Matching Items (12)
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- All Subjects: journalism
- Creators: Kurland, Brett
- Creators: Thornton, Leslie-Jean
- Resource Type: Text
Description
U.S. television is about earning profits, but European broadcasting has historically been governed as public service, indirectly or directly operated by the government. Substantial changes occurred in the 1990s. Privatization and the United Kingdom’s Independent Television franchise auction stimulated commercial developments throughout Europe. Even public service broadcasters lost their traditional characteristics, adopting routines making them almost indistinguishable from commercial competitors.
Television remains the number one news source overall. Research shows news adheres to similar, recurring and predictable elements; an anchor team balances the broadcast and its various elements, following a formula of friendly personalities, visuals and sound bites.
This study examined American news consultants’ role in the development of television news in the UK in the 1990s. American news consultants’ work abroad is important because they spread the U.S. model - the origin of today’s on-air news style – and changed television news on a global scale.
Limited research has been conducted on the consultants’ European work and how they operated, largely because of proprietary material. This study was based on 2359 pages of archival material from Frank N. Magid Associates’ European archives. In addition, 24 interviews with Magid staff and UK journalists allowed for a comprehensive examination.
Magid truly infiltrated UK television - from the headquarters of the BBC and ITN, to the regions. A major finding is the extent of Magid’s penetration with research services, storytelling and performance training. During the franchise auction, Magid worked with ITV clients in 11 of the 16 regions.
This study examined how Magid played a role in the development of television news. It analyzed key concepts integrated into UK news and how those are similar or different from the U.S. The importance of good storytelling permeated the findings. Tell a story well – tailored to the culture, medium and viewers – and it will attract an audience. In turn, that attracts advertisers, making news profitable. Change theory guided an analysis of societal forces. Driving forces, such as privatization and technology, spurred on development of television news; restraining forces, such as fear of Americanization, slowed it down.
Television remains the number one news source overall. Research shows news adheres to similar, recurring and predictable elements; an anchor team balances the broadcast and its various elements, following a formula of friendly personalities, visuals and sound bites.
This study examined American news consultants’ role in the development of television news in the UK in the 1990s. American news consultants’ work abroad is important because they spread the U.S. model - the origin of today’s on-air news style – and changed television news on a global scale.
Limited research has been conducted on the consultants’ European work and how they operated, largely because of proprietary material. This study was based on 2359 pages of archival material from Frank N. Magid Associates’ European archives. In addition, 24 interviews with Magid staff and UK journalists allowed for a comprehensive examination.
Magid truly infiltrated UK television - from the headquarters of the BBC and ITN, to the regions. A major finding is the extent of Magid’s penetration with research services, storytelling and performance training. During the franchise auction, Magid worked with ITV clients in 11 of the 16 regions.
This study examined how Magid played a role in the development of television news. It analyzed key concepts integrated into UK news and how those are similar or different from the U.S. The importance of good storytelling permeated the findings. Tell a story well – tailored to the culture, medium and viewers – and it will attract an audience. In turn, that attracts advertisers, making news profitable. Change theory guided an analysis of societal forces. Driving forces, such as privatization and technology, spurred on development of television news; restraining forces, such as fear of Americanization, slowed it down.
ContributorsLiseblad, Madeleine Sonja (Author) / Thornton, Leslie-Jean (Thesis advisor) / Casavantes, Michael (Committee member) / Delmont, Matthew (Committee member) / Silcock, Burton William (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Broadcast journalists often report on people dealing with illness or physical hardship, their difficulties and triumphs. But what happens when journalists personally experience those kinds of health-related issues? This study explores how 24 local and national on-air journalists share how they manage life with illness and hardship using personal narratives shared on their professional social media pages, detailing how the journalists navigate sharing a deeply personal experience while maintaining a professional journalistic persona. Thematic analysis found the journalists’ performed three acts when sharing personal health information in a public forum: they reported on their illness, they were transparent, and they justified their actions. Within the three themes a range of expression – from personal to professional – and influences over content were found, leading to the final overarching theme, implications and consequences on content creation. This dissertation finds a complicated struggle to maintain a professional self while acknowledging the urge to connect with others through a deeply personal experience.
