DOCUMENT RESUME ED 376 526 CS 508 737 TITLE Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (77th, Atlanta, Georgia, August 10-13, 1994). Part III: Media and Society. INSTITUTION Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. PUB DATE Aug 94 NOTE 455p.; For other sections of these proceedings, see CS 508 735-744. For 1993 proceedings, see ED 362 913-925 and ED 366 041. PUB TYPE Collected Works Conference Proceedings (021) EDRS PRICE MFO1 /PC19 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Audience Response; Cable Television; Community Responsibility; Evaluation Criteria; Journalism History; Media Research; *News Media; *Newspapers; Radio; Religious Factors; *Television Viewing IDENTIFIERS Black Press; Federal Communications Commission; *Media Coverage; Parasocial Interaction; Tabloid Newspapers; *Television News ABSTRACT The Media and Society section of this collection of conference presentations contains the following 14 papers: "A Portrait of Urban Conflict: The 'L.A. Times' Coverage of the Los Angeles Riots" (Tony Atwater and Niranjala D. Weerakkody); "Perceptions of News Media Managers toward Their Own Corporate Community Responsibility" (David A. Olsen and others); "Personalization of the News and Burke's Notion of Circumference: A Case Study of Press Coverage of the 'Navajo Flu'" (Nancy Mitchell); "Phenomenology as Communication Science: A Study of Parasocial Interaction in TV News" (Russell J. Cook); "Press Theories, Practices, and Their Legacies for the Future of the News Media" (Patrick Daley); "The Black Press and the 1970 Trinidadian Black Power Revolt: An Examination of the 'New Pittsburgh Courier'" (Lisa A. McClean); "News Values and the Oppressed: U.S. News and the Brazilian Street Children, 1989-1993" (Jack Lule); "The Influence of Tabloid-Style TV News on Viewer Recall, Interest and Perception of Importance" (Michael E. Cremedas and Fiona Chew); "How Editors and Readers Rank the Importance of 18 Traditional Standards of Newspaper Excellence" (George Albert Gladney); "Broadcast Hoaxes: Good Clean Fun or Public Harm? A Study of the FCC's Regulation of Broadcast Hoaxes" (Cyndy A. Cooper); "Newspaper Subscribing and Community Integration: The Role of Ties to Local Church Communities" (Judith M. Buddenbaum); "Newsroom Views about Consultants in Local TV: The Effect of Work Roles and Socialization" (Dan Berkowitz and others); "An Ethnic Study of Polarization in a Multi-Channel Environment" (Don Umphrey and Alan B. Albarran); and "Ir ormation Subsidies and Agenda Building: A Study of Local Radio News" (Joseph E. Burns). (RS) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR EDUCATION IN JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION (77th, Atlanta, Georgia, August 10-13, 1994). Part III: Media and Society. U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER 'ERIC) MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY CY This document has been reproduced as received from the person or Organization originating it 0 Minor changes have been made to impruvc reproduction ourrlav Point, el view or otmons stated to thlt, document do not necessaniv represent TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES official OERI posainn Or policy INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 2 BEST COPY AVAILABLE A PORTRAIT OF URBAN CONFLICT: THE L.A. TIMES COVERAGE OF THE LOS ANGELES RIOTS BY Tony Atwater, Ph.D. Niranjala D. Weerakkody Rutgers University Scho..)1 of Communication, Information and Library Studies Phone: 908/932-8567 A research paper presented to the Newspaper Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication at the 1994 AEJMC Convention, Atlanta. Tony Atwater is Professor and Chairperson in the utgers Department of Journalism and Mass Media. Niranjala D. Weerakkody is a doctoral student in the Ph.D. Program in Communication and Information Studies at Rutgers. A PORTRAIT OF URBAN CONFLICT: THE L.A. TIMES COVERAGE OF THE LOS ANGELES RIOTS BY Tony Atwater, Ph.D. Niranjala D. Weerakkody Rutgers University School of Communication, Information and Library Studies ABSTRACT A total of 247 news items relating to the Los Angeles Riots of 1992, as published in the L.A. Times were analyzed. The purpose of the study was to provide descriptive evidence of how this major national daily covered one of the nation's deadliest social conflicts. A content analysis was undertaken to examine how media coverage of the riots compared to findings from earlier studies on media coverage of crises. The findings showed that the L.A. Times devoted 28 percent of published stories on the riot to stories that qualified as commentary/analysis. The results also indicated that the sources most relied upon in covering the riots were non-traditional (and non-official) sources. 