Television News Research Articles

U.S. Election Day Coverage of Voting Processes

ABSTRACT Voting in the U.S. is a costly activity, so the public looks to the news media for information. And yet, we know little about news coverage of voting. We first defined voting process coverage (VPC) and developed a manually validated organic dictionary to identify VPC. We then conducted automated content analyses on a national television Election Day news corpus featuring three elections, and used a unique dataset of local television news from 11 states and DC as a robustness check. Finally, we deployed a second manually validated organic dictionary to analyze and compare the same corpus to a better-known type of coverage: the game frame. We found that VPC far surpasses game frame coverage on Election Day and the day prior. Our results suggest the need for more scholarly attention on Election Day television news coverage, particularly given the potential civic function of such coverage.

News Value Dynamics – Communication Through Audience Experience Research

News is a viable and essential form of traditional journalism. News television programming incorporates the seriousness of democratic issues into the public conversation. Regarding themes, current events, international policies, or cultural phenomena, news value is key in structuring newscasts. Scholars and practitioners point to the news value dynamic as a conditional measure of the direct experience of the living world. From the audience perspective, the study methodology of this article presents a scientific aspect of how communication specialists perceive and rethink the news critically, more often as professionals who precisely notice twisting reality, rather than journalists, who specify why challenges of news value never abate. In this special study, conducted in May and June 2024, a group of trainee communication specialists in the role of respondents participated in research of the news value of four news items covering vital hot news in Bulgarian society. Respondents must guess the inherent relationships between factors of the news value and try to understand the logic behind the dynamics of news value. For this paper, the dynamics of news value is identified as a postmodernism problem not only concerns the semantic differentiation, stemming from media professional standards but also expands into what journalistic and communication theory call “scientific applied” and traces the contour of a complex practice of research facets and needs for new agile findings. The paper offered to your attention looks at how the news value dynamic sustains audience interest through the professional lens of communicators.

Analysis of Ambiguity in International News Headlines

Understanding ambiguity is one thing that will be useful. Ambiguity is not the same as 'vagueness'. Vagueness means that things have no interpretation, while ambiguity has other reasonable interpretations. By understanding ambiguity, you can learn to think about a problem from a new perspective and explain that thought to others. This study contains the ambiguity found in the headline of news on the British Broadcasting Corporation or BBC news television service site. This study aims to find meaning ambiguity and determine the type of ambiguity of meaning contained in news headlines, including structural ambiguity or lexical ambiguity. The method used in this research is qualitative. The sample in this study is 10 ambiguous headlines that contain ambiguity, it is either structural/grammatical ambiguity and lexical ambiguity. The researchers conclude there are still news headlines that might confuse the readers because they can have two interpretations. So, this study displays the explanation of how and why there can be 2 interpretations in the news headlines. And the two interpretations can be included in structural ambiguity or lexical ambiguity.

Portrayal of risk information and its impact on audiences' risk perception during the Covid-19 pandemic: A multi-method approach.

Over the last years, infectious diseases have been traveling across international borders faster than ever before, resulting in major public health crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Given the rapid changes and unknown risks that mark such events, risk communication faces the challenge to raise awareness and concern among the public without creating panic. Drawing on the social amplification of risk framework-a concept that theorizes how and why risks are amplified or attenuated during the (1) transfer of risk information (by, for instance, news media) and (2) audiences' interpretation and perception of these information-we were interested in the portrayal of risk information and its impact on audiences' risk perception over the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany. We therefore conducted a quantitative content analysis of a major public and private television (TV) newscast (N=321) and combined it with survey data (two-wave panel survey, t1: N=1378 and t2: N=1061). Our results indicate that TV news (as a major information source at that time) were characterized by both risk-attenuating and risk-amplifying characteristics, although risk-amplifying attributes were particularly pronounced by the private TV newscast. Notably, those who only used private TV news between both waves showed the highest perceived severity at time 2. However, the interaction effect of time and use of public and/or private TV news was only significant for perceived susceptibility. Overall, more research is needed to examine the effects of different types of media and changes in risk perceptions over time.

Conglomeration, Digital Disruption, and COVID-19: Upheaval-Driven Changes to the Roles of U.S. Local Television News Directors

This mixed methods study analyzes how broadcast news directors renegotiate their roles under organizational and cultural times of change. Even before COVID-19, local television news directors, one of the two predominant groups of journalism managers in the United States, were experiencing shifts in roles related to their growing work responsibilities. These changes were the result of long-term workplace upheavals including conglomeration and digital disruption. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, news directors found themselves managing through this additional, short-term upheaval. The authors of this study sought to discover how industry upheavals impact broadcast newsroom management roles.

