The Battle over Marriage

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leigh Moscowitz
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Gay Marriage ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Gay And Lesbian ◽  
Ballot Initiatives ◽  
News Stories

Over the past decade, the controversial issue of gay marriage has emerged as a primary battle in the culture wars and a definitive social issue of our time. The subject moved to the forefront of mainstream public debate in 2004, when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom began authorizing same-sex marriage licenses, and it has remained in the forefront through three presidential campaigns and numerous state ballot initiatives. This book examines how prominent news outlets presented this issue from 2003 to 2012, a time when intense news coverage focused unprecedented attention on gay and lesbian life. During this time, gay rights leaders sought to harness the power of news media to advocate for marriage equality and to reform their community's public image. Building on in-depth interviews with gay rights activists and a comprehensive, longitudinal study of news stories, this book investigates these leaders' aims and how their frames, tactics, and messages evolved over time. In the end, media coverage of the gay marriage debate both aided and undermined the cause. Media exposure gave activists a platform to discuss gay and lesbian families. But it also triggered an upsurge in opposing responses and pressured activists to depict gay life in a way calculated to appeal to heterosexual audiences. Ultimately, this book reveals both the promises and the limitations of commercial media as a route to social change.

“The Marrying Kind”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leigh Moscowitz
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
Gay Marriage ◽  
Gay And Lesbian ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Lesbian Couples ◽  
News Stories

This chapter examines the extent of gay rights activists' success in framing the gay marriage debate and in producing their preferred images for the news media. It first describes the linguistic and visual devices that news entities relied upon to represent gay and lesbian couples as “deserving” of marriage. It then explores how markers of gender, class, race, lifestyle, and sexuality were deployed to construct the human face of gay marriage and goes on to discuss the ways in which gay marriage ceremonies were ritualized and symbolized in news narratives. It also shows how “poster couples” selected by news producers and gay rights activists were legitimated in news narratives, but were also cast as “different” from the more “radical” community of non-married gays, relegating particular LGBT and queer identities to the margins. The chapter concludes by considering how news stories and images work together to produce new forms of gay desire.

Gay Marriage in an Era of Media Visibility

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leigh Moscowitz
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gay Marriage ◽  
Gay And Lesbian ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Gay Rights Movement

This book examines how media coverage helped to define and shape the gay marriage debate as well as gay rights activism during the period 2003–2012. Through an analysis of media reports and in-depth interviews with leaders of the modern gay rights movement, it investigates how media frames and activist discourses evolved surrounding the issue of same-sex marriage. It looks at the aims and challenges of leading gay rights activists who sought to harness the power of mainstream news media to advocate for their cause and reform images of their community. It also considers how gay and lesbian rights groups attempted to shape coverage of the same-sex marriage debate, and what images and narratives about gay and lesbian life activists foregrounded. Finally, it discusses ways in which media attention surrounding the gay-marriage issue reshaped the structure, organization, and goals of the contemporary gay rights movement. This introduction provides an overview of the legal and political contexts of gay marriage in the United States, the rise of gay-themed media, and the research approach and plan of the book.

Framing the Candidates in Presidential Primaries: Issues and Images in Press Releases and News Coverage

1998 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 312-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Mark Miller ◽  
Julie L. Andsager ◽  
Bonnie P. Riechert
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Press Releases ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Presidential Primaries ◽  
Computerized Content Analysis ◽  
Elite Newspapers

Media coverage of presidential primaries is crucial to voters, and candidates often complain that news coverage fails to present their positions. This study used computerized content analysis to examine how the 1996 GOP presidential candidates framed themselves in press releases and how elite newspapers covered them. The analysis reveals that (1) candidate images were distinct in press releases and news stories; (2) candidate positions were represented differently in both; and (3) candidates were differentially successful in getting news media to reflect their positions. News media covered substantive concerns that were not included in candidate press releases.

scholarly journals Student Content Analysis of Business News Coverage

10.28945/2544 ◽  
2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine K. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Local Community ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Business Community ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Business News

Content analysis of media coverage provided a setting for group work, critical thinking, research, and data analysis. The analysis was motivated by a series of news stories that had damaged the reputation of the local community. The question was whether local news coverage was negative toward the business community. A business class addressed the problem and found that articles that business would view as favorable predominated. Based on their research, the class formulated a public relations strategy. Although this setting is a business class, content analysis of news media would work in other classes that emphasize critical thinking and problem solving.

