The thesis attempts to develop the field of audience research, by adapting recently developed theoretical approaches to an empirical study of the television audience. The thesis begins by examining two general theoretical areas that provide a framework for the research - semiology and theories of ideology. The work of Louis Aithusser is analysed in a movement towards a semiological theory of ideology. The thesis then examines work on the media that has developed out of this broad tradition - notably cultural studies, textual analysis, discourse analysis and the semiotics of film and T. V. Detailed attention is paid to the theory of encoding and decoding, and, in particular, the work of David Morley. The objective of this examination is to set up the encoding/decoding model within a semiological framework for use in practical research on the T. V. audience. The audience research itself is based upon an exhaustive analysis of fifty in-depth interviews with viewers following a screening of a pre-recorded News at Ten. The aim of the research was not to investigate the views of the fifty decoders, but to establish how and why readings of television programmes are constructed - the process of decoding. The research is presented in three stages. The readings of one item (about British Leyland) are scrutinised in order to establish an appropriate set of variables for understanding the decoding process. These variables are then used to systematically analyse the readings of another single item (about troubles in the West Bank). The points raised during this analysis are then developed in relation to readings of the whole programme. The research reveals a number of problems in the form and character of television news. The thesis therefore ends with a set of recommendations for overcoming these problems.

Title : The deadliest war in the world – An assessment of the war reporting from the democratic Republic of Congo Author: Melinda Sutus University and course: Örebro University, Media- and communication C (international) Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand if cultural and geographical proximity affects the way of reporting news and why the war in the Democratic republic of Congo gets so little attention compared to other wars and catastrophes. This will be made by studying the reporting about the war in two newspapers different from one another, one geographically and culturally closed to the war struck area, and one far away. Previous research: The research used in this study focuses on the third world, foreign coverage and globalisation. Studies made by Johan Galtung and Mari Holmboe Rouge, and Stig-Arne Nohrstedt are used to understand the reporting about Africa. Further follow Edward S Herman´s and Noam Chomsky´s views about the different types of victims and Jean-Claude Willame´s research about violence in Africa. Lastly a number of interpretations about globalization are being accounted for. Theories: Post colonialism, reporting war, the CNN-effect and 24h news and critical discourse analysis. Methods: Quantitative analysis and critical discourse analysis. Main results: The New York Times focused their reporting on war facts, in Cape Times the focus is distributed somewhat equally between all the topics. The New York Times portrays the conflict as cold-blooded and barbaric while Cape times emphasis the civilian and humanitarian aspects. Cape Times is closer to the area in question and the humanitarian aspects are easily understood, furthermore Africa does not see itself as a war-struck continent and victims the same way as the west sees the continent, which explains the absence of war facts in Cape Times. The main result is that geographically and cultural proximity does have a certain effect on how news is being portrayed. Key words: Africa, war, globalization, news reporting.

Diss. Göteborg : Göteborgs universitet, 2005.

In this thesis, I analyse the recent trends in the evolution of political journalism in four different countries (England, France, Portugal, and the United States of America) during the past 25 years (1970-1995). For this purpose, I have studied the modifications occurring in the political sections of four daily `quality' newspapersD: iärio de Noticias (Lisbon), Le Monde (Paris), The New York Times (New York City), and The Times (London). The initial hypothesisis that political journalism, in its expressionin thesef our newspaperse,n tereda new paradigm in the early 1970s. This paradigm, which was defined by a strong emphasis on interpretative reporting, replaced a model of news production based on descriptive patterns of writing with long direct quotationso f sources.I argue that there are four main reasonsf or the paradigms hift: the deregulationa nd the globalisation of the media system;t he emergenceo f television as a major information provider; the specialisationo f the political reporter,a nd the developmenot f political marketing. Indeed since the 1970s, political journalism has been evolving inside a complex web of transformations which affect the nucleus of both the media system and the political system. This comparative analysis evaluatesth e trends of political journalism in different social, political, and cultural environments.T he objective is to detectp atternso f evolution and structural similarities among the four newspapersu nder study. I assessth e effect of this evolutiono n the idea of news during the past decadesa nd try to understandth e reasonsb ehindt he decline of the idea of objectiver eporting. The researchin cludesa contenta nalysiso f the structureo f political newss torieso f the four newspapersT. he aim is to detectt he mechanismso f changei n this area and to test the validity of explanations found in the bibliographical review. I also analyse the profile of the political reporter,t he recenth istory of the four newspapersa, nd the most important elements of the medias ystemin the four countries. This thesis revealst he following conclusionsp: olitical journalism is becomingm ore interpretative;t here is both a relation of conflict and of complicity between political journalists and politicians; there is a decline in the use of identified sources of information, and more diverse sources are used in news stories; political marketing is affecting the norms of journalistic proceduresp; restigen ewspapersi,n four different societies, are becoming much more alike among themselves.