Media Coverage of the Senate Filibuster and Its Effects on Public Opinion

How does the media report on Senate procedure, and how does reporting affect the public’s views of process and policy? This paper examines both parts of this question in the context of the Senate filibuster. Using new data on coverage of failed cloture motions over two decades, I show that news accounts typically explained these votes in generalized ways that obscured minority obstruction or equated the vote with simple defeat. These tendencies were more pronounced in television news, and they were more common as the “60-vote Senate” became the norm. I then use a survey experiment to test the opinion effects of differences in filibuster reporting. The results provide some limited evidence that more detailed reporting on cloture leads to lower support for the underlying policy, and they show that respondents who consumed more detailed reporting perceived the Senate’s procedure as less fair. Partisanship conditioned these effects, with minority-party identifiers becoming less supportive of the policy and majority-party identifiers less approving of the process. The findings demonstrate that the press does not consistently provide voters with a clear understanding of the Senate’s supermajoritarian processes, and that this reporting has consequences for voters’ judgments.

Audience Perception of Female News Anchors: A Study of Africa Independent Television (AIT)

This study examined the perception of mass communication students on female news anchors in Africa Independent Television (AIT). The purpose of the study is to determine viewers perception on the physical characteristics of female news anchors on Africa Independent Television (AIT); whether viewers' attention is diverted from the news by the appearance of these anchors; and whether viewers' attention is affected by their physical appearance. . The study was guided by Social Perception Theory. Using survey method quantitative approach was used. The population of this study made of 5032 students in Federal Polytechnic Bauchi within period of the study (Academic Unit, 2024). 346 sample size was used. In gathering the data, questionnaire was used. Data of the study was analyzed using descriptive analysis. The sstudy indicated that, the appearance is generally viewed positively; certain aspects of attire may inadvertently cause distraction. The study conclude that, the perception of Mass Communication students regarding female television news anchors on Africa Independent Television (AIT) is generally positive, emphasizing professionalism, competence, and credibility. It is recommended that, AIT should continue to promote gender equality by ensuring equal representation of male and female anchors across all news programs.

An Analysis of Shot Types and Camera Angles in the Feature News "Transforming Scrap Fabric into Artwork" on the TVRI Jawa Barat News Program

"Transforming Scrap Fabric into Artwork" is one of the travel feature news segments aired on the TVRI Jawa Barat program, Jawa Barat Hari Ini (West Java Today). The primary focus of the feature news video is on the objects and locations of the tourist village being covered. The selection of appropriate filming techniques ensures that the information conveyed in the travel feature news is clear and effective for the audience. Therefore, it is essential to choose the right filming techniques to effectively highlight the uniqueness and inspirational story of Kampung Perca (Scrap Fabric Village). This research aims to analyze the filming techniques used in a feature news video, focusing on shot types and camera angles. Data collection methods include observation, interviews, and literature review. The data is analyzed through data reduction, data presentation, data validity testing, and conclusion drawing and verification. The shot types in the feature news video include six categories: wide shot/long shot, medium close-up, medium shot, close-up, big close-up, and over-the-shoulder shot. The camera angles used in the feature news video consist of three categories: high angle, low angle, and eye level. Keywords: angle camera; feature news; filming techniques; shot type.

Multimodal meaning making in news communication about immigration: using the NewsScape corpus to explore co-verbal images in TV news

The communication of news relies on semiotic resources besides language, including various audiovisual modes of representation. Owing to the difficulties associated with obtaining televisual data, the vast majority of research addressing multimodality in the news has been targeted at print news media, where various strategies in visual representation and patterns of interaction between verbal and visual modes have been discerned. Where televisual data has been interrogated, this has been based on a very limited number of data points. In this study, I exploit the NewsScape library – a massive multimodal corpus of news communication – to investigate multimodal representations of immigration in television news. Accessible via CQPWeb, the corpus is searched for target utterances refugees/(im)migrants have VERBed and refugees/(im)migrants are VERBing. The co-verbal images accompanying 474 utterances describing motion events are analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Among the results discussed are that refugees/migrants are depicted in large rather than small groups, that they are depicted in transit somewhere along the migratory journey rather than in countries of origin or destination countries, that they are depicted on land more than at sea, that they are depicted in security contexts, and that they are erased represented instead through abstract forms such as maps. Differences in the visual representation of people designated as ‘refugee’ versus ‘migrant’ are also observed and discussed.

Short videos, big impact: How Chinese youth perceive and engage with news on short video platforms

In the contemporary media landscape in China, short video platforms (SVP) have emerged as significant news sources, especially among young audiences. Anchored in an understanding of news literacy as situated knowledge, this study investigates how Chinese youth (aged 13–18) perceive and engage with news content on these platforms. Based on qualitative interviews with 30 middle and high school students across five provinces in China, we found that 1) participants wanted short video news to be objective and straightforward, and felt that the affordances of short video platforms detract from these values; 2) they reported using news literacy skills when consuming short video news, but the strategies they shared were problematic; and 3) they were reluctant to engage with news content online and preferred to discuss it offline with people they trust. This study sheds light on the complex and often contradictory news consumption engagement and practices among Chinese youth on SVPs.

