Search Results

The Press as Storyteller

Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Paul Waldman

in The Press Effect: Politicians, Journalists, and the Stories that Shape the Political World

The reports that journalists offer are not called “stories” by accident. This chapter analyzes a series of cases, in wars, electoral campaigns, and policy debates, in which dramatic stories framed ... More

The reports that journalists offer are not called “stories” by accident. This chapter analyzes a series of cases, in wars, electoral campaigns, and policy debates, in which dramatic stories framed coverage and overwhelmed the facts. As a result, inaccuracies passed into news and the public was left misinformed.Less

The Ethos of “Getting the Story”

Patrick Lee Plaisance

in Journalism Ethics: A Philosophical Approach

This chapter discusses some key ethical implications of the mechanics of news work: the moral questions raised in the process of getting the story. These questions necessarily address the individual ... More

This chapter discusses some key ethical implications of the mechanics of news work: the moral questions raised in the process of getting the story. These questions necessarily address the individual and sociological dimensions. That is, they deal with both the decision-making processes of individual journalists, and the strong cultural and professional norms and standards in the newsroom that influence journalists' behavior. Other questions address the realm of media effects: what are intended and unintended impacts on audiences, and how might those impacts inform our decisions and judgments about news work? The chapter's thesis is that, done well — ethically well — “getting the story” is an ennobling activity, one that benefits journalism and the public alike.Less

Public Discussion of the Daily News

in Talking about Politics: Informal Groups and Social Identity in American Life

The evidence of the existence as well as the shape of the process of using social identities within a group context to understand political issues is provided by an investigation of the role of the ... More

The evidence of the existence as well as the shape of the process of using social identities within a group context to understand political issues is provided by an investigation of the role of the mass media. This chapter compares the content of the news the “Old Timers” used with their interpretations of it. The results reiterate the claim of previous research that elite framing does matter, but they also show that, through conversations, people transform and even circumvent these frames by applying their identity-based perspectives to supplement the information provided by news stories.Less

Longer News Turned Elite

Kevin G. Barnhurst

in Mister Pulitzer and the Spider: Modern News from Realism to the Digital

This chapter considers the elitism in digital media. During the early years of the Internet in the 1990s, there were high expectations for new media and harsh criticism for legacy news. A decade ... More

This chapter considers the elitism in digital media. During the early years of the Internet in the 1990s, there were high expectations for new media and harsh criticism for legacy news. A decade later a majority of U.S. newspapers had an online presence, and reporters and editors claimed that technology was changing what they do. However, U.S. news followed, and even continued in digital venues, the century-spanning trend of growing longer. The chapter argues that long stories are a sign of status in line with the elitism of American modernism. Elite writers appear to write the longest and elite readers to read the longest daily news. Efforts are made to serve the elites because they are the ones most likely to contribute to political parties and run for political office. In contrast, short, realist news articles match the predilections and limited time and resources of the non-elite: the wage laborer, the working parent, the immigrant learning the language, the less educated, the young, the poor.Less

Stories Only Seemed Shorter

Kevin G. Barnhurst

in Mister Pulitzer and the Spider: Modern News from Realism to the Digital

This chapter considers the question of whether daily news over the past century has gone along with the modern trend of shorter news. When the occupation of journalist first emerged in the nineteenth ... More

This chapter considers the question of whether daily news over the past century has gone along with the modern trend of shorter news. When the occupation of journalist first emerged in the nineteenth century, realist news was mainly short, and everything in the modern world has seemed to go only faster for more than a century. First radio picked up the pace and then television followed, requiring shorter attention spans. Along came faxes, then electronic mail, and now video messaging. MTV made images move faster, television commercials got shorter, and online ads shrank to a few seconds. Critics call it sound-bite society or McDonaldization, reducing information to nuggets. However, studies show that news has been getting longer, moving away from brief realist descriptions of stand-alone events and aligning with modern impulses toward big-picture explanation. The trend occurred across legacy news media: newspaper reporters writing longer, television reporters speaking more, and even reporters on public radio, the home of extended news, talking more in longer stories.Less

Gay Marriage Goes Prime-Time: Journalistic Norms Frame the Debate

Leigh Moscowitz

in The Battle over Marriage: Gay Rights Activism through the Media

This chapter examines the storytelling techniques that were used by journalists to produce the gay marriage issue for prime-time news audiences in 2003–2004, including labeling, framing, sourcing, ... More

