Broadcast News Media Research Articles

International perspective of Twitter as a source of information in newsroom and mainstream media in Pakistan. An Analytical Study

Mainstream media in Pakistan is entering the new phase of journalism by the proliferation of social media in society. Twitter is considered as the source of news in the newsroom of traditional media houses. For the study, all mainstream media houses were surveyed all over Pakistan. The data is collected from six different traditional news media organizations in Pakistan including print and broadcast news media. The study analyzes the usage of Twitter for news production and information gathering over 200 journalists in Pakistan. The study is quantitative and SPSS is used for data analysis. Journalists are likely to use Twitter for news sources and information gathering. This study concluded that journalists are not fully relying on the obtained information from Twitter. They are more likely to doubtful on the objectivity of tweets; they double-check the source by the traditional means

Islam, veiling & political agency: the visual performativity of Palestinian female suicide bombers in broadcast news media

ABSTRACT As suicide bombers during the Second Intifada of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestinian females reflected a sustained involvement in political activism dating back to the early-20th century. However, as suicide bombers, Palestinian females gained considerable notoriety in Western media discourse because of their gendered participation. This not only challenges the use of their female bodies for destructive, rather than reproductive, purposes but also long-held orientalist discourse propagating the alleged-oppression of non-Western females in historic and contemporary Western literature, including via the practice of veiling. Despite martyrdom videos contextually locating these females within political violence, their veiled appearance challenged orientalist discourse concerning their gendered participatory agency. Examining U.K. and U.S. broadcast news media, this article seeks to assess the presence of traditionally orientalist frameworks in Palestinian female suicide bombers’ coverage and whether or not these contribute toward a de-legitimization of their political agency, via discourse surrounding representations of their allegedly oppressed female bodies.

Reporting the unsayable: Scandalous talk by right-wing populist politicians and the challenge for journalism

This paper focuses on the moral work of journalism as displayed and enacted in the reporting practices used in news coverage of scandalous talk by right-wing populist (RWP) politicians. Using a qualitative discourse-analytic approach, we analyze a set of cases of journalistic framing of RWP talk recently circulating in Sweden, Greece, France and the UK, and examine ways in which anti-democratic or racist talk is represented within print, online and broadcast news media. We show how the complex dynamics of different kinds of discursive framing of scandalous talk construct boundaries between right and wrong which contribute to processes of normalising populist discourses and agendas. Moreover, we call attention to the challenge that this poses for contemporary journalism both within public service and commercial networks, as reporting on right-wing populism involves a balancing act between disparate constraints and exigencies of journalism.

Exploring media framing of abortion content on Kenyan television: a qualitative study protocol

BackgroundMedia framing of abortion messages is an emerging field of research. However, little is known about how the news media frames abortion messages aimed at influencing adolescents’ reproductive health choices. This study therefore seeks to investigate the framing of abortion in TV news items on three leading Kenyan TV outlets over a period of 3 years, understand Kenyan journalists’ perceptions and experiences with abortion coverage, and to examine adolescents’ perceptions and experiences with abortion coverage on Kenyan televised news media.MethodsThis qualitative study which will be conducted in two sites-Nairobi and Uasin Gishu counties-in Kenya will purposively sample abortion news items from three leading media outlets aired between January 2016 to December 2019, for content analysis. Additionally, 12 journalists (9 reporters, 3 news editors) will be purposively sampled for Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) on journalist framing of abortion messages. Finally, convenience sampling will be used to select approximately 48 university-going adolescents for four Focus Group Discussions (FGDs)-2 female, 2 male- aimed at examining adolescents’ perceptions and experiences with abortion coverage in the broadcast news media. The KIIs and FGDs will be audio-recorded, transcribed and translated. These data will be analyzed thematically.DiscussionThis study moves beyond interrogating only media items to further exploring framing from the perspectives of media consumers and investigations in the process behind production of abortion messages. The study interrogates abortion messages aimed at younger demographics such as adolescents as well as the gendered differences of the effects of these abortion messages, an area barely explored. The study findings will be informative to those who wish to develop media that could be used to promote safe abortion as well as advocate for sexual reproductive health rights, especially among adolescents.

Martyrdom and the Myth of Motherhood: U.K. broadcast news media’s agential construction of Palestinian female suicide bombers during the Second Intifada (2000-2005)

ABSTRACT During the Second Intifada of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, female-perpetrated suicide bombings emerged as a new proponent of political violence during this phase of Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. Prior academic literature demonstrates the gendered nature of these acts—based upon wider debates concerning the male relationship with conflict—as key in predominantly Western print news media analyses of these female bombers’ coverage. Examining the widely unexamined medium of broadcast news, this article addresses the extent to which BBC News and ITV News embrace the “Myth of Motherhood” to communicate the Palestinian female body’s performative status. Via a postcolonial framework, analyses of applied natural (“Vacant Womb”) and unnatural (“Deviant Womb”) biological frameworks shall address whether constructions of Palestinian female suicide bombers’ allegedly deviant femininity impact upon representations of their political agency.

