Contributes to scholarship on broadcast deregulation and news-source diversity, tracing sourcing patterns on prime-time news across a 12-year period encompassing the deregulation of broadcasting in New Zealand. Finds that increasing commercialism resulted in shorter sound bites; reduced use of official cited sources; and a greater use of nonelite…

Compares different theoretical approaches to the study of international news. Finds many comparative studies of the foreign news output of national broadcasters and few studies analyzing the actual flow of television news between actors at the wholesale level and the flow between wholesale and retail level. Suggests a better framework for the…

Reports an exploration of the effectiveness of different types and sizes of samples for content analyses of television network news. Compares simple random, monthly stratified, and quarterly/weekly stratified sampling, using annual "populations" of network newscasts. Finds that the most efficient technique was two random days per month. (SR)

Examines actual use in television news broadcasts of video news releases (VNRs). Finds that all sizes of markets were likely to use VNRs. Finds that the most common use was as a voice-over story in an early evening newscast, and that VNRs associated with children and their safety or health got the greatest number of uses. (SR)

The Science Communication Interest Group section of the proceedings contains the following five papers: "Accounting for the Complexity of Causal Explanations in the Wake of an Environmental Risk" (LeeAnn Kahlor, Sharon Dunwoody and Robert J. Griffin); "Construction of Technology Crisis and Safety: News Media's Framing the Y2K…

Views competition in terms of a corporate drive for profit and as a way in which television news workers make sense of their jobs and socially construct their world. Argues that through these competitive norms and practices, news workers inadvertently help legitimate the societal status quo and perpetuate corporate control of the media, with…

Demonstrates that television news is a relatively weak overall predictor of long-term information gain. Shows that newspapers remain America's premier source of public affairs information and more specialized cable programs such as the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour and C-SPAN have come to rival newspapers and news magazines as suppliers of long-term…

Examines the agenda-setting impacts of electronic text news (ETN) and reactions to ETN as a news medium. Finds that electronic news viewers have nearly the same agenda as do users of traditional media. (MM)

Examines the way one local television station covered the Persian Gulf War. Links coverage to the media routines of television newswork, showing how they act as coherent frames supportive of Gulf policy. Finds that the conflict frame placed anti-war protest in opposition to patriotism, and the control frame dealt with protest as a threat to social…

While contemporary communication perspectives often make a distinction between reality and the televised presentation of reality, viewers may find this distinction difficult to maintain. Television is imbued with perceived objectivity. The use of recreations in popular television programming requires a reconceptualization of how viewers perceive…

In the Spring of 1973, American television news editors were surveyed for data on staff size, operating budgets, work roles, camera equipment, portable VTR equipment, wire services, mobile equipment, and number of newscasts. The data obtained are reported in five levels of operating budgets with a summary of the statistics for each area of news…

This paper examines the supply and demand for early evening news and public affairs programing aired by major market commercial television stations. The sample consists of 493 thirty-minute programs aired by 99 stations between the hours of 5:30 and 8:00 P.M., E.S.T. A frequency analysis of programing indicated that stations owned by three…

In television programing, pacing is generally defined as the relative speed with which a program appears to progress or the rate at which its material is presented. A study examined whether a fast-paced news show would produce a higher degree of accurate recall of content than would a slow paced program, and whether differences in pacing would…

This paper presents a conceptual analysis of bias and outlines the complexity and subtlety of the questions engulfing bias by sorting out views of bias that have been implicit in debates about the media, assessing the scientific value of these competing views in identifying and understanding bias in the media, offering an alternative view which is…

Compares the abilities of six gratification models to predict satisfaction with television news. Provides support for a combined expectancy-value/gratifications-obtained approach to explaining and predicting media satisfaction. (PD)