That Barack Obama's race was a factor, for both blacks and whites, in the 2008 general election is well-documented. As the majority in this country, the white electorate's response to the nation's first successful African-American presidential contender is of particular interest because it revealed the persistent effects of racism. Scholars have suggested contemporary forms of racism (e.g., Ditonto et al., 2013) explained the reluctance of white citizens to cast their ballots for an African American. This dissertation approaches the topic from a different angle, arguing deep-seated beliefs about which individual characteristics define a legitimate president, race in this project, affected voting decisions, especially among whites. Such beliefs, or "status expectations" (Ridgeway&Berger, 1986), are evident every day in social interactions and are also reflected in the mass media, especially in the vivid medium of television, which was proposed to reinforce status beliefs about presidential legitimacy among white viewers. African Americans, in contrast, were hypothesized be inured to status beliefs represented in television campaign coverage because of a protective, ingroup orientation called "linked fate," (Dawson, 2004), the belief that life chances of the individual are inextricably intertwined with life chances of the black race as a whole. Therefore, while mass media would affect whites' assessments of presidential legitimacy, linked fate would lead African Americans to reject the status beliefs about presidential legitimacy embedded in televised content because this medium has historically derogated their "ingroup". Findings, however, did not support this proposed insulating effect of linked fate, which was operationalized as perceived black racial group favoritism. In fact, moderating relationships, even when statistically significant, typically added little explanatory value to or confounded interpretation of the presidential legitimacy models. Thus, baseline models with main effects were the clearest and most statistically powerful in discerning which variables had the greatest impact on Obama and McCain presidential legitimacy assessments. For both candidates, party identification and race were consistently the most influential predictors. But, for McCain, the effect of conservative partisanship was particularly acute, with an effect size more than three times the effect size of race and four times the size of the most powerful media effect, Fox News believability. In contrast, multiple predictors of comparable effect size factored into Obama legitimacy assessments. Measured by both number of statistically significant media variables and magnitude of effect sizes, Obama's legitimacy assessments were more affected by media predictors than were McCain's. For Obama presidential legitimacy, the most influential variables were Democratic partisan identification, black race, Fox News believability (negatively related), and perceived black racial group favoritism. The next most influential predictors were CNN believability, MSNBC believability, and a status expectation measure of Obama's legitimacy. A third grouping of influential predictors consisted of broadcast believability, an education control variable, and a status expectation measure of McCain's legitimacy (negatively related). These predictors yielded a model that explained 43% of the variance in Obama legitimacy assessments, in contrast to the 28% of variance explained by the model without media variables. Though McCain's presidential legitimacy evaluations were driven primarily by Republican partisan identification and, to a lesser extent, race, several media variables attained statistical significance in the McCain model: the number of days respondents watched television for campaign news, CNN believability, and Fox News believability, all of which augmented McCain's legitimacy assessments. The proportion of variance in McCain legitimacy assessments explained by the model with media effects was 20%, compared to 16% in the model without media predictors, figures substantially lower than the 43% and 28% in the respective Obama models. The range of predictors in the Obama legitimacy model implied myriad perspectives notably absent in the McCain legitimacy model, a pattern that mirrored the diverse coalition that ultimately supported him. Therefore, despite only partial support for this dissertation's hypotheses, the results were consistent with the current partisan and racial divisions in this country, divisions that were affected by the media in the 2008 election.

[pt] Esta dissertação olha para o telejornal local RJTV primeira edição, da TV Globo, analisando, em alguns de seus segmentos, espaços em que ele desempenha um papel de mediador entre o telespectador e o espaço onde ele vive. A hipótese defendida por este trabalho é a de que o telejornal observado, para concretizar uma intenção de se aproximar cada vez mais de seu público, adota inovações em termos de formato e de conteúdo. O objetivo aqui é estudar a mensagem telejornalística em sua articulação entre texto, som e imagem em movimento e também atentar para outra relação: a do receptor com o produtor, que constitui a comunicação como um processo. / [en] This dissertation looks at TV Globo`s local news program RJTV primeira edição, analising, in some of its segments, spaces where it plays a mediator part between the TV spectator and the space where he lives. The main hypothesis of this work is that the program observed adopts format and content innovations, attempting to achieve a closer relation with its audience. Our objective is to study the television message considering that it is constituted by a combination of text, sound and motion image. We intend also to pay attention to other relation: the one that is established between the receptor and the producer, which constitutes the comunication as a process.

