Longitudinal Content Analysis Research Articles

The role of news content on Danish broadcasters' streaming services

Amidst the shift from linear TV to streaming, public-service media face the challenge of reconciling commercial competition with their public obligation of informing society. This longitudinal content analysis investigates the curation and platformization of news on the front pages of the video-on-demand services of two Danish broadcasters, DRTV and TV 2 Play. Sampling four days annually from 2020 to 2022, we take a longitudinal approach to assess news curation (i.e., positioning and accessibility on the front page) and news platformization (i.e., video length, hard vs. soft news composition, and prevalence of streaming-first content). We did not find strong evidence of platformization overall. A main difference between the broadcasters was in terms of curation, with DRTV consistently prioritizing the news deck, while TV 2 exhibited a declining trend over time. This study contributes valuable insights into the treatment of news by broadcasters within the evolving context of streaming services.

Historical Framing in The New York Times: A Plant's Tale

This longitudinal content analysis examines 128 articles containing the words hemp, hashish or marijuana appearing in the New York Times from 1851-1939, which starts at the publication’s inception and concludes with the decade of the Marijuana Tax Act’s passage. The research locates master framing of contentious issues by adapting previous computerized content analysis research to address historical documents unavailable for digital analysis. This study paints a more complete picture of one plant.

Identifying transitions in corporate sustainability reporting: a content analysis of JSE/FTSE multinational sustainability reports from 2016 to 2021

The dominant practice governing sustainability reporting in the private sector is that of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or Environmental Social Governance (ESG) reporting. CSR has its roots in philanthropy and charitable initiatives, while ESG aims to integrate environmental, social, and governance factors into business practices and decision-making. This paper analyses the transition in sustainability worldviews revealed in corporate sustainability reporting from 2016 to 2021. It uses a longitudinal content analysis methodology applied to a sample of ten multinational companies listed on the South African JSE/FTSE top 40 index. The period for the longitudinal study is framed from when the companies started reporting on ESG. The JSE/FTSE was chosen as the companies listed in the top 40 represent 80% of the value on the JSE (JSE 2020). The qualitative content analysis makes use of the five stages of corporate sustainability model to position companies’ sustainability reports within these five stages (Landrum & Ohsowski, 2018a). The key finding of this paper is that multinational companies have been slow to transition their sustainability reporting practices. The current reports reflect a business-as-usual mindset that is driven by compliance with reporting regulations. There is an absence of reporting that reflects a view of embedding business operations within bounded science-based ecological and social environments.

Corporate Tax Responsibility: Expectations of Implicit and Explicit CSR in the U.K. Media

Corporations have increasingly been called on to assume responsibilities for paying fairer shares of tax, while, at the same time, governments have been repeatedly urged to develop more effective corporate tax systems to tackle tax avoidance. Therefore, institutional attributions of tax responsibility for companies seem to have features of both explicit and implicit corporate social responsibility (CSR). However, given that we lack a clear understanding of which form or forms of CSR in relation to tax are expected of companies and how exactly this might be changing, we examine the evolution in institutional expectations of explicit and implicit CSR for corporate taxation. Drawing on a longitudinal content analysis of 992 news media articles from the United Kingdom between 2000 and 2021, we find that institutional expectations of corporate tax responsibility have followed a process of continuous and non-linear hybridization characterized by a pendulum-like trajectory of explicitization followed by implicitization. We discuss the implications of these findings for the theory and practice of corporate tax responsibility and the framework of explicit/implicit CSR.

Time-based Variability in the Presence of Infotainment, Service, and Civic Roles in Czech Quality Press

ABSTRACT Evidence on how journalistic role performance changes in time and in relation to which factors is largely missing. This study investigates the presence of civic, infotainment, and service roles in the news, and examines whether their presence varies in time given the worsening economic conditions on the press market and changes in ownership type. A longitudinal content analysis of a representative sample of news (N = 1871) published in four Czech quality dailies during three year-long periods (i.e., 2006–2007, 2011–2012, 2016–2017) was conducted. Bivariate analyses showed that the presence of the roles varied in time for all of the newspapers but to a relatively small extent. Ridge logistic regressions revealed that the presence of all three audience-related roles was associated with specific dailies and ownership types, but not with worsening economic conditions. As compared to privately-owned newspapers, likelihood for the presence of the service role was bigger in corporate-owned newspapers, and for the civic role it was bigger in oligarchic-owned newspapers. The findings suggest that corporate-owned dailies responded to worsening economic conditions by preferring a service role rather than an infotainment role, and that the effects of oligarchic ownership on journalism practice are complex and far from being straightforward.

