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One HPV vaccine was approved this July in China, which caused wide attention and discussion on social media Weibo. This study systematically analyzed information posted on Weibo to learn both the media discourse and public's reactions on this HPV vaccine. A content analysis was conducted on 382 posts. The posts were analyzed with respect to message source, tone, format, number of reposts, and information specific to HPV vaccine. Correlations between the aforementioned variables were also examined. The results showed a neutral or positive tone toward HPV vaccine in general, however, 30.8% of messages from individual sources hold a negative tone. Statistics was the most often used format. Comprehensive information on HPV vaccine, HPV and cervical cancer were presented by most of the messages (60%). However, the accuracy and effectiveness were lacking in half of the messages. The average numbers of reposts were 1083 and 8580 for individual and organizational sources. Higher numbers of reposts were associated with neutral tone, statistics format and complete and accurate descriptions for messages from individual sources. This relationship, however, didn't exist for messages from organizational sources. Health practitioners should pay attention to the inaccurate and ineffective issues of online information about HPV vaccine, especially when it is from organizational sources since it is highly disseminated without much scrutiny from online users. Moreover, when utilizing interpersonal source to disseminate health information, a neutral tone with complete and accurate account might be disseminated more widely at the current stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although considerable research has been done on the evaluation of online content credibility, little of this work has considered the context of how users get to a Web site in their final evaluation of the content they find. Using unique data about how a diverse group of young adults looks for and evaluates online content, our paper makes contributions to existing literature by highlighting factors beyond site features in how users assess the credibility of material they encounter on the Web. We show that the process by which a user arrives at a site is an important component of how the final destination is judged. In addition to search context, branding and routines also play an important role in this assessment as does a continued reliance on resources beyond Web sites including people's social networks. We also discuss the fact that users differ considerably in their skills when it comes to evaluating online content. Finally, we identify areas for future research including a need for more valid survey instruments and continued work in more naturalistic settings. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is a content analysis of messages posted on Univision Online's immigration forum. Through a social support framework, the author explores what types of support messages are expressed by the forum's users and how these messages may contribute to the development of social capital. Univision Online caters to Latinos, and Spanish-dominant Latinos in particular; therefore this study describes how Latino Internet users are engaging in computer-mediated communication (CMC) within a very specific online community. Immigration-related social support messages expressed in the immigration forum can contribute to community building and the development of migrant-specific social capital. The resource and information sharing occurring within Univision Online is an example of a powerful, and often ignored, strand in the fabric of social relations that can influence migration and mobilization among Latino immigrants. Latinos currently access the Internet less than other ethnic groups, but high levels of engagement with the Univision Online portal may signify a growing interest in CMC among this population. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first aim of this study was to investigate the validity of four potential mediators that may account for the effects of CMC on interpersonal attraction (i.e., amount of self-disclosure, depth of self-disclosure, question asking, and reciprocity of self-disclosure). The second aim was to clarify the role of nonverbal cues and visual anonymity in the CMC-interpersonal attraction relationship. Eighty-one unacquainted cross-gender dyads were randomly assigned to three experimental conditions: a face-to-face, a visual CMC (i.e., CMC with a webcam), or a text-only CMC condition. Content analysis of the verbal interactions revealed that text-only CMC interactants liked each other more than face-to-face interactants. However, there was no difference in liking between text-only CMC and visual CMC. Depth of self-disclosure and question asking mediated the CMC-liking relationship. Again, there was no difference between the text-only and visual CMC conditions, suggesting that it is not the visual anonimity of CMC that accounts for the higher levels of interpersonal attraction in CMC. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online multimedia platforms have allowed news organizations to cover the Iraq War in a more vivid and interactive manner than previous conflicts. This study examined the utilization of multimedia story types by U.S. newspaper Web sites in covering the Iraq War in 2007, and its role in framing aspects of the War. A total of 201 photo galleries, audio slideshows, interactive graphics, and interactive packages were analyzed from the 100 most-visited U.S. newspaper sites. Dominant textual and visual frames were coded for each story, along with framing dimensions including main subject, time and space. The study concluded that human interest framing dominated multimedia coverage, although the extent of such framing differed between multimedia story types. While there were no significant differences in framing along story platform, photo galleries and slideshows constituted a majority of the sample. 72 percent of stories utilized a human interest textual frame, and 81.1 percent of stories featured a human interest visual frame. Multimedia coverage of the war primarily told the stories of individual U.S. stories and their families. