Media Crisis Research Articles

Media Reporting, Mobility and Trauma

Media Reporting, Mobility and Trauma

Cuando la marca ofrece entretenimiento: aproximación al concepto de advertainment

La crisis de los medios masivos, la saturación del mercado pu­blicitario y el nuevo consumidor han dado como resultado nuevas formas de relación entre las marcas y su público objetivo. Entre ellas destaca el advertainment o branded content ljÚ'e hace referencia a la unión de dos con­ ceptos: publicidad y entretenimiento. Ahora el anunciante toma la iniciativa y se convierte en productor de contenidJs donde los valores de marca estdn integrados. En este artículo seprofondiza"sobre esta técnica publicitaria con el objetivo de establecer un marco teórico 'apropiado para su estudio.

News incorporated: corporate media ownership and its threat to democracy

In this timely collection of essays by more than a dozen of the nation's top media scholars, critics, and journalists, including a preface by Arthur Kent, the present media crisis is carefully exposed. From coverage of the war in Iraq to national security, this book details the manner in which journalists have walked in lockstep to the self-serving quid pro quo of government and corporate media giants.

Heart-rending cases make bad laws

It is already well-known that moral panics and media crises have frequently been the starting points for sea-changes in government policy in Britain. in the NHS, for example, both the Tories’ internal market and Labour's pledge to raise spending to the European average came from Prime Ministers being bounced into showing they were taking decisive action to get things done in the health service following media scandals about failings in care.

Feature Review - Mass Communication Theories and Effects Textbooks: two new texts and two classics revisited

The study of “media effects” traces its lineage to the social sciences. Political scientist Harold Lasswell focused researchers’ attention on media effects with his provocative, if cryptic, model: “Who Says What in Which Channel to Whom with What Effect?” (emphasis added). Still, as some of the books reviewed in this essay testify, critical and cultural scholars lay some legitimate claim to the effects tradition. This review examines media effects textbooks. It reviews new editions of Baran and Davis’s text on mass communication theory and Perse’s recently published textbook on media effects. It also examined two media effects textbooks that some teachers regard as classics. More so than the other books in this review, Baran and Davis explicitly target undergraduates. Mass Communication Theory provides a strong grounding in the historical development of mass communication theory, with four sections describing the chronological development of the “eras” of mass communication theory. These sections recount the story of mass communication, from mass society theory to the rise of social scientiŽc perspective to limited effects to the emergence of moderate effects. Their story introduces students to well-known studies, theories and researchers. Overall, this is an excellent book for an undergraduate course. It may serve as a supplementary book in a graduate course before assigning advanced texts—in cases where the instructor assumes little prior knowledge of mass communication theory and effects. Perse, like many teachers, encountered students’ “distrust for ‘theories”’. Thus, her introductory chapter stresses the relevance of media effects in society. The study of media effects is the study of media effectiveness, which is relevant to students planning to work in media industries. To emphasize the relevance of media effects, most of the chapters focus on applications of media effects. But Perse deftly integrates theories and empirical studies into these chapters. Thus, the chapter on media effects and crises

Planning a specific organization scheme for poison centres which face a massive rush of calls in the context of media crisis is necessary

Planning a specific organization scheme for poison centres which face a massive rush of calls in the context of media crisis is necessary

Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Mass Media Ethics Course

At a time when numerous audience surveys report significant loss in mass media credibility and when celebrity Internet reporters accept mediocre accuracy rates, there appears be a renewed enthusiasm across the media profession for instruction in ethical decision-making. Made urgent by increasing competition from new media, print and broadcast executives alike are scrambling shore up audience support. Stopping the erosion in trust through renewed attention ethics may be a move in the right direction. Responding this crisis, educators have done their share by making the credibility/ethics issue a priority in program design, faculty workshops, and the classroom. Mass communication programs have tripled the number of mass media ethics courses since 1977; however, many programs still do not offer a freestanding ethics course. In addition, many students may end up without an ethics course if the course is offered as an elective. This means that many mass communication students are exposed ethics education only through other communication courses. Scholarly journals such as Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, Journal of Mass Media Ethics, and Mass Comm Review have provided an ongoing forum for discussion of issues related the teaching of ethics. A few studies assessing the effectiveness of classroom instruction in ethics have been limited stand-alone ethics courses. Therefore, this article examined ethics education as a component of a course - four or five weeks in the regular semester and a few days of threehour classes during the winter term and attempted find whether the course could contribute alleviating the media crisis in credibility. It studied whether the ethics course improved students' values and analytical skills, what students perceived they learned from the course, and what they wanted learn in an ethics class. Literature review The current crisis in journalism ethics. The first sentence of the first chapter of Ed Lambeth's 1986/1992 Committed Journalism could have been written yesterday: If a storm is not sounding within the halls of American journalism, one should be (Lambeth, 1992, p. 1). In Lambeth's classic work, he proceeds demonstrate the depth of what he calls the public malaise (p. 2), by citing national survey results showing loss of confidence in the media and recalling 1980s media scandals from The Washington Post's Janet Cooke affair ethical indiscretions at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Finally, he cites the 1947 Hutchins Commission Report as an earlier example of the national media's determination self-analyze. Lambeth dismisses the contemporary value of the social responsibility theory, commenting that it contained little that would assist individual journalists in daily ethical judgments (p. 7). Concern for media well-being was the impetus for Henry Luce form the Commission on the Freedom of the Press in the 1940s. In the postWatergate, post feeding-frenzy era, it led numerous academic pundits rail at media's sudden moral lapse and ultimately gave birth an increased study of media ethics in American colleges and universities. Of course, there was nothing sudden about it. Samuel Warren and Lewis Brandeis (1890) criticized the press and its apparent need to satisfy a prurient taste (p. 220) in their article, The Right of Privacy. They, no doubt, would have been shocked at how the Clinton affair aired publicly more than 100 years after they expressed considerable disdain for newspapers filling column upon column idle gossip (p. 220). It is easy relax with the notion that indeed there were other crises which the media weathered. However, the competitive nature of the media mix in the 21st century is far different from that which existed in 1890, 1947, or even during the 1970s/1980s era about which Lambeth wrote. …

Solutions to Circulation Woes?: Free Expression as Predictor of News Seeking

This experiment found exposure study of expression increases news seeking and newspaper readership. Since 1973, confidence in major institutions -- except mass media -- has declined only slightly. A special report from Roper Center for Public Opinion Research challenges notion of declining social capital in America and suggests that confidence in press alone has shown a consistent decline since early 1970s.(1) Given this disparity, perhaps newspapers are suffering not from generalized civic disengagement but from citizen disgust at free expression that too often is filled with hate, racism and indecency.(2) Declining confidence in press is most noticeable among those who are more educated, more conservative and more Republican, who also are more likely be disillusioned by and disenfranchised from press. At same time, editors' concern with declining newspaper penetration has become virtually a commonplace.(3) Abundant academic and industry research into declining newspaper circulation has found that newspapers disproportionately fail attract people who are low in education or income, rural, non-white, uninvolved, younger than 35, recently relocated and female.(4) Nonreaders also are more likely be less interested in political and civic affairs than readers.(5) Because industry sins of omission and commission play a major role in distancing readers, industry actions may attract new and returning readers. For example, when Jeremy Lipschultz examined reasons for nonreadership, he found nonreaders questioned newspaper readability, credibility and utility.(6) Ethicist and media critic Sissela Bok has said press faces a crisis of credibility.(7) In response, American Society of Newspaper Editors sponsored a 1998 study examining erosion of newspaper credibility as a primary source of declining readership.(8) But according Stephan Russ-Wohl, proper response such concerns is to strengthen and diversify existing network of institutions and initiatives that help maintain and improve journalistic standards. Such institutions and initiatives [should] sustain discourse regarding journalism and media.(9) This study, however, seeks determine whether discourse designed improve newspaper circulation also should encompass discussion of value of free expression. The underlying thesis is that if non-readership is a symptom of disillusionment with free expression, then readership might be improved by increasing understanding of and interest in First Amendment values. This thesis rests on assumption that support of free speech and free press can be increased through education about free-expression issues and values. For, as ACLU President Nadine Strossen has said, biggest threat civil liberties is apathy and ignorance. Strossen further said: Ultimately, if people are not concerned and committed about their rights, we're going have elected officials who trample over those rights, with nobody stand up and defend them when they appoint judges who will not enforce Constitution and other legal guarantees of rights.(10) Indeed, a 1997 Freedom Forum survey found that most Americans do not believe in freedom of speech.(11) According survey, people from all points on political and religious spectrum embrace a flaccid and utterly meaningless definition of ... expressive freedom [as] support [for] freedom of speech for only speech that I agree deserves freedom.(12) Attempts find source of this disaffection often lead media blaming.(13) A 1997 report by media critic Stephen Bates found that the strained bond between press and public is a modern media crisis.(14) In his exploration of media, power and entitlement in America, David Protess found that media rarely and only peripherally involve or affect public. …

Managing vulnerability in Sydney: Planning or providence?

