Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

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 …

2014 Journalism Graduate Skills For The Professional Workplace: Expectations From Journalism Professionals And Educators, Bernard Mccoy

Bernard R. McCoy

With 2015 graduations approaching, accuracy, ethical principles, and good news judgment were identified as top skills college journalism graduates should possess for the professional workplace, according to a national survey of journalism educators and professionals. There are sharp differences, though, between respondent groups over how well college journalism programs are doing preparing journalism graduates for journalism careers, as well as the perceived importance of social media, mobile, and digital reporting skills. The survey asked journalism professionals and educators to rank skills and experiences journalism graduates need for the professional workplace. Respondents included 665 professional journalism managers, non-managers, and educators. Respondents …

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 …

Critical Animal And Media Studies: Communication For Nonhuman Animal Advocacy, Nuria Almiron, Matthew Cole, Carrie Freeman

Carrie P Freeman

ABSTRACT: Suitable for a media studies graduate or upper level undergraduate course (or a critical animal studies course), this book aims to put the speciesism debate and the treatment of non-human animals on the agenda of critical media studies and to put media studies on the agenda of animal ethics researchers. Contributors examine the convergence of media and animal ethics from theoretical, philosophical, discursive, social constructionist, and political economic perspectives. The book is divided into three sections: foundations, representation, and responsibility, outlining the different disciplinary approaches’ application to media studies and covering how non-human animals, and the relationship between humans …

Crime News: Does Quantity Matter?, Rocky Dailey

Rocky Dailey

Statistical Reasoning In Journalism Education, Sharon Dunwoody, Robert Griffin

Robert Griffin

Surveys of journalism department heads in 1997 and 2008 showed general support for the need for journalism students to reason with statistical information. Stronger support was associated, in particular, with the perception that this cognitive skill would give students an advantage in the journalism job market. However, many chairs also perceived constraints to learning, such as student inability and/or unwillingness to focus on this material and the difficulty most of their faculty would have teaching it. Some of these concerns may be more perceptual than actual.

Early Judaic Ethics Applied To The Society Of Professional Journalist’S Decision On The Fate Of The Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award, Ginny Whitehouse, Lindsay Huffman

Ginny Whitehouse

No abstract provided.

Skills Vs Substance, Rocky Dailey

Rocky Dailey

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 …

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 …

Op-Ed: How The Nanaimo Daily News Should Have Dealt With The Racist Letter To The Editor, Ginny Whitehouse

Ginny Whitehouse

Dan Olsen managed to embarrass the Nanaimo Daily News when the newspaper published his letter to the editor, a rant accusing First Nations peoples of being nothing more than government relief sponges without history or honour.

Lots of people were angry and disputed Olsen's claims, both within British Columbia's bands and amongst all people across Canada. Check here for the letter's full text and reaction. More than 1,000 joined a Facebook page protesting the Nanaimo paper's editorial judgment.

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, …

The Murderer's Salute: News Images Of Breivik's Defiance After Killing 77 In Oslo, Ginny Whitehouse

Ginny Whitehouse

The author discusses Anders Behring Breivik's massacre and murder cases in Oslo, Norway on July 22, 2011. The goals and plans of Breivik in committing the crime of killing 77 people are tackled. The author mentions that Breivik has been facing 21 years of imprisonment in Ila prison, within the site of a former Nazi concentration camp in Oslo.

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 …

Student Perceptions Of Public Relations And Journalism: A Pilot Study Of Attitude Shifts Through Curriculum Innovation, Bernard Mccoy, Jerry Renaud, Adam Wagler, Amy Struthers, John Baker

Bernard R. McCoy

Journalism and Public Relations have had a long and often contentious relationship. It is rare when journalists and advertising/PR specialists work well together in the real world. It is equally rare when advertising, public relations and journalism students work together as part of their classroom education. This pilot mixed methods study explored the perceptions journalism and public relations majors had about each other’s professions. The experimental group was comprised of 40 journalism and public relations majors who worked together covering a national event in an immersive college class. The control group included 68 students who participated in a more traditional …

Ethics Defines The Professional, Ginny Whitehouse

Ginny Whitehouse

A thorough understanding of ethics is what will separate professional journalists from someone with a lambasting opinion and an internet portal. As more technology becomes available to a wider audience, journalists will capture their market and define their distinctiveness through their integrity. Knowing how to make ethical decisions will be the skill set that sets professional journalists apart.

Mario Van Peebles’S Panther And Popular Memories Of The Black Panther Party, Kristen Hoerl

Kristen Hoerl

The 1995 movie Panther depicted the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense as a vibrant but ultimately doomed social movement for racial and economic justice during the late 1960s. Panther’s narrative indicted the white-operated police for perpetuating violence against African-Americans and for undermining movements for black empowerment. As such, this film represented a rare source of filmic counter-memory that challenged hegemonic memories of U.S. race relations. Newspaper reports and reviews of Panther, however, questioned this film’s veracity as a source of historical information. An analysis of these reviews and reports indicates the challenges counter-memories confront in popular culture.

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 …

Consensus-Building Journalism: An Immodest Proposal, Gilda Parrella

Gilda Parrella

Newsgathering And Privacy: Expanding Ethics Codes To Reflect Change In The Digital Media Age, Ginny Whitehouse

Ginny Whitehouse

Media ethics codes concerning privacy must be updated considering the ease with which information now can be gathered from social networks and disseminated widely. Existing codes allow for deception and privacy invasion in cases of overriding public need when no alternate means are available but do not adequately define what constitutes need or alternate means, or weigh in the harm such acts do to the public trust and the profession. Building on the ethics theories of Sissela Bok and Helen Nissenbaum, balancing tests can be developed under a mixed-rule deontology that confines online misrepresentation and exposing the private information of …