Philip Merrill College of Journalism

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AMERICAN JOURNALISM AND THE DEVIANT VOTER: ANALYZING AND IMPROVING COVERAGE OF THE ELECTORATE IN THE TRUMP ERA
(2020) O'Hare, Rachel Buchanan; Oates, Oates Ann; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This study examined media coverage of the 2016 presidential election to identify whether Trump voters were framed as deviant as defined by Daniel Hallin’s Sphere Theory (1986). In a content analysis of 384 reports produced in the last six weeks of the election by national and local outlets, this study found that journalists framed Trump voters as outside the political norm through the use of delegitimizing cues. Previous scholarship (Luther and Miller 2005; Robinson et. al. 2008; Taylor 2014; Billard 2016) has defined delegitimizing cues as frames that signal negativity to the news consumer. Using a coding system and a qualitative examination of the media reports, this study operationalized deviance through the identification of six delegitimizing cues applied to the Trump voter. The conclusion was that the media framed Trump voters using delegitimizing cues that differed from the coverage of Clinton voters and signaled deviance to the news consumer.Hallin defined three spheres of normative practice for journalists: consensus, legitimate controversy and deviance. Each sphere has different normative practices and goals. According to Hallin’s theory, most political coverage falls into the sphere of legitimate controversy. This study suggests that when journalists were confronted with voters considered a threat to democracy, normative practices shifted and coverage of the Trump voter moved into the sphere of deviance. This framing then contributed to a misunderstanding of the electorate by the media. An examination of differences in national and locally-based reporting in this study found that local media framed voters in a more nuanced manner. In addition, local media reports included details suggesting that political polls were an inaccurate descriptors of local voters. Also included in this dissertation is a summary of the media debate that followed the 2016 election and suggests political reporters were unaware of the shifting roles and practices during the campaign. Finally, this study suggests that framing voters as deviant contributes to the polarization of the U.S. political system. It aims to analyze the media coverage of the 2016 voter with the goal of illuminating current practices and suggesting improvements in the relationship of the media and the voters.
The American Press and the Sinking of the Lusitania
(1986) McDonough, Joseph; Beasley, Maurine; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
Purpose of Study: The purpose of the study was to analyze to what degree the sinking of the R.M.S. Lusitania swayed editorial opinion against Germany in seven representative United States newspapers. Procedures: Seven newspapers were chosen for this study, based on their geographic location and political prominence: the New York Times, Atlanta Constitution, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Examiner, Washington Post, Kansas City Star, and the Milwaukee Journal. The historical record of U.S. foreign policy prior to World War I, and the political viewpoint of each newspaper was reviewed by way of introduction. The papers were examined for news and editorial content. Items studied included: the first seven pages of each newspaper, the unsigned editorials expressing the view of the editorial staff, and letters to the editor that dealt with the sinking. Each paper was studied six months prior to the sinking, during the crisis (including the exchange of diplomatic notes between the United States and Germany), and six months after the answer to Wilson's final Lusitania note. Conclusion: The study found that the sinking of the Lusitania did not sway editorial opinion against Germany in the selected newspapers.
