Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Tied Together, Eiko Nishida

Theses and Dissertations

The paper is about a site-specific installation that questions a viewer’s norms and perspectives, through the use of multilingual newspapers as a sculptural material.

Strategies That Weekly Print Newspapers Use In The Digital Age, Mia Alexander-Davis

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The development of Web 2.0 transformed the distribution of information in the United States and challenged the print newspaper business model to develop an online presence. As a result, some weekly print newspaper managers were forced to develop digital strategies to maintain the viability of their organizations in a changing market. Grounded in Kotter’s change management model, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies weekly print newspaper managers used to create an online presence. The data sources were semistructured interviews with three weekly print newspaper managers and publicly available documents, including company archives, website data, …

Analysis Of Newspaper Coverage Of Psilocybin From January 1, 1989 To December 31, 2019, Dax Oliver

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Psilocybin is a chemical compound that has received a lot of attention from medical researchers in recent years. However, this research is not merely a medical issue but a social and political one as well. In the 1960s, psilocybin and other psychedelic compounds were widely ingested outside of clinical settings. This alarmed some of the American public, resulting in severe legal restrictions on psilocybin use and research.

Today, many psilocybin advocates hope that it will avoid the negative public sentiment of the 1960s. To help gauge public sentiment about other psychoactive compounds, some studies have examined newspaper coverage, but there …

Framing And Newspaper Coverage Of Racial Integration, Amy Unruh

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For many Americans who grew up in the 1960s, the first published information about Africans came directly from Africa, in the form of exotic photographs and stories in National Geographic. Susan Goldberg, Editor in Chief of National Geographic, addressed the issue of race portrayals in the magazine, reflecting on the realization that National Geographic often provided readers “their first look at the world” while rarely acknowledging the struggles of race in the United States. The magazine displayed full-color photographs depicting Africans from many nations, dressed in native clothing and jewelry, positioned in settings that implied dignity, beauty and strength. Meanwhile, …

The Effect Of Newspaper Closure On Local Media Ecology, Cody David Nespor

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

On August 31, 2019, the local newspaper of Youngstown, Ohio, The Vindicator, ceased publication after 150 years. The Vindicator’s closure left Youngstown as the largest city in the United State without a major newspaper. As local newspaper closures become more and more common across communities, there are questions on how, and if, the coverage and content those newspaper provide to their communities can be replaced or will simply be lost forever. This study has three research questions. Question one pertains to the amount of original reporting that will exist without The Vindicator. Questions two asks about the amount of locally …

Effects Of The Black Lives Matter Movement On Media Portrayals Of Accused Criminals, Samantha Strine

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Media impacts our everyday lives and shapes how we understand the world around us. It assists in creating social hierarchies which impact how groups of people are represented and understood. These hierarchies have led to the generation of stereotypes and disparate reporting practices in media. However, social movements tend to be created to provide evidence against these stereotypes and the movements attempt to undo disparate treatment of marginalized groups. This study had three hypotheses: Hypothesis 1 stated that prior to the generation of the Black Lives Movement, media depictions of black and white accused criminals will differ. Hypothesis 2 stated …

Chinese Nationalism And The South China Sea, Jordan M. Sandy

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

What role do domestic audiences play in authoritarian policy making? This study examines the relationship between newspapers and assertive foreign policy. Specifically, this study conducts content analyses of state-published newspapers during periods of unprecedented assertiveness in the South China Sea. Borrowing from Galtung’s theory of peace journalism, this study analyzes valence patterns used in 99 separate articles published in Xinhua, China Daily, People’s Daily, and Global Times. Additionally, this study examines the visibility of these articles, to better understand their prominence in national coverage. This study discusses nationalism in the case of China, as well as the overwhelming control that …

Media And The Formation Of Scottish Parliament, Emily Ashcraft

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The thesis explored how media interacts with politics, specifically the Scottish Parliament, by considering the representation of the Scottish Parliament in newspapers from the time the Scots voted for a parliament (1997) through the years following the beginning of the Scottish Parliament (1999-2003). It compared various newspapers from Scotland and the United Kingdom during this time and examined their reporting on the parliament. It also evaluated specific differences between the UK and Scottish Parliaments, where they originated and how newspapers and other media were involved in the conversation. This research found that press representation and media framing is important in …

“Philosophical Treatises On Life And Death”:Newspaper Coverage Of A Controversial Brain Death Case, Khadija Ejaz