Spread of health-related fake news in Tamil social media - A pilot study

Introduction: Fake news is a type of propaganda that consists of deliberate misinformation or hoaxes spread through traditional print and broadcast news media or online social media. Fake news concerning health subject is not a new phenomenon - its roots are probably as old as healthcare itself. Aim: This study aims to measure the volume of shares concerning health-related fake news in Tamil language social media. Materials and Methods: Analysis was performed employing the BuzzFeed Enterprise Application available through its website. BuzzFeed is a social media analytics and curation tool for content marketers. The data were obtained for 15 most commonly shared pages concerning four keywords, namely vaccinations, oral cancer, gum disease, and dental caries from May 1, 2018, to May 15, 2018, in Tamil language, the local vernacular. Results: The topic most contaminated with fake news was vaccinations (80%) followed by oral cancer and gum disease (both in 60%). Altogether, links containing fake news were shared 272 times in 15 days and accounted for 40% of the studied material. Conclusion: Action could be taken to scientifically evaluate sources of the most frequently shared medical myths. As shown above, some topics were generally free of fake news, whereas others were extremely biased and filled with fallacies. Thus, an extensive educational campaign (not only in social media) for the latter should be implemented.

Spread of health-related fake news in Tamil social media - A pilot study

Introduction: Fake news is a type of propaganda that consists of deliberate misinformation or hoaxes spread through traditional print and broadcast news media or online social media. Fake news concerning health subject is not a new phenomenon - its roots are probably as old as healthcare itself. Aim: This study aims to measure the volume of shares concerning health-related fake news in Tamil language social media. Materials and Methods: Analysis was performed employing the BuzzFeed Enterprise Application available through its website. BuzzFeed is a social media analytics and curation tool for content marketers. The data were obtained for 15 most commonly shared pages concerning four keywords, namely vaccinations, oral cancer, gum disease, and dental caries from May 1, 2018, to May 15, 2018, in Tamil language, the local vernacular. Results: The topic most contaminated with fake news was vaccinations (80%) followed by oral cancer and gum disease (both in 60%). Altogether, links containing fake news were shared 272 times in 15 days and accounted for 40% of the studied material. Conclusion: Action could be taken to scientifically evaluate sources of the most frequently shared medical myths. As shown above, some topics were generally free of fake news, whereas others were extremely biased and filled with fallacies. Thus, an extensive educational campaign (not only in social media) for the latter should be implemented.

Introspection into the Battle over Broadcast Regulations in India

Across the world, media entities are subjected to regulations following the universal perception that media content and media operations radically influence political debate, social policies and economic growth. This is accompanied by the tension of how to regulate the media and how to secure a free independent media on the other. Though regulation of the media content can take on several forms ranging from direct control of the government, guidelines from the industry associations, pressure from advertisers or suggestions by the civil society groups, it is normally aimed at protecting the public from perceived harm, or with enriching their knowledge or appreciation of culture. In India, the state has zealously guarded its control over broadcast news media, however, the emergence of new stakeholders in the postliberalization era has resulted in a complex mesh of regulatory controls. This paper traces the historical context of the broadcast regulatory framework in India and explores the various sites of contestations between the various stakeholders, particularly the state and the broadcasters, with specific reference to news on television.

Women managers, leaders and the media gaze

Purpose The purpose of this special issue is to extend the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (ESRC)-funded UK seminar series–Challenging Gendered Media (Mis)Representations of Women Professionals and Leaders; and to highlight research into the gendered media constructions of women managers and leaders and outline effective methods and methodologies into diverse media. Design/methodology/approach Gendered analysis of television, autobiographies (of Sheryl Sandberg, Karren Brady, Hillary Clinton and Julia Gillard), broadcast news media and media press through critical discourse analysis, thematic analysis, metaphor and computer-aided text analysis software following the format of the Gender Media Monitoring Project (2015) and [critical] ecological framework for advancing social change. Findings The papers surface the gendered nature of media constructions of women managers and leaders and offer methods and methodologies for others to follow to interrogate gendered media. Further, the papers discuss – how women’s leadership is glamourized, fetishized and sexualized; the embodiment of leadership for women; how popular culture can subvert the dominant gaze; how women use agency and how powerful gendered norms shape perceptions, discourses and norms and how these are resisted, repudiated and represented. Practical implications The papers focus upon how the media constructs women managers and leaders and offer implications of how media influences and is influenced by practice. There are recommendations provided as to how the media could itself be organized differently to reflect diverse audiences, and what can be done to challenge gendered media. Social implications Challenging gendered media representations of women managers and leaders is critical to social justice and equality for women in management and leadership. Originality/value This is an invited Special Issue comprising inaugural collection of research through which we get to “see” women and leaders and the gendered media gaze and to learn from research into popular culture through analysis of television, autobiographies and media press.