O objetivo desta tese é mostrar como o discurso dos telejornais pode construir determinada memória social de um acontecimento, pelo entrelaçamento de vozes, imagens e designações. Para isso, partimos da análise de elementos lingüísticos, argumentativos e enunciativos desse tipo de discurso, que tem papel fundamental na mediação dos demais discursos sociais. Procuramos mostrar como os telejornais articulam as várias vozes tornadas públicas no espaço da mídia e organizam as estratégias de referenciação dos fatos num processo de construção de um mundo textual homogêneo, que se tornará material simbólico a ser captado pela memória social. Como se trata de um discurso verbo-visual, investigamos também a confluência de elementos lingüísticos e imagéticos na trama discursiva, que a nosso ver aumenta o poder de penetração na memória social pela via da memória eletrônica da televisão, que controla lembranças e esquecimentos por meio da seleção e da edição de acontecimentos, fixando-lhes determinados sentidos e construindo modos de recordação. Empreendemos o exame do discurso de telejornais mediante um estudo de caso, o episódio dos ataques aos Estados Unidos em 11 de setembro de 2001, tendo como base teorias da argumentação, conceitos da análise do discurso, como o de polifonia, estudos sobre os processos de referenciação, concepções a respeito da imagem e teorias da memória social. O corpus da tese é constituído pelas edições de 11 de setembro de 2001, 2002, 2003 e 2004 do Jornal Nacional e do Jornal da Record, o que possibilitou analisar a cobertura televisiva sob uma dupla perspectiva: uma dimensão sincrônica e sua extensão diacrônica. Assim pudemos avaliar as estratégias de manipulação cognitiva e afetiva pelas quais se construiu uma versão paradigmática dos fatos, com pouca reflexão sobre seu contexto ou suas implicações históricas, o que por si só pode ter resultado em significativos efeitos sobre a memória social dos eventos. A análise resultou também na observação de muitos pontos de contato entre os dois telejornais, sobretudo no que se refere aos padrões de mediação da realidade e de distribuição dos conteúdos simbólicos, marcas inequívocas da poderosa máquina televisiva, que reinventa a esfera pública ao controlar o intercâmbio de signos e ideologias e posicionar-se como testemunha de um presente perpétuo. / The objective of this dissertation is to show how the discourse of television news programs may build a certain social memory of an event due to the interminglement of voices, images and designations. To this end, we based ourselves on the analysis of the linguistic, argumentative and enunciative elements of this type of discourse, which has a critical role in the mediation of other social discourses. We tried to show how television news programs articulate the many voices that are made public in the media space and organize the strategies of fact referentiation in a process of construction of a homogenous contextual world, which will become symbolic material to be captured by social memory. As this is a verbal and visual discourse, we also investigated the confluence of linguistic and imagery elements in the contrived discourse, which, in our opinion, increases the power of penetration into social memory by way of television\'s electronic memory, which controls memories and forgetfulnesses by means of the selection and edition of events, giving them certain meanings and building ways to remember. We undertook the examination of the discourse of television news programs by way of a case study, the episode of the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, based on argumentation theories, discourse analysis concepts, such as polyphony, studies on the referentiation processes, conceptions of image, and social memory theories. The corpus of this dissertation is made up of the editions of September 11, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 of the Jornal Nacional and Jornal da Record, which allowed us to analyze the television coverage under two perspectives: a synchronic dimension and its diachronic extension. Therefore, we could evaluate the strategies of cognitive and affective manipulation by way of which a paradigmatic version of the facts was built, with little reflection about their context or historical implications, which, alone, may have had a significant effect on the social memory of the events. The analysis also resulted in the observation of many points of contact between the two television news programs, particularly with respect to the standards of mediation of reality and distribution of the symbolic contents, unmistakable hallmarks of the powerful television media, which reinvents the public sphere by controlling the exchange of signals and ideologies and standing as a witness of a perpetual present.