Coverage of the Third World by the media in the developed Western nations has been a subject of intense debate among scholars since the 1970s. Some of the outspoken media critics have pointed to certain imbalances in Western media reporting on some parts of the world, including African countries. Such imbalances range from inadequate coverage to emphasis on crisis news events. Other critics argue, however, that Western news reporting on African countries, for example, is crisis-oriented because that is the kind of news those countries offer to the media given the recurrence of various forms of crises there. The 1984-85 Ethiopian famine was one such crisis that received extensive coverage in the Western media. Criticisms of this coverage served to fuel a growing concern among African and other intellectuals, particularly about one aspect of Western media reporting: the failure of those media to put into adequate context African events on which they report. Some critics have pointed out, for example, that although environmental decline is a major underlying cause of famine in Africa, it does not receive attention in Western media coverage of this recurring crisis. This is in spite of the pioneering role of the latter in the promotion of environmental issues in the West as a major social and political concern. From a much broader perspective, however, it appears that the case of imbalanced reporting on Africa in the Western media is not an isolated one. A number of studies on news reporting suggests that the criticism of imbalances in Western news reporting may have more to do with the nature of Western news values than with a wilful attempt on the part of the Western media to report on particular countries in those terms. Thus reporting on African countries by the Western media could be one typical example in which standard Western news practices come into full play. Against this background, the present study sought to investigate Western media coverage of Africa as viewed in terms of the application of Western news values. First, using qualitative analyses of relevant literature, the study undertook a contextualisation of crisis events in African countries, with special reference to famines, by identifying environmental degradation as a crucial factor in the unfolding of such crises. This included explanations for the apparent neglect of African environmental issues by Western media. Discussion on the environment was set in a wider context of a global environmental crisis. The qualitative analyses also examined the issue of imbalances, such as the focus on crisis and the lack of context, in Western media coverage of Africa. This was explored within a theoretical framework that encapsulates aspects of the political economy of the mass media, political ideological differences, and culture as some of the theoretical propositions used by some media researchers to explain imbalances in international news flow. Second, the study used the quantitative research technique of content analysis to carry out a longitudinal investigation of reporting on African countries in general during 1982-87 as well as a case study of the 1984-85 Ethiopian famine by three Western dailies: The Times of London, the New York Times, and the Sydney Morning Herald. An IAMCR (International Association for Mass Communication Research) coding scheme was adopted for this purpose. With regard to the qualitative analyses, the study found that even though environmental decline is a major underlying cause of many of Africa's ongoing and recurring crises such as famines, it may not receive attention in Western media reporting on those crises. This appears to be because the nature of Africa's environmental problems does not meet Western news value criteria. As regards the content analyses, the study found, in both the longitudinal and case studies, a dearth of reporting in all three dailies on African environmental issues and an orientation towards reporting events as discrete events, with little or no attention to underlying or contextual information. Crisis and non-crisis events in Africa were found to be, however, equally reported in most of the sample years studied in two of the three dailies. The focus of reporting on the Ethiopian famine was found to be on Western relief activities and on the bizarre or sensational side of the disaster - aspects of reporting that fit into standard Western news practices.