ANTI-MEDIA POPULISM: MEDIA CRITICISM BY RIGHT-WING ALTERNATIVE MEDIA IN INDIA
(2020) Bhat, Nandikoor R Prashanth; Chadha, Kalyani; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This study explores the anti-media populist sentiments expressed by emerging right-wing alternative news media in India. News websites, television network, and the 'online digital work' done by right-wing supporters—are the key constituent elements of India's burgeoning right-wing news sector. The articulation of negative sentiments about the news media's role in society is a central feature of these right-wing news outlets. What dominant criticisms do the right-wing alternative websites make against the mainstream press? How does the right-wing television express its criticism of the mainstream media? What do online Hindu nationalists say about their plausible association with the right-wing alternative news outlets, including websites and television? How do online Hindu nationalists plan to counter mainstream media's 'liberal' bias? Answering these questions contributes to the understanding of the expressions of media distrust articulated by the Hindu nationalists associated with the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India. Through a thematic analysis of 545 media-related articles published on right-wing portals, Swarajya.com and OpIndia.com, an ethnographic qualitative content analysis of media-related debates aired on the right-wing television network, Republic TV, and in-depth interviews with 24 Hindu nationalists active on Twitter, this dissertation examines the discursive strategies employed by right-wing actors in India to discredit and undermine professional journalism. This study found several dominant themes of media criticisms articulated by right-wing alternative news outlets. For instance, they accuse the mainstream press of suppressing the voices and opinions of the Hindu majority while favoring minorities and working against India's interests by tarnishing the country's global image. Further, they charge the traditional media with controlling public opinion by withholding crucial information, censoring right-wing views, and spreading 'false narratives.' Additionally, they advance the claim that the professional media act as the mouthpieces of the establishment as represented by the Congress party while opposing the BJP. Hindu nationalists also share a belief that the news media do not offer balanced, diverse, and impartial coverage. Further, right-wing actors characterize news reporters as individuals who are 'corrupt,' 'unethical,' and working to advance their self-interests. Broadly, these expressions of media distrust are articulated and disseminated with an intent to attack the professional integrity of journalists and to position themselves as the challengers to the hegemonic power of the established media. These criticisms parallel those expressed by right-wing alternative sites in the Western democracies such as Sweden, Germany, Norway, and the U.S. Likewise, there are similarities between the presentation styles and the editorial tone adopted by the right-wing television network, Republic TV in India as well as the Fox news in the U.S. Insights into the dominant criticisms articulated against them and their professional work by Hindu nationalists will offer journalists an opportunity to develop counterstrategies and narratives. The findings of this study will also provide scholars of comparative studies, a comprehensive look at the anti-media populist sentiment prevailing in a non-Western democracy such as India. In doing so, this study unpacks the distinct social, technological, historical, economic, and political factors aiding the right-wing actors in India in their efforts to de-legitimize the professional media. Finally, to the scholars interested in understanding the relationship between the right-wing populist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and India's established media, this study argues that a 'double strategy' is at play---where on the one hand the mainstream media is discredited through criticisms articulated by the right-wing alternative news outlets while on the other hand, the professional media is co-opted through various coercive measures into providing favorable coverage to the Hindu nationalists and the BJP government. These organized efforts by the right-wing actors have created a worrisome environment for professional journalists who resort to self-censorship instead of risking their personal safety and losing their livelihood. As a result, despite being one of the largest media markets in the world, content produced by various mainstream news outlets in India is increasingly looking homogenous and bereft of diverse views. Such homogenization of the mainstream news content and pro-government stance undermines the watchdog role of the media in the Indian democracy.
Augmented Dissent: The Affordances of ICTs for Citizen Protest (A Case Study of the Ukraine Euromaidan Protests of 2013-2014).
(2016) Lokot, Tetyana; Oates, Sarah; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation research project uses the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine to inform and shape a theory of augmented dissent to help explain the complex ways in which protest participants guided by the political, social, and cultural contexts engage in dissent augmented by ICTs in a reality where both the physical and the digital are used in concert. The purpose of this research is to conceptualize the use and perception of ICTs in protest activity using the communicative affordances framework. Through a mixed-method research approach involving interviews with protest participants, as well as qualitative and thematic analysis of online content from social media pages of several key Euromaidan protest communities, the research project examines the role ICTs played in the information and media landscape during the Euromaidan protest. The findings of the online content analysis were used to inform the questions for the 59 semi-structured, open-ended interviews with Euromaidan protest participants in Ukraine and abroad. The research findings provide in-depth insights about how ICTs were used and perceived by protest participants, and their role as vehicles for information and civic media content. The study employs the theoretical framework of social media affordances to interpret the data gathered during the interviews and content analysis to better understand how digital media augmented citizens’ protest activity through affording them new possibilities for dissent, and how they made meaning of said protest activity as augmented by ICTs. The findings contribute towards shaping a theory of digitally augmented dissent that conceptualizes the complex relationship between citizens and ICTs during protest activity as an affordance-driven one, where online and offline tools and activity merge into a unified dissent space and extend or augment the possibilities for action in interesting, and sometimes unexpected ways. Such a conceptual model could inform broader theories about civic participation and digital activism in the post-Soviet world and beyond, as ICTs become an inseparable part of civic life.