This chapter examines the storytelling techniques that were used by journalists to produce the gay marriage issue for prime-time news audiences in 2003–2004, including labeling, framing, sourcing, imagery, and graphics. It discusses the discursive strategies employed by mainstream media to create conflict in the news; how sensationalist labels and descriptive language were used in news stories to validate historic homophobic discourses; and how privileging dominant political and religious sources worked to dichotomize the debate and silence moderate perspectives. It also explores how standard journalistic frames organized the same-sex marriage debate within “official” institutions of power. The chapter argues that journalistic definitions of authority, expertise, and “balance” created an uneven playing field, often pitting gay and lesbian spokespersons against unequal sources of influence from legal, medical, religious, and political authorities. It also shows how media coverage reduced the broader gay rights agenda to a single-issue movement and rarely gave gays and lesbians—almost always shown as couples—the opportunity to offer their own perspectives on this important issue.Less

Authorities Replaced Others

Kevin G. Barnhurst

in Mister Pulitzer and the Spider: Modern News from Realism to the Digital

This chapter examines the shift in the roles persons play in the news. Studies of newspapers and newscasts show that by the mid-twentieth century, the number of individuals who take action in a news ... More

This chapter examines the shift in the roles persons play in the news. Studies of newspapers and newscasts show that by the mid-twentieth century, the number of individuals who take action in a news event, or become the victims of those actions in the press, dropped to less than three in the average crime, accident, or job story. Others took their places. A century ago, an official would appear in only one of four stories. However, the number of officials involved in or having direct responsibility over activities in the news has increased steadily until at least one official appeared in almost every news story. Studies of Internet editions for the same newspapers found that the number of officials continued to be large through 2010. Ordinary citizens and unaffiliated individuals continued to appear in stories, but as news grew longer, it replaced more of them. Political stories from the newspapers and their Internet editions are the most pronounced example: officials and others have come to outnumber individual actors.Less

Speaking Out: Representing Gay Perspectives in News Discourse

Leigh Moscowitz

in The Battle over Marriage: Gay Rights Activism through the Media

This chapter examines how media narratives and activist strategies for representing gay perspectives in news discourse evolved over time. Drawing on activist interviews conducted in 2010 and 2011 as ... More

This chapter examines how media narratives and activist strategies for representing gay perspectives in news discourse evolved over time. Drawing on activist interviews conducted in 2010 and 2011 as well as sample of news stories from 2008 through 2010, the chapter considers the journalistic devices that produced dominant meanings of the gay marriage issue, including the prevalent frames, sourcing patterns, photographic and graphic images, moving images, voice-over narration, and visual representations of married couples and the LGBT community more generally. It shows that, despite an overall more favorable tone and nuanced coverage of the debate, gay rights activists struggled in dealing with journalistic frames that resorted to the “God vs. gays” argument and played the race card. Mainstream media outlets continued to look to religious leaders as “obvious” oppositional sources on gay rights, while the movent's leaders faced internal conflicts over how best to represent pro-gay perspectives in media discourse and gain support from the “moveable middle.”Less

Events Dwindled in Print Stories

Kevin G. Barnhurst

in Mister Pulitzer and the Spider: Modern News from Realism to the Digital

The rise of the Internet and cellular telecommunications has given reporters access to ever more events. The expanding ways and means—the growing reach—of newsgathering suggest a commonsense ... More

The rise of the Internet and cellular telecommunications has given reporters access to ever more events. The expanding ways and means—the growing reach—of newsgathering suggest a commonsense assumption: that more news events reach audiences than ever before. This chapter discusses what news insiders refer to as a “glut” they must govern. Although the form and content of the news changed, leaving room for fewer stories, fewer articles and items per page would not imply that fewer events are being reported because those remaining grew notably longer, and longer stories might include more events. Instead of running three reports on three different fires in the city, as newspapers did a century ago, an editor now might manage the information by combining all three events into one package, or a reporter might write one story built around a similarity or a theme the three events share. Did either happen? No, news stories included fewer events through the twentieth century.Less

The Press Adopted Linear Time

Kevin G. Barnhurst

in Mister Pulitzer and the Spider: Modern News from Realism to the Digital

This chapter considers the notion of news time. News producers, researchers, and observers agree that American life has become busier, with little time to spare. The time crunch seems to have led ... More