Sydney is the largest city in Oceania (the Australia — south Pacific region). During its existence of more than 200 years the city has suffered many emergencies and many psycho-social and media crises — but has escaped major disaster in the sense of deaths or economic loss. Does this indicate that disaster vulnerability has been managed well, or simply that Sydney has been fortunate?

A news flow analysis of the sale of a public asset

As the marketplace approach to economic regulation swept through New Zealand in the late 1980s and early 1990s many new business opportunities were created. The deregulation of the electricity industry resulted in Utilicorp, a United States‐based utility holding company, entering into a joint venture with Waikato Electric Corporation in Hamilton, New Zealand. The public felt betrayed by the sale of a former public asset and a media crisis event was born. This study examines the crisis event from its historical origins and conducts a content analysis of the media coverage of the crisis. Waikato Electric and Utilicorp both underestimated the potential for public backlash to what appears on its face to be an excellent business opportunity. The Waikato Times assumed an adversarial role in this public controversy and sustained the coverage of this community crisis to effect change in the proposed merger.

The Wake of a Media Crisis: Guilt by Association or Innocence by Proclamation?

The Wake of a Media Crisis: Guilt by Association or Innocence by Proclamation?

Ethiopian relief:A case study in failed relations

This study examines how InterAid, a private-sector relief agency, responded to the false charge that it had misappropriated $20 million purportedly raised for Ethiopian famine relief. Its response to the media followed sound and commonly accepted principles of press relations. But InterAid's public relations problem was not primarily press-related. Its fundamental problem was that it had failed to establish and maintain supportive relationships with its key publics. Consequently, when the media crisis occurred, InterAid had no reservoir of trust and good will from which to draw, for its key publics failed to perceive benefit in continuing their relationships with the organization. This study reinforces the notions that (1) effective organizational leadership requires abalanced program of generating income and generating non-monetary support from key publics, and that (2) an organization's application of sound crisis management strategies becomes meaningful only when it is grounded on the public's existing good will and trust in the organization.

Differences in growth factor sensitivity between primary and transformed murine cell cultures revealed by BrdU/Hoechst flow cytometry.

Spontaneous cell transformation is a common feature of all murine cell cultures grown in vitro for extended periods of time. During early passages, these cultures show either progressively reduced growth or complete cessation of growth; after such a 'crisis' they display increasing growth rates and unlimited lifespan. Here we use a novel bromodeoxyuridine/Hoechst flow-cytometric technique to examine the growth response of diploid and transformed cells of the murine species Micromys minutus under a variety of growth conditions. After spontaneous transformation, growth factor exposure results in increased G0/G1 cell recruitment and higher growth rates than shown by the nontransformed diploid cell fraction. Despite clonal heterogeneity, this difference is seen at all fetal calf serum (FCS) concentrations, although it is most pronounced with low serum. Epidermal growth factor and insulin are shown to act synergistically and promote growth equal to exposures of transformed cultures to 10% FCS. The observed differences in growth factor response between diploid and aneuploid cells could explain the reported lack of a classical growth crisis in growth factor-supplemented media during the spontaneous in vitro transformation of primary cell cultures.

International Communication

Many Voices, One World: Communication and Society Today and Tomorrow Towards a New More Just and More Efficient World Information and Communication Order (London: Kogan Page/New York: Unipub/Paris: Unesco, 1980—$9.00, paper) The Media Crisis (World Press Freedom Committee, 1 Herlad Plaza, Miami, Fla. 33101—free, paper) Chin-Chuan Lee, Media Imperialsim Reconsidered: The Homogenizing of Television Culture (Beverly Hills, Ca.: Sage Publications, 1765:::$20.00/9.95) John Lent, ed. Case Studies of Mass Media in the Third World (Department of Anthropology, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Va. 23185—price not given, paper) John A. Lent, Caribbean Mass Communications: A Comprehensive Bibliography (Crossroads Press, Epstein Bldg., Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass. 02154—$20.00, paper).