“Islam Is Everywhere”: Pre-Arab Spring Coverage of Islam in the English Egyptian Press

This study investigates how Islam is reported by English-language Egyptian media. Much research has examined the orientalism that occurs in the coverage of Islam in the West, but little has occurred on how Islam is covered in a Muslim-majority context. This study conducted interviews with eight journalists who report on Islam as a part of their beat in Egyptian publications and a news framing analysis was performed on articles relating to Islam in English-language Egyptian news sources Al Ahram Weekly, Daily News Egypt, and Al-Masry Al-Youm in the months before Arab Spring radically altered the shape of the country. By applying orientalism, this study hopes to examine coverage of Islam in an environment where one would expect better portrayal of Islam and to examine the ways in which reporting regarding Islam foreshadowed the changes to come.     

The print media and aging policy: how differential coverage of Medicare Catastrophic led congress astray

This article examines the role of the print media in covering complex policy issues. Two models of journalism are considered. "Pack journalism" predicts that print media coverage will be highly consistent in content due to the reliance by those in the media on the same sources of information. In this article, another model--"Beltway journalism"--is proposed. It implies that coverage by the print media indigenous to the Washington, D.C. area (inside the Beltway) will diverge from that of other print media, presenting a potentially distorted view of the world to policymakers in Washington. Using the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times as possible indicators of the two models, aging policy is addressed through a case study of newspaper coverage during passage and repeal of the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988. Findings suggest that Congress was unduly influenced by the way that Medicare Catastrophic was framed in the Washington Post, lending credence to the Beltway journalism model. By paying insufficient attention to the way Medicare Catastrophic was being framed by sources of print outside the Beltway area, lawmakers allowed themselves to assume a grassroots-level understanding of the issue and support for the bill, both of which turned out to be illusory.     

Friend or Foe? The Media Coverage of Chicago’s Public Housing Transformation

Social movement theory highlights media coverage as a powerful resource for non-institutional actors, but it remains unclear how successful they are in gaining media standing relative to their institutionalized opponents. This study applies Gamson’s concept of media standing to Chicago’s Plan for Transformation, an effort to reform the city’s public housing system. Theory expects institutionalized elites to capture a greater share of coverage, allowing them to frame the rhetoric. I perform a content analysis of 2,151 quotes drawn from 554 articles published in the Chicago Tribune from 1997–2009. Results indicate that bureaucratic actors achieve greater media standing then grassroots counterparts, but neighborhood opposition was not ignored. Negative binomial regression models indicate that coverage of the case was driven by conflict, dialogue, and a need for journalists to balance their stories. Institutionalized actors have an easier time achieving media standing, but the opinions they are allowed to express are limited.     

The Print Media and Aging Policy:

This article examines the role of the print media in covering complex ploicy issues. Two models of journalism are considered. "Pack journalism" predicts that print media coverage will be highly consistent in content due to the reliance by those in the media on the same sources of information. In this article another model - "Beltway journalism" - is proposed. It implies that coverage by the print media indigenous to the Washington, D.C. area (inside the Beltway) will diverge from that of other print media, presenting a potentially distorted view of the world to policymakers in Washington. Using the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times as possible indicators of the two models, aging policy is addressed through a case study of newspaper coverage during passage and repeal of the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988. Findings suggest that Congress was unduly influenced by the way that Medicare Catastrophic was framed in the Washington Post, lending credence to the Beltway journalism model. By paying insufficient attention to the way MEdicare Catastrophic was being framed by sources of print outside the Beltway area, lawmakers allowed themselves to assume a grassroots-level understanding of the issue and support for the bill, both of which turned out to be illusory.     

Twitter and video activism as tools for counter-surveillance: the case of social protests in Spain

From a communication perspective, social movements of international significance such as the Arab Spring, Toronto G20, Spanish 15M or Occupy Wall Street have been characterized by the use of mobile communication and social media as tools for video activism and counter-surveillance against the abuse of power committed by the state forces. A representative case of this reality, which reached a high coverage and support in social media environment, can be found in the riots that took place in the Gamonal neighbourhood (Burgos, Spain) in January 2014. In this regard, this article focuses on the denunciation of police violence through video activism by Twitter users during the demonstrations across the country, applying a quantitative–qualitative mixed methodology. First, by means of a content analysis, a sample of 784 tweets linked to videos is analysed in order to identify the main topics and functions of the shared content. Second, a textual analysis of those linked videos of a violent nature recorded by witnesses in order to document police interventions is carried out. The prominent use of Twitter for distributing videos to denounce police violence stands out among the main findings, underlining the audiovisual exposure and ‘secondary visibility’ of the police officers. The results obtained also reinforce the idea of citizen empowerment through the development of an alternative form of journalism, as a practice to criticize the mainstream media coverage of the protests. Additionally, this article sheds light on the open debate about the relevance of social media to encourage citizen involvement in a face-to-face interaction.     

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.     

