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Communication Theses

Agenda setting

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The Rise Of Twitter In Presidential Communication: An Examination Of The Relationship Between President Trump's Twitter Feed And The Media Coverage Of His First 100 Days, Zedan Xu Aug 2018

The Rise Of Twitter In Presidential Communication: An Examination Of The Relationship Between President Trump's Twitter Feed And The Media Coverage Of His First 100 Days, Zedan Xu

Communication Theses

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between Donald Trump’s Twitter feed and the media coverage of Trump’s agenda expressed in his tweets during the “honeymoon period.” From the theoretical perspective of agenda setting theory, this research empirically explores the salience issues present in Trump’s Twitter postings and compare them to the media agenda. Descriptive statistics of Trump’s tweets and the coverage of his tweets from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal show that nearly half of Trump’s Twitter posts are covered in the news media, indicating that Trump’s Twitter feed …


The Butterfly Effect Of Deceptive Science: How Media Influence May Have Spread The Illusory Link Between Vaccines And Autism, Kami M. Vinton May 2016

The Butterfly Effect Of Deceptive Science: How Media Influence May Have Spread The Illusory Link Between Vaccines And Autism, Kami M. Vinton

Communication Theses

Delaying or refusing childhood vaccinations can increase a community’s risk of vaccine-preventable diseases. Agenda setting theory demonstrates that media can influence people's attitudes and opinions. One study in 1998 asserted that a vaccine/autism link existed, giving birth to one of the longest held myths in modern medicine. Shortly after its publication, the study was thoroughly discredited, and hundreds of subsequent studies have failed to find any link. Many parents who refuse vaccinations remain unconvinced by traditional science and favor anecdotal, pseudo-scientific accounts of the cause of and treatments for autism. Given the recent resurgence of once-eradicated vaccine-preventable diseases, it is …


Framing Autism Causes And Prevelance: A Content Analysis Of Television Evening News Coverage--1994 Through April 2010, Angela S. Colson Aug 2010

Framing Autism Causes And Prevelance: A Content Analysis Of Television Evening News Coverage--1994 Through April 2010, Angela S. Colson

Communication Theses

Autism has been declared an urgent public health concern by the U.S. government and an epidemic by some advocacy groups. Determining autism’s diagnostic criteria, prevalence, and causes have been challenging. It is important to examine how the U.S. media have contributed to the public’s understanding of autism. Previous research found that British media coverage of the theory that vaccines cause autism was shown to contribute to the decline of vaccination rates in Britain (Lewis & Speers, 2003). This study examined U.S. television news media coverage using an agenda-setting theory and media framing perspective. A content analysis was conducted of national …