Content-Type: text/html
Symbolic Racism in Television News
Abstract
This research project examines the construction of symbolic racism in television news. Symbolic racism in television news is the combination of two non-racist elements that creates a negative racial stereotype. The researcher assumes these creations are unintended, but still extremely damaging. The purpose of this study is to see if symbolic racism exists in local television news and whether minority hiring and a formal race policy including dialogue about race helps diminish symbolic racist constructions.
Introduction
Several studies on the coverage of race on television news (Entman) have pointed out the distortion of reality presented in news about minorities. However, the research has not looked at the organizational level elements that could help diminish the construction of negative racial stereotypes in local television news. This study attempts to accomplish two goals. First, it replicates Entman's work in a different television market to demonstrate the existence of symbolic racism in television news. Second, it tests the assumption that hiring practices combined with a formal policy that drives an on-going dialogue about race in the newsroom works to decrease the incidents of symbolic racism.
Local television news has long been criticized for excluding minorities from news coverage, inaccurately representing minority groups in coverage, failing to hire minorities, and failing to promote minorities to management positions. Some of these problems are intentional, while others stem from a lack of understanding of diverse cultures. Two elements play important roles in the distorted portrayals of minorities on television news. Journalism organizations hold tight to the norms and routines of gathering and presenting news (Tuchman, Gans, Fishman). These organizational structures of journalism are combined with a lack of diversity among journalists at local television stations. This combination gives rise to opportunities for the creation of unintended racism in local television news.
Local Television News & Minorities
A woman interviewed several years ago on a Minneapolis television station for a story on racism and television news explained the problem with great clarity. She said, "They can find the folks of color when they are ready to cover a gang story or crime story or a poverty story, then why can't you find one when you're doing a state fair story or making a snowman story?" This incident speaks to the heart of this research project
Consider another news story. When a state governor called for the removal of weight lifting equipment from prisons, the video used on many television newscasts to illustrate the problem predominantly showed black men. The negative image perpetuated was the stereotype of black men as dangerous people. It is unlikely the journalists who constructed the story intended to create or foster this stereotype. However, intended or not, this construction sends a powerful message to the larger society.
A person's view of the world is based on their life experiences. In the United States, life as a person of color differs from the experiences of life as part of the white majority. Journalists, too, rely on their life experiences to inform their work. If there is a lack of diversity in a newsroom, the views of people and cultures missing from the newsroom are more likely to be presented in ways that do not accurately reflect the realities of those people and cultures.
Weaver and Wilhoit (1996) have studied the American journalist for decades and provide a good gauge of the diversity in the nation's newsrooms. While they note that minorities made great progress in achieving employment in journalism, the increase still was not representative of the overall U.S. population. In Weaver and Wilhoit's research, the typical journalist is a:
White Protestant male who had a bachelor's degree from a public college, was married, 36 years old, earned about $31,000 a year, had worked in journalism about 12 years, did not belong to a journalism association, and worked for a medium-size, group owned, daily newspaper.
The typical television journalist was younger, paid less, a little more educated, more likely to be male, and less likely to join professional associations. Weaver and Wilhoit noted that television has the highest percentage of minority staff compared to other forms of journalism. Papper and Gerhard's (1998) study found that black news workers represented only 10 percent of television news employees. This has changed little since 1992. Weaver and Wilhoit also show minority journalists differ from their white counterparts. Fewer minority journalists hold B.A. degrees, but more earned a Master's degree. Minority journalists were less likely to be married, were generally younger, were more likely to join professional organizations, and were paid comparably to their white colleagues (Papper, 1998). Black journalists in particular were less likely to be media owners, upper-level managers or supervisors. Minority news workers also felt less empowered than whites in the newsroom in selecting stories or influencing content.
While the lack of minority voices in television newsrooms almost certainly are a factor in the creation of racist constructions in news stories, organizational norms and routines also likely play a role in these constructions. Before looking at the structures of local television news, one must understand how racial images are created.
