In order to fully explicate the role of news media in individuals’ political participation, this dissertation aims at establishing an integrative structural model that specifies relationships among news media use, its antecedents and mediators of its influence on political participation. The proposed model is comprised of key factors of political participation that previous research has identified. The relational structure is based on models and theories relevant to prediction of political behaviors. Specifically, the model integrates (a) communication mediation model, which posits that communication behaviors (i.e., news media use and interpersonal discussion) mediate the effects of socio-demographic variables (i.e., income, education, age, gender, and race) and political dispositions (i.e., political interest, partisanship and ideology) on political outcomes; (b) agenda-setting theory, which posits that frequent exposure to news media increases the salience of news objects in audiences’ minds; (c) cognitive mediation model, which posits that elaborative and collective thinking is a prerequisite to produce political outcomes of news exposure; (d) theory of planned behavior, which posits that human behavior can be best predicted by three proximal variables (i.e., attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control); (e) O-S-R-O-R (orientations-stimulus-reasoning-orientations-response) model of communication effects, which provides a parsimonious framework of effect process. Using the structural equation modeling (SEM) method, this dissertation analyzes the 2008 American National Election Studies data set to test the validity of the proposed structural model. Results indicate that frequent exposure to news media stimulates attentive news use as well as intra- and interpersonal reasoning, which produce a wide range of political outcomes. Two reasoning behaviors (i.e., self-reflection and interpersonal political discussion) are critical mechanisms that linked news media use to various political outcomes including political participation. Personal-psychological mediators, such as strength in affects, personal traits, opinions about political issues, campaign interest, political knowledge, attitude strength, perceived ability of political parties and political efficacy all significantly mediate the influence of news media use on political participation. News media use mediates significant portion of effects that a set of preexisting variables have on political participation as well as various types of political orientations. / text

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The present study explored three questions: What is the linking pattern of China’s cyber news space? What are the factors that contribute to this pattern? And what is the distribution of links in real geographic places? The concept of the cyber news space refers to the globally connected networks of online news production. It is a tool to understand the spatial distribution of online news production and the map of the world as presented in the media. This study is a content analysis of news Webpages from China’s four leading commercial portals. It sampled about 900 news Webpages during the spring of 2008. China’s commercial portals are news aggregators and distributors. They are the gatekeepers of China’s cyber news space. On their news Webpages there is one hyperlink that leads to the original publisher of the story. These links provide a clue of how news organizations were connected online. The content analysis coded these links and other information such as media type, production sites and locations of stories. This study found that the there was a pattern of concentration in terms of the distribution of links among online news organizations. A multiple regression model was used to test the factors that may contribute to this pattern. It was found that geographic location of news organizations was such a factor. The more central a news organization was located, the more links it attracted from the portals. In addition, this study also analyzed the distribution of links among difference provinces (or province level administrations) of China. It found that Beijing, Chongqing, Guangdong, Jilin, and Shanghai are hubs, while more remote provinces, such as Xinjiang, and Guizhou were largely bypassed. / text

published_or_final_version / Computer Science and Information Systems / Master / Master of Philosophy

With the advancement of internet technology, online news content has become very popular. People can now get live updates of the world's news through online news sites. Social networking sites are also very popular among Internet users, for sharing pictures, videos, news links and other online content. Twitter is one of the most popular social networking and microblogging sites. With Twitter's URL shortening service, a news link can be included in a tweet with only a small number of characters, allowing the rest of the tweet to be used for expressing views on the news story. Social links can be unidirectional in Twitter, allowing people to follow any person or organization and get their tweet updates, and share those updates with their own followers if desired. Through Twitter thousands of news links are tweeted every day. Whenever there is a popular new story, different news sites will publish identical or nearly identical versions (``clones'') of that story. Though these clones have the same or very similar content, the level of popularity they achieve may be quite different due to content agnostic factors such as influential tweeters, time of publication and the popularities of the news sites. It is very important for the content provider site to know about which factor plays a important role to make their news link popular. In this thesis research, a data set is collected containing the tweets made for the 218 members of 25 distinct sets of news story clones. The collected data is analyzed with respect to basic popularity characteristics concerning number of tweets of various types, relative publication times of clone set members, tweet timing and number of tweeter followers. Then, several other factors are investigated to see their impact in making some news story clones more popular than others. It is found that multiple content-agnostic factors i.e. maximum number of followers, self promotional tweets plays an impact on news site's stories overall popularity, and a first step is taken at quantifying their relative importance.

The radio is a medium we often listen to whilst doing something else. We wake up, do the dishes, cook or drive to work. Radio as a medium reaches many people, regardless of whether it is through conscious or unconscious listening. We thereby thought it was an important medium to scrutinize in our study. The focus of our study is on the gender representation in P3 Nyheters broadcasts. We scrutinize the representation of gender as well as looking at potential differences in the way men and women are heard. The theoretical frame of reference of the study is primarily based on the agenda-setting theory, which is built on the notion that the media is involved in deciding what subjects we have opinions about, since these subjects are often the ones highlighted by the media. The gender perspective with its theses concerning homosexuality, the masculine norm and the gender stereotypic contract is another theoretic source that the study is based upon. We are also utilizing the theses of hard and soft news to emphasize who gets to talk about what in regards to what is traditionally perceived as feminine and masculine. The results show in a comprehensive way that the stereotypic genders that were created during the ancient time, still remain. Women usually have their say regarding unenlightened public opinion, consumer, neighbor, mother or wife of the man the story is really concerning. The men on the other hand have their say in topics where they get to shine in matters seen as of political relevance and importance to society. The women are under-represented and are portrayed as victims while the men are over-represented and are perceived as experts, which contribute to enhancing stereotypic genders with the masculine norm within the power center of society. The studied material clearly shows signs that P3 Nyheter is far from equal in regards to gender representation, hence, we believe that representation of gender in media is a field that demands more research in order to change or break the masculine norms of the mediasphere.

