US Media Research Articles

AI Privacy in Context: A Comparative Study of Public and Institutional Discourse on Conversational AI Privacy in the US and Chinese Social Media

The proliferation of conversational artificial intelligence (AI) systems, such as chatbots, has sparked widespread privacy concerns. Previous research suggests that privacy perceptions and practices vary across sociocultural contexts. This study examines public and institutional discourses on conversational AI privacy in the United States and China. Semantic network and discourse analyses of privacy-related discussions on Twitter and Weibo reveal divergent patterns. On Twitter, public discourse emphasizes privacy risks and concerns and advocates for systemic changes, while institutional discourse promotes individualistic approaches to privacy protection. Conversely, on Weibo, public discourse is less focused on privacy risks and more on the positive impacts of AI, aligning closely with institutional narratives. These variations are intertwined with the cultural, political, economic, and regulatory contexts of the two countries. Our study underscores the importance of multi-level analysis in comparative privacy research to provide a holistic view of privacy in various contexts.

Race-ing Masculinity

Studies about representations of Latinidad in US and European media have identified stereotypes like criminalization and hypersexualization. Furthermore, it has been argued that comedy operates as a double-edged sword in exposing racism, as humor can be deployed to simultaneously mask/justify and show/denounce racial discrimination and monolithic representations of Latinidad. Using a feminist intersectional perspective that foregrounds constructions of masculinities and racialization/migration as exclusionary factors, this essay discusses how RTVE Playz, the digital platform of the Spanish public television aimed at young audiences, represents Latinidad in its series Riders (2021). Situated within the dynamics of racialization in Spain, Riders stands out as an example of dark humor that both complicates and reinforces stereotypes. Through a close reading of the series, we assess its response to current social, political and cultural citizenship challenges.

Multinational and Multimodal Character Framing of Political Candidates in Online News: Do Political and Media System Classifications Matter?

An evolving body of research generally referred to as visual politics has brought the heavy research focus on linguistic modalities of political communication closer to parity with visual emphasis. The study reported here transcends this schism by joining momentum toward multimodality as an ontological departure point for research. We expanded an existing visual instrument into a multimodal one and provided evidence that it reliably captures character framing of political candidates (stateliness, compassion, mass appeal, ordinariness, and sure loser) in German, Polish, and United States commercial online news. We focused on election coverage in these countries because they represent three distinct political and media systems (democratic-corporatist, polarized-pluralist, and hybrid) of the Global North. The quantitative content analysis sample we used spans 2,688 online news stories with seven political candidates identified in 6,560 cases across six modalities (still images, moving images, frozen video images, text, audio, and superimposed text). We found support for the hypothesis that political and media system latencies affect how news media frame the character traits of political candidates in both visual and linguistic modalities. Specifically, the competitive tendencies of majoritarian democracies manifested more clearly as candidate-centered, simplistic, and polarizing character framing in US media content than in journalistic output of multiparty consensus democracies. For example, US news media were more consistent in their portrayal of election winners and losers than German and Polish news media, emphasizing stateliness, compassion, and ordinariness in the winner while unambiguously assigning the negative sure loser frame to the election loser.

Framing the 2013 Westgate Mall attack: A comparative study of Kenyan and US media perspectives

Framing the 2013 Westgate Mall attack: A comparative study of Kenyan and US media perspectives

Does Russian Propaganda Lead or Follow? Topic Coverage, User Engagement, and RT and Sputnik’s Agenda Influence on US Media

Russian state propaganda outlets Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik are an important part of Russian foreign policy and key global sources of disinformation. Previous work has argued that they focus on exploiting social divisions among foreign audiences and worried that Russian propaganda may influence the broader media agenda. To date, though, there has been no comprehensive study of what RT and Sputnik actually cover, or any quantitative analysis of their influence on other coverage. We analyze 4.7 million English-language news articles from RT, Sputnik, and sixty-seven other news outlets linked to on Facebook from 2017 to 2021, articles that collectively generate 22.6 billion user interactions. Contrary to assumptions in previous studies, RT and Sputnik gave modest attention to US domestic politics, focusing instead on a set of geopolitical issues including the Middle East, armed conflicts, and international statecraft. Using a VAR model, we show that RT and Sputnik Granger-cause coverage on its high-priority issues across all categories of US media: center, left-wing, right-wing, and far-right. On domestic issues, RT and Sputnik follow center and far-right outlets instead of leading. Our study is an important corrective to earlier scholarship, which has overstated RT and Sputnik’s engagement with US domestic issues and blurred the specialized roles different Russian organizations play in malign influence operations.