Battle of the Brains: Election-Night Forecasting at the Dawn of the Computer Age
(2010) Chinoy, Ira; Beasley, Maurine; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation examines journalists' early encounters with computers as tools for news reporting, focusing on election-night forecasting in 1952. Although election night 1952 is frequently mentioned in histories of computing and journalism as a quirky but seminal episode, it has received little scholarly attention. This dissertation asks how and why election night and the nascent field of television news became points of entry for computers in news reporting. The dissertation argues that although computers were employed as pathbreaking "electronic brains" on election night 1952, they were used in ways consistent with a long tradition of election-night reporting. As central events in American culture, election nights had long served to showcase both news reporting and new technology, whether with 19th-century devices for displaying returns to waiting crowds or with 20th-century experiments in delivering news by radio. In 1952, key players - television news broadcasters, computer manufacturers, and critics - showed varied reactions to employing computers for election coverage. But this computer use in 1952 did not represent wholesale change. While live use of the new technology was a risk taken by broadcasters and computer makers in a quest for attention, the underlying methodology of forecasting from early returns did not represent a sharp break with pre-computer approaches. And while computers were touted in advance as key features of election-night broadcasts, the "electronic brains" did not replace "human brains" as primary sources of analysis on election night in 1952. This case study chronicles the circumstances under which a new technology was employed by a relatively new form of the news media. On election night 1952, the computer was deployed not so much to revolutionize news reporting as to capture public attention. It functioned in line with existing values and practices of election-night journalism. In this important instance, therefore, the new technology's technical features were less a driving force for adoption than its usefulness as a wonder and as a symbol to enhance the prestige of its adopters. This suggests that a new technology's capacity to provide both technical and symbolic social utility can be key to its chances for adoption by the news media.
Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones and the New Protest #Journalism
(2017) Richardson, Allissa Verlyn; Steiner, Linda C; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Modern black citizen journalists have embraced the mobile phone as their storytelling tool of choice to produce raw reportage that challenges long-standing narratives of race, power and privilege in America. This dissertation investigates specifically how leading anti-police brutality activists—especially those affiliated with the Black Lives Matter Movement—leverage the affordances of mobile and social media to report original news within the contemporary social justice “beat.” Through semi-structured interviews and a descriptive analysis of the activists’ Twitter timelines, I explore the journalistic roles that these activists perform, the types of stories that they produce most often, and the relationships that they have formed with their audiences. I argue that the reportage from these black witnesses forms the vanguard of modern protest journalism, which functions from a positionality of sousveillance to watch powerful authorities from below. This evolving genre of protest journalism fills the editorial voids that the dying Black press has left behind, and invents ripe areas of inquiry for journalism studies.
Beyond Cynicism: How Media Literacy Can Make Students More Engaged Citizens
(2008-04-22) Mihailidis, Paul; Moeller, Susan D.; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Beyond Cynicism: How Media Literacy Can Make Students More Engaged Citizens explores what media literacy courses actually teach students. Do students become more knowledgeable consumers of media messages? Do students, armed with that knowledge, become more engaged citizens? A large multi-year study found that classes in media literacy do seem to make students more knowledgeable about media messages--but also found that the increase in students' analytical abilities does not perforce turn them into citizens who understand and support media's essential role in civil society. This dissertation used a sample of 239 University of Maryland undergraduates in a pre-post/control quasi-experiment, the largest-ever study of this kind on the post-secondary level. The study did find that the students enrolled in the Philip Merrill College of Journalism's J175: Media Literacy course increased their ability to comprehend, evaluate, and analyze media messages in print, video, and audio format. Based on the positive empirical findings, focus group sessions were conducted within the experimental group and the control group. The students from the media literacy course expressed their belief that media literacy education enable them to "look deeper" at media, while feeling more informed in general. Yet, when the discussions concerned media relevance and credibility, the students who so adamantly praised media literacy, expressed considerable negativity about media's role in society. Preliminarily, these findings suggest that media literacy curricula and readings which are solely or primarily focused on teaching critical analysis skills are inadequate. Critical analysis should be an essential first step in teaching media literacy, but the curriculum should not end there. Beyond Cynicism: How Media Literacy Can Make Students More Engaged Citizens concludes by recommending a way forward for post-secondary media literacy education. Beyond Cynicism offers a new curricular framework that aims to connect media literacy skills and outcomes that promote active citizenship. With a greater understanding of the limitations of teaching students to be cynics, university faculty can adapt their courses to give students not just analytical and evaluative tools to critique media, but a focused understanding of why a free and diverse media is essential to civil society.
