International Communication 2006 Abstracts
International Communication Division
After the declaration: In search of Africa in Time magazine, 1979-1986 • Emmanuel C. Alozie, Governors State University • Concentrating on coverage within a decade of the adoption of UNESCO’s media declaration, this qualitative content analysis of Time magazine, using World Systems Theory as its conceptual framework, found that as a “historian in a relative hurry”, Time’s news and related coverage of Africa produced a mixed result.
Using Copyright Law to Protect Folklore: Unintended Consequences in Ghana • Kwasi Boateng, University of Arkansas and Duncan H. Brown, Ohio University • The need to protect folklore from commercial exploitation by transnational media corporations is widely accepted. However, the best mechanisms to achieve this protection are less clear. In Ghana attempts to protect folklore have resulted in a copyright act that requires Ghanaian nationals to pay a user fee to perform or adapt their own cultural artifacts. This paper reviews the issues this interpretation of copyright law raises and suggests an alternative approach.
Blasphemy As Sacred Rite/Right: “The Mohammed Cartoons Affair” and Maintenance of Journalistic Ideology • Dan Berkowitz and Lyombe Eko, University of Iowa • On September 30, 2005, Denmark’s largest newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published twelve satirical drawings depicting the Muslim prophet Mohammed. This sparked a short-lived controversy that flared anew from the embers several months later. This paper explores how two national flagship newspapers – The New York Times and Le Monde – undertook the rite of paradigm maintenance for the sacred right of free speech and the professional ideology of journalism in the French and U.S. cultures.
Bride burning: how newspapers framed Dowry in India, 1999-2005 • Porismita Borah, University of Wisconsin-Madison • In India, the number of dowry-related deaths has been increasing exponentially. This study explores how newspapers framed dowry over a period of six years. Using framing analysis, the study employs a content analysis of 3,874 newspaper articles. The findings show that the newspapers interpreted the dowry issue in physical terms, which means most of the coverage was about the physical torture of the victim. And the coverage mostly consisted of short reports.
One Region, Two Worlds? Comparing Cultural Values in Chinese and Indian Television Commercials • Hong Cheng, Ohio University and Padmini Patwardhan, Winthrop University • As a first comparative study on advertising in two most populous and fastest-growing markets in the world today, this paper focuses on the cultural values reflected in Chinese and Indian television commercials. Major findings include that both countries’ commercials tend to emphasize modernity over tradition as a dominant value, and Chinese commercials used traditional Eastern values more often than Indian ads, which resorted to more Western values.
Expanding critical reporting within the confines of party-state control: the case of Southern Weekend • Li-Fung Cho, University of Hong Kong • China’s nascent watchdog journalism, motivated by commercial pressures and mandated by the central government to control the lower echelons of power, allows horizontal criticism mostly across provincial boundaries. This paper looks at how one leading Chinese newsweekly, Southern Weekend, expanded its editorial autonomy mainly by capitalizing on the power struggles between the central and local governments, and between one local government and another in order to survive and become profitable.
Death in the Middle East: an analysis of how the New York Times and Chicago Tribune frame violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict • Mohamad Elmasry, University of Iowa • This paper analyzed New York Times and Chicago Tribune newspaper coverage of killings in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The purpose of the study was to analyze how the two newspapers framed the violent actions of Israelis and Palestinians to find out what framing devices the newspapers used to express their pro-Israeli positions. Findings suggest that the newspapers used frames that justified Israeli killings, assigned more prominence to the Israeli perspective, and condemned Palestinian killings.
Guidance·Supervision·Reform·Freedom: Plotting the direction of Chinese media through an analysis of the all-important buzzword • Qian Gang, University of Hong Kong • This study employs Chinese-language database research, Chinese Party periodicals and the author’s first-hand experience as a media professional in China to analyze the development of China’s so-called “media reform” since the onset of economic reforms in the 1980s. The author analyzes the media policy buzzwords coined by high-level Chinese officials in order to clarify the thinking behind the country’s media policy and demystify what outside observers often read as inconsistent trends of openness and suppression.
