Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Communication news'

After the bloody Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, the legitimacy of the Communist Party of China (CCP) suffered a devastating blow among the overseas Chinese (OC). The CCP responded to the challenge by implementing transnational outreach policy in the OC community, which includes substantial efforts to increase the Party’s influence in the overseas Chinese-language media (OCLM). By conducting a qualitative analysis of the evolution of the CCP's OC policy, this thesis finds that the Party has made tremendous progress in achieving the policy’s strategic goals: modernization and transnational legitimacy. The CCP’s increased influence in the OCLM has made crucial contributions to the Party's success in restoring transnational legitimacy in the OC community. This thesis finds that the China News Service (CNS), China's second-largest news agency operating under the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, plays a major role in the CCP's attempt to influence the OCLM and centralize the production of Chinese-language news.

Over the years, local television news stations across the nation have seen a dramatic decrease in viewership. Much like newspapers, fewer people are relying on television news for several reasons. Two of the biggest culprits are the age of new technology and social media. These two factors alone have reprogrammed people's daily habits, changing the landscape of television news viewership and resulting in uncertain times at local television news stations. Few studies have been done on the future of local television news. Of the studies that have been conducted, it is clear to see that local news is still relevant even in times of change, uncertainty and evolution, but can it make enough of a profit to survive? The million dollar question TV executives are trying to answer is: How will local TV news stations stay afloat in these uncharted waters? In an attempt to answer this question, qualitative research in the form of ethnography and interview was conducted. The findings in this study reveal television news stations must stay on the cutting edge of technology in order to engage their viewers. They must also think of creative ways to generate revenue besides the traditional way of advertising. Without healthy news ratings, local television news organizations are forced to lower their advertising rates to those seeking to spend money on commercial time. This, in turn, has resulted in a loss of millions of dollars a year for TV stations. The end result will be evident to both stations and viewers. The future of local television news and the direct impact to viewers is discussed.

This research used a series of qualitative measurements of media coverage to investigate how differences in characteristics of a terrorist related event correlate with qualitative differences in media coverage. The first part of this study determined that there were tools to measure differences in the quality of coverage. Three variables showed significant differences in coverage. Coverage differed in the structure of the news account- in whose shoes the reader enters the story. The differences between entering through the perspective of the victim, the perpetrator or the context have been correlated by Cerulo (1998) with different messages of the legitimacy of the actors. Victim sequences signal deviant (illegitimate) violence, perpetrator sequences signal legitimate violence and contextual sequences signal ambiguous violence. Coverage also differed in the extent to which an article provided contextual information or focused strictly on the details of the event. Providing contextual information is important for terrorist groups because it includes information on the grievances of the group as well as the history of the conflict. This variable was measured as an episodic or thematic frame. Explanations of motivation for participation in terrorism also differed based on characteristics of an event. As with contextual coverage, presenting themes of causation or motivation for the account is a way for terrorist groups to present grievances and history of the conflict. Combining these three variables into a favorable coverage variable helped makes sense of competing trends in the data. This first section set up a system for evaluating the qualitative impact on media coverage of choices that terrorist groups and governments make. What stands out is a paradox for a terrorist group around the use of violence. Both here and in other studies, violence has been shown to be an effective means of getting through the media gatekeeping and achieving coverage, but it is also associated with a decrease in favorable coverage. Number of casualties is also negatively associated with favorable coverage. Hence the paradox that, in order to achieve coverage, based on criteria of newsworthiness, violence may often be necessary, but violent action actually decreases the number of articles presenting the kind of information terrorist groups want to get across. Looking at the paired cases, what was most significant was the lack of change in the favorability of coverage before and after events. The implication is that while terrorist groups may have some control over whether or not their actions get covered, media organizations develop fairly resilient patterns for covering those actions, irrespective of the nature of the action. Terrorist groups essentially have less capacity to actually manipulate the type of coverage they receive than is commonly believed. While there were some very small effects, the favorability of coverage immediately following an event is essentially the same as before it. The difference lies in the actual amount of coverage. While short-term impacts were slight, there are substantial differences both in quantity and quality over the life of the conflict, a longer term view may allow for better understanding of changes in media coverage.

