This thesis explores how U.S. newspapers framed the death of Captain America. Specifically, the presence of various frames and their classifications was determined via a content analysis of 139 newspaper articles. Additionally, this thesis explores relationships between frame substance and other frame classifications. Generic/recurring frames were more prevalent than issue-specific/recurring frames. Frames tended to be episodic more often than thematic. Frames were also most likely to be neutral in valence, though differences from this overall trend emerged in some individual frames. Frames tended to be ambiguous rather than substantive. No relationship emerged between frame substance and the classification of generic/issue-specific frames, nor did one emerge between frame substance and the episodic/thematic frame classification. However, frames possessing negative valence were more likely to be ambiguous than frames possessing positive valence. Implications for framing theory and the news coverage's treatment of Captain America's death as an indicator of post-9/11 American identity are also discussed. Limitations of this study and opportunities for future research are acknowledged. / Master of Arts

The news media is the most common way for individuals to obtain information about a vast range of events. The purpose of the present study was to better understand what factors predict people's news media patterns, including mental health, personality factors, and propensity for altruism. This study investigated whether certain media patterns correlate with higher pathology in viewers. Participants were asked to complete an informal survey in which they provided information about their news patterns in general, and then specifically about their news media pattern when obtaining information about the Haitian crisis. The Haitian crisis served as an example of a crisis event broadcasted by a wide variety 9f news media outlets including local news, cable news, magazines, and internet sources. Additional measures in the study include the Symptom-Checklist-90 (SCL-90) self-report scale as a measure of psychopathology, the Civic Moral Disengagement Scale (CMDs), and the self-report Altruism Measure. It was predicted that participants who accessed news about the disaster through sources that presented a political agenda rather than just reporting the news, would score higher on psychopathology and lower Qn altruism. Although there was no significant correlation between news media patterns and psychopathology, a correlation between news media patterns and altruistic behavior was found. Personality factors were also significantly correlated to altruistic behavior and media choice. The findings of this study open the doors to further studies in the field of media, personality, and altruistic behavior. Implications of the findings, as well as need for further research are discussed.

Syftet med den här kvalitativa innehållsanalysen har varit att undersöka hur ett högerpopulistiskt nyhetsmedie kontra ett traditionellt nyhetsmedie gestaltar knivdådet på Ikea i Västerås samt skolattacken i Trollhättan som skedde med kort mellanrum hösten 2015. De båda dåden fick stor uppmärksamhet och den redan intensiva debatten om invandring blossade upp ytterligare. Detta på grund av att dådet i Västerås begicks av en asylsökande, och det i Trollhättan av en ung svensk man med högerextrema åsikter som valde sina offer utifrån deras etniska ursprung.Det teoretiska ramverket innehåller tidigare forskning om alternativmedier, populism och journalistik. Vi har valt att använda oss utav två betydande teorier inom medieforskningen. Först gestaltningsteorin, främst med Scheufele och Entmans forskning som utgångspunkter. Sedan diskurs, med forskning av Foucalt och Fairclough. Valet av metod till vår studie är kritisk diskursanalys. Detta för att metoden lämpar sig väl för att undersöka politiska budskap i texter och tyda gestaltningar och diskurser. Det studerade materialet består utav fyra stycken nyhetsartiklar, två för respektive nyhetshändelse. Två stycken artiklar från den högerpopulistiska nättidningen Fria Tider samt två stycken från den mer etablerade morgontidningen Dagens Nyheter. Dessa jämförde vi sedan med varandra i en komparativ studie. Diskurser i dessa nyhetsartiklar har brutits ut med hjälp av ett analysschema för att operationalisera vårfrågeställning. Resultaten visar på två helt skilda nyhetsdiskurser och olika sätt att gestalta händelserna. Fria Tider gestaltar händelser till förmån för sin invandringskritiska agenda medans Dagens Nyheter agerar som en slags motpol med en betydligt mer objektiv gestaltning av händelserna. Den här studien vill bidra till förståelsen för vårt polariserade medieklimat, samt den oberoende journalistikens viktiga roll i samhället i en tid av nedskärningar och mediekonvergens. Det behövs en öppnare samhällsdebatt om frågor gällande invandring och kriminalitet för att inte ytterligare öka polariseringen av medielandskapet. / The purpose with this essay is to study how a right-wing