Racial Images
Images of people and groups in society help reporters explain issues and topics "Humanizing your stories" means finding a person or group of people affected by the issue and using them as a means for telling the story through their comments. People who journalists use to "humanize" stories are generally portrayed positively, simply due to the nature of news collection of this sort. If the person is not willing to be a part of the story, the journalist will generally move on to find someone else. "Minorities often see the mainstream press in the United States as omitting them altogether or presenting negative news stories about them without countervailing stories focusing on positive aspects of minority life." (Gomes and Williams, p. 60, 1990) Dates and Barlow (1990) said the minority community did not get an equitable share of positive coverage from the mainstream press. (Dates and Barlow, p. 378) One partial explanation is that journalists are underutilizing black sources as "humanization" subjects for news stories.
A lack of ties between the minority communities and the television journalists often mean black individuals, their positions and their ideas are left out of the domain of public discussion on television, simply because of a lack of knowledge of the community and its issues on the part of the news staff (Thomas, p. 124-25). Gray (1987) said, "The assumptions that organize the racial and social order are . . . woven into the viewpoints and outlooks of everyday life; they make the news (and other media content) feel right as they comfortably order the social world (p. 388)."
Since the civil rights movement in the 1960's, journalists have worked to remove overt racism from the nation's newspapers, magazines and broadcasts (Sears, p. 62, 1988). William Wilson (1987), in The Truly Disadvantaged, argues that the growth of the black middle class since the 1960's, resulting from improved economic conditions and better civil rights laws, helped to reduce overt forms of discrimination (p. 110-111). Sociologist David Sears (1988) echoes this point without reference to the black middle class, saying overt racism in public places has steadily declined since World War II, to the point where it is no longer accepted in polite society today (p. 65). This does not mean racism is dead in American society, just that it is pushed out of direct public display.
Journalists are no different in their actions than the general public. Reporters are sensitive to what is acceptable in polite society and thus refrain from directly racist remarks, even if they harbor racist beliefs personally. In some ways, journalists decide their writing style and what is news based on what they believe the public will allow. Sears (1988) developed the construct of "symbolic racism." He argued that since it is no longer polite for people in society to make overtly racist remarks, racism is pushed under cover. This construct is made up of two elements, traditional American values and anti-black affect (Sears, 1988, p. 56). Together, Sears said, these elements lead to symbolic racist beliefs that include opposition to the issues associated with black people, such as busing and affirmative action, and also political opposition to black candidates or candidates who favor black viewpoints (Sears, 1988, p. 56).
Traditional American values are Protestant values that place importance on hard work, individualism, delayed gratification, and opposition to laziness or handouts (Sears, 1988, p. 72). Sears said these values lack a racial component. "It is only when they are mixed with anti-black affect that individual racism of a symbolic nature can be said to exist (Sears, 1988, p. 72)."
Sears (1988) defined anti-black affect as keeping a distance from black people and showing fear, distaste or disgust for them. In simple terms, it is having a general dislike for black individuals because of their race. Interestingly, according to Sears, white people in the early 1980's did not perceive this as racist.
Anti-black effect is important to understanding symbolic racism from both the reporter and audience points of view. Though anti-black affect is rarely seen in television newsrooms, it is apparent in the hiring process. A medium market news director described the frustration exhibited by white reporters attempting to move to a larger market. He said the common excuse given by white reporters for not getting the job is that the station "had to hire a minority."
Anti-black affect is most likely an element added by the audience viewing the news stories containing traditional American values through a combination of stereotypical portrayals and disproportionately negative images of black people. These two factors combine to create this form of racism, which is produced through symbolism and code words in the news and in public discourse. The symbolism appears race-neutral on the surface, but carries a negative racial code that can be readily and consistently understood by the audience. This is similar to Sears' discussion of busing to desegregate schools as a racial code that is intertwined with anti-black affect. Symbolic racism consists of reporters leaving black sources out of non-race stories and showing a disproportionate number of black people in negative stories. It is common to see the black community as the focal group in stories about welfare, even in states where the majority of welfare recipients are white. However, it appears uncommon to see black experts in medicine, education, government and other stories not dealing with race issues.
