US Newspapers Research Articles

La actividad periodística y los desafíos de su gestión en los Estados Unidos de América y Europa

The digital age has opened the doors to numerous opportunities for publishing organizations and journalists, and has increased the number of challenges, particularly those related to the sustainability of the business model. The management of media companies faces a number of profound and disruptive challenges that even significantly defy the logic of various social media industries. This paper aims to understand the sustainability and challenges of media business models and how managers are reacting and adapting their practices in this industry in the field of digital transformation, and in an increasingly competitive market. Thus, the central research questions of this work are: RQ1. What are the main strategies and management practices applied by journalistic companies to achieve the sustainability of their business model and funding? RQ2. To what extent are the revenue streams of digital newspapers growing and how has the funding model of US newspapers differed from that of European ones? This article is based on 6 interviews (out of a total of 90 from a larger study that included executives from media companies based on all continents) with executives from 3 North American (United States and Canada) and 3 European newspaper companies. (Ireland, UK and France).

A “war” over lobster and whales: The issue-attention cycle, media discourse, and political ecology of right whale science and conservation in six US newspapers

A “war” over lobster and whales: The issue-attention cycle, media discourse, and political ecology of right whale science and conservation in six US newspapers

Before the Environment Was News: Outdoor Writers and the Boundaries of Journalism

Outdoor writing is a little respected and often forgotten genre of American newsmaking. Widely popular in the early to middle twentieth century, outdoor journalists presented a blend of factuality with personal narrative and advocacy for environmental preservation as they told stories of fishing, hunting, and the outdoors more broadly in columns tucked away in the sports section. Outdoor columns were the single most consistent source of environmental newsmaking in US newspapers until the late 1960s, when news organizations started assigning journalists working in the news section to the environmental beat. But because outdoor columnists violated norms of twentieth century newsmaking by including advocacy and personal narrative in their columns, their contributions have been overlooked. This study, which draws on the organizational archives of the Outdoor Writers Association of America, demonstrates that outdoor writers were deeply engaged with the concept of “news” even from their position as delegitimized actors within the news ecosystem. As a result, an historic account of the outdoor writing profession provides a fruitful site of inquiry to examine norms of journalism, boundaries of the field, legitimacy, and ultimately power.

Reporting on Antibiotic Resistance in Two US Newspapers Before and During Covid-19

Antibiotic resistance (AR) is a growing health crisis that has remained underrepresented in coverage across major news publications in the U.S. despite increasing rates of related disease outbreaks and mortality worldwide. This study used content analysis to examine the coverage of AR in two major U.S. news publications before the COVID-19 pandemic (2018-2019) and during it (2020-2021). Coverage of AR in The New York Times (NYT) and The Washington Post (WP) was analyzed according to the use of frames, the quantity of articles published, and a number of other variables including stakeholders, diseases, and terms referring to AR. These factors were used to assess how coverage of AR differed before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how it differed between the two newspapers. Pre-COVID-19 coverage focused on AR as an isolated pandemic, while coverage during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic often used AR as a supplementary component of the coverage to the main topic of COVID-19. This study found that both before and during the outbreak of COVID-19, the majority of the observed articles did not fully explain the scope, severity, or solution for the AR crisis. Instead, they provided readers with baseline information, framing AR as a contemporary issue and generally encouraging action but included very few tangible suggestions for every day, individual action for readers. KEYWORDS: Superbugs; Frames; Antibiotic Resistance; Coronavirus; COVID-19; Media Coverage; Health Crises; Medicine

News coverage of poverty and people living in poverty during political turmoil in the United States and United Kingdom

Politicians have often suggested that people experiencing poverty need to be encouraged to work, to stop relying on ‘government handouts’ and to become self-sufficient. News coverage of poverty has often repeated those claims, helping perpetuate stereotypes of poverty that stigmatizes the experience, making it difficult for people to seek help and also making spending cuts, like those the UK government announced in late 2022, seem necessary and inevitable. This research examines the coverage of poverty in four US and UK newspapers to understand how the issue was framed during a politically tumultuous time in the two countries. It found that rather than challenging stereotype, news coverage often perpetuated it, even when attempting to include the voices of people experiencing poverty in stories.

A Corpus-Based Critical Discourse Analysis of Chinese and American News Coverage on Climate Change

As the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) convened, the climate issue remained a focal point of coverage in both Chinese and American mainstream media. This paper seeks to explore the linguistic features of news discourse of climate change in China and the United States and the discursive strategy applied to strengthen national ideologies. Taking the reports on climate change in China Daily and Los Angeles Times within 2 months after COP27 as the research corpus, this paper examines the language features, the discursive processes of the text and possible social factors through a combination of corpus linguistics(CL) and critical discourse analysis(CDA) under the framework of Fairclough’s Three-Dimensional Model of Discourse. The finding suggests that both countries enhance national ideologies by constructing a responsible national image through objective climate reporting. Chinese media tends to focus on national efforts to improve ecological environment and global cooperation, while US newspaper attaches importance to climate security and pursues a leading position in global ecological governance.

