Archives for May 2013

[October 6, 2011]

While the use of anonymous online forums is growing among newspapers, a majority of reporters say the online comments do not promote civil thoughtful discussion, according to a recent study published in Newspaper Research Journal. Researcher Arthur Santana concluded that many reporters are troubled by the anonymous content and express dismay over their newspaper’s “providing a forum for anonymous discussion, where emotions run high and mudslinging is the norm.”

According to Santana, although most newspapers have online forums, almost half of reporters “never” respond to readers’ comments on their own stories. Some 41.7 percent of reporters in Santana’s research said that they have not changed their approach to reporting based on reader comments.

In fact, 23.1 percent of reporters adapted their reporting practices to include more sources, and 22.9 percent of reporters changed their practices to include more facts. Hence, the online forum has become a medium for feedback to journalists.

Citizen comments also “have spurred reporters to re-examine the newsworthiness of a topic and have also helped them think of new and different stories to tell while nudging them toward new and different ways to tell them,” according to Santana, a doctoral student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oregon.

The study was published in the summer 2011 issue of Newspaper Research Journal.

Contacts: Sandra H. Utt Cell: (901) 628-2553 e-mail: nrj@newspaperresearchjournal.org or Elinor Kelley Grusin e-mail: egrusin@memphis.edu

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[February 16, 2010]

Government agencies have long distributed prepackaged “video news releases,” or VNRs, to media outlets, as part of their mission to keep the public informed about their policies and activities. The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) has said that distributing VNRs without clearly identifying the government as their source, as was done on at least two occasions by the Bush Administration, violates laws against covert propaganda. However, to date little has been known about the effects of attribution – or lack of attribution – of government VNRs on audiences.

A study by a team of researchers from Penn State University and the University of Hartford published in the current issue of the Journal of Public Relations Research indicates that the effects of attribution on audiences seems to depend more on who’s watching the VNR than on what the government agency is saying in it.

According to Colleen Connolly-Ahern, an Assistant Professor at Penn State University and the leader of the research team that included Susan Grantham of University of Hartford and Maria Cabrera-Baukus of Penn State, “The original reason for the legislation, and the premise upon which the GAO has operated, is that VNRs are somehow more credible when they appear to be independent news stories, and not identified as government communications. But our findings don’t indicate that at all.”

In fact, said Connolly-Ahern, the credibility of the communications seems to depend on your political affiliation. “Self-identified Republicans actually judged a VNR higher in expertise when they knew it was from a government agency, and not a traditional news story. For self-identified Democrats the effects were reversed, with Democrats finding the VNR less expert when it came from a governmental agency.” The data was collected during the last year of President Bush’s second term.

The role of government is to develop policies that support public interests and reduce risks for all citizens. But Connolly-Ahern, Grantham and Cabrera-Baukus’ findings indicate it’s important for administrators to understand that citizens may base the credibility of their communications on their relationship with the party in power.

The research was supported by a grant from the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication at the Penn State College of Communications. The authors are now planning to repeat the study. “The change in administrations has given us the chance to see whether or not the findings are different under a Democratic administration,” said Connolly-Ahern.

Contacts: Colleen Connolly-Ahern, Assistant Professor, College of Communications, Penn State University, connolly-ahern@psu.edu or Susan Grantham, Associate Professor, School of Communication, University of Hartford, Grantham@hartford.edu.

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[September 11, 2009]

Three commissions that investigated violence in the 1960s had a significant impact on the development of widely accepted views about journalism ethics, according to a study published in the summer 2009 issue of Journalism & Communication Monographs.

In a monograph titled “Two Visions of Responsibility: How National Commissions Contributed to Journalism Ethics, 1963-1975,” Glen Feighery says it was not just the work of the Hutchins Commission or the Watergate investigation that prompted media organizations to focus more on social responsibility, but that the work of three commissions, The President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, and the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, offered significant advice on how journalists should ethically approach their work. The media responded with revisions of codes of ethics, the creation of news councils and journalism reviews, and increased employment of minorities.

Feighery argues that through this challenge and response, a heightened sense of media responsibility arose. Part of the evolution within journalism ethics at the time forced journalists to consider the relationship between their independence and their responsibility, Journalists valued their freedom from entities of authority, such as government, special interest groups, etc., but they also recognized a duty to adequately inform the public about existing problems. This strong sense of responsibility required journalists to go a step beyond minimizing harm and provide people with information that would allow them to make an informed decision.

Feighery argues that journalists struck the balance between freedom and responsibility by developing the approach of “autonomy,” which meant that journalists would follow self-imposed restraints. As a result, journalists could maintain their independence and work for the greater good of the public, creating an ethical approach that continued to influence the media in the decades following the 1970s .

Feighery is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Utah.

CONTACT: Glen Feighery, University of Utah, Office Phone: (801) 585-7521, Email: glen.feighery@utah.edu.

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[December 16, 2009]

Magazine advertisements and television commercials for cosmetics and personal hygiene products in India illustrate a cultural bias toward lighter skin, according to the findings of a study published in the fall 2009 issue of Journalism and Communication Monographs.

In their monograph, “Melanin on the Margins: Advertising and the Cultural Politics of Fair/Light/White Beauty in India,” Radhika Parameswaran and Kavitha Cardoza first provide context for “colorism,” or skin color discrimination, in India. They explain that the nineteenth century colonial attitudes that considered the science of race looked at physical characteristics of natives in order to prove their inferiority. Likewise, colorism has roots in the caste system of India, as well as in the country’s ancient history when lighter-skinned tribes invaded around 1500 B.C.

The authors argue that colorism affects women more than men, and non-white women consider light-colored skin to be an asset that can improve one’s social and economic status. Magazine advertisements, matrimonial classified advertisements, film and music industries, and fashion magazine editorials promote skin-lightening cosmetics and personal products by taking advantage of this cultural perspective.

In their study, Parameswaran and Cardoza identify the themes of transformation, scientific authority and heterosexual romance in the rhetoric of the advertisements they analyze. These themes suggest that a woman can change her skin color; that she should trust the products developed by western science; and that she can gain a successful, fulfilling relationship with a man as a result of having lighter skin.

Parameswaran is an associate professor in the School of Journalism at Indiana University, Bloomington, and Cardoza is a senior reporter at WAMU Public Radio in Washington, D.C.

CONTACT: Dr. Parameswaran at the School of Journalism, Indiana University. Phone: (812) 855-8569. Email: rparames@indiana.edu

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[July 25, 2009]