Though there is little doubt that symbolic racism, as Sears described, is still a part of American society, it may be more difficult to draw out because of the continued education process in society about social norms. The scales Sears used to measure symbolic racism are now easily identified, by a large group in society, as racist statements. Because journalists consume more news than the ordinary citizen (Weaver & Wilhoit, p.33, 1991), it makes sense that they would be more aware of stereotypes and what is acceptable in society. This awareness may also stem from the objectivity norm under which journalists operate, in that they are expected to remain neutral. Stereotyping a group goes against that norm. These factors make it more difficult to directly question journalists about their racial beliefs without obtaining a social desirability bias.
Kluegel and Bobo (1993) criticized Sears' theory of symbolic racism. They raise validity questions about Sears' use of attitudes toward social policy to measure racism. They say, "Given the multiple influences shaping these views and the dependence of the correlates of attitudes toward policies on the type of policy in question, it seems inappropriate to equate attitudes toward a given policy with racism (Kluegel, 1993, p. 460)." Kluegel and Bobo say, "No single attitude or predisposition guides white Americans' responses to policies addressing racial inequality." (Kluegel, 1993, p. 460). This criticism notes there are other factors that play a role in the formation of racial attitudes, such as economic conditions or in the case of busing, the location of the neighborhood school. However, this does not invalidate Sears' symbolic racism theory for this research in journalism, especially as it relates to television news.
The important difference between this study and Kluegel and Bobo's concerns is that this study does not attempt to explain support for social policies. Thus debates over the impact of symbolic racism versus economic incentives or group self-interest are not relevant to this project, even though the reporter's story could have an impact on public opinion surrounding a social policy.
Entman (1991) modified Sears' work to fit television news and renamed it "modern racism." Entman was the first media researcher to apply symbolic racism to television news. He defines modern racism as, "a compound of hostility, resentment, and denial on the part of Whites toward the activities and aspirations of Black people (Entman, 1991, p. 1)." Entman says, "In part, local television's inadvertent contribution to this phenomenon may arise from its coverage of blacks involved in crime and in politics. And in part, paradoxically, it may arise from the very responsiveness of local news to black audiences (Entman, 1991, p. 1)." Modern racism is similar to Stuart Hall's construct "inferential racism." In Hall's 1990 piece, inferential racism is defined as, "naturalized representations of events and situations relating to race, whether factual or fictional, which have racist premises and propositions inscribed in them as a set of unquestioned assumptions (Hall, 1990, p. 13)." Hall believes inferential racism allows formation of racist statements without engaging the viewer or reader with the awareness of the racial grounding of the statements. The race neutral wording combined with the racism implied by the construction creates inferential racism constructs in news stories.
Symbolic Racism is an evolving concept that must be updated as public belief systems change in order to truly capture it without a social desirability bias. This may be overcome by modifying Sears' and Entman's definitions and blending them with Hall's inferential racism construct. The new symbolic racism construct, which will be used in the rest of this study, is racism constructed through race-neutral words and/or images combined with stereotypes based on traditional American values, which create negative portrayals of black citizens in the media. In other words, "unintended" racism is symbolically constructed in television news through use of race-neutral words and images, which work to form stereotypical portrayals of black people.
Crime reporting is a perfect example of this form of racism. Journalists use race neutral terms in a story on prison inmates, but show predominately black inmates in the video. This perpetuates the stereotype of black people as violent and as criminals. It should be noted that even if the reporter and photographer showed the same proportion of black and white individuals in their story as are actually housed at the prison, the stereotype remains. This is caused by the disproportionately high number of black inmates held in prisons in this midwestern state (1990 census). Viewers need a social context for stories of this type. The reporter should note in the story the disproportionate number of black prisoners in the state as a way of providing a clearer description of the crime problem without ignoring the racial elements impacting crime in the society. The key point here is that stories involving race are rarely handled in an overt manner. In other words, news stories focusing on race as the issue are rarely seen in local television news. Instead it appears that a more symbolic portrayal of race is carried out in local television news stories, which focus on issues such as welfare, crime, or education. Embedded inside these stories are covert issues of race.