O presente estudo analisa como o veículo Emissoras Pioneiras de Televisão (EPTV) seleciona, trata e disponibiliza as informações ambientais relacionadas à água, através do seu programa de telejornalismo diário, o Jornal Regional (JR). A partir do reconhecimento da televisão como uma importante mídia de massa, que inculca e cultiva ideologias junto aos telespectadores, a intenção foi estudar as mensagens e representações da água no JR na região de Campinas, Estado de São Paulo, onde o programa é líder de audiência no gênero telejornal. Nessa região, o atual modelo de desenvolvimento promove a alta concentração demográfica, urbana, industrial e conseqüentemente, um dos menores índices de disponibilidade hídrica per capita e de qualidade de água do Brasil. Foram monitorados três meses consecutivos da programação do JR, selecionando matérias com referências à água para análise quantitativa e qualitativa. Também foi realizada entrevista com o gerente de jornalismo da emissora quanto ao processo de produção da notícia no JR. Através dos estudos bibliográficos verificou-se a relação mercantil e ideológica entre a Rede Globo (emissora que a EPTV retransmite para a região) e a EPTV, contextualizando o caráter privado, que é sujeito aos interesses da elite econômica e política. Nesse contexto criase uma representação da realidade que é uma forma de distorção sistemática pela qual os telespectadores vêem o mundo objetivo por um "filtro" que promove ou omite fatos de forma arbitrária. Nesse cenário verificou-se que a água nas mensagens do JR tem caráter de mercadoria, sendo sua disponibilidade resultado da gestão de recursos e desvinculada de sua condição natural e função ambiental. Os problemas ambientais que degradam a qualidade e limitam a disponibilidade da água na região são atribuídos ao consumo doméstico e sua produção de esgoto. As administrações públicas municipais são apontadas como as responsáveis pela reversão do quadro atual através do tratamento de esgoto. A água também é associada à imagem de meio ambiente que, por sua vez, é representado como ‘paisagem natural’ em uma perspectiva de espetáculo para o entretenimento do telespectador. / The present study analyzes how EPTV (Emissoras Pioneiras de Televisão - Pioneer Broadcasting Television Stations) selects, deals with and discloses environmental information related to water through its daily news program, the Jornal Regional (JR). Starting from the acknowledgment of television as an important mass media, which implants and promotes ideologies along its viewers, the intention was to study water messages and representations on JR in the region of Campinas, State of São Paulo, where the program is the audience leader in the genre TV news. In this region, today's model of development promotes high demographic, urban and industrial concentration and, subsequently, one of the lowest indexes of hydric availability per capita and water quality in Brazil. Three consecutive months of JR's programming were monitored, selecting for quantitative and qualitative analysis reports with references to water. An interview with the Press Manager of that broadcasting station was conducted on the news production process of JR. Bibliographic studies revealed a commercial and ideological relationship between Rede Globo (Major Broadcasting Station that EPTV rebroadcasts to the region) and EPTV, contextualizing a commercial relationship, which is subject to the interests of the economical and political elite. In such a context, EPTV creates a representation of reality, which is a form of systematic distortion by which viewers see an objective world through a "filter" that promotes or omits facts in an arbitrary fashion. In this scenario, water is regarded as merchandise on JR's messages, being its availability a result of resources management and disconnected from its natural conditions and environmental role. Environmental issues that degrade quality and limit water availability in the region are attributed to domestic consumption and sewage production. Municipal public administrations are appointed as responsible for the reversal of this situation by means of sewage treatment. Water is also associated to an image of environment which is represented as ‘natural landscape’ in a spectacle perspective for the entertainment of viewers.