Working in precarity: examining mainstream discourses about street hawking in Ghana

Abstract This study sought to analyze how the media and the general public position street hawking in an economic environment typically constrained by neoliberal orthodoxy. We conducted a critical textual analysis of news articles, op-eds, and video clips from some of the most popular news media sources in Ghana and found that while informal work is often done in turbulent material conditions, marginality and precarity of street hawking are exacerbated by media and popular discourses that are anchored by neoliberalism. We also found that such discourses are resisted by counter-discourses. The study challenges neoliberal analyses of work and labor by explicating the tensions between the attraction to neoliberalism and the reality of its failures for informal work.

Players in the Women's National Basketball Association Are More Likely to Tear Their Anterior Cruciate Ligament if They Are a Guard, Forward, or Driving to the Basket: A Case-Control Study.

The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) has grown in popularity since its induction in 1996. Furthermore, it is well known that female athletes are at an increased risk of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears compared with their male counterparts. The purpose was to examine the player positions and player movements during basketball games and practices that contribute to ACL tears in WNBA players. Player position and demographics from WNBA players who suffered an ACL tear from 1996 to 2021 were collected from publicly available sources. Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) news reports and video analysis were reviewed to determine what movements each player was performing when the injury occurred. Injured players were matched with two noninjured players by age, position, height, and league experience. Performance statistics were collected one season prior to injury and compared with the matched controls. A total of 62 WNBA players with ACL injuries were identified with an average age of 26.7 (±3.9) years. More guards and forward were seen in the injured cohort and more players were injured while driving to the basket (p < 0.05). ACL injuries occurred more commonly during games than in practice (p < 0.05). Compared with controlled match cohort, the players who suffered ACL tears started more games (p = 0.007), had higher minutes played per game (p = 0.003), more field goals per game (p = 0.04), more field goal attempts per game (p = 0.03), more 3-point attempts per game (p = 0.04), more rebounds per game (p = 0.04), more steals per game (p = 0.02), and more points per game (p = 0.02). WNBA guards and forward were more likely to tear their ACL, especially while driving to the basket during real game play. Additionally, players with higher playing times, rebounds, and steals per game had higher rates of ACL tears. However, there was no impact on their performance on season statistics after returning to sport. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: III.

News sources and the epistemic authority to represent reality: How journalism constructs an order of authorized knowers in local television news

News sources and the epistemic authority to represent reality: How journalism constructs an order of authorized knowers in local television news

[formula omitted]: A multimodal misinformation dataset for media authenticity analysis

With the development of various generative models, misinformation in news media becomes more deceptive and easier to create, posing a significant problem. However, existing datasets for misinformation study often have limited modalities, constrained sources, and a narrow range of topics. These limitations make it difficult to train models that can effectively combat real-world misinformation. To address this, we propose a comprehensive, large-scale Multimodal Misinformation dataset for Media Authenticity Analysis (M3A), featuring broad sources and fine-grained annotations for topics and sentiments. To curate M3A, we collect genuine news content from 60 renowned news outlets worldwide and generate fake samples using multiple techniques. These include altering named entities in texts, swapping modalities between samples, creating new modalities, and misrepresenting movie content as news. M3A contains 708K genuine news samples and over 6M fake news samples, spanning text, images, audio, and video. M3A provides detailed multi-class labels, crucial for various misinformation detection tasks, including out-of-context detection and deepfake detection. For each task, we offer extensive benchmarks using state-of-the-art models, aiming to enhance the development of robust misinformation detection systems.

Tuning into Fairness? Comparative Content Analysis of Discrimination Reporting in Flemish Public and Commercial Television News

Tuning into Fairness? Comparative Content Analysis of Discrimination Reporting in Flemish Public and Commercial Television News

Transmediatic depth of «The New York Times» and «El País» in their coverage of Boris Johnson’s resignation

A decade after the implementation of multimedia frameworks in the news media, it is necessary to determine which mechanisms have been incorporated into the daily routines of the news media. To accomplish this, we analysed the channels, forms and intertextual modalities employed by two leading international newspapers in their coverage of an unpredictable news event with global repercussions and a specific period: the UK government crisis of July 2022, which led to the resignation of the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. We used a qualitative methodology of transmedia information analysis (Calvo &amp; Serrano Tellería, 2021), adapted to assess the daily operations of online media in updating their content. Additionally, interviews were conducted with the teams responsible for this coverage. The coverage analysis revealed a transmedia depth of ten to eleven informative modalities. We found several residual differences in their audience participation policies. Certain generalist modalities, such as live streaming, video news, podcasts or social networks, were well established and used to attract readership. Furthermore, various models of newsletters and discussion forums with varying levels of access restriction were employed. However, neither of the studied media outlets offered an auditory transcription of their content. While a specific transmedia information model is emerging in digital media, further research should be undertaken to complement these findings.