populist alternative news medium, versus a more mainstream news medium, reports on two different news events. First off is the stabbings at the furniture store Ikea in Västerås, second is the attack on students at a middle school in Trollhättan by a masked adolescent armed with a sword. Both of which took place in the fall of 2015 in Sweden. Both events gained much attention from the news media, and sparked the already intense political debate on immigration issues. This due to the facts that the perpetrator at Ikea in Västerås was a refugee seeking asylum in Sweden, and the masked assailent in Trollhättan showed interest in right-wing extremist content on the internet as well as targeting students and faculty of immigration background.The theoretical framework consists of earlier research on populism, alternative media as well ason traditional journalism. We chose to work mainly with two distinguished theories within media and communication studies. The first theory is framing, based mainly on research done by Scheufele and Entman. The second theory is discourse, as defined by Foucalt and Fairclough. The method used for the study is a critical discourse analysis. This method together with the twotheories have been proven useful when studying political discourses and framing in political news articles similar to the ones we picked for our essay. The material used for this study consists off our news articles of which two are linked to each news event or “case”. Two of the articles are published by Fria Tider, a right-wing populist alternative news medium, while the other two by Dagens Nyheter, a well established and more mainstream oriented morning news paper. Different frames and discourses have been revealed in the material after our analysis, based on our schematics in an attempt to operationalise.The results points towards two widely different news discourses and ways of framing the news content. Fria Tider portrait the events in favour of their agenda of critical views on immigration and immigrants, whereas Dagens Nyheter acts as a counterpart with far more objective framing of the events. This study seeks to build a better understanding of today’s polarised media landscape, as well as the importance of independent journalism and news media in a society where the mass media experience cutbacks and convergence. A more explicit and honest public debate regarding immigrational issues is needed, to avoid further polarisation of the media landscape.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Media Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2019 / For years traditional and digital media have played an essential role of disseminating news and information to keep their target audience always updated about what is happening nationally and internationally. News consumption has globally been experiencing enormous deviations due to advancements in technology. In this context, the study examined and analysed news consumption patterns among the rural youth living in Limpopo Province South Africa. The study employed a sequential mixed research method. A self-administered questionnaire and semi-structured personal interview were used to collect data from youth aged between 18-34 years. A sample of 320 youth participated in the study, with 300 in quantitative and 20 in qualitative methods of research used to gather data for the study. Youth participants were randomly selected using convenience non-probability sampling. The data collected through a questionnaire were analysed using the Statistical Programme for Social Sciences (SPSS) software, inferential and descriptive statistics, while qualitative data were thematically analysed and interpreted considering diverse themes, sub-themes and common statements. The study results revealed that most youth highly preferred to access and consume news through online media more than television and newspapers because digital media are cheap, easily accessible and affordable. The findings further indicated that most youth highly preferred to consume news through television channels such as ETV because it is a credible and reliable source of news. It is highlighted in the results that most youth preferred to consume entertainment news more than business, political and sport news because they find the former interesting and relaxing. Also, most youth did prefer to discuss entertainment news with family members and friends and that there are positive relationships between media credibility and news consumption which tend to influence family and friends’ news discussions. In a nutshell, the findings of this study further suggest a philosophical change in news consumption patterns among South African youth and the operation of media industries. However, the study recommends that most media houses need to broadcast and publish business and political news that are more relevant, accurate and objective for most youth to consume proficiently. Keywords: News media consumption, news discourse, youth, media credibility, new and traditional media.

