Rossow); "The Plague' Over Time: a Longitudinal Study of How Newspaper Type and Community Location Have Influenced Basic Decisions About AIDS Reporting" (Marshel D

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Rossow); DOCUMENT RESUME ED 362 922 CS 508 356 TITLE Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (76th, Kansas City, Missouri, August 11-14, 1993). Part X: Health, Science, and the Environment. INSTITUTION Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. PUB DATE Aug 93 NOTE 301p.; For other sections of these proceedings, see CS 508 347-362. For 1992 proceedings, see ED 349 608 623. PUB TYPE Collected Works - Conference Proceedings (021) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC13 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome; *Audience Response; Communication Research; *Information Sources; *Mass Media Role; Media Research; *News Reporting IDENTIFIERS Consumers; *Environmental Reporting; *Health Communication; News Sources; Public Service Advertising; Risk Assessment; Science News ABSTRACT The Health, Science, and the Environment section of this collection of conference presentations contains the following 10 papers: "Telling Stories about Superfund Sites" (Sharon Dunwoody and Robert J. Griffin); "Understanding Audience Reactions to AIDS Messages: An Adaptation of the Meaning-Based Model" (Sujatha Sosale); "Newspapers Provide Functional Information in Controversial Contexts for Consumers To Act: A Study about a Hazardous Waste Incinerator Issue at East Liverpool, Ohio" (Juanita Evans Dailey); "The Waron Drugs: A Constructionist View" (Michael P. McCauley and Edward R. Frederick); "Packaging Dissent: Radical Environmentalism, Television News, and Ideological Containment" (Rick Clifton Moore); "Dimensions Influencing Risk Perception: The Case of Lung Mseases" (Leandro L. Batista and Dulcie Straughan); "Reacting to the 'S' Word: Newspaper Type, Community Location and Coverage of Suicide News" (Marshel D. Rossow); "The Plague' over Time: A Longitudinal Study of How Newspaper Type and Community Location Have Influenced Basic Decisions about AIDS Reporting" (Marshel D. Rossow); "Take A Bite Out of Problems: PSA Research Reviewed and Extended" (Virginia Roark); and "Media, Opinion, and Global Warming: An Agenda-Setting Study ofan Environmental Issue, 1988-1992." (Craig Trumbo). *********************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best thatcan be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR EDUCATION IN JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION (76TH, KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, AUGUST 11-14, 1993). PART X : HEALTH, SCIENCE, AND THE ENVIRONMENT. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Moe of Educationai Re March and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS CENTER (ERIC) MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTEDBY Nia Thus document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization onginating it 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduchon Quality Points of view or opinions stated in this docu- ment do not necessarily represent official OE RI positron or policy TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." BESI COPY AVAILABLE 1 Telling Stories About Superfund Sites Sharon Dunwoody School of Journalism and Mass Communication University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI 53706 USA Robert J. Griffin College of Communication, Journalism and Performing Arts Marquette University Milwaukee, WI 53233 USA Presented to SCIgroup session, Association for Education in Journal it;fri and Mass Communication annual meeting, Kansas City, August 1993 3 2 Telling Stories About Superfund Sites* Reporting on environmental contamination presents journalists with enormous challenges. For one, pollutants often constitute health hazards, saddling reporters with the task of explaining the extent and nature of those risks. For another, pollution problems usually come wrapped in highly technical language, making explanation ofeven the simplest phenomenon difficult indeed. For yet another, environmental contaminatibn, like other environmental issues, is awash in ambiguities. Experts rarely seem to know whata particular chemical does in a particular situation, and even when they claim to know, they may disagree. Finally, this kind of environmental issue can take years to resolve, a disconcerting state of affairs for an occupationjournalism--that wants to limit itself to what :appened today. In this study we characterize some of the ways journalists cope with coverage of a specific class of long-term environmental risks: Superfund sites in the United States. Specifically, we explore the development of the ways that media organizations interpreted the newsworthy attributes of three contaminated sites in Wisconsin, starting from their designation as Superfund sites some years ago. We interpret our data through the lenses of three conceptual frameworks. The first is the concept of schema or frame,an individual- level cognitive structure that guides a journalist's process of "making sense" ofa story. The other two concepts are factors that could strongly govern the construction