ABC News Research Articles

#FreeBritney and the Pleasures of Conspiracy

#FreeBritney and the Pleasures of Conspiracy

Burden of the Beast

Burden of the Beast

Media Framing of Refugees

On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The resulting conflict has led to approximately 14,059 civilian casualties of which roughly 5,767 people have died and a further 8,292 got injured as of October 2022. Seven million people are internally displaced. Europe, as of October 2022, was faced with the largest and fastest refugee movement since the end of the Second World War. Five million Ukrainians have been forced to seek asylum in the neighboring states, the majority of whom have fled to Poland. In this context, this study focuses on media framing of Ukraine and African refugees destined for Europe in international media: Al Jazeera English, ABC News, CBS News, France 24, TRT World, BBC News, Sky News, CNN, and DW. The media were selected because of their wide coverage, reach, as well as time dedicated to reporting on the issues of immigrants and refugees. The authors took a constructivist approach in which Framing and Agenda Setting theories provided a framework for identifying and explicating frames. Two dominant frames emerged in the analysis of 23 video clips that covered Ukrainian and African refugees: the human interest and the security frames. The human-interest frame is commonly used in news and it essentially serves the purpose of portraying the emotional angle to the presentation of an issue. The Ukrainian refugee crisis contrasted with the African refugee crisis through the human-interest frame, the former was portrayed as victims of the barbaric acts by Russia led by a merciless tyrant with imperialist and expansionist objectives. The second frame – the Security Frame – applied mostly to African refugees fleeing to Europe. The selected media outlets covered African refugees fleeing to Europe especially through Spain, Turkey, Greece, Hungary, and Italy through the security lens compared to the Ukrainian refugees.

'Waiting with Bated Breath'

'Waiting with Bated Breath'

Lockdowns, Exclusion and Resilience: Our first Pandemic Related Studies

It’s hard to believe that the COVID-19 pandemic has been with us for more than a year. While vaccine rollouts and the impacts of emerging strains of the virus vary markedly around the world, in Australia our borders remain closed (for most of us), keeping loved ones and family members apart. Even returning Olympians are in extended quarantine as they pass through the Covid ‘red zones’ to their home-towns around Australia (2021, ABC news). Concerns about double standards arise as famous actors and other celebrities enter and leave Australia, while family members are denied permission to cross boarders to see dying loved ones. ‘Fortress Australia’ is riven with inequalities and vulnerabilities that have always existed in our society, but are experienced during the pandemic in ways never before realised or imagined.

A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis of Corporate Apologies by Starbucks CEO from the Perspective of Crisis Management

From the perspective of crisis management, this research examines how Starbucks chief executive officer (CEO) extended corporate apologies to the stakeholders via an interview video and a monologue video under the framework of multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA). The apologies offered by Starbucks CEO in an interview with ABC News and a monologue were analyzed to illustrate textual, and visual characteristics. The analysis of text, discourse practice and social practice was conducted to explore apology discourse strategies employed by Starbucks CEO. The results indicated that corporate apology discourse contributes to crisis management and revealed the interplay of corporate apology discourse, crisis management, and social background.

The future of coal investment, trade, and stranded assets

The future of coal investment, trade, and stranded assets

The Name of Hate

The Name of Hate

Connective Effervescence and Streaming Chat During Political Debates

Recent advancements in online streaming technologies have re-centered the audience as an important part of live broadcasts, including live political events. In fall 2020, each of the U.S. presidential and vice presidential debates were streamed on a number of online platforms that provided an integrated streaming chat where the public could comment in real-time alongside the live debate video. Viewers could simultaneously tune into what the candidates were saying and see what a sample of their peers thought about the candidates. This study examines large samples of comments made in social chat feeds during the livestreamed debates on the ABC News, NBC News, and Fox News Facebook pages to quantify key features associated with the quality of political discussion on these platforms. The results reveal that consistent with the quasi-anonymous, constrained nature of dynamic chat, the comments made are generally short, include a substantial degree of toxicity and insults, and differ significantly in their content across platforms. These findings underscore the importance of further study of online streaming chat as a new source of potential influence on political attitudes and behavior.

Mainstream Media’s Obsession with Africa

Mainstream Media’s Obsession with Africa

Key issue (Terrorism Coverage)