Media representation of immigration in the Chilean written press during 2015–2019

ABSTRACT The current migration flows in Chile have undergone changes and transformations that have impacted the country and its public policies, which, in turn, has echoed in the media. By employing media framing and a longitudinal content analysis of the media corpus, the main objective of this article is to critically scrutinize media frames of immigration in Chilean local written press during 2015–2019. The analysis results demonstrate that the three newspapers represent immigration based on the statistical frames and public policies. The first frame places the phenomenon of immigration quantitatively, stating its existence and importance in terms of supposed massiveness. The second frame allows qualitatively characterizing the phenomenon, establishing it as a problem for the state regarding public policies. The study demonstrates little media pluralism in the corpus. It concludes that the three newspapers follow a similar media agenda on immigration by reproducing official speeches directly related to the dominant political agenda.

How Media Resources and Power Relations Define Critical Reporting in China: A Longitudinal Analysis of The Beijing News’ Corruption Coverage Between 2004 and 2018

ABSTRACT Critical reporting (piping-baodao) has long been considered one of the most important journalistic tools in China, exhibiting great democratic potential. However, the media environment for such reporting has become precarious over the past decade, raising the questions of how much space is left for critical reporting and how it is related to the media–state dynamics. Drawing on a 15-year longitudinal content analysis of how The Beijing News—an outspoken newspaper—reported corruption, this study explored the evolution of critical reporting in China. The results revealed that critical reporting is still a small-scale, non-routine journalistic practice. A detailed analysis was conducted to determine how media resources and power relations shaped critical reporting. The results showed that critical reporting has tended to take a resource-intense format and require non-official sources. Furthermore, critical reporting was more pronounced with respect to the coverage of low-ranking officials and officials outside the newspaper’s parent region. Broader implications of these findings have been discussed. Overall, the present study advances the understanding of critical journalism in an authoritarian context and explores its relations with the state.

Corporate social responsibility in China's airline industry: A longitudinal content analysis of related reports

As China has become the world's largest consumer market and leading exporter, researchers and practitioners urgently need to understand how corporate social responsibility (CSR) is socially constructed in the Chinese context, especially for international industries such as the airline sector. Building upon the triple bottom line model, this study offers a contextualized and dynamic understanding of Chinese airline CSR. Content analysis was performed to analyze 74 aggregate CSR reports (2007–2020) issued by different types of Chinese airlines. The findings reveal that in addition to the economic, social, and environmental responsibilities that are commonly seen in the West, Chinese airlines assume unique political responsibilities. This political dimension of CSR in China has become increasingly obvious in recent years. Driven by factors such as international pressure, industry competition, and more importantly, national policies, the focus of Chinese airline companies' CSR reporting has been changing over time. However, it has maintained a high level of content completeness over the years, and the social dimension of CSR has always been the aspect of greatest concern. This study contributes to the airline CSR literature by considering the particularity of airline companies and Chinese contextual factors and augmenting political CSR as a critical component of CSR in the Chinese context. Managerial implications are provided for international enterprises to cater more appropriately to the Chinese market and achieve cooperation with Chinese enterprises by implementing CSR strategies.

Can transparency strengthen the legitimacy of international institutions? Evidence from the UN Security Council

Can transparency enhance the legitimacy of international institutions? As transparency has become a widely applied procedural standard in international politics, a range of institutions have implemented transparency reforms under the presumption that increased transparency can elicit support among relevant audiences. This article evaluates whether increased transparency in the UN Security Council leads to enhanced legitimacy perceptions among UN member-states. The article first traces the history of Security Council reform since 1990 and draws on interviews with diplomats and observers to describe a transparency reform the Council enacted in 2006. Next, the article uses longitudinal content analysis to empirically probe the legitimation effects of that transparency reform. The empirical analysis is based on an original dataset of 4,303 legitimacy statements made by UN member-states in annual UN General Assembly debates over the periods 1990–2006 and 2006–18. The findings cast doubt over the potential of transparency reform to improve the Council’s legitimacy; instead they suggest that increasing the direct participation of the wider UN membership may be a more viable legitimation strategy. This article contributes to existing international legitimacy literature by providing empirical evidence on the relationship between transparency and legitimacy, and by demonstrating which institutional features that affect the perceived legitimacy of the Security Council.