Theses and Dissertations

The central concern of this multi-method research project was to investigate newspaper coverage of the controversial brain death case of Jahi McMath. This represents the first study of sense-making of the case in the news media, positioning it at the intersection of science communication and critical qualitative inquiry. First, framing theory was used to guide a textual analysis of 81 newspaper articles from high-circulation newspapers in California. This revealed four frames that first created uncertainty about brain death, thereby permitting two competing frames of Jahi being alive and also being dead to co-exist before merging into a frame that further …

Contextualizing The News: Newspaper Front Pages In The Age Of Fact-Checking Journalism., Srijan Sen

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates influences on the selection of stories on the front pages of newspapers. It investigates whether a daily newspaper that has an in-house, fact-checking unit (The Milwaukee (WI) Journal Sentinel) selects front-page stories differently from a newspaper that does not have an in-house, fact-checking unit (The Star Tribune in Minneapolis, MN). While the study found no direct influence of fact-checking journalism, it did find that newspaper front pages in 2014 were increasingly prioritizing contextual stories over conventional stories. It also found a decline in political/governmental stories on front pages. It is suggested that these changes might signal a …

Leaving Journalism: Self-Identity During Career Transition For Female Former Kentucky Reporters, Sarah May Heaney

Online Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: This qualitative descriptive study focused on how did leaving the field of journalism affected the life narratives of female former Kentucky reporters.

Method: Three former Kentucky female reporters were interviewed to gather data on their experiences, including how leaving journalism affected their personal and professional self-identities, what about journalism was meaningful to them and what is meaningful in the work they do now, and what values and beliefs did they hold as reporters, and do they still hold them.

Discussion: Thematic data analysis revealed three overarching themes: self-identity as journalists persists after leaving newspaper jobs, other life roles took …

Repackaging The Reach Of Dreams: News Coverage Of Daca Rescindment By Three National Newspapers On Twitter, Megan Pietruszewski

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This thesis examines the frames used by three news organizations to cover the rescindment of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The rescindment of DACA was a pivotal transition period open to new immigration policy, and frames used in the news coverage of DACA are important as frames influence public opinion and possible future immigration policy. This study uses corpus linguistic methods and Van Gorp’s inductive framing analysis to explore how a complex political decision like DACA rescindment is covered in condensed news stories on Twitter as well as in full-length news articles. The Executive Critique frame, which …

No End In Sight: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of U.S. National Newspaper Coverage Of The Iraq War, Anmol Rattan Kalsi

Theses and Dissertations

On May 1, 2003, standing in front of a banner declaring “Mission Accomplished” aboard the warship U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, President Bush announced an end to major combat in Iraq, referring to the war as “one victory in the war on terror.” Over seven years later, on August 31, 2010, President Obama in a televised speech also announced an end to the combat mission in Iraq. On October 21, 2011, President Obama once again reaffirmed that U.S. military personnel would be leaving Iraq, saluting the troops on their “success” and remarking on the Iraqi government’s readiness for governing. And finally, on …

'Improvement The Order Of The Age': Historic Advertising, Consumer Choice, And Identity In 19th Century Roxbury, Massachusetts, Janice A. Nosal

Graduate Masters Theses

During the mid-to-late 19th century, Roxbury, Massachusetts experienced a dramatic change from a rural farming area to a vibrant, working-class, and predominantly-immigrant urban community. This new demographic bloomed during America’s industrial age, a time in which hundreds of new mass-produced goods flooded consumer markets. This thesis explores the relationship between working-class consumption patterns and historic advertising in 19th-century Roxbury, Massachusetts. It assesses the significance of advertising within households and the community by comparing advertisements from the Roxbury Gazette and South End Advertiser with archaeological material from the Tremont Street and Elmwood Court Housing sites, excavated in the late 1970s, to …

Madness In The Media: Understanding How People With Lived Experience Interpret Newspaper Headlines, Da Qing Wang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

There is research on media representations of mental health that suggests there is a tendency to portray mental health as problematic and those who are affected by mental illness as dangerous. It is evident there has been an increase in anti-stigma media campaigns. However, the effects of these efforts on beliefs held by members of the public has been mixed. What is most surprising from the literature is a lack of research about how people who have personal experience with mental illness interpret media messages. Individuals with and without lived experience participated in a structured conceptualization process known as concept …