Body images in magazines: A cross-cultural investigation of media effects in Russian and U.S. young women
(2007-04-25) Markova, Svetlana V.; McAdams, Katherine C.; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
The dissertation is a cross-cultural-generational investigation of audiences' perceptions of media messages. The study comparatively examines adolescent and young adult females' concepts of body images in beauty and fashion magazines in Russia and USA. The theoretical model for the study was developed in the intersection of mass communication and human development research traditions. Specifically, media effects and audience research traditions of media studies, in combination with social-cognitive domain theory of developmental psychology, were applied for analysis of direct and indirect impact of media messages on young women; of their motivations for reading magazines; of their critical evaluations of media content; and of their predispositions to media-associated health risks. The study was conducted in two stages: mixed research methodologies employing qualitative exploration of the stated problem followed by its quantitative examination. A total of 20 participants (10 Russian and 10 U.S. teenage females) were recruited for in-depth interviews; this part of the study focused primarily on differences in media uses and perceptions between adolescent audiences across cultures. The hypotheses and the survey questionnaire for the second part of the study were developed on the basis of these qualitative data and used to test both cultural and generational differences among media audiences. A total of 400 survey participants represented adolescent (mean age=18.5) and young adult (mean age=28) females in Russia and USA. Two major factors were found to be significant in determining perceptions of media messages by diverse audiences: (1) desire for advice about body-related issues and (2) desire for information and entertainment. Adolescent females were more motivated to read magazines for entertainment and informational purposes than adult women in both cultures, whereas U.S. females were more motivated by body-awareness than Russian females in both generational cohorts. In this connection, U.S. females experienced lower levels of self-esteem after reading magazines and were more predisposed to development of eating disorders than Russian females. The study revealed limited effects of media on diverse cultural and generational audiences, suggesting that media users select specific media content and are consequently influenced by it based on personal motivations for reading specific content of their interest.
Both Sides of the Brain: Strategies for Reinvention for Solo Video Journalists
(2011) Heist, Stanley Harrar; Moeller, Susan; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Technological advances have made it possible for one video journalist to do the work of three. These solo video journalists perform the research and writing functions of a reporter, the field production tasks of a videographer, and the post-production assembly of an editor. Many of these hybrid journalists are veterans of the industry; once single-skilled journalists who have retrained themselves to work alone. However, while technology makes it possible, it takes much more than technical mastery for a professional to make this transition. Not everyone will be able to make the transition. From a series of qualitative interviews with former videographers and reporters, this text examines what factors are required for a successful transition into becoming a solo video journalist, including training, newsroom support, motivation, production competency and personal qualities.
Broken Promises, Dreams Deferred: Journalism's Quest for Parity
(2007-05-08) O'Brien, Emeri Beatrice; Bonner, Alice C.; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In 2007, newspapers in America stood on the brink of the 30th year since the American Society of Newspaper Editors pledged to ensure racial parity by 2000. A year before judgment day, ASNE saw that it was nowhere close to reaching the goal and pushed the deadline to 2025. This thesis offers accounts on the Sisyphean task of editors to make good on promises made to nonwhite journalists since the pledge of 1978. This research presents testimony from journalists on what it will take to realize the dream of parity nearly 40 years after stepping out of the shadows of the 1968 Kerner Commission report, which called the news industry to account for its coverage of minorities and to boost its hiring of minorities. Through a qualitative method of surveys, first-person interviews, press histories and news releases, the research highlights the many rises and falls along the road to 2025.