Journalism and the State: Taking Seriously a Collaborative Role for the Press • Theodore L. Glasser, Stanford University • Many conceptions of press freedom, especially Western views of an independent and autonomous press, leave little room for a serious consideration of a collaborative relationship between the press and the state. Still, collaboration not only describes certain relationships between the press and the state but at times prescribes them as well.
Where in the World is Africa?: Predicting coverage of Africa by U.S. television networks • Guy J Golan, Florida International University • The current study investigates coverage of African nations by four U.S. television newscasts. It focuses on the news period between the years 2002-2004 and reveals that despite presence of wide scale famine, civil conflict, disputed elections and an AIDS epidemic, the African continent received limited coverage. In the discussion, the study’s results are incorporated into the larger theoretical application of world system theory into research on the determinants of international news coverage.
How the World Looks to Us: International News in Award-Winning Photographs from the Pictures of the Year, 1943-2003 • Keith Greenwood and Zoe Smith, University of Missouri • An analysis of award-winning photographs of international events from the annual Pictures of the Year competition is compared to a similar study of Pulitzer Prize winning photographs. The analysis concludes the award-winning photographs, which represent the best of photojournalism, portray international events through a limited number of themes that reinforce a stereotype of developing nations as violent and conflict-torn places.
How German Gen Xers Define Their Generation: An Exploratory Collective Case Study • Frauke Hachtmann, University of Nebraska-Lincoln • This exploratory collective case study describes how members of Generation X, who were born and raised in Germany define their generation. Typological analysis
was used to analyze the interview data. Six qualitative themes emerged, including “the stable family,” “the pensive generation,” “finding common cultural ground after the reunification,” “letting go of the past,” “television is dead,” and “keeping it real – advertising should be believable.”
Introducing Utilitarian Journalism: An Alternative to Development Journalism in Africa • Kingsley O. Harbor, Jacksonville State University • Utilitarian Journalism (UJ) is a concept developed by this author as an alternative to development journalism (DJ). UJ is a derivative of the theory of Utilitarianism by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. This paper develops the research-based components of DJ compares them with those of UJ. The study establishes the failure of DJ to advance the cause of national development and demonstrates, by comparison, the potential efficacy of UJ for advancing national development.
Discursive Themes in the Chronicle of Current Events • Elaine Hargrove-Simon, University of Minnesota • The Chronicle of Current Events (the Chronicle) was an underground dissident newspaper produced in the former Soviet Union from April 1968 until June 1982. By adopting an objective and legalistic tone, the Chronicle has been credited with playing an important role in the democratic movement in the former Soviet Union. This paper will attempt to identify elements of discourse contained in the Chronicle that placed it in such an important role in the democratic movement.
9/11, the War on Terrorism and the U.S. Image in Latin America: Reinforcement Rather than Rupture • Sallie Hughes and Jesus Arroyave, University of Miami • Latin Americans turned to mass media on Sept. 11, 2001 like people everywhere, but for them the meaning of the attacks was colored by how they are tied economically and personally to the United States.
Engendering transition: A textual analysis of portrayals of female politicians in the Bulgarian press • Elza Ibroscheva, Southern Illinois University and Maria Raicheva-Stover, Washburn University • This paper examines how the changes after the fall of the Berlin Wall have affected the presentation of female politicians in Eastern Europe. Textual analysis of the highest circulation daily in Bulgaria was used to examine how female politicians were portrayed during the 2005 parliamentary elections.
“FOXifying” Bulgarian TV: A Critical Analysis of the First Private National Channel in Bulgaria • Elza Ibroscheva, Southern Illinois University and Maria Raicheva-Stover, Washburn University • This paper applies a critical analysis of the tension between global and local to examine the effects of foreign capital on the broadcasting system of post-communist Bulgaria. By exploring through a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods the creation of Bulgaria’s first private national channel, bTV, an affiliate of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, this paper shows how the initial strong resistance to bTV’s commercially-driven programming was successfully quenched by high ratings and advertising revenues.
New Windows, New Air: The Use of Online Political Bulletin Boards by Arabs • Ali Jamal, Edward Waters College and S. M. Mazharul Haque, University of Southern Mississippi • This study employs the uses and gratifications perspective to explore motivations leading Arabs to use the online political bulletin boards. A factor analysis of 456 questionnaires revealed the occurrence of four factors motivations: information/surveillance, anticensorship/freedom, excitement, and guidance. Correlations occurred between motivations and interest in politics, political efficacy, trust in government, and discussing issues with people. The study found that the guidance factor played a key role in predicting users’ discussions of issues and information.
