viii, 89 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / The Olympics games are not only a sport but also a media event. In 2008, China hosted the Olympics Games for the first time. The coverage of the Beijing Olympics Games in the Chinese media can reflect the characteristics of media and societal development in today's China. The study examines qualitatively the use of frames in coverage of the Beijing Olympics Games in 11 dailies and 2 weeklies in China. Four new issue-specific frames are found in the Chinese newspapers. The use of the existing six generic and five issue-specific frames are discussed in the Chinese context. The study finds that the Chinese media get more freedom in some areas that do not have direct links with politics. In the areas related to politics, the government is still controlling the media. / Committee in Charge: Patricia Curtin, Chair; John Russial H. Leslie Steeves

viii, 234 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries under the call number: KNIGHT PN4897.O74 E78 1995 / Studies have shown that women's ideas, especially those that challenge the status quo, have historically received little attention from the press. This thesis discusses how women were described in three of Oregon's frontier newspapers from 1846 to 1859, and also explores their contributions to the newspapers as writers, poets, editors, and businesswomen. Information from established American media clipped for the frontier papers described popular, mainstream ideas of womanhood, as well as provided news on the emerging women's rights struggle. Information generated locally on women encompassed a variety of themes, including marriage, education, and temperance. This study shows that even though content about women and women's roles as contributors were constrained by contemporary ideas of propriety and women's place in society, women were valued as readers and contributors to the three Oregon newspapers. / Committee in charge: Dr. Lauren Kessler, Chair; Dr. Timothy Gleason, Dr. Leslie Steeves

The aim of this study was to establish whether the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) performed according to its mandate in ensuring a fair broadcast coverage of all political parties that participated in the 2014 national general election. The study was undertaken as a result of the complaints by political parties who accused the SABC of bias during the election. The study focused on two SABC radio stations, namely SAFM and UKHOZI FM. In executing the research, particular attention was paid to the coverage of political party manifestos, town hall election debates and radio interviews. The study was written utilising the theoretical paradigm of Social Responsibility Theory, as this is largely deemed the most ethical guide in testing South African journalism. The research was conducted in accordance with the Independent Complaints Authority of South Africa (ICASA) regulations that govern broadcast media during elections. The second part of the analysis deconstructed the SABC’s media coverage of the 2014 election through Media Monitoring Africa – a non-profit organisation that monitors and reports on media coverage of elections, whilst simultaneously taking ICASA stipulated guidelines into account. The MMA and ICASA equipped the study with reports which were compiled after an intense monitoring of SABC’s coverage of the 2014 election. Through the analysis of political parties’ accessibility to the election broadcast programmes on SABC platforms, the study concluded that although there were errors, the SABC treated all parties fairly during the 2014 general elections. The study also found that poor corporate governance at the SABC did not impact directly on the public broadcaster’s ability to deliver fair election broadcasting. By conforming to the social responsibility role that calls for high professional conduct, fairness and objectivity as expected in the public broadcaster, this study found that the SABC was committed to a fair coverage of the 2014 election.

The process of democratization which appeared in the nineteenth century was partly responsible for the emergence of a mass readership. It consisted of the new urban population which had its own tastes and interests, intellectual capacity and purchasing power. The popular press was firmly established by 1900 and it radically altered the scope and style of daily journalism in its attempt to speak in the language of the majority. Philip Gibbs was one of the prominent journalists between 1900 and 1914. His aspiration to become a war correspondent stemmed from the image of the war correspondent as a figure of romance and adventure, the consequence of the militarist spirit of the age and the licence which granted him freedom of movement. Inevitably, the war correspondent carne in conflict with the military which had not kept pace with democratization and sensed a challenge to itself and to national security. Censorship and restrictions on the war correspondent tightened, until major army reforms between 1901 and 1912 brought more cordial relations between the press and the military. When the Great War broke out in 1914 the co-operative atmosphere broke down as censorship was reinstated, more severely than before. It challenged the freedom of the press and the right of the people to know. Gibbs was determined that the people should have access to news from the front. He fought hard for that objective and was instrumental in the compromise reached between the military and the press when an officially recognized system was devised for press representation on the Western Front. The wisdom of such a move was shown by the success of Philip Gibbs' war correspondence, which had appeal to a mass readership in its own language and with subjects of interest to it.

