56 pages / This thesis analyzes the depictions of Whites and Blacks in crime stories in local television news in Portland, Oregon. Previous studies have concluded that television news reinforces "modern racism" by the way in which Blacks and Whites are shown in crime stories. This study analyzed two randomly constructed weeks in early 1994. Black suspects were shown more often in handcuffs and in jail uniforms, and each Black suspect depicted in a crime story was a suspect in a homicide. The results were divided into two categories to reflect the influence of the attach on skater Nancy Kerrigan, which dominated the local news because of the Tonya Harding connection.

News agencies' ratings often hinge on the relationships their anchors build with viewers. Strong feelings of parasocial interaction, or these on-sided "relationships" audiences feel with on-screen media figures, have been found to be a strong predictor of media use. Local news stations have long been challenged with ways to encourage these feelings of parasocial interaction. With local news ratings consistently falling, news agencies must consider new ways to gain untapped markets and have begun reaching out to young adults. One way news agencies are attempting to do so is by utilizing social media websites like Facebook. The current study aims to explore the effects of Facebook on college-aged participants (N = 143) viewing a local newscast. Specifically, this study examines whether a brief exposure to a news anchor's Facebook profile can increase feelings of parasocial interaction with the anchor. Results indicate that while brief exposure to an anchor's Facebook page does not influence feelings of parasocial interaction, strong feelings of interpersonal attraction play a significant role in developing parasocial relationships. Future research and implications are also discussed. / Master of Arts

The purpose of this thesis, “Local news - a fumbling in darkness after an audience that leavesquietly”, is to investigate how the local news media in Västerbotten decides what to reportabout, and what to leave out and why. It also investigates what the audience think about thenews they are being served. It looks at the relationship between the audience and the localnews media. Four different local media companies are being examined, two of them arepublic service media, the Swedish Television and the Swedish Radio. The other two arenewspapers and private owned media companies, Västerbottens-kuriren and VästerbottensFolkblad. The theories that are being used in this thesis is gatekeeping, agenda setting, localjournalism, click journalism, journalists ideal and audience studies such as uses andgratification. The methods that are used are a quantitative survey and semi-structuredinterviews. The survey is directed to audience to get a sense of what news they want and howthey look at their relationship with local news media companies. The purpose of theinterviews is to get a view of how the media companies are producing news, and how theyexperience their relationship with their audience. The study has shown that the audiencedoesn't always know what they want the news media to report about. One overall themethough was that the audience wished for more local news. The media companies have theambition to produce local news and cover the whole county but fails due to the lack ofresources. The media needs a more active audience to increase the support both in trust, butalso for their economy. Here both the media companies and the audience has a responsibilityin the question.

This study does research on the Swedish media's portraying of an extraordinary crime event in Sweden - the grenades in Malmö 2015. The study focuses on how the media portrays three major participants in the media image: the public, the politicians and the police. The question examined was: How does the media portray the public and the authorities during the grenades in Malmö 2015? I made a framing analysis of 30 news articles from the summer of 2015. The result showed that the public received the role as the victim, where the media image emphasizes on fear from the public. The police received two different images - the safe image where the media emphasizes on the work the police does on preventing crime. The other image was the critical image, where the media emphasized on how the public criticized the police success rate during these incidents. The politicians received a neutral image, where a small amount of critic was portrayed. The results of the analysis diverged from previous studies and theories in the field when it came to the police and the politicians.

The Internet provides the opportunity to develop a new way to present journalism, but many scholars say newspaper Web sites do nothing but mirror their print parents. This study used content analysis to compare the content of stories in five newspapers with their Web counterparts, and it examines whether reporter affiliation or a story's geographic emphasis has a relationship with the story's amount of contextual elements. These elements could include photos, graphics, or multimedia or interactive components online. This approach applied gatekeeping theory to publications that have editions in two media. This study examined the five largest newspapers in the South over 14 days, collecting a sample of 635 stories on the front pages and metro section front pages of the papers. Nearly all stories in the sample appeared on the newspapers' Web sites, and story content was the same 96% of the time. The study found that 85% of print stories were published with at least one contextual element, but only 58% of online stories had at least one such element. About a third of the sample had at least one contextual element in common between print and online versions of a story, while about 20% of the sample had entirely unique sets of contextual elements in print and online. Newspapers are no more likely to publish additional contextual elements with local stories than any other type of content. This effort focused on storytelling components; it examined whether print and Web editions of newspapers tell stories differently---whether they are complementary or competitive.

