Religious Conservatives and TV News: Are They More Likely to be Religiously Offended?

2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 626-644 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A Thomson ◽  
Jerry Z Park ◽  
Diana Kendall
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Religious Service Attendance ◽  
Evening News ◽  
Cable News ◽  
Politics And Religion ◽  
Political Conservatism ◽  
Biblical Literalism ◽  
White Evangelicals ◽  
Using Data

AbstractPartisan selectivity of news media and attitudinal polarization are linked, yet the bulk of research focuses on the role of political attitudes while neglecting religious dispositions. We consider the degree to which both network and cable news media offend viewers in terms of both politics and religion. Using data from the 2010 Baylor Religion Survey, we find that white evangelicals have higher odds than mainline Protestants of reporting taking offense from the evening news, as well as higher odds than religious non-affiliates of being offended by both types of news. The primary divide, however, was between affiliates and non-affiliates, as biblical literalism and religious exclusivism at least partially mediated differences between white evangelicals and mainliners in taking offense from the evening news. Religious service attendance at least partially mediated differences between affiliates and non-affiliates in taking offense from both types of news, but while political conservatism explained differences in being offended by the evening news, it was not a significant predictor of taking offense from cable news. We suggest that this is due to processes of media differentiation that make cable news an equal-opportunity offender.

Greatly Exaggerated in Canada: Diverging Data and Media Bailouts

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc W Edge
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Research Centre ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
Soft Data ◽  
Hard Data ◽  
Media Research ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Media Narratives ◽  
Financial Losses

Background: The Canadian government allocated $595 million in subsidies over five years to news media in 2019, but the bailout was based on questionable data. Financial losses were exaggerated; a think tank report was criticized for using data selectively; data from a university research project differed sharply from annual industry counts; and job loss figures were disputed. Analysis: Hard data can diverge markedly from soft data accepted in pursuit of policy outcomes. Conclusions and implications: A second campaign underway on behalf of entertainment industries could yield a bailout several times larger than the first. Closer scrutiny should be exercised of media narratives and offered data. An independent media research centre should collect and verify data for policy purposes.Contexte : En 2019, le gouvernement canadien a octroyé aux médias d’information 595 millions de dollars en subventions étalées sur cinq ans, un montant évalué à partir de données douteuses. En effet, on a surestimé les pertes financières dans le milieu; le rapport influent d’un groupe de réflexion se fondait sur des données sélectionnées pour les besoins de la cause; les données provenant d’un projet de recherche universitaire différaient beaucoup de celles fournies annuellement par l’industrie; et on a exagéré les pertes d’emploi. Analyse : Les données dures peuvent différer énormément des données molles acceptées dans le but d’atteindre certains objectifs politiques. Conclusion et implications : Une seconde campagne menée pour aider les industries du divertissement pourrait bénéficier de subventions encore plus généreuses que les premières. Avant de procéder, il serait judicieux d’examiner de près les narratifs des médias et les données proposées. À cet égard, on devrait créer un centre indépendant pour la recherche sur les médias qui pourrait lui même recueillir et vérifier les données utilisées pour formuler des politiques.

Engagement

2021 ◽  
pp. 85-116
Author(s):  
Ran Wei ◽  
Ven-hwei Lo
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
News Media ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Asian College Students ◽  
Using Data ◽  
User Motivation

How do Asian college students keep track of and interact with news on their phone? Using data from the two waves of surveys, this chapter examines the behavior and patterns of engagement with mobile news by virtue of following and sharing. It also explores the differences in news engagement attributed to demographics, motivation, and city of residence. Findings show that following and sharing mobile news are prevalent, especially in the 4G era, making consuming news on the smartphone different from that of traditional news media. The chapter concludes that engagement with mobile news results from both user motivation and the empowering tools afforded by the Internet-enabled smartphone.

