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.     

Interpersonal Communication and News Comprehension

This study examines the role of interpersonal and mass mediachannels in public awareness and comprehension of major newsstories. Unlike previous research which asks about respondentperceptions of their "main source" for news, this study attemptsto determine actual comprehension of stories that had been inthe news during the previous week. On the basis of two separateprobability samples, respondent awareness and comprehensionof a week's news was measured and related to demographic, newsmedia use, and interpersonal discussions variables. A MultipleClassification Analysis of the data indicates that conversationabout the news is a major and often overlooked correlate ofcomprehension, and that interpersonal channels may play at leastas important a role in the public's awareness and understandingof the news as exposure to the news media.     

Assessment of motion media on believability and credibility: An exploratory study

The radical shift by news audiences away from newspaper to motion media (video stories on TV, web, cell phones, handhelds) prompted the assessment of media modality (text, text + picture, video) and source (public relations, news, user-generated content [UGC]) effects on credibility and more importantly perceived veridicality, a perception of an object as being accurate and believable regardless of the source, as well as impact of messages. The findings revealed that motion media modality significantly enhances believability judgments and perceived veridicality, which is independent of source cue, in which news source garnered no greater credibility than PR or UGC source.     

Implicit frames of CSR: The interplay between the news media,organizational PR,and the public

This study focuses on the implicit framing of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the interplay between the news media, organizational public relations (PR), and the public. The aim of the study is to investigate the multidirectional causal relationships between these three domains in terms of the use of implicit frames. An automated content analysis of Dutch newspaper articles and organizational press releases is employed. In addition, Google Trends data is examined in order to determine implicit frames of CSR among the public. Monthly level Vector Autoregression (VAR) analyses show different effects across frames. Overall, in line with our expectations, results show positive effects of the news media on the public and of organizational PR on the news media. Moreover, contrary to expectations, we found a negative effect of the public on the news media and mixed results with regard to the effect of the public on organizational PR. Investigating the multidirectional relationships between the news media, organizational PR, and the public provides insights into how they – as a domain – affect and get affected by each other in their communications.     

Fat in the Fire? Science,the News Media,and the “Obesity Epidemic”2

In recent years, the “obesity epidemic” has emerged as a putative public health crisis. This article examines the interconnected role of medical science and news reporting in shaping the way obesity is framed as a social problem. Drawing on a sample of scientific publications on weight and health, and press releases and news reporting on these publications, we compare and contrast social problem frames in medical science and news reporting. We find substantial overlap in science and news reporting, but the news media do dramatize more than the studies on which they are reporting and are more likely than the original science to highlight individual blame for weight. This is partly due to the news media’s tendency to report more heavily on the most alarmist and individual‐blaming scientific studies. We find some evidence that press releases also shape which articles receive media coverage and how they are framed.     

Can a Poll Affect Perception of Candidate Traits?

During presidential elections, poll results frequently are presentedin the news. Reporters use these polls to tell the public whatit thinks about the presidential candidates. We argue that pollingresults tell the public what it should think about the presidentialcandidates as well. This study outlines how a character traitthat is not usually used to assess presidential candidates wasput into play during the 2004 presidential campaign. By repeatedlyascribing "stubbornness" to incumbent president George W. Bush,Democratic challenger John Kerry may have prompted this trait’sinclusion in a Los Angeles Times summer 2004 survey. The poll’sevidence that the public saw Bush as more stubborn than Kerrythen produced an attribute agenda-setting effect that strengthenedthe link between that term and Bush. Using data from the NationalAnnenberg Election Survey, we argue that the news coverage ofthis Los Angeles Times poll increased the salience of the trait"stubborn" in assessing President George W. Bush during Juneof the 2004 presidential campaign.     

NEWSPAPER EFFECTS ON POLICY PREFERENCES

This research offers clear evidence that what is presented inthe media influences the policy preferences of the Americanpublic. More important, it reconciles some earlier problemsthat led to an inability to determine the approximate relationshipsbetween television and newspaper information concerning policy.By correcting some methodological problems in earlier attemptsto examine the impact of New York Times policy news, I am ableto conclude that different actors or news sources do indeedhave differential impacts on public opinion and that in bothnewspaper items and television broadcasts experts and commentatorswield heavy influence.     