O objetivo desta tese é mostrar como o discurso dos telejornais pode construir determinada memória social de um acontecimento, pelo entrelaçamento de vozes, imagens e designações. Para isso, partimos da análise de elementos lingüísticos, argumentativos e enunciativos desse tipo de discurso, que tem papel fundamental na mediação dos demais discursos sociais. Procuramos mostrar como os telejornais articulam as várias vozes tornadas públicas no espaço da mídia e organizam as estratégias de referenciação dos fatos num processo de construção de um mundo textual homogêneo, que se tornará material simbólico a ser captado pela memória social. Como se trata de um discurso verbo-visual, investigamos também a confluência de elementos lingüísticos e imagéticos na trama discursiva, que a nosso ver aumenta o poder de penetração na memória social pela via da memória eletrônica da televisão, que controla lembranças e esquecimentos por meio da seleção e da edição de acontecimentos, fixando-lhes determinados sentidos e construindo modos de recordação. Empreendemos o exame do discurso de telejornais mediante um estudo de caso, o episódio dos ataques aos Estados Unidos em 11 de setembro de 2001, tendo como base teorias da argumentação, conceitos da análise do discurso, como o de polifonia, estudos sobre os processos de referenciação, concepções a respeito da imagem e teorias da memória social. O corpus da tese é constituído pelas edições de 11 de setembro de 2001, 2002, 2003 e 2004 do Jornal Nacional e do Jornal da Record, o que possibilitou analisar a cobertura televisiva sob uma dupla perspectiva: uma dimensão sincrônica e sua extensão diacrônica. Assim pudemos avaliar as estratégias de manipulação cognitiva e afetiva pelas quais se construiu uma versão paradigmática dos fatos, com pouca reflexão sobre seu contexto ou suas implicações históricas, o que por si só pode ter resultado em significativos efeitos sobre a memória social dos eventos. A análise resultou também na observação de muitos pontos de contato entre os dois telejornais, sobretudo no que se refere aos padrões de mediação da realidade e de distribuição dos conteúdos simbólicos, marcas inequívocas da poderosa máquina televisiva, que reinventa a esfera pública ao controlar o intercâmbio de signos e ideologias e posicionar-se como testemunha de um presente perpétuo. / The objective of this dissertation is to show how the discourse of television news programs may build a certain social memory of an event due to the interminglement of voices, images and designations. To this end, we based ourselves on the analysis of the linguistic, argumentative and enunciative elements of this type of discourse, which has a critical role in the mediation of other social discourses. We tried to show how television news programs articulate the many voices that are made public in the media space and organize the strategies of fact referentiation in a process of construction of a homogenous contextual world, which will become symbolic material to be captured by social memory. As this is a verbal and visual discourse, we also investigated the confluence of linguistic and imagery elements in the contrived discourse, which, in our opinion, increases the power of penetration into social memory by way of television\'s electronic memory, which controls memories and forgetfulnesses by means of the selection and edition of events, giving them certain meanings and building ways to remember. We undertook the examination of the discourse of television news programs by way of a case study, the episode of the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, based on argumentation theories, discourse analysis concepts, such as polyphony, studies on the referentiation processes, conceptions of image, and social memory theories. The corpus of this dissertation is made up of the editions of September 11, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 of the Jornal Nacional and Jornal da Record, which allowed us to analyze the television coverage under two perspectives: a synchronic dimension and its diachronic extension. Therefore, we could evaluate the strategies of cognitive and affective manipulation by way of which a paradigmatic version of the facts was built, with little reflection about their context or historical implications, which, alone, may have had a significant effect on the social memory of the events. The analysis also resulted in the observation of many points of contact between the two television news programs, particularly with respect to the standards of mediation of reality and distribution of the symbolic contents, unmistakable hallmarks of the powerful television media, which reinvents the public sphere by controlling the exchange of signals and ideologies and standing as a witness of a perpetual present.