Impact of Journalistic Norms
In looking at how the media can be credited simultaneously with helping to end overt racism while institutionalizing symbolic racism, there is an expectation that television news would play a powerful role. The structure of gathering news and the assumptions that surround that process give ample room for symbolic racism to become a part of story narrative. Herbert Gans posits that television news creates a picture of society (Gans, 1980, p. 5). Tuchman calls it construction of reality. She says, "News imparts to occurrences their public character as it transforms mere happenings into publicly discussible events (Tuchman, 1978, p. 3)." It is this definition of society through the media that is important in considering the effects of symbolic racism. If the minority communities are not able to play an equal role in the definition of social occurrences in the media, then the social reality constructed in the news is skewed toward the dominant group or the power structure of the community.
Tracing the production of covert racial constructions is a complex task. The organizational level is important in the construction of news products. This one level is where journalistic norms come into play in story construction. News companies and their managers decide what is news for that organization and how it will be covered. In her book, Making News, Gaye Tuchman (1987) describes the news-making process at the organizational level.
News Net: Tuchman's theory of the organizational structure of news gathering allows researchers to look at potential sites for the infusion of racial beliefs and/or stereotypes in news stories. Tuchman's main focus is on the news net, a metaphor for how news is gathered. The news organization searches the coverage area for newsworthy events. These efforts criss-cross, forming a net of sorts to capture news. What the net captures depends on the size of the gaps in the netting. The smaller the holes in the net, the more news that net will catch. The same is true for news organizations, the more workers and equipment, the more news the organization will gather. The news net is a standardized structure for gathering news. Its basic format is such that "today's news media place reporters at legitimate institutions where stories supposedly appealing to contemporary news consumers may be expected to be found (Tuchman, 1978, p. 21)." However, this structure is based on what the white-dominated news media define as newsworthy and legitimate.
The news net is an economic system more than anything else. It is designed to put reporters where news is most likely to occur and where reporters are most likely to dig up a story to fill space in the newscast. By its very existence, it caters to the elite and the status quo (Tuchman, 1978). Minority groups and low-income areas tend to generate less news of this type. What is generated tends to be negative in nature. Certainly, reporters monitor some organizations representing black people, such as community centers in traditionally black neighborhoods, the Urban League, the N.A.A.C.P. and leaders at predominately black churches. But in many, if not most, television newsrooms, these organizations are not a part of any regular reporter beat calls and there is little regular contact between reporters and the leaders of these organizations. Instead, it appears that the news net picks up black individuals to exemplify social programs and crime problems. Consequently, news coverage of the black community becomes spotty and lacks depth in understanding the issues facing these groups.
As stated earlier, the news net organizes journalistic practice through norms and routines of news work. This organizational view of news gathering includes typifications, professionalism, objectivity standards, use of sources, framing of the event, use of news resources, how events or ideas get noticed by the journalist or organization, and the narrative structure of the news story.
Typifications: Typifications are classifications of news stories by news workers as a means of controlling the work-flow (Tuchman, 1978, p. 46). "They (typifications) impose order upon raw material of news and so reduce the variability (idiosyncrasy) of the glut of occurrences. They also channel the newsworkers' perceptions of the everyday world by imposing a frame upon strips of daily life (Tuchman, 1978, p. 58)." This is where symbolic racism is able to become a part of the news story at an individual level.
News reporters are working off the schema, especially concerning race beliefs, they have developed since their early childhood (Sears, 1988, p. 76). In the context of this study, schema refers to the mental maps people develop to make sense of the world. To make sense of a news story, reporters covering the story use their own schema to develop their understanding of that event and then recreate the event for their audience using their perceptions of that event. Certainly there are organizational structures and professional ideals the journalist must live up to, but these constructs do not negate the effect of the reporter's own belief system. By looking for "typical" news stories, journalists can more easily rule out items that do not fit their definition of news.
Professionalism: Professionalism is another journalistic norm often referred to by reporters. It means the workers have control over their own work and justify decisions using journalistic norms developed by an outside organization (Tuchman, 1978, p. 64). "Among reporters, professionalism is knowing how to get a story that meets organizational needs and standards (Tuchman, 1978, p. 66)." Since newsrooms are predominately white domains (Stone, 1992), few news workers have enough experiences in the black community to understand what black people define as news in that community. Professionalism is an area in need of change. Crane's (1992) research shows there is a need to refocus television journalists toward the content and away from the formats of their messages and images. This change would make it difficult to construct symbolic racist images in television news stories because the journalists would judge such constructions as unprofessional.
