Digital Commons Network^™

Americans, Marketers, And The Internet: 1999-2012, Joseph Turow, Amy Bleakley, John Bracken, Michael X. Delli Carpini, Nora A. Draper, Lauren Feldman, Nathaniel Good, Jens Grossklags, Michael Hennessy, Chris Jay Hoofnagle, Rowan Howard-Williams, Jennifer King, Su Li, Kimberly Meltzer, Deirdre K. Mulligan, Lilach Nir

Chris Jay Hoofnagle

This is a collection of the reports on the Annenberg national surveys that explored Americans' knowledge and opinions about the new digital-marketing world that was becoming part of their lives. So far we’ve released seven reports on the subject, in 1999, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2009, 2010, and 2012. The reports raised or deepened a range of provocative topics that have become part of public, policy, and industry discourse. In addition to these reports, I’ve included three journal articles — from I/S, New Media & Society and the Journal of Consumer Affairs — that synthesize some of the findings and place …

Venezuela In The Times Of Chavez: A Study On Media, Charisma, And Social Polarization, Jorge Capetillo-Ponce

Jorge Capetillo-Ponce

My main objective in this study is to deepen the reader's understanding of Venezuela's ongoing socio-political conflict by focusing on the struggle for control over one of the key agents of mobilization and politicization in the country: the media outlets, and particularly television. My methodology strives to interweave the chronological record of events with analysis of the equally relevant theoretical, institutional, political, economic, and cultural components that helped to create those events. Central to my presentation is its analysis of the decline of Venezuela's two traditional parties and the emergence of a charismatic and populist form of leadership.

Proximity And Journalistic Practice In Environmental Discourse: Experiencing “Job Blackmail” In The News, Barbara Johnstone, Justin Mando

Barbara Johnstone

Danlait’S 2013 Social Media Crisis In Vietnam: A Case Study To Explore Online Crisis Scanning Criteria, Tuong-Minh Ly-Le

Tuong-Minh Ly-Le

Social media has changed the way information is sought and collected. Everyone has potential to influence others through social media. Therefore, social media is used increasingly in crisis communication. Crisis managers must be able to identify warning signs and enact effective strategic responses faster and more accurately. However, research on social media in crisis communication is mostly focusing on how management and public relations forces use social media to respond to a crisis. In most research, stakeholders, media and general audiences are neglected. This paper examines the use of social media by those other publics during crisis, through a case …

The Opppositional Framing Of Bloggers, Stephen D. Cooper

Stephen D. Cooper

As a new feature of the media system, the blogosphere is an extremely interesting subject for scholarly inquiry. One might spend research time along a variety of lines: why people blog, why people read blog content, the relationship of the blogosphere to the established media outlets, the who/what/when of blog content production and consumption, the subject matter of blog posts, the effects of exposure to blog content, the potential for and limitations on interactions, and so on, for quite a long list. Given that the blogosphere is a recent addition to the media mix, and itself a (presumably) unintended consequence …

Clash Of Civilization Or Clash Of Newspaper Ideologies? An Analysis Of The Ideological Split In British Newspaper Commentaries On The 2002 Miss World Riots In Nigeria, Farooq A. Kperogi

Farooq A. Kperogi

Riots that erupted in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna over a newspaper article that some Muslims interpreted as blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad on account of Nigeria’s decision to host the 2002 edition of the Miss World beauty pageant captured the attention of the media around the world. This article investigates how the British press framed the riots in their opinion columns and editorials. Through an interpretive textual analysis of the opinion pages, the study shows that while the ideological persuasions of left-leaning British press predisposed them to express opinions on the Miss World riots that resonated with what might …

Embedded Versus Behind-The-Lines Reporting On The 2003 Iraq War, Stephen D. Cooper

Stephen D. Cooper

A 2003 study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that “Most Americans (53%) believe that news organizations are politically biased, while just 29% say they are careful to remove bias from their reports ... More than half—51%—say that the bias is ‘liberal,’ while 26% discerned a ‘conservative’ leaning. Fourteen percent felt neither phrase applied” (Harper, 2003). Now add to this that even some academicians are finally accepting the idea that journalists, as a group, are more liberal than the population as a whole. However, whether political or other biases (Hahn, 1998) affect news coverage …

