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Full-Text Articles in Journalism Studies

A Detailed Case Study Of Unusual Routines, Stephen Cooper Jul 2013

A Detailed Case Study Of Unusual Routines, Stephen Cooper

Stephen D. Cooper

Everyone working in organizations will, from time to time, experience frustrations and problems when trying to accomplish tasks that are a required part of their role. In such cases it is normal for people to find ways of completing their work in such a way that hey can get around, or just simply avoid, the procedure or system that has caused the problem. This is an unusual routine – a recurrent interaction pattern in which someone encounters a problem when trying to accomplish normal activities by following standard organizational procedures and then becomes enmeshed in wasteful and even harmful subroutines …


News Media Objectivity: How Do We Ask The Questions?, Stephen D. Cooper May 2013

News Media Objectivity: How Do We Ask The Questions?, Stephen D. Cooper

Stephen D. Cooper

There is a lively and often public debate in progress concerning the objectivity of the news media, or the lack of it Scholars have approached this topic from three distinct angles: content analysis, values, and the economics of the news industry. Their conclusions have varied markedly, apparently guided by their particular frames of reference. This article suggests that while we seem to have lost our fix on objectivity as a measurable attribute of news products, the news work routine of objectivity encourages fairness in our public discourse, and deserves attention in scholarly research.


Privacy And The News Media, Stephen D. Cooper May 2013

Privacy And The News Media, Stephen D. Cooper

Stephen D. Cooper

The right of the public to know and the right of the individual to be let alone are inherently in conflict. The origins of these rights are quite different: the former derived from the First Amendment's protection of a free press, the latter in a law journal article published in the late nineteenth century. So, too, has the development of these ideas followed different paths: the former as Constitutional law, the latter as tort law. This article examines the relationship between privacy law and the press. A century ago two lawyers called for legal relief from aggressive newspaper reporters. At …


An Effect Of The Medium In News Stories: “The Pictures In Our Heads”, Stephen D. Cooper May 2013

An Effect Of The Medium In News Stories: “The Pictures In Our Heads”, Stephen D. Cooper

Stephen D. Cooper

This study used an experimental design to test for a channel effect in news stories. Four television news stories were recorded off-air, then the narrations were transcribed to form a print news story containing the same words; the broadcast video and the print story were the two treatment levels. Subjects received the stories in one of the treatment levels, and were asked to judge the blameworthiness or praiseworthiness of the actors named in the story. Logistic regressions could predict with substantial accuracy the medium in which subjects had received the story from these judgments, indicating a channel effect on their …


Press Controls In Wartime: The Legal, Historical, And Institutional Context, Stephen D. Cooper May 2013

Press Controls In Wartime: The Legal, Historical, And Institutional Context, Stephen D. Cooper

Stephen D. Cooper

News coverage of warfare poses a dilemma for social systems with a free press, such as the United States. In an era of high-tech weaponry and nearly instantaneous global communications, conflict is inevitable between the obligation of the press to inform the general public and the obligation of the military to successfully conduct war. The importance of secrecy to the conduct of warfare heightens the issue in the current counterterrorism operations. The competitive advantage of live coverage raises the stakes in a crowded media market. The military’s control over newsgathering during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War set off a controversy …


Bringing Some Clarity To The Media Bias Debate, Stephen Cooper Mar 2013

Bringing Some Clarity To The Media Bias Debate, Stephen Cooper

Stephen D. Cooper

Jim A. Kuypers’ recent book, Press Bias and Politics, has made a significant advance in the methodology of inquiring into this issue—although it’s a safe bet that many in the scholarly community will be tempted to dismiss it out of hand. That’s a shame, if so, because even if one is disinclined to accept Kuypers’ conclusion that the press tends to favor ideas associated with the political left, his method can at least put the debate on a firmer footing.