of journalistic frames: occupational norms and community structures. Theoretical Framework Frames All individuals interpret their world by calling on knowledge structures thatare acquired through shared social learning, individual experiences, and personal reasoning (Graber, 1988). If two individuals who encounter workers toppling a large, aged tree in *This paper is based on research funded by the U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency under Cooperative Agreement CR-817599-01-0. A more detailed discussion of these findings is available in a book chapter Sharon Dunwoody and Robert J. Griffin, "Journalistic Strategies for Reporting Long-Term Environmental Issues: A Case Study of Three Superfund Sites," in Anders Hansen, ed., The Mass Media and Environmental Issues.Leicester University Press, 1993. 4 3 their neighborhood react differently, they may do so in part because that event has activated two very different interpretive schemata, or frames. One person may view the scenario with relief because she defines the tree as a potential hazard that strong winds may send crashing onto nearby homes. The other, conversely, may react to the process with sadness since he views the tree as a grand.' old survivor of pre-settlement days. "Humans," says Mendelsohn (1990, p. 38), "act Eccording to what they know and understand (or misunderstand), and not necessarily according to what they simply see or hear." These mental maps come in varying levels of sophistication across individuals and, for any one person, will differ in level of detail across topics. The important point is that they play a crucial role in sense-ma'-ing. Things in our world have meaning only to the extent that they get incorporated into these customized frames. Journalists, too, make sense of their world by incorporating stimuli into their available cognitive maps (Gitlin, 1980; Stocking and Gross, 1989). However, they employ frames not only to interpret phenomena for themselves but also to construct the stories that we encounter in our daily newspaper or TV news reports. "A frame," say Tankard et al. (1991, p. 5), "is a central organizing idea for news that supplies a context and suggests what the issue is through the use of selection, emphasis, exclusion, and elaboration." These frames are essential for journalistic work because reporters and editors must make speedy decisions about what in their environment is worth their attention. A journalist with 30 minutes to write a story does not spend much time contemplating "what the story is about." That particular decision is made in seconds, and the reporter then uses the bulk of her 30 minutes to select and order information in ways that are consonant with the chosen meaning framework Considerable evidence suggests that the frames that journalists use for story construction are not idiosyncratic (e.g., Rachlin, 1988; van Dijk, 1988). Rather, journalists across a wide range of media seem to employ similar mental maps and, thus, produce stories that reconstitute the world in similar ways. Evidence is growing that those frames influence the ways in which stories about science and environment are constructed for public consumption. For example, when a nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island sprang a leak in 1979, many media organizations defined the event initially as "an accident" and sent general reportersindividuals adept at covering fast-breaking news--to the scene.It was not until many of these journalists began floundering in a sea of technical terms and terrifying imagesfor example, the ominous hydrogen bubble that was hypothesized to be growing inside the damaged reactorthat these organizations redefined the event and sent in their science reporters. Rubin, who headed a subsequent3westigation of media coverage of TMI, 4 reported that journalists' information-gathering effortswere so accident-oriented during the crisis that "science writers had little opportunity to ask sophisticated questions of knowledgeable sources" (Rubin, 1980:. Similarly, a study of journalists' coverage of social science research topics byWeiss and Singer (1988) found that reporters rarely defined the topics they dealt withas belonging to the domain of science ST of scientific disciplines but, instead, framed themas "crime stories" or "poll stories." The absence of a "science" frame, then, made theuse of scientific information rare in these accounts. For example, ifa journalist decided to write a story about the homeless, he might very well frame it
Recommended publications
  • Was the Tooth Fairy Breast Fed? the Politics of Infant Tooth Decay
    Was the Tooth Fairy Breast Fed? The Politics of Infant Tooth Decay Yvonne Luxford Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of New South Wales ORIGINALITY STATEMENT ‘I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project's design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.’ Signed ……………………………………………........................... i COPYRIGHT STATEMENT ‘I hereby grant the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. I also authorise University Microfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my thesis in Dissertation Abstract International.