Given the increasing popularity and effect of online media, especially Twitter, as news sources, this study was designed to examine Saudis’ behaviors toward Twitter with regard to newspapers and information delivery and the role that Twitter plays in getting news updates. It investigated if Saudi Twitter users perceive Twitter as a credible source for news and rely on it to read the news more than legacy newspapers and their online counterparts. This research conducted an online survey and distributed it among Saudis who use Twitter to get news updates. The sample of this study had been drawn online by using the “SnowBall” sampling method through Survey Monkey and, the sample was collected during December 2015 and January 2016. A total of 3,003 Saudi Twitter users completed all questions in the survey. The results showed that Saudis consider Twitter as a newsgathering tool; therefore, they read news on Twitter more than reading legacy newspapers because it is easier and the fastest way of getting news, which indicated that the area of legacy newspapers in Saudi Arabia is at stake. Moreover, Saudis positively rated Twitter as a trustworthy and credible source for getting news updates. Thereby, they concurred that using Twitter has changed the path that people deal with legacy newspapers. Furthermore, non-legacy newspapers’ Twitter accounts received the lion's share of Saudis trust, especially Sabq newspaper, that was at the top as the newspaper account with the highest following. In regard to age groups, young Twitter users in Saudi Arabia trust non-legacy newspaper Twitter accounts more than older users, while old Twitter users were more likely to trust legacy newspaper Twitter accounts. The disbelief in the fairness of legacy newspapers could also be referred to the Saudis’ understanding that the government has a sweeping power to direct the media.

Many news organizations are trying to maximize their online audience in an attempt to bring greater exposure to their work and attract advertising. Grounded in Resource Dependency Theory and System of Professions theory, this comparative case study of two divergent news organizations sought to identify how degree of pursuit of audience metrics affects the nature of an organization’s journalism. The study showed that differences in degree of pursuit led to differences in the nature of news content and in the nature of determinations of newsworthiness. A greater emphasis on metrics led one organization toward a lower percentage of civic issue stories, less story depth, a better understanding of online traffic creation, greater use of text and ideas from public relations professionals, and less use of traditional journalistic abstract knowledge to determine newsworthiness. Crucially, however, in the newsroom of greater metric use, a commitment to the traditional journalistic norm of civic duty served to reduce the differences between the organizations. The implications for journalism are discussed.

Fear has found its latest instrument in the news media. The discourse of fear in news presentations produces gasping meanings, which we can compellingly indulge in. Fear not just being entertaining, but one of the ways in which we relate to reality, is used as a protection mechanism of our status quo. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the extent to which Fox News tends to use, and further reproduce, the fear discourse to form identities and meaning. The method utilized in this thesis is frame analysis, which is a form of discourse analysis. The primary results indicate that Fox News undeniably uses the fear discourse, for entertainment and the proliferation of the status quo - meaning system. In addition, Fox News applies fear blatantly in the news presentations, as acts of courage and virtuous loyalty to reporting.

Key words: Fear, Frame analysis, Meaning, News media, Infotainment.

Algorithmic curation is a growing influence on our information flows as it complements and sometimes supplants traditional mass media and personal information sharing. One of the primary agents of this rise in algorithmically-curated information flows is the Facebook News Feed, a onetime source of primarily entertainment that has, as of late, taken large strides towards the news business. It is fair to say that Facebook has a huge influence on our information, one that will likely expand in the future; even if not Facebook, similar systems will rule our information. Yet, we know next to nothing about how they work, as the algorithms that power them are sealed inside a black box. This thesis approaches the Facebook News Feed through a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods in a process dubbed “Negative Reverse Engineering” in an attempt to gain access to the contents of the black box not through traditional technical means, but through an analysis of Facebook’s values structure and needs. Components include an extensive, cross-disciplinary review of the literature, an experiment based around the generation of filter bubbles through the application of negative pressure, a grounded content analysis of Facebook’s statements and documents, an autoethnography of Facebook use, and a regression analysis of Facebook under duress. From this data, a Hierarchy of Needs for the News Feed is created, rejecting the model of News Feed filtering as an equation in favor of a holistic, values-based model.

