News Framing and Cueing of Issue Regimes: Explaining Clinton's Public Approval in Spite of Scandal

During the period of exceedingly critical news coverage surroundingthe Monica Lewinsky debacle, President Bill Clinton's job approvalratings were at some of the highest levels they reached duringhis tenure in office. Given this public response, many pollsters,pundits, and scholars argued that news coverage of the scandalmust have been largely irrelevant to the public. Our view countersthese claims by advancing a theory that recognizes that citizens'political preferences are influenced substantially by framesand cues provided by news media. To test our ideas, we drawupon three types of data, all from January 1993 to March 1999:(a) a longitudinal content analysis of major news media, (b)a time-trend of opinion polls on presidential job approval,and (c) monthly estimates of real disposable personal income,seasonally adjusted. Analyses reveal that news media emphasisupon and framing of certain issue regimes—to the framingof the scandal in terms of the strategic motives of conservativeelites.     

Abstracts of the Scientific Programs of the American College Health Association Fifty-Seventh Annual Meeting May 22-25, 1979, Washington,D.C.

Abstract

This article focuses on a therapeutic approach to help women deal with the feelings of grief and guilt they may feel as a result of a voluntary termination of a pregnancy. Available medical and psychological literature indicates that, from a public health perspective, significant psychological problems related to an abortion are “minuscule.” Several women the author saw during the 1992/93 academic year who considered themselves to be extremely religious and prolife had undergone elective abortion. They experienced tremendous guilt and grief 4 to 6 months after the procedure. The author recommends that college health center medical and counseling providers who must deal with this issue help the woman validate her loss by revisiting the site of her abortion to reflect upon the experience and to hold a Gestalt dialogue with the fetus to end the relationship. The provider or someone else should accompany the woman to the site because of the increasing potentiality for violence on the part of prolife protesters.     

Pills in the Public's Mind

Abstract

We investigate the sources of public attitudes toward RU 486 to determine whether the drug will change public attitudes toward abortion. Not surprisingly, public attitudes toward RU 486 are influenced by the same factors that influence abortion opinion more generally. Two other considerations seem to influence opinion toward RU 486. First, the fact that the drug is administered early in pregnancy increases support, for many Americans take an emergent view of fetal rights and oppose abortions in the last several months of pregnancy. Second, opposition to the drug is highest among those who insist on consultation about the abortion decision, suggesting that at least some Americans fear that the drug will allow women to make hasty decisions about abortion without consulting family and friends. This latter finding suggests that pro-choice advocates should emphasize that RU 486 is prescribed after consultation with a doctor     

Romaphobia and the media: mechanisms of power and the politics of representations

ABSTRACT

This special issue of Identities, entitled ‘Romaphobia and the media’, examines entrenched and ongoing media coverage of Roma, Gypsy and Traveller people across Europe. The focus is on how the media problematises the Roma, how it constructs a ‘conceptual map’ about Roma people and what this tells us about the societies we live in. This special issue includes five academic articles all examining the constructions and stereotypes used in the media in various formats and European countries. After these academic articles, this special issue then deviates from the normal journal structure by including three commentary pieces from professionals from varying Roma backgrounds to give their views and experiences on how they tackle Romaphobia and the media. The inclusion of these commentary pieces are very powerful in offering a perspective of active interventions and resistance that we should not forget amidst the depressing continued circulation of racialised stereotypes.     

Sources,Providers and Self-Reported Complications among Indian Women Seeking Induced Abortion: Evidence from the National Family Health Survey (2015–16)

Abstract

This article attempts to find types of sources and providers, and likelihood of self-reported complication among Indian women. Fifty-three percent of abortions are done at private health facilities. Only one in every 5 women went to public health facilities, and the rest did not go anywhere (27.5%). Doctors are the major abortion service providers (52.3%) in India. Eighteen percent of women who sought abortion reported some complication. Logit regression shows that complications were 1.8 times higher in the second-trimester than the first-trimester abortion. This study suggests for addressing the demand of abortion by accessing and improving services in public health system.     

Does marriage matter? A perspective and model for action

Abstract

This paper considers some issues about the public and private aspects of marriage; offers a perspective from sociology, psychodynamic theory and philosophy and makes recommendations for further research and intervention.     

Panic and the Breakdown of Social Order: Popular Myth,Social Theory,Empirical Evidence

Abstract

The academic public that I encounter at my lectures always show surprise when I speak intimately and deeply about the classroom. That public seemed particularly surprised when I said that I was working on a collection of essays about teaching. This surprise is a sad reminder of the way teaching is seen as a duller, less valuable aspect of the academic professions. This perspective on teaching is a common one.     