Nil Darpan: how a mistakenly published play helped force labour reforms in British India

In 1860s India, Bengali playwright Dinabandhu Mitra wrote the play Nil Darpan (Indigo Mirror), an exposé of violent abuses committed against Indian farm workers by powerful British indigo dealers. With help from a Christian missionary, the play was translated into English and shared with the office of Bengal’s Lieutenant-Governor, Sir John Peter Grant. Grant approved a few copies to be printed to share with colleagues; instead, hundreds were mistakenly printed and distributed to Parliament members in England, outraging and embarrassing the British Raj. But would the amusing debacle help bring positive change to Indian labourers? The events of the Nil Darpan controversy are well-known to historians but have often been mythologised and misrepresented. The author provides a unique perspective on the events by comparing and contrasting the news media’s coverage of the Nil Darpan controversy, and Bengali theatre and film artists’ reactions to it, using his own findings from Indian, UK and US newspapers of the era ranging from 1859 to 1917. This article is based on a lecture given at the annual Fulbright Association Conference in October 2023 held in Denver, Colorado.

Framing Later Life Vulnerability during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Content Analysis of Newspaper Coverage in Canada and the United States.

This study explores vulnerability narratives used in relation to older adults and others during the COVID-19 pandemic. A mixed-method content analysis was conducted of 391 articles published in two major newspapers in Canada and the USA during the first wave of the pandemic. The findings indicated that during the early months of the pandemic, limited attention was directed towards its impact on older adults or other 'vulnerable' subpopulations in both countries. Where evident, intrinsic (individual-level) risk factors were most consistently used to frame the vulnerability of older adults. In contrast, vulnerability was more likely to be framed as structural with regard to other subpopulations (e.g., ethno-racial minorities). These narratives also differed somewhat in Canadian and US newspapers. The framing of older adults as intrinsically vulnerable reflects ageist stereotypes and promotes downstream policy interventions. Greater attention is needed to the role of structural factors in influencing pandemic-related outcomes among older adults.

Unraveling US Newspapers’ Digital and Print Subscriptions in the Context of Price, 2016–2022

Despite industry-wide efforts in digitally transforming news organizations, research showed that most newspapers’ legacy products still outperformed the same newspaper’s digital offerings in terms of engagement, circulation, readership, pricing, advertising, and subscription revenue—all by a wide margin. But Covid-19 created an unprecedented scenario where the need for instant, local news updates, the fear of contacting anything tangible, and financial stress may have changed consumer behavior. To assess the state of the newspaper industry, this study analyzes short-term and long-term trends in US newspapers’ digital and print circulation before and during the pandemic. The analysis considered price, an important factor often neglected in discussions about newspaper demand. Utilizing rich industry data, this study analyzed 18 US metro daily newspapers’ circulation trends during 2016–2022. The results revealed that digital circulation increased rapidly after the onset of Covid-19 but subsequently decreased after reaching the peak in Q3 2021. Print circulation continued its rapid decline since 2016, accompanied by continuous, substantial price hikes for print subscriptions—a typical print subscription now costs over $1,000 a year. Despite circulation declines, the print edition remains the core product, with more subscribers paying far more than digital subscribers. Because of the immense price gap (6 to 1), the seemingly promising increase in digital subscriptions during Covid-19 could not generate nearly as much revenue to cover the loss on the print side, resulting in a substantial loss in total subscription revenue. The state of the US newspaper industry needs immediate attention.

‘This happened once before’: sexual violence and US Supreme Court nominees

Supreme Court Justices Thomas, in 1991, and Kavanaugh, in 2018, were accused of sexual violence by Anita Hill and Christine Ford, respectively, and were both later confirmed in their positions. To better understand these outcomes and the political context in which they occurred, we analysed headlines from US newspapers using a directed content analysis. We drew on Schneider and Ingram’s established social construction of target populations theory to examine how newspaper headlines characterised the relative power and valence of political figures in each year. Results identified both consistencies and shifts in social constructions across time. In 2018, there were more negative characterisations of the nominee, accuser and the President, and more negative and less powerful characterisations of the public. In both years, the Senate and political parties were characterised negatively and powerfully. These findings provide evidence that intransience in political institutions, increased negative partisanship, and weakened public power may illuminate the parallel outcomes despite changed social mores, such as the advent of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.