ContributorsPellizzaro, Kirstin Nicole (Author) / Thornton, Leslie-Jean (Thesis advisor) / Silcock, Bill (Committee member) / Kwon, K. Hazel (Committee member) / Cheong, Pauline (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Long before “fake news” dominated the conversation within and about the media, media literacy advocates have championed the need for media literacy education that provides the tools for people to understand, analyze, and evaluate media messages. That the majority of U.S. adults now consume news on social media underscores the importance for students of all ages to be critical users of media. Furthermore, the affordances of social media to like, comment, and share news items within one’s network increases an individual’s responsibility to ascertain the veracity of news before using a social media megaphone to spread false information. Social media’s shareability can dictate how information spreads, increasing news consumers’ role as a gatekeeper of information and making media literacy education more important than ever.
This research examines the media literacy practices that news consumers use to inform their gatekeeping decisions. Using a constant comparative coding method, the author conducted a qualitative analysis of hundreds of discussion board posts from adult participants in a digital media literacy Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) to identify major themes and examine growth in participants’ sense of responsibility related to sharing news information, their feeling of empowerment to make informed decisions about the media messages they receive, and how the media literacy tools and techniques garnered from the MOOC have affected their daily media interactions. Findings emphasize the personal and contextual nature of media literacy, and that those factors must be addressed to ensure the success of a media literacy education program.
This research examines the media literacy practices that news consumers use to inform their gatekeeping decisions. Using a constant comparative coding method, the author conducted a qualitative analysis of hundreds of discussion board posts from adult participants in a digital media literacy Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) to identify major themes and examine growth in participants’ sense of responsibility related to sharing news information, their feeling of empowerment to make informed decisions about the media messages they receive, and how the media literacy tools and techniques garnered from the MOOC have affected their daily media interactions. Findings emphasize the personal and contextual nature of media literacy, and that those factors must be addressed to ensure the success of a media literacy education program.
ContributorsRoschke, Kristy (Author) / Thornton, Leslie-Jean (Thesis advisor) / Chadha, Monica (Committee member) / Halavais, Alexander (Committee member) / Silcock, Bill (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
My thesis project is a 26 minute 46 second film that documents the Arizona State hockey team's first season as an NCAA Division I program. ASU hockey was formerly a club team that competed in the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA), but that all changed in the fall of 2014 after the program received a donation. The documentary explores the significance of the team, the emotion of the players and staff, and the results of the season.
ContributorsCasillas, Mauricio (Author) / Kurland, Brett (Thesis director) / Reed, Sada (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
While former New York Yankees pitcher Goose Gossage unleashed his tirade on the deterioration of the unwritten rules of baseball and nerds ruining the sport about halfway through my writing of the paper, sentiments like his were inspiration for my topic: the evolution of statistics and data in baseball. By telling the story of how baseball data and statistics have evolved, my goal was to also demonstrate how they have been intertwined since the beginning—which would essentially mean that nerds have always been ruining the sport (if you subscribe to that kind of thought).
In the quest to showcase this, it was necessary to document how baseball prospers from numbers and numbers prosper from baseball. The relationship between the two is mutualistic. Furthermore, an all-encompassing historical look at how data and statistics in baseball have matured was a critical portion of the paper. With a metric such as batting average going from a radical new measure that posed a threat to the status quo, to a fiercely cherished statistic that was suddenly being unseated by advanced analytics, it shows the creation of new and destruction of old has been incessant. Innovators like Pete Palmer, Dick Cramer and Bill James played a large role in this process in the 1980s. Computers aided their effort and when paired with the Internet, unleashed the ability to crunch data to an even larger sector of the population. The unveiling of Statcast at the commencement of the 2015 season showed just how much potential there is for measuring previously unquantifiable baseball acts.
Essentially, there will always be people who mourn the presence of data and statistics in baseball. Despite this, the evolution story indicates baseball and numbers will be intertwined into the future, likely to an even greater extent than ever before, as technology and new philosophies become increasingly integrated into front offices and clubhouses.
