Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Meaning is often constructed through dissemination of particular information communicated to the social body through the media. The ways in which messages concerning issues of justice are disseminated, formatted, and mediated, shape the very character of the way these messages are received and interpreted. Understanding then the organization, selection, and presentation of information disseminated by the media is necessary if we are to address general quires involving shared perceptions of social justice. This exploratory project represents an initial attempt at understanding some of the ways in which people might understand and negotiate social meanings of justice based from media presentations of celebrity trials. This paper adopts two analytical frameworks, Parker and Lauderdale’s (2003) conditions of political counterdenunciations and Altheide’s (2002) media logic in an effort to systematically analyze some of the logical contextual nuances concerning counterdenunciation acts utilized in the media in the recent Martha Stewart and Kimberly Jones (Lil’ Kim) trials. The findings presented here spotlight some of the ways in which the media act as a constituent to the overall process of counterdenunciation apart, but not necessarily removed from the context of the courtroom. Implications for future research are discussed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: One hundred and twenty nine African American women completed a survey which investigated the relationship between media use, media literacy and food consumption. The data indicated that that the frequency of news exposure was positively associated with healthy food choices and negatively associated with unhealthy ones. Further, media literacy was positively related to healthy food consumption and negatively related to unhealthy food consumption including visits to fast-food restaurants.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Although agenda-setting research is one of the most widely investigated theories in mass communication, it is still not clear whether newspapers or television are more powerful in terms of salience transfer from the media to the public. In addition, most agenda-setting studies are content- rather than attention-based, and use cross-sectional rather than panel data. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this study is to compare the predictive power of overall political news consumption, as well as media-specific news consumption, on perceived issue salience across different media channels and media types in the context of the 2006 Swedish parliamentary election. Findings suggest that overall consumption of political news is significantly more important than consumption of specific media outlets in predicting changes in issue salience, though there are exceptions. Although the study demonstrates that the Swedish news media collectively can exert considerable agenda-setting influence over their audiences, it could however not find any consistent evidence of differences related to media channels or media types. The reasons for and implications of the results are discussed

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: We show that the demand for news varies with the perceived affinity of the news organization to the consumer’s political preferences. In an experimental setting, conservatives and Republicans preferred to read news reports attributed to Fox News and to avoid news from CNN and NPR. Democrats and liberals exhibited exactly the opposite syndrome – dividing their attention equally between CNN and NPR, but avoiding Fox News. This pattern of selective exposure based on partisan affinity held not only for news coverage of controversial issues, but also for relatively "soft" subjects such as crime and travel. The tendency to select news based on anticipated agreement was also strengthened among more politically engaged partisans. Overall, our results suggest that the emergence of Fox News has contributed to the polarization of the news audience.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Despite the imperativeness of promoting media diversity, due to conceptual and methodological differences, no practical study has yet been done, which in turn hinders adequate implementation of the policy. Drawing upon this central concern of media diversity, the paper 1) interrogates the raised issues of media diversity within the political economy context, 2) defines the concept of media diversity, examining widely used approaches to the media diversity, and 3) proposes an integrated theoretical paradigm of media diversity relevant to the broadcasting industry, combining holistic and pragmatic approaches. The holistic approach provides a general guideline for establishing public interest standards for media diversity while the pragmatic approach helps assess specific areas of media diversity. In this way, the integrated theory can identify the relationship between normative concerns for the policy objective and specific indicators for the assessment of the multi-levels of the diversity dimension, vital to the explication of the complexity inherently in the concept of media diversity.