Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

News Verification Suite: Towards System Design To Supplement Reporters’ And Editors’ Judgements, Victoria L. Rubin

Victoria Rubin

The News Verification Suite aims to provide users with a set of functions to verify information in the news. This paper offers a conceptual basis and a vision of system elements towards automated fact-checking in news production, curation, and consumption. The traditional model of journalism is compared to ‘news sharing a.s.a.p.’, highlighting similarities between journalistic criteria of excellence and LIS mandates for credibility and information quality. Potential steps for intervention with text-analytical technologies are identified – deception detection, rumor busting, satire labeling; they are nascent but feasible. Automated news verification can support and supplement news producers’ and news readers’ decision-making.

Quick Recap Of This Week's Biggest Customer Services News That Rocked Uk, Lissa Coffey

LissaCoffey

Giving Voice To The "Voiceless:" Incorporating Nonhuman Animal Perspectives As Journalistic Sources, Carrie Packwood Freeman, Marc Bekoff, Sarah M. Bexell

Sarah M. Bexell, PhD

As part of journalism's commitment to truth and justice by providing a diversity of relevant points of view, journalists have an obligation to provide the perspective of nonhuman animals in everyday stories that influence the animals' and our lives. This essay provides justification and guidance on why and how this can be accomplished, recommending that, when writing about nonhuman animals or issues, journalists should: 1) observe, listen to, and communicate with animals and convey this information to audiences via detailed descriptions and audiovisual media, 2) interpret nonhuman animal behavior and communication to provide context and meaning, and 3) incorporate the …

Wicked Or Warranted? Us Press Coverage Of Contraception 1873-1917, Ana Garner

Ana Garner

This study examines the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times press coverage of contraception during one key period: 1873–1917. The first 30 years after the passage of the Comstock Act in 1873 were difficult for contraception advocates. The New York Times narrative reflected a battle between those who supported the Comstock Act and the men and women who opposed it. Conversely, the Los Angeles Times narrative portrayed the birth control debate as a wide-ranging battle of ideas occurring in a variety of venues. Press coverage revealed that the use of birth control was common and the real debate …

The World War Ii Patriotic Mother, Ana C. Garner, Karen L. Slattery

Ana Garner

The archetypal good mother and the archetypal patriotic mother are important symbols in American culture. Both are rooted in maternal work but are separated by two conflicting assumptions. The good mother nurtures her children and protects them from harm, while the patriotic wartime mother remains silent when the government sends her child directly into harm's way. This study explores how the World War II press positioned mothers of soldiers to sacrifice their children in support of the nation's war effort. The findings point to the importance of understanding the role of archetypes in news narratives.

The Never-Ending Struggle: Us Press Coverage Of Contraception 2000–2013, Ana Garner, Edgar Mendez

Ana Garner

In 1873, the Comstock Act labeled contraceptive information and materials obscene and banned their distribution. The issue divided the United States then, and it divides the nation today. This essay examines 2000–2013 press coverage of contraception in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, two newspapers that have covered contraception since 1873. Press coverage reveals that contemporary efforts to regulate women’s bodies are cloaked in discussions about the Affordable Care Act, religious freedom, morality, and employer rights. Accepting the ideology that contraception is no longer a reproductive rights issue allowed the press to exclude women from …

How We Teach Core News Values In The Digital Age, Debbie Owens

Debbie Owens

Making News Today: A Tool For Adoption Of Ethics Principles Using Technology¿Supported Television Journalism, David Blackall, Barry Harper, Lori Lockyer

Professor Lori Lockyer

There are movements internationally towards curricula that incorporate values and citizenship education. In Australia, this movement has been illustrated with the adoption of a national curriculum in values education. This has arisen from the perceived need for citizens to hold values around the rights and responsibilities of functioning within a democracy. The Making News Today programme has been designed to develop a range of literacies enabling learners, for example, to read the media beyond the interests of the elite. The programme incorporates a journalistic process for television news production for middle school students using laptop and handheld video technologies, with …

"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, …

Making News Today: Literacy For Citizenship, David R. Blackall, Philip Reece

David Blackall

This paper is a report on an evaluation of the Making News Today project. This project is a partnership involving the University of Wollongong, Apple Computers, WIN Television and participating schools, supported with a grant from the Australian Research Council. Schools participating in the project are involved in the analysis and creation of news items for television. This evaluation focuses specifically on the potential of the Making News Today project as a vehicle for teaching literacy for citizenship.

