Evening News Programs Research Articles

US network evening news portrayal of the new South Africa

This study sought to understand how political changes in South Africa have affected coverage by the US network evening news programs between 1990 and 1996. A content analysis of abstracts from the Vanderbilt Television News Archive was done, continuing earlier work by Giffard & Cohen (1990) on coverage of South Africa from 1982–1987. The concern with lack of representation of international stories and with negative presentation of developing countries in US nightly news was investigated. The study found a steady decrease in coverage of violence, and an increase in coverage of government activities. Upon examining gender, political affiliation, and occupation of the sources in the stories, we also found a lack of diversity of sources in South African coverage. Overall, a gulf was identified between the actual situation and how it is portrayed.

News time allocation in network crisis coverage: The case of TWA flight 847

Abstract This study examines the network news coverage of the TWA hijacking of June 1985 with the objective of identifying possible network differences through a more rigorous analysis of network performance than found in earlier studies. The analysis focuses on news time allocation and network performance at several stages of the event to determine possible differences in topical emphasis. A total of 491 hostage stories broadcast on ABC, CBS, and NBC's evening news programs are content‐analyzed. The percentages of news hole time devoted to the crisis coverage are compared across networks on a day‐by‐day and on a stage‐by‐stage basis. One major finding is that the networks exhibited homogeneous news treatment in that they allocated similar percentage of news hole time to each of the five topic categories either by day or by stage. An analysis of topical emphasis suggests that the networks emphasized a domestic angle in covering an international crisis.

Parties, leaders, and issues: Images of Britain's changing party system in television news coverage of the 1983 and 1987 general election campaigns

Abstract This article compares election campaign news on Britain's flagship main evening news programs in the 1983 and 1987 general election campaigns, to assess how election news changed in response to developments in Britain's political communication system. Content analysis shows that British election campaign news in 1987 remains heavily focused on the substantive issues, such as the economy and social welfare, while paying much less attention to the polls and the “horserace.” The main political parties continue to retain a great deal of influence over the subjects of election news stories. In 1987, the parties were even more successful in initiating favorable visuals. Campaign news in 1987 was also more heavily focused on the party leaders than in 1983. These changes in news content are in part due to the unprecedented efforts of the political parties in 1987 to run highly professional campaigns. The study provides a baseline by which to assess the influence of the commercialization of broadcasting on the coverage of future elections.

Graphic Forms in Network Television News

This study compares different forms of graphics—such as symbols, film, video and still photographs—used by CBS, ABC and NBC in 430 stories sampled in 1988. There were 674 graphics used by the networks in these stories, an average of 25 per evening news program. A total of 78% of the stories used some kind of visual, with ABC using more visuals than the other two networks. The study speculates on the potential influence of graphics in such areas as agenda-setting.

A televised, self-help, cigarette smoking cessation intervention

A televised, self-help cigarette smoking cessation intervention was conducted and evaluated. During the 20-day program, reports were broadcast daily on the evening news programs of the local affiliate station of a national television network. Two samples of smokers who requested self-help manuals were interviewed by telephone immediately following the conclusion of the program and again 3 months later concerning their demographic characteristics, participation in the program, and smoking and quitting experiences. In one sample heavier smokers who expressed a greater desire to quit were more likely to participate in the program and, at the three-month followup, 21% reported being abstinent compared to 10% of those who did not participate. Smokers in the other sample were invited to attend three weekly support meetings during the program. More of those who attended meetings (35%) reported quitting during the program than those who did not attend (23%), but this difference did not persist for 3 months. A greater percentage of the meeting sample (27%) than the other sample (21%) reported abstinence initially, but this difference did not persist for three months either. Intervention outcomes are compared with several standards.

Two Worlds: International Coverage on the ABC and SBS TV Evening News

There has been a massive recent increase in the flow of international news film into Australia. This paper examines the presentation of international news, particularly African and South Pacific news, on the ABC, Hobart and SBS, Sydney TV evening news programs. The ABC receives more than 5 hours of international news-film daily, but this is allotted a relatively minor role in the ABC evening news program. During the period 1-29 November 1987, there was an average of 3.17 international news items per program on the ABC. Over the same period. the SBS program averaged 17 such items. Not surprisingly the ABC and SBS programs project contrasting images of the world beyond Australia.