The Possibility Of Peace: Israeli Public Opinion And The Camp David Accords, Daniel L. Gerdes

Departmental Honors Projects

The Camp David Accords, September 5-17, 1978, were a momentous development in Middle East relations. For over 30 years Israel and her neighbors weathered periods of warfare and aggression, but when leaders from Egypt, Israel, and the United States descended on Camp David in the United States for two weeks of peace negotiations everything changed. Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin became the first leaders in the Middle East to negotiate peace after decades of war between the two countries. This research discerns the changes in Israeli public opinion on the peace process with Egypt that …

Narrating Jackson State: An Examination Of Power Relations And Mississippi Newspaper Coverage Of The 1970 Shootings At Jackson State College, Leslie Hassel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The following thesis examines media coverage of a 1970 campus shooting at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi, during which two black students were killed and several others were injured. Over forty years after the shootings, the incident remains largely absent from the dominant historical narrative. This study posits that the contradictory accounts published by various Jackson-area news outlets blurred the lines between facts and subjective perspectives and as a consequence limited the resources used by historians to construct a narrative of the shootings. Consequently, Mississippi media outlets contributed to the incident's absence from the dominant historical narrative and American …

Reporting Crisis: An Analysis Of The New York Times’ Sports Section Following The Tragedies Of September 11, 2001, Gerard Timothy Mirabito

Doctoral Dissertations

The sport industry came to a standstill after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Major sporting events were postponed or canceled in lieu of the tragedy and for a week, while the nation mourned, the country went without sports. For many of the leagues it was the first extended hiatus for a non-labor dispute in nearly a century. On September 17, Major League Baseball returned, the first sport to resume, and when the games did recommence there were noticeable changes. Throughout this period, the New York Times, one of the country’s most prestigious newspapers, produced a sports section in every …

Multimedia Use In Small News Organizations, Robyn K. Keriazes

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

News Coverage Of The Sergio Hernández Case In Newspapers Of The Border Region, Rodrigo Giovan Barragan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study analyzes the news coverage of two newspapers from the border region between the United States and México (El Paso Times) from El Paso, Texas; and (El Diario de Juárez) from Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, about the case of Sergio Hernández, a 15 year old Mexican teenager who was shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in the boundary zone between both countries on June 7, 2010. Using a textual analysis of the stories published about this case in these newspapers, the research seeks to identify news frames and competing meanings of community and identity embedded in the …

Why Pay For Paper? An Analysis Of The Internet's Effect On Print Newspaper Subscriber Retention, Kevin Payne

All Theses

The goal of this paper is to quantify the effect that increases in home internet access had on the print newspaper subscriber retention for an anonymous newspaper during the years 1998 through 2003. Using weekly, subscriber-level transaction data from the newspaper and internet usage statistics from the Current Population Survey Internet and Computer Use Supplements, a discrete-time duration model is used to estimate the effect that home internet access had on the probability of a current subscriber canceling her subscription. I find that on average, increasing the probability of internet access from the 10th to the 90th percentile value increases …

Best Practices For Disaster Coverage: An Analysis Of How The Herald Newspaper And Wlox-Tv Covered Hurricane Katrina, Nicole R. Sheriff

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A substantial amount of research has been done on Hurricane Katrina and its effects on New Orleans, Louisiana. However, few studies have focused on how the Mississippi Gulf Coast was affected by the hurricane. The purpose of this study is to bring attention to the reporting efforts of WLOX-TV and The Herald newspaper to cover Hurricane Katrina. This case study analyzes the practices WLOX and The Herald used to cover the hurricane and to explore which practices could be implemented in other newsrooms in the future. A total of four interviews were conducted with members from the newsrooms who had …

Written In Black And White: A Content Analysis Of Newspaper Coverage Of The Desegregation Of Three Flagship Public Southern Universities, Michael Alexander Patronik

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to correlate agenda-setting effects of the press to newspaper coverage of public university desegregations in the southern United States in the early 1960s. Front-page news and editorial page content from the Atlanta Constitution, the Athens Banner-Herald and the Red & Black newspapers were analyzed for the 1961 desegregation of the University of Georgia. The Clarion-Ledger , the Oxford Eagle and The Mississippian newspapers were analyzed for the 1962 desegregation of the University of Mississippi. The Birmingham News, the Tuscaloosa News and the Crimson White newspapers were analyzed for the 1963 desegregation of the University …

Links Of Connectedness: A Content Analysis And Industry Survey Comparing The Interactive Options Of Community And Metro Newspaper Web Sites, Cleveland Allin Means

Dissertations

As newspapers struggle to redefine their role in a constantly shifting mass media landscape, this research project studies how one of mass communications’ historically fundamental mediums, the community newspaper, is utilizing its Web presence to connect to readers in innovative ways that might perpetuate loyalty to the local press. A key question is: How can community newspapers utilize their Web sites’ interactive features to maintain useful links of connectedness with local readers, in effect capitalizing on the very technologies that many analysts predict will ultimately render them obsolete?