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to find out to what extent the business administration students of Kristianstad University feel satisfaction in regard to service quality. Also, we want to find out if the impact of positive news about the university affects the students’ level of satisfaction. Approach/methodology - In order to be able to answer these questions, a quantitative research was conducted. Additionally, we used a 7-point Likert scale to measure the students’ opinions. Findings - The study found that the students were satisfied with the university, despite a negative service quality-gap. Furthermore, service quality only affected customer satisfaction to a small degree. Also, we found a positive relation between the impact of positive news and the level of satisfaction amongst the students. Research limitations/implications - The University may look at this paper’s findings and use them to realize its strengths and weaknesses. Future research may be conducted to find out if other factors have greater impact on customer satisfaction than service quality does. Originality – This study is unique in the sense that it investigates the service quality-gap in a higher education context. Also, the study brings new knowledge of the impact of positive news on customer satisfaction. Social implications - Hopefully, the impact of this study will increase the public’s insight of Kristianstad University. A study similar to this one is useful to any organization in the world, in order to establish the level of satisfaction from time to time.

South Africa is a country interconnected with Africa and also more connected with the world.South African national television news evidently is also more global or 'glocalised' (Robertson, 1996) today in comparison to the period during apartheid. This research incorporates an analytic-empirical, social constructivist approach, and interprets news as a specific construction of reality, a "social artifact" (Hjarvard, 2002: 91) of the context in which it is produced (Venter, 2001: 197). This definition allows for the analysis of existing aspects in news items to determine exactly what makes news reality global, 'glocal' or cosmopolitan.The methodology uses a comparative content analysis of three non-sequential weeks selected during September, October, and November 2006, of SABC 3 and e-TV national television news, focusing only on the first fifteen minutes of bulletins, and examining only foreign news. Foreign news includes foreign news locally and news with a South African connection abroad (Sreberny-Mohammadi etal, 1985). The current research analyses the influence of globalisation on each broadcaster - economically, politically, culturally, and technologically - and examines the mediation of global, 'glocal', and moderate cosmopolitan perspectives in news items. Findings reveal that globalisation does influence SABC 3 and e-TV in similar ways with slight differences, and while national or international perspectives are more prominent, global, 'glocal', and moderate cosmopolitan outlooks are still present, and e-TV represents these slightly more than SABC 3. Conclusively, SABC 3 and e-TV construct its news audience as citizens of the nation and citizens of the world, by representing a 'sliding scale' (Wallis and Baran, 1990) from national to international and global perspectives. This present study demonstrates how SABC 3 and e-TV mediate "allegiances to the outer circle" (Bowden, 2003: 242-243) - regional, international, and global - by examining the relevance of extending beyond a South African perspective in news broadcasts. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2007.

Šiame darbe yra pateikiama informacija apie esamų darbų apžvalgą, kuriuose yra minimas panašios bei pasikartojančios informacijos ieškojimas, taip pat aprašoma darbų analizė, kuriuose yra minimas informacijos nuskaitymas iš internetinio portalo bei jos išsaugojimas. Dabartinėje rinkoje egzistuojančių programinių paketų bei karkasų apžvalga, kurių pagalba galima nuskaityti informacija iš internetinio puslapio paverčiant DOM objektais. Po darbų bei sistemų analizės sukurta sistema, kuri sugeba nuskaityti iš „Delfi.lt“ portalo turimo archyvo straipsnius bei komentarus. Pasinaudojant sukurtu programiniu kodu sukurta žinių bazė, kurią sudaro straipsniai ir straipsniams priklausantys komentarai. Žinių bazėje yra sukaupta 10 metų „Delfi.lt“ straipsniai. Atlikus panašiu darbų apžvalgą susijusią su pasikartojančios informacijos paieška įgyvendintas algoritmas, kurį naudojant galima nurodytoje žinių bazėje surasti skirtingus žodžius, suskaičiuoti žodžių reikšmingumą žinių bazę sudarantiems tekstams, bei paskaičiuoti skirtingų dokumentų panašumą. Naudojantis sukurtu programiniu kodu atlikta panašios informacijos paieška bei priimtas sprendimas ar pavyko rasti atsikartojančios informacijos ar ne. / This work describes the overview of the existing works whose has been carried out in the information extraction from the web site and the received information saving. Also describes overview of existing works where are mentioned duplicated information search. In current time ware overviewed existing software packages and frameworks, whose can help retrieve information from web pages and convert all HTML elements to DOM objects. After other existing works overview and systems analysis was created a system which is able to scan „Delfi.lt" portal archive for articles and comments. Using developed program code was created 10 years knowledge base, where are included all articles and articles comments. Also was adapted program code which can find all different words, words counts per documents and documents similarity from created knowledge base, and from results was decided are possible to found duplicated information or not.

The aim of this study is to examine how the public responds to the journalists’ use of subjectivity in the reporting of broadcasting news. The investigation is a qualitative study based on nine interviews with respondents in ages of 21 to 25 from different parts of Sweden. After showing five examples of news reporting with a subjective approach, the respondents gave their look on the use of subjectivity. The theoretical frame of the investigation is founded on the theory of framing (de Vreese, 2005; Entman, 1993) and the discussion concerning the terms objectivity and subjectivity (e.g. Westerståhl, 1972).   The investigation shows that the respondents saw the use of subjectivity in news reporting as something that made them able to connect and identify to the news and the journalist. It also showed that the news was made more comprehensible. The investigation, on the other hand, also showed that the respondents felt like the journalists made assumptions for them. Irrespective of the reaction, the investigation showed clear results of the fact that the respondents own values was an underlying factor in their stance to subjectivity.