Building the Stained Glass Prism: The Development of the Polish Catholic Church's Electronic Media Properties 1989-2003
(2004-11-24) Burns, David Paul; Hiebert, Ray E.; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation investigates the Polish political, economic, and social transition from 1989 to 2003 from communism to capitalism, specifically its impact on a powerful Polish institution the Roman Catholic Church - and by extension, the Church's electronic media properties. As Poland changed from an eastern-looking collectivist society to a more western individualist society, its conservative Catholic Church likewise moved from a more autocratic, cohesive force towards a more liberal, Post-Vatican II approach to worship supported by the first Polish pontiff, John Paul II. Various Catholic religious orders with political viewpoints ranging from liberal to ultra-conservative managed the Church's radio, television and Internet properties and shaped the Church's mediated messages along their own religious ideology. This divisiveness was similarly reflected in fragmentation within the Church hierarchy, with individual Polish bishops supporting the media properties that most closely espoused their viewpoint.
Can photojournalism enhance public engagement with climate change?
(2017) Margueritte Nurmis, Joanna Paulina; Oates, Sarah A; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
News photographs have the potential to influence public engagement, affecting awareness and attitude, and leading the public not only to be better informed but more emotionally engaged with important issues relating to the common good. News photographs are particularly well suited to communicating about international issues across borders, since they rely on an understanding that may be culturally bound, but does not require discursive interpetation. Alongside war, terrorism, and poverty, climate change is an issue of undeniable scope and import at this threshold “last chance” moment to avoid catastrophic warming – commonly thought of as 2 degrees above historical average temperature. This dissertation asks how photojournalism frames climate change and what potential news images hold for engaging the public with climate change. The mixed methods approach adopted throughout the thesis allows for a multifaceted view of the visual framing of climate change. After discussing the current state of research in this burgeoning and highly active field, I investigated a particularly pervasive visual frame, called here “the apocalyptic sublime.” This frame is described in detail, a set of criteria to identify it is provided, and occurrences of it on front pages of national newspapers are discussed. In the second research component, I conducted a series of 14 interviews with Californian and national photo editors yielding insight into the decision-making process that results in the existing visual framing of climate change in newspaper photography as predominantly aesthetics-driven and focusing mainly on the adverse impacts of climate change, rather than the root causes or the possible solutions. Third, I carried out a content analysis of 500 social media shared images of climate change in California, showing that climate change is deeply embedded in people’s everyday lives, and that mitigation behaviors are inextricable from self-promotion. Finally, an experimental study of the effect of certain attributes of climate change news photos was conducted online, with 161 participants. Post-test survey results were partly inconclusive and partly unexpected, calling for more detailed future research into image effects, especially the effects of an “apocalyptic sublime” frame. The work aims both to decipher the challenges and pitfalls of photographic communication about climate change and to provide a resource for media practitioners who wish to make the most judicious, informed, and context-conscious choices in their use of climate news images. Beyond this particular pressing issue, applications can be found in broader visual communication about issues of public importance.
THE CAUTIOUS CRUSADER: HOW THE ATLANTA DAILY WORLD COVERED THE STRUGGLE FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN RIGHTS FROM 1945 TO 1985
(2005-05-24) Odum-Hinmon, Maria E.; Beasley, Ph.D., Maurine; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Title of Dissertation: THE CAUTIOUS CRUSADER: HOW THE ATLANTA DAILY WORLD COVERED THE STRUGGLE FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN RIGHTS FROM 1945 TO 1985 Name: Maria E. Odum-Hinmon Doctor of Philosophy, 2005 Dissertation Directed By: Prof. Maurine Beasley, Ph. D. Philip Merrill College of Journalism This dissertation is a study of the Atlanta Daily World, a conservative black newspaper founded in 1928, that covered the civil rights struggle in ways that reflected its orientation to both democratic principles and practical business concerns. The World became the most successful black daily newspaper in the nation after becoming a daily in 1932 and maintaining that status for nearly four decades. This dissertation details how this newspaper chronicled the simultaneous push for civil rights, better conditions in the black community, and recognition of black achievement during the volatile period of social change following World War II. Using descriptive, thematic analysis and in-depth interviews, this dissertation explores the question: How did the Atlanta Daily World crusade for the rights of African Americans against a backdrop of changing times, particularly during the crucial forty-year period between 1945 and 1985? The study contends that the newspaper carried out its crusade by highlighting information and events important to the black community from the perspective of the newspaper’s strong-willed publisher, C. A. Scott, and it succeeded by relying on Scott family members and employees who worked long hours for low wages. The study shows that the World fought against lynching and pushed for voting rights in the 1940s and 1950s. The newspaper eschewed sit-in demonstrations to force eateries to desegregate in the 1960s because they seemed dangerous and counterproductive when the college students wound up in jail rather than in school. The World endorsed Republican Presidents and was not swayed to the other side when the Rev. Jesse Jackson ran for President in 1984. The newspaper, however, drew a line against the conservative agenda when the World wholeheartedly endorsed the merits of affirmative action. Now a weekly under more liberal leadership, the World continues to struggle to find its new role when blacks are more assimilated than ever into the fabric of American society. This dissertation, the first in-depth scholarly study of the newspaper, shows how it has managed to maintain itself as a voice of middle-class African American belief in the democratic process.
