Digital Commons Network^™

Gender Issues In News Coverage, Margaretha Geertsema-Sligh

Margaretha Geertsema-Sligh

This entry discusses the participation and representation of women in the news media. Women entered journalism primarily to appeal to female audiences in the 19^th century and were expected to write about topics considered to be of interest for women, such as food, fashion, family and furniture. Today, global studies show that women remain underrepresented at all levels of news organizations, with a glass ceiling preventing women from rising to top positions. Female journalists are especially facing challenges in war reporting and sports reporting, and as opinion columnists. In terms of representation, women are frequently represented in a negative …

Long-Time Journalist, Professor Joins The Scioto Voice: Hapney Brings 30 Years Of Journalism Experience To Readers In Scioto County, Terry L. Hapney Jr.

Terry L. Hapney Jr., Ph.D.

Are Journalists Qualified To Write About Health And Science?, Burnis R. Morris

Burnis R. Morris

This article examines the preparation of journalists to report on health and science issues. It traces the historical linkage between the news media and health and science and reports the results of a survey of college professors who teach reporting courses at 86 departments and schools of journalism and mass communication. The article, also intended to help explain the journalistic method to scientists, concludes that many young journalists are qualified to cover simple stories about health and science and other topics when they leave college and acquire the skills to report on more complex issues through on-the-job training and specialized …

Playing Italian: Cross-Cultural Dress And Investigative Journalism At The Fin De Siècle, Laura Vorachek

Laura Vorachek

This examination of late Victorian journalism reveals that one type of clothing offered middle-class women protection from street harassment: cross-cultural dress. In appropriate ethnic attire, reporters and social investigators ventured into the immigrant communities that made up a part of England’s urban poor, exploring such trades as Jewish fur-puller or Italian organ-grinder. This incognito ethnic attire afforded women both the means and the authority to carry out their investigations into the Italian constituency of the Victorian working poor. This study also examines how costumes enabled female investigators to manipulate class- and gender-based assumptions about who had broad access to the …

U.S. Newspapers Provide Nuanced Picture Of Islam, Brian J. Bowe, Shahira Fahmy, Jörg Matthes

Brian J. Bowe

This study examines how Islam is covered in 18 large circulation U.S. newspapers and finds six frames that draw a nuanced picture of how Islam is framed in the news media. Two frames are negative, one is positive and three are neutral.

The Best Practices For A Professional News Package, Joshua Eure

Joshua Eure

Creating an excellent and impactful news package is a skill set that develops over time. Seasoned reporters typically learn the hard way how to best prep and plan for their features. However, taking advantage of a few tried and true tips can make even the cub reporter look like a pro.

Issues Of Editorial Control, Prior Restraint, And Prior Review Facing Student Newspapers On Public University Campuses In Ohio: Administrative, Faculty, And Student Perspectives, Terry L. Hapney Jr., David M. Lucas

Terry L. Hapney Jr., Ph.D.

This article examines issues of editorial control, prior re- straint, and prior review on public university campuses in an important state in America’s heartland — Ohio. It provides a review of necessary literature; the method of the study; specific instances of issues of the struggle over editorial control, prior restraint, and prior review on public university campuses in the state; and concludes with final thoughts on what continues as a real problem for student newspapers throughout the United States.

Open Records Requests At State Universities In Ohio: The Law, Legalities, And Litigation, Terry L. Hapney Jr., David M. Lucas

Terry L. Hapney Jr., Ph.D.

Recent scandals on the campuses of major universities in the United States have deeply affected not only coaches and coaching staffs, but also faculty, students, university governing bodies and administrators. Ensuing investigations and news coverage have prompted reporters to seek records, documents, and to attend meetings in order to scrutinize actions and records of university administrations. The open access and information laws, often described as sunshine laws, provide for public access to many records, documents, and meetings. Publicly-supported institutions must comply with these laws and this legality has created a conflict between administrators and student journalists in state universities throughout …

Indigenous Voice Closing The Gap And Putting Communication For Social Change Into Practice, Trevor A. Cullen, Michael Williams, Heather Stewart, Michelle Johnston, Gail Phillips, Pauline Mulligan, Leo Bowman, Michael Meadows

Trevor A Cullen

Australian journalism schools are full of students who have never met an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and who do not know their history. Journalism educators are illequipped to redress this imbalance as the large majority are themselves non-Indigenous and many have had little or no experience with the coverage of Indigenous issues. Such a situation calls for educational approaches that can overcome these disadvantages and empower journalism graduates to move beyond the stereotypes that characterise the representation of Indigenous people in the mainstream media. This paper will explore three different courses in three Australian Tertiary Journalism Education Institutions who …