“Key issue” describes the main issue or perspective an article focuses on when reporting on a news topic. There might be different key issues for the same topic: When reporting on terrorism, articles can for example concentrate on the incident itself, the perpetrator behind it, victims and/or political reactions to terrorism. Field of application/theoretical foundation: Key issues share similarities with other variables such as news “frames”, “issue salience” or “issue ownership” that also try to identify different perspectives for the same or different news topics. Therefore, studies based on “Framing” (Entman, 1993) work with similar variables to analyze what issues journalists focus on and many studies cited here use the concept of framing to identify key issues, for example Li (2007) or Zhang & Hellmüller (2016). References/combination with other methods of data collection: Studies for example combine content analysis and interviews with journalists to shed more light on dynamics and structures of terrorism coverage, including key issues (Larsen, 2019). Example studies: Li (2007); Matthews (2016) Information on Li, 2007 Authors: Li (2007) Research question: How did television outlets frame 9/11 during the first 24 hours of coverage and how did this framing change over time? Object of analysis: News coverage by five TV outlets (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and FOX news) Time frame of analysis: 24 hours after attacks on September 9 2001 occurred Info about variables Variable name/definition: Coverage frame: “The coverage frame is defined as the aspects of a perceived reality identified through a story that makes these aspects more salient in the news coverage” (Li, 2007, p. 676). Level of analysis: News story (TV) Variables and values: Political coverage frame, economic coverage frame, criminal coverage frame, environment coverage frame, safety coverage frame, human interest coverage frame, religion coverage frame, disaster coverage frame, other coverage frame Reliability: Scott’s pi: .8 Information on Matthews, 2016 Authors: Matthews (2016) Research question: How did newspapers react in the immediate aftermath of the London bombings 2005? Object of analysis: News coverage by nine UK newspapers and their Sunday equivalents (The Star, The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Daily Express, The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Independent) Time frame of analysis: July 8 2005 to July 15 2005 Info about variables Variable name/definition: Story themes Level of analysis: News article Variables and values: Reconstruction and reaction, bombers’ identities, police investigation, victims/the missing, heroism and survivors, London’s reaction Table 1. Measurement of “Key Issue” in terrorism coverage. Author(s) Sample Manifestations Reliability Codebook An et al. (2018) Articles from terrorist websites 31 different key issues, ranging from terrorist attacks to their political consequences Average Holsti value for all pairwise comparisons: .66 Available Du & Li (2017) Online news articles 6 different key issues, including “description and updates of the incident itself”, “causes of the incident”, “consequences of the incident”, “conflicting viewpoint related to the incident”, “condemn the terrorist behavior and discuss the punishment/reprisal”, and “background/history knowledge of the incident areas” Scott’s pi for all variables in study: between .798 and 1 Available Haußecker & Jirschitzka, 2010; Jirschitzka et al., 2010 Broadcasting programs 11 different key issues, ranging from war against terror to communication of terrorists Average Holsti value for all pairwise comparisons with five coders and one main coder: .66 Available Larsen (2019) Broadcasting programs and online news articles 3 different key issues, including “threat of terrorism”, “countering and prevention”, and ”terrorism as phenomenon” Cohen’s kappa: .782 Available Li (2007) Broadcasting programs 9 different key issues, including “political”, “economic”, “criminal”, “environment”, “safety”, “human interest”, “religion”, “disaster”, and “other” coverage frame Scott’s pi: .8 Not available Li & Izard (2003) Broadcasting programs and news articles 10 different key issues, including “business”, “World Trade Center”, “Pentagon”, “safety (concerning future attacks)”, “government and U.S. president, “criminal activity and terrorism,” “personal story”, “American public”, “U.S. Arab community”, and “past events” Scott’s pi for all nominal variables in study: between .78 and .96 Not available Matthews (2016) Newspaper articles 6 different key issues, including “reconstruction and reaction”, “bombers’ identities”, “police investigation”, “victims/the missing”, “heroism and survivors”, and “London’s reaction” Not reported Not available Zhang & Hellmüller (2016) Online news articles 8 key issues, sorted in the overarching categories “geopolitics” (consisting of “failing state”, “political opportunism”, “strategic game”, “geopolitical alignment”) and “existential threat” (consisting of “ISIS prowess”, “human rights crisis”, “economic consequences”, and “ISIS propaganda”) Krippendorf’s alpha: .73 Available

Determinants of attitude and intention towards private health insurance: a comparison of insured and uninsured young adults in Australia

BackgroundSince the introduction in 1984 of Australia’s publicly-funded universal healthcare system, Medicare, healthcare financing has relied on a mix of public and private sources to meet the needs of the population (Sowa et al., Appl Health Econ Health Policy 15:31–41, 2018). However, in recent years, there has been a decline in the number of Australians choosing to purchase private health insurance (PHI), particularly within the young adult age group with the proportion of insurance customers aged 20 to 29 falling from 10.3 to 9.4% between 2012 and 2017 (Sivey, The Conversation, 2017). Young adults are critical to private health insurance funding models as their involvement offsets the drawdown by older adults (Dalzell and Borys, ABC News, 2019). While this issue is widely reported in the Australian media, few empirical studies have explored the factors that enable or constrain young adults’ enrolment in PHI.MethodsTo address the scarcity of research about the motivational factors behind young adult decision-making, this study conducted a survey of 594 Australian young adults aged between 18 and 30 years. Within this age group, the survey sought an equal split of participants who were members and non-members of PHI schemes.ConclusionThe findings identified perceived value and trust in insurers as additional motivational factors alongside traditional measures of recognition of the problem and involvement in the problem. Differences between the insured and uninsured groups were identified which help to shape a more holistic understanding of the key motivational factors and barriers in relation to Australian young adults’ enrolment in PHI.