<p><p>The purpose of this thesis was to study the origin of the local news in local newspapers. Do the news originate mostly from the police, the municipality, from press releases or from the reporters own ideas? We also wanted to find out what kind of content predominated in texts with its origin in press releases respectively the reporters own ideas. Of course we also wanted to find out if there were any similarities or differences between the two studied newspapers.</p><p>We used a type of constructed week, but with non random selection instead of random. We chose one of each weekday the newspapers were published and studied the news covered in the papers that specific day. We talked over the phone with the news editors and the reporters and simply asked them about the origin of each news text separately.</p><p>The results showed that every fourth text originates from the police, and that police news often ends up as news items rather than articles. We also came to the conclusion that local newspapers use fewer press releases than earlier research has shown. Only one sixth of the news studied originates from press releases, which is less than we thought it would be. News with its origin in advertisements was less often found.</p><p>News with its origin in the reporters own ideas deal with various subjects. A text that is written on the basis of a press release on the other hand is often about some kind of event and has almost always a very positive tone. We could not notice any remarkable difference between the two studied newspapers.</p></p>

The purpose of this thesis was to study the origin of the local news in local newspapers. Do the news originate mostly from the police, the municipality, from press releases or from the reporters own ideas? We also wanted to find out what kind of content predominated in texts with its origin in press releases respectively the reporters own ideas. Of course we also wanted to find out if there were any similarities or differences between the two studied newspapers. We used a type of constructed week, but with non random selection instead of random. We chose one of each weekday the newspapers were published and studied the news covered in the papers that specific day. We talked over the phone with the news editors and the reporters and simply asked them about the origin of each news text separately. The results showed that every fourth text originates from the police, and that police news often ends up as news items rather than articles. We also came to the conclusion that local newspapers use fewer press releases than earlier research has shown. Only one sixth of the news studied originates from press releases, which is less than we thought it would be. News with its origin in advertisements was less often found. News with its origin in the reporters own ideas deal with various subjects. A text that is written on the basis of a press release on the other hand is often about some kind of event and has almost always a very positive tone. We could not notice any remarkable difference between the two studied newspapers.

In recent 10 years, the operation environment of newspaper in Taiwan had become more and more difficult. China Times Express announced to cease publication on November 1, 2005. Grea News, Central Daily News, Taiwan Daily News, Star News, Min Sheng Daily also became history since March 2006. In addition to the trend of newspaper closures, Apple Daily from Hong Kong entered the market officially on May 2, 2003. It not only dropped a bomb in Taiwan newspaper market, but also posed a threat to the original ¡§Big 3¡¨ United Daily News, China Times and Liberty Times. External newspaper snatched the advertisement and publishing markets of internal newspapers, and forced the ¡§Big 3¡¨ to change the contents and manners of news production, even to imitate the strategy from Apple Daily in order to acquire the attraction of Taiwan newspaper readers. This study proceeded from the environment of Taiwan newspaper market and personal career expierence, focused on the producing and changing course of newspaper consumption news, and chose the Liberty Times Weekender as a study case. I attempted to figure out the effects brought about in the production of Taiwan newspaper consumption news by Apple Daily. What is changed during the course? How do the worker of the newspaper consumption news treat about the course and the result? How about the production of newspaper consumption news after the change? What¡¦s the difference between the past? Furthermore, this study paid close attention to the prodution of local consumption news, probed into the role changes of local comsumption reporters, the characteristic of local consumption news, and the gap between local comsumption reporters and headquarters of newspaper office. This Study was based on the market-driven journalism on American savant J. H. McManus, the hierarchy of influences model on P. J. Shoemaker and S. D. Reese, and the news factory model on C. R. Bantz, S. McCorkle & R. C. Baade, applying deep interview of qualitative research approaches to inquire the consumption news workers of Liberty Times Weekender. The Finding revealed that the changes of the consumption news were one of the competiton strategies in newspaper market. Liberty Times chose to follow the steps of Apple Daily Supplement, and released the whole new ¡§Apple-lization¡¨ supplement: Weekender, in order to snatch young readers group with Apple Daily and avoid being eliminated by market. Moreover, there was another finding that when the newspaper office adjusted the strategies of editting and interviewing and transformed the layout, it would be impeded by the other un-transformed layouts and influenced by the former burdens. If we interpreted this phenomenon on the market-driven journalism on J. H. McManus, we could say that news are just like goods, readers are consumers, and the newspapers are combo meals. This study also analyzed the consumption news production mode of the Liberty Times Weekender. On the whole, the Weekender preferred to employ young, college graduated, relenvance experienced consumption reporters, and carried out the power of newspaper office through the examination of proposals, beats, photos and manuscripts. On the production policy, the major function of the Weekender was to approach readers¡¦ needs, it differed from the past consumption news in gaining advertisement profits. On organizational structure, the Weekender transited the combination of editing and interviewing from chief editor to integration, and made a huge difference between past consumption news and Apple Daily in arrangement. Former studies of consumption news mostly emphasized the influences from sources and advertisers at extra-media level, but the consumption news workers of the Weekender concerned about the involvements from advertisement profits and government regulations more. Reporters of the Weekender were also affected by social and capitalistic ideology, they believed that a good consumption news is to make readers desire to consume and do consume. It was also the sources of consumption news reporters¡¦ feelings about indenfication and achievement that readers dipped into their pocket. Finally, on the production of local consumption news, threr was a finding that Apple Daily pushed the specialization of local consumption reporters, and leaded Liberty Times to dispose professional consumption reporters in middle and southern Taiwan. Besides, the Liberty Times Weekender adopted the ¡§step-by-step¡¨ planning strategies to produce local consumption news. But because of the less experiences in touch with media of the local interviewees, there were usually refusing cases and increased the time cost for local consumption reporters to produce news. While local consumption reporters of the Weekender produced news, they frequently faced the innate limits, and the most common problems were bad allocation of resources and lack of communication. This study considered that Liberty Times indeed improved the retail rate on weekend market after the release of Weekender, which contributed to the survival of newspaper office. But it might be insufficient to win from the battle lines on news marker if only to reform specific layouts on specific dates, it would be a lasting good order to have comprehensive review and innovation. Furthermore, the situations that interfere with the production of consumption news, such as notifications of supportable interview, the list of friendly and unfriendly clients, and informercials, became better than past. We also hoped that the operator of newspaper office could proceed to keep principles and make the production of consumption news get rid of advertisement profits. On the production of local consumption news, we suggested that Liberty Times should give educational training to local consumption reporters, and establish local Weekender editiorial office to embody the spirit of local editing. This Study also remided those who want to be or have been a newspaper consumption reporters, it was not just like the past. You have to rush around the streets, gather materials approaching readers¡¦ needs, interview and take photos personally at the scene, even face the ruthless refusal from interviewees, instead of dressing fashionably, lineing up to receive a gift, being fed by PR practitioner. As to the superintendents of government institution, we suggested them to distinguish the standards and differences between news and advertisements and to invite editiorial chiefs from all kinds of media, experts and savants in journalism and mass communication, consumer protection groups and general public making reasonable regulations of consumption news together. In this way, there would be a best balance among enactments, freedom of information, and readers¡¦ right to know.

