This two-part mixed-methods study analyzed the Twitter activity of two regional magazines – D Magazine and Texas Monthly – and how social media editors implement strategies to maintain journalistic integrity (news values, topics, and ethical standards) while increasing engagement.

The study aims to analyze the two largest daily newspapers in Sweden, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet, and their portrayal of Ukrainian refugees. A critical discourse analysis analyzes 184 articles published between March 16 - April 24, 2022, and July 16 - September 30, 2022. A quantitative content analysis complements the analysis, where specific recurring characteristics and themes in the articles are quantified. Theories of social representation, social constructionism, Orientalism, and news value criteria form the theoretical framework of the study. The study results show that the media describes Ukrainian refugees in terms of their geographical and cultural proximity to Sweden. The media values the Ukrainian refugees as an asset, emphasizing the ideological similarities between the countries and why the refugees deserve to come to and remain in Sweden. Other common descriptions underlining the helplessness and vulnerability of the refugees often involve critiques directed toward the Swedish government and authorities. The results are interesting because they contrast with previous research and correlate strongly with the theoretical frameworks regarding media discourse on refugees. It is also interesting from a power perspective, where media representations and language use can affect the legal and moral obligations receiving states and societies feel toward refugees.

As one of the most enduring theories in communication, gatekeeping suggests that stories have to move from one gate to another gate before being published. During this process, some stories are selected, while others are rejected. Previous studies heavily focus on traditional news media and explore the influence of internal and external forces on story selection. Very few studies, however, look at gatekeeping in new areas of technology. This case study extends this literature into social media. It looks at how editors at The Asian Magazine (TAM) select stories for its WeChat public account. Interviews with editors identify news values and news categories that these gatekeepers think are important. Results of the WeChat content analysis between May and August 2014 indicate that TAM editors do not strictly rely on established news values to select WeChat stories. News categories better predict story decisions. Examining which WeChat items generate the most reader engagement gives evidence of how well news content matches what attracts readers online. News category priorities closely match what readers want to read. / Master of Arts

Submitted by Clebson Anjos (clebson.leandro54@gmail.com) on 2016-03-01T18:44:25Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 2946161 bytes, checksum: 58605522d1981f58123f375eca5ce49b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-01T18:44:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 2946161 bytes, checksum: 58605522d1981f58123f375eca5ce49b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-26 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This research analyzed how newspapers Correio da Paraíba and Jornal da Paraíba reported news about young adults who were victims of violent crimes, in Cidades and Últimas sections, throughout a sample of 2014. The objective was to identify the meaning behind the choices made by both media, verifying aspects as the importance given to this kind of article, the published content’s diversity, the sources heard by the reporters, the news character, as well as the perceptions regarding youth, criminality and the individuals judged as deviants. The Content Analysis was the method chosen because it can identify the news tendencies, turning the raw data (like texts and images) into clear and justified statistics. The quantitative aspect also makes it possible to have a qualitative analytical approach, evaluating the details observed through the frequencies. In order to do it all, authors from communication, sociology, anthropology and Content Analysis were essential, such as Cremilda Medina, Mauro Wolf, Mar de Fontcuberta, Émile Durkheim, Howard Becker, Roberto DaMatta, Pierre Bourdieu, Mario Margulis, Marcelo Urresti, Michel Foucault, Laurence Bardin and Heloiza Herscovitz, debating themes as news values, crime, deviation, violence, youth and the methodological viability. Achieving the goals of this research, it was verified that, in general, both media reported news similarly: there is no consensual vision about what being young is like, nor any differential because of how young the victims are; both newspapers focus on answering the journalistic lead paragraph (who did what, when, where, how and why), only describing the occurrences by what they heard from official sources; there is no photographs attached, nor any highlights on the covers of the gazettes; mostly, there isn’t almost any purposed reflections concerning what those reported cases mean beyond what it is stated. Therefore, the media reports follow a standard, as if the journalist only answered to mandatory questions in a form. This is why the victims could be exchanged among the reports without any need to make changes on news’ structures. It’s clear though that both newspapers have potential to get over this kind of bureaucracy related to the way the reports are written and go much further on their narratives, as seen in other news about different subjects. However, it’s believed that this situation is due to the fact that both media don’t think the victimization of young adults is newsworthy enough, but keep posting about them in order to reinforce their panoptic social surveillance. / Esta pesquisa analisou como são construídas as notícias sobre jovens vítimas de crimes violentos, nos cadernos de Cidades e Últimas dos jornais impressos Correio da Paraíba e Jornal da Paraíba, durante uma amostra referente ao ano de 2014. O objetivo foi identificar o sentido provocado pelas escolhas feitas por ambos os periódicos, observando aspectos como a valoração atribuída a esse tipo de matéria, a diversidade de conteúdo publicado, as fontes ouvidas, o caráter do noticiário, bem como as percepções dos media sobre a juventude, a criminalidade e os indivíduos juridicamente desviantes. O método empregado foi a Análise de Conteúdo (AC), por permitir que fosse possível identificar as tendências de apresentação dos acontecimentos, transformando os dados brutos, como textos e imagens, em estatísticas claras e justificadas. O aspecto quantitativo possibilitou ainda uma abordagem de cunho qualitativo, em que se avaliaram os pormenores identificados através dos indicadores numéricos. Nessa trajetória, foram essenciais as contribuições de autores da comunicação, da sociologia, da antropologia e da AC, como Cremilda Medina, Mauro Wolf, Mar de Fontcuberta, Émile Durkheim, Howard Becker, Roberto DaMatta, Pierre Bourdieu, Mario Margulis, Marcelo Urresti, Michel Foucault, Laurence Bardin e Heloiza Herscovitz, discutindo temas como valores-notícia, crime, desvio, violência, juventude, além da viabilidade metodológica. Alcançando-se os objetivos propostos, verificou-se que, em geral, ambos os veículos estudados constroem o noticiário de forma bastante semelhante: sem que haja uma noção consensual sobre o que é ser jovem nem um peso maior por se tratar de vítimas nesse momento etário, priorizam o atendimento do lead jornalístico (quem fez o que, quando, onde, como e por que), limitam-se à descrição das ocorrências a partir de fontes oficiais, não acompanham fotografias, não recebem destaque na capa e, sobretudo, não problematizam o que aqueles casos específicos representam. Assim, a construção midiática segue um padrão, como se o jornalista apenas respondesse a questões exigidas em um formulário, de modo que as vítimas poderiam intercambiar-se nas matérias, sem que fossem necessárias alterações na estrutura noticiosa. Constatou-se, porém, que os veículos têm potencial de ir além da informação burocrática, como se vê em notícias sobre assuntos diversos. Leva-se a crer que essa formularização se deve ao fato de os periódicos não verem o tema com grande valor-notícia, mas continuam a publicá-lo, para reforçar sua vigilância panóptica sobre o seio social.