Sources: Sources are often people who are working within the mainstream of society and have developed relationships with journalists. These relationships rarely develop between leaders in marginalized communities and journalists, obstructing ideas from ever reaching the public sphere.
Cultivating sources is a technique reporters use to locate stories in the news net. However, reporters do not covet sources in the black community, with few exceptions. This is important because sources help decide what is news. "Clearly, whom one asks for information influences what information one receives (Tuchman, 1978, p. 81)." Tuchman continues, saying, it is rare to see reporters breaking out of the status quo to contact sources who are leaders of social movements, grass-roots organizations, or minority communities. The exception to this in the black community involves the N.A.A.C.P., the Urban League and black church ministers. These organizations are legitimized within the news net and thus are often places reporters look for sources when a story has a racial theme. However, these groups are most often are used by reporters as a service for reactions to an event seen as including a racial element.
Research by Voakes et al. (1993) shows that it is not enough for journalists to focus only on a diversity of sources in their stories; content diversity must also be attended to in an equal manner. In television news, content diversity must include the three separate narratives that form a news story (Voakes, 1993).
Narrative Structure: Narrative structure is the accepted norm for constructing a news story so it fits the conventions of the news organization and it creates a product that is easy for the viewer to understand. Narrative is the grammar of the television news business, with very definite rules and formats. The narrative of the news story on television includes the video, natural sound, and the reporter's sound track. It is within this structure that racial stereotypes become apparent when a story is aired. If a story on welfare includes non-stereotypical coverage in the reporter's writing, but shows pictures of only black people in lower income areas in the accompanying video, then a stereotype of black people as the major recipients of welfare is sent to the audience. Though it is possible for natural sound to carry part of the diversity of a viewpoint's message, journalists tend to focus on the first two narrative forms. The audio portion is more of a subliminal narrative that moves the story forward, while video is more overt in its presentation.
Objectivity: Journalists often refer to the objectivity standard to show their neutral position in covering a news event (Tuchman, 1978, p. 160). The goal of objective reporting is to produce a fair, informed, and democratic society. However, objectivity as a norm of journalistic work may actually be part of the problem in the creation of symbolic racism, impeding the reflection of a true reality in the society.
The prison population breakdown is not a neutral social fact. There are many different forms of racism that create the disproportionate jailing of black people over white people. It is not fair to assume that black individuals are inherently more violent, more criminal, more immoral in their actions than white people, even though there is a disproportionate number of black prison inmates nationally. With this in mind, how can journalists objectively report crime and prison stories without dealing with this social inequity and its causes in the society?
On television news, we see multiple images of black individuals in court, in jail, on drugs, on welfare, and living off the system that ultimately controls them. However, rarely do we see explanations of the societal conditions that promote these images. Thus rarely do viewers get anything approaching a truly objective news report.
Erwin Thomas said, "Black news is reported from a White person's viewpoint. The news desks are mainly staffed by Whites, and they dictate newsworthy events to meet the needs of a predominately White public." (Thomas, 1984, p. 124) (I feel like you already said all this.)
In Split Image, the lack of representation is described as the lack of a voice minority workers have once inside the broadcast business. If the argument that the audience is better served by a diversity of ideas and voices in the news holds true, then the broadcast industry appears to be silencing a good portion of the voices aimed at adding to that diversity (Dates and Barlow, 1990, p. 406-412).
Hall (1990) talks about a societal common sense and the separate truths that are a part of that common sense. Facts are objects that must be interpreted by the person using them. However, black people and white people often see different truths based on different values. These different truths can stand in the way of solid discussions of race and race issues because these discussions lack any common ground. This is a larger problem for the journalist trying to hold on to the norm of objectivity as it is defined in the white-dominated media structure. It is difficult to have such different perspectives (or truths) detailed in a standard news package. This may be one reason why television tends to handle the issue of race in a documentary format and not in the daily newscast.