With the rising rate of Internet penetration in Morocco, digital media, including social media, represent an increasingly important role in the spread of news in Moroccan society. In general, young Moroccans are the most digitally literate in the country and consume a wide range of online media. In the context of Morocco’s complex and plural linguistic landscape, language abilities and preferences add an additional layer to the study of the spread of digital media. This study uses a mixed methods approach involving a researcher-designed online survey of 193 Moroccans between the ages of 18 and 35 as well as 34 in-person semi-structured interviews with students attending four Moroccan universities in order to examine the news media consumption habits of young Moroccans, focusing on the intersection of language preferences, digital media choices and Moroccan nationhood. This study demonstrates that young Moroccans appear to possess a certain flexible news citizenship, allowing for a unified sense of the Moroccan nation despite linguistic differences. Overall, young Moroccans tend to rely on indigenous Moroccan digital news media outlets, such as Hespress, as well as foreign news sources, for daily news; both of these types of media are outside of the state- and party-run news media system, which includes the majority of television and radio channels and many print newspapers. While different language ideologies and their supporters do exist in Morocco, the “imagined community” of Morocco continues despite these linguistic distinctions. In contrast to concerns that new media will result in a fragmentation of the public sphere, the Moroccan case seems to show instead digital news media reinforcing an existing unified nation across linguistic difference.

Social media have recently emerged as one of the primary information sources in the U.S. Journalists and news organizations have been keen on establishing a presence within digital social networks in order to utilize this new channel to build and maintain an audience. However, little is known about the practical implications of social media engagement by journalists for audience perceptions of news.

The present dissertation attempts to investigate 1) the influences of journalists' social media activities, self-disclosure and interaction with other users, on audience perceptions of the journalists; 2) if the perceptions serve as an important mediator between the social media activities and audience perceptions of the journalists'; news products; and, 3) if and how the direct and indirect effects of journalists'; social media activities are moderated by audiences'; individual differences in journalism orientation (IJO), which refers to which journalism norm audience members lean toward: engagement (public journalism norm) or detachment (objective journalism norm). Given that journalism is in a state of flux between traditional detached approaches and newer attached perspectives, these are important questions to be addressed relative to journalism in new media environments.

An experiment with multiple message stimuli was conducted in the context of a journalist's Facebook profile, and college students' perceptions of the journalist and his news product were measured via an online questionnaire. All perceptions were examined on both personal (e.g., attractiveness) and professional (e.g., objectivity and competence) dimensions.

The results provided empirical evidence that, 1) when it comes to journalists, engaging in such common social media activities as self-disclosure and interaction can significantly harm journalists in terms of their perceived competence although the same behaviors can improve perceptions of their personality. Results on the perceived objectivity dimension were mixed such that objectivity was positively influenced by interactive behaviors whereas it was negatively influenced by self-disclosure via social media; 2) Audience perceptions of journalists, formed based on their social media activities, tended to transfer to their impressions of the journalists' news products, demonstrating that the indirect effects of journalists' self-disclosures and interactions via social media on audience perceptions of their news products were mediated through audience perceptions of the journalists in terms of personality and competence although this mediation relationship was not evident in the case of journalists' self-disclosing activities and the professional-dimension perceptions; 3) These influences of journalists' social media activities were moderated by audiences'; individual journalism orientation such that the impacts of journalists'; self-disclosure on the journalists' personal and professional images (in both objectivity and competence) were in general stronger for the audiences oriented to an objective journalism norm, indicating that those with an objective orientation tend to react more sensitively to journalists' unconventional behaviors.

This set of results revealed that journalists' conforming to social media norms and acting like ordinary social media users could make not only the journalists but also their news products look personally attractive and friendly, but professionally less competent. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to formulate a preliminary conceptual perception about how Kuwaiti college students in the United States use and perceive electronic media. This qualitative study has sought to recognize the utilization habits and perception of Kuwaiti college students in the USA toward electronic media. The study examines the reasons for the high degree of dependency on electronic media by Kuwaiti students in the USA and the most significant features and properties that are available by electronic media, which attract youth attention. This research conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with a sample of 15 Kuwaiti college students in the United States. It was concluded that Kuwaiti college students are the major users of recent technology and pioneers of electronic and social media. It also seeks for future investigations to understand whether the demographic characteristics of Kuwaiti college students are affecting their media utilization habits.