United States newspaper and online media coverage of artificial intelligence and radiology from 1998 to 2023

ObjectiveTo evaluate the frequency and content of media coverage pertaining to artificial intelligence (AI) and radiology in the United States from 1998 to 2023. MethodsThe ProQuest US Newsstream database was queried for print and online articles mentioning AI and radiology published between January 1, 1998, and March 30, 2023. A Boolean search using terms related to radiology and AI was used to retrieve full text and publication information. One of 9 readers with radiology expertise independently reviewed randomly assigned articles using a standardized scoring system. Results379 articles met inclusion criteria, of which 290 were unique and 89 were syndicated articles. Most had a positive sentiment (74 %) towards AI, while negative sentiment was far less common (9 %). Frequency of positive sentiment was highest in articles with a focus on AI and radiology (86 %) and lowest in articles focusing on AI and non-medical topics (55 %). The net impact of AI on radiology was most commonly presented as positive (60 %). Benefits of AI were more frequently mentioned (76 %) than potential harms (46 %). Radiologists were interviewed or quoted in less than one-third of all articles. ConclusionPortrayal of the impact of AI on radiology in US media coverage was mostly positive, and advantages of AI were more frequently discussed than potential risks. However, articles with a general non-medical focus were more likely to have a negative sentiment regarding the impact of AI on radiology than articles with a more specific focus on medicine and radiology. Radiologists were infrequently interviewed or quoted in media coverage.

The portrayal of Pakistan as whited sepulture against the Taliban: a case study of American media

The changing narratives and portrayal of Taliban in the US media has been a subject of much deliberation among the media connoisseurs ranging from their heroic portrayal during the Afghan-Soviet war to desperados in the post 9/11 world landscape. For this particular reason, the present study is an effort to locate how the proxy actor (Pakistan) has been linked to the Taliban by the US media in the post 9/11 world. This research takes Time magazine as a case study and articles related to Pakistan are selected encompassing the decade following 9/11. The corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis has been applied using Graph Coll and Wordsmith. The analysis has been done on three levels: (i) the time-specific pattern of the node linked with the Pakistani context, (ii) the most significant and strong collocates of the node, and (iii) the semantic categorization of the collocates. The analysis reveals that Pakistan has been linked with Taliban groups throughout the decade in some years more frequently than others. The second level of analysis reveals that the Taliban groups are statistically significantly and strongly connected with Pakistan. The third level of analysis reveals many aspects such as ambiguity pertaining to Taliban and associated groups, their ties with Pakistan, and Pakistan playing a dodging game with Taliban groups as well as the US government. Such media portrayal of Pakistan as being a white sepulture reveals a political world where binaries (Us vs. Them) in the case of Pakistan do not exist.

Integrating environmental and entrepreneurship advocacy into enviropreneurship through green supply chain management, waste management, and green innovation: A study on SMEs of US

Many entrepreneurs across the US are the key players in building a greener economy. Their agility and innovative spirit offer a source of potential solutions. This is especially true for small businesses, which can quickly adapt to sustainable practices. Therefore, this research investigated the direct and indirect (mediating) roles of waste management and green innovations in green supply chain management and enviropreneurship performance, which is a transition from environmental to enviropreneurship advocacy. This study used a deductive approach with a quantitative research method. A study of a survey for 835 supply chain professionals in US small and medium enterprises used a Structural Equation Modeling technique to test specific research hypotheses. The findings of this study unveiled a positive and significant effect of exogenous variables on endogenous variables. Besides waste management and green innovation, a significant mediation was found between the relationships between green supply chain management and entrepreneurship performance. This research highlights key strategies to boost entrepreneurial performance. Green practices enhance environmental outcomes, minimize waste, bolster stakeholder relationships, lead to cost savings, and improve brand reputation and regulatory compliance. The study identifies areas needing improvement and supports sustainable development. Adhering to environmental regulations shows a commitment to sustainability and helps avoid legal issues. By following these recommendations, managers can foster a greener future for their organizations. This research presented "enviropreneurship performance" as a key factor for businesses implementing green supply chains and practices. It proposes an innovative model that connects green practices to this performance, providing important insights for future studies. The study validated this concept by employing a Resource-based View and testing the hypotheses using structural equation modeling, which enhanced the understanding of enviropreneurship within a developed economy.