Change in the relationship between print reporters and official sources after 9/11
(2009) Linn Campana, Leticia; Crane, Steve; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Title of the thesis: Changes in the relationship between print reporters and official sources after 9/11 Thesis directed by: Steve Crane, Assistant Dean. This study examines whether there has been a change in the relationship between print journalists who cover government and official sources after the 9/11 attacks. The analysis focuses on what happened from 2001 to 2005, and it takes only journalists' experience on the subject. The research is based on in-depth interviews with newspaper reporters who were covering official beats during the time, and with representatives from organizations that have been studying media issues. It is also based on literature from media-specialized publications. The investigation's goal is to group examples and opinions on how the relationship between reporters and official sources changed during this period. Additionally, it gives context on what this relationship is supposed to be, on how it used to be before the studied period, and on the effects that changes to this relationship may have, according to journalism studies and literature. The investigation showed that the relationship between reporters and official sources changed during the time studied, but it also suggests that this change is not unique to the period after 9/11, as it had happened with previous administrations, especially during war times.
THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF TELEVISION NEWS AT A TIME OF DEREGULATION: A CASE STUDY OF PRACTITIONERS IN THREE MAJOR MARKETS.
(2013) Swift, Kevin Patrick; Beasley, Maurine H.; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Broadcast news has undergone monumental changes since 1980. Longstanding rules regarding ownership and practices began to be loosened at this time, forever changing the practice of local broadcast television news. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 stimulated groundbreaking changes as rules of ownership were significantly relaxed. The result was a buying frenzy of television stations by major corporations in some places where small group and local ownership once dominated. The way broadcast news operated was changed dramatically in the years following these changes in policy. The purpose of this research was to gain qualitative knowledge regarding the effects of changes in FCC deregulation policy on practitioners of local broadcast television news during a time of great technological change and audience fragmentation. I examined what effects took place as a result of expanded corporate ownership and policies during this time of an already shifting landscape. To complete this research, which was conducted from 2007 to 2009, broadcast news professionals who had been in the business a minimum of fifteen years were interviewed. I interviewed a total of ten news professionals in three separate large broadcast markets, Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore, Maryland. What I found was that broadcasters felt they had been affected negatively by the changes and were unhappy about the state of the broadcast news business. Practitioners said they were doing more with less, supervising inexperienced help, struggling with unstable work routines and working in newsrooms where morale was at an all-time low. Many experienced reporters were being told to learn how to shoot and edit their own video or quit. The practitioners also described a split in philosophy with ownership. Negative changes, said many of the practitioners, were partially the result of expanded corporate ownership, which was allowed by deregulation. While deregulation did not dictate how news should be produced it was mentioned repeatedly as one of the factors that paved the way for a period of major change in the broadcast news landscape. Other factors, such as rapidly changing technology, internet expansion and an economic downturn were also mentioned among the many changes that practitioners said they had experienced. During the time of a shifting media landscape broadcast deregulation allowed expansion of media ownership which resulted in further changes that affected practitioners. This case study gave a voice to a sample of those practitioners and allowed them to explain the challenges it meant for them as professionals.