Radio and the Making of a Nation: Slovak Radio in World War II and the Cold War (1938-1968) • Owen V. Johnson, Indiana University • This paper provides a historical examination of the role of radio in the process of the development of national identity during the three decades when radio was the primary mass medium. During these decades, governed respectively by semi-fascist, democratic and communist governments, radio helped create a distinctly Slovak – as opposed to Czechoslovak –public sphere, which helped lay the groundwork for the eventual division of the country at the end of 1992.
Media framing of Hurricane Katrina and foreign correspondents’ journalistic expectations from the US media coverage of the disaster • Yusuf Kalyango, Jr. and Petya Eckler, University of Missouri-Columbia • This study examines the foreign media framing of Hurricane Katrina and foreign correspondents’ journalistic expectations from the U.S. media coverage of the disaster. A content analysis of the foreign press and a survey of non-U.S. journalists were conducted. Overall journalistic expectations were not met in terms of public dialog, diversity and skepticism but were satisfied for investigative reporting and accuracy. Great differences in opinion were seen between foreign correspondents from Europe and other continents.
International Communication, Terrorism and Post-Colonial Theory • Anandam P. Kavooori, University of Georgia • Post-colonial analytical strategies are discussed and related to the subject matter of terrorism by (a) dis-articulating the semantic and political field behind traditional categorizations of International Communication (Culture, Nation, and Theory) and suggesting how these are re-worked in the semantic space of contemporary terrorism and (b) articulating issues of globality, identity and reflexivity and seeing how these are animated/disseminated in contemporary, pre and post 9/11 strategies of mediated terrorism.
Persisting patterns: a framing analysis of the New York Times’ coverage of Venezuelan politics, 2001-2005 • Sara Keever, University of Texas-Austin • This study examined the framing of recent Venezuelan politics in the New York Times. A content analysis of 386 articles revealed striking similarities between the frames presented in this prestige newspaper and those of the White House and the conservative partisan press. The author concludes that journalistic routines and ideologies, such as elite sourcing, ethnocentrism and altruistic democracy, influenced the exclusion of alternative frames in this case.
Collective memory and visuals of “the most romantic event of World War II” in Parisian newspapers • Susan Keith, State University of New Jersey • This paper analyses how images published in ten Parisian newspapers on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Paris reflect collective memories about a touchstone event in French history. It suggests that collective memory favored conceptions of France as its own liberator, celebrating its authority, and crowded out images of the enemy, collaborators, and Americans.
Axis of evil? News framing of North Korea before and after the 2002 U.S. State of the Union Address • Yeon Kyeong Kim, University of Iowa • This study examines the use of government sources and framing of North Korea in the New York Times before and after the 2002 U.S. State of the Union address. A content analysis of 132 news stories found that foreign government sources were used more frequently than U.S. government sources in both periods. Results showed that after North Korea was included in the “axis of evil,” crime, military, nuclear weapons, refugees, and cultural/human interest frames increased.
Fair or Unfair?: Comparative Press Coverage Analysis of Cigarette Trade Talks and Policy by Korean and U.S. Press • Kwangmi Ko Kim, Towson University and Heewon Cha, Ewha Woman’s University, Seoul, SOUTH KOREA • Based on a framing theory, this study provides a comparative analysis of news coverage of cigarette trade talks and polices between Korea and the U.S. The quantitative analysis reveals that each country’s newspapers similarly covered this issue as a trade issue, but the qualitative analysis indicates that this issue was differently framed in a way that reflects each country’s political, economic, and social circumstances.
Selective Exposure of Korean Internet Users to Framed Online News Media • Yung Soo Kim and Jyotika Ramaprasad, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale • This online survey explored the relationship between Internet users’ selection of (i.e., exposure to) online news media in Korea, which framed the issue of Korea’s joining the Iraq War differently. The regression models based on 213 participants’ answers showed that attitudes toward the Iraq War and awareness of the difference between two polarizing online news media, the progressive OhmyNews and the conservative Chosun.com, were significantly related to Korean Internet users’ selective exposure.
