Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Games Behind The Scenes: Newspaper Framing Of Female African American Olympic Athletes, Martin Reece Funderburk

Theses and Dissertations

Competing in and representing their country in the Olympic games is considered one of the greatest achievements for an athlete. From heroes such as Michael Jordan and the “Dream Team,” to Michael Phelps setting world record after record in the pool, Olympians are remembered as legends to those watching at home. How their amazing achievements at these Olympic games have been framed by the media though is another story. Newspapers have facilitated a platform for a qualitative content analysis on the framing of three female African American Olympic gold medalists that showed statistical significance in terms of the amount of …

Nineteenth Century American Newspapers And The Criminal Transgressor, James Maxwell Fuller

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study examines depictions of the criminal transgressor in two American newspapers, the Hartford Courant and the San Francisco Chronicle, during the 19th century. Case studies are offered of two individual crimes and the subsequent trial proceedings covered extensively by these publications: the triple murder at Bull Run in Windsor Locks, CT, and the murder of newspaper editor Charles de Young in San Francisco, CA. Examination of the narratives utilized by Hartford Courant and San Francisco Chronicle journalists demonstrates the widespread use of depictions of criminal transgressors as possessing an inherent moral corruption. This study facilitates a more nuanced understanding …

An Impossible Direction: Newspapers, Race, And Politics In Reconstruction New Orleans, Nicholas F. Chrastil

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis examines the racial ideologies of four newspapers in New Orleans at the beginning and end of Radical Reconstruction: the Daily Picayune, the New Orleans Republican, the New Orleans Tribune, and the Weekly Louisianian. It explores how each paper understood the issues of racial equality, integration, suffrage, and black humanity; it examines the specific language and rhetoric each paper used to advocate for their positions; and it asks how those positions changed from the beginning to the end of Reconstruction. The study finds that the two white-owned papers, the Picayune and the Republican, while political opponents, both viewed …

Forward Myth: Military Public Relations And The Domestic Base Newspaper 1941-1981, Willie R. Tubbs

Dissertations

This dissertation explores the evolution of domestic military base newspapers from 1941-1981, a timeframe that encapsulates the Second World War, Korean War, and Vietnam War, as well as interwar and postwar years. While called “newspapers,” the United States military designed these publications to be a hybrid of traditional news and public relations. This dissertation focuses on three primary aspects of these newspapers: the evolution of the format, style, and function of these papers; the messages editors and writers crafted for and about the “common” soldier and American; and the messages for and about members of the non-majority group.

Sometimes printed …

When Ink Turned Into Bullets: The Effect Of The Press In Buffalo, New York And The Nation Along With Its Role In Igniting A Civil War, Nicole C. Kondziela

History Theses

The American Civil War was a multi-faceted conflict: North versus South, states’ rights versus federal law, slavery versus abolition. Due to increasing and constant advancements in technology, this was the first war in American history that developed in full view of the public through newspapers. The Industrial Revolution and capitalism allowed the press to evolve into rich and powerful soap boxes for political bosses and editors alike to voice their opinions far beyond the village square. Unbeknownst to much of the public at the time, the Union had been at the mercy of newspaper editors and politicians in a grand …

How The Greek Press Constructed The "Greek Economic Crisis", Maria Elena Kuntz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since 2008, there has been a surge of interest in and research on the relationship between news media and economic reporting, particularly as it concerns financial crises. The 2008 U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, quickly followed by the economic crisis that began to unfold in Greece in 2009, spurred researchers to examine how newspapers around the world report on the complex, globalized economy. In the pursuit of understanding transnational economic processes, publics rely on news media to provide information about the meaning of economic events, especially crises. As such, newspapers are key players in constructing the narratives of crises.

This study …

Slipping Into Darkness: An Ideological Critique Of Racial Inequality Coverage In Milwaukee Newspapers, 2010-2014, Enrique Brown

Master's Theses (2009 -)

This ideological critique assessed mainstream and African American newspaper coverage on racial inequalities such as racial segregation and infant mortality in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from 2010 through 2014. Employing Cultural Studies, Critical Race Theory, and Class Theory, this textual research analyzed the texts of 405 reports, columns, and editorials from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee's mainstream paper of record, and The Milwaukee Courier, the city's premier African American newspaper. The study discovered important convergences in the Courier and Journal Sentinel's portrayal of racial inequalities as indicators of a racially diseased city and nation. However, the research also revealed important differences in …

Manufacturing News: Exploring How Public Relations Content Is Presented As News From An Agenda-Setting Perspective, Katharine R. Gore

Journalism

This study, conducted in San Luis Obispo, California, analyzes and investigates the relationship between public relations professionals and journalists, the role of public relations in news and how often content developed by the public relations industry is later portrayed as news.

Public relations-developed content has a growing presence in news. This is due, in part to the fact that more people work in the public relations industry than do in journalism fields. There is also a symbiotic relationship between the two industries, which is confirmed by existing studies and scholarly texts.

