Quality Of Media Coverage Research Articles

Bangladesh health journalism: A pilot study exploring the nature and quality of newspaper health reporting

Introduction: The media is an important source of health-related information for patients, general public, policymakers and health professionals and has a large influence on their knowledge and opinions. No studies so far have explored the content, nature and quality of health journalism in Bangladesh. Objectives: To i) explore the nature and quality of media coverage of health stories in Bangladeshi newspapers, ii) understand the perceptions of reporters about medical- and health journalism, including the perceived barriers and facilitators, and iii) identify factors influencing health reporting. Methods: In a mixed-method pilot study, during a five-month period, all medical and healthcare related news articles published in three leading Bangladeshi daily newspapers (N=461), were content analyzed, and journalists were asked in a questionnaire about their knowledge and medical skills. Results: Only 44% of the articles reported in a positive tone on health services aspects, while 27.1% were related to malpractice or treatment errors. Many articles contained questionable medical information (49.9%), mostly regarding unregistered clinicians (67.5%), often referred to as ‘doctor’. Treatment errors by unregistered clinicians were reported seven times more often than those by registered physicians (p<0.001). A survey was completed by 23 selected medical- or health journalists (77% response); most of them (78.3%) had no previous training in health journalism and in only 26.1% this was offered by their media house. Journalists self-reported their own insufficient understanding of medical terminology (73.9%), ethics (95.7%) and relevant laws (91.3%). Conclusion: This study is an eye opener about shortage of medical knowledge among health journalists in a developing country. This shortage may often result in misinformation regarding medical (mal)practice, health laws and ethics. There is ample room for improvement of the quality of health news reporting and health journalism skills in Bangladesh. N=287

Network public opinion propagation model based on the influence of media and interpersonal communication

With the rapid development of the Internet, social media networks have become the primary platform for people to express their views. In addition, network public opinion has a considerable influence on society. Thus, considering the significant impact of online public opinion on society, it is necessary to study and analyze the propagation process for public opinion. In this study, we propose the Media and Interpersonal Relationship-SEIR (MI-SEIR) model based on the SEIR model. Our proposed model considers the impact of media transmission and interpersonal relationships on opinion propagation. Our MI-SEIR model divides the propagation nodes into three categories: support, neutral and opposition. There is a discussion mechanism between these nodes that represents the node’s viewpoint value evolution rule based on the node firmness, influence of nodes, quality of media coverage and parameters of infection. The state transition of nodes is decided based on the change of opinion value. Our simulation experimental results show that this model is more representative of the real propagation of online public opinion and is thus of practical significance for research and opinion analysis applications.

Development vs peace? The role of media in the Law of Victims and Land Restitution in Colombia

The Law of Victims and Land Restitution, ratified in June 2011 and enforced since January 2012, constitutes an unprecedented attempt to end armed conflict in Colombia by applying a transitional justice framework and fostering rural development. Drawing on a methodology that integrates framing and rhetorical analysis, this article analyses the role of seven national and local Colombian newspapers in promoting governmental or alternative actors and frames regarding institutional, developmental, and peace and human rights agendas linked to this legislation. In addition, it evaluates the influence of rhetorical framing on media’s role and the resulting quality of media coverage. The results show that the media promoted governmental frames regarding institutional and developmental issues, and alternative frames advocated by other actors in relation to peace and human rights issues. In addition, they confirm the key importance of rhetorical framing in shaping that role. This was detrimental to the quality of media coverage geared towards sustainable peace and human development.

Media framing of democratisation conflicts in Egypt, Kenya, Serbia and South Africa

This paper presents an overview of the main findings from a quantitative content analysis covering different types of democratisation conflicts (i.e., conflicts over citizenship, elections, transitional justice and distribution of power) in Egypt, Kenya, Serbia and South Africa. The key findings from the content analysis are organised around several themes: causes of democratisation conflicts, portrayal of conflict parties, preferred solutions to conflicts, perceptions of democracy, role of the media, authoritarian past, and tone of reporting and polarisation. The main finding is that cross-national variations depend on several factors: specific country contexts (and contexts of broader regions from which they come from, including the Arab Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and post-communist Europe); regime type and the stage of democratisation; and type of democratisation conflict (which reflects the main arenas of political contestation). Across all countries, the quality of media coverage is limited by bias, emotionalisation and - most importantly - polarisation. In particular, conflicts over the distribution of power trigger sharp polarisation, whereas elections - contrary to existing literature - seem to force media towards a more restrained style of reporting. The sample involves 5162 newspaper articles and news stories from the four countries.

Bearing Witness: How Controversial Organizations Get the Media Coverage They Want

Activists need mass media to reach the largest audience possible, but getting media attention is difficult. Although disruptive protests are more likely to get covered by journalists, scholars claim that the resulting coverage is usually undesirable. Getting beneficial coverage presents a tactical dilemma for activists, and an analytical one for scholars. How do activists get the quality of media coverage they want when the tactics getting them attention result in negative coverage? This project contributes to the literature on movements and media in two ways: (1) I offer a new measure of desirable coverage that will be useful to media scholars: graphic description of grievances; (2) I use this measure to show that disruptive and controversial protest tactics may not always result in negative media attention. The new measure of ‘good’ media coverage helped determine conditions under which newspapers provide activists with the coverage they want. I used the Dynamics of Collective Action dataset to analyze all animal advocacy protests covered in the New York Times from 1960 to 1995, and found that the reputation of the involved organization may be associated with ‘good’ coverage. Organizations that have established a controversial identity may garner coverage that activists want, even if controversial actions do not. Put simply, it is less what activists do than who activists are that determines the quality of coverage they receive.