Press freedom in transitional regimes as a contributor to democratic processes • Svetlana Kulikova, Louisiana State University ? The paper explores the role of press freedom and media independence in transitional countries that became independent as a result of break-down of the socialist block. Using the data from three major Freedom House survey available for 27 nations in transition since 1994, regression analyses show a strong correlation: greater freedom of press and more independent press systems are indicative of greater overall democratization and shorter periods of transition.
The WMD coverage of blogs and mainstream media: a comparison of two media types • Jue Kook Lee and Jaekwan Jeong, University of Texas, Austin • This study analyzes coverage of Iranian and North Korean WMD by blogs and mainstream media, and examines how the two media types deal with international news, with theoretical framework of second-level intermedia agenda-setting. The blogs attribute agenda is found to have strong correlations with the mainstream attribute agenda with regards to the issue of WMD coverage. The results suggest that despite many distinct characteristics, blogs cover international news in very similar way to mainstream media.
Frames and agendas: a time series analysis of how the US President and the US media portray foreign leaders • Jeongsub Lim, University of Missouri-Columbia • This study examined how the U.S. president and The New York Times portrayed the policies and leaderships of foreign presidents. Presidents of South Korea and the Philippines were chosen. Using a bivariate ARIMA models, this study found that President George W. Bush influenced how the newspaper covered South Korean presidents. The newspaper also influenced how President Bush depicted South Korean presidents to some extent. There were bidirectional influences between the two for the Philippine presidents.
Reporting a Humanitarian Tragedy: A Framing Analysis of Chinese Newspaper Coverage of Darfur • Xun Liu and Seow Ting Lee, Michigan State University • This study examines the coverage of the Darfur crisis by the People’s Daily and the China Daily over 26 months. Based on a content analysis and a textual analysis, the comparative framing analysis found similarities in the coverage, which is motivated by national interest. However, there are significant differences in the portrayal of major actors, and the assignment of blame and responsibility. The findings can be explained by the papers’ ownership and China’s media environment.
Super Girl’s voice: exploring the effects of dynamic cross-media interaction and a generation of new Chinese TV genre • Shanshan Lu, People’s University of China and Tuen-yu Lau, University of Washington, Seattle • This paper seeks to explore the impact of a very popular television show, “Super Girl’s Voice,” as a new genre in Chinese television programming. Additionally, In China’s TV industry, the use of instant messaging is a very special phenomenon — that Short Messages Service (SMS) is used to encourage audience participation in TV programs.
A conceptual framework for analyzing the agenda-setting influence of the African media in a conflict context • Eronini R. Megwa, California State University, Bakersfield • This paper sketches out a new conceptual framework for examining the agenda-setting role of the media in a conflict context in a social system with a weak media system. Building on Megwa and Brenner’s (1988) agenda-setting paradigm, the paper argues that in such a system, influence flows from opinion leaders to the media, to the elite, and eventually to the general public.
Objectivity in News During a Time of Impending War: An Examination of Coverage in New York Times prior to 2003 Iraq War • Srinivas R. Melkote, Jacob Turner, and Michael Meredith, Bowling Green State University • In keeping with the theme of the 2006 AEJMC Conference, this paper is an empirical analysis that falls under the category of media criticism and accountability. Specifically, the study investigated the manner in which the New York Times covered the events, issues, and actors during the month prior to the start of the 2003 war with Iraq.
Un-Covering Darfur Sudan 2003-2005: Which News Organization Offered the Most Comprehensive Coverage? • Bella Mody, University of Colorado • Media coverage of developing countries and U.S. domestic realities continues to be sensational, episodic and stereotypical, in spite of years of scholarship and political protest. The consequences of the lack of an internationally informed citizenry are politically troubling at this unipolar juncture in world political history with the U.S. as sole superpower on the one hand, and private investors looking for faster increases in rates of return from their investment in media firms on the other.
The framing of SARS by Chinese Regional and mainland media • Mia Moody-Hall, University of Texas, Austin • This contextual analysis looked at how mainland and regional Chinese newspapers framed the coverage of the SARS epidemic. After a systematic assessment of the coverage of the disease and the extent to which its areas of concern were communicated to the public, the author found that there were key differences in how the genres framed their coverage of the disease.
