Brooke Barnett

This Just in … How National TV News Handled the Breaking “Live” Coverage of September 11

This study identifies the different roles that journalists assumed in breaking news coverage of the September 11 terrorism attacks and explores how a change in traditional reporting routines might affect the type of information broadcast journalists disseminate. The first five hours of breaking news coverage of the September 11 attacks on CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS is examined through content analysis. The data show that journalists who broke the news of September 11 assumed multiple roles to deliver information including that of expert and social commentator; they reported rumors, used anonymous sources, and frequently included personal references in their reporting.

PCTV: Consumers, Expectancy-Value and Likely Adoption

This study examines the potential of PCTV (watching television on your PC) among consumers. An intercept field study that included product demonstration with a convenience sample of US adults was conducted (N = 309). Expectancy-value theory was used to measure respondents’ interest in PCTV. While a majority had heard of the product, expectations of what PCTV could provide remained low and as a result, value and subsequent interest was low. As terrestrial broadcasting, cable, telephone, internet companies and other programming providers explore the potential market for PCTV and promote that market, the possibility exists that value related to PCTV could be developed. In other words, PCTV remains an open field waiting for leadership to manifest its diffusion.

Polarizing patriots: divergent responses to patriotic imagery in news coverage of terrorism

We demonstrate that the use of patriotic imagery in news reporting may increase rather than decrease public polarization regarding foreign policy issues. Specifically, we examine the impact of patriotic imagery in the context of an online news story about terrorism on individuals’ attitudes toward civil liberties in the “war on terror” and spillover effects on support for the war in Afghanistan. We expect that images of the American flag will be associated with differing clusters of values depending on the level of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) that an individual’s personality exhibits. Specifically, we expect that flag imagery will decrease support for civil liberties and increase support for the war in Afghanistan among individuals who are high in RWA. But we expect flag exposure to have the opposite effect among those who are low in RWA. Finally, we expect patriotic imagery cues will influence only individuals who are not a part of the terrorism “issue public.” We test these hypotheses with an experiment that presents participants with a single news story on the Times Square bomber. The experiment frames the news story as coming from Fox News, CNN, or MSNBC and varies the presence or absence of patriotic flag imagery in the pictures accompanying the news story. The results provide strong support for our expectations regarding the contingent impact of patriotic imagery as well as our expectations regarding the spillover effects of news coverage on terrorism on attitudes toward Afghanistan.

Commenter anonymity affects reader perceptions

An experiment examines how attributes of reader comments about online news stories affect perceptions of the story as well as readers’ intentions to share it. Attributes of both the comment and the commenter play a role in how and whether readers will react to the story.