John C. Pollock

Nationwide Newspaper Coverage of Physician-Assisted Suicide: A Community Structure Approach

Using a community structure approach linking city characteristics and variations in media coverage, the authors examined newspaper coverage of physician-assisted suicide. A nationwide sample of 15 city newspapers yielded 288 articles in a four year period. Content analysis of article “prominence” (placement, headline size, story length, presence of photos) and overall article direction (favorable, unfavorable, or balanced/neutral) yielded a combined and widely varied single score “Media Vector” or measure of issue “projection” for each newspaper. Correlation and factor analysis yielded two significant city characteristic factors: a “stakeholder” factor, age (percent over 75) associated with unfavorable coverage of physician-assisted suicide (r = − .491; p = 000); and an “access” factor—combining media access (newspaper circulation, cable stations, FM or AM stations) and health care access (health care facilities, physicians)—linked to favorable coverage (r = .472; p = .000), combining to account for 46.3 percent of the variance. Western US newspapers and public opinion are most favorable to physician-assisted suicide.

Nationwide Newspaper Coverage of Islam Post-September 11: A Community Structure Approach

Using a community structure approach exploring links between city characteristics and coverage frames, this systematic national cross-section sample of 19 US newspapers tracked newspaper coverage of Islam during the year after the September 11, 2001 attacks, combining “prominence” and “direction” scores to yield a single “Media Vector,” measuring issue projection. Most (14) cities revealed favorable/neutral coverage of Islam. Pearson correlations yielded two prominent “stakeholder” characteristics negatively correlated with favorable coverage of Islam. Contrary to expectations, the higher the percentage of foreign-born citizens (r=−0.539; p=0.009) or number of Arabic/Farsi speakers (r=−0.537; p=0.011), the less favorable the coverage of Islam, the latter accounting for 29 per cent of the variance.

Media Agendas and Human Rights: The Supreme Court Decision on Abortion.

b Most studies of media agenda-setting focus on political events of obvious visibility and interest: campaigns and elections. Efforts are made to catalogue agenda emphases or items selected by the media for public display, and public opinion materials are explored to determine how well media agendas interact with or “fit” public perceptions of salient political issues.’ This research is important, but recent reviews of the literature on political communications suggest a broadening of our topical base, asking scholars to examine all “formal and informal techniques and processes by which officials exert influence on the news media-legislation, licensing, regulation, judicial rulings, the issuing or withholding of information, or officials’ threats and pressures.”2 In addition to advice on “tilting a t new intellectual windmills,”3 researchers are asked to consider a focus on “critical events,” an analysis which “seeks to identify those events which will produce the most useful explanations and piediction of social change.”4 This study is a n initial effort to address new topical concerns, focusing on a little researched aspect of government and media agenda-setting, a high court

Media And Social Inequality: Innovations In Community Structure Research

1. Introduction: Community Structure Scholarship: An Emerging Realignment John C. Pollock 2. Structural Pluralism in Journalism and Media Studies: A Concept Explication and Theory Construction Seungahn Nah and Cory L. Armstrong 3. Mass Media as a Macrolevel Source of Social Control: A New Direction in the Community Structure Model Masahiro Yamamoto 4. Social Capital in a Community Context: A Multilevel Analysis of Individual- and Community-Level Predictors of Social Trust Douglas Blanks Hindman and Masahiro Yamamoto 5. Structural Determinants of Local Public Affairs Place Blogging: Structural Pluralism and Community Stress Brendan R. Watson and Daniel Riffe 6. Nationwide Newspaper Coverage of Universal Healthcare: A Community Structure Approach Kristen Kiernicki, John C. Pollock and Patrick Lavery 7. Structural Pluralism and the Community Context: How and When Does the Environment Matter? Leo Jeffres, Edward Horowitz, Cheryl C. Bracken, Guowei Jian, Kimberly A. Neuendorf and Sukki Yoon 8. Shaping the Agenda of Local Daily Newspapers: A Methodology Merging the Agenda Setting and Community Structure Perspectives Maxwell McCombs and Marcus Funk

Illuminating Human Rights: How Demographics Drive Media Coverage

The case studies in this special issue of Atlantic Journal of Communication represent a broad spectrum of human rights issues of compelling interest both cross-nationally and nationally (inside the...

Mass Media, Crisis, and Political Change: A Cross-National Approach

Industrial world media have been critiqued for reporting on the third world in a uniform way and for reflecting home country economic interests. Comparing coverage in The New York Times and the Tim...