The Mass Media and its Manifold Social Roles. the US Media – A Case Study

The Mass Media and its Manifold Social Roles. the US Media – A Case Study

US media coverage of housing and the Great Recession: Do inequality and race matter?

Housing is an issue that affects all individuals in society. People have first-hand experiences with housing, or the lack thereof, daily. Housing is also a macro-issue that is affected by and has implications for the nation’s economy and public policy. Despite the centrality of housing for individuals and society, few scholars have examined media coverage of the issue. We examine media framing of housing in the New York Times between 2005 and 2010, a period that encompasses the 2008 Great Recession. We investigate whether the New York Times framed housing episodically by focusing on individuals or thematically by focusing on societal factors. We compare framing of housing topics related to inequality – such as homelessness, affordable housing, foreclosure and public housing – to more general housing topics – such as mortgages, homeownership and economic policy. We also examine if frames differ depending on whether the coverage mentions racial minorities. We find that the New York Times framed housing primarily as a thematic issue during this period; however, for stories focused specifically on inequality and racial minorities, there was substantially more episodic coverage. This research provides the much-needed insight into news coverage of inequality and race in the context of housing and housing policy.

Discrepancies in the portrayal of Japan’s nuclear water release in Chinese and US media outlets: A corpus-based news values analysis of marine disputes

This article aims to explore the reactions and cognitions of Chinese and US societies toward Japan’s nuclear water release by comparing the methods used to construct this event in media reports from these two countries. Adopting corpus linguistic methods and a discursive news value analysis approach, this study examines news values through key words, nomination strategies and photographs in Chinese and US mainstream English language news coverage. The results show that by exercising overall control in multimodal news devices, the Chinese media dominantly constructed Japan’s nuclear water release as an environmentally harmful and legally irresponsible behavior for international society and demonstrated a prominent antagonistic position and critical attitude, while the US media mainly constructed Japan’s nuclear water release as a technically safe and politically rational behavior and manifested its neutral position and acceptive attitude. The results indicate that the acceptance of US society was supported by Japan’s technical treatment of nuclear waste water and by Japan’s political authorities’ justification for their behaviors, while the opposition of Chinese society was supported by their inquiries about the illegality of Japan’s behavior and their worries about the damage caused by Japan to the ocean environment and to the security of the international community. This study revealed the social cognitive grounds for supporting the political positions of the two countries in terms of Japan’s nuclear water release and demonstrated an effective sociological analysis method for examining the maritime disputes and marine strategies of different countries.

Discrepancies in the newsworthiness of maritime security in Chinese and US media outlets: a corpus-based discursive news values analysis

This article analyzes and compares the news values constructed in the English news reporting from Chinese and US mainstream media around events concerning maritime security, revealing how the related events have been packaged and sold differently in the two societies, uncovering the discrepancies in Chinese and US social visions on maritime security, and exploring the social attitudes underpinning the constant conflicts between the two countries in the marine sphere. Adopting corpus linguistic methods and the discursive news values analysis (DNVA) framework, this study examines news values through keywords, naming strategies, and images contained in Chinese and US mainstream English news outlets. The results show that Chinese media established the news values of Positivity and Proximity prominently through both textual and visual reporting, by emphasizing common international interests, advocating diplomatic joint cooperation and demonstrating optimistic attitudes towards the future of marine environment. By contrast, US media keenly construed Negativity and Eliteness, by highlighting the exclusive national interests/security of the US, dwelling on threats from other countries and distinctly demonstrating worries, fears, anger and violence. The differences in newsworthiness reflect that maritime security has been constructed in discrepant ways in Chinese and US society: as international joint security with optimistic perspective in China, and as exclusive national security with pessimistic perspective in US. This study has improved and supplemented the results of the previous China-US marine policy studies by the findings of the social emotions/cognition towards maritime policy revealed through newsworthiness analysis.