Press Controls In Wartime: The Legal, Historical, And Institutional Context, Stephen D. Cooper

Stephen D. Cooper

News coverage of warfare poses a dilemma for social systems with a free press, such as the United States. In an era of high-tech weaponry and nearly instantaneous global communications, conflict is inevitable between the obligation of the press to inform the general public and the obligation of the military to successfully conduct war. The importance of secrecy to the conduct of warfare heightens the issue in the current counterterrorism operations. The competitive advantage of live coverage raises the stakes in a crowded media market. The military’s control over newsgathering during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War set off a controversy …

A Comparative Framing Analysis Of Embedded And Behind-The-Lines Reporting On The 2003 Iraq War, Jim A. Kuypers, Stephen D. Cooper

Stephen D. Cooper

Although a contested position, we believe that reporters and editors frame the news in a way that reflects their personal feelings and newsroom culture (Kuypers, 1997, 2002, 2005; Cooper, in press). Audiences usually receive their political news from only a few press sources; rarely do they read the original statements of those being reported upon.

Consuming Nature: Mass Media And The Cultural Politics Of Animals And Environments, Carrie Packwood Freeman, Jason Jarvis

Carrie P. Freeman

The commercially-driven mass media package human identity and all our surrounding environment for daily consumption in the public sphere. It is of critical importance whether media choose to ignore humanity’s responsibility toward the natural world and simply have us consume it as a product, or whether they actively cultivate ecological responsibility and newfound respect toward animals as fellow sentient beings. This chapter explores the necessity, potential, and challenges of relying on the media (journalism, television, advertising, film, radio, internet, etc.) to inspire the social change needed to reverse the destructive behaviors and beliefs that are contributing to our global ecological …

“100% Authentic Pittsburgh”: Sociolinguistic Authenticity And The Linguistics Of Particularity, Barbara Johnstone

Barbara Johnstone

As Bucholtz (2003), Coupland (2007, pp. 25-26), and others have pointed out, what counts as an authentic linguistic variety or an authentic speaker depends on who is counting and why. Sociolinguists have often unthinkingly privileged as their object of study the most unselfconsious, “vernacular” speech in relatively closed, homogeneous communities like traditional working-class neighborhoods, with their dense, multiplex social networks, and in the relatively self-contained symbolic economies of schools. This has allowed us to explore social correlates of variation and processes of change in communities where these things appear least muddied by outside influences, and doing so has given us …

A People's History Of Baseball, Mitchell J. Nathanson

Mitchell J Nathanson

Baseball is much more than the national pastime. It has become an emblem of America itself. From its initial popularity in the mid-nineteenth century, the game has reflected national values and beliefs and promoted what it means to be an American. Stories abound that illustrate baseball's significance in eradicating racial barriers, bringing neighborhoods together, building civic pride, and creating on the field of play an instructive civics lesson for immigrants on the national character. In A People's History of Baseball, Mitchell Nathanson probes the less well-known but no less meaningful other side of baseball: episodes not involving equality, patriotism, heroism, …

Trust Or Bust?: Questioning The Relationship Between Media Trust And News Attention, Ann E. Williams

Ann E Williams

This article establishes the theoretical significance of media trust and explores the relationships between individuals' levels of media trust and news attention. Three distinct types of media trust are introduced: 1) trust of news information, 2) trust of those who deliver the news, and 3) trust of media corporations. The findings indicate that these different types of media trust relate to news attention in distinct ways, specifically when examined across medium. The theoretical significance of the findings are discussed and contextualized in light of an evolving media environment.

Gender And The Digital Economy: Perspectives From The Developing World, Margaretha Geertsema Sligh

Margaretha Geertsema-Sligh

Editors Cecilia Ng and Swasti Mitter address an important and timely topic in their new book. The book sets out to do exactly what the title says; the authors interrogate the participation of women in the Information and Communication Technologys (ICTs) industry, particularly in developing countries. As the editors point out in the introduction, there are concerns that globalization will increase inequalities and asymmetrical power relationships between the rich and the poor. Yet, they are quite optimistic about the potential enabling power of new technologies.