Terrorist or freedom fighter: the effects of the United States’ and the United Kingdom’s ideological views and global policies in the coverage of the trial of Jomo Kenyatta by the New York Times and The Times of London • Tayo Oyedeiji, Missouri School of Journalism • This study analyzed the framing of Jomo Kenyatta in the New York Times and The Times of London to investigate the effects of a nation’s ideological stance/global policy on its media’s coverage of an international event/personality. The study found that the ideological stance/global policy of the United States affected the trial’s coverage by the New York Times while the United Kingdom’s global policy did not seem to affect the coverage by The Times of London.
Melanin on the Margins: Advertising and the Magic of Women’s Skin-Lightening in India • Radhika E. Parameswaran, Indiana University and Kavitha Cardoza, University of Illinois at Springfield • This paper takes a qualitative approach to examine magazine advertisements for cosmetic products that promise to lighten women’s skin color in post-liberalization India. Borrowing from the insights of semiotic and Marxist criticism and feminist cultural studies, the paper explores the range of visual and story-telling techniques that advertisements deploy to persuade Indian women to purchase skin-lightening cosmetic products.
Critical Citizens in Taiwan: A Social Capital Approach • Bonnie Peng, National Chengchi University, Taipei, TAIWAN • The purpose of this study is to examine voters’ media use, social capital, and civic knowledge in Taiwan and to try to find out the relationships between voters’ civic knowledge and their voting on election days. The result of the study found that watching television and the preference for hard-news materials were related to citizens’ life satisfaction. The hard-news preference was also related to respondents’ civic knowledge and actual voting.
Liberating the silenced: Iranian bloggers in the diaspora • Celine Petrossian, California State University, Northridge • This study examined how diaspora Iranians use blogs to engage in a dialogue about their Iranian identities, and the ways in which they maintain, challenge or create their identities through the use of blogs. Interviews were conducted with Iranian bloggers in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Findings suggest that blogs have liberated a traditionally silenced Iranian society by providing a transnational space for political, social and cultural self-expression.
Job satisfaction and professionalism among private radio station employees in Uganda • Gregory Pitts, Bradley University • This manuscript reviews the role of radio in Africa and focuses on the introduction of free-enterprise radio, with a specific look at radio in Uganda. A quantitative study of private radio station employees in Uganda found a young, highly educated and generally satisfied workforce. A desire to use their abilities and get ahead professionally characterizes the employees. But, job insecurity and low pay are limiting factors to career progress among most of the employees.
First Democracy in Chinese History: Media’s Role in the Democratization of Taiwan • Kuldip R. Rampal, Central Missouri State University • This research paper, based on a field study in Taiwan, explains the role of the dissident media during martial law years and free media in the post-martial law years to push for and consolidate democratic political institutions in Taiwan. The facilitative role played by an evolving interpretation of the Confucian ideology, communication revolution and Taiwan’s globalized economy is also discussed.
Uses of Mass Media for Adaptation Purposes: A Quantitative Study of Brazilian Immigrants in Los Angeles • Raul Reis, California State University, Long Beach • This research project used a quantitative instrument to assess how Brazilian immigrants in the Los Angeles area use English and Portuguese-language mass media for adaptation purposes. A survey instrument was developed to assess how the use of ethnic and host mass media contribute to the way Brazilian immigrants in a large and multicultural metropolitan area adapt to life in the United States.
Media framing of Indonesian government and GAM • Renuka Suryanarayan, Ohio University • The Indonesian media’s role in the one year of peace moves of the Indonesian National Armed forces (TNI) with the rebels of Banda Aceh was studied. The media framing of the Indonesian National Armed forces (TNI) and the Aceh Freedom Movement (GAM) was determined by a content analysis. Results indicated that the military government got overwhelming more attention, prominence and treatment. This was congruent with trade literature criticism of a biased Indonesian media.
Framing Sars in China • Feng Shen and Jiun-yi Tsai, University of Florida, Gainesville • A framing analysis examines the U.S. media coverage of SARS in China in 2003. The purpose is to investigate the use of an “anti-communism/Tiananmen Square demonstration” China frame and the relationship between the media coverage and the Chinese government’s policy change towards SARS. The results indicate that the media were more critical of the Chinese government and employed more frequent reference to the “anti-communism” frame when the Chinese government took more active measures against SARS.