In the quest to showcase this, it was necessary to document how baseball prospers from numbers and numbers prosper from baseball. The relationship between the two is mutualistic. Furthermore, an all-encompassing historical look at how data and statistics in baseball have matured was a critical portion of the paper. With a metric such as batting average going from a radical new measure that posed a threat to the status quo, to a fiercely cherished statistic that was suddenly being unseated by advanced analytics, it shows the creation of new and destruction of old has been incessant. Innovators like Pete Palmer, Dick Cramer and Bill James played a large role in this process in the 1980s. Computers aided their effort and when paired with the Internet, unleashed the ability to crunch data to an even larger sector of the population. The unveiling of Statcast at the commencement of the 2015 season showed just how much potential there is for measuring previously unquantifiable baseball acts.
Essentially, there will always be people who mourn the presence of data and statistics in baseball. Despite this, the evolution story indicates baseball and numbers will be intertwined into the future, likely to an even greater extent than ever before, as technology and new philosophies become increasingly integrated into front offices and clubhouses.
ContributorsGarcia, Jacob Michael (Author) / Kurland, Brett (Thesis director) / Doig, Stephen (Committee member) / Jackson, Victoria (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Chicago, the third largest city in the United States, is frequently in the national media's spotlight for negative news such as violence or failed gun laws. The city is hardly ever talked about in a positive light. This study aims to inform and educate outsiders of what the city is like through the perspective lens of Chicago residents. To grasp a general understanding of Chicago, this creative project was completed through a narrative and interview-driven podcast series and split up into different topic categories. These categories were Chicago food, Chicago neighborhoods, Chicago's Southside, and Chicago sports. These topic areas are some of the things Chicago is most known for and give an adequate representation of what the city is like. Researching and putting this creative project into a podcast form proved how podcasts can be an alternative to in-depth and long-form journalism projects. The Chicago food episode called "Harold's v. Uncle Remus" explains the delicious food culture and showed two of the popular black restaurant chains that cater to the city. These two chicken spots are always a hot topic in heated debates of what place has the best chicken. The neighborhoods episode called "Won't You Be My Neighbor" highlights some of Chicago's interesting neighborhoods that tourists may not have on their attractions lists. This episode talks about the Pill Hill, Printers Row, and Little Italy neighborhoods, which all have unique histories. "Southside With You" explores the infamous region of Chicago, tells its history, and gives a theory as to why it continues to be the area it is known for in the media. Lastly, the sports episode "Sports: A History Lesson" is a full interview with a Chicago resident who has been a Chicago sports fan since the mid-60s and who has experienced the effects of racial divisions in sports. The episodes give only a peak of what the large city is like, but they demonstrate that Chicago is not this scary place, but a place with a complicatedly fascinating history.
ContributorsCarter, Jade (Author) / Thornton, Leslie-Jean (Thesis director) / Gatewood, Kira (Committee member) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Comm (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
Description
In this research paper I explore former male athletes, specifically professional football players entering local journalism. Research paired with interviews in regards to the topic explain why there are nearly 10 former NFL players in local markets where an NFL team is present, and why local journalists along with future journalists should not be worried about the number of former male athletes in local journalism. The paper also dives into the side-by-side statistics of why there is significantly more former college athletes in local journalism than former NFL players. The research focused on more than 100 television stations, revealing that 100 former or current collegiate or pro athletes are journalists for local stations where an NFL team is present. The data is solely reliant on the information that the journalists provided in their bios on the station websites. This could be seen as a possible limitation, however, the likelihood of these journalists either lying or not identifying as a former athlete is minimal due to the size of the accomplishment of actually participating in college as an athlete. The basis of my research is to figure out if former NFL players and former athletes in general are taking journalism jobs from aspiring journalists. I conclude that future journalists are not at risk of losing jobs when it comes to retired football players entering the field of local journalism. With that said, aspiring journalists need to continue to develop their social media skills to compete with athletes’ audiences on social networks.
