both cities, analysis showed that publicly placed television sets served three commercial purposes that differed markedly from their functions for the general public. They functioned for convenience, atmosphere, and entertainment for users and simultaneously served as diversions, decorations, and attractions for site managers. Social orientations varied from accidental to intended uses with branching options, as people became aware of the communicative media. The nature of the uses and the rules associated with television's presence in public locations differed in the two cities, reflecting disparate technical histories and implying contrasting aspects of deeply seated public ethos in Germany and the United States.
TL;DR: The authors argue that The War Room, through the use of naturalized military metaphors, works toward the edification of image making as a normative campaign process and a reaffirmation of U.S. national identity.
Abstract: This essay explores a new form of political communication, the meta-image, or the communicative act whereby political campaigns and their chroniclers publicly display and foreground the art and practice of political image construction. The authors examine a compelling example of meta-imaging-the 1993 film, The War Room. They identify how the film functions as a reflection of the hyperreality of U.S. politics. they then argue that The War Room, through the use of naturalized military metaphors, works toward the edification of image making as a normative campaign process and a reaffirmation of U.S. national identity.
TL;DR: The authors examined all federal murder trials over a 3-year period and found that a higher probability of conviction was associated with low rather than high levels of pretrial publicity, and defendants fared better under moderate rather than no publicity levels.
Abstract: Research suggests that pretrial publicity influences trials. Past research has relied heavily on experimental methods. Several commentators have questioned the ecological validity of the studies, and hence the value of the findings. The present study, one of the first to examine actual trials, focused on all federal murder trials over a 3-year period. The results suggested that (a) greater probability of conviction was associated with low rather than high levels of publicity; (b) defendants fared better under moderate rather than no publicity levels; and for defendants who were convicted, any degree of pretrial publicity was associated with longer sentences. In general, the results obtained from studying actual trials differed in important ways from the results obtained in laboratory research.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors theorize communication and confidence by extending Lazarsfeld and Merton's status conferral function, which embeds the social objects portrayed by media in webs of value and recommends those objects as grounds for public confidence.
Abstract: In this essay, I theorize communication and confidence by extending Lazarsfeld and Merton's status conferral function. Properly understood, confidence is a communal process, ‘faith-together.’ Though typically blamed for encouraging cynicism, mass media also have a very basic tendency to generate public confidence. Status conferral embeds the social objects portrayed by media in webs of value and thus recommends those objects as grounds for public confidence. At the same time, as empirical work has shown, some forms of news undo the work of status conferal and generate cynicism instead, I end by examining distinct structures of civil society that may determine the contours of mediated confidence and cynicism.
TL;DR: The authors traced sourcing patterns on prime-time news across a 12-year period that encompassed the deregulation of broadcasting in New Zealand and found that although government sources continued to be important, so did non-government organization officials.
Abstract: This study traced sourcing patterns on prime-time news across a 12-year period that encompassed the deregulation of broadcasting in New Zealand. With a switch to a more commercial news style came reduction in sound-bit length. There were, however, signs that the source base of news had not weakened despite competitive pressures. Although government sources continued to be important, so did non-government organization officials. Although still predominant, official news sources became less important in relation to nonelite sources. News managers' growing insistence on targeting news at ‘ordinary people’ encouraged journalists to use a wide variety of news sources.
TL;DR: In this article, a close analysis of the strategies, operations, and discourse of culture industries in the neo-network era of satellite and cable media is presented, showing that media firms actually benefit from the transnational circulation of multiple and alternative representations of feminine desire.
Abstract: Television texts around the world increasingly feature female characters who resist or reformulate conventional gender roles. This trend seems to defy expectations that the concentration of media ownership leads to a conservative, homogeneous flow of popular imagery. Such an apparent contradiction can be explained by close analysis of the strategies, operations, and discourse of culture industries in the neo-network era of satellite and cable media. This era is paradoxically characterized by corporate conglomeration and by strategies of flexibility and decentralization. Consequently, media firms actually benefit from the transnational circulation of multiple and alternative representations of feminine desire. Although this does not necessarily democratize media, in most societies it significantly expands the range of feminine imagery available in popular culture.