So if black voices are silenced who is bringing the black truth into the realm of publicly discussible ideas? The answer appears to be no one. This may be one reason stereotypes and covert racism are manifested in television news content. It also deals a blow to the idea of an objective truth, since no reporter can completely know and understand all of the separate truths held by groups in the market they cover.
Getting Noticed: Getting noticed is another area of concern for coverage of the black community. It is hard for minority groups to get noticed because these groups do not fit the reporter's view of the construction of the community. This explains part of the reason why public relations people are effective in controlling the news. Public relations efforts get noticed because they follow the path of least resistance and they provide less of a drain on the resources available for newsgathering, including equipment and personnel (Berkowitz, 1990, p.729). "Because they are prescheduled, continuing news stories help newsworkers and news organizations calculate their own activities by freeing staff to deal with the exigencies of the specifically unforeseen (Tuchman, 1978, p. 57)." It appears that journalists do not see their role as one of defining the community they are covering. Instead, objectivity helps them maintain a distance from a defining role. However, it is hard to say that this role does not exist.
The communities most hurt by this strategy of collecting news are those lacking a public relations effort. Local governments, industries and institutions all have people and resources to get their story in the news and to tell the story from that group's perspective. Public relations agents frame, to a large extent, how their group will be portrayed on the news. Marginalized communities within the coverage area rarely have any sort of organized public relations effort.
Story Frames: Framing of events is simply the manner in which the reporter organizes information in a news story (Tuchman, 1978, p. 7), deciding what information to include and what to cull out. Framing is a necessary process in journalism because of time and space restrictions. Still, framing is based on the individual's own belief system and the structural norms of the organization and the society.
When stories about the black community are reported, the journalists or the news organization impose a frame on that story. This frame determines the focus and angle of the story, right down to the video used to cover the reporter's voice track. Tuchman says, "The news net imposed a frame upon occurrences through the cooperation of the complex bureaucracy associated with the dispersion of reporters. Interactions within the bureaucratic hierarchy, reporters and editors jockeying with one another, may determine what is identified as news (Tuchman, 1978, p. 25)." This is to say what journalists define as news is more a part of the organizational structure of the newsgathering system than a desire to contribute to the "marketplace of ideas.
Journalists tend to frame their stories to reflect the "reality" they see at the individual event they are covering. However reporters see only what is happening in that small part of the community, missing how it fits into the larger societal reality they are supposed to reflect. This is particularly true for "minority stories" because the minority is seen as separate from the larger (white) society.
Considering social influences on news is important here. "News is the product of a social institution, and it is embedded in relationships with other institutions. It is a product of professionalism and it claims the right to interpret everyday occurrences to citizens and other professionals alike (Tuchman, 1978, p. 5)." Because of this structure the black community is framed by the people and institutions in the power structure and not by the leaders or members of that community. This leads to the use of stereotypes of that community, since there is no structure for self- definition. Through this framing structure, news guides perceptions of the black community in the larger audience (Tuchman, 1978, p. 107).
Dissenting views do make it into the news. Rather, it means that discussion of issues in the public realm is limited by the structure of news coverage. "All argue that the mass media limit the frames within which public issues are debated, and so narrow the available political alternatives. Those limits may permit the expression of some dissenting opinion (Tuchman, 1978, p. 156)."
Black people in white-dominated American society are often seen as not fitting the normal. This means stories from black communities are often seen as being outside the normal and thus these stories are not captured in the news organization's net as it trolls the viewing area in search of news. This is where journalists face some tough questions. If their role is to reflect reality, what is that reality and how do the minority communities missed by the news collection system, because they are not "typical," fit into this construction of reality? Both the sociology literature and the mass communications literature have failed to look at how television news organizations construct the community they cover and the impact of that construction of social reality as revealed in the news product. The current study is a first step in looking at these issues through a more narrowly focused slice of the community. Through this research, we may begin to construct a basis for a broader study of the role of television news in construction of social reality in the community.
Research Questions.