本研究意圖了解台灣選民媒介使用與政治知識間長期的關聯與其變遷，以及嘗試將政治知識區分為政治結構知識與非政治結構知識兩類個別檢視，以期能深入瞭解媒介使用與政治知識類別的關係。本研究採用二手資料分析，將國立政治大學選舉研究中心在1995年與1998年所作之立委選舉面訪案，及台灣選舉與民主化調查研究（TEDS）在2001年與2004年所作之立委選舉大型面訪案，總共四次的資料加以整合，以時間的縱貫角度切入，觀察民眾長期政治知識與媒介使用情況的趨勢變化，針對影響政治知識的各項因素作檢驗，並提出可能的解釋。 　　關於變化趨勢的部分，研究發現在1995-2004年期間，總體政治知識及非政治結構知識程度有逐年減少的趨勢，但在政治結構知識程度上則變動不大，沒有逐年提升的趨勢；報紙注意程度上沒有顯著變化，而電視注意程度則有逐漸減少的情形。 　　研究結果顯示，無論時序如何變遷、政治知識如何分類，性別、教育程度及報紙注意程度，對政治知識均具顯著且穩定的影響力。男性、教育程度愈高者及報紙注意程度愈高者，其政治知識程度愈高。 　　年齡對於各類政治知識程度也是一個相當顯著的解釋變項，唯獨在政治結構知識上，老年人口的解釋力則不顯著。本研究也發現政黨認同能夠顯著解釋總體政治知識與非政治結構知識；但在政治結構知識上的影響與解釋力較弱。在總體政治知識與非政治結構知識的影響上，電視注意程度均呈現正向顯著的關聯，電視注意程度愈高，其政治知識程度愈高；但在政治結構知識上，電視注意程度的解釋力則不如預期。值得注意的是，電視媒介注意程度在2004年的資料中，對於各類政治知識均呈現無顯著差異，且影響方向改變。 　　綜觀研究結果發現，不同類型之政治知識，在本質上、變遷趨勢上、獨立變項的解釋力上的確有所差異。最能解釋總體政治知識的變項為媒介注意程度；最能解釋政治結構知識的變項為教育程度；對非政治結構知識最能解釋的變項為媒介注意程度。然而，報紙注意程度比起電視注意程度來說，對於政治知識程度的解釋力要來得正向且穩定。 / The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships of news media use and political knowledge and their changes over time among voters in Taiwan. Political knowledge, by definition, is categorized into structural and non-structural ones. Data were from four national surveys in 1995 and 1998’s National Chengchi University Election Study Center’s surveys, and the 2001 and 2004’s Taiwan’s Election and Democratization Study during legislative elections, respectively. Data analysis shows that since 1995 till 2004, political knowledge and non-structural political knowledge are both slightly decreasing, but the variation of structural political knowledge is relatively stable. Attention to newspaper news is steady but attention to television news is decreasing. Gender, level of education, and attention to newspaper news all positively predict structural and non-structural political knowledge in the four data sets. Male, highly educated people, and those with higher attention to newspaper news have more political knowledge. Party identification significantly predicts non-structural political knowledge but not structural political knowledge. Attention to television news positively predicts non-structural political knowledge. What is noteworthy is that in 2004, attention to news media first time shows no significant relationship with political knowledge. Take a closer look at relationships between various predictor variables and different types of political knowledge. Our results show that attention to news media strongly predicts political knowledge; level of education highly predicts structural political knowledge; attention to news media effectively predicts non-structural political knowledge. However, attention to newspaper is a better predictor variable in predicting political knowledge.

The media landscape has evolved significantly over the last decades. Previously, the extent of media choice was limited to a handful of newspapers and radio- and TV broadcasts. However, with the rise of cable TV and internet access, people are faced with a multitude of choices regarding what media and content they choose to consume. Scholars have argued that these developments may enable people who are not interested in news consumption to avoid news more than previously. Considering this transformation of the media landscape, this paper aspires to shed light on the factors that affect news media choice. More specifically, the aim of this essay is to study upper secondary school students’ news interest, news consumption and their trust in news media.   This essay employs uses and gratifications and Bourdieu’s symbolic and cultural capital theory to analyze the empirical data. This data is based on 6 semi-structured interviews with students in the first or second year in two upper secondary schools.  The analysis demonstrates that parents’ political interest in addition to students’ uses and gratifications are significant to understand news interest and news consumption among upper secondary school students. Furthermore, the analysis highlights that the interviewees with higher cultural capital perceive news media with a higher symbolic capital as more trustworthy, while students with a lower cultural capital trust tabloid media to a greater extent.

