Intermedia and interlingual agenda setting: News coverage of the Ebola virus on Twitter (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Al-Rawi ◽  
Jacob Groshek

UNSTRUCTURED The 2014 Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak captured substantial media attention around the world. This paper investigates the media coverage of Ebola in five pairs of English and Arabic international television media outlets (BBC, CNN, SkyNews, RT, and France24) by examining the headlines of 298,559 news stories that those respective organizations posted on their official Twitter accounts. Over the course of approximately one year’s worth of coverage on these networks, Ebola was mentioned in the headlines of 4,138 stories, which constitutes 1.38% of the total news coverage of all media outlets. Building on the theory of intermedia agenda setting that outlines the ways in which major news organization influence the agendas of other news outlets, the findings reported here indicate strong, time-ordered patterns where English language coverage consistently precedes and helps to significantly explain the distribution of Arabic media coverage. In addition to providing evidence of intermedia agenda setting from a comparative perspective in this context, this paper expands on this theory and suggests that it can be applied to multilingual outlets from the same news organizations.

2021 ◽  
Vol 00 (00) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Ahmed Al-Rawi ◽  
Jacob Groshek

The Ebola virus is a rare but often severe and fatal illness in humans. It spreads from animals to humans and then transgresses through human-to-human transmission. The 2014 Ebola virus disease outbreak captured substantial media attention around the world, which is the cornerstone of our study since it can inform us about the current news coverage on the COVID-19 pandemic. This article investigates the media coverage of Ebola in five pairs of English and Arabic international television media outlets (BBC, CNN, SkyNews, RT and France24) by examining the headlines of 298,559 news stories that the respective organizations posted on their official Twitter accounts. Methodologically, we extracted headlines from news outlets that addressed the news on the Ebola virus in two languages: English and Arabic. The media outlets include the following: CNN (English and Arabic), BBC (English and Arabic), SkyNews (English and Arabic), RT (formerly known as Russia Today) (English and Arabic) and France24 (English and Arabic) from late 2013 to early 2015 during which time the Ebola epidemic intensified. We then used descriptive statistics to understand the volume of news coverage and calculate the frequencies, percentages, mean, median and standard deviations for these channels. Further, we continued to model time series regression between the five pairs of news outlets using Granger causality tests. The findings show that over the course of approximately one year’s worth of coverage on these networks, Ebola was mentioned in the headlines of 4138 stories, which constitutes 1.38 per cent of the total news coverage of all media outlets. Building on the theory of intermedia agenda-setting that outlines the ways in which major news organizations influence the agendas of other news outlets, the findings reported here indicate strong, time-ordered patterns where English-language coverage consistently precedes and helps to significantly explain the distribution of Arabic media coverage. In addition to providing evidence of intermedia agenda-setting from a comparative perspective in this context, this article expands on this theory and suggests that it can be applied to multilingual outlets from the same news organizations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Dana Raluca Buturoiu ◽  
Ana Voloc

In times of crisis, the media play a crucial role in offering people information and updates related to the ongoing events. Thus, the media implicitly shape public opinion on the issues they cover and, as a result, influence public attitudes and behaviors. In this context, this paper aims at analyzing the media coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, by means of quantitative content analysis (N=1511) conducted on both television and online news stories released during March 18-31 2020, this study sheds light on the agenda-setting effects of the media and the phenomenon known as intermedia agenda-setting. Main results show that, in spring 2020, both television and online news stories extensively covered COVID-19 topics, focusing on domestic issues such as decisions taken by the authorities in order to manage the pandemic, effects of the virus, and statistics. Furthermore, results show a relatively high intermedia agenda-setting effect within the Romanian media environment. Content published online (either in the form of social media content or online stories) is frequently “borrowed” and cited in both online and television news stories, leading us to the idea that digital media might have become mainstream information sources.


Author(s):  
Matthew W. Ragas

While business news coverage has risen around the world in recent decades, scholarly research into this area has been limited. Scholarship on media coverage of public affairs topics has generally found that coverage patterns converge across news media outlets. This study probes for evidence of intermedia agenda setting among seven elite business news outlets in their coverage of transformational events: corporate proxy contests. The results find that the amount of news stories each outlet devoted to coverage of 25 large proxy contests in the U.S. stock market over a five-year period was highly similar. Intermedia convergence across this news content was also found to a lesser extent regarding issue and stakeholder salience but not, for the most part, with peripheral media favorability. This moderate overall overlap in coverage across media outlets suggests that the notion of a complementary media agenda remains largely intact. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.


Author(s):  
Inge Hutagalung

In general, media coverage can have a strong influence on the reputation of a cultural heritage. Media coverage often has an effect on a cultural heritage’s reputation when ‘good’ or ‘bad’ news is reported.This amplifying effect has often been studied through the lens of agenda setting theory. The hypothesis behind the theory is that the frequency with the media report on an issue determines that issues’ salience in the minds of the general public. In other words, the media may not be successful often time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about. The news media ‘set’ the public agenda.Since people cannot possibly attend no to every little detail about the cultural heritage around them, setting in communication is important because it helps shape the perspectives through which people see all cultural heritage in the world.In generating good news coverage about a cultural heritage, communicating with the media is one of important activities that should be maintained between communication professionals (in cultural heritage) with journalists. Keywords: media coverage, agenda setting, framing news


