scholarly journals Sectoral Media Focus and Aggregate Fluctuations

2021 ◽  
Vol 111 (12) ◽  
pp. 3872-3922
Author(s):  
Ryan Chahrour ◽  
Kristoffer Nimark ◽  
Stefan Pitschner
Keyword(s):  
Great Recession ◽  
News Media ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Time Varying ◽  
Aggregate Fluctuations ◽  
Independent Source ◽  
Business Cycle Fluctuations ◽  
Sectoral Productivity

We formalize the editorial role of news media in a multisector economy and show that media can be an independent source of business cycle fluctuations, even when they report accurate information. Public reporting about a subset of sectoral developments that are newsworthy but unrepresentative causes firms across all sectors to hire too much or too little labor. We construct historical measures of US sectoral news coverage and use them to calibrate our model. Time-varying media focus generates demand-like fluctuations that are orthogonal to productivity, even in the absence of non-TFP shocks. Presented with historical sectoral productivity, the model reproduces the 2009 Great Recession. (JEL D22, D83, E32, L82)

scholarly journals News-Driven Business Cycles: Insights and Challenges

2014 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 993-1074 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Beaudry ◽  
Franck Portier
Keyword(s):  
Business Cycles ◽  
Business Cycle ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Economic Fluctuations ◽  
Aggregate Fluctuations ◽  
Business Cycle Fluctuations ◽  
Widespread Belief ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
The Many

There is a widespread belief that changes in expectations may be an important independent driver of economic fluctuations. The news view of business cycles offers a formalization of this perspective. In this paper we discuss mechanisms by which changes in agents' information, due to the arrival of news, can cause business cycle fluctuations driven by expectational change, and we review the empirical evidence aimed at evaluating their relevance. In particular, we highlight how the literature on news and business cycles offers a coherent way of thinking about aggregate fluctuations, while at the same time we emphasize the many challenges that must be addressed before a proper assessment of the role of news in business cycles can be established. (JEL D83, D84, E13, E32, O33)

scholarly journals The role of inventories for the propagation of aggregate fluctuations: lessons for Bulgaria (1999–2019)

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Vasilev
Keyword(s):  
Business Cycle ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Aggregate Fluctuations ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Consumption Volatility ◽  
Business Cycle Fluctuations ◽  
The Government ◽  
Rbc Models ◽  
Quantitative Importance

PurposeIn this study, inventories are introduced as a productive input into a real-business-cycle (RBC) setup augmented with the government.Design/methodology/approachThe model is calibrated to Bulgarian data for the period 1999–2019. The quantitative importance of the presence of inventories is investigated.FindingsThe quantitative effect of inventories is found to be important: decreasing consumption volatility and increasing employment variability. Those results, however, are at the expense of decreasing wage volatility and increasing investment volatility, and generally worsening the contemporaneous correlations of the main variables with output.Originality/valueFluctuations in inventory levels matter for business cycle fluctuations in Bulgaria, which is a novel result. Still, there is a need for more research on the incorporation of inventories into RBC models to better fit the Bulgarian experience.

Challenging the Models of Terrorism Discourse in the News: European and Islamic Values in the French and Italian Press

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 384-413
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Ugolini ◽  
Dario Fanara
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Social Role ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Media Content Analysis ◽  
Potential Threat ◽  
The Social ◽  
Terrorism Discourse ◽  
Islamic Values

The aim of this paper is to reflect on the social role of European journalists as they cover the issue of terrorism, which is a potential threat to European society itself. For this purpose, the paper presents the results of a qualitative media content analysis related to the news coverage of the aftermath of three major terrorist attacks. Specifically, the research focuses on the values involved in the coverage of the event rather than on the strict report of what happened. The authors observe that both liberal/‘trustee’ and polarized pluralist/‘advocacy’ models engender a double paradox concerning the interest of citizens in being informed or being protected by news media. Nonetheless, the liberal value of responsibility emerges as fundamental, in order to face and resolve this paradox.