1. Does symbolic racism exist in local television news?
2. Does a station with a formal policy on race including on-going newsroom discussions about the connection between coverage and race decrease the amount of symbolic racism in their newscasts?
Hypotheses
H1: No television stories on any stations in the market will contain overtly racist statements.
H2: All three stations in the market will have stories that contain symbolic racism.
H3: The station with a formal policy on race and on-going discussions about race and news coverage will create fewer symbolic racist stories than the other stations in the market.
Methodology
Market Description:
This study looks at a top 50 midwestern television market. The market has a large white population, but also contains a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The black population in this market is about 11 percent, while the white population is about 86 percent according to state population statistics for the counties in the television market. In the county containing the metro area for the market, the population statistics show a larger percentage of black people (20.4) and a correspondingly smaller percentage of whites people (74.9).
The viewing area is segregated geographically. The northern suburbs tend to be white middle and upper-class people. To the south of the metro area are the working class white neighborhoods. The city itself tends to be home for a large proportion of the ethnic and racial minority communities.
The market under study has four network affiliates including a Fox station. All of the major network affiliates have large local news operations, except Fox. Station A is the station of record in the market. It has a strong local news presence in the market and presents itself as a top-rated, hard news focused operation. This is the most conservative, traditional news format in the market. Station B locates its format somewhere between station A's traditional approach and the tabloid station in the market. It is a station with a community service format. Their slogan focuses on developing a relationship with viewers in the market, similar to a friendship. The station focuses much of its effort on developing award-winning work and they have the trophies to prove it. Station B runs more regular franchise series on health, family and crime than their competitors. They say they want to help make their community be a better place to live. At the other extreme, opposite station A, is station C. Station C has a tabloid-format news program. This station focuses on short, quick stories. It favors production techniques like "team-reports" where two or more reporters cover the same story from different angles. This leads to shorter reporter packages on average. The station also tends to focus on the more sensational stories as compared to the other stations in the market.
This study also focuses on one of these major network affiliate stations because it has a news operation with a formally stated policy on coverage of diversity. According to the news director, diversity issues are openly discussed in staff meetings and in the newsroom. This station also has the best diversity of employees in its newsroom of any station in the market. This is true for reporters, producers, photographers and management. However, the main diversity center is in the reporting and photography areas. It should be noted that the diversity in the newsroom does not match the diversity of the community. However, the percentage of black reporters is slightly higher than the percentage of black people in the metro county for this market. Also, the news director appears to be making a strong push to increase diversity in the newsroom through the hiring process.
The assignment editors make a daily note on the assignment sheets for reporters and photographers as a reminder to look for diversity in news stories. The note at the top of the story list says, "Does my story/newscast reflect racial/ethnic diversity? Can it? Should it?"
Data Collection
Three weeks of newscasts for each of the three major network affiliates were collected in the market, for a total of 15 newscasts per station. Recordings were made of the 6 p.m. newscasts, which traditionally receive the lion's share of resources. This time period also tends to attract the largest overall audiences in the market. The recordings were made during a non-ratings month to avoid series designed to capture ratings. A constructed week was selected using a random numbers table. Stations were compared on the same days. Only the first two segments of news content were coded, effectively eliminating weather and sports.
Early evening newscasts for all three network affiliates were coded for symbolic racism using a content analysis technique to evaluate differences across the market in construction of symbolic racism in news stories (See appendix for code guide). Two trained graduate students coded the news stories for symbolic racism constructions, positive and negative portrayals of black people and whether they were given a voice in the stories. Both coders coded ten percent of the sample and an intercoder reliability of 83.34% was obtained using Spiegelman's alpha as the computational formula. The coders noted information about the station, reporter, format of the story and whether the story content was focused on issues of race. Each reporter's race and gender was also noted for the analysis.
To better understand the coding, some knowledge of television news structures is necessary. The way stories are presented can provide a great deal of information about the relative amount of resources the news organization allocated to that story, with more resources provided for more important stories. Resources include amount of airtime, amount of time needed to gather a story in the field and the time it takes to edit the story into its final form. Longer, more complicated stories tend to include more interviews with different people, require more video and a higher level of creativity in collecting the video and take more time to piece together into a final product.
