American Coverage Research Articles

"Should We Do It the Swedish Way?": American Coverage of Sweden and Sex during the AIDS Pandemic

"Should We Do It the Swedish Way?": American Coverage of Sweden and Sex during the AIDS Pandemic

Advent buys Caldic & will merge it with GTM to extend Latin American coverage

Maxillary sinus floor elevation is of frequent occurrence and extremely important for dental implantation. However, how to conveniently implant a synthetic scaffold in the irregular bony cavity of maxillary sinus and simultaneously prompt new bone regeneration is a great challenge in lifting the maxillary sinus floor. Here, we develop a bioactive self-fitting polymer porous scaffold via one-step creation of interconnected pores with controllable size and loading with a bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2) therapeutic agent inside these pores for the first time. This scaffold can be compressed like a sponge for minimally invasive surgery and return to its original porous structure in response to a temperature of 41 °C for self-fitting into the irregular cavity of a maxillary sinus. Moreover, the loaded BMP-2 possesses a great capacity to accelerate new bone regeneration.

The Media Matters: Muslim American Portrayals and the Effects on Mass Attitudes

Muslim Americans are increasingly stigmatized and may be experiencing a backlash in the American news media and by the public. No study to date, however, has empirically assessed the sentiment of Muslim American cable news coverage over an extended period of time and evaluated its effects on mass attitudes. I address the following questions: How has the US news media portrayed Muslim Americans in its coverage? And, to what extent do these media portrayals affect American public opinion? I demonstrate that the media coverage of Muslims and Muslim Americans is negative and has increased over time. Compared to that of Blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans, I find that Muslim American coverage is more negative. In a series of survey experiments, I find that negative news portrayals of Muslims and Muslim Americans increase hostility toward Muslim Americans and increase support for stringent policies targeting them, while positive portrayals have relatively weaker effects.

Constructing “Bad Girls”: Representations of Violent Girls in the Canadian and U.S. News Media

ABSTRACT Through a mixed-methods content analysis of media articles published in top-circulating Canadian and US news outlets, we explored the transnational media construction of girls’ violence. Four interconnected themes emerged. Across the Canadian and US news media, girls were depicted as sinister villains who enjoyed violence, uncivilized animals who unleashed terror, harlots fueled by jealousy and obsession, or sympathetic average Janes whose violence was not symptomatic of their character. Although there were no statistically significant differences in the prevalence of the themes by country, qualitative comparisons revealed nuanced differences in the manifestation of themes. Whereas the American coverage uniquely sexualized girls, the Canadian coverage cast girls in relation to boys, either through their own manipulation of boys or through violence motivated by jealousy or obsession. Similarly, we found evidence of a more nuanced racialization of girls in the United States whereby girls of Color were constructed as uncivilized sub-humans. In contrast, the dehumanization of girls was most salient in Canadian news coverage of high-profile cases of girls’ violence. We conclude with a discussion of the study’s implications of findings for understanding the specificity and generalizability of media narratives related to girls’ violence.

A Force for Democracy? Representations of the US Government in American Coverage of Venezuela

Abstract: Since the election of Hugo Chavez the United States has played a highly questionable role interfering in Venezuelan politics, funding, training and supporting attempts at coups to remove democratically elected presidents. Yet the American media (The New York Times, Washington Post and Miami Herald) have presented the US overwhelmingly positively, portraying it as a force for democracy and stability in the region, contrary to the wealth of official evidence. This content and discourse analysis study focuses on the coverage of four key events in recent Venezuelan history and concludes that the concept of “democracy” in the media is automatically applied to official US policy, whatever it happens to be. Thus, the official American ideology of its fundamental benevolence and exceptionalism is not disputed, even when circumstances clearly challenge this concept.

Dual-polarization reflectarray in Ku-band based on two layers of dipole arrays for a transmit–receive satellite antenna with South American coverage

A 1.1-m reflectarray antenna has been designed, manufactured, and tested to fulfill the requirements of a satellite antenna in Ku-band that provides South-American coverage in Tx and Rx. The reflectarray cells consist of four dipoles for each polarization in two dielectric layers, selected because of their simplicity and high performance. The dipole dimensions are optimized in all the reflectarray cells to accomplish the prescribed radiation patterns, by iteratively calling an analysis routine based on method of moments in spectral domain and local periodicity. The measured radiation patterns of the manufactured antenna have been satisfactorily compared with simulations and with a three-layer reflectarray previously designed, manufactured, and tested for the same mission.