Speaking Out

Abstract

This study demonstrates that Republican female House members invoke women in their public statements at the same frequency as their Democratic counterparts. Despite this congruency, the specific issues that female partisan legislators emphasize when they invoke women in their statements are quite different. Republican women discuss how tax, business, and pension laws affect working women while Democratic female representatives concern themselves with laudatory tributes and funding for welfare state programs. In addition to controlling for party, the explanatory variable of race is also introduced to explain variation in emphasis, particularly regarding the issue of abortion. Congressional Recordentries contributed by the female members of the 105th Congress in 1997 serve as the data for this analysis.     

MEDIA REVIEWS

Abstract

This article looks at print coverage of various adoption issues: adoption vs. abortion, a famous birth mother's story, revisiting Baby Richard, and the perils of internation adoption. Two prime time programs are reviewed, one drama on foster care and open adoption, the other a newsmagazine segment on failure to disclose medical problems in adopted children.     

Hermeneutics and Discourse: Further Reflections on Designer Babies

Abstract

A previous article demonstrated a consensus about denying permission for the cosmetic genetic manipulation of human embryos (Rettig, 2008). The present article raises this very complex issue again but from a more in-depth perspective, both theoretical and discursive. Participants discussed the issue from more diverse views, and did not come to a definitive consensus, thereby raising the question of the social reality or “truth” about the morality of the issue.     

Characteristics of the mass media's coverage of nuclear energy and its risk: A literature review

Media coverage of nuclear energy is a crucial source of information about the risk of nuclear energy for the general public. As a result, scholars of communication science are very interested in the media's coverage of the nuclear energy risk. This literature review provides an overview of the state of research in this field. This article will describe the findings of empirical research and focus on how much attention the nuclear energy issue receives from the media, the tone in which it is communicated, how it is framed, and how the media depict the risk of this technology. It also argues that empirical risk‐coverage studies would be more informative if they took a broader perspective on risk. Finally, it will discuss areas for future research.     

The Development of a Student-Run Ambulance

Abstract

Abortion decisions have a potentially meaningful effect on the lives of men. Previous research suggests that both men and women generally believe that men have the right to be involved in such decisions. However, very little research attention has been devoted to identifying individual difference correlates of discrepant levels of endorsement for male involvement in abortion decisions. The extent to which abortion attitudes (on a pro-choice to pro-life continuum), conceptualization of abortion as strictly a female issue, and interest in the issue operate as effective predictors of the appropriate level of male involvement in abortion decisions was examined in a sample of 1,387 college students. Results of a multiple regression analysis revealed that 44% of the variance in male involvement scores was explained by the predictor variables.     

Greedy Media: Army Families,Embedded Reporting,and War in Iraq

Abstract

Embedded reporting in Operation Iraqi Freedom provided real-time coverage of soldiers in war that was viewed and read by publics around the globe. Most constituents, such as the military, media, and the larger U. S. public perceived this coverage as positive; however, live television coverage had an intense and uncalculated impact on some U.S. Army wives and others on a military post at the individual, community, and institutional levels. This study provides a qualitative perspective on U.S. Army wives (N = 23) and their children on a military post whose soldiers deployed in the earliest phase of the war in Iraq in 2003. Live coverage created three types of viewing for Army wives and their children—compulsive, controlled, and constrained—and hastened use of other types of communication media. Live coverage also contributed to the expansion of the traditional definition of the military family and extended the reach of the Family Readiness Groups and the role of the Rear Detachment Command. We argue for an extension of Mady Segal's “greedy institution” application to the military family to include the mass media—specifically live television coverage of war.     

Understanding Men's Health and Illness: A Gender-relations Approach to Policy,Research, and Practice

Abstract

Men's health has emerged as an important public concern that may require new kinds of healthcare interventions and increased resources. Considerable uncertainty and confusion surround prevailing understandings of men's health, particularly those generated by media debate and public policy, and health research has often operated on oversimplified assumptions about men and masculinity. A more useful way of understanding men's health is to adopt a gender-relations approach. This means examining health concerns in the context of men's and women's interactions with each other, and their positions in the larger, multidimensional structure of gender relations. Such an approach raises the issue of differences among men, which is a key issue in recent research on masculinity and an important health issue. The gender-relations approach offers new ways of addressing practical issues of healthcare for men in college environments.     