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Journalists' blogs (j-blogs) are novel journalistic practice emerging in Chinese news industry. This study is the first step in establishing what is going on in Chinese news media in terms of j-blogs and finding out how new technology would change and transform the traditional news industry in Mainland China. Content analysis was conducted to study j-blogs on Chinese newspaper websites and investigate their implications for journalism in China. Topic, format, reader comments, hyperlinks and multimedia such as video, audio and pictures in j-blog posts were analyzed. It was revealed that the most often addressed topics in Chinese j-blogs were lifestyle, politics/government/military, crime/accidents/disasters, and business/economic activity. The most frequently adopted formats in Chinese j-blogs were the straight opinion column, the rumor-mill blog, and reporter's notebook of news tidbits and incidentals. It was shown that the formats of j-blog posts varied by topics. Significant influence of topic and format were found on the number of reader comments in Chinese j-blog posts. The use of hyperlinks and multimedia also differed in j-blogs with different topics and formats. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U.S. newspaper reporters and editors have heard a chorus of calls for greater transparency in recent years. Journalists are being told to lift the curtain and tell readers how the news is gathered and produced. Yet little research has shown whether journalists are heeding such calls. This exploratory study content-analyzes editor's notes at major U.S. daily newspapers and finds little evidence that they are being used to increase transparency. Although editor's notes have generally become more prevalent, that trend appears to be tapering off. Editor's notes are seldom used to explain reporting and sourcing methods. Moreover, such notes typically are written from a third-person point of view rather than taking a more conversational approach. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 2000 presidential election, the United States is seen less as a dichotomy of Democrats and Republicans, and more as a dichotomy of "red states" and "blue states." This breakdown of the tendency of certain states to throw their electoral support one direction or the other seems to be increasingly referenced in political coverage, yet little academic study has been done to chronicle this shift. This study was designed not only to detect the presence of this terminology over the last five federal election cycles, but also to analyze if the use of the terms is related to the means by which the stories are framed. This content analysis suggests that the terms are indeed increasing in frequency, and are most closely associated with stories that are framed in terms of the contest of the election, and campaign strategy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how cultural context influences news content by comparing American and Swedish print and broadcast news stories about the 2003 war in Iraq. Using a theoretical foundation derived from the works of Hall (1980a, 1997) and Hofstede (1979), a theme analysis was conducted of broadcast television news and print news. Results indicate that the news media in Sweden presented a very different picture of the Iraq war as compared to the news media in the U.S. was represented differently in the two countries, simply by emphasizing different aspects. In the U.S., the war was described in terms of strategy, interpreted via a perspective from inside the American troops, and explained as the United States bringing freedom to the Iraqi people. Swedish media interpreted the war from a perspective of the international community and from Iraqi civilians’ point of view. They portrayed the war in terms of suffering civilians and explained it as a failure of the international community. As hypothesized, American media had comparatively more masculine content, while Swedish media had comparatively more feminine content. Implications of this study for future research on news media portrayals of international events are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on Wahl-Jorgensen's notion of the "strategic ritual of emotionality" in journalism, this paper argues that reporters and editors have been actively involved in discursively constructing such a strategy of emotional storytelling to undermine traditional forms of objectivity. To trace and analyze the evolution of emotional storytelling, this paper presents a historical case study, examining the emergence of narrative journalism in U.S. newspapers between the 1970s and the 1990s. Drawing from archival research, oral history interviews and textual analysis of trade publications, this paper analyzes the discursive construction of narrative journalism with respect to new journalistic roles that consequently legitimized certain norms, ideas, and practices. It documents a more interpretive approach to news reporting and writing, a paradigmatic shift with implications that still reverberate today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to research on children's participation on social media by analysing children's 'toy unboxing' videos. Toy unboxing videos are a popular genre on the video-sharing platform YouTube, in which children and adults record themselves unpacking various commercial toys. Emerging research in this area has focused on case studies of how these videos are consumed within the home as a means of augmenting offline toys and play practices (Marsh, 2016), or more commonly, on case studies of how these videos fit within YouTube's broader economies of play and performance (Burroughs, 2017; Craig and Cunningham, 2017; Ramos-Serrano and Herrero-Diz, 2016). Here, the focus is on questions of regulation, commerce, and forms of entrepreunarial labour, often through the lens of well-known toy unboxing channels such as EvanTube and how they operate as "brand influencers" (Ramos-Serrano and Herrero-Diz, 2016). Drawing on data produced through a content analysis of 100 recent toy unboxing videos, this paper analyses the place of children in the YouTube genre's "affinity space" (Lange, 2014). The toy unboxing videos were coded across five key categories - production, actors, narration, products, and branding - to analyse variations of expertise, professionalism, and promotion across the genre. The findings indicate that children's modes of production as amateur content producers both shape and are shaped by the shared and standardised conventions of this video genre. While well-known 'professional' channels such as EvanTube often seek to produce a semblance of playful amateur authenticity, the ostensibly 'amateur' child unboxers mimic the production and branding strategies of the 'professional' channels. We argue that this reciprocal relationship between professional and amateur content production can be best understood through the concept of 'mimesis', which characterises the qualities of play and commercialisation within the toy unboxing genre. Such mimetic participation involves children operating as both sites and subjects of imitation within affinity spaces such as YouTube, articulating how "waves of collective imitation" in "brand publics" (Arvidsson and Caliandro, 2015) cut across rigid boundaries of production and consumption, amateur and