Problems and Solutions for American Political Coverage

Drawing on Shoemaker and her colleagues’ five levels of analysis, i.e. the individual, routine, organization, institutional, and social system levels, this study examines news media’s post-election self-examination. This study uses natural language processing-related techniques to analyze a corpus of news articles published 10 days after the election day to understand the nature and distribution of identified problems and proposed solutions at the five levels. This study finds that news media's inward reflections focused more on the routine level while problems at individual and organizational levels were not prominently examined. Outwardly, more discussions were pointed to institutions that share the media ecosystem with the news industry. This study serves as an empirical contribution to metajournalistic discourse analysis. Findings reveal the discursive struggle to construct and reconstruct the journalistic field.

Sourcing Patterns Within British And American Newspaper Coverage of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution: The Rise of Non-Elite Primary Definers

Previous studies have noted the dominance of official sources within the news process and their unique ability to shape media narratives. This research addresses the role and implications of news sources in contributing to the overwhelmingly positive portrayal of the anti-Mubarak opposition protesters within British and American newspaper coverage of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Furthermore, this paper will assess how the position of global political elites towards the protests in Egypt possibly opened up the editorial space within the news coverage of the revolution for the anti-Mubarak opposition movement to emerge as the dominant voice within the reporting.

Culture and comparative media research: Narratives about Internet privacy policy in Chinese, U.S., and UK newspapers

ABSTRACTThis article compares American, British, and Chinese news coverage of Internet privacy policies. Specifically, we examine media discourse about the “real-name” policies established by Facebook and Weibo. We find that U.S. and UK news coverage of Internet privacy policy is broadly similar, when compared with the more authoritarian–corporatist media system in China. British and U.S. newspapers were much more independent from state control, and were able to maintain a more critical stance than the Chinese newspapers. But there were additional factors that shaped the patterns in news discourse in complicated ways, which are related to (a) the difference between domestic and international news genres, (b) specific narratives about national identity, and (c) more general discourses about civil society, democracy, and the public good. We suggest that the range of comparative media research can be extended by paying attention to how these cultural factors interact with media system dynamics.

Covering foreign news – intensity and topics: the case of the American coverage of Israel 1981–2013

ABSTRACTWhat is covered (and what is not covered) by the media can shape the way the public perceives an issue. This is especially important with regards to foreign events where most people have little knowledge and are therefore dependent on the media for information. Most existing work on coverage of foreign issues focuses on events and therefore fails to assess coverage over time. The current study offers a more systematic analysis of news coverage in the US by examining the coverage of one country – Israel – over three decades (1981–2013): Analysing the intensity of the coverage and the topics discussed. The findings indicate that events have a significant impact on foreign news coverage. We suggest that this pattern of coverage may have an important effect on how Americans view Israel and the Arab–Israeli conflict and their attitudes about it.

Connecting to food: cultivating children in the school garden

School gardens are widely celebrated as spaces to promote health and sustainability by connecting children with their food. While scholars have assessed the effects of gardening in practice, media discourses play a key role in constituting this site. This paper examines how the school garden is discursively constituted within American and Canadian newspaper coverage. The analysis reveals specific forms of connection that are said to flourish in the school garden: between food production and consumption, between bodies and knowledge, and between the urban child and nature. While all children are said to benefit from connecting with their food, these connections are articulated differently in relation to particular bodies and spaces, evident in racialized and classed narratives of stewardship and salvation. As children’s relationship to food is invested with the hopes and fears of collective futures, the discursive construction of the school garden provides crucial insights into contemporary understandings of childhood.

Transatlantic Dimensions of the Congo Reform Movement, 1904–1908

The Congo Reform Association (CRA) was part of a transnational humanitarian movement that sought to end Leopold II’s hold on the Congo Free State (CFS). Whilst the CRA’s effective lobbying of the British government and the existence of an American counterpart are well known, the transnational channels of communication of these activists have rarely been investigated. This article examines how campaigners were able to organize their protests in both Great Britain and the USA between 1904 and 1908 – the most active period in the campaign for reform. It will consider the ways in which the reformers communicated with each other and co-ordinated their efforts. The article analyses how British campaigning on the Congo issue affected American activism and coverage of the atrocities in King Leopold’s Congo. By also examining the American reception of key literature published by British campaigners, the article shows that the process towards launching a transnational movement was often fraught with tensions over the direction of the movement and the clashes that arose between activists over how their own personal missions aligned with the movement’s overall goal.