News media and perceptions of police: a state-of-the-art-review

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa M. Graziano
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Television News ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Media Consumption ◽  
Content Type ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Causal Pathways ◽  
Meta Review ◽  
Perceptions Of Police

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic review of the literature examining the role of news media consumption and awareness in shaping public attitudes about police.Design/methodology/approachA comprehensive, systematic search of multiple academic databases (e.g. EBSCO Host) was undertaken, supplemented by the use of Google Scholar to search among journals indicated as having cited the articles found in the databases.FindingsA total of 42 studies were identified that met the selection criteria for this meta-review and examined exposure to high-profile incidents involving police, awareness of negative news coverage of police, and/or consumption of specific news mediums (e.g. newspapers). Overall, research supports a relationship between negative perceptions of police and both exposure to high-profile incidents and awareness of negative coverage. Some support for the influence of consuming television news on attitudes exists, but more research is needed on the role of different news sources in shaping perceptions. Future research should also include determining causal pathways and how news about police is selected.Originality/valueThis is the first meta-review of the research examining how news media and attitudes about police are related. This study will provide a useful resource for those researchers wishing to continue to examine different aspects of news media consumption as a predictor of perceptions.

The Dynamics of Political Elections: A Big Data Analysis of Intermedia Framing Between Social Media and News Media

2019 ◽  
pp. 089443931987659
Author(s):  
Wai Han Lo ◽  
Benson Shu Yan Lam ◽  
Meily Mei Fung Cheung
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
News Media ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Chief Executive ◽  
Big Data Analysis ◽  
Reciprocal Relationship ◽  
News Framing ◽  
Facebook Pages

This article examines the news framing of the 2017 Hong Kong Chief Executive election using a big data analysis approach. Analyses of intermedia framing of over 370,000 articles and comments are conducted including news published in over 30 Chinese press media, four prominent Chinese online press media, and posts published on three candidates’ Facebook pages within the election period. The study contributes to the literature by examining the rarely discussed role of intermedia news framing, especially the relationship between legacy print media, online alternative news media, and audience comments on candidates’ social network sites. The data analysis provides evidence that audiences’ comments on candidates’ Facebook pages influenced legacy news coverage and online alternative news coverage. However, this study suggests that legacy news media and comments on Facebook do not necessarily have a reciprocal relationship. The implication of the findings and limitations are discussed.

scholarly journals The AI doctor will see you now: assessing the framing of AI in news coverage

AI & Society ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mercedes Bunz ◽  
Marco Braghieri
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Hippocratic Oath ◽  
Healthcare Sector ◽  
Medical Expert ◽  
Data Set ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Development

AbstractOne of the sectors for which Artificial Intelligence applications have been considered as exceptionally promising is the healthcare sector. As a public-facing sector, the introduction of AI applications has been subject to extended news coverage. This article conducts a quantitative and qualitative data analysis of English news media articles covering AI systems that allow the automation of tasks that so far needed to be done by a medical expert such as a doctor or a nurse thereby redistributing their agency. We investigated in this article one particular framing of AI systems and their agency: the framing that positions AI systems as (1a) replacing and (1b) outperforming the human medical expert, and in which (2) AI systems are personified and/or addressed as a person. The analysis of our data set consisting of 365 articles written between the years 1980 and 2019 will show that there is a tendency to present AI systems as outperforming human expertise. These findings are important given the central role of news coverage in explaining AI and given the fact that the popular frame of ‘outperforming’ might place AI systems above critique and concern including the Hippocratic oath. Our data also showed that the addressing of an AI system as a person is a trend that has been advanced only recently and is a new development in the public discourse about AI.

scholarly journals Are Experts (News)Worthy? Balance, Conflict, and Mass Media Coverage of Expert Consensus

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Merkley
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Expert Consensus ◽  
News Production ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Content ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Thematic Context