The subject of this thesis is news, or, more particularly, the theory of news values, which was first published in 1965 by Johan Galtung and Mari Holmboe Ruge. Following the first chapter dealing with some aspects connected with the theory, such as tabloidization, story selection or the gatekeeping theory, is an in-depth description of the original concept of news values and a summary of its main impacts on the field of media studies. The thesis also introduces later studies, revising or interchanging the original concept. After that, the Czech weekly magazine Respekt is briefly introduced, for it is this particular magazine to which two news values concepts (the original by Galtung and Ruge and a later re-worked version by Harcup and O'Neill) are applied in quantitative content analysis. Within the monitored period of the first half of 2009, the values from both concepts are analysed on the front page topic, first on the front page itself (as conceived by the magazine, the front page always features a large hand- painted image), then within the referred article. As a conclusion, the results show the rate of presence of the values from both concepts, which leads to a general evaluation of the theory of news values and its influence on the story selection in Respekt.

The aim of this thesis was to examine what stories the Swedish periodical Fokus write about in their main reportage, "Veckans reportage", and how they express their stories. Through the survey we wanted to examine which topics, areas and actors that occurred in the texts during the year of 2008. We studied Fokus in two parts. In the first part we read every "Veckans reportage" published in 2008, which is 43 reportages, and categorized them into groups based on topics, areas and actors. The result helped us to pick two representative texts to analyse further. The method we used in the second part of the survey was discourse analysis, with focus on actors, metaphors and representations. The results of the first part showed that Fokus has a major Swedish perspective, either by topics about Swedish issues or by international topics and what influence they might have on Sweden. The most common topics during the year of 2008 were about politics and about social and welfare issues. The main actors in the texts were politicians and common people. The results showed that most of them were men. The results of the second part showed that they write about the topics in a typical way for reportage, with detailed descriptions of places, surroundings and people. We also saw that the discourses that appeared in the two reportages corresponded to the given topics in the texts.

