The Backshop: Recent Episodes
Jeremy Littau
Show notes (follow me on Twitter at @jeremylittau):
- Above is the famous Newsweek/Time cover difference I talked about:
- One way to test yourself on framing is to gauge your own reactions to different terms. What do you think about when you hear "Obamacare" vs. "The Affordable Care Act?"
Show notes (follow me on Twitter at @jeremylittau):
- Here's a link to McCombs & Shaw's groundbreaking agenda-setting study from 1972 (Story access required).
Show notes (follow me on Twitter at @jeremylittau):
- Pam Shoemaker's "Gatekeeping Theory" is a nice summation of this body of research. (note, I make no money from Amazon links)
- David Manning White's study of newsroom sociology is considered the first real attempt to look at this. This is a classic piece of research that details how "Mr. Gates," a wire editor in his newsroom, came to decide what made the newspaper.
- The 7 News Values I talked about, with some more explanation and detail.
Be sure to follow me on Twitter at @jeremylittau!
In the coming weeks, we will examine:
- Gatekeeping theory (Episode 7)
- Agenda-Setting theory (Episode 8)
- Framing theory (Episode 9)
- More minor theories and the transmission model (Episode 10)
- Press theories (Episode 11)
Show notes (follow me on Twitter at @jeremylittau):
- Daniel Boorstin's book "The Image" is considered a classic look at the impact of visual media on news. Good piece here on the book's impact, but I'd recommend going right to the book if you find the ideas interesting.
- Neil Postman wrote "Amusing Ourselves to Death" as a screed against television in 1985. It has a complicated following in mass comm scholarship, but for whatever reason it is making a comeback in our field. For what it's worth, I think Postman is right about TV's impact but I think he tends to conflate the medium itself with how we decide to make content decisions. My Lehigh colleague Jack Lule reread the book and did a series of posts on Medium about the book chapters. Here is Chapter 1; you can get the others by clicking on his name and viewing the feed.
Show notes (follow me on Twitter at @jeremylittau):
- If you're interested in the ownership history of U.S. newspapers, this site has a nice report.
- Some data from Pew about readership over time.
Show notes (follow me on Twitter at @jeremylittau):
- It hasn't been updated since 2004, but Ben Bagdikian has been on the case on media conglomeration for decades. His book The New Media Monopoly goes deep on how these companies are structured and formed. (note: I have no financial stake in Amazon links and am linking to it mostly so you have the book information, including the ISBN).
- The CBS and Viacom relationship is like a soap opera, so on-again-off-again. Here's a good explainer on the proposed merger.
- How complicated does this get? For all the fanfare about Spider-Man leaving the MCU this month, there were media economics reasons for Sony to pull the franchise back.
Show notes (follow me on Twitter at @jeremylittau):
- If you're interested in more thinking news media and power, I'd recommend Robert McChesney's "Rich Media, Poor Democracy."
- We will go over gatekeeping in a few more episodes, but if you're interested now in how it manifests as a news process, David Manning White's landmark study on newsroom sociology is a classic mass communication study.
Show notes:
- The Twitter thread I mentioned starts here and you can read downward. I compiled it into a narrative if you prefer that way.
- My Twitter handle is @jeremylittau and you're free to follow me or ask questions there!