Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Using five different newspapers, I perform a content analysis comparing the hate crimes of James Byrd Jr. and Matthew Shepard. In over 300 news articles and editorials, Matthew Shepard is repeatedly portrayed as an “all American kid” who happened to be gay. James Byrd Jr., however, was portrayed as disabled African-American man, hard up on his luck, amidst a hardworking family. While portrayals of the respective killers accentuated their otherness as white trash, in the case of Henderson and McKinney, and white supremacists, in the case of King, Brewer, and Berry. Regardless, this analysis revealed twice as many articles related to the murder of Mathew Shepard than James Byrd, Jr., suggesting a complex interplay of class, race, and sexuality.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Research in the fields of gender, media and cultural studies has long critiqued the content of women’s and girls’ magazines as depicting and perpetuating stereotypical images of women. Beginning in 1998 a new niche in this genre emerged, a stream of “baby glossies”, little sisters of well-established women’s titles. Taking CosmoGirl as a case study, I explore this self-avowedly “post-feminist” title. Using content analysis, I examine 19 issues, spanning the first two-years of this magazine’s publication. Drawing on data from previous studies, I find that this new title shows extensive similarity to other texts, specifically in terms of reinforcing a white, middle-class hetero-normative standard of teenage identity. I conclude with a discussion of the theoretical implications of post-feminist media.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper examines the influence of extramedia (outside) forces on the newsworthiness conceptions of online and print newspaper journalists. A national survey (N=655) found that while extramedia forces exerted only a moderate influence overall, there were more influential on the online group. Online newspaper journalists rated Audience Research, Advertisers, Public Opinion Polls, Wire Service Budgets, and Prestige Publications as significantly more influential than did print newspaper journalists.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: A study of the relative effectiveness of television and print to transmit news information was undertaken by exposing 100 university students to television stories that contained different text-picture formats and by comparing memory for these versions to other participants’ memory for the same news presented in print. The study was designed to retest the validity of two rival explanations for the relative effectiveness of television and print news (the reading control hypothesis versus the semantic overlap hypothesis). Results of a cued-recall test were in favor of the semantic overlap hypothesis. The study suggests that higher levels of semantic overlap between verbal and visual information on television news are decisive for the relative effectiveness of television and print.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: A random-sample telephone survey examined the market relation between online and print newspapers in Hong Kong, where more than a dozen newspapers and their online editions compete for readerships. This study compared the penetration rates of these newspapers’ print and online editions. Results showed the print editions enjoyed significantly higher penetrations than their online counterparts. The study also identified the overlap of the same newspaper’s online and print readerships. Print penetrations were not reduced among Web users. Readers of a newspaper’s online edition were more likely to read the same newspaper’s print edition and vice versa. These results have demonstrated striking similarities with what the earlier U.S.-based study has found -- suggesting the existence of a universal pattern characterizing the market relation between online and print newspapers.