This chapter considers the notion of news time. News producers, researchers, and observers agree that American life has become busier, with little time to spare. The time crunch seems to have led reporters and editors to focus on the real present instead of the modern tasks of gathering background, spotting trends, or ferreting out future problems. It is argued that the commitment to modern time made news producers resistant to new kinds of information practices and options for conceiving of time. The emergence of other media has been an important element in how the press became entrenched in its version of modern time. The main alternative to newspapers appeared at midcentury: television, a medium that broadcasts in real time and opens the possibility of a return to the realist present.Less

Introducing emotional politics

Joanne Warner

in The emotional politics of social work and child protection

After briefly setting out the background and context for the book, this chapter considers in detail how the concept of emotional politics can be understood in theoretical terms. As in the book as a ... More

After briefly setting out the background and context for the book, this chapter considers in detail how the concept of emotional politics can be understood in theoretical terms. As in the book as a whole, the chapter draws on literature from a wide range of sources and disciplines, including social work, sociology, cultural studies, politics, social policy, and criminology. The chapter shows how the concept of emotional politics relates to other key conceptual and theoretical areas including risk, social class, gender and ‘race’. It highlights how emotions are political by analysing the meaning and cultural significance of collective responses to a child’s suffering. It argues that news stories about children’s deaths can be understood as myths that have a particular meaning in cultural terms. Politics is emotional, the chapter argues, by virtue of the increased emotionalisation of politics and the premium placed on empathy with voters. Political leaders play a key role in reflecting or generating emotional responses to events. The chapter also analyses the relationship between politics, the emotions and risk; particularly the concern of politicians to manage reputation risk arising from policy failures. The final section of the chapter outlines the structure of the book as a whole.Less

Groups Supplanted Persons

Kevin G. Barnhurst

in Mister Pulitzer and the Spider: Modern News from Realism to the Digital

This chapter focuses on the decline of people news. For several decades people news was growing element in the media landscape. By the early 1970s, The New York Times was running the Notes on People ... More

This chapter focuses on the decline of people news. For several decades people news was growing element in the media landscape. By the early 1970s, The New York Times was running the Notes on People column. By the 1990s a growth area for U.S. television networks was the prime-time News magazine, a genre oriented to people stories. Reality shows, always an element of American TV, grew into a dominant genre by the early twenty-first century and made supposed “real” people the center of attention. However, by the end of the twentieth century, studies noted that people were disappearing from the front page. One cause of the depopulation of front pages is that news stories are getting longer. Even if the average news report included a stable number of persons, they would populate the news more thinly as the typical story grew longer—fewer of them would appear on any page. As the new century began, more groups stood alone as the actors in news, and ordinary named individuals almost never did.Less

Social Values Enabled Change

Kevin G. Barnhurst

in Mister Pulitzer and the Spider: Modern News from Realism to the Digital

This chapter considers changes in U.S. news over the last century. It shows that reports grew longer in mainstream news, but few seemed to notice. The “who,” “what,” or “where” all declined in ... More

This chapter considers changes in U.S. news over the last century. It shows that reports grew longer in mainstream news, but few seemed to notice. The “who,” “what,” or “where” all declined in different ways. But the other two Ws, the “when” and “why,” did expand the connotative, modern dimension. While references to the present remained fairly constant in stories, the past grew more important along with the future and change over time. The pattern of explaining how and why events happened also expanded but shifted in particular ways that opened space within news for opinions and judgments, especially in broadcast and online.Less

Was El Niño A Weather Metaphor—A Signal For Global Warming?

Lee Wilkins

in El Niño, 1997-1998: The Climate Event of the Century

This chapter reviews media coverage of El Niño 97-98 and identifies some significant trends within that coverage. The coverage analyzed includes that provided by the major American television ... More

This chapter reviews media coverage of El Niño 97-98 and identifies some significant trends within that coverage. The coverage analyzed includes that provided by the major American television networks, the elite press, and significant regional newspapers. During the early months of the study period, news coverage of El Niño was focused on the science of the prediction and was framed as an issue of risk with appropriate uncertainty. However, as the predictions themselves were borne out in real-world phenomena, coverage of El Niño became event driven, and the phenomenon itself was treated as certainty. The risks of climate change attributed to El Niño outweighed the potential benefits in many media reports. Coverage of El Niño was extensive, particularly on the West Coast of the United States, where many individual weather events were connected with the larger phenomenon. The chapter then explores the possibility that the totality of the media coverage may have two lasting impacts. First, on the basis of existing scholarship on mass communication and risk communication, it is reasonable to suggest that the extensive news coverage of El Niño may have had some influence on public perception of climate change, particularly the salience of climate change in discrete regions of the nation. Second, the chapter suggests that the mediated reality of the 1997-1998 event will serve as a signal event for popular and political understanding of the consequences of global warming. Historically, journalism has been both hampered and helped by its definition of news. Previous studies of media coverage of a variety of “risky” events have noted that news accounts tend to be event focused, lack context, and treat science as a matter of dueling opinions, rather than a process of knowledge acquisition. These scholarly findings, which are long-standing, have had some impact on the professional community, particularly among science writers, who over the past two decades have become both better trained in science and more aware of the limitations of the concept of “news”—at least when it comes to reporting certain sorts of events. Media coverage of El Niño , in general, reflected these previously documented trends. Less