COMMUNICATION INTERFACE PROXIMITY AND USER ANXIETY: COMPARING DESKTOP, LAPTOP, AND HAND-HELD DEVICES AS MEDIA PLATFORMS FOR EMERGENCY ALERTS
(2009) Xie, Wenjing; Newhagen, John E.; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This study is an experiment investigating the effects of communication interface proximity on college students' anxiety when they receive the alerts about on-campus crimes via e-mails and text messages. It proposes a new dimension for the traditional concept of proximity in journalism and suggests a shift in the emphasis of proximity from audience-to-event to user-to-interface. It draws the theoretical framework from multiple disciplines: human-computer interaction research, the information processing model, media effects research, as well as the psychological research of anxiety. A total of 97 college students in a large mid-Atlantic university participated in this experiment. Communication interface proximity was conceptualized as three different media platforms: desktop computer (stationary), laptop computer (portable), and hand-held device (mobile). The students were assigned to one of the three device groups based on their self-reported computer usage and received four crime alerts per day for two days through one of the devices. They were required to carry a Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) pictorial scale during the experiment and reply to the alerts as soon as possible using the SAM and felt anxiety scales. They also filled out an online questionnaire at the beginning of the study, at the end of the first day, and at the end of the study, respectively. Subjects who received the crime alerts on hand-held devices reported higher anxiety upon alert receipt than those receiving the alerts on desktop or laptop computers. Anxiety, valence, and arousal reported upon alert receipt for the laptop and desktop groups decreased significantly in early day two, suggesting an "overnight effect" of the crime alerts on these two groups. However, the hand-held group still reported a high level of anxiety upon alert receipt in early day two, suggesting the ubiquitous hand-held device is just under our skin, with no "down time". This study also found that anxiety predicted latency time of response to the alerts and memory for the crime alerts, indicating that anxiety serves as an adaptive heuristic in an emergency and helps people allocate their limited cognitive mental resources, as suggested by the information processing model.
Community journalism as ritual: A case study of community and weekly newspapers in Laurel, Maryland
(2011) Wotanis, Lindsey Lee; Steiner, Linda; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation is a study of the intersection of community and community journalism in Laurel, an area with just over 100,000 residents in central Maryland. The case study utilizes ethnographic interviews with 40 stakeholders, including journalists, advertisers, city officials and readers. Using James W. Carey's theory of ritual communication as its theoretical foundation, the study examines the role of Laurel's two weekly newspapers in creating and maintaining community in Laurel. Findings suggest that when the community newspapers failed to meet readers' expectations for community content, the readers' news reading ritual was interrupted; as a result, their sense of community weakened. Furthermore, place, sharing and relationships proved key to the formation and sustenance of community, with the weekly newspapers playing an important role in the process. The study also found that stakeholders wanted the weeklies to maintain editorial spaces in Laurel, dedicate more resources to hiring more reporters, and be more accepting of user-generated content.
Computational methods applied to mass communication research: the case of press release content in news media
(2013) Golitsynskiy, Sergey; Hanson, Christopher; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In this dissertation, I apply a variety of computational methods to explore new approaches to investigate the problem of news media's use of press release content. Being used by the public relations industry in an effort to influence the media agenda, press releases often promote the organization's viewpoint on issues. Journalism scholars have expressed numerous concerns over news media using such content as a source, often without attribution. A review of previous research has revealed a number of shortcomings, with the main problem being the lack of a reliable methodology to establish a connection between a press release and an article, which is essential for such research. This deficiency is explained by the need for in-depth textual analysis on the one hand, and the requirement of large representative samples on the other - which is near impossible to achieve using traditional methodological approaches used in journalism research. I propose using computational methods to address this problem. I use computation to extract large amounts of text from web sites, transform loosely structured text into well-formatted data, and reduce a data set consisting of 6,171 press releases and 48,664 related news articles to a sample of 1,643 press release/news article pairs, showing reasonable evidence that each of the press releases has been used as a source by a corresponding news article. Such evidence is established through verbatim text matches of sufficient length. I use the constructed data sample to investigate the extent to which press release content is used by news media verbatim, how such content is used and whether proper attribution is made identifying the true source of the news. Although my findings suggest that the problem of press release content might be not as severe as presented in previous research, due to the limitations of verbatim text matching, it might be also possible that such practice remains undetected, with all content borrowed from press releases appearing in news media in paraphrased form. Finally, my investigation leads to a discovery of a "smoking gun" - a striking example of PR influence in the form of a corporation "manufacturing" statements, getting elected officials to repeat them, and the media reporting them as a regular news story.