professional, adult and child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advances understanding of how far-right parties are using new media to mobilize their supporters in emerging democracy by combining human and computer-mediated content analyses. Theoretical approach uses the framework of connective action logic and results suggest that young and challenger parties are more adoptive of this logic and provide opportunities for personalized engagement to their supporters. Moreover, use of interactive technologies by a party also goes in hand with smaller proportion of opinionated messages in this party's Twitter network. Implications of these findings for future political campaigns research conclude this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a research about the way Fashion Houses and Brands are projecting their corporate identity through the Web, as well as establishing effective two-way communication online. The study executed a content analysis of 110 Websites from the list offered by the World Fashion Channel, analyzing a 33.43% of the Websites listed. The present paper contains the theoretical framework, method and results obtained. Elements studied were: Corporate identity elements projection, access for specific publics, structural features and dialogic function of the Websites. The major discovery is that Fashion Houses and Brands are not well projecting their identity online, neither are they establishing effective public relations on the Web. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the complexities of importing and exporting English language television within the Anglophone cultural linguistic market, which is defined in this research as the United Kingdom and six of its former colonies: the United States, Australia, Anglo-Canada, Ireland, Jamaica and New Zealand. By conducting and comparing a week long content analysis of the primary terrestrial channels within these seven countries over a period of four decades (1962 – 2001), this paper categorizes four distinct tiers of media importers within the Anglophone sphere using the concept of asymmetrical interdependence. The first tier, Non-Importers, is comprised only of the United States, which imports little. The second tier, Low Importers, is comprised of the United Kingdom, which imports approximately 15 – 25%. The third tier, Medium Importers, is comprised of Australia and Anglo-Canada, which both import approximately 50%. The fourth tier, High Importers, is comprised of Jamaica, Ireland and New Zealand, all of which import approximately 60 – 80%. This paper illustrates the continuously shifting dynamics and theoretical implications of these seven countries as they supplement their own national television programming industries, in varying degrees, with materials produced by other members of their Anglophone cultural sphere or cultural market. Both tier and individual country dynamics are examined. Theoretically, special attention is paid to cultural-linguistic markets, cultural discount, cultural proximity, transnational media-scapes, and asymmetrical interdependence. National policies and market dynamics are also examined. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the current status of English-language newspapers (ELN) in the PeopleÂ’s Republic of China. ELNs are experiencing change around the world as globalization impacts all news media. This paper provides an overview of three leading Chinese English-language dailies---the China Daily, the Shanghai Daily, and the South China Morning Post. Qualitative content analyses were conducted as well as in-depth interviews with editors from each of the publications. These newspapers are in a transitional era and are benefiting from growth and expansion of content as they continue to serve their traditional business, diplomatic, and educational markets while seeking new groups of readers both in print and online. They are also, this paper shows, seeking to develop new ways to distribute information gathered through the Internet with Web sites and other new technological services. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a computer-assisted content analysis, this study analyzes a 32,000 word corpus drawn from media-ted political statements made in response to the July 2005 London bombing. This grounded research led to a focus on the deontic nature of these statements, and also revealed a relative absence of condoling. Although condemnatory, statements did not specifically attribute the “evil” to particular people. Particularly mindful of Widdowson’s distinction between analysis (text) and research (interpretation), the paper first identifies the textual features, but then “hermeneutically” interprets their meaning within a wider context of international political discourse. The paper concludes that the statements performed a positive epideictic purpose, although it tended to occlude the compassionate element of public grieving. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to explore which factors trigger whether and how national media open up for communication flows dealing with European issues. So far research has highlighted factors that explain commonalities in debates between countries as a result of European competences and events. This paper makes an attempt to understand why a specific European issue is debated in a country, but disregarded in another or why issues are debated differently in different countries. Three hypotheses are developed that specify how the national level colors the domestic adaptations of a common European input. To find evidence for the impact of national levels on European debates, a network analysis is conducted for the German and French media reporting and commentating on EU enlargement and a common European Constitution. This network analytic concept of public debates allows for an actor-based and relational explanation of agenda-building processes. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the historical, political and economical background conceptualizing ICT for development in the Sub-Saharan African region. Through a critical analysis and review of the NWICO debate and issues around imbalances in international communication resources and infrastructures, ICTs for development in the Sub-Saharan African region is situated within the contemporary global discourse of telecommunications reforms (such as privatization and liberalization of the telecommunications sector), globalization and trade. The paper also explains that the market-based approach of the ICTs for development agenda further consolidates the dependency of the developing countries on Western countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than a decade ago, Entman proposed framing as a promising candidate for a theoretical and empirical paradigm for communication research. This paper tacks stock of the findings of framing studies that have been produced in this period by means of a propositional meta analysis and identifies research gaps. The paper sketches a research agenda that identifies theoretical and empirical requirements that have to be met in order to turn framing into a productive and precise theory of communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the European Union (EU) has become more and more important for the lives of Europeans due to its growing authorities in policy-making. In contrast to that, there still are several shortcomings in our knowledge of the presentation of European institutions, political processes and events in the media. This paper focuses on the coverage of the elections to the European Parliament (EP) because of two contradictory developments: Although the relevance of the EP for EU decision-making has considerably increased since 1979, voter interest and voting turnout at EP elections has been declining. Against this backdrop the paper (a) investigates the long-term development of the coverage of EP elections in the German press and (b) compares EP and national election campaign coverage. The analysis shows that there has not been an increase of EP election coverage; that EP elections were covered much less frequently than national elections; that like in national elections there was a trend towards more subjectivity in EP election coverage; that EP elections were looked at from a mainly national perspective and that the degree of personalization was lower in EP than in national election coverage. In addition, explicit assessments of the political relevance of the EP gave a better picture of the real development than one would expect from the analysis of the mere amount of coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Noting market panic during the East Asian financial crisis in 1997, this paper examined the likely role of the Western elite press in initiating and aggravating financial panic. Four prestigious newspapers; the WSJ, FT, NYT, and WP were selected to examine media performance. Content analysis of 240 articles showed that the Western press had strong bias toward bad news, focused more on internal factors like corrupted political system than such external problems as structural vulnerability of market, and relied more on U.S. sources and private experts who are not immune from national and special interests each. This paper argues that media' abnormal calling attention to bad news with negative spin, lack of alternative views, and contexts free reporting all contributed to prompt herd-like behavior resulting in market collapses. Similar phenomenon repeated in followed financial crises in Russia, Brazil, and Argentine leads us to concern about the international financial information system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a review of current Mexican research on media messages published in the major academic journals and books in communication in Mexico from 1990 to 2002. The review provides an overview of the principal research lines and theoretical approaches used in this field, and concludes with an evaluation of the strengths, deficiencies, and challenges for current and future research. Thirty-five Mexican content analysis reports are reviewed, and a general overview of the conceptual and thematic emphases dominant in the field is presented. The paper points out that the most abundant type of studies in the 13-year period reviewed were the ones about the flow and supply of television programming, in other words, studies not properly about the characteristics of the content but about the number of particular messages in Mexican TV according to their origin, genre, and time of transmission. Next are studies about international news inspired by the NWICO, and then content analysis of media coverage of presidential elections, and studies about media routines and professional values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper features a content analysis of the entire corpus of news articles published on Korea by five major American news websites in the year 2016. Through both quantitative and qualitative analysis, it provides insight into the multiple and contradictory ways in which Korea in general, and North Korea in particular, is framed in the Americans news media. Specifically, it identifies which actors are attributed responsibility for the ongoing conflict on the Korean peninsula. The study finds that responsibility is overwhelmingly attributed to a small number of actors, and that attribution of responsibility, as well as intensity of coverage, differs among news agencies. In particular, cable news was found to focus on conflict to a greater degree than non-cable outlets, and online-only news sites were found to focus on Kim Jong-un more than legacy media. Finally, attribution of responsibility was found to significantly differ within cable news organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet, and blogging in particular, are radically reshaping contemporary thinking about autism, moving toward a socio-cultural view of autism as a manifestation of neurodiversity. Blogs represent a space in which autistic persons can redefine themselves using their own voice, and construct an identity as an individual and member of a community. The current paper aimed to explore the perception of the blog as arena for identity construction and the meaning of autistic identity to the bloggers. A constructivist grounded theory approach guided the data collection and data analysis. In-depth interviews with bloggers and informants were conducted in addition to the textual analysis of the blog posts. Altogether 2,873 blog posts from 16 blogs and 20 interviews were included in the project. The study found the bloggers perceive autism as inseparable from the self and the blog as a controllable space in which they can explore their autistic self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a novel formal-theoretical account for the preponderance of negative news content. It draws on work suggesting that humans and news media prioritize outlying information, and argues that one reason for a negativity bias in news consumption and production is that negative information is more 'outlying,' i.e., further away from expectations. Expectations change over time, however, and so too do negativity biases. This dynamic is explored using some simple simulations, followed by an empirical explication using data on the US economy alongside media coverage of the economy and public economic expectations. The end result is a broadly generalizable account of the shifting prominence of 'outlying' information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we ask whether the climate of opinion depicted in an online news article on policy issues