Competing for coverage

This paper reports on findings from a research project conducted on behalf of the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) examining the portrayal of female athletes in the Australian news media. While the project as a whole includes analyses of both print and broadcast news media, we focus here on findings concerning the reporting on sportswomen in print newspapers. Using social semiotic tools for investigating ideational/representational and interpersonal/interactional meanings in language and images, qualitative analyses of both the headlines and photographs are reported on. The findings suggest that Australian sportswomen are now treated both verbally and visually as serious athletes who are very much in control of their emotions. However, the extent of this coverage remains greatly impoverished in comparison to that for male athletes. Keywords: Australian sports reporting; text-image relations; female athletes; multimodality; evaluation

Canadian media coverage of Chinese news: a cross-platform comparison at the national, local, and hyper-local levels

This study examines the way that China is portrayed by the Canadian news media at the national, local, and hyper-local levels, and across multiple media formats. With an average of over 40,000 new immigrants per year – a number that has seen rapid growth since the 1980s – Chinese are Canada's second largest immigrant group. As a result, identifying the topics and issues that receive news coverage is key to understanding the role that the media at every level play in shaping cultural discourse and contributing to notions of national identity. Using samples from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Toronto Star, and Ming Pao, this analysis compares the coverage presented by mainstream broadcast news media and their online counterparts, as well as the coverage provided by a local newspaper with national reach and a hyper-local Chinese-language newspaper.

Reading Difficulty Level of Medical Resources on Television Web Sites

ABSTRACT Mass media plays a critical role in communicating health messages to the public. Local television stations are posting more health content on the Web; however, the difficulty level of this information has not been evaluated. Study objectives were to assess the content of health stories on local television Web sites, and to evaluate the reading level of these health messages. The top three health articles from 79 local television news Web pages were selected for analysis. Readability was assessed using SMOG, Flesch-Kincaid (FK), and Flesch Reading Ease (FRE). A total of 278 articles were located over a two-day search. The majority of stories were national (47.0%) and educational (48.0%) pieces. Fewer articles were breaking news (19.8%). More articles focused on both prevention and treatment (30.6%) rather than on prevention (21.6%) or treatment (21.2%) alone. Mean readability was at a senior high school level according to SMOG (Grade 11.9) and FK (Grade 10.3). Overall FRE was 51.6, implying a “fairly difficult” reading style. As broadcast news media mobilizes viewers toward online health content, they must consider the difficulty of the information and literacy abilities of their audience.

Observations From the Mayo Clinic National Conference on Medicine and the Media

In September 2002, the Mayo Clinic National Conference on Medicine and the Media convened to consider the accurate, timely, and responsible reporting of medical news to the public. The more than 500 participants included medical and health journalists, scientific journal editors, physicians and other health care professionals, industry representatives, government officials, institutional public information officers, public relations professionals, patients, and representatives of patient advocacy groups. The goal of the conference was to bring together all facets of the medical news dissemination process with the hope of identifying ways to serve the public more effectively. Several key observations emerged: Medical news reports may be confusing because the underlying scientific issues are unresolved and open to multiple interpretations. People who are ill have different information needs than the rest of the public. Journalists' primary concern is accurate, clear reporting, with secondary concern for a story's consequences. Journalists consider themselves primarily reporters rather than educators, but the public expects reporting to contain an educational element. Financial and other more subtle interests may influence the quality and content of scientific news releases, presentations in scientific journals, and stories covered by print and broadcast news media. Full disclosure of commercial support and affiliations, peer review of study reports, and formal guidelines for conduct may limit inappropriate financial influence.

Communication, Context, and Community

This research explores the influence of mass media use and community context on civic engagement. The article presents a multilevel test of print, broadcast, and Internet effects on interpersonal trust and civic participation that acknowledges there are (a) micro-level differences in the motives underlying media use, (b) age-cohort differences in patterns of media use and levels of civic engagement, and (c) macro-level differences in community / communication context. Accordingly, the effects of individual differences in media use and aggregate differences in community context are analyzed within generational subsamples using a pooled data set developed from the 1998 and 1999 DDB Life Style Studies. The data suggest that informational uses of mass media are positively related to the production of social capital, whereas social-recreational uses are negatively related to these civic indicators. Informational uses of mass media were also found to interact with community context to influence civic engagement. Analyses within subsamples find that among the youngest adult Americans, use of the Internet for information exchange more strongly influences trust in people and civic participation than do uses of traditional print and broadcast news media.

