The Content and Timing of Media Coverage of Message Events: Cycles and Comparisions

消息事件媒体报道的内容和时机：周期和比较

• 批准号: 9819884
• 负责人: Pamela Oliver
• 金额: $ 12.35万
• 依托单位: University of Wisconsin-Madison
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-04-01 至 2002-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9819884&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Content; Timing; Media; Coverage; Message

In a democratic state, citizens may express concerns about public issues through staging social protest events, and communicate their message to a broader public by attracting media attention for their events. But the media do not cover all such events, and the content of the media coverage may be favorable or unfavorable to the message that those staging the event are attempting to convey. Because the media are so important in the process of communicating with the public, and because most research on public events necessarily relies on newspaper archives, it is important to understand the factors that determine whether an event is covered in the mass media and, if covered, what the nature of the coverage is. The present project analyzes data from four years (1993-1996) in Madison, Wisconsin to determine the interplay between claims-making events and the content and timing of media coverage. Data include records of claim-making events from five sets of police archives, and text files of local newspaper stories. Stories are coded for the prominence and content of their coverage of public events. These are supplemented by searches of electronic newspaper archives for other coverage of the issues and organizations involved in the events. Statistical analyses demonstrate different patterns for the timing and content of event coverage depending on the form and sponsor of the event, and show the interplay between events and news coverage in the unfolding of protest campaigns. Comparisons with similar data collected in a small German city provide an initial basis for assessing the extent to which these results transcend differing political contexts.

在民主国家，公民可以通过举办社会抗议活动来表达对公共问题的关注，并通过吸引媒体对他们的活动的关注来向更广泛的公众传达他们的信息。但媒体并不报道所有这些事件，媒体报道的内容可能有利于或不利于那些策划事件的人试图传达的信息。由于媒体在与公众沟通的过程中非常重要，而且大多数关于公共事件的研究必然依赖于报纸档案，因此了解决定大众媒体是否报道事件的因素以及如果报道，报道的性质是什么非常重要。本项目分析了威斯康星州麦迪逊四年（1993-1996）的数据，以确定索赔事件和媒体报道的内容和时间之间的相互作用。数据包括五套警方档案中的索赔事件记录，以及当地报纸报道的文本文件。报道是根据其对公共事件报道的重要性和内容进行编码的。除此之外，还搜索电子报纸档案，以了解有关这些事件的问题和组织的其他报道。统计分析表明，事件报道的时间和内容取决于事件的形式和赞助商的不同模式，并显示事件和新闻报道之间的相互作用，在展开抗议运动。与德国一个小城市收集的类似数据进行比较，为评估这些结果超越不同政治背景的程度提供了初步基础。