The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was among the first legislative responses to the financial and mortgage crises of 2008 and allowed the U.S. government to alleviate distressed financial institutions of equity and assets that were straining the housing and financial markets. However, the underlying economic events that precipitated the legislative intervention, including rising foreclosure rates in specific states, had been disproportionately affecting Americans months before the bill was signed into law. The purpose of this dissertation was to determine the parameters of the issue public that was supportive of TARP by studying how demographic and geographic disparities of the recession were related to selective exposure to news media and the formation of this issue public. The news effects theoretical perspectives of agenda setting and media priming, including attribute agenda setting and attribute priming, along with the theoretical framework of the public opinion concept of issue publics, particularly state-specific issue publics, guided and informed the execution of this research. This dissertation entailed two research approaches: a content analysis of national television news six months prior to and up until the passage of TARP in early October 2008, and a secondary analysis of select data from the 2008 National Annenberg Election Survey, a rolling cross-sectional phone survey conducted from late 2007 until Election Day 2008. Results from the content analysis study suggest national television news of the economy in 2008 predominantly covered the presidential election, the economic attributes of taxes and inflation, and presented the economic crisis as a national issue. As for the public opinion study, economic attitudes were predictive of support for TARP, but exposure to the news and demographics, including geography, were not associated with support for TARP. Overall, the unfolding recession was not frequently covered on national television news in 2008, and support for TARP was found to be associated with an individual's attitudes as opposed to demographic identity or geographic location. Findings suggest attribute agenda-setting effects were most likely for individual views of blame for the crisis, while the issue public that was supportive of TARP appeared to be based upon economic attitudes.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Television is the favoured news source for most Australians and is regarded as having the potential to influence public opinion. From its inception however, television has been regarded as ill-suited to cover economic and business issues because of a perceived reliance on visual material and an inability to deal with complex issues. This tyranny of vision has been mitigated by technological developments such as electronic news gathering (ENG) and satellites that provide large amounts of varied material as well as improvements in production tools that assist the visual presentation of abstract concepts. The presentation of complex issues has also been enhanced by the increased skills and knowledge among newsworkers. Economic and business news has become a staple in television news programs and has evolved from ritualised reporting of data such as market indices and exchange rates to a genre that shares broader news values such as consequence, conflict, proximity, human interest, novelty, prominence, political controversy and scandal. Economic and business news also shares the normal imperatives of television such as a strong reliance on scheduled occasions and reliable and prolific sources. In between occasions of economic, business and political controversy or scandal, these programs are able to rely on a steady supply of economic, business and investment information. Dedicated economic and business segments and programs and now even whole channels meet two sets of demands. One is those of niche audiences seeking news and information on economic and business conditions, economic debate and policy making, the activities of economic and business leaders and an opportunity to hear and observe economic and business leaders. The other is from broadcasters seeking to maximise their profits by attracting viewers in the AB demographic (those with the greatest disposal income) to otherwise poorly-performing time slots, by broadcasters seeking an inexpensive and dependable supply of programming material and by broadcasters seeking to promote their institutional role and specific programs through presenting material that is followed up by other media. Economic and business reports however, continue to portray issues in a limited way that neglects business’s interaction with workers and the larger social environment. Economic events are often framed as political competition. These reports present a hierarchy of sources and privilege political and business elites. Television news favours debate that is presented by individuals as contrasting causal narratives. Political and economic sources have become adept at presenting brief causal narratives in response to the requirements of television. This approach highlights celebrities and favours the promotion of agency over structure. The increase in total economic and business reporting boosts the interdependence of television and political and economic sources. Technological development is continuing and traditional free-to-air television audiences are being eroded by pay television and the internet. Although these are altering the nature of political, economic and business debate their overall influence is difficult to determine.