The Cultural Politics of Ripper News

L. Perry Curtis Jr.

in Jack the Ripper and the London Press

This chapter reflects on the political-cum-cultural ramifications of Ripper news, discussing how Ripper news went well beyond alarming female readers about a maniac on the loose. Besides providing ... More

This chapter reflects on the political-cum-cultural ramifications of Ripper news, discussing how Ripper news went well beyond alarming female readers about a maniac on the loose. Besides providing the public with unprecedented amounts of gore, these news stories also brought to the forefront some of the most troubling social and moral issues of the day—notably, poverty and prostitution, the threat of collective violence in the East End, xenophobia and anti-Semitism, the limits of journalistic decency, and, of course, the ability of Scotland Yard to police the metropolis effectively. The profound mystery surrounding the murders, along with the steady flow of Ripper mail and the antics of Ripper impersonators, gave the press a golden opportunity to inject into the main story all kinds of subtexts and ancillary material.Less

Tiara: Endangered Black Girls Instruction 301

Ruth Nicole Brown

in Hear Our Truths: The Creative Potential of Black Girlhood

This chapter features a scene from a play entitled Endangered Black Girls (EBG), based on the lived experiences of Black girls the author has worked with in an after-school program (not SOLHOT) and ... More

This chapter features a scene from a play entitled Endangered Black Girls (EBG), based on the lived experiences of Black girls the author has worked with in an after-school program (not SOLHOT) and has learned about through news stories. Theorizing the process of writing and performing EBG on through to subsequent productions made possible only because of the show's original cast, this chapter illustrates how creative means of expression make it possible to fully capture the complexities of Black girlhood and that attending to the complexities of Black girlhood is necessary to affirm Black girls' daily lives. Importantly, performances of EBG generated new ideas for ways Black women and girls could be present with each other, and the play was a primary catalyst for suggesting and co-organizing Saving Our Lives Hear Our Truths (SOLHOT) as transformative collective and creative work.Less

Sur-e Esrāfil, Series 1, No. 27, pp. 6–8: April 29, 1908

Ali-Akbar Dehkhodā

in Charand-o Parand: Revolutionary Satire from Iran, 1907-1909

This chapter presents a column published on April 29, 1908 (the continuation of a column published in SE no. 26, April 23, 1908). This column and the one before it review events the occurred over the ... More

This chapter presents a column published on April 29, 1908 (the continuation of a column published in SE no. 26, April 23, 1908). This column and the one before it review events the occurred over the past year. Both are couched in the style of Qajar chronicles, those dynastic histories that record events in strict chronological order, year by year and even month by month. They are characterized by the sometimes incongruous juxtaposition of affairs of state, court trivia, and snippets of news from abroad. The style is even more evocative of a modern television news program in this column, with its catalogue of assorted murders. Dehkhodā improves on this by linking front-page stories with satirical fictitious anecdotes from the everyday. The column also includes the first of a piece on the life of Hajji Abbās.Less

Sur-e Esrāfil, Series 1, No. 26, pp. 6–8: April 23, 1908

Ali-Akbar Dehkhodā

in Charand-o Parand: Revolutionary Satire from Iran, 1907-1909

This chapter presents the first of a two-part column published on April 23, 1908, which reviews events the occurred over the past year. The column and its continuation (in SE no. 27) are couched in ... More

This chapter presents the first of a two-part column published on April 23, 1908, which reviews events the occurred over the past year. The column and its continuation (in SE no. 27) are couched in the style of Qajar chronicles, those dynastic histories (such as Fārsnāmeh-ye Nāseri and Montazem-e Nāseri) that record events in strict chronological order, year by year and even month by month. They are characterized by the sometimes incongruous juxtaposition of affairs of state, court trivia, and snippets of news from abroad.Less