A Green Wave in Media: A Change of Tack in Stock Markets*

AbstractThis paper examines the impact of environmental news coverage in US newspapers on stock markets. Using textual analysis with a dictionary‐based approach, we obtain several measures of attention, tonality and uncertainty in the coverage of environmental news in major US newspapers. We consider different weighting schemes to account for the visibility and relevance of the text sources, and several sets of newspapers to measure the possible impact of their editorial line. Our results show that greater attention to environmental news in the US media reduced the excess returns of carbon‐intensive stocks and increased their volatility over the last decade, especially when the coverage was uncertain. The opposite result holds for the most virtuous green assets. Restricting the corpus of texts to conservative newspapers mitigates the impact of coverage. Overall, our results illustrate how rising environmental concerns lead investors to change their asset allocation.

“She made a mean beef stroganoff”: Gendered portrayals of women in STEM in newspaper articles and their effects

ABSTRACT Media articles about women in STEM often emphasize gender in ways that may reinforce stereotypes. In an archival study examining 172 articles from four major US and UK newspapers on women, Nobel laureates from 1903 to 2020, we find that over time, reporters are more likely to describe the scientist as a woman and less likely to mention her husband’s job. A follow-up experiment (N = 452) revealed no significant effects of an article that emphasizes the gender of a woman scientist on gender biases. These findings suggest that articles about women in STEM may emphasize gender rather than scientific accomplishments, but the ways in which they do so have changed over time and this emphasis may not affect readers’ gender bias.

Debunking Biases: A Critical Analysis of Western Media Reports about Chinas Belt and Road Initiative

This paper will examine and debunk some of the negative claims that many US and Western media outlets made regarding the Belt and Road Initiative (One Belt One Road, or BRI). There are plenty of articles published by news organizations in the US that claim China has used unfair measures to take advantage of the host countries, including the debt-trapping of Sri Lanka. This paper will seek to examine and debunk some of the claims that are prejudiced or factually incorrect. To prove the argument of this paper, articles from US and Western newspapers have been examined. After recording the claims of these articles, these claims will try to be corroborated or debunked by looking at how media from the host countries regard and respond to the issue. After the examination, the claim of the debt-trap of Sri Lanka in the Hambantota Port Deal has been proven as improbable. This is because a large number of their domestic media and studies about Sri Lanka reveal that the project actually benefited Sri Lanka by creating a large number of jobs and funding. In addition, the deal seems to have been initiated by Sri Lankan politicians, removing the fault completely from China. Media in other countries such as Myanmar, Cambodia and Pakistan have also been analyzed, proving a majority positive public opinion towards the BRI.

Lexical change and stability in 100 years of English in US newspapers

This study explores diachronic variation across approximately one hundred years of the newspaper register in US American English from 1920 to 2019 as captured in the Corpus of Historical American English (Davies, 2010). Informed by a similar study of lexical change in British English (Baker, 2011), the analysis identified high-frequency words exhibiting the greatest increases and decreases in use as well as those words demonstrating stability across the four sampling periods: 1920–29, 1950–59, 1980–89, 2010–19. The process to identify words of change and stability began first with the application of a cumulative frequency threshold; coefficient of variance and Kendall's Tau correlation coefficient were then calculated to aid in identification. In other words, the process targeted high-frequency words whose use has demonstrated the greatest change or stability. The discussion presents the three resulting word lists (increasing, decreasing, stable) and reports concordance and collocation analysis of select words from each list to gain insight into the underlying factors informing lexical change and stability.

From Rio Earth Summit to COP26: Malaysia’s pledges, political leadership, policies, administrative apparatus and performance

This paper charts Malaysia’s green journey, beginning with its pledge at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 to its most recent commitment at the COP26 (Conference of Parties 26) in 2021. Malaysia’s nationally-determined contributions (NDC) have progressed (as they should be) to the present ambitious claim that the nation will be carbon neutral by 2050. Malaysia has been led by several prime ministers during this 30 years journey. Despite coming from different political shades (especially in the last four years) their commitment to the green agenda has been unwavering, rhetorically at least until when the governments’ actions are scrutinised. Understandably, balancing climate change imperatives and socio-economic progress is not easy. To the layman, the series of policies and related documents unveiled over the course of the duration seem disconnected and do not add up to make a complete whole. Various parts of the administrative apparatus have been assigned the responsibility to address the green agenda through the years, though the disconnect of the various government documents suggests that they may not be in conversation with one another. All Paris Agreement signatories are required to submit biennial update reports (BUR) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). In 2021, one major investigation by a reputable US newspaper accused Malaysia, just like many other countries, of under-reporting its greenhouse emissions to UNFCC, which the Malaysian government strongly denied. Making climate change pledges is the easy bit, fulfilling those pledges while addressing the nation’s aspirations is not easy. This challenge also manifests in policy formulation, administration and measurement methodology conundrum.