    [Show full text]
  • Richard R. Jurin · Donny Roush · Jeff Danter Skills and Principles For
    Richard R. Jurin · Donny Roush · Jeff Danter 1 Environmental Communication Skills and Principles for Natural Resource Managers, Scientists, and Engineers Second Edition 123 Environmental Communication Second Edition Richard R. Jurin ● Donny Roush Jeff Danter Environmental Communication Skills and Principles for Natural Resource Managers, Scientists, and Engineers Second Edition Richard R. Jurin Donny Roush School of Biological Sciences Odyssey School University of Northern Colorado Denver, CO Greeley, CO USA USA [email protected] [email protected] Jeff Danter The Nature Conservancy Florida Chapter USA [email protected] ISBN 978-90-481-3986-6 e-ISBN 978-90-481-3987-3 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3987-3 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2010924748 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Cover illustration: ‘Rock Wall in Forest’ by Ken Shearer Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Preface rock wall stands on a forest floor in New England. This wall was built when the United States was a young nation, by human hands. Between its A origin (circa 1800) and now, there have been shifts in this scene – some marked, some less apparent.
    [Show full text]
  • How Subject Reactivity Influences Visual Journalism
    MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE: HOW SUBJECT REACTIVITY INFLUENCES VISUAL JOURNALISM _______________________________________ A Thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri-Columbia _______________________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts _____________________________________________________ by T.J. THOMSON Dr. Keith Greenwood, Thesis Supervisor JULY 2015 The undersigned, appointed by the dean of the Graduate School, have examined the thesis entitled MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE: HOW SUBJECT REACTIVITY INFLUENCES VISUAL JOURNALISM presented by T.J. THOMSON, a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts, and hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance. Associate Professor Keith Greenwood Professor David Rees Assistant Professor Brian Kratzer Associate Professor Wayne Brekhus ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I extend my heartfelt gratitude to Keith Greenwood, committee chair, who graciously answered questions, provided insightful feedback, and posed keen questions that allowed me to explore and refine my research interests and methodologies. Thanks to Brian Kratzer, committee member, who, in conjunction with my committee chair, allowed me to conduct a pilot study of this research at the Missourian during the spring 2015 semester, and who epitomizes patience. Thanks to David Rees, committee member, who exposed me to the photo elicitation methodology used in this research and whose love of life and humor brightened up countless interactions. Thanks to Wayne Brekhus, committee member, who wrote a book about identities that provided background for my research and who graciously agreed to meet with and serve on my committee. Thanks also to the dozens of students, colleagues, and fellow editors who helped form my research interests through discussion, interviews, and the candid sharing of their insight and experience.
    [Show full text]
  • Notable Alphas Fraternity Mission Statement
    ALPHA PHI ALPHA NOTABLE ALPHAS FRATERNITY MISSION STATEMENT ALPHA PHI ALPHA FRATERNITY DEVELOPS LEADERS, PROMOTES BROTHERHOOD AND ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE, WHILE PROVIDING SERVICE AND ADVOCACY FOR OUR COMMUNITIES. FRATERNITY VISION STATEMENT The objectives of this Fraternity shall be: to stimulate the ambition of its members; to prepare them for the greatest usefulness in the causes of humanity, freedom, and dignity of the individual; to encourage the highest and noblest form of manhood; and to aid down-trodden humanity in its efforts to achieve higher social, economic and intellectual status. The first two objectives- (1) to stimulate the ambition of its members and (2) to prepare them for the greatest usefulness in the cause of humanity, freedom, and dignity of the individual-serve as the basis for the establishment of Alpha University. Table Of Contents Table of Contents THE JEWELS . .5 ACADEMIA/EDUCATORS . .6 PROFESSORS & RESEARCHERS. .8 RHODES SCHOLARS . .9 ENTERTAINMENT . 11 MUSIC . 11 FILM, TELEVISION, & THEATER . 12 GOVERNMENT/LAW/PUBLIC POLICY . 13 VICE PRESIDENTS/SUPREME COURT . 13 CABINET & CABINET LEVEL RANKS . 13 MEMBERS OF CONGRESS . 14 GOVERNORS & LT. GOVERNORS . 16 AMBASSADORS . 16 MAYORS . 17 JUDGES/LAWYERS . 19 U.S. POLITICAL & LEGAL FIGURES . 20 OFFICIALS OUTSIDE THE U.S. 21 JOURNALISM/MEDIA . 21 LITERATURE . .22 MILITARY SERVICE . 23 RELIGION . .23 SCIENCE . .24 SERVICE/SOCIAL REFORM . 25 SPORTS . .27 OLYMPICS . .27 BASKETBALL . .28 AMERICAN FOOTBALL . 29 OTHER ATHLETICS . 32 OTHER ALPHAS . .32 NOTABLE ALPHAS 3 4 ALPHA PHI ALPHA ADVISOR HANDBOOK THE FOUNDERS THE SEVEN JEWELS NAME CHAPTER NOTABILITY THE JEWELS Co-founder of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity; 6th Henry A. Callis Alpha General President of Alpha Phi Alpha Co-founder of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity; Charles H.