Engaging Conflict History and Memory Across the Taiwan Strait: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Conflict Timelines from Interactive Conflict Resolution (ICR) Dialogues

An analysis of twenty pairs of Taiwanese and mainland Chinese timelines of cross‐Strait relations demonstrates a highly dynamic way in which the two societies' conflict memories have evolved over two decades. These timelines were developed in the context of twenty weeklong Interactive Conflict Resolution (ICR) dialogues that the author facilitated. A cohort of civil society delegates from both sides of the Strait, each with five persons, participated in each of the dialogues and produced the timelines. A longitudinal content analysis of the timelines reveals that the participants' experiences of cross‐Strait relations have continuously altered their mental frames of the conflict. It also reveals distinct patterns of their recollections. These findings challenge the prevailing practices of conflict mapping and analysis that uncritically presume a static nature of conflict parties' goals. Broader implications of the study include the usefulness of action research and applied practice for methodological innovations and theory building.

A Longitudinal and Comparative Content Analysis of Instagram Fitness Posts.

Body dissatisfaction is among the most common mental health challenges experienced by women and has been identified as a risk factor for disordered eating. Research has found that exposure to social media images depicting thin, muscular bodies, often dubbed ‘fitspiration’, may contribute to body dissatisfaction. Image-centred social media platforms, such as Instagram, have rising popularity among adolescents and young adults. However, little is known about the content of images produced by different fitness-related sources, such as those from fitness brands compared with individual users, and how fitness content on social media is evolving over time. This study sought to determine whether Instagram content varied between female fitness influencers and brands and how this content changed between 2019 and 2021. A longitudinal content analysis was conducted on a sample of 400 Instagram images using a coding scheme developed specifically for this project. The scheme coded images for fit ideal body depiction, fitness focus, objectification, and sexualisation. Chi-square tests indicated that female fitness influencer content was more sexualised and portrayed more of the fit ideal, while fitness brands produced more Instagram content with a fitness focus. There were no significant overall longitudinal changes for any of the four key variables. However, when looking at longitudinal changes by account type, fitness-focused influencer content increased while fitness-focused brand content decreased over time. These findings highlight discernible differences in content produced by different Instagram account types. It points future research towards the consideration of potential moderating factors, such as account type, when exploring the impact of social media images on body image and mental health.

Paths and patterns of value capture innovation in sharing economy

The purpose of this research is to investigate value capture innovation in sharing economy platforms. Revenue management and pricing strategies are indeed pivotal aspects platforms should care about when (re)configuring their business models. A mixed-method investigation has been performed to achieve this goal: a longitudinal content analysis and a case studies analysis. Results from the first step of the research show that four main typologies of innovation emerge in the analyzed platforms. Furthermore, the case studies analysis reveals three main patterns (Network, Monetization, Lock-in) and the possible paths a platform can undergo when innovate its value capture mechanisms.

A typology of alternative online political media in the United Kingdom: A longitudinal content analysis (2015–2018)

Alternative online political media (AOPM) have become increasingly prominent elements of the media system in many countries. In response, numerous academic studies have examined the nature of these newer forms of alternative media. In line with this recent scholarship, in this study we carry out a longitudinal and systematic content analysis of nine AOPM websites in the United Kingdom (UK) ( N = 3452) between 2015 and 2018. Overall, we found a diversity of content, contrasting values and degrees of partisanship, which we develop into a typology of outlets. This includes four overlapping areas: electoral hyperpartisans, cultural partisans, political cycle specialists and vernacular macro-blogs. We conclude by recommending that scholars need to develop more detailed content analyses in order to better understand online alternative media, their interactions with the wider media system, and the system itself.