In search of a Tawney Moment: Income inequality, financial crisis and the mass media in the UK and the USA

Has rising income inequality become a scandalous social problem as the English ethical socialist R. H. Tawney anticipated in an earlier era? We examine the salience and framing of income inequality within major UK and US newspapers over the period 1990–2015. Specifically, this includes the global banking crisis of 2008, which was the most significant financial crisis in capitalist economies since the Great Depression of 1929. Did this event trigger a public outcry? We divide the overall search into a full corpus for quantitative analysis of media salience and a smaller corpus for in-depth qualitative analysis of media frames. We find that media coverage of income inequality increased across the period in both countries and especially after 2008. With this increase, there is a shift in frame prevalence, with pre-2008 frames focusing on conceptualising rising income inequality while post-2008 frames focus on managing rising inequality (through interventions, policies and identifying scale of solutions needed). This shift is accompanied by a more polarised sentiment on income inequality, an increase in moralising language and a more balanced political slant. The proposed ‘solutions’ become absorbed within established repertoires offered by the political right and left, limiting the emergence of a Tawney Moment. Consequently, the rise in income inequality has not generated the kind of scandalising public outcry that Tawney would expect. We conclude by examining the possible reasons for the lack of outrage in the mass media.

Movie Mavens: US Newspaper Women Take on the Movies, 1914–1923, edited by Richard Abel

Movie Mavens: US Newspaper Women Take on the Movies, 1914–1923, edited by Richard Abel

Ripped from the Headlines: Contemporary Practices in the Adaptation of Journalism as Screen Fiction

ABSTRACT The relationship between journalism and the film industry has been widely discussed, but the process of adapting journalism for the screen has not previously been analysed in detail. This article traces the intensification of Hollywood films adapted from longform journalism in US newspapers and magazines between 2010 and 2019 and examines how journalism has come to be traded and processed as a form of intellectual property. The corporatisation of journalism adaptation is investigated through the consideration of two companies which specialise in adapting journalism for film and TV. The article proceeds to analyse two films in detail: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), adapted from Tom Junod’s article “Can You Say … Hero?” and Hustlers (2019), adapted from “The Hustlers at Scores” by Jessica Pressler. The journalists whose work was adapted participated in promotional activities for both films and were represented on-screen, in fictionalised form. As such, this article also considers how journalists may function as authorial presences in the adaptation of their work. Finally, the article considers how Neighbourhood and Hustlers negotiate the relationship between fiction and nonfiction, seeking territory between the truth status and authority asserted in journalism and the dramatic invention of film.

FROM ISLAMOPHOBIA TO NEO-ISLAMOPHOBIA: A NEW STYLE OF GOVERNANCE IN THE WEST

Islamophobia is thought to be a modernized version of Orientalism, which was initially used to justify European political actions against the Ottoman Empire and, later, after its decline, to support their imperialist pursuits in the Muslim world. It is now used as a strategy for governing Western societies, particularly the United States, where people are forced to live with historical prejudices against Islam and Muslims. The nature of this animosity points to a new form of Islamophobia, which, like the old one, appears in discourses and practices alike. This study aims to ascertain how Islamophobia manifests as new Islamophobia in the modern West. It investigates the presence of this phenomenon in US media discourse using the theoretical framework of securitization. The researchers employed an analytical framework adapted from Discourse-Historical-Approach and studied 3153 news and opinion pieces from US newspapers and wire services between November 2016 and January 2017. This study has revealed an Islamophobic society where Muslims were the targets of hate crimes due to their Islamic identity. It has been found that Trump's anti-Islamic rhetoric during his presidential campaign contributed to the emergence of this new societal syndrome. It concludes that "neo-Islamophobia" is a name for a new style of governance adopted by some Western politicians who capitalize on Islamophobia as a political strategy to gain power, thereby shaping the existing social order into an Islamophobic one. The researchers recommend similar inquiries into other contexts too.

Analyzing Media Coverage on the fall of Kabul A Critical Analysis of National and International Newspapers

The present study aims to investigate the portrayal of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in the news coverage of Pakistani newspaper Dawn, the U.S. newspaper, the New York Times, a Russian newspaper, the Moscow Times, and the Indian newspaper, The Hindu during the fall of Kabul from 16 July to 14 September 2021. The purpose of the study is to investigate how the newspapers of the selected four countries cover the withdrawal in the light of their respective national interest. This study analyzes the media and government relationship, whereas the study mainly revisits the application of ‘indexing theory’ in the context of the media’s coverage of the issue of Afghanistan quantitatively and qualitatively to determine the soft or otherwise critical relationship between media and government. The results, which are mixed in their nature, suggest that the elites’ differences on the issue of the US forces’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, coupled with the state of uncertainty over the issue of Afghanistan. Revisiting the Indexing Theory in the context of activated oppositional voices in the United States, hence the US newspaper The New York Times, and even the Russian newspaper, the Moscow Times, were found more critical to the governments than Dawn and The Hindu, which highlighted the issue of Afghanistan more in the context of ‘proximity’ extended support to their respective governments respectively.