Nationwide Newspaper Coverage of Same-Sex Marriage: A Community Structure Approach

Using the community structure approach to compare coverage of same-sex marriage in leading U.S. newspapers in 35 major cities nationwide, all articles of 250+ words were sampled from a 5-year span of January 1, 2007, to June 23, 2011, for a total of 577 articles. Articles were coded for “prominence” and “direction,” and then combined into a “Media Vector” score for each newspaper, ranging from .4523 to −.1067. Initial Pearson correlations revealed three clusters had significant relationships: stakeholder (stakeholder proportions correlating with favorable coverage of stakeholder concerns), buffer (privilege correlating with favorable coverage of human rights issues), and vulnerability (vulnerable populations correlating with coverage favoring their perspectives). The stakeholder cluster includes: (percentage 25–44: r = .506, p = .001; gay market index: r = .432, p = .005; percentage 65+: r = −.397, p = .009; percentage voting Democratic: r = .335, p = .025; percentage voting Republican: r = −.330, p = .026). The buffer hypothesis was also confirmed (percentage college educated: r = .465, p = .002; percentage family income of

Cross-National Coverage of Human Trafficking: A Community Structure Approach

100,000+: r = .383, p = .012; and percentage professional/technical occupations: r = .300, p = .040). One vulnerability indicator, percentage below the poverty line, was also confirmed (r = −.297, p = .041). A varimax rotated factor analysis and regression yielded 2 factors accounting for more than 29% of the variance: privilege/gay marketing/political identity, 24%, and Evangelicals, 5%.

Journalism and human rights : how demographics drive media coverage

A community structure analysis compared cross-national coverage of human trafficking in 250+ word articles in newspapers in 18 countries for a 12-year period: July 27, 2000 to July 27, 2012. The resulting 266 articles were coded for “prominence” and “direction” (“government responsibility,” “society responsibility,” or “balanced/neutral”), then combined into a composite “Media Vector” score for each newspaper (range = .5167 to −.0214). Seventeen of 18 Media Vectors reflected media emphasis on government responsibility to end human trafficking. Pearson correlations identified that two characteristic clusters had significant relationships with media coverage: privilege (the “buffer” hypothesis associates higher levels of privilege with coverage emphasizing government action to reduce human trafficking) and stakeholders (associating larger proportions of groups with a stake in human trafficking with coverage emphasizing government action to reduce it). Pearson correlations revealed that female school life expectancy (r = .478, p = .022), stock of direct foreign investment at home (r = .467, p = .026), broadband subscriptions/100 people (r = −.41, p = .045), and gross domestic product per capita (r = .467, p = .025) all correlated significantly with media coverage of human trafficking. Regression analysis reinforced the role of stakeholders, with stock of direct foreign investment and female school life expectancy significant. Foreign influence and female empowerment matter.

Community Structure Scholarship: An Emerging Realignment

Preface Morton Winston Overview: Illuminating Human Rights: How Demographics Drive Media Coverage John C. Pollock Part I: Cross-National Coverage of Human Rights 1. Cross-National Coverage of Human Trafficking: A Community Structure Approach Kelly Alexandre, Cynthia Sha, John C. Pollock, Kelsey Baier, and Jessica Johnson 2. Cross-national Coverage of HIV/AIDS: A Community Structure Approach James Etheridge, Kelsey Zinck, John C. Pollock, Christina Santiago, Kristen Halicki, and Alec Badalamenti 3. Cross-National Coverage of Water Handling: A Community Structure Approach Domenick Wissel, Kathleen Ward, John C. Pollock, Allura Hipper, Lauren Klein, and Stefanie Gratale 4. Cross-National Coverage of Child Labor: A Community Structure Approach Jordan Gauthier Kohn and John C. Pollock Part II: Multi-city US Nationwide Coverage of Human Rights 5. Nationwide Coverage of Same-Sex Marriage: A Community Structure Approach Victoria Vales, John C. Pollock, Victoria Scarfone, Carly Koziol, Amy Wilson, and Pat Flanagan 6. Nationwide Coverage of Detainee Rights at Guantanamo: A Community Structure Approach Kelsey Zink, Maggie Rogers, John C. Pollock, and Matthew Salvatore 7. Nationwide Coverage of Immigration Reform: A Community Structure Approach John C. Pollock, Stefanie Gratale, Kevin Teta, Kyle Bauer, and Elyse Hoekstra 8. Nationwide Coverage of Post-Traumatic Stress: A Community Structure Approach John C. Pollock, Stefanie Gratale, Angelica Anas, Emaleigh Kaithern and Kelly Johnson