Public opinion and media coverage of labor unions

Public opinion about labor unions is influenced by a variety of factors, including media coverage. The type of media coverage unions receive provides a cognitive foundation for judgments about them and media coverage of unions has often been characterized as biased. This study examines media coverage of unions between 1946 and 1985 and shows that it became increasingly concentrated on strike activities and exaggerated the frequency of strikes. Moreover, strike-centered coverage has its strongest negative influence on individuals who lack ideological and group attachments to unions.     

Does media coverage influence public attitudes towards welfare recipients? The impact of the 2011 English riots

Following the shooting of Mark Duggan by police on 4 August 2011, there were riots in many large cities in the UK. As the rioting was widely perceived to be perpetrated by the urban poor, links were quickly made with Britain's welfare policies. In this paper, we examine whether the riots, and the subsequent media coverage, influenced attitudes toward welfare recipients. Using the British Social Attitudes survey, we use multivariate difference‐in‐differences regression models to compare attitudes toward welfare recipients among those interviewed before (pre‐intervention: i.e. prior to 6 August) and after (post‐intervention: 10 August–10 September) the riots occurred (N = 3,311). We use variation in exposure to the media coverage to test theories of media persuasion in the context of attitudes toward welfare recipients. Before the riots, there were no significant differences between newspaper readers and non‐readers in their attitudes towards welfare recipients. However, after the riots, attitudes diverged. Newspaper readers became more likely than non‐readers to believe that those on welfare did not really deserve help, that the unemployed could find a job if they wanted to and that those on the dole were being dishonest in claiming benefits. Although the divergence was clearest between right‐leaning newspaper and non‐newspaper readers, we do not a find statistically significant difference between right‐ and left‐leaning newspapers. These results suggest that media coverage of the riots influenced attitudes towards welfare recipients; specifically, newspaper coverage of the riots increased the likelihood that readers of the print media expressed negative attitudes towards welfare recipients when compared with the rest of the population.     

Framing Chinese civil actors: earthquake relief and unintended consequences for media coverage

In 2008, the participation of NGOs in disaster relief during and after a severe earthquake attracted public attention and extensive media coverage. This study analyzes how mainstream Chinese news media framed NGOs in 2008. The findings suggest that after the earthquake, not only did the amount of media coverage about Chinese NGOs increase but also the patterns of coverage changed. Furthermore, the Chinese party media and market-oriented media demonstrated different coverage patterns. The party media tended to frame the contributions of NGOs as dependent on governmental leadership and downplayed their role in disaster relief to one of support. The market-oriented media increasingly covered NGOs from multiple angles and depicted them as service providers, decision makers, and resource mobilizers.     

Child Sexual Abuse and the Media: A Literature Review

The media play an important role in practice, policy, and public perception of child sexual abuse, in part by the way in which news stories are framed. Child sexual abuse media coverage over the past 50 years can be divided into five time periods based on the types of stories that garnered news coverage and the ways in which public policy was changed. This systematic literature review of research on child sexual abuse media coverage across disciplines and geographic boundaries examines 16 studies published in the English language from 1995 to 2012. A seminal work is identified, citation network analysis is applied, and a framework model is developed.     

Information subsidies and agenda-building during the Israel–Lebanon crisis

This study examined the impact of information subsidies on media coverage during a crisis. Using the July 2006 Israel–Lebanon conflict as a backdrop, this research reviewed access that U.S. military public affairs officers provided the media and analyzed subsequent coverage for the presence of the military's message. Coverage was more neutral to positive than negative. Items containing organizational messages were more positive; those quoting practitioner-facilitated sources introduced organizational messages into coverage and generated more positive coverage. Access to information subsidies had a positive impact on coverage and aided in the successful transfer of attribute salience from practitioners to the media.     

INFORMATION RIGIDITIES,INFLATION PERCEPTIONS,AND THE MEDIA: LESSONS FROM THE EURO CASH CHANGEOVER

The objective of theoretical models of information rigidities is to capture the fact that people are constrained in their ability to acquire and process all available information. Given that most people obtain their information about the economy from the media, press coverage of the economy may exert an influence on peoples' attitudes. This paper tests for this influence by examining consumers' inflation perceptions in the aftermath of the euro cash changeover, which serves as a natural experiment. Using a new data set, that quantifies the intensity and tone of media reports, we document that media reporting has had a statistically significant and economically meaningful impact on inflation perceptions and contributed to their sharp rise in the aftermath of the euro cash changeover and to the divergence between inflation perceptions and actual inflation rates. (JEL E53, D83)     

Sources,Characteristics and Effects of Mass Media Communication on Science: A Review of the Literature,Current Trends and Areas for Future Research

A significant amount of science coverage can be found nowadays in the mass media and is the main source of information about science for many. Accordingly, the relation between science and the media has been intensively analyzed within the social scientific community. It is difficult to keep track of this research, however, as a flurry of studies has been published on the issue. This article provides such an overview. First, it lays out the main theoretical models of science communication, that is, the ‘public understanding of science’ and the ‘mediatization’ model. Second, it describes existing empirical research. In this section, it demonstrates how science’s agenda‐building has improved, how science journalists working routines are described, how different scientific disciplines are presented in the mass media and what effects these media representations (might) have on the audience. Third, the article points out future fields of research.     

