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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Articles 1 - 6 of 6
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
From The Studio To The Street: Cultivating Democratic Norms In Uganda, Lee Shaker, Paul Falzone, Paul Sparks, Ruth Kugumikiriza
From The Studio To The Street: Cultivating Democratic Norms In Uganda, Lee Shaker, Paul Falzone, Paul Sparks, Ruth Kugumikiriza
Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations
Communication interventions can make valuable contributions to the democratic development of citizens. This article reports on a nongovernmental organization’s (NGO’s) effort to leverage a television rap news program in Uganda to strengthen viewers’ democratic norms. Two different approaches addressing government failures and malfeasance are tested with an experiment conducted in six villages outside of Kampala. Results indicate that soft news segments can influence viewers’ perceived democratic norms and shape downstream behaviors as well. Beneficial effects were strongest when participants were exposed to stories that featured relatable citizens demonstrating desirable democratic attitudes and behaviors. Treatment effects were most pronounced among less …
Communicating Environmental Risks: Local Newspaper Coverage Of Shellfish Bacterial Contamination In Maine, Brianne Suldovsky, Eva Arbor, Victoria Skillin, Laura Lindenfeld
Communicating Environmental Risks: Local Newspaper Coverage Of Shellfish Bacterial Contamination In Maine, Brianne Suldovsky, Eva Arbor, Victoria Skillin, Laura Lindenfeld
Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations
Coastal resources play a vital role in Maine’s cultural and economic wellbeing, contributing an estimated 168 billion dollars to the Maine economy. There are numerous risks to the sustainability of Maine’s shellfishing industry and working waterfront, including pathogenic bacterial pollution. In this study, we ask a broad fundamental question central to science and environmental journalism: how do newspapers cover localized environmental risks and what are the implications of those approaches? Utilizing the northeastern US state of Maine’s shellfishing industry as an exemplar environmental issue, this study examines how Maine’s two most read newspapers, the Bangor Daily News and the Portland …
Media Choice Proliferation And Shifting Orientations Towards News In The United States And Norway, 1995-2012, Eiri Elvestad, Lee Shaker
Media Choice Proliferation And Shifting Orientations Towards News In The United States And Norway, 1995-2012, Eiri Elvestad, Lee Shaker
Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations
Around the world, rapid media choice proliferation is empowering audiences and allowing individuals to more precisely tailor personal media use. From a democratic perspective, the relationship between the changing media environment and news use is of particular interest. This article presents a comparative exploration of citizens’ changing orientations towards local, national and international news in two very different countries, Norway and the United States, between 1995 and 2012. Prior research suggests that more media choice correlates with a decrease in news consumption. Our analysis shows a pattern of increasing specialization in news orientation in both countries. We also find that …
Community Newspapers Play Significant Role In Election, Lee Shaker
Community Newspapers Play Significant Role In Election, Lee Shaker
Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations
This article compares coverage of the 2007 Philadelphia mayoral campaign in the city's major daily and community newspapers. The findings show that community newspapers serve as a complement to the dailies but also prove to be sources of campaign information in their own right.
News Images, Race, And Attribution In The Wake Of Hurricane Katrina, Eran Ben-Porath, Lee Shaker
News Images, Race, And Attribution In The Wake Of Hurricane Katrina, Eran Ben-Porath, Lee Shaker
Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations
This study looks at the effect of news images and race on the attribution of responsibility for the consequences of Hurricane Katrina. Participants, Black and White, read the same news story about the hurricane and its aftermath, manipulated to include images of White victims, Black victims, or no images at all. Participants were then asked who they felt was responsible for the humanitarian disaster after the storm. White respondents expressed less sense of government responsibility when the story included victims' images. For Black respondents this effect did not occur. Images did not affect attribution of responsibility to New Orleans' residents …
Citizens’ Local Political Knowledge And The Role Of Media Access, Lee Shaker
Citizens’ Local Political Knowledge And The Role Of Media Access, Lee Shaker
Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations
Locally based media institutions that have been at the core of citizens' media environments for generations are facing an onslaught of new competition from new media. The twin goals of this article are to expand our understanding of the distribution of local political knowledge in general and to specifically examine the relevance of media access. The article suggests that media access does bear upon levels of local political knowledge and confirms that citizens who are knowledgeable about local politics do not mirror the profile of those who are knowledgeable about national politics.