The purpose of this study is to analyse how the Straits Times reported Singapore's communication news between May 1992 and October 1995, with a focus on Singapore's communication regionalisation. This study is a modest attempt to depart from some of the approaches taken by recent communication related studies of the Singapore experience. They tend to focus on the domestic side of state-press relationship and the issue of Singaporean press freedom, without sustained consideration of external forces, such as globalisation. This analysis provides a synthesis of secondary sources and a qualitative content analysis of communication news in the Straits Times. The results suggest there has been a convergence between the stories in the Straits Times and official views about two themes - business regionalisation and 'Asian' media standards. Results suggest the government has an extensive influence over Singapore's communication, especially with regard to media content. Also, the analysis shows Singapore's identification with Asia, despite bilateral and regional tensions in business and culture, and suggests an uneasy relationship between Singapore and the West, in particular, with the US. That is, while Singapore's business relations with the US are good, its cultural relations are not, especially when Singapore's practice of media standards does not accept the American interpretation, but one based on its national interests. This study provides a glimpse of global communication forces which are influencing Singapore's communication development, as interpreted in the stories from the Straits Times. Although there remains uncertainties about Singapore's communication future, this study may provide an insight as to whether Singapore has taken the right direction in becoming a leading country in advocating an 'Asian voice'.

Thesis (M.A. (Media Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2020 / This study examined the effect of digital news reporting on professional journalistic practice focusing on fake sport news websites. It evolves from the fact that, despite the progressive benefits of the digital revolution, the rise of fake news websites has become common practice associated with the clickbait that spreads rumours posted on unofficial accounts often with a journalistic pretext. The aim of this study was to examine how fake digital sport news reporting impacts on professional journalistic practice. The objectives of the study were: to describe the nature of internet-based fake sport news stories and websites; to assess the credibility of sport news disseminated through fake news sites, and to determine the implications of fake sport news stories and websites on standard news practice. The descriptive design within the qualitative interpretive paradigm was used to determine the negative effect that fake sport news has on professional journalistic practice. Qualitative content analysis of ten sample news excerpts and in-depth interviews with sixteen expert informants were complementarily used to collect data. Interpretive phenomenological analysis was applied to generate discursive themes which yielded the study outcomes. The data from screenshots and interviews were collected, corroborated and analysed, using content and thematic analysis techniques. After analysing both the screenshots and the interviews, a total of eight themes emerged from the study. The study notes how fake sport news and its associated litany of misinformation and/or disinformation has contributed to the creation of false hypes about sports news to the detriment of professional journalism practice. The study revealed that fake sport news is prominent on social media and poses a major challenge to journalistic integrity and credibility. From the various screenshots, fake headlines were identified as a contributing factor to the rise of fake news stories. It was also found that fake sport news has a negative effect on journalism practice, as it spreads lies, makes people more interested in emotional stories and forces credible news agencies to also use sensational headlines to gain the attention of an audience. The interviews revealed that characteristics of fake sport news stories are exaggerated, misleading, have no source or attributions, no by-lines or unknown authors and misrepresent so-called facts. iv vi The study recommends that research, fact-checking, naming and shaming people/websites that popularize fake sport news should be made known to the public; proper training and assertion of certain rules, regulations and ethics for new reporters and journalists to follow and stick to; there must be thorough research and cross checking of information gained from a secondary source; a governing body to possibly monitor and crack down on serial propagators and spreaders of fake sports news stories; sport journalists should alert readers of fake sport news and fake sport news websites, as these are common in sport due to the popularity of sport news sites; and sport journalists should stay away from reporting/re-writing and sharing fake news in order to maintain credibility and ethics in sport news reporting.