Developing terrorism coverage: variances in news framing of the January 2015 attacks in Paris and Borno

Written news coverage of an event influences public perception and understanding of that event. Through agenda setting and news framing, journalists control the importance and substance of readers’ beliefs about the event. While existing research has been conducted on the relationship between media coverage and the geographic location of the country an event took place in, there is limited understanding of this relationship in terms of terrorist events. Utilising an agenda-setting theory and news framing theory lens to compare news coverage of the January 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, France, and Borno, Nigeria revealed significant variances in the overall coverage, headline style and discourse usage based on the event. In particular, the American news coverage positively framed France through detailed, sympathetic coverage and negatively framed Nigeria by overgeneralising and placing blame. Determining the origin and impacts of these variances is integral to forming a more comprehensive understanding of international terrorism and the most effective ways to combat it.

The view from above (and below): A comparison of American, British, and Arab news coverage of US drones

In recent years, the United States has significantly expanded its use of drone warfare. Experts are divided: some defend drones as a legal, effective way to target terrorists while others suggest drones are inaccurate and contribute to anti-Americanism. In addition, international public opinion differs starkly with Americans largely supportive of the program while publics across the globe condemn it. Suspecting news coverage might play a pivotal role in these differences, the authors explored the framing of the US drone program in American, British, and Arab news coverage. Consistent with research on social identity theory and ethnocentrism in news, they find that US coverage was more likely to frame the policy favorably – emphasizing its legality, strategic value and technological sophistication while downplaying civilian deaths – while British and, to a greater extent, Arab coverage was more critical. The authors discuss how these findings build on existing theory and explore the implications for US drone policy.

Foreign Affairs, Domestic Attention: Explaining American Media Coverage of the European Financial Crisis*

ObjectiveWe explain how economic and political predictors shaped levels of American media coverage of the European financial crisis between 2008 and 2012.MethodsWe link exchange rates, unemployment rates, inflation, trade, protests, votes of no confidence, elections, and U.S. presidential remarks with financial crisis stories produced by The New York Times, the Associated Press, and television newscasts. Error‐correction modeling is utilized to determine whether relationships exist contemporaneously and across future months.ResultsWe find evidence across multiple models that changes in the exchange rate and elections shaped levels of media coverage. We find some evidence that votes of no confidence, protests, change in unemployment, and presidential remarks matter as well.ConclusionA combination of economic change, specific political events, and broader newsworthiness norms journalists utilize in determining which stories are worthy of attention drove American coverage of the European financial crisis.

Design and Optimization of a Single-Layer Planar Transmit-Receive Contoured Beam Reflectarray With Enhanced Performance

This paper presents the design and optimization of a 1.2-meters single-layer planar contoured beam reflectarray in Ku-band. The reflectarray is optimized to fulfill the requirements of a Direct Broadcast Satellite mission, which covers a South American coverage in both transmit and receive frequency bands for dual linear polarization. The reflectarray is designed using a direct optimization approach where all the array elements are optimized simultaneously, thus resulting in a design with enhanced performance compared to designs obtained using a phase-only optimization approach. The reflectarray fulfills all the coverage requirements in both transmit and receive frequency bands and the performance is validated by means of full-wave Method of Moments simulations.

Reflectarray Antennas for Dual Polarization and Broadband Telecom Satellite Applications

A reflectarray antenna with improved performance is proposed to operate in dual-polarization and transmit-receive frequencies in Ku-band for broadcast satellite applications. The reflectarray element contains two orthogonal sets of four coplanar parallel dipoles printed on two surfaces, each set combining lateral and broadside coupling. A 40-cm prototype has been designed, manufactured, and tested. The lengths of the coupled dipoles in the reflectarray cells have been optimized to produce a collimated beam in dual polarization in the transmit and receive bands. The measured radiation patterns confirm the high performance of the antenna in terms of bandwidth (27%), low losses, and low levels of cross polarization. Some preliminary simulations at 11.95 GHz for a 1.2-m antenna with South American coverage are presented to show the potential of the proposed antenna for spaceborne antennas in Ku-band.