Gender And The Digital Economy: Perspectives From The Developing World, Margaretha Geertsema Sligh

Margaretha Geertsema-Sligh

Editors Cecilia Ng and Swasti Mitter address an important and timely topic in their new book. The book sets out to do exactly what the title says; the authors interrogate the participation of women in the Information and Communication Technologys (ICTs) industry, particularly in developing countries. As the editors point out in the introduction, there are concerns that globalization will increase inequalities and asymmetrical power relationships between the rich and the poor. Yet, they are quite optimistic about the potential enabling power of new technologies.

Sport And The Media In Ireland: An Introduction, Seán Crosson Dr., Philip Dine

Seán Crosson

[Introduction to Media History Special Issue on Sport and the Media in Ireland]. The symbiotic relationship that has existed since the mid-nineteenth century between sport and the media - from the popular press, through newsreels and radio, to television, and beyond - is so well established as hardly to require comment. However, the very familiarity of this long and successful marriage should not blind us to its abiding, and abidingly remarkable, affective power, both for individuals and for communities, real and ‘imagined’, of all kinds. We may thus legitimately pause to reflect on the key role played by the media …

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 …

Media Evolution And Public Understanding Of Climate Science, Ann Williams

Ann E Williams

This paper employs public opinion data from a nationally representative probability sample to examine how information encounters and exposure to different media sources relate to individuals' beliefs about global warming. The analyses indicate that media source exposure (i.e., exposure to news and information about science presented through different media outlets), intentional information exposure (i.e., deliberate exposure to global warming news coverage), and inadvertent information exposure (i.e., unplanned exposure to news and information about science that is encountered online while searching for other forms of information) relate to beliefs about global warming, in significant and meaningful ways. Namely, the findings show …

Dialect Enregisterment In Performance, Barbara Johnstone

Barbara Johnstone

In recent work I have been exploring how one set of linguistic forms has become enregistered as the dialect known as “Pittsburghese” ( Johnstone 2007a; 2007b; 2009; Johnstone, Andrus, and Danielson 2006). In this paper I analyze dialect enregistration in highly self-conscious performances of Pittsburgh speech and social identity. My data consists of three comedy sketches performed by the cast of WDVE radio’s “’DVE Morning Show.” One, called “Mother”, alternates lines of a somewhat parodically sentimental song about the singer’s mother with spoken-word illustrations by a “mother” character who uses elements of Pittsburgh-sounding speech. The second is an advertisement for …

The New Abridged Reporter's Privilege: Policies, Principles And Pathological Perspectives, Erik Ugland

Erik Ugland

This Article contends that contemporary arguments about the reporter’s privilege are increasingly situated within a divided framework in which protections for confidential and nonconfidential information are treated as separate interests that lack a shared theoretical justification. This is both a cause and consequence of a broader tendency among judges, legislators, journalists and lawyers to emphasize policy-based conceptions of the privilege that are focused on case-specific calculations of harms and benefits, rather than principle-based conceptions focused on journalistic autonomy and the need for a structural separation of press and government. Policy arguments present the privilege as a narrow, utilitarian device for …

Age, Gender, And Information-Seeking Patterns Following An Urban Bridge Collapse, Patric R. Spence, Kenneth Lachlan, Lindsay D. Nelson, Ashleigh K. Shelton

Patric R. Spence

Connecting Diversity: Paradoxes Of Multicultural Australia, Ien Ang, Jeffrey E. Brand, Greg Noble, Jason Sternberg

Jeffrey Brand

Commissioned by SBS, and published in March 2006, Connecting Diversity: Paradoxes of Multicultural Australia is a follow-up study to SBS’s 2002 report, Living Diversity: Australia’s Multicultural Future. The attitudes of many younger Australians from culturally diverse backgrounds reveal paradoxes about Australian multiculturalism today. This report sheds light on their views, experiences and expectations and the role of media in their lives. Younger, culturally and linguistically diverse Australians are often the subject of mediafanned controversy about disaffection, ‘ethnic gangs’ and cultural isolation. While these controversies tend to be localised – Cronulla, Inala or Bankstown – Connecting Diversity tells a national and …

Don't Criticise The Effects Of Video Games On Kids, Exploit Them!, Jeffrey E. Brand

Jeffrey Brand

[Extract] For young learners today, video games are part of the "cultural furniture". The development of boys and girls, their socialisation, and their formal learning (including literacy) are at risk if they reject contemporary media. What humanises technology most completely is appropriation of it. As any parent or teacher who has tried it knows, using popular media in the service of formal learning most readily overcomes the risk attributed to them. It also eliminates the source of moral panics: ignorance about the learners' world.