(EN) Diploma thesis "Constraints of Public Relations on Czech Media after 1989"deals with one crucial aspect of journalism which is the influence of various interest groups on the content of the media by public relations. It concerns with the topic from the point of view of professional journalists as media content producers and attempts to find out what mechanisms are driving the Czech media system in regards to public relations. The thesis examines shortly the history of public relations, both in the Anglo-saxon world and the Czech lands before and after 1989. Definitions of public relations are later applied on selected critical media theories, such as those of Scottish PR theoreticians Dinan and Miller, Herman and Chomsky's Propaganda model or Boorstin's idea of pseudo-events. Sociology of news and one of its most important protagonists, Brian McNair, also speaks critically on the influence of public relations, therefore his contribution to the topic is also an essential theoretical frame. The fourth chapter deals with selected methods of public relations such as spin doctoring, third-party endorsement or crisis communication. A particular analysis is dedicated to the Stockholm Charter and the IPRA Charter, the most important ethical frameworks that all public relations departments should abide...

Manifestations of citizen journalism on Twitter have been mainly analyzed around trending stories, associated with public campaigns or breaking news. Microbloggers' everyday attempts to contribute to professional media coverage, however, have been scarcely addressed in the literature. This research analyzes the practice of tweeting at influential news outlets by using a mixed-method approach. Content analysis anddirected queries about users' own motivation to tweet at media explore the interactionbetween regular users and professional news networks. Results show that there is apredisposition towards negative media commentary followed closely by newsworthy topics generated by the users, which replicate to a large extent mainstream media's agenda. When asked directly in the feed 'why do you tweet at media?', users explain their motivations to address news outlets in diverging ways, from explicit citizen journalism mission, to visibility claims and coincidental tagging. The study contributesto the study of citizen journalism on social media platforms and elaborates a mixed-method approach suited for this type of online data.

The New Zealand news media have covered Iraq War II extensively, and from different perspectives, shaped by reporting restrictions, public opinion and editorial policies of the media organisations. This thesis studies New Zealand's three largest daily newspapers' coverage during the invasion phase of the war exploring their reliance on global news agencies such as Reuters, AFP and AP and on elite British and US newspapers. The research also aims to explore the newspapers' dependence on global news agencies and other content providers and the extent of US and Coalition domination of the news agenda. Global news media, including mainstream news agencies which mostly rely on government and military officials for information on military conflicts such as Iraq War II, become channels for propaganda and facilitate elite sources to set the agenda for national and global audiences. A content analysis of the three daily newspapers - The New Zealand Herald, The Dominion Post and The Press - reveals that the war coverage in New Zealand was framed by international news agencies, US and UK newspapers. And their reliance on US and Coalition official sources in the news construction meant that they became vehicles for propaganda. The mainstream New Zealand newspapers' coverage of Iraq War II is examined through the contexts of globalisation, news flows, media-source relations, news management and propaganda as these are the issues that have shaped the war journalism discourse in New Zealand. As there have not been many studies in New Zealand of news media coverage of wars, this research is an opportunity for studying mainstream newspapers of a country that is not a direct participant in the war. It gives the opportunity to compare reporting by newspapers in a country not directly involved in Iraq War II with that of countries that are directly involved. What emerges from this study is that the level of involvement in a war is no longer the most important factor in determining the direction of news media coverage. News values, globalisation, economic interdependence, news flows and propaganda are all highly significant factors affecting coverage. This thesis shows that the US military and government sources dominated the news agenda through various media management strategies. The findings of this research also demonstrate the dominance of the global news agencies and US and UK publications as main content providers in the war coverage. The implication of this is that the few Western media outlets are able to set the news agenda for news retailers such as New Zealand newspapers, and their readers.

This study examines how the media reports on the Pride Festival in Stockholm and what news topics and themes it prioritizes. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the media coverage of Pride highlights political questions related to social and societal problems. One of the main focuses of the study is on how the media covers male and female homosexuality. The newspapers examined are the tabloids Aftonbladet and Expressen and the respected dailies Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet. The study extends over three periods: 19-07-2010 to 07-08-2010, 25-07-2011 to 14-08-2011, and 24-07-2012 to 11-08-2012. Several key theories and themes frame the study. One of the theoretical bases of this study is agenda theory, which is based on the idea that issues get more media attention when the audience perceives them as important. Another key theory in the study is the theory of news values, which concerns how potential news items are evaluated editorially. The study also looks at the theme of sex and gender as a power aspect and how the representation of the sexes appears in today's media. Using quantitative content analysis, 291 articles have been studied. The results show that media coverage during the Pride festival includes articles that address both serious and non-serious issues. Furthermore, the results show that the coverage of male homosexuals is more frequent than of female homosexuals. However, the majority of the articles focused on the collective concept “LGBT” and not on gender related issues.