    [Show full text]
  • JOUR 321: Visual Journalism 2 Units
    JOUR 321: Visual Journalism 2 Units Fall 2018 – Thursday 12:30 p.m. – 2:10 p.m. Section: 21171D Location: ANN 307 Instructor: David Matorin Office Hours: Thursdays, 2:10-3:10 p.m. and by arrangement. Contact Info: [email protected]; [email protected]; 917.710.1660 Course Description Students will gain an understanding of visual journalism through theory and practical application while exploring current and emerging story forms. Students will learn video for digital platforms, principles of photography, design for web and mobile platforms, and the roles each play in interactive and engaging storytelling. An emphasis will be placed on narrative, documentary-style video and visual stories for web and social media. Students also will learn elements of design related to typography, layout, engagement and user interface as they apply to journalistic story forms across platforms. Social media will also be an integral outlet for photo and video stories. In addition to providing you with skills necessary to produce journalistic multimedia stories, including videos and audio slideshows, we will also cover an introduction to principles of digital news design, interactivity and presentation. Ethical, legal and social issues affecting visual journalists will be discussed. We will take a practical, hands-on approach in this class. An introduction to photo, audio and video editing software will be provided. A modern mobile device or tablet device with a camera such as the iPhone 7 Plus or Samsung Galaxy S8, will be used as a primary content gathering device in the class. The device, mobile apps (shooting, editing and special purpose) and additional equipment are also major topics addressed during the course.
    [Show full text]
  • Carbonite Operation Manual
    Carbonite & Carbonite eXtreme OPERATION MANUAL v10.0 www.rossvideo.com times of company or customer crisis - do what you Thank You For Choosing know in your heart is right. (You may rent helicopters if necessary.) Ross You've made a great choice. We expect you will be very happy with your purchase of Ross Technology. Our mission is to: 1. Provide a Superior Customer Experience • offer the best product quality and support 2. Make Cool Practical Technology • develop great products that customers love Ross has become well known for the Ross Video Code of Ethics. It guides our interactions and empowers our employees. I hope you enjoy reading it below. If anything at all with your Ross experience does not live up to your expectations be sure to reach out to us at [email protected]. David Ross CEO, Ross Video [email protected] Ross Video Code of Ethics Any company is the sum total of the people that make things happen. At Ross, our employees are a special group. Our employees truly care about doing a great job and delivering a high quality customer experience every day. This code of ethics hangs on the wall of all Ross Video locations to guide our behavior: 1. We will always act in our customers' best interest. 2. We will do our best to understand our customers' requirements. 3. We will not ship crap. 4. We will be great to work with. 5. We will do something extra for our customers, as an apology, when something big goes wrong and it's our fault.
    [Show full text]
  • Visual Journalism
    SYLLABUS VISUAL JOURNALISM Instructor: Simon Waldman Contact Hours: 40 Language of Instruction: English LONDON, ENGLAND COURSE DESCRIPTION To misquote Mark Twain, reports of the death of TV journalism have been greatly exaggerated. But the landscape is changing with bewildering speed. The way we watch news has undergone a revolution in the past decade – a revolution that shows no sign of slowing down. And the way younger people get their news continues to challenge the world’s major broadcasters. But the essential principles that underpin the creation of high quality video journalism seem – so far - to have survived this upheaval. This course combines intensely practical sessions covering the skills and techniques necessary for producing broadcast standard visual journalism with discussion and debate on the shifting tectonic plates in the industry. Students will hear from – and be able to question - leading figures from major TV and online news organisations and they will have the opportunity to spend time in the TV News studios at the headquarters of the BBC. By the end of the course, they will have created their own TV programme. Each week, we will examine different aspects of the production of visual journalism and explore the changing nature of the medium. What are the ingredients needed for an attention- grabbing package? Does EVERY picture tell a story? What makes material shareable? How should journalists frame their questions to elicit the sound-bite answers they seek? How should each shot be framed to achieve the best results? What does the phrase “citizen journalist” really mean? And, now that everyone can put video material online, what will be the impact of the “citizen publisher”? Much of the material we create will use equipment that (almost) every student already owns: a mobile phone.