Too Hard to Shout Over the Loudest Frame: Effects of Competing Frames in the Context of the Crystallized Media Coverage on Offshore Outsourcing

This study investigates the effects of competing frames in newspaper coverage of offshore outsourcing, an issue that is characterized by a predominantly negative, unemployment-focused media framing. The findings of a randomized, controlled experiment (N = 152) demonstrate that conventional framing effects do hold for this issue and for this media context by moving recipients’ attitudes in the direction consistent with the valence of the frame. However, they also show the backfire effect of the positively valenced frame among recipients with greater interest in political and economic news, who become less supportive of outsourcing if they read a story framing outsourcing from a consumer-oriented perspective. Our results contribute to the ongoing debate about the limits of framing effects on forming opinion about contentious policy issues and demonstrate the challenges for nondominant perspectives to make their way to news-savvy audiences even when the nature of the issue in question necessitates considering them.     

What Gets Covered? An Examination of Media Coverage of the Environmental Movement in Canada

This article analyzes press releases from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Greenpeace (GP) to assess how their tactics and frames affect the amount of coverage they receive in The Globe and Mail and National Post from 2000 to 2010. While it is clear that some tactics are more likely to garner media coverage, the full range of tactics and frames are not effective for all groups. For example, calling to the public to engage in a social issue leads to increased media coverage for GP but not WWF. And, using research does not affect media coverage for WWF, but decreases coverage for GP. This study demonstrates that the effect of tactical choices on media coverage is contingent on the identity of the group using them.     

What Drives the Voting on Abortion Policy? Investigating Partisanship and Religion in the State Legislative Arena

Abstract

Much of the public policy debate on abortion now centers in the nation's state capitals. This research assesses the impact of partisanship and religiosity on the voting behavior of state legislators. Recent research indicates that a legislator's religious affiliation and the religiosity of their home districts can be a powerful predictor of votes on abortion bills, but this research uses a unique data set developed to analyze voting in the Florida House of Representatives to re-test those ideas and test several new ones. This work challenges the notion that member religion or district religiosity is more influential than partisanship in predicting votes on abortion. Ordered probit techniques show partisanship, gender and legislator religion (for Catholic and Jewish members only), to be the most significant predictors of abortion voting behavior. A number of district characteristics are found to be less significant. Theoretically, this suggests that legislators fulfill their party obligations as trustee on the floor of the House, more so than following constituent interests in the classic delegate role, as originally noted by Burke.     

Reflections on repeated abortions: The meanings and motivations

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to answer three questions concerning women who have repeated abortions -Why do they do it?, What is being aborted?, and why do they need to repeat it? By exploring developmental factors in relation to clinical cases, ideas are formulated about the type of women who might be using abortion to act out problems of separation-individuation. I speculate that for some women abortion may act as a rite de passage from one self-image to another or from dependency toward independence. The act of abortion may be an unconscious way to touch or repair infantile developmental failure and to find a 'good enough' resolution.     

Undergraduate students survey their peers on mental health: Perspectives and strategies for improving college counseling center outreach

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of the study was to examine student perspectives about college mental health including the primary mental health issues affecting students, common college student stressors, student awareness of campus mental health resources, and mental health topics students want more information about. Participants: Participants were 822 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in a private university. The study was conducted during September 2016. Methods: As part of a public health course in program planning, undergraduate students surveyed their peers about their experience with mental health and mental health resources. Results: Stress was perceived as the largest mental health issue. Students most wanted more information about school/work/life balance followed by stress management. Electronic newsletters, social media, and on-campus seminars were the top strategies that students suggested as ways to reach them. Conclusions: The results provide student perspectives on mental health that may be useful in developing effective outreach efforts.     

Hospital Mergers

Abstract

When secular and sectarian (often Catholic) hospitals merge, women's reproductive healthcare services are often put in jeopardy. Some merger efforts are successful and others fail. Several issues arise as a result of this situation. First, what role do women's reproductive rights activists and their supporters play in effecting hospital merger decisions? This question does not assume that all women support women's rights organizations or that all women support a full range of reproductive rights. Secondly, what other factors seem to effect the outcome of merger discussions? In order to answer these questions, it is first necessary to understand the extent of Catholic hospital expansion and the nature of the hospital merger movement itself. These considerations will provide perspective for the two case studies of the American hospital merger movement that provide venues for examining the issues relating to participation and other factors that effect the outcome of merger talks. Cumberland and Baltimore are the two communities examined in this study. Though it would be a mistake to generalize to all merger situations based on these two cases, there are lessons that women's reproductive healthcare advocates can learn from the experiences of these two communities.

The issue of hospital mergers and the availability of reproductive healthcare services for women does raise an additional issue. Private sector decisions are being made that have a direct impact on public services, that is, the availability of a set of healthcare services in communities. This is not the direction that most public policy analysts consider.

The more frequently asked policy questions begin with public policy decisions and ask how they influence non-governmental decisions.