ContributorsTotri, Anthony Matthew (Author) / Kurland, Brett (Thesis director) / Reed, Sada (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Comm (Contributor, Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
As the premier colligate summer league in the country, the Cape Cod Baseball League has operated since 1885 and has seen over one thousand all-time alumni step foot in professional baseball. Every season, each of the CCBL's ten teams call upon some of the nation's top aspiring sports broadcasters, writers, and social media managers to spearhead the coverage of the league and tell the stories of the summer. However, while the season offers hours of repetition and exposure to players and journalists alike, the league's coverage capabilities fall short of its high potential due to inconsistencies and inadequacies that restrain its media content from matching the level of baseball that takes place on the field. Through the identification of specific problems within the league's broadcast equipment, its varying platforms, and its growing gap between individual coverage teams, this thesis offers both short-term and long-term solutions that aim to raise the standards and capabilities of league content while also raising awareness of the issue itself. While considering the Cape Cod League's unique non-profit business model and its most recent financial situation, this thesis also illustrates opportunities within fundraising events, the league's online audience, and its vast alumni network that can create a sustainable business plan for the near and distant future of the Cape Cod Broadcast Network.
ContributorsKercheval, Kyle Nicholas (Author) / Kurland, Brett (Thesis director) / Cesmat, Brad (Committee member) / W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Scholars have identified that journalists have a strong occupational identity, leading to ideological conceptions of the rules of the field. However, while journalists are often the first to embrace technological change, they often do so in different ways than most people. With the arrival of digital technologies, journalists are often faced with practices that run contrary to long-established ideology, and they often carry traditional practices over to new media. Using the theoretical lens of Giddens’s structuration theory, this research identifies traditional journalism structures that encourage or discourage journalists to interact with their followers on the social network Twitter. Using constant comparative analysis to interpret 23 interviews with contemporary journalists, this study identified multiple dualities between the use of Twitter and traditional newsgathering. It also recognized a cognitive dissonance among journalists who use Twitter. Though they can see advantages to using the platform to engage with followers, particularly other journalists and members of their audience, journalists do not seek out Twitter interaction and often avoid or resist it. Finally, this dissertation suggests three walls that block journalists from engaging in the Internet’s facilitation of personal connectivity, engagement, and a true community forum with followers. Although a wall of objectivity has somewhat been broached by Twitter use, walls of storytelling and routine and traditional news values continue to hold strong.
ContributorsJohnson, Richard G., 1981- (Author) / Thornton, Leslie-Jean (Thesis advisor) / Silcock, Bill (Committee member) / Gilpin, Dawn (Committee member) / Daer, Alice (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
In recent years, advanced metrics have dominated the game of Major League Baseball. One such metric, the Pythagorean Win-Loss Formula, is commonly used by fans, reporters, analysts and teams alike to use a team’s runs scored and runs allowed to estimate their expected winning percentage. However, this method is not perfect, and shows notable room for improvement. One such area that could be improved is its ability to be affected drastically by a single blowout game, a game in which one team significantly outscores their opponent.<br/>We hypothesize that meaningless runs scored in blowouts are harming the predictive power of Pythagorean Win-Loss and similar win expectancy statistics such as the Linear Formula for Baseball and BaseRuns. We developed a win probability-based cutoff approach that tallied the score of each game once a certain win probability threshold was passed, effectively removing those meaningless runs from a team’s season-long runs scored and runs allowed totals. These truncated totals were then inserted into the Pythagorean Win-Loss and Linear Formulas and tested against the base models.<br/>The preliminary results show that, while certain runs are more meaningful than others depending on the situation in which they are scored, the base models more accurately predicted future record than our truncated versions. For now, there is not enough evidence to either confirm or reject our hypothesis. In this paper, we suggest several potential improvement strategies for the results.<br/>At the end, we address how these results speak to the importance of responsibility and restraint when using advanced statistics within reporting.
ContributorsIversen, Joshua Allen (Author) / Satpathy, Asish (Thesis director) / Kurland, Brett (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Comm (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05