Mining Newsworthy Events in the Traffic Accident Domain from Chinese Microblog

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (02) ◽  
pp. 717-742 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiangling Fu ◽  
Jintae Lee ◽  
Chenwei Yan ◽  
Li Gao
Keyword(s):  
Text Mining ◽  
Large Volume ◽  
News Media ◽  
Traffic Accident ◽  
Computable Model ◽  
Valuable Resource ◽  
Domain Experts ◽  
Fast Pace ◽  
News Events ◽  
Using Data

Microblog can provide a valuable resource for journalists as it captures potential newsworthy events as they occur, including ones occurring remotely. Given the large volume and the fast pace of typical microblog, it is impractical to monitor all microblog postings for potential news events. Therefore, it would be useful if a method exists that uses text mining to help identify such events. For this endeavor, we need a good model of newsworthiness that furthermore can be operationalized with text-mining techniques. This study examines the feasibility and usefulness of such a model by first adopting the Shoemaker model of newsworthiness, one of the most comprehensive and accepted among such models; refining it based on a set of extensive interviews with domain experts and users in the context of news media in China; operationalizing it with a set of text-analytic measures in the domain of traffic accident; and testing its feasibility and validity using data from Weibo, the largest microblog site in China. As such, we believe that this study makes important theoretical and methodological contributions by developing and testing the most comprehensive and computable model of newsworthiness to date. We also point out its limitations and the areas that need further research.

scholarly journals Straying from the Flock? A Look at How Americans’ Gender and Religious Identities Cross-Pressure Partisanship

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin C. Cassese
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
National Election Study ◽  
And Gender ◽  
White Evangelicals ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Social Sorting

White evangelicals–both men and women–are a mainstay of the Republican Party. What accounts for their ongoing loyalty, particularly when Republican candidates and leaders fail to embody closely held moral standards around sexual monogamy and propriety, as Donald Trump did in 2016? To answer this question, I draw on research about social sorting and polarization, as well as gender and religion gaps in public opinion, to theorize about the nature of the cross-pressures partisans may experience as a result of the religious and gender identifications they hold. Using data from the 2016 American National Election Study, I evaluate whether cross-cutting identities have a moderating effect on partisans’ thinking about gender issues, their evaluations of the presidential candidates, and their relationship to the parties. I find only modest evidence that gender and evangelical identification impact political thinking among white Republicans, including their reactions to the Access Hollywood tape. Other groups, however, experienced more significant cross-pressures in 2016. Both evangelical Democrats and secular Republicans reported less polarized affective reactions to the presidential candidates and the parties. The results highlight the contingent role that gender and religious identities play in the United States’ highly polarized political climate.

scholarly journals The Partisan Mask: Political Orientation, Collectivism, and Religiosity Predict Mask Use During COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hohjin Im ◽  
Peiyi Wang ◽  
Chuansheng Chen
Keyword(s):  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Third Party ◽  
The Us ◽  
Political Conservatism ◽  
Strong Correlate ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Socioeconomic And Demographic Factors

In the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic became an unconventional vehicle to advance partisan rhetoric and antagonism. Using data available at the individual- (Study 1; N = 4,220), county- (Study 2; n = 3,046), and state-level (n = 49), we found that partisanship and political orientation was a robust and strong correlate of mask use. Political conservatism and Republican partisanship were related to downplaying the severity of COVID-19 and perceiving masks as being ineffective that, in turn, were related to lower mask use. In contrast, we found that counties with majority Democrat partisanship reported greater mask use, controlling for various socioeconomic and demographic factors. Lastly, states with strong cultural collectivism reported greater mask use while those with strong religiosity reported the opposite. States with greater Democrat partisanship and strong cultural collectivism subsequently reported lower COVID-19 deaths, mediated by greater mask use and lower COVID-19 cases, in the five months following the second wave of COVID-19 in the US during the Summer of 2020. Nonetheless, more than the majority for Democrats (91.58%), Republicans (77.52%), and third-party members (82.48%) reported using masks. Implications for findings are discussed.

scholarly journals A topic analysis of traditional and social media news coverage of the early COVID-19 pandemic and implications for public health communication

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wallace Chipidza ◽  
Elmira Akbaripourdibazar ◽  
Tendai Gwanzura ◽  
Nicole M. Gatto
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Health Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
Latent Dirichlet Allocation ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Cable News ◽  
Public Health Communication ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Public Health Officials