influences the amount of user participation and interactivity on news web sites. From the perspective of the Spiral of Silence Theory, we argue that articles containing statements of representatives of the government or the opposition will attract more users to post a comment and to do so more frequently. In comparison, we expect balanced articles to have a bigger effect than one-sided articles. Additionally, we also expect justified statements to increase user participation and interactivity. We conducted a content analysis of 400 online newspaper articles. Results show that statements, especially when representing different views, have a positive impact on participation and interactivity, while the presence of justifications does not make a difference. However, the study shows that the climate of opinion depicted in an article adds an important aspect to explaining user behavior in comment sections and the formation of public opinion in the online sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transgender issues have recently (and rapidly) emerged as highly salient topics of political contestation in the United States. But why? This paper investigates one relevant factor: intermedia agenda setting between digital-native and legacy press news entities. Through a content analysis of the top-five digital-native and top-five legacy press online news entities from 2014 to 2015, we investigate the dynamics of intermedia agenda setting in the context of transgender topics, both at the level of attention to transgender topics in general and at the level of attention to specific issues related to the transgender community (e.g., anti-transgender violence). Results indicate significant causal effects of digital-native coverage on legacy press coverage at the level of general attention to transgender topics. However, results also indicate that at the level of specific transgender issues, digital-native coverage drives legacy press coverage on some issues, which legacy press coverage drives digital-native coverage on others. Implications for intermedia agenda setting in the digital news media environment and for the future of transgender political rights movements are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[RESEARCH PAPER] Trolling is a relatively new form of undesirable online behaviour commonly linked to cyberbullying and performed on myriad online platforms. Although the field has moved forward considerably in a short time, there are still no real models of trolling interactions - the characteristics of actor behaviour and how they play out in a natural setting. This study aimed to fill this gap by using a novel method blending traditional content analysis and a computational method of dictionary creation (topic modelling) to determine the relative importance of features (trolling interaction characteristics). Results showed that 1) novel features undiscussed in previous literature (i.e., control, neutrality) exist in trolling interactions 2) trolling in an interaction affects the communication choices of the entire team, and 3) theories of anonymity and identification provide potential causal mechanisms for trolling interactions. From this, we created one of the first empirical models of trolling interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus in the paper is on the role of audience communities in distributing content produced by media companies. The online environment and the tools provided by legacy media and social media companies enable the effortless sharing of such media content that people find relevant, funny or interesting enough to be worth for also others to read, listen or watch. The paper contributes in particular to audience studies by examining media content consumption as a shared social and communal experience. In pursuing this goal, social curation is used as an overarching framework. A review of previous research and results from a qualitative study among the personnel of a Nordic newspaper indicate that engaging the audience in social curation is more important than involving the audience in content production with or for the companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper draws on a range of empirical data collected during the years 2003-2010 (see Enli and Thumim 2009; Thumim forthcoming, 2012; Thumim 2010; Thumim 2009; Thumim 2009a; Thumim 2008) to elaborate two propositions. Firstly I argue that because of the ubiquity of self-representation across a range of settings we should now think in terms of a genre of selfrepresentation, and secondly that there are myriad differences in what kinds of work different examples of this genre seem to be doing in contemporary digital culture. I suggest that analysing three dimensions of mediation processes (institutional, textual and cultural) enables us to decipher the value, and therefore the politics, at stake in diverse examples of the genre of self - representation which may appear alike at the textual level. The paper concludes by considering the role that notions of 'ordinary people' and 'community' may play in contemporary governance, as a result of their repeated invocation in the now ubiquitous genre of self-representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking as its vantage point Gaye Tuchman's (1972) notion of the strategic ritual of objectivity, this paper argues that there is also a strategic ritual of emotionality in journalism -- an institutionalized and systematic practice of journalists infusing their reporting with emotion. To examine the strategic ritual of emotionality, the paper considers Pulitzer Prize-winning articles between 1995 and 2011, taking the prize as a marker of cultural capital in the journalistic field. A coding scheme for a basic content analysis was developed on the basis of scholarly insights into journalistic narratives, as well as discourse analytic approaches associated with appraisal theory. The analysis indicates that the analyzed stories rely heavily on emotional story-telling. The strategic ritual of emotionality manifests itself in the overwhelming use of anecdotal leads, personalized story-telling and expressions of affect. Journalists 'outsource' emotional labor by describing the emotions of others, and drawing on sources to discuss their emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humanitarian organizations have in the past 10 years enjoyed immense public support with their Western publics. At the same time, however, the humanitarian sector is under increasing pressure from various sources, under scrutiny for its administration costs, its marketized practices, its alleged politicization. Some say that humanitarianism is in crisis. This paper examines the development of humanitarian advertising through analysis of 126 newspaper ads published in the period from 1970 to 2005. Using a discourse analytical approach which combines institution analysis with multimodal text analysis, it draws out the most marked changes that can be observed in the mode of appeal employed during this period, with a view to understanding the impact of the changing conditions of existence of humanitarian organizations on their public appeal. The paper exposes an increasing submission of humanitarian organizations to external demands, in terms of their choice of beneficiaries for public attention and in terms of the relations they set up between donors and beneficiaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