Media Consumption and Regional Perceptions of Global Climate Change: Findings from Germany

Global climate change has been one of the most urgent problems confronting humanity in recent years. However, there are intercultural and intracultural differences in perceptions both of the dimensions of global climate change and the necessity of fighting it. It is assumed that these perceptions depend heavily on the quantity and quality of media coverage and individuals’ media usage. To test how media consumption interacts with sociodemographic variables in affecting perceptions of global climate change, a regional survey was conducted in the southwest of Germany. A representative sample of 753 persons was interviewed face-to-face in February 2008. The study provides differential insights into the relationship between predispositions, media consumption, and orientations towards global climate change. Results show that media effects are relatively small and subordinated to attitudinal predispositions such as interest in climate change and personal concern about it. In addition to that, it is demonstrated that media can affect attitudes on global climate change both in a positive and in a negative way.

Monitoring injury reporting in selected Australian media: a potential advocacy strategy?

This review of injury articles describes how selected primary print media sources in Australia report injury events and explores how this may impact on public perception of the injury risk and the opportunities it may present to health professionals. Media articles specific to injury, compiled by the Public Health Advocacy Institute of Western Australia (PHAIWA) through their MediaWatch service during 2011, were collated and analysed. Articles were gathered from The West Australian, The Australian and The Sunday Times newspapers and ABC Online. Each article was categorised into injury topics and target groups, and preventive strategies were identified. Of the 546 articles that contained injury as a key word, 424 articles were used for the present study. The majority of articles related to community-based injuries (65%) and the most frequent reported injury was violence and assault. The results also indicate that although there is regular media reporting on injury issues, only one-fifth of reports discuss possible preventive measures. Selected Australian newspapers and the ABC Online are important and low-cost sources of injury-related information for the general public and can impact how the public perceives injury. It is important for public health professionals to embrace media advocacy strategies to assist in influencing and setting local public policy. So what? Public attitudes and understanding of issues are influenced by media coverage. Media monitoring is one tool to track what media sources are reporting about public health issues, the industry and stakeholders. Influencing the quantity and quality of media coverage is critical to advancing healthy public policy, particularly when advocating for prevention strategies to be reported and acted upon. Advocacy is an important health promotion strategy; it is therefore important for health professionals to understand media advocacy and position public health issues as societal issues with policy solutions.

Elections and Market Provision of Information

Economists usually think that rational voters have little incentives to acquire costly information. We present a theoretical model to show that, in contrast to this widely held belief, rational voters acquire considerable amounts of information if media technology is available because then they do not condition their informational decisions on being pivotal. The model also shows that the quality of media coverage is inefficiently low because voters have incentives to free-ride. Further, we show how the quality of information depends on the size of the electorate, the prior knowledge of voters and on the technology to produce information.

Media coverage on electromagnetic fields and health: Content analysis of Dutch newspaper articles and websites

The way health risks of electromagnetic fields are portrayed in the media may shape public concerns that the growing exposure to electromagnetic fields in daily life constitutes a health hazard. We analysed the content of information on electromagnetic fields and health in Dutch media to identify aspects that might be linked to the public perception of electromagnetic fields. A systematic search was performed on archives of five major Dutch newspapers (from March 2008 to March 2010) and on the internet (in April 2010). Content analyses included the identification of main characteristics and the context or frame in which the information can be clearly understood. We identified 155 newspaper articles and 23 relevant websites. Analyses showed that the media content often suggested a negative relationship between electromagnetic field exposure and health but lacked detailed information about research, technical aspects, possible biological mechanisms and regulation policy. Regional media predominantly featured conflicts around the placing of electromagnetic equipment. Across all media, information on electromagnetic fields and health was mostly framed in terms of precaution and concern. We conclude that the content does not reflect a scientific perspective, focusing on the nature of and exposure to electromagnetic fields, potential biological mechanisms, the evidence and the magnitude of health effects, but rather seems to follow a layman's perspective of risk. We also discuss ways to improve on the quality of media coverage on electromagnetic fields.

Hillary Clinton's race for the White House: gender politics and the media on the campaign trail

Introduction: Gender, the Media, and Hillary Clinton. Women & Presidential Politics. The Media & the Path to the White House. Hillary Clinton in Context. Clinton's Gender Strategy. Quantity vs. Quality of Media Coverage. A Gendered Game? The Future Female Presidency.

Konfliktinė hegemonija: žiniasklaida ir moterys Lietuvoje bei Europos Sąjungoje

Recent research has demonstrated that there has been little improvement in quality of media coverage of women in Lithuania. Women’s images are usually sexualized, stereotyped or simply negative. In the media portrayals, women are often confined to the private sphere of home.
 The article focuses on media representations of women in the context of women-and-media policies in EU and Lithuania. Analyzing the EU, UN and Lithuanian communication policy documents and describing briefly the key media and gender issues in EU and Lithuania, it demonstrates the lack of gender-equal media policy and the sluggishness with which the existing media policy with regard to gender issues is enforced in Lithuania.
 Addressing the pluralism of women’s roles and images in the media, and fair and sufficient media coverage of women, the article also discusses feminist and post-feminist media studies that could offer more complex and sophisticated media research strategies.
 The article also proposes some recommendations that could change, to some degree, the existing media and gender situation for the better. The author suggests that policy recommendations need a strong network of public, official and private institutions in order to be implemented successfully.
 Placing considerable importance on eliminating stereotypes of women and on promoting diverse and nonstereotyped images of women in the media, the article uses the term “conflicted hegemony”. “Conflicted hegemony” implies that the media provide a site for conflicts and debates over different interpretations of the dominant culture, and that ideological counter-tendencies always appear in the dominant ideological forms. Policy recommendations, media research techniques and alternative media interpretations by their consumers can serve as resistance strategies to this hegemony.