Soviet media in the age of glasnost

This paper reports a content analysis of Pravda, the chief organ of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, and Vremya, the main evening news program of Soviet television, in early 1987. The analysis included a range of descriptive variables such as geographic location, main topic, source, etc., as well as variables appropriate to the concept of glasnost or openness and coverage of the United States. The quantitative analysis and supporting qualitative analysis indicated some changes in Soviet news media, particularly in television, but criticism of Soviet officials and activities is still limited, and coverage of the United States is uniformly critical. Glasnost may be revolutionary by Soviet standards, but Western readers and viewers will find Soviet media in the age of glasnost more like Soviet media in the old days than Western media. Western readers and viewers are, therefore, cautioned against expecting Western-style news reporting and criticism.

A model of audience choice of local TV news program

This paper presents and validates a model of audience choice of local TV evening news programs. The model is derived from a model of individual viewer choice behavior that specifies a viewer's probability of choosing a particular news program as a function of the viewer's relative preference toward that program. The audience model is operationalized using a multinomial logit model. This specification is estimated and found to perform well. Implications of the model for management of TV stations and advertisers are discussed.

Political news on television: A reconsideration of audience orientations

This study was a systematic attempt to determine and explain the range of use and avoidance orientations that people have to presidential campaign coverage on television network evening news programs. Previous research shows a dependency on a limited range of gratifications measured. Our attempts to understand the role of gratifications in media effects may be subverted by a failure to explore more diligently the range of gratifications relevant to political communication. The results indicated that some of the more latent, socially awkward, and possibly systemically dysfunctional gratifications can be articulated by respondents and, more importantly, can be understood empirically. Political interest, communication exposure, demographic, psychological involvement (in politics), and political activity variables are used to explain six orientations to political news: (1) Avoidance, (2) Conversation, (3) Para‐Social Guidance, (4) Issue Guidance, (5) Entertainment, and (6) Selectivity. The results illuminate latent characteristics of orientations found in earlier research. Especially important is a clarification of the traditional concept of surveillance which is provided in a distinction between para‐social and issue vote guidance.

Imitative Suicides: A National Study of the Effects of Television News Stories

A 1974 ASR paper by Phillips showed that suicides increase in the month of highly publicized suicide stories. Several subsequent papers have built on this finding and have suggested that publicized suicide stories trigger increases in covert suicides disguised as motor vehicle or airplane accidents. If the original ASR findings cannot be replicated, then doubt is cast on all these studies. In this paper we demonstrate that U.S. daily suicides increase significantly after highly publicized suicide stories appear on television evening news programs. We provide the first evidence that the increase in suicides occurs only after and not before the suicide story. In addition, we provide the first systematic study of the length of time a suicide story affects suicides; the effect probably does not extend beyond ten days. These findings support and extend the literature on imitative suicides.

GRATIFICATIONS SOUGHT AND OBTAINED IN PROGRAM DEPENDENCY

This study examined the role of gratifications sought (GS) and gratifications obtained (GO) in predicting dependency on network evening news programs and 60 Minutes. Correlational analyses for both network news programs and 60 Minutes showed GS to be most strongly correlated to corresponding GO and less strongly correlated to noncorresponding GO. For both network news programs and 60 Minutes, paired group t-tests showed that mean GS levels were lower than the mean GO levels for all corresponding gratification items except for two surveillance items. Considerable promise for an additive transactional model was seen in the hierarchical multiple regression analyses which showed the added influence of GO in predicting dependency on network news programs and 60 Minutes after the ordered effects of demographic variables, habitual media use, and GS had been controlled for.

Polls in the Media: Content, Credibility, and Consequences

This paper makes an exploratory attempt to answer that question. We examined every poll reported on the NBC and CBS evening news programs and in the New York Times during the years 1973, 1975, and 1977. We chose these particular years in order to avoid the abundance of election-related polls which litter the media during presidential election years and would skew the data. We selected NBC and CBS because they attracted the largest audiences during the period studied. The New York Times aspires to be a national newspaper of record and still enjoys unmatched prestige and influence among elites and journalists. We shall discuss the number of polls and their subjects; to what extent the polls were depicted as reliable and treated as credible;

Some implications of compressed speech for broadcasters

Some years ago, when the time slot for the network evening news programs was being lengthened, one network published a promotion piece that demonstrated that the entire script of the typical newscast would only occupy a small portion of one page of a newspaper. It is well‐known that the average person can read silently at a rate much faster than he can real aloud. This fact is one of radio and television broadcasting's most annoying drawbacks. However, in the speech laboratories, there are experimental and developmental techniques that might enable the speech of an announcer or newsman to be “speeded up—compressed so that more words may be delivered in a shorter time. Obviously, the extent to which this can be done effectively and economically, and the reaction of the general public to compressed speech, is of some importance to broadcasters faced with a finite broadcasting day. Dr. Charles Rossiter is assistant professor in the Department of Communication of the University of Wisconsin‐Milwaukee.