News Of Corporate Failure: Evaluating The Relationship Between Individual Assessments And Market Investments, Ann Williams

Ann E Williams

Individuals’ comprehension of communication is shaped by the use of metaphor. This study illustrates how the use of metaphor in business and economic news coverage shapes individuals’ responsibility attributions in ways that can ultimately influence consumers’ investment decisions. In a randomized experimental design, participants were invited to read news articles that described the bankruptcy of a business. The treatment text narrated the bankruptcy using metaphor, while the control text narrated the same event without the use of metaphor. After exposure to the communication text narrated with metaphor, responsibility attributions and subsequent investment decisions were significantly altered. The findings suggest that …

The Silent Partner: News Agencies And 21st Century News, Jane Johnston, Susan Forde

Jane Johnston

This article investigates the ubiquitous presence of news agencies (or wire services) in the daily news. While considering the international environment, it focuses on the sole Australian news agency, Australian Associated Press (AAP), and on its dominance within the Australian news landscape. The article presents the findings of two case studies, tracing press releases through AAP and into the daily news around the world, while also analyzing the media culture that accepts copy from news agencies as “gospel”—a commodity to be used and reused without checking accuracy, and often without attribution. In addition, we identify that the heightened status of …

Drop Out From Residential Treatment: Is It All Bad News?, C Morgan, Peter Kelly, Frank Deane, Trevor Crowe

Peter Kelly

No abstract provided.

Media Literacy And Media Bias: Are Media Literacy Students Less Susceptible To Non-Verbal Judgment Biases?, Elisha Babad, Eyal Peer, Renee Hobbs

Renee Hobbs

No abstract provided.

Giving Voice To The "Voiceless:" Incorporating Nonhuman Animal Perspectives As Journalistic Sources, Carrie Packwood Freeman, Marc Bekoff, Sarah M. Bexell

Carrie P. Freeman

As part of journalism's commitment to truth and justice by providing a diversity of relevant points of view, journalists have an obligation to provide the perspective of nonhuman animals in everyday stories that influence the animals' and our lives. This essay provides justification and guidance on why and how this can be accomplished, recommending that, when writing about nonhuman animals or issues, journalists should: 1) observe, listen to, and communicate with animals and convey this information to audiences via detailed descriptions and audiovisual media, 2) interpret nonhuman animal behavior and communication to provide context and meaning, and 3) incorporate the …

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.

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 …

Using Textual Features To Predict Popular Content On Digg, Paul H. Miller

Paul H Miller

Over the past few years, collaborative rating sites, such as Netflix, Digg and Stumble, have become increasingly prevalent sites for users to find trending content. I used various data mining techniques to study Digg, a social news site, to examine the influence of content on popularity. What influence does content have on popularity, and what influence does content have on users’ decisions? Overwhelmingly, prior studies have consistently shown that predicting popularity based on content is difficult and maybe even inherently impossible. The same submission can have multiple outcomes and content neither determines popularity, nor individual user decisions. My results show …

Pain And Public Deliberation: Citizens, Victims, Advocates, Activists., Kristen Hoerl

Kristen Hoerl

This paper revisits the limits and possibilities for the idealsof participatory democracy in the contemporary United States by examiningnews media coverage of the Columbine High School shootings.

Who's To Blame When A Business Fails? How Journalistic Death Metaphors Influence Responsibility Attributions, Ann Williams

Ann E Williams

This study unites a textual analysis and an experimental audience study to document the use of death metaphor in business news and to assess the impact that death metaphor has on audiences' attributions of responsibility for corporate failure. The findings show that death metaphors are frequently used in financial press coverage and that the use of death metaphor influences audience members' responsibility attributions by intensifying overall levels of blame, while simultaneously deflecting blame away from the executives responsible for managing the firm and diffusing it to other factors, including the state of the economy, the government, and individual consumers.

Fm Radio News: Spreading The News Or Spread Too Thin?, Denise Raward, Jane Johnston

Jane Johnston

United Kingdom investigative reporter Nick Davies has coined the term 'churnalism' to describe the UK print media's reliance on wire copy and press releases for the vast majority of its news. This study looks at this trend in Australia, focusing on the FM radio industry and a case study of one radio station which also serves as a news 'hub' for a national network. Davies found that up to 80 per cent of Fleet Street news is based on wire service, other media or press releases. This Australian FM newsroom study found nearly 90 per cent of networked news bulletins …

The Newsroom Versus The Lounge Room: Journalists’ And Audiences’ Views On News, Jeffrey Brand, Mark Pearson

Jeffrey Brand

In May 2001 the Australian Broadcasting Authority released the authors' report titled Sources of News and Current Affairs (ABA, 2001). The monograph consisted of reports from the Stage I study of journalists' views (Pearson & Brand, 2001) and the Stage 2 study of audiences' views (Brand, Archhold & Rane, 2001). These were independent publications focusing on the individual results from each stage of the larger study. Little comparison was made between the journalists' and audiences' views in the two reports. This paper provides a comparison and contrast of the views of news and current affairs producers and their audiences. The …

Media Framing And Policy Change After Columbine, Thomas Birkland, Regina Lawrence

Thomas A Birkland

The 1999 Columbine school shooting incident in Colorado gained far more media attention across a broader range of issues than any school violence episode before or since. One might expect that Columbine would have had an influence on public opinion, public policy, and scholarship commensurate with the attention it gained. We find that the event did contribute in a limited but interesting way to scholarship on media framing. But the effect of Columbine on public opinion and the nature and substance of public policy was limited. Attention to school shootings peaked with Columbine, and the attention surrounding that event mostly …

Better A Small Fish: For The Poor Of Bangladesh, Women's Rights Are A Practical Matter, Indrani Sen

Indrani Sen

No abstract provided.