Sex panic and robots: a critical discourse analysis of the banned Texan robotic brothel

ABSTRACT This study examines the unique relationship between panic, technology, and sexuality using a sex panic framework. Sex panic, a derivative of moral panic theory, focuses on fears related to or because of sexuality or sexual practices. Inextricably tied to emotion, sex panic events are often scripted and based on performativity. In Texas, a sex robot “testing center” attempted to open as a storefront in the suburbs of Houston. Local officials and community leaders condemned the brothel announcement. A critical discourse analysis of sixty news articles and videos, Houston City Council meeting minutes, and the subsequent city ordinances were evaluated to explore the controversy of the ultimately banned brothel. Through this analysis, prevalent discursive themes on the protection of women and children, fears about sex robot users, and concerns over how the Houston community would be viewed were found. Discursive tactics centered on creating panic around issues of rape, dehumanization, and moral standards. This study contributes to the critical scholarship on sex robots and their effects on public discourse.

Data Perception and Information Disorder in the Italian Context During the Pandemic

This paper aims to learn how Italian audiences received and perceived data-driven television news during the Covid-19 pandemic. During this time, the logic and practices of creating and consuming television journalism were disrupted by the pandemic emergency. The paper presents the results of research carried out as part of a wider project titled “The Social Effects of Fake News” which was conducted from 2018 to 2022 within the CoRiS department of Sapienza University of Rome. The research project was reshaped in 2020, to understand the effects of what has been called “information disorder” in the areas of health, medicine, and science at a time when, together with the pandemic, an “infodemic” also emerged.1 We use Wardle and Derakhshan’s notion of “information disorder” as presented in their Council of Europe report.2 The results of the survey research we conducted show a surprising paradox. We found an interesting pattern of receiving and using information content based on data, in which users trust those who produce and validate certain data and at the same time do not believe that same data. This pattern of use indicates a particular approach to dealing with news among the Italian public. We have labelled it “know-it-all.” This article aims to deepen the understanding of this paradox of trust in experts but not in the data they deliver and how journalistic practice should deal with this conundrum.

HOW DID THE PANDEMIC AFFECT THE RESIZING OF TELEVISION NEWSROOMS IN ALBANIA

The pandemic has brought great surprise by transforming many dimensions of our lives, but it has undoubtedly also found the entire media industry unprepared. It has led to the paralysis of every political and economic activity, as well as of media systems, not only in Albania but did not spare the information corporations all over the world. The immediate challenges faced by the media, particularly the traditional ones, were the collapse of information, job losses, decline in advertising, reduction of staff and budgets, biased information, and decreased access to resources. In this article, we aim to prepare a qualitative analysis, of how Covid-19 has re-dimensioned the editorial staff of information television in terms of organization and operation of daily basis of the journalist’s work. In the following, we have taken into consideration our study of three newsrooms of news television, such as: Syri Tv, Euronews, and News 24. The methodology is based on qualitative interviews of the three relevant chief editors of the aforementioned media, such as: Bledian Koka, Anta Muçaku, and Anila Jole. The survey of 23 journalists working in these newsrooms also provides quantitative data, concluding that today’s editorships bring many "innovations" and organizational "changes", that had not previously been embraced by classic TV editors, before the COVID-19.

Burning through information: An investigation of information sources and information seeking behavior during 2020 Oregon wildfires

A series of wildfires in Oregon in 2020 resulted in severe human and property losses. Given the stressful and time-sensitive nature of such events, providing timely information to people during extreme weather events like wildfires can be challenging. Understanding individuals' most-frequently-used information sources along with their information seeking behaviors can help communicators to target audiences and effectively communicate emergency information. A quantitative study was conducted to explore the information sources Oregon residents frequently used during 2020 wildfire season along with the factors underlying their information seeking behaviors. The results indicated television news was the most frequently used information source by the respondents, followed by the National Weather Service. Rural and urban/suburban residents varied on their reliance on friends, family, and neighbors as information sources during the wildfires. Additionally, risk awareness, community type, emotional response to climate change, media trust, and age significantly predicted the information seeking behaviors of Oregon residents during the 2020 wildfire season. Those involved in communicating information during emergencies should be mindful of their audiences’ information source use and create messages for sources most likely to be relied upon. The implications of this research are useful for stakeholders dealing with emergency communication and management to better understand the public and their information needs and behaviors during emergencies.