Overlooked in analyses of why the public often rejects expert consensus is the role of the news media. News coverage of expert consensus on general matters of policy is likely limited as a result of journalists’ emphasis in news production on novelty and drama at the expense of thematic context. News content is also biased towards balance and conflict, which may dilute the persuasiveness of expert consensus. This study presents an automated and manual analysis of over 280,000 news stories on ten issues where there are important elements of agreement among scientists or economists. The analyses show that news content typically emphasizes arguments aligned with positions of expert consensus, rather than providing balance, and only occasionally cites contrarian experts. More troubling is that expert messages related to important areas of agreement are infrequent in news content, and cues signaling the existence of consensus are rarer still.

scholarly journals Reporting an Unsettled Countryside: The News Media and Rural Protests in Britain

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Woods
Keyword(s):  
Rural Community ◽  
News Media ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Rural Life ◽  
News Values ◽  
Rural Identity ◽  
The Media ◽  
Over Time

Most analyses of the role of the media in shaping and reproducing popular discourses of rurality have focused on film, television drama and literature. Comparatively little attention has been directed towards the role of the news media in framing perceptions of contemporary rural issues through reportage and commentary. This paper examines the engagement of the news media with a series of rural protests that developed in Britain between 1997 and 2007 around issues such as hunting and farm incomes. The news media had been complicit in maintaining the previous discursive construct of the countryside as a settled and almost apolitical space, but the emergence of major rural protests forced a shift in the representation of rural life. News coverage of rural issues and rural protests increased with the adoption of a new discourse of the “unsettled countryside”. In adjusting to shifting news values, the news media initially bought and reproduced the frames promoted by the major rural campaign group, the Countryside Alliance, including tropes of the “countryside in crisis”, the “countryside comes to town” and the “countryside speaks out for liberty”. Over time, however, a more complex web of representations developed as the perspectives adopted by different media outlets diverged, informed by political ideology. As such, it is argued that the news media played a key role not in only in mediating public reception of rural protests, and thus modulating their political significance, but also in framing the rural protests for participants within the rural community, and as such contributing to the mobilisation of a politicised rural identity and an active rural citizenship.

Media and Democracy: Is Conventional Media Performing the Role of the Fourth Estate of the Realm?

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-38
Author(s):  
Eyitayo Francis Adanlawo ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
New Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Democratic Society ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Fourth Estate ◽  
Published Research

Arguments have emanated on the roles of conventional media in the strengthening of democracy, good governance, and human development in a democratic society. This study discussed and evaluated the conventional media role as the "fourth estate of the realm" by functioning as defenders, watchdogs and providers of accurate information in a democratic society. Social Responsibility Theory, a version of free press theory, was used to underpin the study by providing examples of how the media's actions can affect a democratic society. The study adopted a meta-analysis approach by reviewing numerous published research studies to clarify the role of conventional media as the fourth estate. The content analysis of the reviewed literature revealed that conventional news media roles as check and balance, watch-dogs and adversary have been jeopardised. New media is now strengthened with the ability to displace conventional media as "the fourth estate".

scholarly journals Raising guardrails: The role of the political commentator in a post-expert age

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-115
Author(s):  
Paul D. Williams
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Political Behaviour ◽  
Political Commentary ◽  
Political Events

AbstractPolitical commentary is a key component of news coverage in any liberal democracy. Yet theorising the role played by political commentators in a rapidly transforming media sphere – further destabilised by voters’ increasing mistrust of expertise and of political and media institutions – is rare in the social science literature. This article adopts a mixed methodological approach to argue that political commentators today perform one or more of three functions – ‘public educator’, ‘value educator’ and ‘polemicist’ – with commentators now falling into one of seven types. Given the broadening and flattening of news media dissemination and consumption – and arguably the ‘dumbing down’ and ‘shallowing out’ of news media coverage in a postmodern social media age where truth and facts are too often subordinated by rhetoric and opinion – this article argues that the role of the academic political commentator is now more critical than ever. It also argues that academic commentators must offer not only objective descriptive analysis of political events but also potentially subjective normative analysis – in effect, narrative ‘guardrails’ – to remind voters of what is and is not acceptable political behaviour in a ‘post-truth’ anti-expert age.

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