Den här undersökningen gjordes för att ta reda på om svensk flyktingrapportering ändrades efter det att Sverige införde gränskontroller den 12 november 2015. Syftet var att se om rapporteringen ändrades när det politiska läget och opinionen ändrades, men även att generellt se hur flyktingrapporteringen ser ut. Både kvantitativ och kvalitativ undersökning gjordes. I den kvantitativa undersökningen jämfördes 50 artiklar från september 2015 med 50 artiklar från januari 2015. Variablerna togs fram bland annat med hjälp av gestaltningsteorin och orientalism, som båda är delar av undersökningens teoretiska ramverk. Sedan undersöktes artiklarna kvalitativt genom en kombinerad diskurs- och framinganalys för att på ett djupare plan ta reda på hur flyktingfrågan och flyktingar beskrivs. Resultaten ger en indikation på att det skett en förändring mellan september 2015 och januari 2016. Flyktingarna beskrevs bland annat mer frekvent som passiva, och mer sällan som individer. Mer generellt visar resultaten att flyktingarna oftast beskrevs som en grupp utan någon identitet. Adjektiv som kan väcka identifikation användes sällan för att beskriva flyktingarna. De beskrevs istället med adjektiv som ensamkommande och asylsökande. Den mest förekommande benämningen på flyktingar var just ordet flyktingar, följt av flyktingbarn och asylsökande. Flyktingarna beskrivs ofta som passiva i artiklarna, och de citeras sällan. De som citeras mest i artiklarna är myndighetspersoner och politiker. Dessa resultat pekar på att svenska journalister, omedvetet eller medvetet, skapar en bild av verkligheten där orientalismens mönster av världen finns kvar. Det skapas en gräns mellan ”vi svenskar” och ”de där flyktingarna”. Denna gräns förstärktes efter gränskontrollernas införande. / The aim of this study was to find out whether Swedish news reports on refugees changed after border controls were enforced on the 12th of November 2015, and thereby investigate if the changed political policies had any effect in the news reporting. Another aim was to study the general patterns in the news. Both qualitative and quantitative researches were made. Regarding the quantitative research, 50 articles from September 2015 were compared with 50 articles from January 2016. The variables were designed by means of framing theory and orientalism, both being parts of the theory framework of this study. Then the articles were analyzed qualitatively with a combined discourse and framing analysis to find out on a deeper level how refugees and the refugee situation in Sweden were described. The results indicate that there has been a change in the reporting between September 2015 and January 2016. The refugees were more frequently described as passive, and more seldom as individuals. More general, the results illustrated that, in most cases, refugees are described as a group without an identity. Identity-generating adjectives were sporadically used to describe them. Instead, they were associated to adjectives like ensamkommande (unaccompanied) and asylsökande (~asylum seeker). The most common word to describe refugees was flyktingar (refugees), followed by flyktingbarn (refugee children) and asylsökande (asylum seekers). Most frequently quoted people in the articles were government officials as well as politicians. These results indicate that Swedish journalists, consciously or not, are creating a picture of the world were the lines of orientalism still persist. A demarcation line between “us swedes” and “those refugees” is created. This line became more distinct after border controls were enforced.

Although examination of the relationship between the media and crime has received considerable attention in the academic literature, only a few studies have examined news media coverage of environmental crimes. The present study examines print news media coverage of federal penalties assessed against the petroleum refining industry from 1997 to 2003. The Environmental Protection Agency initiated and/or settled 162 cases involving seventy-eight petroleum refining companies from 1997 to 2003. While a news search of the nations twenty-five largest newspapers produced seventy-four articles related to petroleum refining industry violations, only seventeen articles matched the EPA cases analyzed in the present study. The present study found that while there is a considerable amount of federal petroleum refining industry violations, only a few cases receive media attention.

<p>Abstract</p><p>Purpose/Aim: The aim of this essay is to paint a picture of science news reporting in the Swedish Public Service science programme, vetenskaps-radion. Key issues to be adressed are: What areas in science are prioritised? How much of the total broadcast time are devoted to each area? Are there any differences in reporting between weeks? How well does the swedish science radio match common interets? Are the news in the form of short “soundbites” or are they more lengthy in-depth?</p><p>Material/Method: Quantitative analysis of radio programmes. The variables used are based on the different major areas in natural sciences.</p><p>Main results: This study shows that most broadcast time is devoted to news regarding biology and medicine and that the news rather are in the form of short snippets of news than more lengty in-depth stories. This is put in light of how journalistes tend to present news and that the subjects involved has to relate to peoples everyday lives. Furthermore, radio as a medium dictates that the listeners attention needs to be maintained throughout the broadcast, which may be a reason for the tendency to present short news snippets.</p><p>Keywords:</p><p>Science journalism, radio, science communication, news reporting</p>