Commitment to the Team

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan McLaughlin
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity Theory ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
National Sample ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Intergroup Conflict ◽  
News Story ◽  
Ideological Polarization ◽  
Partisan Identification

Abstract. Scholars have increasingly employed social identity theory to explain how and why political polarization occurs. This study aims to build off of this work by proposing that perception of intergroup conflict serves as a mechanism that mediates the effect of news media coverage on political polarization. Specifically, I argue that the news media’s emphasis on political animosity can cultivate partisans’ perception that the parties are in conflict, which provides a context that makes partisan identity salient and, ultimately, leads to higher levels of affective and ideological polarization. This hypothesis is tested with an experiment using an American national sample of Democrats and Republicans (N = 300). Participants read a news story in which the public believes the parties are in a state of either high or low conflict (or they did not receive a news story). Using mediation analysis, the results of the study provide evidence that news media coverage of political conflict leads to increased perception of intergroup conflict, which then leads to higher levels of (a) partisan identification, (b) affective polarization, and (c) ideological polarization.

News Media Organisations and Oil Spill Coverage

2003 ◽  
Vol 2003 (1) ◽  
pp. 353-356
Author(s):  
Alison G. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Editorial Policy ◽  
Good News ◽  
News Story ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Scientific Training ◽  
The Impact ◽  
News Groups

ABSTRACT The news media play a key role in framing the media coverage of oil spills. It is imperative that scientists, industry and policymakers are fully tuned into the ways in which current news organisations operate. Over recent years, a growing environmental promotion industry has emerged, alongside an increasing emphasis on environmental advocacy within the commercial sector. A number of information crises (notably, the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989) have forced sections of industry to take a more proactive approach to environmental communications as potent media imagery has directly contradicted assurances that environmental protection is not compromised by their activities. Particular issues or events that capture attention tend to be highly visually appealing and resonate with deeply held beliefs and values that operate at a symbolic level. This paper examines the preliminary findings of an international online survey of environmental reporting distributed to key environmental journalist news groups and generalist journalist news groups during June and July 2002. In particular, it focuses upon the following: journalists’ views about what makes a newsworthy story; their degree of scientific training; the constraints under which they work; their main sources of information; their relationships with news sources; and the impact of editorial policy. Interviews with environment correspondents reveal that relatively few possess scientific training and they tend to rely heavily upon official sources of information. The news agendas of broadcasters closely mirror that of print journalists and there is remarkable consensus concerning ‘news values’ – the taken for granted notions about what constitutes a ‘good’ news story. Having presented the main findings of the survey, the paper concludes by arguing that what is needed is greater communication between scientists, industry and journalists leading to an increased mutual recognition of the specific constraints under which they operate.

scholarly journals Hydraulic fracturing and political conflict: News media coverage of topics and themes across nine states

2020 ◽  
Vol 70 ◽  
pp. 101660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramiro Berardo ◽  
Federico Holm ◽  
Tanya Heikkila ◽  
Christopher M. Weible ◽  
Hongtao Yi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hydraulic Fracturing ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Political Conflict

Perceptions of Minority Discrimination: Perspectives of Jews Living in Germany on News Media Coverage

2020 ◽  
pp. 107769902098475
Author(s):  
Philip Baugut
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Social Identity Theory ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Identity Theory ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Identity Threats

This study explores how Jews in Germany perceive news coverage and its influence on third persons. Against the background of social identity theory, 29 semi-structured interviews with Jews demonstrated that they perceived sensationalist reports on antisemitism, overinsistent links to the Holocaust, the equation of Jews and Israel, and stereotypical portrayals of Jewish life. Such reports led participants to believe that non-Jews perceived Jews as strangers in society. Our findings underline the importance of nonstereotyped reporting on minorities and suggest that individuals’ contemplation about media coverage and its influence on society may be interpreted as a consequence of social identity threats.

scholarly journals Intergroup threat and affective polarization in a multi-party system

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 553-576
Author(s):  
Emma A. Renström ◽  
Hanna Bäck ◽  
Royce Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Social Identity Theory ◽  
Party System ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Intergroup Threat ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Trait Attribution ◽  
Negative Trait

What explains affective polarization among voters and societal groups? Much of the existing literature focusing on mass political polarization in modern democracies originates in the US, where studies have shown that, while ideological separation has grown, political conflict increasingly reflects social identity divisions rather than policy disagreements, resulting in affective polarization. We focus on explaining such polarization in a multi-party context. Drawing on social identity theory and intergroup threat theory, we hypothesize that individuals who perceive an intergroup threat show stronger intergroup differentiation and increased affective polarization. We analyze the influence of perceived threat on affective polarization drawing on two large-scale representative surveys in Sweden (N = 1429 and 1343). We show that individual-level affective polarization is related to perceived intergroup threats among the voters in both studies, measuring affective polarization using social distance, negative trait attribution, and party like-dislike ratings.

