The Michael Fay conflict in 1994 provided an opportunity to use Singapore as a subject for mass communication research.Three prominent U.S. newspapers, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, were chosen for content analysis of their coverage of Singaporean news eight months before, six months during and eight months after the Fay trial proceedings. The amount of news space devoted to Singaporean news ray the three newspapers during the three periods was also studied.The objective of the study was to determine if the coverage of Singaporean news by U.S. newspapers changed as a result of the Fay case.Results of the study showed that U.S. newspapers provided a negative coverage of Singaporean news as a result of the Fay controversy. In terms of news space alloted to Singaporean news, the New York Times remained fairly constant throughout the three periods. The Los Angeles Times first decreased its coverage during the trial proceedings, but expanded its coverage after the case ended. Conversely, the Chicago Tribune increased its coverage of Singaporean news during the case, but its coverage dwindled with the conclusion of the case. / Department of Journalism

Contemporary researches on news coverage of Persian Gulf Wars have shown many controversial results in examining how U.S. newspapers covered war events during the wartime. This study examined the coverage of Operation Iraqi Freedom by the newspapers of the United States, Britain, and Saudi Arabia.Three prominent newspapers, the New York Times, the Times of London and Arab News, were selected for content analysis of their coverage of Operation Iraqi Freedom between March 20 and May 1, 2003. The percentage breakdown of positive, negative and neutral paragraphs coded from composite two weeks of publications by all three newspapers was studied.The goal of the study was to determine if the coverage of the 2003 Iraq war by the New York Times and the Times of London were more favorable than that Arab News. The Arab News was used as a basis for comparison of American and British newspapers for this study.The results of the study showed that the three newspapers covered the Operation of Iraqi Freedom in a neutral manner.Ball State UniversityMuncie, IN 47306However, the Times of London treated the Iraq war coverage with more positive news rather than the New York Times and Arab News did, respectively. On the other hand, Arab News appeared to have devoted the lowest favorable news stories after the Times of London. / Department of Journalism

This study examined public relations in the context of sports to better understand the relationship management methods used during an issue to provide conclusions for how public relations can be applied to develop, improve, and maintain relationships between a team and its community, particularly during an issue.Using a content analysis, this study reviewed relationship management literature and applied strategies of relationship management to stages of Turner's (1974) social drama. The content analysis of 454 news articles revealed that although relationship management strategies were identifiable, they were not significantly utilized by franchises and supporters. The lack of relationship management techniques could be used to explain why the franchise-community relationship was unstable throughout the social drama and why the social dramas lasted longer than the sports franchises anticipated. It also supports public relations researchers who argue for the use of public relations management techniques during conflict in order to build and maintain relationships between an organization and their publics. / Department of Journalism

While the cannon of objectivity has recently been called into question as the means for evaluating news merit, objectivity continues to harbor public expectation of the news media, especially during times of conflict. Results of past and current objectivity studies of conflict reporting, however, were shown to produce inconsistent and conflicting interpretations of whether the news media is presenting objective coverage of conflicts.To determine objectivity of news coverage, this content analysis examined objectivity differences between three newspapers--the Chicago Tribune, the Indianapolis Star, and the Anderson Herald Bulletin--and how they collectively presented front-page conflict and mainstream straight news stories.The study evaluated the newspapers' collective presentation of the September 11 h terrorist attack for a two-week period from September 12 through September 26, 2001. Presentation of the conflict was compared to a proportionate sample of mainstream straight news stories randomly selected from the months of January through December of 2001.Because the literature review indicated researchers most commonly evaluate news objectivity according to the presence of balance, attribution, or gatekeeping bias, the study assessed differences in objectivity level between conflict and straight news based upon the integration of all three objectivity variables The study's findings suggested that reporting of mainstream straight news was more objective than reporting of the September 11 terrorist attack conflict in the combined three newspapers. Reporting of the terrorist attack was found to be less balanced than reporting of straight news stories, as evidenced by a disproportionate amount of quotations afforded in support of United States war efforts. In addition, conflict stories were found to contain a significantly higher use of negative attributes-non-essential adjectives, inferences, collateral language and non-speech quotes--than straight news stories. Differences between page placement and revelation of theme were found to have no effect on objectivity differences. / Department of Journalism

The purposes of this research study were to determine the extent registered dietitians were involved in the Indianapolis local television news reports; to analyze the content of nutrition-related information covered by Indianapolis local television news reports for their length of time, subject, context of nutrition-related information; and to identify the reporter, and any expert sources used. A content analysis was the chosen research method for this research proposal.A total of 33 nutrition-related segments were identified and analyzed from a two week sample of Indianapolis local television news programs. Data were analyzed using SPSS, version 11.0. Registered dietitians were featured as expert opinions in six of the thirty-three news segments. The inclusion of either a registered dietitian or another trained health professional increased the rating of the news segments on the Nutrition Education Continuum. The two most common nutrition-related subjects covered by Indianapolis local television were disease prevention and cooking demonstrations. Results of this study provide modest support for the inclusion of registered dietitians in the local media when reporting nutrition-related information. / Department of Family and Consumer Sciences