Collateral coverage: media images of Afghan refugees, 2001

The paper is concerned with media coverage of the on-going refugee crisis in Afghanistan. It begins by looking at how the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center of 11 September 2001 had the result of stimulating renewed media interest in Afghan refugees. Paying special regard to the role of visual images in the reporting of disasters, the paper reviews the narrative strategies adopted by television news. It considers the factors that have instigated media response by examining some general issues arising from the media coverage of disasters. While the central focus of the study is BBC Television News Special Reports on the Afghan refugee crisis, selective comparisons are made with other television broadcast channels, Sky News and Euronews.

Based on the Afghan case study, I propose three main constituent factors contributing to the likelihood of effective media coverage of a refugee crisis. Firstly, in order to attract Western press coverage it is necessary for the crisis to be of such a magnitude that it cannot be ignored; or else it is necessary for it to be perceived as having some obvious connection with Western concerns. Secondly, the story will gain airtime if the nature of the crisis is such that it produces dramatic imagery – pictures with impact. Finally, if the style of the media coverage is sufficiently innovative it will stimulate interest in the viewers. The paper concludes with a critical review of media examples that break away from conventional news formulae.     

From bias to coverage: What explains how news organizations treat social movements

Why do newspapers cover social movement actors, and why is this coverage sometimes favorable? Early scholarship saw the news media mainly as a source of data on collective action, and sought to ascertain its biases, but scholarship has increasingly focused directly on why movements gain coverage, especially coverage that can advance their goals. To understand why and how newspapers cover movement actors, we start with the insight that movements rely on the news media for many reasons, but their coverage is largely in the control of news institutions. In this review, we focus on perspectives that specify 3‐way interactions between the characteristics of newspapers, social movement actors, and the social and political contexts, but we begin with how news media institutions are organized. We conclude with suggestions for future research that take advantage of the digital revolution of the last generation.     

Drug Peddlers: How Four Presidents Attempted to Influence Media and Public Concern on the Drug Issue

This agenda-building study examined the presidencies of Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush to determine to what degree they influenced media and public concern for the drug issue. This study found a complex reciprocal relation between the president, the public, and the press, with results differing depending what president and newspapers were studied. However, when the data are examined across the various presidents rather than on individual leaders, the agenda-setting process is especially powerful with 8 of the 9 predicted paths proving significant. This study discovered that the president plays an equal or greater role than the media in the agenda-building process. The path between presidential statements and public approval was higher than the one between the media and the public. Although public approval polls drove both media coverage and presidential statements, the polls had a greater effect on the media. Finally, the path from presidential statements to subsequent media coverage was just as strong as the one from media coverage to subsequent presidential statements. Agenda-setting researchers, then, should not ignore the effects of the president and other officials on the agenda-setting process.     

Foreign reporters' aggressiveness and Chinese officials' openness at news conferences: influences on foreign media coverage of the Chinese government

This study used content analysis to examine the relationships among Chinese officials' openness strategies at news conferences, foreign reporters' aggressiveness, and the valence of foreign media coverage of the Chinese government. Controlling for the time period and political sensitivity of the topics of news conferences, this study found that the foreign reporters' personal evaluations of Chinese officials were negatively associated with the media coverage valence and that Chinese officials' openness strategies were positively correlated with the media coverage valence and moderated the negative association between reporters' evaluations of officials and media coverage valence. Methodological implications are also discussed.     

The Arab Spring for Women? Representations of Women in Middle East Politics in 2011

This article explores the complex, liminal, and difficult space in which stories of women in “the Arab Spring” were wielded as parts of political narratives of gender, race, class, religion, democracy, and Westernization in Western media as the Arab Spring unfolded. It examines those stories by using the tools of postcolonial feminism. After briefly describing what is meant by (gender and) the Arab Spring, the article outlines a method for evaluating the significations of the media narratives surrounding it. We find two dissonant narratives (of gender as emancipatory and of gender as problematic) and ask what assumptions about gender (and sex and race and culture) have to be made to produce these particular representations. We argue that the dissonant narratives have in common using the situation of women as a barometer for the success of Westernization, liberalization, and democratization. The article concludes by exploring the implications of these findings.     

Media reputation in initial public offerings: A study of financial news coverage in Hong Kong

This study investigated media reputation in initial public offerings (IPOs) by proposing eight attributes of substantive media reputation from environmental and product-resource perspectives. A content analysis on financial news coverage (2281 newspaper articles from 2004 to 2010) in Hong Kong was conducted to examine how print media reported financial and nonfinancial information on 38 IPO firms in the sectors of financial, properties and construction, and consumer goods. Results from partial least squares analysis showed that, although substantive media reputation and recency of news coverage together only explained a small proportion of changes in IPO share price, substantive media reputation has a significant positive effect on changes in IPO share price. Apart from the significant positive effect from the presentation tone of environmental attributes, the tone of social attributes had a significant negative effect on substantive media reputation. With the increasing concern on measuring media reputation attributes in financial news coverage across different contexts, this study contributes to the applicability of environmental and product-resource attributes in the specific context of IPOs.