News about the European Union (EU) looks different in different countries at different points in time. This paper investigates explanations for cross-national and over-time variation in the news media coverage of EU affairs. The paper draws on large-scale media content analyses of newspapers and television news in EU-15 (1999), EU-25 (2004) and EU-27 (2009) in relation to European Parliament elections. It investigates predictors for variation within and change between the coverage of these elections. It focuses in particular on explanatory factors pertaining to the country, the media, and the political elites. Results show that national elites play an important role for the coverage of EU matters during European Parliament election campaigns. The more strongly national parties are divided about the EU, the more visible the news is, the stronger the increases in EU news visibility are, and the less European-focused the news is. The implications of these findings for the nature of public opinion about the EU are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to further investigate the dual nature of agenda setting processes as they can either occur on a deliberate and conscious level or on an automatic and subconscious one. At present, the factors that lead to one of the processes occurring as opposed to the other are almost unknown. We assume the duality of agenda setting reflects a duality of the underlying learning processes. In dependence of audience members' characteristics and issue properties, different ways of learning how much importance should be assigned to a certain issue are possible. We tested this assumption with an experimental panel study combining surveys, log file analysis and content analysis on the issue of nuclear waste disposal. An initial study investigated classical agenda setting factors such as the frequency of reporting and the length of articles related to the topic. The results of the study showed that overt aspects of media coverage only influenced less-attentive individuals but not attentive readers. This result led to a follow-up study with a similar research design. In this second study, contextual factors were tested based on the argument that attentive readers could be susceptible to (this type of) issue accentuation. It was concluded that the duality of agenda setting processes is a result of different types of information processing. The agenda setting approach is still one of the most popular and successful concepts of mass communication research (Dearing & Rogers 1996). It asserts that mass media shape our social reality by selecting and publicizing specific issues. Aside from general information, audiences also learn how much importance to assign to an issue by considering its emphasis in news media coverage (McCombs & Shaw 1972, 1974). Thus, the underlying process of agenda 1 Parts of the theory discussion and some of the results from this paper have been submitted as proposals for papers to the Media Effects & Reception Division's annual meeting of the German Communication Association in German. A decision on acceptance is pending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the intricate relationships among Chinese economic news, actual economic conditions and public perception of the economy through the content analysis of six Chinese newspapers and 19 international television programs from December 2007 to November 2009.The most notable observation was that the Chinese economyand Chinese consumer confidence were both inversely correlated with the amount of positive economic reports in Chinese news papers, yet they were also inversely correlated with the amount of negative economic news presented on international television. This finding reflects the positive bias in Chinese media and indicates that international television coverage of the economic crisis represents the actual Chinese economy more accurately than Chinese media. Other findings include the following: 1) front-pagereports on Chinese news papers were consistently more positive than the economic coverage presented on inner pages;2) the Chinese Communist Party's news papers were much more positive than others; 3) domestic economic news wasmore positive than news about foreign countries' economiesin Chinese news papers; and 4) stock market and government policies were the most frequent economic topicsin Chinese news coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work looks into the network mechanisms which underlie the three major parts of the media system: the industry, the content and the audience. It identifies key theoretical frameworks that can be used to explain the formation and dissolution of ties in each of those three areas. The paper outlines a relational interpretation of classic media studies theories and advocates for the use of a network approach to their application in research. The first three sections of the paper discuss the network structures behind media production, content and consumption. Section one looks into interorganizational ties (industry level), section two deals with semantic relations (content level), while the third section surveys social bonds (audience level). The last part of this study lists five framework packages (or combined approaches) which allow for a comprehensive relational analysis at all three levels of the media system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines gender and race representation in casual games through content analysis. Study 1 looks at gender and race representation in a random sample (N=200) of casual games retrieved from the websites of the largest five casual game retailers. Study 2 looks at the most popular games on these five websites (N=54) and analyzes how primary characters are portrayed in terms of appearance and personality. Females are overly represented as primary characters but chi-square analyses indicate no significant differences between gender in terms of how they are portrayed: of note, neither males nor females are depicted in a sexual manner. These results conflict with previous studies of gender representation in game characters: the paper suggests that sampling methodology and the relatively new trend of casual games excluded this subset of