‘More than a Thought Bubble…’

‘More than a Thought Bubble…’

The Canberra Bubble

The Canberra Bubble

MOTIVATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ETHNIC NOMINATIONS IN AMERICAN LINGUOCULTURE

Despite the сurrent trends towards society democratization, globalization, strengthening cross-border communication and cooperation, the issues of national, sociocultural, and individual differences continue to remain topical and not infrequently lead to the display of discrimination as a form of intolerance. Notable for the US context has become the type of discrimination that rests on ethnic and racial differences. This paper considers the issues of exteriorizing hate speech in the American linguoculture which has become extremely topical in the context of recently livened up global antiracist sentiments and movements. The topicality of the issues under study is reinforced by the deficiency of research on the cognitive motives behind the racist ethnonyms in American English. This research focuses on the ways of verbal manifestation of racial discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity attributed to the objects of nomination. Moreover, we make an attempt to give our own definition of the racist language as well as to determine and to classify racist ethnic nominations according to the criterion of their motivation. For this purpose, by applying the continuous sampling approach we drew up a list of 50 lexical units (racist ethnonyms) selected from articles of modern American news websites like ABC News, NBC News, the Atlantic, and NBR. In the result of analysing the selected sample, we came to the conclusion that in American linguoculture, the representatives of any ethnic group may become exposed to discrimination. However, the main targets of racism are African Americans, Asians, and the indigenous ethnic groups who are being discriminated against because of their gastronomic preferences, pronunciation features, skin color, etc. In addition, among popular associates that lead to the creation of ethnonyms are specific realities of the world, onomastic units, animalistic and anthropometric motives. The most popular motive for the formation of racist ethnic nominations is the gastronomic one.

COVID-19-related Mental Health Burden and Minority Stress, Marginalized Social Identities, and Experiences of LGBTQ+ Discrimination

ABSTRACT. This article presents an empirical study carried out to evaluate and analyze COVID-19-related mental health burden and minority stress, marginalized social identities, and experiences of LGBTQ+ discrimination. Building my argument by drawing on data collected from ABC News, ACHA, ARI, ILGA-Europe, KFF, GWI, Harvard Medical School, HMN, NCAA, Pew Research Center, Statista, UNC School of Medicine, VMIAC, and Washington Post, I performed analyses and made estimates regarding the psychological consequences of COVID-19 among sexual and gender minority communities. Data collected from 5,700 respondents are tested against the research model. Descriptive statistics of compiled data from the completed surveys were calculated when appropriate.

COVID-19 Is a Great Opportunity for Black Women to Reconsider Hospital Birth

“It’s been a four-year journey for us,” Bree Barry says during in an interview featured in the second installment of an ABC news series called The COVID-19 Diaries. “We knew right away [that we were pregnant]. I was hesitant and like, wanted to wait a little before celebrating, then lo and behold, corona happened.” (“Expecting during the unexpected: Pregnancy during the coronavirus crisis — COVID-19 Diaries”, 2020)

Mapping national news reports on COVID-19 in Australia: Topics, sources, and imagined audiences

News media across the world have played an important role in contributing to public discourse about the COVID-19 pandemic, including the actions being taken by governments to prevent and contain its spread and the role of citizens in the public health response. In this chapter, we analyse news reporting on the pandemic in The Australian newspaper and ABC News Online in Australia between February and August 2020. Our constructed week sampling approach examined news reports across 24 days with particular attention to the topics and sources included in the coverage and the ways in which audiences were addressed in the stories. Conceptually, we take as our starting point Briggs and Hallin’s framework of ‘biomediatisation’ and three predominant models of ‘biocommunicability’ that they identify in health news: biomedical authority, patient-consumer and public sphere. These models variously position social actors in active or passive roles in relation to the flow of health information. Our analysis explores the presence of these models in news coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and whether or not adaptations or new models are better suited to capture some of the particular characteristics of this profoundly mediatised pandemic.

COVID‐19 and Re‐Storying Economic Development in Oceania

<scp>COVID</scp>‐19 and <scp><i>Re</i>‐Storying</scp> Economic Development in Oceania

Rhetorical Schemes in Barack Obama’s Winning Speech

This study is aimed to identify the kinds, functions, and meanings of rhetorical schemes applied in Obama’s speech. The data of this study were taken by documentation method and note-taking technique from the winning speech delivered by Barack Obama on November, 4th 2008 at Grant Park in Chicago. The video is uploaded by Marc Schulz on October, 19th 2012 in YouTube and its transcript is available on ABC news (internet). In addition, the data were analyzed descriptive qualitatively using Holman’s theory about rhetorical devices (1960). This study revealed that there are three schemes in rhetorical devices namely phonological, morphological, and syntactical applied by Barack Obama. Furthermore, two functions applied are to give vivid example and to emphasize points. The meanings from applied rhetorical schemes are constructed based on the reference Obama does in his speech towards socio-historical events in America.