The Local News Pool or “LNP” as it’s referred to concerns competing television news stations within a single market forming a cooperative partnership in order to share content such as video and interviews. This study used depth interviews with assignment editors, producers, and photographers in Austin, Texas, Tampa, Florida, and Denver, Colorado, and incorporated a quantitative content analysis of news stories assigned to the LNP in Austin to discover how this convergence model operates, its effects on workers, and the potential for homogenization. This study discovered that by incorporating this convergence model into a newsroom and categorizing certain stories as “shared” it altered the level of importance photographers and producers placed on the story. By these journalists having prior knowledge that the competition might use or have an interest in a certain story, it altered the value placed on it to one of something “extra” or “filler” and not highly desired for the news broadcast. In addition, this study provides an updated look at the multilayer gatekeeping process by incorporating competing organizations within this decision making process. This study found gatekeepers cooperate on stories each find would produce similar content if their station were to send their own crews. The aspect of competition becomes present when gatekeepers request stories not intended for the LNP such as breaking news. The level of cooperation is often based on ratings and perception of one’s willingness to reciprocate if needed. / text

This dissertation examines the relations between the local base of the anti-Iraq War movement and the local press in the UK. It is, as such, a study of the interactions between local newsworkers and local activists, as well as a Content Analysis study of how the Iraq crisis, and particularly opposition to military action, was reported on in the pages of the local press. Key questions to be addressed include how local journalists assessed the legitimacy of the antiwar movement; how, and the reasons why, opponents of the war sought local press coverage, and with what consequences (if any) their interactions with the media may have had for the movement; and how the local press handled the almost uniquely controversial nature of the Iraq crisis in its reporting. Most previous research on the Iraq crisis has focused on the national media local media has hitherto been absent from the research agenda. Likewise, the majority of research on social movements has usually focused on the national leaderships of those movements again the local dimension of social movements has rarely been studied. In these ways it is hoped that the study makes a unique contribution to research into both the reporting of the Iraq crisis, and to the study of the interactions between social movements and the media.