Gay Marriage Goes Prime-Time

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leigh Moscowitz
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
Gay Marriage ◽  
Prime Time ◽  
Single Issue ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
Time News

This chapter examines the storytelling techniques that were used by journalists to produce the gay marriage issue for prime-time news audiences in 2003–2004, including labeling, framing, sourcing, imagery, and graphics. It discusses the discursive strategies employed by mainstream media to create conflict in the news; how sensationalist labels and descriptive language were used in news stories to validate historic homophobic discourses; and how privileging dominant political and religious sources worked to dichotomize the debate and silence moderate perspectives. It also explores how standard journalistic frames organized the same-sex marriage debate within “official” institutions of power. The chapter argues that journalistic definitions of authority, expertise, and “balance” created an uneven playing field, often pitting gay and lesbian spokespersons against unequal sources of influence from legal, medical, religious, and political authorities. It also shows how media coverage reduced the broader gay rights agenda to a single-issue movement and rarely gave gays and lesbians—almost always shown as couples—the opportunity to offer their own perspectives on this important issue.

scholarly journals Invisible Women? Comparing Candidates’ News Coverage in Europe

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (02) ◽  
pp. 223-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maarja Lühiste ◽  
Susan Banducci
Keyword(s):  
Gender Bias ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Media Analysis ◽  
Women Candidates ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Underrepresentation Of Women

Past studies, largely based on the United States, have argued that differential coverage of men and women candidates could explain the lack of women in elected political office. We investigate, first, whether a gender bias exists in coverage of candidates and, second, the possible mechanisms underlying any differences in the amount and tone of candidates’ news media coverage. Using data from the 2009 European Election Study Media Analysis, drawn from media coverage in 25 EU member states during the European Parliament election campaigns, we find that, similar to previous research, there is evidence of a gender gap in the amount of media coverage. Even for highly prominent and competitive candidates, the gender bias in media coverage remains. However, this bias in media coverage largely reflects the parties’ preselection of viable candidates and that where there are remedies in place to address the underrepresentation of women (i.e., quotas), women candidates actually have lower visibility in campaign coverage. We also find that, though women candidates are more often the subject of valence evaluations in news stories, male candidates are more negatively evaluated in news stories.

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.

Intermedia Agenda Setting in Business News Coverage

2014 ◽  
pp. 335-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew W. Ragas
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Business News ◽  
Intermedia Agenda Setting ◽  
Proxy Contests ◽  
Practical Implications

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.

Fight Clubs: Media Coverage of Party (Dis)unity and Citizens’ Selective Exposure to It

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 276-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
John V. Kane
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Behavioral Change ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Selective Exposure ◽  
News Stories

News media play a key role in communicating information about political parties to the American public. However, our understanding of how media depict relations between elites and the broader party coalitions remains limited. Moreover, while research suggests that forced exposure to such information can affect political attitudes, it remains unclear whether citizens are willing to selectively expose themselves to such communications. To address these two interrelated questions, this study first employs a content analysis to explore patterns in news coverage of inter- and intra-party relations throughout the Obama presidency. Next, two survey experiments investigate the degree to which such relations affect citizens’ self-exposure to such information. Taken together, the analyses uncover two important asymmetries. First, throughout Obama’s presidency, mass media depicted a Republican coalition virtually always against the president, yet substantial discord within the Democratic Party. Second, though partisans show no propensity to consume news depicting inparty unity (vs. disunity), both Republicans and Democrats exhibit a strong tendency to consume news stories depicting disunity in the outparty. Insofar as partisans’ self-exposure to such information is a necessary precondition for attitudinal and behavioral change, these findings have notable implications for how mass media stand to shape partisanship in the United States.

Transnational news media coverage of distant suffering in the Syrian civil war: An analysis of CNN, Al-Jazeera English and Sputnik online news

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 399-424
Author(s):  
Xu Zhang ◽  
Catherine A. Luther
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Online News ◽  
Human Suffering ◽  
Al Jazeera ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Transnational Media ◽  
Distant Suffering ◽  
Al Jazeera English

This study analyzed news stories published on the online sites of CNN, Al-Jazeera English, and Sputnik to investigate how the transnational news outlets framed the human suffering associated with the Syrian war. Unlike prior studies that have tended to be based on traditional nation-state paradigms, this research approached the analysis from a cosmopolitan perspective. The findings revealed that in concert with standard journalistic routines and news values, all three news outlets commonly employed a mass death and displacement frame to depict human suffering inside Syria. The adoption of this frame suggests that in telling the story of human suffering, the three media outlets focused on brief facts and shocking statistics without detailed depictions of the human suffering. The meager presence of a cosmopolitan outlook in the news coverage indicates that although transnational media target a global audience with English as Lingua Franca, they cannot be completely independent of geopolitics.

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