    [Show full text]
  • 06 7-26-11 TV Guide.Indd
    Page 6 THE NORTON TELEGRAM Tuesday, July 26, 2011 Monday Evening August 1, 2011 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30 10:00 10:30 11:00 11:30 KHGI/ABC The Bachelorette The Bachelorette Local Nightline Jimmy Kimmel Live WEEK OF FRIDAY , JULY 29 THROUGH THURSDAY , AUG . 4 KBSH/CBS How I Met Mike Two Men Mike Hawaii Five-0 Local Late Show Letterman Late KSNK/NBC America's Got Talent Law Order: CI Harry's Law Local Tonight Show w/Leno Late FOX Hell's Kitchen MasterChef Local Cable Channels A&E Hoarders Hoarders Intervention Intervention Hoarders AMC The Godfather The Godfather ANIM I Shouldn't Be Alive I Shouldn't Be Alive Hostage in Paradise I Shouldn't Be Alive I Shouldn't Be Alive CNN In the Arena Piers Morgan Tonight Anderson Cooper 360 To Be Announced Piers Morgan Tonight DISC Jaws of the Pacific Rogue Sharks Summer of the Shark Rogue Sharks Summer of the Shark DISN Good Luck Shake It Bolt Phineas Phineas Wizards Wizards E! Sex-City Sex-City Ice-Coco Ice-Coco True Hollywood Story Chelsea E! News Chelsea Norton TV ESPN MLB Baseball Baseball Tonight SportsCenter Baseball NFL Live ESPN2 SportsNation Soccer World, Poker World, Poker FAM Secret-Teen Switched at Birth Secret-Teen The 700 Club My Wife My Wife FX Earth Stood Earth Stood HGTV House Hunters Design Star High Low Hunters House House Design Star HIST Pawn Pawn American Pickers Pawn Pawn Top Gear Pawn Pawn LIFE Craigslist Killer The Protector The Protector Chris How I Met Listings: MTV True Life MTV Special Teen Wolf Teen Wolf Awkward.
    [Show full text]
  • Brush Palettes (Menus) and the Controls Within Them
    Palette Reference From ZBrushInfo The subjects below give descriptions of the ZBrush palettes (menus) and the controls within them. Many of these descriptions include conceptual overviews and examples. Particularly large palettes have been split into sections. Alpha Palette Manages alphas, which are ZBrush intensity maps. This is an important palette because alphas can be used for many more operations than in other programs. Brush Palette Contains all of the 3D sculpting brushes. Color Palette Allows setting or selecting of colors, and also filling the canvas or an object with a selected color. Document Palette Provides document operations; opening, saving, resizing, etc. Draw Palette Controls and gives information on aspects of the currently selected tool. For example, Draw sets brush size. This is not an extremely complex palette, but it is important, and many of its controls are made available as shortcuts in the area surrounding the ZBrush canvas. Edit Palette Controls Undo and Redo operations. Layer Palette Layers allow you to organize a complex ZBrush scene into different layers; each layer contains part of the scene. Since ZBrush brush strokes contain depth information, layers provide a powerful scene management tool without the need to consider if elements of one layer might block elements of another. Layers can be made invisible to more easily work with other parts of a scene. Light Palette Controls scene lighting; this in turn affects rendering, both in interactive and batch- rendered views. Macro Palette Allows easy recording of sequences of actions. This is particularly useful for recording actions that make a number of settings that define, for example, a favorite brush combination.
