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

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担忧，并通过吸引媒体对其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样的事件，媒体报道的内容可能有利于或不利于那些举办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，因此重要的是了解决定事件是否被大众媒体报道的因素，以及如果被报道，报道的性质是什么。本项目分析了威斯康星州麦迪逊四年(1993-1996年)的数据，以确定索赔事件与媒体报道的内容和时机之间的相互作用。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。故事是根据其对公共事件的报道的显着性和内容进行编码的。此外，还对电子报纸档案进行了检索，以获得有关事件所涉问题和组织的其他报道。统计分析显示，根据活动的形式和赞助商的不同，事件报道的时间和内容有不同的模式，并显示了事件和新闻报道在抗议运动展开过程中的相互作用。与在德国一个小城市收集的类似数据进行比较，为评估这些结果在多大程度上超越了不同的政治背景提供了初步基础。

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.