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Abstract
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VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The aim of this article by Davie and Lee was to analyze the relationship between topic categories and duplication of items in local TV news programs, especially with regard to coverage of sex and violence issues.
METHODOLOGY:
A quasi-experimental content analysis was employed for this study. The authors sought to answer two questions. (1) Is the frequency of duplication of news stories related to the specific topic(s) covered? (2) Are news stories that involve sensationalism (sex, violence, and human interest) duplicated more often than non-sensational stories? The three markets of Austin, San Antonio and Dallas-Fort Worth were selected for the sample because they each represented a different size and demographic population. In all, nine TV stations (three from each market) comprised the sample from which the 10 p.m. news broadcasts were videotaped over two five-day periods. This time-slot was selected because the authors believed that it reflected each network's cumulative stories for the day. Journalism students coded each tape for the following information: story location, source, recorded versus live, format, news category, and story length. The coders also summarized each piece's content with a descriptive sentence. In addition, the coders used dummy variables to record whether a story contained any reference to sex or violence. Intercoder reliability was calculated by the agreement percentage of the nine pairs of coders who had viewed the same newscast.
The authors defined the following terms used in coding. First, unique or diverse news stories distinguished a news item as having originated locally or not having been duplicated on any other taped broadcasts from that day. The terms consonant or duplicated were used to describe any story that appeared on at least two broadcasts that day. News peg referred to the one sentence description of a story. Sensationalism described news stories that featured human interest or acts of sex and/or violence. A local newscast signified the daily thirty-minute show of at least seven news stories presented by local anchors. Finally, market size was defined as the rank assigned to the geographic region by the Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area. The average intercoder reliability was 95% and recomputed with Scott's Pi to yield a level of intercoder agreement of .90. The content of 90 half-hour news broadcasts were coded. The authors used descriptive statistics and chi-square tests to analyze the data.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
First, they found that 56% of the news items were coded as duplicated. Topics were found present in the following frequencies: government and politics (32%), crimes and courts (19%), and human interest (14%). The first research question addressed the relationship between topic and duplication of news stories. The authors found that sports had the highest percentage of unique stories, with business/economics and human interest stories having the next highest rates of uniqueness. The authors concluded that the variables consonance and news topics had a strong, positive association. The second research question focused on the duplication of sensational stories. Sensational items comprised 31% of all the sample stories. The authors found a significant and strong relationship in the opposite direction and disproved the hypothesis that sensationalism was related to duplication. However, once the authors conducted separate analyses for the human interest stories versus the sex and/or violence stories they found a significant and positive association with duplication. The authors suggested that TV editors tended to select similar sex and violence stories for their visual and dramatic qualities.
AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS:
The authors recommended that further studies examine early and mid-day time-slots, in addition to evening newscasts.
EVALUATION:
In general, the authors point out that this study makes a unique contribution to news content analyses in the area of politics and crimes by contradicting past findings that show less duplicated stories on these topics. It should be noted that the small sample size and geographic specificity limits the generalizability of these findings. Also, their definition of the variable sensationalism includes sex, violence and human interest. This operationalization presents internal validity concerns -- should those three broad and diverse topic areas all be equal and coded as sensational? In conclusion, this study offers a narrow view of how news categories relate to duplication of stories.
(CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
KW - Television Violence
KW - Media Violence Effects
KW - Program-Film Content
KW - Television News
KW - Sexual Content
KW - Media Factors
KW - Media Coverage |