Longitudinal Content Analysis of the Characteristics and Expected Impact of Low-Value Services Identified in US Choosing Wisely Recommendations

The US Choosing Wisely campaign has had substantial reach in mobilizing efforts to reduce low-value care, achieved largely by engaging physician specialty societies in stewardship. While some early recommendations were criticized for avoiding revenue-generating services, there is limited evidence of how the composition of recommendations shifted as more societies contributed. To analyze the characteristics and expected impact of Choosing Wisely recommendations. This qualitative study included content and trend analyses of all 626 Choosing Wisely recommendations by US physician societies as of March 1, 2021. Data were analyzed between March and May 2021. Primary outcomes were proportions of identified low-value services by characteristics (society type, service type, indication, do vs avoid, and clinical context) and expected impact (effect on the revenue of society members, cost, number of individuals at risk, direct harm potential, and cascade potential). Low-value services identified in the 626 Choosing Wisely recommendations largely covered imaging (168 [26.8%]) and laboratory studies (156 [24.9%]) in the context of chronic conditions (169 [27.0%]) and healthy patients with risk factors alone (126 [20.1%]). Most of the identified low-value services were revenue neutral for the recommending society (402 [64.2%]) and the plurality were low cost (<$200; 284 [45.4%]); low-cost services represented a growing share of low-value services identified by Choosing Wisely recommendations (1.2 percentage points per year; P = .001). Nearly half (280 [44.7%]) of recommendations identified services with high direct harm potential, and 388 (62.0%) identified those with high potential for cascades (ie, triggering downstream services). The results of this qualitative study suggest that the Choosing Wisely recommendations identified services with a range of expected impacts. Stakeholders could explicitly set priorities for future recommendations, while clinical leaders and payers might target intervention efforts on recommendations with the greatest potential for impact based on spending across populations, direct harms, and cascades.

Chronic corporate performance in media-tech firms: a new perspective

ABSTRACT This paper investigates how a crisis event resulted in the long-term decline in media-tech firm performance. The research developed an intellectual bridge and transfer of knowledge between the previously discrete fields of Strategic Management and Epigenetics. The study used a multi-method approach consisting of the critical incident technique, longitudinal content analysis of corporate annual reports and financial analysis which divided the data into “what happened before the crisis event” and “what happen after the crisis event”. The paper concludes that by examining failed corporate turnaround and chronic performance through the lens of epigenetics, we are better able to understand how a crisis event can create transgenerational responses which result in adaptive cultural norms that combine to consolidate corporate underperformance.

They’re Not Just Words: The Verbal Style of U.S. Presidential Debate Rhetoric

ABSTRACT Televised U.S. presidential debates are the most-watched, if not the most-researched, political events in history. While prior studies have largely focused on general election contests, this longitudinal content analysis used DICTION software to parse the effects of election level, partisanship, and time on the candidates’ word choices or verbal styles in 35 general and 121 primary election debates. The results indicate that general election debate rhetoric contained significantly more optimism and certainty than primary debate rhetoric. Additionally, the rhetorical cleavage between the parties was located in the primary debates where the Democratic candidates used significantly more rhetorical realism, activity, and commonality than Republican candidates who used more rhetorical certainty. Further, we also found significantly less rhetorical certainty in the 2010s and the 2020 general election debate rhetoric than in the 1960s and 1970s. Finally, we found interaction effects on optimism and realism that also supported our propositions that U.S. presidential candidates’ rhetoric is meaningful at the semantic level, and that their verbal styles may reveal informative perspectives on the speakers and their speech acts.

The Representation of Trianon Trauma as a Chosen Trauma in Political Newspapers (1920–2010) in Hungary

The Treaty of Trianon and its consequences continue to be considered traumatic by both scholars and much of society in general. Trianon’s identification as a social or historical trauma not only spread amongst the public in general, but also penetrated historical discourse and journalism. A rather complex and controversial concept has been transposed from psychology to historiography. Hungarian historians generally use trauma in the classical social-psychological meaning: trauma is a social construct based on actual experience (Kovács 2015). In social psychology, the concept of trauma is based on the threat from the outside world to the individual and their identity. However, social trauma has much in common with individual trauma (László 2005). Inevitably, the question arises as to why the concept of psychic trauma seems to be an appropriate scientific description of the effects of Trianon. In my research, I undertook longitudinal content analysis of articles about Trianon and its consequences published in newspapers of various political orientation, divided into five-year periods between 1920 and 2010. The study uses the theoretical construction of social psychology, which involves examining the chosen trauma as a narrative structure. In this study, I present how the concept of the chosen trauma can be applied to describe Trianon trauma through the corpus that includes texts from these ninety years. To illustrate this, I use narrative psychological content analysis.