    [Show full text]
  • Journalism (JRN) 1
    Journalism (JRN) 1 Journalism (JRN) Courses JRN 1101. Elements of Writing. 2 Credit Hours. This course focuses on the fundamentals of style and language usage necessary for effective writing. Repeatability: This course may not be repeated for additional credits. JRN 1111. Journalism and Society. 3 Credit Hours. The purpose of this course is to acquaint students with concepts and functions of journalism and the related industries of advertising and public relations in American society. Students will gain knowledge about the history, economics and industry structure of these industries, focusing on how mass media content is determined and disseminated. We will explore underlying values associated with journalism, relationships between journalism and other social institutions, and current issues facing journalists. NOTE: (1) Departmental core course. Normally taken as the first Journalism course. A grade of C or higher is required in order to take higher-level Journalism courses. (2) This course can be used to satisfy the university Core Individual and Society (IN) requirement. Although it may be usable towards graduation as a major requirement or university elective, it cannot be used to satisfy any of the university GenEd requirements. See your advisor for further information. Course Attributes: IN Repeatability: This course may not be repeated for additional credits. JRN 1113. Audio/Visual Newsgathering. 3 Credit Hours. This course will present students with additional story-telling tools by introducing them to basic techniques of reporting with and editing sound and video. The emphasis of this course will be on the use of digital audio and video recorders in the field to produce news stories for radio, television and the web.
    [Show full text]
  • Youtube Report Draft V4
    MONDAY, JULY 16 YouTube & News A new kind of visual journalism FOR FUTHER INFORMATION: Tom Rosenstiel, Director, Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism Amy Mitchell, Deputy Director, Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism (202) 419-3650 1515 L St, N.W., Suite 700 Washington, D.C. 20036 www.journalism.org YouTube & News: A New Kind of Visual Journalism Introduction On March 11, 2011, an earthquake registering 9.0 on the Richter scale struck the coast of northeastern Japan, triggering a tsunami that would kill more than 18,000 people and leave an estimated $180 billion in damage. The news media worldwide provided extensive coverage of the disaster and its aftermath, but millions of people also turned to the web to learn about the event on the video sharing website YouTube. 1 In the seven days following the disaster (March 11-18), the 20 most viewed news-related videos on YouTube all focused on the tragedy—and were viewed more than 96 million times. What people saw in these videos also represented a new kind of visual journalism. Most of that footage was recorded by citizen eyewitnesses who found themselves caught in the tragedy. Some of that video was posted by the citizens themselves. Most of this citizen-footage, however, was posted by news organizations incorporating user-generated content into their news offerings. The most watched video of all was shot by what appeared to be fixed closed-circuit surveillance camera at the Sendai airport. Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DSSssHxm4Y The disaster in Japan was hardly a unique case.
    [Show full text]
  • Wildlife and Newspaper Reporting in Iran: a Data Analysis Approach
    animals Article Wildlife and Newspaper Reporting in Iran: A Data Analysis Approach Farshad Amiraslani 1,* and Deirdre Dragovich 2 1 School of Geography & Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Life & Health Sciences, Ulster University, Coleraine BT52 1SA, UK 2 School of Geosciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +44-(0)792-892-4090 Simple Summary: Three major Iranian daily newspapers were analysed for news items relating to wildlife, covering a 7-year study period. Wildlife items were characterised by public awareness (51%), columnist contributions (46%), and local spatiality (43%). Most items (82%) were allocated space of less than half a page. Results highlighted the minimal number and small space devoted to wildlife news items in Iranian newspapers. Abstract: Human response to wildlife management is widespread, encompassing both human– wildlife conflicts and wildlife conservation, in different places and at different times. As people become increasingly aware of the importance of wildlife to biological and environmental sustainabil- ity, newspapers can be important sources of information, especially in developing countries, such as Iran. Three major Iranian daily newspapers were analysed for news items related to wildlife. Over the 7-year study period, 434 articles presented environmental news, of which 61 items referred to wildlife. Each wildlife item was recorded in terms of message, contributor, spatiality, and allocated space. Structure query language (SQL) was used to analyse relationships between the 915 fields/entries. Wildlife items were characterised by public awareness (51%), columnist contributions (46%), and local Citation: Amiraslani, F.; Dragovich, spatiality (43%). Most items (82%) were allocated space of less than half a page.
    [Show full text]