This study analyzed news coverage from the Indianapolis Star and The New York Times about the blockbuster drug Prozac® from the day it was approved on Dec. 29, 1987, until Dec. 31, 2006, to gain insights about whether the tone and prominence of news stories about Prozac changed over the duration of its 20 year lifecycle.A content analysis was used to evaluate whether stories were more favorable in tone during the first phase of Prozac's lifecycle, whether the tone of those stories became more negative as time passed, and, if it did, during which phase of Prozac's lifecycle that change in tone occurred.The findings from this study can assist public relations practitioners - particularly those who work in the pharmaceutical industry - in developing proactive and strategic media relations plans for consumer products such as prescription drugs and establishing more appropriate expectations and projected metrics. / Department of Journalism

Media framing research has examined how news stories are fashioned, and how audiences are affected by the shaping of news stories. Measuring for media frames, though, has varied in its definitions and measurement instruments.The present study applied attribution theory to the study of media framing in order to establish a reliable way to measure for frames of responsibility in The New York Times' coverage of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. A content analysis was conducted to determine what type of attributions the newspaper's sources used in the coverage.The findings suggest that The New York Times' coverage overwhelmingly blamed Iraq for the war and maintained a dominant frame of responsibility. Furthermore, support was found for the assertion that attribution theory applied to media framing research would create a meta-theory approach, thereby creating a consistent way to measure and identify frames of responsibility.Ball State UniversityMuncie, IN 47306 / Department of Journalism

This study is an in-depth investigation of game and excellence theory's linkage within the discipline of public relations during the period of market entry.The literature review defines and analyzes both game and excellence theory and the value of each within public relations. The literature also examines the impact of new businesses within U.S. economy and the importance of strategic decision making during the period of market entry. Decisions made during this time period, of which public relations professionals are often involved, can forecast the success or failure of a new business. The researcher argued that excellence theory's domination over the mindshare of public relations professionals has overshadowed other theories (such as game theory) which can be of value during the time of market entry.In order to quantify any educated opinions held by the researcher, a content analysis was conducted. The researcher identified specific game and excellence theory keywords to be examined and coded. The keywords were derived from a random sample of 384 public relations-based articles from 1997 to 2007 in Entrepreneur's online magazine, the leading magazine for entrepreneurs for over thirty years. The years of 1997 through 2007 were chosen due to a growth in new business births that have occurred over this time frame.The results of the content analysis showed that there were significantly more game theory keywords than excellence theory keywords referenced in Entrepreneur's online magazine in the aforementioned articles and timeframe. From this evidence, the researcher deducted that while excellence theory is still the paradigm for public relations professionals, game theory is being fused within public relations in some areas of the industry, specifically within new market entry strategy. / Department of Journalism

This dissertation discusses various underlying conceptual metaphors used to describe the issue of Taiwan’s independence in the PRC media in light of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. The conceptual metaphors underlying linguistic expressions that are used to depict the independence issue in Chinese for a total number of nineteen concepts are examined. It is also argued that the conceptual bases for some chengyu, fixed expressions in Chinese, can be explained within Conceptual Metaphor Theory, but others cannot since some of the conceptual mappings constructed are context specific. The secondary metaphors found in some chengyu are based on the original association of one domain with another in the allusion or historical story. In short, this study provides empirical evidence for Conceptual Metaphor Theory in that the use of metaphor is extremely prevalent in at least one genre of Chinese political writing. It also examines Chinese chengyu from a cognitive point of view. / Department of English

This thesis addresses the problem of motion planning for autonomous robots, given a map and an estimate of the robot pose within it. The motion planning problem for a mobile robot can be defined as computing a trajectory in an environment from one pose to another while avoiding obstacles and optimizing some objective such as path length or travel time, subject to constraints like vehicle dynamics limitations. More complex planning problems such as multi-robot planning or complete coverage of an area can also be defined within a similar optimization structure. The computational complexity of path planning presents a considerable challenge for real-time execution with limited resources and various methods of simplifying the problem formulation by discretizing the solution space are grouped under the class of discrete planning methods. The approach suggests representing the environment as a roadmap graph and formulating shortest path problems to compute optimal robot trajectories on it. This thesis presents two main contributions under the framework of discrete planning. The first contribution addresses complete coverage of an unknown environment by a single omnidirectional ground rover. The 2D occupancy grid map of the environment is first converted into a polygonal representation and decomposed into a set of convex sectors. Second, a coverage path is computed through the sectors using a hierarchical inter-sector and intra-sector optimization structure. It should be noted that both convex decomposition and optimal sector ordering are known NP-hard problems, which are solved using a greedy cut approximation algorithm and Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) heuristics, respectively. The second contribution presents multi-robot path-planning strategies for recharging autonomous robots performing a persistent task. The work considers the case of surveillance missions performed by a team of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The goal is to plan minimum cost paths for a separate team of dedicated charging robots such that they rendezvous with and recharge all the UAVs as needed. To this end, planar UAV trajectories are discretized into sets of charging locations and a partitioned directed acyclic graph subject to timing constraints is defined over them. Solutions consist of paths through the graph for each of the charging robots. The rendezvous planning problem for a single recharge cycle is formulated as a Mixed Integer Linear Program (MILP), and an algorithmic approach, using a transformation to the TSP, is presented as a scalable heuristic alternative to the MILP. The solution is then extended to longer planning horizons using both a receding horizon and an optimal fixed horizon strategy. Simulation results are presented for both contributions, which demonstrate solution quality and performance of the presented algorithms.