Media-centric and Politics-centric Views of Media and Democracy: A Longitudinal Analysis of Political Communication and the International Journal of Press/Politics

ABSTRACT Political communication is a dynamic, interdisciplinary field that has grown in stature and reach in recent decades, becoming more international in scope and orientation while gaining respect in political science as a legitimate area of inquiry. In the evolving and participatory media-politics landscape, it becomes important to ask how the cross-disciplinary project of political communication research is keeping pace with changing conditions that provide a greater structural role for the press in politics and new technology in the enactment of citizenship. To track these trends in research, this paper reports the results of a longitudinal content analysis of research articles published in the journals Political Communication and the International Journal of Press/Politics for the period 1996-2016. For each year, we selected one issue at random and examined all research articles in that issue, excluding reviews, invited theme essays, and commentaries. Altogether, 229 articles were included in the analysis. Results indicate a noticeable increase in the internationalization of political communication research over the 20-year analysis period, a slight decrease in research expressing a negative evaluative tone toward the media over time, and consistent growth in the percentage of articles with a media-centric focus, defined as positioning the press as a central consideration in the study and regarding news media as central to democratic life. In light of these findings, the unique interpretive lenses that researchers adopt depending on discipline are explored in relation to ongoing developments in political communication research.

Natural Language Processing Insight into LGBTQ+ Youth Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Longitudinal Content Analysis of Anxiety-Provoking Topics and Trends in Emotion in LGBTeens Microcommunity Subreddit.

BackgroundWidespread fear surrounding COVID-19, coupled with physical and social distancing orders, has caused severe adverse mental health outcomes. Little is known, however, about how the COVID-19 crisis has impacted LGBTQ+ youth, who disproportionately experienced a high rate of adverse mental health outcomes before the COVID-19 pandemic.ObjectiveWe aimed to address this knowledge gap by harnessing natural language processing methodologies to investigate the evolution of conversation topics in the most popular subreddit for LGBTQ+ youth.MethodsWe generated a data set of all r/LGBTeens subreddit posts (n=39,389) between January 1, 2020 and February 1, 2021 and analyzed meaningful trends in anxiety, anger, and sadness in the posts. Because the distribution of anxiety before widespread social distancing orders was meaningfully different from the distribution after (P<.001), we employed latent Dirichlet allocation to examine topics that provoked this shift in anxiety.ResultsWe did not find any differences in LGBTQ+ youth anger and sadness before and after government-mandated social distancing; however, anxiety increased significantly (P<.001). Further analysis revealed a list of 10 anxiety-provoking topics discussed during the pandemic: attraction to a friend, coming out, coming out to family, discrimination, education, exploring sexuality, gender pronouns, love and relationship advice, starting a new relationship, and struggling with mental health.ConclusionsDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, LGBTQ+ teens increased their reliance on anonymous discussion forums when discussing anxiety-provoking topics. LGBTQ+ teens likely perceived anonymous forums as safe spaces for discussing lifestyle stressors during COVID-19 disruptions (eg, school closures). The list of prevalent anxiety-provoking topics in LGBTQ+ teens’ anonymous discussions can inform future mental health interventions in LGBTQ+ youth.

Sustainable brand positioning by container shipping firms: Evidence from social media communications

This study contributes to shipping research by profiling container shipping lines with respect to their sustainability related brand positioning strategies through their social media communications. Longitudinal content analysis is combined with multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) to map branding strategies of selected lines in relation to the triple bottom line (TBL) dimensions and functional versus emotional sustainability benefits. Results indicate that shipping lines position their brands closer to either economic or environmental sustainability where a win-win focus in the messages is highly prevalent. Social sustainability constitutes a market gap and an opportunity for the sustainability positioning of these brands. Furthermore, despite a few that recognize the potential in emotional benefits, majority of the lines use functional sustainability benefits in brand positioning. Emotional sustainability benefits provide wider opportunities with respect to brand differentiation and effective customer engagement in shipping lines’ sustainability initiatives.