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 …

Hamas Controlled Televised News Media: Counter- Peace, Allen Gnanam

Allen Gnanam

The hegemonic force of Hamas censored televised news media in Gaza, can not be fully comprehended and appreciated without recognizing the role of propaganda, censorship, and the historical context of the middle east. These 3 interrelated dimensions will be analyzed using functionalism, the mass society theory, the dominant ideology framework, the critical criminology framework, and the symbolic interactionist framework. Through censorship, Hamas news media outlets were able to unilaterally inject culturally relevant propaganda, into the minds of children and citizens. The hypodermic syringe model can be applied to the state controlled news media situation in Gaza, as the people of …

Ebay And The Blackberry®: A Media Coverage Case Study, Lisa A. Dolak, Blaine T. Bettinger

Lisa A Dolak

Patent owners, potential infringers, and the courts will continue to work through the implications of the Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. for some time. We look back, however, at media coverage relating to injunctions, “trolls,” and the U.S. patent system generally, in the months preceding the Court’s decision. We show that although eBay featured prominently in news and editorial coverage while it was pending at the Court, it could not compete in the media with another patent case pending at the same time: the case that threatened to darken the Blackberry®. Further, we note that …

Toward A Global Media Ethics: Theoretical Perspectives, Clifford G. Christians, Shakuntala Rao, Stephen J.A. Ward, Herman Wasserman

Shakuntala Rao

Theoretical debates about global media ethics have been marked by disagreements about the nature, possibility, and desirability of a global ethics. This article attempts to address those disagreements by developing an “ethics of universal being” as the philosophical basis for a global media ethics, an ethics expressed by such universals as the sacredness of life, truth, and nonviolence. The article aims to explore various theoretical positions on global media ethics by providing an overview of the literature and seeking ways in which common ground may be found between these different positions. This approach is developed in two ways. First, it …

China- Tibet Conflict, Allen Gnanam

Allen Gnanam

China- Tibet tensions are continually growing, as Tibetans are protesting for total independence from China, despite condemnation from their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who is only seeking a sense of autonomy for Tibet (Sinder, 2008). As Tibetan protests are becoming violent and aggressive, the Dalai Lama has also threatened to resign as Tibet’s government in exile (Sinder, 2008), however, his rhetoric is not being exposed to the Tibetan people, due to government censorship in China. Therefore the Dalai Lama, an exiled institutional entrepreneur, has to find new methods that will enable his influential message, to be received by the …

Demarcating The Right To Gather News: A Sequential Interpretation Of The First Amendment, Erik Ugland

Erik Ugland

The recent spate of cases in which reporters have been subpoenaed, fined, jailed, or otherwise disciplined has laid bare the divisions among the courts over the existence and scope of the “reporter’s privilege.” The cases have also exposed the doctrinal, historical, and theoretical infirmities of the broader legal framework that governs newsgathering. Resolving these conflicts has grown more urgent with the democratization of media and the emergence of bloggers and other news providers who have challenged traditional conceptions of “journalists” and “the press.” To settle these controversies, this Article moves past the courts’ desultory analyses, focuses on core principles, and …

Noble, But Not Savage: Difficulties In Racial-Mythic Conception Of Media Stereotypes., Rick Clifton Moore, John R. Fisher

Rick Clifton Moore

To overcome conceptual difficulties in earlier media stereotype research, Seiter (1986) and Gorham (1999) propose that we think of stereotypes in ideological terms, especially as perpetuators of racial myths. Racial myths reinforce negative views of oppressed groups and positive views of the powerful. In this study, however, empirical data about preconceptions and film portrayals of Native Americans suggest that in some instances powerless groups can be “stereotyped” much more positively than powerful ones are.