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MARGINALITY AND SELECTIVE REPORTING: ETHNIC AND GENDER ISSUES IN THE PRESS.

A preliminary theoretical framework for analyzing the role of the press in the public process of defining important social issues and labeling of politically marginal minorities is developed. This theory employs the concept of newsworthiness and stresses the effect of the social organization of news work as a factor in press gatekeeping and agenda setting. It is the object of our research to demonstrate that the "objective" perspective of the news media is, in actuality, a biased one which is imbalanced and slanted towards representation of dominant group interests. Two cases, illegal Mexican immigration, and the 1984 Ferraro-Bush campaign, are analyzed to determine how reporting practices result in imbalanced coverage. Our empirical analyses of news content on these issues will show that a favorable rate of access to the press for dominant group, rather than minority group representatives exists. As a result, news coverage of undocumented Mexican workers and the 1984 woman vice-presidential candidate was imbalanced.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/184227
Date January 1987
CreatorsWARNER, JUDITH ANN.
ContributorsFernandez, Celestino, MacCorquodale, Patricia, Yoshino, I. Rodger, Henderson, Richard, Schlegal, Alice
PublisherThe University of Arizona.
Source SetsUniversity of Arizona
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext, Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic)
RightsCopyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

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