Journalism ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (9-10) ◽  
pp. 1471-1489
Author(s):  
Y Roselyn Du

Social media is widely seen as playing a crucial role in the Arab Uprisings. This study compares news coverage in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan regarding social media in the Arab Uprisings. Content analysis of 162 news stories revealed that media in the three regions constructed their coverage within different frames, despite the events being geographically remote to the three Greater China regions and occurring in countries with which Greater China has little cultural, religious, ethnical, or economic connections. Overall, a clear pro-social-media pattern was found in Hong Kong and Taiwan media coverage, whereas in mainland China social media and the users involved in the Arab Uprisings were treated in the news in an obscured or unfavorable manner. Mainland China’s coverage was less likely to mention censorship of social media in the revolutions, whereas Hong Kong and Taiwan media frequently reported censorship and took a stance against it. Hong Kong and Taiwan media were also inclined to relate situations in the Arab Uprisings to mainland China. Such variations in the media coverage arguably are mainly due to ideological differences.


Telos ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 731-753
Author(s):  
Geraldina Dana ◽  
Catalina Mas ◽  
María Reiszer ◽  
Emilio Soto

On April 27th 2018, the first summit in eleven years was held between North Korean and South Korean chief executives. This paper addresses Argentinian newspapers Clarín and Página 12 editorial approaches pertaining to that summit. The purpose is to analyze whether there is a difference in the frequency of the media coverage and the editorial approach of both newspapers. This paper tries to explain these phenomena through Framing, Agenda-setting and Intermedia Agenda-setting theories, based upon authors such as Kiousis (2004), Zunino (2016), Martini, Luchessi (2004), Amadeo (2008), Amadeo and Aruguete (2013) and Aruguete (2015). Given that the summit is not considered to be controversial in Argentina, the hypothesis assumes that these newspapers, although divergent within the national arena, will have a similar coverage in this case. Following this aim, a mixed gathering “of successive stages” was done (first, a quantitative one, and then, a qualitative one) of media coverage on both newspapers. This was then processed and codified in order to build a measurement model utilizing different data matrices. The analysis of the index results show that the relevance given by both newspapers was medium level, with the presence of cover and back cover articles. When it comes to the editorial approach, both papers focused on concepts such as de-nuclearization and analysis of geopolitical consequences therein. However, Clarín adopts a bias position favoring the South Korean stand, together with rhetorical resources criticizing North Korean leadership and government. Thus, for this reason, the hypothesis has only a partial corroboration.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-60
Author(s):  
Muhammad Sohaib Subhani ◽  
Rooh ul Amin Khan, ◽  
Dr Khalid Sultan

Negotiations between two parties always have newsworthiness. Results of the negotiations can be strongly influenced by the media coverage. Pakistan's government was also involved in peace negotiation with Tahrik e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) during January and February 2014. It was the most discussing issue in Pakistani media at that time. The aim of this research is to analyze the editorial policy of three Pakistani English language newspapers; Dawn, Nation and The News to check their favorable or unfavorable behavior regarding peace talks during January and February 2014. Agenda setting, priming and farming theories were used in this study. Qualitative content analysis method was used in this study to analyze the editorial policy of these three newspapers. Findings revealed that all these three newspapers gave significant coverage to the peace talks issue but Nation gave more coverage to the issue. Findings also revealed that Dawn and The News, most of the time showed neutral behavior but tilted towards unfavorable position regarding peace talks. Nation showed strongly unfavorable behavior regarding peace talks. So it is concluded that all these three newspapers were mostly against the peace talks and government and media were not on the same page on the issue of peace talks.


Author(s):  
Elena Martynenko ◽  
Evgeniya Stogova

The article presents the results of the comparative content analysis of publications by RIA Novosti and Reuters news agencies on the coronavirus pandemic. The purpose of the research is to identify the place of COVID-19 on the agenda of Russian and English-speaking regions' news agencies. The goal of the research is to determine the features of news media pandemic coverage. There is the hypothesis that coronavirus has taken a dominant position on the world agenda in all sectors of society: political, economic, social and cultural, transforming their priorities. The specifics of the work of news agencies have also undergone transformation. The relevance of the chosen topic is explained by the novelty of the phenomenon that was studied, as well as by lack of research of information agencies compared to such media subsystems as press, radio, television, and especially new media. In addition, there was much public and scientific discussion of coronavirus infection. The study found that COVID was a big story and dominated news coverage on the flagship websites of news agencies. The topic is at the top of Russian and English-language media agenda. At the same time, Reuters focused on international and economic discourse, while RIA Novosti preferred social and cultural issues. Nevertheless, both agencies focused on human interest stories; had inflammatory headlines and emotionally colored vocabulary, which is not typical for news stories. The topic of coronavirus is expected to remain a big story on the media landscape at least for the first part of 2021.


2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 593-615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Guinaudeau ◽  
Anna M Palau

This article argues that external factors of EU coverage in the media need to be reassessed against domestic factors, in particular how parties modulate media attention to EU affairs. We explain which parties may set the EU on the media agenda, and how parties interact with events depending on the level of conflict over EU issues. Drawing on the first long-term analysis of partisan agenda-setting of EU affairs in the media – based on ARIMA time-series models of monthly data collected for six newspapers from 1990 to 2015 – we determine the scale of partisan agenda-setting and find partial support for our model. Political parties do not face the intrusion of EU issues, but some of them are actively involved in this process.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document