An effort was made by the author to track …

Leadership Bias: The Case Of The Cherokee Freedmen, Kristi Barnett Williams

LSU Master's Theses

Journalists inform residents living on or near Native American reservations about key policy issues. Since most tribal councils own and operate their news outlets, retaliation towards journalists working for the tribe is a real concern if the leadership does not appreciate the message. In response to the threat of retaliation, some tribes, like the Cherokee Nation, have legal protections for journalists. The Cherokee Nation’s newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, operates under the guidelines of the Cherokee Independent Press Act (CIPA) originally passed in 2000 and amended in 2009. CIPA was the first of its kind in Indian Country. This thesis analyzes …

Newspaper Coverage Of Christianity In South Korea, 1996-2005, Taisik Hwang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Drawing upon framing theory, this study content analyzes a sample of 2,614 news articles dealing with religions published in Chosun Ilbo from 1996 to 2005. Of this sample, it focuses on 727 news stories covering Christianity to examine how this major daily newspaper has covered this religion in terms of its tone and frames towards Protestants and megachurches. The key findings show that this religion seems to have been portrayed in a positive tone rather than in a negative tone and that Korean journalists tend to view both the Protestants and megachurches as providers of social work services. Given the …

Amanda Knox: A Content Analysis Of Media Framing In Newspapers Around The World, Deidre Freyenberger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Newspaper coverage can have a positive or negative impact on the image of an individual. This study examined the framing of Amanda Knox in newspapers published worldwide during the 4 years Knox was imprisoned in Italy. An American foreign exchange student, Knox was studying in Italy when her roommate was murdered. A content analysis of 500 major world newspapers was conducted. The study’s purpose was to determine the tone, story placement, and page placement of each mention of Amanda Knox. Newspaper articles associated with the topic were retrieved from the LexisNexis database and analyzed. The results showed that mentions of …

Understanding Involuntary Job Loss Among Former Newspaper Staff Photographers, Ryan K. Morris

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines former newspaper photographers' experience with being laid-off from their staff positions. The purpose was to identify emerging themes within the context of involuntary job loss, job satisfaction, and occupational identity via interviews with 8 photojournalists who experienced the phenomenon of being laid-off. The newspaper industry has long been considered both the starting point for young and aspiring photojournalism careers and the most consistent and stable venue for an income. Yet recent changes in the media landscape, particularly economic stress on traditional business models and rapid adoption of digital technology sway the occupational future of photojournalism within newsrooms. …

Full Court Press: How Mississippi Newspapers Helped Keep State College Basketball Segregated, 1955-1973, Jason Ashley Peterson

Dissertations

During the civil rights era, Mississippi was cloaked in the hateful embrace of the Closed Society, historian James Silver’s description of the white caste systems that used State’s Rights to enforce segregation and promote the subservient treatment of blacks. Surprisingly, challenges from Mississippi’s college basketball courts brought into question the validity of the Closed Society and its unwritten law, a gentleman’s agreement that prevented college teams in the Magnolia State from playing against integrated foes. Led by Mississippi State University’s (MSU) basketball team, which won four Southeastern Conference championships in a five-year span, the newspapers in Mississippi often debated the …

The Experiences Of Mississippi Weekly Newspaper Editors As They Explore And Consider Producing Internet Editions, Cassandra Denise Johnson

Dissertations

This dissertation focused on the challenges Mississippi weekly newspaper editors faced when deciding to have an online edition and the issues these editors encountered when they adopted a Web newspaper. The study expounded on four areas—the operational changes weekly newspapers have had to make to produce Web editions, the different type of newsroom staff that are needed to create both editions, the content that is going in the online edition, and the financial pressures that editors work through to keep the newspapers profitable. The study was modeled after similar studies from three organizations—the Pew Research Center, the Bivings Group, and …

Press Independence In Newspaper Coverage Of The 2009 Health Care Debate, Matthew Holt Barnidge

LSU Master's Theses

This study examines press independence from the government in the 2009 national health care debate. Through a content analysis examining source expressions, or the words journalists attribute to various people in the news, the study captures the essence of the discourse represented in the news about the debate. This paper also outlines a distinction between various types of autonomy, and offers a new conceptualization of independence. Procedural autonomy, which is autonomy in journalistic norms and routines, does not necessarily result in content autonomy, which is autonomy of viewpoints expressed in the news. In other words, if non-governmental sources say substantially …

Perception Of And Reactions To The Presence Of Url's In Print Advertising Of A Non-Technology Brand, Neil Melancon

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis, through an experiment of 108 subjects, studies the relationship between the presence of a Uniform Resource Locator (URL or web address) in newspaper advertisements and perception of the product advertised as well as the likelihood to act on the advertisement. The findings reveal URLs do in fact have an effect on perception, although, as it is suggested in the theoretical framework, it does not necessarily induce the subjects to act on the ad. This study also finds there is a stronger inclination for perception change to take place versus the likelihood for consumers to either seek more information …

Newspaper Coverage Of Nonreligious Paranormal Phenomena: A Content Analysis Of The San Antonio Light And San Antonio Express-News, Pamela L. Parmer

Theses & Dissertations

A content analysis was used to examine how paranormal phenomena was portrayed in the San Antonio daily newspapers and determine if there was any trend in portrayals from 1970 to 1990. The San Antonio Light and the San Antonio Express-News were analyzed from March to May 1970 and March to May 1990. The analysis included data from the individual papers, comparing and contrasting the data from the two time periods. The data between the two papers also was compared and contrasted. The phenomena included unidentified flying objects, aliens, psychics, and ghosts. It excluded religious phenomena such as reincarnation, witchcraft, and …

The "Virginian-Pilot" Newspaper's Role In Moderating Norfolk, Virginia's 1958 School Desegregation Crisis, Alexander Stewart Leidholdt

Theses and Dissertations in Urban Services - Urban Education

This dissertation explores the critical role played by the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot newspaper's editor, Lenoir Chambers, in moderating public opinion during Norfolk, Virginia's, 1958/1959 public-school closing.

In 1958 the nation's attention was focused on Norfolk. In an attempt to stymy judicially mandated integration, Virginia's Governor J. Lindsay Almond, Jr., supported by the powerful political organization of United States senator Harry Flood Byrd, Sr., ordered the city to close its public schools.

Norfolk was a major urban area. Over ten thousand students were displaced by the state action; and four months after the closing, three thousand students were still receiving no education. …