Cette thèse étudie la couverture de l’actualité en Macédoine faite par la presse internationale et albanophone pendant le conflit ethnique armé de 2001. Elle explore un corpus multilingue [français, anglais et albanais] composé de dépêches d’agences de presse [AFP et Reuters] et d’articles journaux français [Le Monde et Libération], américains [The New York Times et The Washington Post] et albanophones de Macédoine [Flaka, Fakti et Lobi]. Issue d’un cadre théorique et méthodologique complexe, l’analyse de ce corpus repose sur les traditions françaises et nord-américaines de la recherche en sciences de la communication. L’analyse du discours, combinée avec un matériel recueilli lors des interviews des journalistes et avec l’analyse statistique et lexicométrique de contenu, a produit des données qui sont interprétées dans le cadre de la théorie de l’agenda-setting. Les résultats de cette analyse ont permis de répondre à nos questions de recherche : Quelle était l’attention accordée à l’actualité macédonienne par la presse internationale ? Quelles sont la nature et l’importance des informations fournies par les journalistes qui ont couvert cet événement sur le terrain ? Comment cette actualité a-t-elle été traitée par la presse locale de langue albanaise en Macédoine ?Une approche géopolitique et historique fournit le cadre de cette thèse. / Cette thèse étudie la couverture de l’actualité en Macédoine faite par la presse internationale et albanophone pendant le conflit ethnique armé de 2001. Elle explore un corpus multilingue [français, anglais et albanais] composé de dépêches d’agences de presse [AFP et Reuters] et d’articles journaux français [Le Monde et Libération], américains [The New York Times et The Washington Post] et albanophones de Macédoine [Flaka, Fakti et Lobi]. Issue d’un cadre théorique et méthodologique complexe, l’analyse de ce corpus repose sur les traditions françaises et nord-américaines de la recherche en sciences de la communication. L’analyse du discours, combinée avec un matériel recueilli lors des interviews des journalistes et avec l’analyse statistique et lexicométrique de contenu, a produit des données qui sont interprétées dans le cadre de la théorie de l’agenda-setting.Les résultats de cette analyse ont permis de répondre à nos questions de recherche : Quelle était l’attention accordée à l’actualité macédonienne par la presse internationale ? Quelles sont la nature et l’importance des informations fournies par les journalistes qui ont couvert cet événement sur le terrain ? Comment cette actualité a-t-elle été traitée par la presse locale de langue albanaise en Macédoine ?Une approche géopolitique et historique fournit le cadre de cette thèse.

Abstract The purpose of this study is to examine the international news coverage of the 1981 Northern Irish hunger strike. The media had plenty of emotionally and politically charged incidents to report, and they rendered it in various manners. This study discusses why these different representations of the hunger strike were born. This thesis analyses news about the hunger strike published in fifteen international newspapers. For this kind of research, historical contextualization is of great importance. Methodological starting point lies in the traditions of imagological methods. A mental image is understood here as something in our thoughts that steers us to see the world in a certain way. A newspaper depicts news stories in a way the newspaper and the society in which it operates see its worth. Media representations have a very complex background. Based on the findings, it seems likely that existing mental images play a major role in the way a news topic is covered and given meaning. In this case, news coverage was not based solely on the hunger strike but also on historical discourse which had created a certain meaning for the event. The coverage of each newspaper was based on their own worldviews. Internationally, the level of interest is determined by varied cultural and political factors. News coverage both reflects and affects. News from other countries is more likely to be reported if some links exists, something to identify and consider significant. The findings of the research suggest that news coverage is not always just the reporting of events. It can reflect more profound features. Each media source has its own reasons to represent news in a certain way. Primarily, the reasoning points to the medium itself. However, we can argue that news coverage also reflects the values of a community. News is usually produced to appeal to the majority of the intended audience. This case illustrates that international news coverage is a useful method in revealing and understanding mental images and their influence. / Tiivistelmä Tässä tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan Pohjois-Irlannin tasavaltalaisvankien nälkälakon kansainvälistä uutisointia vuonna 1981. Tapahtuma sisälsi poliittisesti ja emotionaalisesti latautuneita tilanteita, joita kansainvälinen media uutisoi eri tavoin. Tässä tutkimuksessa selvitetään, miksi erilaisia mediarepresentaatioita syntyi. Tutkimuksen päälähteenä käytetään viittätoista sanomalehteä eri puolilta maailmaa. Historiallisella kontekstoinnilla on suuri merkitys tämänkaltaisessa tutkimuksessa. Tämän työn metodologinen lähtökohta nojaa voimakkaasti mielikuvatutkimuksen periaatteisiin. Tässä tutkimuksessa mielikuva käsitetään ajattelua ja maailmankuvaa ohjaavana käsityksenä, ja sanomalehtiuutisoinnin luomat mielikuvat heijastavat niin lehden itsensä kuin ympäröivän kontekstin käsityksiä. Median luomilla mielikuvilla on monitahoinen tausta. Tutkimustuloksien perusteella on todennäköistä, että jo olemassa olevat mielikuvat vaikuttavat voimakkaasti uutisoinnin luonteeseen ja annettuun merkitykseen. Nälkälakon uutisointi ei perustunut pelkästään itse lakkoon ja sen tapahtumiin, vaan uutisointiin vaikuttivat myös historian kautta annetut merkitykset. Jokainen lehti uutisoi tapahtumasta omaan maailmankuvaansa perustuen. Uutisointi sekä heijastelee että vaikuttaa: media uutisoi herkemmin tapahtumista, joilla koetaan olevan merkitystä. Tämän tutkimuksen perusteella uutisointi ei aina ole pelkästään raportointia. Jokaisella tiedotusvälineellä on omat syynsä uutisoida tietyllä tavalla. Ensisijaisesti syyt ovat mediassa itsessään, mutta media heijastelee myös ympäristönsä arvoja ja käsityksiä.