¡@¡@¡@This study aimed to examine the third-person effect of product placement in the television news, for clarifying the effect of persuasiveness of news with product placement and comparing the assessment of the impact on others and themselves. The study also concerned about the media literacy if it can help the audience to identify the messages of persuasive intention, to evaluate the impact of product placement in the television news is greater on others than on themselves, and to support the government to prohibit product placement in the television news. ¡@¡@¡@In this study, the main research method was questionnaire survey, and the research participants were junior high school students from three sections in Kaohsiung. There were 476 valid questionnaires totally. Data were analyzed by methods of independent t-test, paired t-test, correlation and hierarchical regression analysis. The results found that product placement of television news would cause the third-person effect: messages of product placement of different levels would result in different intensities of third-person perception. Compared to implicit-style placements in the television news, obvious ones triggered strong media impact on others, but did not trigger third-person perception differential. It meant people tend to view product placement in the television news had impact on others as well as on themselves. ¡@¡@¡@Another focus of this study was personal media literacy ability. Analytic results showed that literacy ability was a better predictor of the third-person effect perception. The result of the study was similar to the findings of the past research: media literacy could assist in identifying the purpose of product placement in the television news, and could avoid the perceived effect of media messages on themselves (Cohen, 1982; Rucinski & Salmon, 1990; Wei, Lo & Lu, 2008). ¡@¡@¡@Most importantly, this study contributed to the growing literature on behavioral component of the third-person effect by demonstrating that the third-person effect perception was a great predictor of support for restriction of product placement in the televiton news than the third-person perception differential. The reason was that the third-person perception differential could not distinguish perceived effects of product placement in the television news on others as well as themselves (Wen-Hui Luo, 2000b). As research result of Xu and Gonzenbach on the behavioral component of the third-person effect, third-person perception differential was the most significant predictor of support for media censorship. Therefore, this study suggests that future research could probe into the mechanisms through which the third-person effect of product placement in the television news occurs.

The social meaning of television news has been under transformation since the successes of cable news in the final years of the previous century. In their attempts to preserve viewership and to remain relevant, traditional broadcast news outlets increasingly emulate the conventions of cable news. Instead of retaining audiences, the result has been declining news content and a continued loss of viewers. Amid these industry transformations, the concept of “journalist” continues to undergo change. This evolution of the news allows for a decidedly unique response to news programming in The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. Though advertised as a half-hour comedy show, it has established itself as a consistent re-teller and producer of news, only possible in a postmodern era of journalism after objectivity. Amid the industry’s shift in priorities from objectivity and reporting to influencing, framing and re-telling the news, The Daily Show is considered as much an example of journalism as many of the shows currently in the news sphere. Although our society is currently saturated with information, this information often fails to penetrate the surface of the issues covered. Too much information is as paralytic as ignorance. Recently, attention has shifted towards a re-evaluation of television news into something that will both help the public find the information they are searching for and give them the tools to make sense of and utilize that information. This concept of journalism as tool is present in every episode of The Daily Show. The show encourages viewers to peel away the layers of mediation of traditional newscasts, to recognize substance and the lack thereof, and become active consumers of information rather than passive receptacles submersed in irrelevant information. The Daily Show proves that a news show can inform, entertain and teach audiences how to critically process television as an informational medium.

The social meaning of television news has been under transformation since the successes of cable news in the final years of the previous century. In their attempts to preserve viewership and to remain relevant, traditional broadcast news outlets increasingly emulate the conventions of cable news. Instead of retaining audiences, the result has been declining news content and a continued loss of viewers. Amid these industry transformations, the concept of "journalist" continues to undergo change. This evolution of the news allows for a decidedly unique response to news programming in The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. Though advertised as a half-hour comedy show, it has established itself as a consistent re-teller and producer of news, only possible in a post-modern era of journalism after objectivity. Amid the industry's shift in priorities from objectivity and reporting to influencing, framing and re-telling the news, The Daily Show is considered as much an example of journalism as many of the shows currently in the news sphere. Although our society is currently saturated with information, this information often fails to penetrate the surface of the issues covered. Too much information is as paralytic as ignorance. Recently, attention has shifted towards a re-evaluation of television news into something that will both help the public find the information they are searching for and give them the tools to make sense of and utilize that information. This concept of journalism as tool is present in every episode of The Daily Show. The show encourages viewers to peel away the layers of mediation of traditional newscasts, to recognize substance and the lack thereof, and become active consumers of information rather than passive receptacles submersed in irrelevant information. The Daily Show proves that a news show can inform, entertain and teach audiences how to critically process television as an informational medium.