Peace journalism case study: US media coverage of the Iraq War

This article examines Johan Galtung’s concept of peace journalism. First it examines the fields out of which peace journalism was born – peace studies and conflict analysis – and the current viability of this framework. These theories are then applied to a case study of the American coverage of the war in Iraq, itemizing and explaining each of the peace journalism tenets and contrasting them with the dominant style of war reporting.

From Drug Mule to Miss America: American Exceptionalism and the Commodification of the “Other” Woman in María Full of Grace

Commenting on his motivations for his movie Maria Full of Grace (2004), director and writer Joshua Marston explains that he intended to make an educational movie about people who are engaged in international drug trafficking and about dangers that such work entails.1 His choice to depict Colombia's drug industry echoes his deep interest in world politics, Colombia's forty-year civil war and guerilla wars, and country's stagnant economy. With Marston's advocacy of issues in world politics and human rights, HBO, movie's US distributor, continues to add diversity to its playbill.2 Still, despite these noble intentions of promoting issues of Third World countries, movie only partly succeeds in its attempt to humanize drug mule.3 This becomes evident from general response movie received from American viewers: while many are positively captivated by movie, attention of their enamored attachment to movie almost exclusively focuses on Catalina Sandino Moreno, young Colombian actress who plays role of Maria. While her convincing performance certainly aided in successful transference of movie's intended message about complicated entanglements that affect lives of transnational drug mules, ways in which many movie critics (professional and amateur) see in Moreno a representative of Colombia she depicts is rather troublesome.However, as this article argues, such resonance with audience is not entirely beyond Marston's control. On contrary, there are several instances in movie that invite audience to see in Moreno a spokesperson for Colombian social realities, and in Maria a 'windowsQ' into presumed alterity of other (Amireh and Majaj 2). One movie review makes a particularly problematic assumption about movie when it characterizes Maria Full of Grace as a portrayal of the enormous complexity of Hispanic life in America, especially of illegal variety (Brunette). Such is general tenor in responses Marston's movie has received from journalists and online bloggers alike.While this essay does not endorse such reviews, it addresses a selection of such responses for its investigation of degree to which Marston's movie itself suggests an objectified representation of Colombian female drug mules. Such representation, it seems, appears to resonate with American audience more than careful crafting and sensitive gaze with which Marston approaches subject of his film. It is therefore particularly interesting to examine in what way movie objectifies Colombian women by appropriating Colombia as stereotypical global South. Taking its cue from recent discussions in transnational feminism, this essay analyzes a recurrent dilemma in Western representations of Third World through images of woman to emphasize difference between First and Third World for an ultimate projection of American supremacy.Third World Women on American TV-ScreensRecent US feminist culture criticism has increasingly shown interest in transnational feminist issues,4 most particularly in orientalist and essentialist over-generalizations of Third World cultures that US academia, popular culture, and mass media have produced when attempting representations of Third World women.5 Recognizing danger of such generalizations, Rey Chow offers two useful concepts for a critical evaluation of Western mass media's depiction of the other country. In her critique of American coverage of crisis of late 1980s, Chow refers to a sensationalist interest of Western audiences that manifests itself in what she calls watching. Symptomatic of China watching, specifies Chow, are detailed accounts in which US mass media depicts Chinese government as controlling and ruthless, and portrays protesters without respecting their right to anonymity (Third World 83). The second concept, King Kong syndrome, which Chow defines as intricately connected to sensationalism that is at center of China watching (Third World 84), echoes Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's contention that Third World is often depicted as a site of raw materials that invoke monstrosity, which appears in contrast to First World both as entertainment and as evidence for persisting, Western notion of cultural elevation (In Other Worlds 90). …

Communities of interpretation: euthanasia and assisted suicide debate

Informed by the theories of social construction of reality and social movement, this study examined how medical journals, the publications of social movement organizations, and newspapers portrayed Jack Kevorkian in the physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and euthanasia debate. The views of core general medical journals from the United Kingdom and the United States, newsletters of pro- and anti-PAS/euthanasia groups, and local and national American newspaper coverage of Kevorkian were explored. Overall, the findings show that the voices of these different communities converged in some areas of their coverage of Kevorkian. The British medical journals (the British Medical Journal and The Lancet) and a pro-PAS/euthanasia group (the Hemlock Society) shared themes mainly with the New York Times, whereas the American journals (the Journal of the American Medical Association and New England Journal of Medicine) and an anti-PAS/euthanasia group (the International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force) shared themes mainly with the Detroit News.