"Fourth World" Values In A Spanish-Language Newspaper Serving An Immigrant Community, Richard J. Peltz-Steele

Richard J. Peltz-Steele

This study operationalized the Four Worlds model for mass media values in a new context — that of a foreign-language newspaper serving a recent-immigrant community within a First World society, namely a Hispanic community in central Arkansas, in the United States. The study established baseline representations of previously described “First World” and “Fourth World” values in a mainstream central Arkansas newspaper, and in Cherokee and Koori newspapers. The study speculated that the central Arkansas Hispanic community exists with a measure of physical and cultural separation from mainstream society — arising from informal barriers such as socioecomomic status, residential neighborhoods, language, …

Journalism In A Pr World, Michael I. Niman Ph.D.

Michael I Niman Ph.D.

Mike Niman discusses the future of journalism in a PR-dominated communication environment. In particular, he examines the migration of talent from journalism to the PR industry, the collapse of mainstream journalism and the role of an emergent alternative media as American journalism goes through metamorphosis from what it was to what it could become. Journalism is a social good that should equip people to understand and resist spin. Niman argues that mainstream American journalism, rather than rising to this challenge, has transparently succumbed to serving as an arm of the corporate PR industry, thus laying the groundwork for its own …

Common Law, And Privacy In Computer-Mediated Environments, Stephen D. Cooper

Stephen D. Cooper

Computer-mediated environments pose a special challenge to our legal and cultural protections of privacy. These environments are unprecedented in the way commercially valuable information can be generated in their very use. The ease and low cost with which electronic information can be gathered and disseminated in these environments have led many to advocate regulation protecting privacy interests from commercial encroachment. At the same time, the use of digital communications to support criminal or terrorist activities have led others to advocate regulation allowing law enforcement agencies to eavesdrop or intercept. The cultural history of the Internet as a self-regulating, almost anarchical, …

Anonymous Sources: A Utilitarian Exploration Of Their Justification And Guidelines For Limited Use, Matt J. Duffy, Carrie Packwood Freeman

Carrie P. Freeman

This article critically examines the practice of unnamed sourcing in journalism. A literature review highlights arguments in favor of and against their use. Then, the authors examine some common examples of anonymous sourcing using the lens of utilitarianism, the ethical model commonly used to justify the practice. We find that few uses of unnamed sourcing can be justified when weighed against diminished credibility and threats to fair, transparent reporting. The authors then suggest specific guidelines for journalists that, if followed, would curb many of the pedestrian uses of unnamed sourcing but still allow for the practice in specific circumstances.

Pardon Your Turkey And Eat Him Too: Antagonism Over Meat-Eating In The Discourse Of The Presidential Thanksgiving Turkey Pardoning, Carrie Packwood Freeman, Oana Leventi Perez

Carrie P. Freeman

To celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday for at least the last twenty years, the President of the United States has hosted a press conference where he uses his executive powers to pardon the life of a turkey gifted to him from the National Turkey Federation, an agribusiness industry group. Considering the reality that the President (and millions of Americans) will indeed eat a turkey as the traditional centerpiece of their Thanksgiving meal, this utopian spectacle of a life-saving public pardon for one bird reveals an antagonism – a discursive rupture disclosing an opening between the hegemonic advertising rhetoric of the meat …

Women And News: Making Connections Between The Global And The Local, Margaretha Geertsema

Margaretha Geertsema-Sligh

In an era of increasing globalization, women continue to be underrepresented and stereotyped in national, international, and global news media. The problem is exacerbated when traditional geographic boundaries are crossed and the media in one country report on issues and events, particularly those that impact women, in another country. The question addressed in this article is how news organizations can best represent women and our diverse lives within this new global context. In an effort to bridge the local-global dichotomy, this article aims to make connections between macro-level theories of cultural globalization and micro-level theories of feminism. Three scenarios of …

Nebraska Suppressed: How Gagging The News Media Intensified Pretrial Press Coverage Of The Simants’ Murder Case, Nancy Whitmore