The press and Alitalia's 2008 crisis: Issues, tones, and frames

Given that public opinion about a company's performance during a crisis is highly influenced by the way news media cover crisis events, studies that look at news media's choice of crisis issues, tones and frames are extremely valuable. This paper presents the main findings of a study on how the Italian and international press framed the Italian national airline Alitalia and its crisis in 2008 before its privatization. This study is based on content analysis of news articles published in 2008 in two Italian and two international newspapers. Comparisons of crisis issues, tones and frames between the Italian and international press are made. Implications and recommendations for crisis managers are discussed as well as directions for further research.     

Congenial public, contrary press, and biased estimates of the climate of opinion

This field experiment focused on perceived public opinion about the use of primates in laboratory research. We used this contentious issue to examine the simultaneous effects of three hypothetical ideas-the hostile media perception, the persuasive press inference, and the projection bias-on partisan perceptions of public opinion. Our data supported the projection hypothesis but also confirmed that partisans on each side of the issue judged news articles to be biased in a disagreeable direction relative to judgments of those on the other side. The perception of relatively disagreeable media bias, in turn, influenced perceptions of public opinion. Results supported the hypothesis that people make inferences about the climate of opinion based on their reading of the news, especially the perceived slant of that news.     

Strategic public diplomacy and local press: how a high-profile “head-of-state” visit was covered in America’s heartland

Drawing upon the lines of research on public diplomacy and media communication, this study aims to use Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s state visit to the US in 1997 as a case in point to examine the news values and judgment of the US local press in covering a major public diplomacy event and to discuss the effectiveness of the use of head-of-state visits as instruments of public diplomacy. The study focuses on two aspects of media image: visibility and valence. Its main findings indicate that, despite the PR efforts, the image of China, as reflected in the local press coverage, was not improved. This study highlights the critical role of the local press in managing the perception and reputation of a country in the eyes of a foreign public, and argues that the local aspect is not only significant in studying public diplomacy and the US media, but also relevant to US public diplomacy strategies and tactics overseas.     

Toward a multi‐ethnic public sphere? Media consumption in highly diverse districts in Spain

This article examines media consumption in highly diverse districts in Spain as representative of recent changes in this field due to new immigration to countries in Southern Europe in times of crisis. Drawing on findings from two surveys, we observed a decrease in access to media specifically aimed at audiences of minority cultures between 2010 and 2012. It is suggested that this decline is not due to a modification in media consumption habits by minority groups, but rather the economic crisis of 2008. Furthermore, we study the consumption of minority media by natives: we observe that youth and more educated individuals consume other cultures’ minority media to a greater extent, particularly the press, radio, and Internet news sources. We suggest that elements are present that public administrations could utilize to further develop a multi‐ethnic public sphere. Finally, we explore the emergence of a new transnational dimension to the multi‐ethnic public sphere.     

When frames align: The interplay between PR,news media,and the public in times of crisis

This study focuses on the frame-building process of organizational-crisis situations in the interplay between the domains public relations (PR), news media, and the public. The purpose of the study is to investigate whether the crisis frames of the domains align over time. To empirically analyze frame alignment, an automated semantic-network analysis is introduced to compare implicit framing among the domains. By examining press releases, news articles, and social-media manifestations of four Dutch crisis cases, the dynamic character of crisis framing became apparent. The study documents the rise of crisis-frame alignment among PR, news media, and the public over time. After frame alignment the domains’ discourses move away from one another resulting in more variation between frames. This pattern of alignment is considered to be crisis specific as a necessity to collectively make sense of a complex crisis situation. The collective sensemaking might be crucial to solve organizational crises and to avoid uncontrollable crisis magnification.     

International News Selection by the Elite Press: A Case Study

This study examines the news factors influencing the selectionof international news for publication—frequency, threshold,unambiguity, meaningfulness, personal and national elitism,and negativity. The subject of investigation is The Times (London)during a two-week period (January-February, 1975). Comparisonsare made between published and unpublished news events, codedaccording to World Event/Interaction Survey event categories.To avoid some of the problems inherent in testing individualnews factors, the complementarity and additivity hypotheseswere also tested; both are supported by the data. In addition,relevance of the study to policy issues such as agenda settingby the press and recent Third World criticism of Western newscoverage is discussed.     

What Makes Gambling News?