games from prior research. Implications are discussed using a social cognitive framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online news media have become a key part of social, economic, and cultural life in many societies. Research about these media has grown dramatically, especially in the past few years, but, there have been few reviews of this research and none of the most recent scholarship. This paper reviews scholarship on online news production published since 2000. It examines research on five key topics: historical context and market environment, the process of innovation, alterations in journalistic practices, challenges to established professional dynamics, and the role of user-generated content. A tension between tradition and change emerges from this discussion and is evident at two levels. First, the world of practice seems to straddle the re-enactment of established forms and tinkering with alternative pathways. Second, the modes of inquiry oscillate between using existing concepts to look at new phenomena and taking advantage of these phenomena to rethink these concepts and come up with new ones. The paper concludes by identifying shortcomings in the existing scholarship and suggesting avenues for future studies to overcome them. It suggests how scholarship on online news production could contribute to rethinking some of the fundamental building blocks of understanding communication and society in the contemporary media environment. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development journalism has been advocated and practiced in Asia, Africa and Latin America for more than four decades since its debut in the late 1960s. Consequently, diversified principles and practices have emerged. Few studies, however, have captured such diversity in the absence of effective measuring and accurate mapping methods. To measure development journalism effectively, this paper proposed a three-prong approach: (a) actor, (b) source, and (c) orientation. To map development journalism accurately, this paper proposed a three-pro approach: (a) pro-process, (b) pro-participation, and (c) pro-government. And to demonstrate how these two approaches work, this paper offered a case study of comparative content analysis of poverty coverage. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to previous research, online news as opposed to traditional news is characterized by interactivity, immediacy and liquidity. However, most research in this area has focused on the news site-level of analysis, and there are still only few studies on how interactivity, immediacy and liquidity affect online news on the news story-level. In addition, there are virtually no content analyses that include online news while taking its special characteristics into consideration. Thus, the overall purpose of this paper is to explore approaches for the study of interactivity, immediacy and liquidity on the news story-level of analysis. The paper develops a three-pronged strategy for freezing the flow of online news to enable systematic content analyses of how online news stories are affected by interactivity, immediacy and liquidity. The paper also tests this strategy in a comparative analysis of the news sites Guardian.co.uk in Britain and Aftonbladet.se in Sweden. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a critique of a new and controversial approach to analysis of media output that can best be called contentless content analysis. This methodology attempts to measure the "slant" or "bias" of media outlets by defining certain words or issues as liberal or conservative (Democratic or Republican) and then counting the number of times the word or issue is used/covered by the outlet. What is actually said or shown about the issue is not analyzed. The methodology has recently been extended from the academic literature to public policy. The paper identifies four major concerns that are endemic to the approach: *It fails to understand what it means for a reporter to cite a source. *The selection of external referents to ascribe bias to media outlets is inevitably biased. *Because it is difficult to "grind" through content, selectivity in coverage of citations leads to questions of unreprentativesness of the data. *The creation of single indices to represent complex concepts is flawed. The paper argues that the flaws are inherent in the methodology because it must decontectualize the analysis of content that is inherently contextual. In order to produce the large quantity of data that the methodology claims as its strength, it will destroy the meaning of content and encounter the other problems. Contentless content analysis claims to solve the "subjectivity" and small sample problems of traditional communications research, but the cure is worse than the disease. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The suggested interactive paper is exploratory in nature, aiming at a typology of visual strategies of the Bush administration's first term of office (2001-2005). Drawing on the theoretical framework of media events developed by Dayan and Katz (1992) this paper adds a "view from abroad" by fusing the Dayan and Katz methodology with the typology of US-presidential visual strategies developed by a German author (Müller 1997). The paper aims at developing a theoretical and methodological framework to analyze orchestrated media events of the Bush administration, thereby developing a chronology of media events, both choreographed and non-choreographed, and discussing the question whether the Bush administration followed a strategic propagandistic 'script', or whether "Mission Accomplished" rather follows the tradition of choreographed "pseudo-events" as defined by Boorstin in 1961. In the actual poster, the key question that will be answered is "what is the visual legacy of the Bush administration?" ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports considerable changes in content and style of German election coverage between 1990 and 2005. The findings are based on a content analysis of the main evening news of the four major television channels, spanning five Bundestag elections and focusing on the portrayal of the chancellor candidates. During the observation period television has immensely expanded its coverage of the candidates. Simultaneously there was an increase in the visualization of candidate portrayal. German television news conveys an increasingly lively, colorful and exciting picture of the election campaign. The changes partially fit into the pattern of convergence (i.e., a mutual assimilation of public and commercial channels). As well as studying the change in style, our analysis also looks at some specifics of the 2005 election when for the first time a woman was contending for the office of chancellor. Our comparison of the television image of the candidates contradicts the presumption that a woman competing for chancellorship might come off worse in the news than her male adversary. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uncovers rhetorical themes in newspaper coverage of the 1973 Occupation of Wounded Knee by the American Indian Movement (AIM) in The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, and other mid-western newspapers. Through discourse and textual analysis, this project investigates the ways in which media agents reported on instances of resistance to dominant ideology. Newspaper articles described in the paper reveal specific themes in the coverage, and were selected because they were published during the course of or following the event and because they are representative of common themes appearing in many articles published in response to the occupation. By unveiling the formulas employed by reporters throughout the event, the project informs existing scholarship with a more empirical review of the tendencies of press systems in covering social movements and provides suggestions for media reform and literacy. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public information has not gained much attention in the literature on political communication, although its importance is beyond discussion. The research question of this paper asks how the news on government policies influences satisfaction with government policy. Apart from well known hypotheses such as agenda setting and priming, hypotheses are tested that deal with the question whether the government tries to increase policy satisfaction by communicating ambitions (itÂ’s a mess, but we will do something against it) or by communicating successes (everything under control, due to us). The data to test the hypotheses come from a fourfold survey study to tap aspects of satisfaction with, the government policy with regard to 55 policy issues in addition to a longitudinal content analysis of 24 newspapers to unravel the media coverage of these issues. The results show dissatisfaction everywhere. Most hypotheses stand the test. Increasing policy satisfaction by the communication of ambitions rather than of results appears to be the rule. The diffusion of negative perceptions of real world conditions may be a side-effect of the latter. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically investigates how gatekeepers' news selection criteria at a newsroom are assimilated. The author employs a combination of content analysis of the decision-making process of gatekeepers and an in-depth interview with the metro editor. The results of this study show that news criteria are similar, not only between first-line journalists and their editors, but also between the predecessor and the successor to the position of the metro section editor. Consequently, this study, which adopts White's 1949 gatekeeping research approach, illustrates that individual forces in gatekeeping tenuously influence the selection of news items. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The differences in the coverage of two religious groups were studied. The New York Times was chosen for the study and a content analysis was done. The analysis examined framing of two religious groups--Hindus and Muslims--in 130 stories about the partition and independence of India and Pakistan in 1947. The analysis looked for three frames--attention, prominence and treatment. The study found that while Hindus were placed in the frame of prominence, Muslims were placed in the attention frame. Finally, the study found that both groups figured in the treatment frame-Hindus dominated the number of partisan assertions, and the Muslim groupÂ’s problems and policies were highlighted. This paper was presented at the Global Fusion Conference (2005) in Athens, Ohio ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines two black situation comedies (Good Times and My Wife and Kids) in order to determine how portrayals of the African American family have changed in the past thirty years. A content analysis shows that the family on Good Times was friendlier and more supportive of each other than the family on My Wife and Kids. In contrast, the My Wife and Kids family was significantly more likely to show tension and be unfriendly towards each other. In addition, the earlier family representations were more mother-focused, with all family members being equally represented; the later representations were more father-focused, with the husband and wife as the source of most interactions. These results support the notion that transformations in the portrayals of African Americans may have led to these changes in family dynamics, as blacks are no longer presented as “fighting to survive” but as experiencing “universal” trials that plague every American household. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A worldwide content analysis of magazine advertisements from 108 countries in 48 languages examining images of men and women revealed stereotypical gender portrayals. This research is like no other in the number of countries and includes nations that are rarely studied, such as Botswana, Estonia, Lesotho, Nigeria, Vietnam and others. The paper provides theory for how perceptions of masculinity and femininity are socialized largely in terms of private and public space. Differences between cultures, as seen in visual commercial communications, are eclipsed by the dichotomy. Results provide evidence for how stereotypes may be emphasized in advertisements - the industry is based in the west and stereotyping may serve a purpose in the global economy. Although other studies have shown similar findings, the review suggests that advertising visuals may influence perceptions of masculinity and femininity within nations over time. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we compare the newspaper framing of the Iraq-issue in four Western countries (US, UK, Germany and the Netherlands) for the period September 2002 till August 2003. Using computer assisted coding based on wordlists constructed by human coders, we analyzed more than 70.000 articles in 12 newspapers. Results show that fluid elements of the countries’ political opportunity structures influenced the coverage: in countries participating in the war newspapers made more use of causes- and protest-frames and coverage was slightly more positive than in the country that opposed the war. Left leaning and quality newspapers were less positive towards the issue and made more use of the protest-frame compared to right leaning and popular newspapers. The stage of the conflict turned out to be of importance: the causes-frame was most often employed in the build-up stage, the intervention frame during the war and the consequences-frame afterwards. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]