Nancy J. Whitmore

Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart(n1) began with the issuance of a court order that prohibited the publication of testimony and evidence presented at a preliminary hearing of a suspected mass murderer. With this judicial action, a press-bar contest ensued that hamstrung the media's reporting capabilities as it struggled for seventy-nine days under four gag orders to cover one of the most brutal murders in Nebraska history. Throughout the controversy, the Nebraska press chose to comply with the restrictive orders; and this article examines the effects of that choice. Specifically, it explores how the Nebraska press functional under the various restrictive …

Inverting The Inverted Pyramid: A Conversation About The Use Of Feminist Theories To Teach Journalism, Danna L. Walker, Margaretha Geertsema, Barbara Barnett

Margaretha Geertsema-Sligh

Teaching is always challenging, and for some of us who are feminists, teaching journalism is particularly difficult. The tenets of good journalism—objectivity and neutrality—are often antithetical to our feminist values. We face the dilemma of how to incorporate feminist sensibilities into teaching journalism—a profession that strives for detachment and, at times, seems oblivious to its own position of power.

Women Making News: Gender And Media In South Africa, Margaretha Geertsema

Margaretha Geertsema-Sligh

South Africa’s news media are still in a process of transformation after the transition to democracy in 1994. The media continue to face the challenge of ensuring equal and fair representation to the entire population, and gender and media activists in particular have taken up the challenge of bringing about change. Research shows that women have not yet achieved equal access and representation compared to men: they are under-represented as reporters, news sources, and audience members. Yet, in comparison with other countries, South Africa has about as many female reporters as the average reported in the Global Media Monitoring Project …

Clash Of Coverage: Cultural Framing In U.S. Newspaper Reporting On The 2011 Protests In Bahrain, Brian J. Bowe, Jennifer Hoewe

Brian J. Bowe

Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilizations paradigm was established after the Cold War to explain an emerging new world order and was utilized in the cultural framing hypothesis’ explanation of U.S. news coverage of conflicts. Through content analysis of three major U.S. newspapers’ coverage of the 2011 protests in Bahrain, this study uses the cultural framing hypothesis to determine if a clash of civilizations shaped news stories. The results largely support the hypothesis and Huntington’s paradigm.

Government Media Relations: A 'Spin' Through The Literature, Mark Pearson, Roger Patching

Roger Patching

Extract: Government media relations is deserving of serious study because it sits at the interface between the executive and journalism, two of the fundamental institutions in a modern democratic society. That line of communication is central crucial if citizens are to be kept informed of the workings of government and the machinations of the political system. The Australian High Court underscored its importance in the 1990s when it introduced an ‘implied constitutional freedom of communication on matters of politics and government’ through a series of decisions (2007, pp. 35-38). It is a communication channel where truth and transparency should be …

Taking The Paper Out Of News: A Case Study Of Taloussanomat, Europe's First Online-Only Newspaper, Neil J. Thurman, Merja Myllylahti

Neil Thurman

Using in-depth interviews, newsroom observation, and internal documents, this case study presents and analyses changes that have taken place at Finnish financial daily Taloussanomat since it stopped printing on 28 December 2007 to focus exclusively on digital delivery via the Web, email, and mobile. It reveals the savings that can be achieved when a newspaper no longer prints and distributes a physical product; but also the revenue lost from subscriptions and print advertising. The consequences of a newspaper's decision to go online-only are examined as they relate to its business model, website traffic, and editorial practice. The findings illustrate the …

Politics Of Appearances: Religion, Law, And The Press In Morocco, A Souaiaia

Ahmed E SOUAIAIA

Since the last several years of the life of King Hassan II, Morocco slowly moved from authoritarian rule to a managed democracy. As a result of this gradual political liberalization, religious groups as well as secular ones formed political parties. Islamists have already won seats in the parliament and they are expected to gain nearly half the number of seats in the coming elections. Equally significant is the increased presence of human rights and non-government organizations and the emergence of independent and party-affiliated newspapers and other media outlets. In this article, I focus on the prospects of seeing a free …

The Press As Agents Of Nationalism In The Queen’S Golden Jubilee: How British Newspapers Celebrated A Media Event, Claire Wardle, Emily West

Emily E. West

The press coverage in anticipation of and during Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee celebrations in Britain in June of 2002 illustrates Dayan and Katz’s (1992) theory that the media frequently adopt a “priestly” role when it comes to media events. The unexpected popularity of the Jubilee events caused the press to proclaim the Jubilee’s success as evidence of the nation’s continued strength, suggesting that their previous obsession with potential Jubilee failure was borne out of a sense of national insecurity. The coverage of the Jubilee as a whole points to the press’ role in promoting and celebrating patriotism.