Lexical pragmatic indicators of conflictogenicity in the light of the manifestation of national communication style (based on Mexican and US mass media)

The lexical pragmatic indicators of conflictogenicity peculiar to Mexican and US media discourse were selected by means of a continuous sampling method from the articles published in 2021-2024 in American (CNN, The Fox News, The New York Times, The New York Post, Los Angeles Times - 100 articles) and Mexican (La Jornada, La Opinion, Excélsior, El Universal, El Milenio - 100 articles) online newspapers. All the analyzed articles are devoted to the migration crisis, which is a common problem of these countries. For the first time, the correlation between the conflict potential index of the text, the density of linguoconflictogens used and the peculiarities of the linguoculture of the ethnic group was established. According to the results, Mexican mass media is characterized by a significantly lower conflict potential index of the text compared to US publications: the density of the lexical pragmatic indicators of the conflict potential is not only lower but in fact lexical units with strong negative semantics are rarely used. The authors of Mexican online publications avoid using such stylistic means of "situation pumping" as hyperbolisation which is so common for US mass media. Metaphors are practically not used in Mexican press either. It is important to note that while the American media discourse is dominated by the extremely negative image of migrants as criminals and terrorists, the Mexican media presents two different types of migrants: the rich arrogant white-skinned trouble-provoking alien and the Latino brother who needs help and protection. The study's perspectives include a comparison of the conflict potential index of user-generated content in these countries and the compilation of a typology of the lexical pragmatic indicators of the conflict potential used.

FinSentGPT: A universal financial sentiment engine?

We present FinSentGPT, a financial sentiment prediction model based on a fine-tuned version of the artificial intelligence language model, ChatGPT. To assess the model’s effectiveness, we analyse a sample of US media news and a multi-language dataset of European Central Bank Monetary Policy Decisions. Our findings demonstrate that FinSentGPT’s sentiment classification ability aligns well with a prominent English-language finance sentiment model, surpasses an established alternative machine learning model, and is capable of predicting sentiment across various languages. Consequently, we offer preliminary evidence that advanced large-language AI models can facilitate flexible and contextual financial sentiment determination, transcending language barriers.

From Jamestown to Bethlehem: Local connections of geopolitical violence

In this visual intervention, I demonstrate connections between Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and rural Jamestown, Pennsylvania, USA, through 14 photos of surrounding landscapes. This intervention demonstrates how local geopolitical landscapes between two settler colonial nations perpetuate violence in the occupied Palestinian Territory (oPT), specifically through photos of “less-lethal munitions” in the West Bank and the site near the Pennsylvania manufacturer. While many scholars have demonstrated how US media and broader geopolitical discourses shape violence in everyday, intimate ways on bodies and people, this photo essay demonstrates how geopolitical violence and rhetoric manifest in everyday, local landscapes. Photos in this essay come from Aida Camp in the occupied West Bank outside of Bethlehem and rural Ohio and Pennsylvania, USA, on the route to where Combined Systems, Inc. manufactures rubber bullets, tear gas canisters, and other “less-lethal munitions and launching systems” deployed by the Israeli Security Force (ISF) in Aida.

Manufacturing foreign news from afar: Views from an editor’s desk

Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s propaganda model, one of the major scholarly contributions to the understanding of – especially foreign – news produced by the US media, consists of trenchant analysis of media industries and volumes of media content, while mostly ignoring an important intermediate step: what happens in the newsroom. This article aims to fill in those blanks with a critical reflection informed by academic literature on the author’s time working as a global news editor with two news agencies, including the main American one, the Associated Press. Specifically, the article aims to clarify and expand on three concepts related to journalistic practices that get short shrift in the propaganda model: journalists’ individual responsibility for the product they produce, their intent and their conformity to organizational imperatives, thereby as much as possible making understandable how and why the propaganda model works on the ground.