Covering Terrorism Abroad: News and news values in the U.S. and China • Pamela J. Shoemaker, Gang Han and Jong-Hyuk Lee, Syracuse University and Yonghua Zhang, Shanghai University • This study compared U.S. and Chinese news coverage about five terrorist events that occurred in 2004 and 2005. The number of victims – large or small – and the location of the perpetrators – domestic separatists or foreign terrorists – were used to predict how prominently the events are covered in both countries’ newspapers. The number of victims is an indicator of how newsworthy an event.
The global village in a local context – Implementing global awareness as a managerial competency within South Africa’s multicultural mainstream media newsrooms • Elanie Steyn, Deon de Klerk and TFJ (Derik) Steyn, North-West University, South Africa • Globalization has become one of the most salient characteristics of business activity worldwide. Successful global media activity necessitates sound global awareness skills among media managers. These include cultural knowledge, understanding, openness and sensitivity. South Africa’s multilingual and multicultural media environment requires media managers to primarily apply these skills in a local context. This could contribute towards improved newsroom management and ultimately professional media output.
Juggling the blame: news framing of the Srebrenica crisis (1993-2005) • Marina Vujnovic, University of Iowa • This framing study is a content analysis of the news articles published on the Srebrenica crisis in New York Times and Washington Post from 1993, when Srebrenica was proclaimed a safe area by United Nations officials and the international community, through 1995, when the first genocide in Europe since WWII occurred in Srebrenica, and to 2005, when many articles appeared during the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica crisis.
No press, no peace: media freedom and the onset of international conflict • Fred Vultee, University of Missouri • Recent studies have pointed to the importance of media freedom as a factor in the “democratic peace,” or the observation that democracies do not make war on other democracies. This study seeks to expand on that work by extending it into the post-Cold War era and by using press freedom as an ordinal variable rather than a dichotomous one.
The “Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation”: US conservatives take aim at the BBC • Melissa Wall, California State University, Northridge and Douglas Bicket, St. John Fisher College • This paper employs qualitative textual analysis to assess the US conservative attack on British media, particularly the BBC, during the post 911 terrorism wars, finding conservative blogs, print media and think tanks notably hostile. The processes of media criticism taking place within conservative circles are viewed through the analytical concepts of news repair and boundary maintenance.
The Principal-agent Problem in Chinese State-owned Press • Guozhen Wang, and Peng Hwa Ang, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore • The principal-agent problem refers to the conflicts of interests between an enterprise’s owner, the principal, and its manager, the agent. In the Chinese press, this problem is manifested in extravagance, corruption, and other misfeasance. While Chinese authorities attribute such mischief to some immoral managers and journalists, the authors argue that the problems are systemic and structural. The authors suggest that the role of the press has to be redefined and private ownership thereof legitimized.
The reception of local, regional and global television dramas in Hong Kong • Xie Wenjng, University of Maryland • Inspired by the concept of cultural proximity, which was used to explain the local and regional cultural booming by Latin American scholars, a study was conducted in Hong Kong to examine audiences’ preference for local, regional and global TV dramas. We detect a hybridized choices pattern of TV dramas in Hong Kong.
Explore the determinants of international news coverage in Australia’s online media • Wang Xiaopeng, Ohio University • This study expanded international news flow studies to the online media environment. The researcher examined the contextual determinants of online international news flow in Australia and discovered that if nations had strong economies and large numbers of Internet users, they would receive more coverage on Australia?s online media. Furthermore, after 9/11, foreign countries that traditional media usually do not cover could attract more attention from online media if they have a powerful, active military.
Cultural dimensions and framing the internet in China: a cross-cultural study of newspapers’ coverage in Hong Kong, Singapore, the U.S. and the UK • Xiang Zhou • University of Tennessee, Knoxville • The current study introduces Hofstede’s cultural dimensions into framing research by conducting a cross-cultural comparative analysis of news coverage of the Internet in China from 2000 to 2004 in Hong Kong, Singapore, the United States and the United Kingdom. Differences were found in terms of both the salience of Internet-related issues and the use of news frames across societies.
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