“A CONSTANT FIGHT WITH OUR MORALS:” EXAMINING UKRAINIAN JOURNALISTS’ NORMATIVE DEMOCRATIC BELIEFS AMID PLURALISM, PROPAGANDA, AND WAR
(2018) Nynka, Andrew; Oates, Sarah; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This work addresses a central problem in contemporary democratic theory. John Rawls, the American political philosopher, defined the potential problem of division in plural, liberal democracy: “How is it possible that there may exist over time a stable and just society of free and equal citizens profoundly divided by reasonable though incompatible religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines?” In considering the question of social division, this dissertation asked whether journalists in Ukraine – a country dealing with propaganda, fake news, war, and a difficult transition to liberal democracy – believe they should play a role amid such tension. Qualitative in-depth, semi-structured interviews of 31 Ukrainian reporters probed their normative beliefs for a journalistic pragmatism that represents the full spectrum of beliefs and positions in their society. This research also contrasts and compares the broader normative beliefs of post-Soviet Ukrainian journalists with Western normative journalism theory by analyzing interviews conducted with 41 American journalists. This dissertation used the theoretical work of pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty, who argued that journalists could ease tension in plural society by fulfilling normative journalism theory’s charge for reporters to be a voice for the voiceless. It was hypothesized that journalists in Ukraine would deprioritize journalistic pragmatism, while prioritizing war-time reporting that polarizes society, primarily because of three factors: the business needs of the press, war in Ukraine, and the legacy of Soviet culture on journalistic norms. The findings defied expectations to a degree by showing that journalists believe the press should represent the full spectrum of positions and beliefs in Ukraine and they should uphold established western norms. Journalists said oligarchic ownership of media and a legacy of control over the press by people in power limit their independence. The findings show division on objectivity: roughly half believe reporters must remain neutral amid pro-Russian propaganda and fake news, while the second half said objectivity leads to false equivalency. Journalists said on-the-ground, factual reporting can fight propaganda and fake news. Analysis of the U.S. interviews showed more convergence of concerns between Ukrainian and American reporters than was expected, suggesting that journalistic norms can transcend country contexts to an unexpected degree.
DARING TO THINK IS BEGINNING TO FIGHT: THE HISTORY OF MAGAZINE ALTERNATIVA—COLOMBIA, 1974-1980
(2007-06-12) Agudelo, Carlos G.; Beasley, Maurine; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This case study of alternative, radical journalism in Latin America during the 1970s, seeks to clarify and define the characteristics and limits of this model in concrete, specific historical circumstances. It traces the history of Alternativa, a leftist magazine published between February 1974 and 1980 in Bogotá, Colombia when three groups of people from different backgrounds devised a journalistic alternative model based on four objectives (counter-informing; investigation, analysis and interpretation; divulging the people's struggles; and propitiating the unity of the left), to effect a lasting change in Colombia's society. The founders' common Marxist background determined the magazine's content and its approach. Initially, they declared themselves independent and neutral toward the left's groups and decided to reach a wide audience through mass circulation. The narrative shows how inner tensions resulting from principled differences among the magazine's creators and from political circumstances led to two crises that tested its founding principles and determined its journalistic evolution. It also shows the struggle of the magazine to survive in a hostile climate, against a notoriously reckless and corrupt regime, testing the limits of the freedom of the press. In the first phase, the narrative reviews the history of the country as seen through the eyes of the publication, which contested the official version in the mainstream news media. In the second phase, the investigation highlights paramount issues such as human rights violations, corruption and the role of the press, through the magazine's critical coverage of Colombia's armed forces and police. In the third phase, the dissertation explores the magazine's complex relationship with the left, which eventually led to its demise. As author of this dissertation, I was witness to the events covered by Alternativa, and was part of the staff of writers in the magazine's third and last stage, with an inside view of a journalistic phenomenon crucial to understanding Colombia's present troubles.

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