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In this thesis, news media use and trust among Swedish upper secondary schools students of Generation Z is investigated through focus group interviews with students from two different schools. This study aims to explain how and why Swedish upper secondary school students of Generation Z use and perceive news media, with focus on the relations between news media trust and news media use. To interpret the empirical data, the study uses a theoretical framework consisting of three pillars: an understanding of trust informed by Giddens (1990) definition; the use of public connection (Couldry et al., 2018) to understand the role of news media; a generational understanding based on Prensky’s (2001a; 2001b) concept of Digital Natives, and Bolin’s (2017) media generations. This study suggests that there is a clear discrepancy between the young Swedes news media use, and their trust. They acknowledge the importance of news media in society, and traditional news medias are perceived as trustworthy expert systems, providing of professional, quality journalism. Despite the high levels of trust, traditional news medias are rarely actively used. Instead, students come into contact with most news through social media feeds, on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. They mostly view the content on these platforms as unreliable and untrustworthy, due to the lack of a clear, trustworthy expert presence. Despite distrusting the content on social media, the students continue to use the services as a source of news, in part due to the convenience of use and in part as they believe themselves to well equipped to discern true and fake news through their generations’ intimate knowledge of both the structure of social medias, and strategies for fact checking. This study also argues that the use of distrusted news from social media, may in fact in some cases enable a public connection.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka genom en kritisk diskursanalys påståendet avseende att den svenska socialtjänsten omhändertar muslimska barn. 26 nyhetsartiklar har valts ut där 10 är från Expressen och Aftonbladet och 16 nyhetsartiklar från Al Jazeera, BBC Arabic, TRT Arabi, Al-Sharq, International Union Of Muslim Scholars, Al-Quds Al-Arabi och Arabi21. Nyhetsartiklarna har analyserats genom den kritiska diskursanalysen. Vid analysering av empirin identifierades 4 diskurser, två från svenska nyhetsmedia och två från arabiska nyhetsmedia. Dessa fyra diskurser är: “Desinformation, falska påstående och lögner”, “säkerhetshot och förhöjd säkerhetsrisk”, “kritik mot svenska myndigheter och systemet” och “religiösa, kulturella och rättvisa aspekter”. Ofta använder sig skribenterna av en objektiv modalitet som innebär att de framställer sina egna åsikter som sanning. I de svenska nyhetsartiklarna visas intertextualiteten då citaten bygger på att läsaren har en bakgrundsinformation om kampanjen då exempelvis namnen från kampanjen skiljer sig i olika artiklar. Intertextualiteten gällande de arabiska nyhetsartiklarna visar på information kring den pågående debatten och använder rubriker som vi förväntas att förstå i relation till debatten. Diskurserna i de svenska nyhetsartiklarna skiljer sig väsentligt från de arabiska diskurserna. Återkommande i de svenska nyhetsartiklarna gavs det utrymme för offentliga personer och myndigheter att uttalas sig om kampanjen. Utrymme gavs även till personer som har varit aktiva eller är aktiva inom kampanjen och anser att socialtjänsten kidnappar muslimska barn. Medan i de arabiska nyhetsartiklarna var det familjer som har fått sina barn omhändertagna av socialtjänsten som gavs mest utrymme att komma till tals och berätta deras upplevelser. Det som vi såg som en gemensam nämnare för båda var att ingen socialarbetare kom till tals. / The purpose of this study is to examine through critical discourse analysis the assertion regarding that the Swedish social service taking custody of Muslim children. 26 news articles have been selected where 10 are from Expressen and Aftonbladet and 16 news articles are from Al Jazeera, BBC Arabic, TRT Arabi, Al-Sharq, International Union Of Muslim Scholars, Al-Quds Al-Arabi and Arabi21. The news articles have been analyzed through Faircloughs critical discourse analysis. Through the analysis 4 discourses have been identified, two from the Swedish news media and two from the Arabic news media. These four discourses are: “Disinformation, false claims and lies”, “security threat and increased security risk”, “criticism of Swedish authorities and the system” and “religious, cultural and justice aspects”. Often the writers use an objective modality which means that they present their own opinions as the truth. In the Swedish news articles, the intertextuality is shown as the quotes are based on the reader having background information about the campaign as, for example, the names from the campaign differ in different articles. The intertextuality regarding the Arabic news articles shows information about the ongoing debate and uses headlines that the readers are expected to understand in relation to the debate. The discourses in the Swedish news articles differ significantly from the Arabic discourses. Recurring in the Swedish news articles, space to speak was given for public figures and authorities to comment on the campaign. Space to speak was also given to people who have been or are active in the campaign and believe that the social service is kidnapping Muslim children. While in the Arab news articles, it was families who have had their children taken into custody by social services who were given the most space to speak and tell their experiences. What we saw as a common denominator for both was that no social worker were asked to speak up.

In his first term as president, George W. Bush was confronted with one of the worst national attacks in United States history: the September 11 terrorist attacks of 2001. Through the devastation, however, President Bush triumphed in unifying and guiding this nation during what would become the height of his rhetorical leadership. Following his reelection in 2004, President Bush faced one of the worst natural disasters in the nation's history: Category 4 Hurricane Katrina. In its aftermath, Katrina became known as "one of the worst mishandled disasters ever." Utilizing Kenneth Burke's pentad, this study analyzes the president's rhetorical response and the primetime network news coverage following each crisis in an attempt to determine how President Bush could fare so well in one instance, consoling and leading the American people, while falling short in his second major crisis during his term as president. / Master of Arts