O'connell Dissertation Final 8.19
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© COPYRIGHT by Emily O’Connell 2020 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This project is dedicated to my paternal grandfather, Thomas O’Connell, and my maternal grandmother Beatriz Powers. Both of you are no longer here, but you live forever in my ambition to change the world with knowledge. Through you and your children, my loving parents, I have learned the impact of investigating that which you do not know, and the strength of advocating for what is right and good. I hope to continue your legacies with grace and love. HYBRID SYSTEMS AND HYBRID GENRES: EXPLORING U.S. POLITICAL PODCAST FRAMING TACTICS AND EFFECTS BY Emily O’Connell ABSTRACT Over the past five years, the medium of podcasting has continued to gain traction and increase in popularity both in the US and around the world. Millions of Americans regularly listen to podcasts and interact with numerous genres and content styles in the process. One particularly powerful and popular genre within this world are political news podcasts. Political news podcasts range in their ideological leaning and discussed topics, but they often blend informative news with some kind of softer stylistic or tonal elements, qualifying many of them as political infotainment that is similar to legacy media forms like conservative talk radio and late night talk shows. Scholars have long debated the merits and detriments of such softer news stylings, and in political spaces especially, this emerging hybridity of genre has potentially persuasive and polarizing consequences. To better understand those dynamics, this dissertation draws on theories of the hybrid media system, framing, persuasion and more. Ultimately, this research is an attempt to better identify which tactics of political news framing and agenda building in the podcast sphere are emerging as commonly held practice, and what some of their effects may be on political attitude and political knowledge for listeners. Research was conducted in two phases. The first involved a qualitative content analysis of rhetorical tactics used in popular US political podcasts. The second phase consisted of an online survey experiment (N=1,541) where two of the most popular frame groups were chosen for further study: humor and opinion. Findings from this research indicate that infotainment frames can ii have significant effect both on political attitude and political knowledge, and that, when compared to hard news, these infotainment frames are more persuasive and slightly more informative. Further discussion and suggestions for future studies are also included. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The completion of this dissertation would not have been possible without the help of so many people, the most important being my family and friends. To Kara, Jack, Mom, Dad, Lizzie and Liv, you truly went above and beyond and I appreciate you endlessly. For three long years, you supported me and listened to me as I worked my way through this process. You cheered me on at every high and kept me strong when I felt low. I have not always been the most positive or fully functioning Emily in this time, but you didn’t care, and you didn’t complain. Your love and patience has not gone without notice. I know that you were truly with me in this, and I thank you for that. This work could only happen because you were with me all the way. I would also like to thank my committee, who have pushed me towards valuable learning and bettered understanding. You have nudged me towards new knowledge and enabled me to grow as a scholar and I am very grateful. To my advisor, Ericka Menchen-Trevino, you have helped me at all moments, and you have gone above and beyond your role as teacher and mentor. I hope that in my future I can pay your kindness forward. You emulate what it means to be an educator and a researcher of integrity and purpose, and I feel lucky to have had you as a chair for my committee. I’ll never be able to thank you enough, but I appreciate all you have done for me. Finally, a special thank you to the other students in my cohort: we have all been on a journey together, and it was not always easy, but knowing I was in this with you all made a world of difference. I sincerely thank you all for being exactly who you are. Thank you for growing with me and helping me whenever you could, for venting with me but also looking on the bright side, for letting me feed you roughly 1,000 baked goods made with sugar, butter, flour, and stress, and for showing friendship at all bends in the road. I am glad to know you all and to have walked this road with you. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. iv LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................... viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS .......................................................................................................... x LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................................ xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1 A Hybrid Medium: Podcasts as Product, Culture, and Platform ............................ 4 A Hybrid Genre: Infotainment and the Crisis of Objectivity and Seriousness .............................................................................................................. 5 Statement of the Problem and Purpose of the Study ............................................... 9 Hybrid Methods: Content Analysis and Experimentation .................................... 12 Significance of the Study ...................................................................................... 14 Limitations of the Study ........................................................................................ 17 Organization of the Study ..................................................................................... 17 CHAPTER 2 HYBRID MEDIUMS, SYSTEMS, AND GENRES: DEFINING POLITICAL PODCASTS IN AN INCREASINGLY DIGITAL NEWS LANDSCAPE ............................................................................................................. 19 Radio, Podcasts, and the Legacy of Political Audio ............................................. 19 The Hybrid Media System and New Media Effects ............................................. 26 Social Media: The Megaphone Manager and Master of Media ............... 30 Effects of the Hybrid System: Reinforcement, Polarization, and Increased Partisanship ............................................................................... 32 A Hybrid Profession: Journalism Practice in a Changing WorlD ......................... 36 The Emerging Digital Press ...................................................................... 38 Objectivity Norms ..................................................................................... 40 Seriousness Norms .................................................................................... 42 Framing the Narrative: Political Framing Tactics in the Digital Age ................... 45 The Impact of Soft News and Infotainment Frames ............................................. 49 Humor Framing ......................................................................................... 53 Opinion Framing ....................................................................................... 56 v A Partisan Population: Attitude Strength as a Measure of Polarization ............... 57 Frames of Understanding: Political Knowledge and Recall ................................. 61 Summary and Research Questions ........................................................................ 64 CHAPTER 3 METHODS ................................................................................................ 66 Phase One: Content Analysis ................................................................................ 66 Podcast Selection ...................................................................................... 66 Qualitative Content Analysis .................................................................... 70 Developing the Coding Scheme ................................................................ 71 Phase Two: Online Survey Experiment ................................................................ 78 Creating Podcast Stories ........................................................................... 78 Preregistration ........................................................................................... 81 Sampling and Blinding Procedures ........................................................... 84 Survey Design ........................................................................................... 85 Variables ................................................................................................... 87 Measured Variables .................................................................................. 88 Summary ............................................................................................................... 90 CHAPTER 4 CONTENT ANALYSIS FINDINGS ........................................................ 92 Descriptive Analysis ............................................................................................. 97 Global News Podcast ...............................................................................