Furor Erupts Over Study On Sexual Orientation

Furor Erupts Over Study On Sexual Orientation

THE MAGNIFICATION AND MINIMIZATION OF SOCIAL CLEAVAGES BY THE BROADCAST AND NARROWCAST NEWS MEDIA

This paper provides an empirical test of the argument that the broadcast newsmedia help create a ‘national’ public opinion and mute localized opinion rooted insociodemographic characteristics. Using Canadian data, we provide evidence that major social cleavages are reduced as exposure to the broadcast media goes up. However, we also provide evidence that exposure to media directed toward segmented aaudiences exacerbates social cleavages. We conclude by speculating that public opinion may become more polarized around sociodemographic cleavages as narrowcast media become more dominant and we suggest that this has implications for the study of media effects using survey research.

Rhetoric and the Spread of the Discourse of Thatcherism

This paper puts forward a model of processes of discourse and rhetoric as a way of understanding the attempt of Thatcherism to create a new common sense in British society. The theoretical model is first presented. This includes a notion of the role of a special type of rhetoric (consisting of key words and formulaic phrases) in discursive processes and a notion of the active part played by language users in reproducing and transforming discourses. The aim is to draw a link between macro-processes of social and cultural change and micro-processes of everyday language use. The roots of the rhetoric in the genre of the everyday world facilitate take-up by the mass media and the public and thus the penetration of the discourse of Thatcherism into the language of individual language users. The empirical study which is then presented focuses on the role of one key word, choice, in reproducing and restructuring the discourse of Thatcherism in different sociopolitical domains: official Conservative Party texts and official Labour Party texts (speeches by Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet members to the Annual Party Conferences in 1991), print and broadcast news media (news coverage of the Conferences), the arguments of grass-roots Labour Party members (1991) and grass-roots Conservative Party members (1991 and 1992). It was found that in all the domains studied, the discourse of Thatcherism was reproduced and transformed through the selective use by language users of choice in collocation with other rhetorical terms. A degree of resistance to the discourse was also found. The paper concludes with a short account of the fate of Thatcherist discourse in the UK since the time of the study.

Disseminating government information: Appropriate roles for the government and the private sector: A viewpoint

The United States information industry in general uses federal information to create products that meet the endlessly varied needs of the American people and that contribute to human welfare around the globe. Information publishing is one of a diminishing number of technology-intensive industries in which the United States enjoys an unrivaled primacy. One key to American strength in this area is our open system of government and the ready access to government information that so strikingly distinguishes the United States from many other societies. Americans’ access to government information is protected by the Freedom of Information Act and by the unqualified statement in U.S. copyright law that “Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government” [ 11. Further, these protections secure the basic conditions for access through a diversity of sources, both public and proprietary. A long tradition of a vigorous free press has provided the United States with the legal and cultural foundations for the development in this century of a flourishing information industry. This diversified group of enterprises includes the print and broadcast news media, book and periodical publishers, film/video production and distribution companies, electronic database publishers, information retrieval firms, and many others. The preponderance of information essential for the defense of freedom, for specific and technological advances, for economic progress, and for making choices about society’s future either originates with or is processed and distributed by the information industry. In this country, information that enables citizens to conduct their daily national life is placed in public circulation largely by means of private distribution. In all too many other countries, the legal sources and distributors of information are almost exclusively governmental. In those countries one almost always finds that the credibility of government-distributed information is low. Moreover, under such conditions, alternative information distribution systems generally spring up surreptitiously to satisfy the demand for information that people value and in which they can place their trust. In the United States, public dialogue is basically what it seems to be. Issues are addressed in a relatively straightforward manner. When they are controversial, the public is generally exposed to a variety of fully articulated viewpoints in various media. There may be conflicting information in circulation, but the competing claims for truth are made and

The Fate of Joint Public-Private Planning for Child Health in North Carolina

yaas N March 19, 1979, Governor James Hunt of North Carolina presented to the public A Child Health Planfor (\ 2Raising a New Generation, the culmination of more than a year of effort on the part of the North Carolina ' Department of Human Resources (DHR) and the North 4>e.q Q.0* A Carolina Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics/North Carolina Pediatric Society. Coming on the heels of State House and Senate passage of similar versions of the Governor's "New Generation" legislation, A Child Health Plan seemed the next step in a series of expectations which promised significant advances on behalf of children, especially poor children, in the state. When the compromise New Generation Bill-Senate Bill 389-was ratified onJune 7, 1979, none of its many supporters anticipated the deluge of criticism soon to be released. New Generation uproar filled the sights and sounds of printed and broadcast news media. Yet, while requiring cooperation among agencies serving children at the state level, it neither mandated any action at the local level nor required any appropriation of funds. The critical reaction seemed clearly out of proportion to the real impact of the bill. This paper will describe some of the actors and events of this complicated but eminently political drama, one which has implications for similar initiatives on behalf of mothers and children at the national level.