Between evidence first and political fight – understanding dynamics of (de-)politicization in US climate movements’ future narratives

ABSTRACT Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion and Sunrise Movement are among the new climate movements that have come into the public spotlight since 2019. While their successes in agenda-setting are undisputed, conclusions vary on whether and how this re-politicizes climate discourses. This article presents a new framework to analyze the dynamics of (de-)politicization along the dimensions of vision, agency and process. Based on a narrative analysis, we compare US movement and media documents from 2019 and identify five key narratives, namely, ‘Evidence First,’ ‘Intergenerational Divide,’ ‘Climate Justice & Intersectionality,’ ‘System Change’ and ‘Political Fight.’ While all movements use politicizing notions, we find that tensions between the dimensions inhibit the articulation of alternative visions of the future. This overall depoliticizing tendency appears to be rooted in process understandings that originate in dominant discursive framings of climate change and of science–policy interfaces – a finding that is informative for climate discourses in general.

Remembering the Recession: Marketplace and Status Quo Journalism

Ten years after the 2008 Great Recession, US media recalled the experiences and lessons learned from its aftermath. Among these was Marketplace's Divided Decade project, which spanned calendar year 2018 and included 66 discrete stories covering the impact on individuals and different sectors. The project cut across both Marketplace Morning and its evening broadcast Marketplace, both syndicated by American Public Media (APM). Marketplace appeals to a public radio audience of elite, educated listeners who are located away from financial power centers but still wield influence. This audience is larger than any other U.S. broadcast business program. Using theories of affect, this paper will demonstrate how Marketplace's recollection of a critical event continued to shape attitudes about the economy. By using critical discourse analysis (CDA), I unearth how power is reified through financial news reporting practices. Marketplace's focus on individual narratives decoupled the crisis from its structural context, while its reliance on economic policy leaders emphasized their affective memories and justified official responses. Divided Decade upheld the status quo by separating the impact of the crisis from the lives that were affected, while foreclosing alternative approaches to the problems the 2008 crisis laid bare.

How news reporting exacerbated the monkeypox pandemic in Spain and the US: A corpus-based news values analysis

ABSTRACT Media reporting greatly influences the civilians’ mentality, which further exacerbates or mitigates outbreaks of infectious diseases, prolongs or shortens the pandemic process. Adopting corpus linguistic methods and Discursive news values analysis (DNVA) framework, this study examined the news values through key words, naming strategies and photographs in monkeypox-themed news reporting in Spanish and the US media, to analyse how they constructed the monkeypox pandemic in their news reporting, sold it to the public and exacerbated the pandemic in the two societies. The results show that the Spanish media constructed the monkeypox pandemic predominantly as an international medical event, distancing the monkeypox pandemic from the Spanish indigenous context and depriving the domestic audiences from the sense of urgency to take prevention actions. On the other hand, the US media mainly packaged the monkeypox pandemic as a political event which isolated this public health crisis from the life of the common people and hindered the US citizens’ understanding of the requisite medical information about the monkeypox virus. It is concluded that the lack of indigenous focus of the Spanish media, and the excessively politicised focus of the US media are important factors that lead to the exacerbation of the monkeypox epidemic.

Press Conference Debates: A Conversational Analysis Study

The study uses a dataset consisting of 30 videos of press conference debates involving the former US President Donald Trump and media reporters and journalists. With reference to the application of conversation analysis (CA), this study examines the opening sequences of press conference debates, revealing that journalists employ various tactics before asking questions. These tactics include expressing disagreement, using reporting speech to convey criticism, and directly criticizing the speaker. These strategies reflect the journalists' professionalism and expertise in the debated subject matter. The study also found that speakers often use accusations to counter evasive responses and shift the debate's focus towards a conclusion. This analysis highlights the tense and confrontational nature of press conference interactions. The power imbalance is evident in the act of taking turns, as reporters consistently construct questions based on their knowledge of the debate topic. The extent of power primarily depends on the effective use of available argumentative resources throughout the interaction.