4 t 1 INTRODUCTION On April 29, 1992 south central Los Angeles was the site of social discord and violence following the acquittal of four white L.A. police officers charged in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King. For approximately three days the "City of Angels" was ravaged by arson and looting as race relations in America became the focus of world attention. One of the nation's largest and most respected news organizations, The Los Angeles Times, chronicled the events of the Los Angeles riots, although it did not (at the time) staff a south central news bureau. For this major national daily, the incident became a subject of both local and national news coverage. The mass media play an important role in times of crisis as news consumers depend on media to learn about the impact and resolution of immediate and potentially harmful conditions to social welfare. Newspapers have been considered important agents in composing the first draft of history and have been popularly regarded as the medium of record. This study comprehensively examined the nature of coverage, which the L.A. Times devoted to the Los Angeles riots to provide a case study of how a major national daily covered a crisis event in its own back yard. The authors have attempted to systematically assess the narrative portrayal of this historically significant event to contribute to the body of research on media coverage of social conflict. The nature of the L.A. Times coverage of the Los Angeles riots was examined with respect to several issues. The study 2 investigated the topics that consumed the most attention in the several days comprising the height of unrest in south central L.A. Secondly, the study examined specific news sources relied upon by the L.A. Times in covering one of the nation's deadliest riots. Thirdly, the volume of riot coverage was examined over a five-day period to assess the overall emphasis given to the story and relative story treatment on specific days of the crisis. The analysis also assessed the extent to which the L.A. Times coverage reflected commentary and analysis in reporting the riot. An effort was made to describe the amount of coverage devoted to hard news, analyses and 1,uman interest stories. Finally, the study examined the frequency of story topics and news sources reported over a five-day period covering the outset of the riot and its subsequent arrest. The above issues were regarded as important in understanding the range of perspectives and topics that the L.A. Times exhibited in reporting the crisis to both local and national audiences. A central issue in the aftermath of the riot involved the lack of public awareness of antecedent and potentially precipitating factors to the Los Angeles riots. This study attempted to explore the extent to which the L.A. Times provided an analysis of potential conditions that contributed to the urban violence in the spring of 1992. The literature on media coverage of crises and social conflict suggests that mass media, particularly television, 3 portray crises and disasters in dramatic terms with less attention to analysis and interpretation. In his study of television network coverage of the TWA hostage crisis, Atwater (1987) found that only nine percent of stories on evening newscasts provided commentary and analysis. Knudson (1974) examined the news coverage of the Chilean coup in 20 national and local newspapers. He observed that surface violence was the focus of news accounts while underlying social, economic and political factors were largely ignored. Larson (1986) analyzed network television coverage of Iran between 1972 and 1981. He observed that television, like the print media, provides saturation coverage on a "big story" while failing to capture historical perspective and context. He concluded that policy-makers, as well as television journalists, missed a major part of the scenario leading up to the Iran hostage crisis and its dramatic portrayal. How events and conditions become interpreted as crises has also been the subject of investitions by social scientists. According to Edelman (1980), a crisis is an episode in a long sequence of similar problems, and no characteristic of any episode makes it the precipitant: of a crisis. Offe (1984) defined crises as "processes" in which the structure of a system as called into question. He suggested that a crisis is a chain of events often confined to a short period of time. Consequently, by failing to link events with social structures, the media risk not seeing a crisis as characteristic