Through content analysis of newspaper Web site home pages and industry surveys, …

Characterization: A Content Analysis Of Pulitzer-Awarded And Traditional Features, Linda Janet Tobler

Theses and Dissertations

Characterization in Pulitzer-awarded features and traditional features was measured using a characterization typology developed by the author. Although some of the results were statistically constrained by a small n, those results which were statistically significant reflect that what separates Pulitzer-winning features from regular features are those elements of characterization particular to scene: a character's distinctive physical characteristics, clothing and possessions; the setting and environment as it defines a character; a physical description of character that is not lineament nor habitual posture or expression but bodily appearance in the immediate moment; a character's movements and actions, facial expressions, words, and …

Alternative Weekly And City Magazine Under One Roof: Contemporary Media, Inc.'S “Memphis Flyer” And “Memphis” Magazine, Cory Taylor Cox

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies the media of alternative weekly publications through a case study of the Memphis Flyer and its relationship with sister publication Memphis magazine, both under the umbrella of Contemporary Media, Inc. History of the publications, targeted demographics and business models will be taken into account to answer proposed research questions. The publications prominence in local media as well as their relationship to the traditional city paper, The Commercial Appeal, is recognized, along with the company's plans for adaptation to new trends in online journalism.

Aruba And Natalee Holloway: A Content Analysis Of Four Years Of Newspaper Coverage Surrounding The Incident., Brittany Parks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Negative media coverage can have a significant impact on the image of a country and can be detrimental to tourism-dependent areas. This study examined the newspaper coverage of Aruba 2 years before and after American tourist Natalee Holloway disappeared while vacationing with fellow classmates on a class trip. A content analysis of 400 major world newspapers was conducted. The study's purpose was to uncover the amount of publicity (both good and bad) from the incident as well as to unearth the overall tone towards Aruba.

The study revealed the Holloway incident did have a visible effect on the world news …

Unconventional Means: Technology And Resistance In The Emergence Of Three Forms Of New Media, Caroline Stone

All Theses

The media change we currently witness, the numbers of newspapers that have recently folded, those that face a similar fate and the degree to which the death of print generally is predicted within and outside of academic circles, all call for more research into shifts in forms of media over time. From the first American colonial newspaper Publick Occurrences in 1690 in Boston, to the first punk rock zine Punk in New York City in 1975, to the emergence of the massively multi-player game World of Warcraft in 2004, understanding the factors which may have led to the emergence of …

Royal Images And Rebel Ideals: Contradictory Symbols In American Revolutionary Newspaper Nameplates, Autumn Lorimer Linford

Theses and Dissertations

Historians have long claimed that the newspaper printers of the American Revolution were instrumental in bringing about Independence. By focusing solely on the written words left behind by these men, however, researchers have erroneously believed the printers belonged exclusively to either the patriot or Tory camps. The masthead symbols chosen by the printers to represent their newspapers offer a more objective measure of their partisan affiliations than a textual analysis of the content. The printers marked major changes in their political ideologies by inserting and deleting political symbols in their newspaper mastheads. This study examines the use and meanings of …

From Suffragettes To Grandmothers: A Qualitative Textual Analysis Of Newspaper Coverage Of Five Female Politicians In Utah's Deseret News And Salt Lake Tribune, Holly M. Cox

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines press coverage in the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune of five female politicians in Utah history: Martha Hughes Cannon (1896), Reva Beck Bosone (1948), Karen Shepherd (1992), Enid Greene Waldholtz (1994), and Olene S. Walker (2003). A total of 438 articles were reviewed using qualitative textual analysis. Coverage by candidate varied, though it was not in general overtly biased concerning candidate gender. However, the press did call attention to the gender of candidate and gendered commentary was present. The press also called attention to the rarity of women running for high political office and addressed the …