Welcome to the Party

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khadijah Costley White
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Audience Appeal

This chapter lays out the Tea Party’s history as a mass-mediated construction in the context of journalism, political communication, and social movement studies. It argues that the news coverage of the Tea Party primarily chronicled its meaning, appeal, motivations, influence, and circulation—an emphasis on its persona more than its policies. In particular, the news media tracked the Tea Party as a brand, highlighting its profits, marketability, brand leaders, and audience appeal. The Tea Party became a brand through news media coverage; in defining it as a brand, the Tea Party was a story, message, and cognitive shortcut that built a lasting relationship with citizen-consumers through strong emotional connections, self-expression, consumption, and differentiation.

Statistical literacy and the news media

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Gelman ◽  
Deborah Nolan
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
News Article ◽  
Introductory Statistics ◽  
News Story ◽  
Statistical Literacy ◽  
Process Information ◽  
Statistics Course ◽  
Reported Study ◽  
Original Report

An important theme in an introductory statistics course is the connection between statistics and the outside world. Described in this chapter are assignments that can be useful in getting students to learn how to gather and process information presented in the news and scientific reports. These assignments seem to work well only when students have direction about how to do this kind of research. Three versions of the assignment are provided. In all three, students read a news story and the original report on which the article was based, and they complete a worksheet with guidelines for summarizing the reported study. In some versions students are supplied the news story and report and in another each student finds a news article and tracks down the original report on her own. Included here are our guidelines, example instructional packets, and the process we use to organize each type of assignment.

scholarly journals Associations between News Media Coverage of the 11 September Attacks and Depression in Employees of New York City Area Businesses

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Betty Pfefferbaum ◽  
Jayme M. Palka ◽  
Carol S. North
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
News Media ◽  
York City ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Mass Trauma ◽  
High Prevalence ◽  
General Populations ◽  
Disaster Trauma

Research has examined the association between contact with media coverage of mass trauma events and various psychological outcomes, including depression. Disaster-related depression research is complicated by the relatively high prevalence of the major depressive disorder in general populations even without trauma exposure. The extant research is inconclusive regarding associations between disaster media contact and depression outcomes, in part, because most studies have not distinguished diagnostic and symptomatic outcomes, differentiated postdisaster incidence from prevalence, or considered disaster trauma exposures. This study examined these associations in a volunteer sample of 254 employees of New York City businesses after the 11 September 2001, terrorist attacks. Structured interviews and questionnaires were administered 35 months after the attacks. Poisson and logistic regression analyses revealed that post-9/11 news contact significantly predicted the number of postdisaster persistent/recurrent and incident depressive symptoms in the full sample and in the indirect and unexposed groups. The findings suggest that clinical and public health approaches should be particularly alert to potential adverse postdisaster depression outcomes related to media consumption in disaster trauma-unexposed or indirectly-exposed groups.

Writer movements between news outlets reflect political polarization in media

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110271
Author(s):  
Nick Hagar ◽  
Johannes Wachs ◽  
Emőke-Ágnes Horvát
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Digital News ◽  
The Media ◽  
Or Organization

Digital news outlets rely on a variety of outside contributors, from freelance journalists, to political commentators, to executives and politicians. These external dependencies create a network among news outlets, traced along the contributors they share. Using connections between outlets, we demonstrate how contributors’ publishing trajectories tend to align with outlet political leanings. We also show how polarized clustering of outlets translates to differences in the topics of news covered and the style and tone of articles published. In addition, we demonstrate how contributors who cross partisan divides tend to focus on less explicitly political topics. This work addresses an important gap in the media polarization literature, by highlighting how structural factors on the production side of news media create an ecosystem shaped by political leanings, independent of the priorities of any one person or organization.

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