This paper examines print media coverage of casino and electronic gambling in one Canadian province from 1992 to 1997. It provides a theme analysis of content of 234 gambling stories printed in the top two daily newspapers in Nova Scotia. The findings of our content analysis indicate that pro-gambling corporate and political newspaper sources waged a successful media campaign and constructed a powerful public rhetoric in support of new gambling products, services, and institutions. The media, for their part, gave visibility and form to these structured messages. They helped create expectations about gambling and economics and gambling and government. Law and order, and moral and medical discourses about gambling, we discovered, were minor representations in the news coverage, although moral narratives were a pervasive secondary theme in much of the reporting. At bottom, the press produced a politics of truth about gambling that was both an external exercise of power and an internal organizational production.     

Content Class as a Contextual Cue in the Cognitive Processing of Publicity Versus Advertising

Claims about the superiority of news over advertising are a cornerstone of public relations practice. Drawing on the dual processing models in social cognition (Chaiken, 1980, 1987; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), this study defines the difference between news and advertising in terms of content class, a contextual variable that serves as a cue during cognitive processing of mediated messages. An experimental study using a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design (N = 329) manipulated content class, argument strength, and product involvement using 16 full-page prototype articles and ads for 4 products that might be found in a new college magazine. Content class interacted with product involvement to impact the amount of processing by participants (based on recall and cognitive responses measures) and with argument strength to bias message evaluations (based on valence of cognitive thoughts, believability assessments, and attitudinal—conative measures). The results provide only qualified support for claims about the superiority of news over advertising and suggest caution by public relations practitioners when promoting advantages of publicity.     

Korean practitioners and journalists: Relational influences in news selection

This study investigates how source–media relationships influence perceptions toward news selection from the public relations practitioners’ viewpoint in Korea. The results show that Korean public relations practitioners who perform formal media relations believed that journalists would select news stories based on journalists’ media routine principles, such as using government sources. In contrast, Korean public relations practitioners who perform informal or monetary media relations believed that journalists would select news stories based on journalists’ extra-media factors, such as personal relationships with public relations practitioners.     

Exploring the role of the Senate Majority Leader's political public relations efforts

Grounded in first- and second-level agenda building, this study explored the role of the U.S. Senate Majority Leader in shaping the salience of issues and issue attributes in news media coverage and policymaking in 2011. A total of 358 public relations messages, 164 newspaper articles, and 83 policymaking documents were analyzed. Significant correlations were found supporting agenda-building linkages at both levels. Different types of information subsidies were explored, including press releases, blog posts, Facebook posts, and Twitter messages.     

The News of Inclusive Education: a narrative analysis

This paper investigates a nationally publicised case in the debate over the best method of educating millions of children with severe disabilities. Using Fisher's narrative paradigm, this paper analyses 4 years of the extensive media coverage of the legal battles of Mark Hartmann's family. The 11-year-old's parents took the Loudoun County, VA, Board of Education to court to reinstate their autistic son in a regular classroom. Much media attention focused on the story because it dramatised the issues concerning the national debate about inclusion. The paper provides a synopsis of the narratives about inclusive education within the news media that arose from their coverage of the Hartmann case. Through the press, competing interests told their stories to the public, hoping to win the moral high ground and persuade others of the 'good reasons' that support their understanding of the costs or benefits of inclusion. Although the Hartmanns lost in court, this narrative analysis suggests that the family and its supporters provided more persuasive narrative themes in the news media's court of public opinion, thus advancing the national inclusion movement.     

Generic frame building in the 2008 Austrian elections

Media critics repeatedly refer to the adversarial and trivializing nature of contemporary political journalism, whereas the role of political public relations in the formation of these aspects of public political discourse is widely neglected. To gain empirical insight into the formation of negativity, dramatization, game- and conflict-centeredness in campaign communication in the 2008 Austrian elections, this study introduces a biaxial matrix localizing levels of confrontation (negativity and conflict) and entertainment (game and drama). The analysis rests on the comparative investigation of generic frames in political parties’ PR and the media, and the examination of underlying frame building processes. The role of journalism and political public relations in shaping campaign communication is investigated by utilizing concerted content analyses of newspaper and TV news coverage and party press releases. The study finds that Austrian party and media communication can be predominantly categorized as antagonistic substance, characterized by high levels of confrontation (negativity and conflict) and lower levels of entertainment (game and drama). The empirical investigation outlines that conflict and negativity are prevalent features of the electoral communication of Austrian parties and the media likewise, whereby party press releases are even more marked by confrontation and entertainment framing than the subsequent media coverage. In addition, the media are not the principal and exclusive sponsors of confrontation and entertainment in electoral communication; rather, they even moderately decrease conflict and drama as compared to the impulses set by political PR.