AbstractKnowledge gaps may initially exist among scientists, medical and public health professionals during pandemics, which are fertile grounds for misinformation in news media. We characterized and compared COVID-19 coverage in newspapers, television, and social media, and discussed implications for public health communication strategies that are relevant to an initial pandemic response. We conducted a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), an unsupervised topic modelling technique, analysis of 3,271 newspaper articles, 40 cable news shows transcripts, 96,000 Twitter posts, and 1,000 Reddit posts during March 4 - 12, 2020, a period chronologically early in the timeframe of the COVID-19 pandemic. Coverage of COVID-19 clustered on topics such as epidemic, politics, and the economy, and these varied across media sources. Topics dominating news were not predominantly health-related, suggesting a limited presence of public health in news coverage in traditional and social media. Examples of misinformation were identified particularly in social media. Public health entities should utilize communication specialists to create engaging informational content to be shared on social media sites. Public health officials should be attuned to their target audience to anticipate and prevent spread of common myths likely to exist within a population. This will help control misinformation in early stages of pandemics.

Attachment to God and Social Trust

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (6) ◽  
pp. 1001-1021
Author(s):  
Matt Bradshaw ◽  
Blake Victor Kent ◽  
W. Matthew Henderson ◽  
Anna Catherine Setar
Keyword(s):  
Attachment Styles ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
Attachment To God ◽  
Religious Service Attendance ◽  
Anxious Attachment ◽  
Images Of God ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
Two Measures ◽  
Separate Line ◽  
Using Data

Research suggests that religious participation is associated with feelings of social trust. A separate line of work shows that individuals who develop secure, intimate relationships with parents, caregivers, and others have higher levels of trust than those who do not. The current study integrates these two strands of theory and research by examining (1) whether attachment to God has a unique association with social trust, (2) whether different attachment “styles” (i.e., avoidant, anxious) produce variations in trust outcomes, and (3) whether the findings are significant net of controls for sociodemographic characteristics, religious service attendance, prayer, denominational affiliation, and images of God. Analyses are conducted using data from the 2010 Baylor Religion Survey (BRS), a nationwide sample of U.S. adults. Findings suggest that both avoidant and anxious attachment to God are inversely related to overall trust, generalized trust (unknown people and strangers), and particularized trust (neighbors and coworkers). These two measures also interact with education (but not marital status, race, or income) to predict trust in the following way: Both avoidant and anxious attachment to God have stronger inverse associations with trust among individuals with lower levels of education compared with their more highly educated counterparts. Overall, attachment to God may offer an explanation for trust not captured by more widely used indicators of religious life.

scholarly journals After “The China Virus” Went Viral: Racially Charged Coronavirus Coverage and Trends in Bias Against Asian Americans

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 870-879 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Darling-Hammond ◽  
Eli K. Michaels ◽  
Amani M. Allen ◽  
David H. Chae ◽  
Marilyn D. Thomas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
News Media ◽  
Polynomial Regression ◽  
Interrupted Time Series ◽  
Physical Health Outcomes ◽  
Discriminatory Behavior ◽  
Time Series Analyses ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Conservative Media

On March 8, 2020, there was a 650% increase in Twitter retweets using the term “Chinese virus” and related terms. On March 9, there was an 800% increase in the use of these terms in conservative news media articles. Using data from non-Asian respondents of the Project Implicit “Asian Implicit Association Test” from 2007–2020 ( n = 339,063), we sought to ascertain if this change in media tone increased bias against Asian Americans. Local polynomial regression and interrupted time-series analyses revealed that Implicit Americanness Bias—or the subconscious belief that European American individuals are more “American” than Asian American individuals—declined steadily from 2007 through early 2020 but reversed trend and began to increase on March 8, following the increase in stigmatizing language in conservative media outlets. The trend reversal in bias was more pronounced among conservative individuals. This research provides evidence that the use of stigmatizing language increased subconscious beliefs that Asian Americans are “perpetual foreigners.” Given research that perpetual foreigner bias can beget discriminatory behavior and that experiencing discrimination is associated with adverse mental and physical health outcomes, this research sounds an alarm about the effects of stigmatizing media on the health and welfare of Asian Americans.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document