The fundamental essence covered the central role of representation of meaning within signs of photographic images captured of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States of America, in Time magazine’s September 11, 2001 special edition. This was done in order to determine how sign representation appeared in relation to philosophical sociologist Jean Baudrillard’s concepts of simulacra, simulation, hyperreality and massification. These concepts were assessed in relation to dominant theme categories and sub themes contained in the photographic images of this publication by means of a qualitative thematic content analysis. The motivation for the selection of this event was based on its magnitude and worldwide consequences. Furthermore, the images were selected in the specified mass media medium of Time magazine based on Baudrillard’s inference that consumption within a society is based on the controlling codes of society and one of these codes is the mass media. Hence the mass media have control over the value which a sign will have in a specific society thus giving it meaning, and on its inception AOL/Time Warner was the largest media conglomerate ever formed. Therefore what messages they deem as significant to be disseminated will become a controlling code of what signs have which meaning on a global scale. Moreover, Baudrillard believes that the mass media create a dominant belief system, which creates mass ideas and one of the ways in which massification occurs is through the use of images. As such, visuals play a powerful role in the representation of major world events. Particularly photographs because they are a reflection and thus form part of the registration process of what is being witnessed, where in this case it was the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Hence visual images of world events are displayed globally by the mass media, which in turn propagate their own mediation of events and in this particular case terrorism fuelled the massified information that was dispersed. This information is circulated on a global scale via the mass media based on what will generate the most capital by creating what is consumable. What has occurred in the mass media arena is that ownership structures have changed and today there is a major increase in media conglomerates with media power being in fewer and fewer hands. This leads to information flow that is skewed by a specified ideology, which in the case of Time magazine would be a western ideology. In line with the established motivation as well as the dominance of visual supplements in much of the coverage of September 11, 2001, the overriding research problem was to determine how meaning was represented in the signs, from a Baudrillardian perspective, in the dominant themes in selected visuals in Time magazine’s September 11, 2001 special edition. Based on the research, a key underlying finding revealed the idea that in mass mediated cultures everything is a sign and representation of the real and therefore the real loses meaning and is replaced by a hyperreal and thus image and form devour the real and audiences are seduced by the values of signs. / Andrea Crystal

Content analysis of The Dallas Morning News focuses on sources, bylines, photographs, and main characters to determine the quantity and quality of portrayals of women. The study included front pages and main local news pages during one week each from 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, and 1990. Change was charted by year for both sexes. In 1950, few representations of women were included and many were stereotypical. Some stereotyping persisted in 1990, and men outnumbered women more than 3 to 1 as story sources, nearly 3 to 1 in front-page bylines, more than 2 to 1 in photographs, and more than 2 to 1 as main characters. Women still lag behind men, despite feminists' efforts to improve coverage.

This study focuses on the role of media portrayal and coverage in serial killing. The first objective of the study is to develop a conceptual structure that aids in the understanding of the cyclical relationship between media, serial killer, and audience. The media acts as a catalyst in this relationship, providing the stage on which serial killer and audience form a fatal relationship in which celebrity status forms the ultimate motivation. Media sensationalism of serial killing and the extreme glamorization in fictional representations has obviously negative consequences. In developing such a structure I hope to demonstrate that there is an alternative to the sensationalizing and glamorizing of serial killers in the media. This alternative will take the form education and a more documentary-style approach to films about serial murder. The study focuses mainly on developing a theoretical framework that emphasizes each of the three elements of the cyclical relationship mentioned above separately. The second chapter is devoted to the media and its role. The third chapter focuses on serial killers and the motivations involved. The fourth chapter deals with the audience attracted to serial killing as a source of identification. A number of thinkers’ work is used in coming to grips with this relationship, including both American and South African authors. The fifth and final chapter takes into consideration the moment of application by addressing the South African situation. I conclude by discussing the repercussions of media glamorization and possible documentary-style alternatives.

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