Reporter packages are self-contained, taped stories introduced by an anchor. Packages are easily identified because the reporter's voice is heard over the video during the piece. Most major stories are either presented live, as packages or as a combination of the two. These formats are the most resource intensive for the station. Live reports from a location away from the station require expensive equipment, but they do not always require greater resources in newsgathering. For instance, a live interview at a meeting is not as resource intensive as a reporter package that requires collecting information, interviews and video at numerous locations. Other types of stories coded include VO/SOT's, which are stories where the anchor reads the script live during the broadcast with video showing while the anchor is talking. VO/SOT stories contain at least one sound bite. Without a sound bite, the story is called a VO. Since no on-camera interview is required, fewer resources are expended collecting this story. VO and VO/SOT stories tend to run less than 45 seconds each, while packages and live shots can run more than 2 minutes each. Finally, a story where the anchor is on-camera reading the script is called a reader. This is the cheapest story for news organizations to produce.
Symbolic Racism Coding
Symbolic racism is the combination of traditional American values (delayed gratification, good work ethic, morality, etc.) and anti-black affect. For this study, symbolic racism is coded using a content analysis code guide (see appendix C). The codes are split by positive and negative portrayals of black individuals. In coding a portrayal of black people the coder must determine type of portrayal, whether it is positive or negative and the format of the portrayal. Four formats were coded, including audio mention only, video portrayal only, a portrayal within a sound bite and a portrayal that is the result of the combination of audio and video. In the fourth case, the portrayal would not fit exclusively in either the audio or the video category.
Symbolic racial coding focuses on the actual construction of the racial stereotype instead of just the portrayed result. Constructions of symbolic racism may be seen in just the audio of a television news story, just the video or in a combination of the two. For example, the lead to a story (where the anchor is seen on camera introducing a reporter's package) may contain an audio only stereotype blaming the increase in violence at suburban schools on students who transfer to the school from inner city schools. This would be symbolic racism because it uses race-neutral terms to add a racial stereotype to the story. In this case, the suburban schools are seen as having white students and the inner city schools are seen as having black students. So black residents moving to the white school district are seen as the source of trouble.
An example of a video only stereotype construction would be images of black individuals in a non-race story sitting on the front porch of a house. This sends a racist message that black people are lazy, even though the story might have had a positive slant.
The most readily apparent form of symbolic racism is seen in the combination of video and audio to create the stereotype. This is seen often in economic stories about the unemployed where only black individuals are shown as out of work. This sends several stereotypical messages to the viewer. First, black people are not hard workers and thus they don't have jobs. Second, black people are leeches on the system, living off "hard-earned" white taxpayer dollars. Third, black people are not smart enough to garner high paying jobs and thus they are stuck in the minimum wage pay scale.
One final area where symbolic racism embeds itself in television news stories is in sound bites in the stories. Sound bites show people expressing their opinions and thoughts in their own words and with their own facial expressions. Sound bites are seen as giving the person the journalist interviews a voice -- a statement of opinion or idea in the person's own words -- in the story. This can be in the form of a sound bite or a direct quote, where the journalist notes that the opinion or idea are in the person's own words. Not having a voice on an issue might involve totally omitting that person or group from a story. It can also mean images of a person or group are shown without providing an opportunity for the subjects to express themselves, or providing an opportunity to express only facts, but not opinions or ideas.
Results
Station Comparisons: The three network affiliated stations were compared on several levels, including length of stories, format type of the stories, the reporter's racial background, whether the story included black individuals, whether the report had a racial story line, and finally whether the content, symbolism and overall story delivered a positive or negative image of black people.
The first cross tabulation compared the stations on a time interval broken down into 30-second categories. This showed a significant difference between stations (Chi-Square 22.771, significant at .01 alpha level). Station C ran 30 percent more stories than the other two stations in this sample. The main difference shows up in the under 30-second category, which makes sense because to have a higher story count the stories must be shorter. Station C doubles the other two stations story count in the under 30-second category. Station A and Station B are similar in that both stations have about 17 stories over 90 seconds in length. However, Station B has 8 of these stories in the over 2 minutes category, which shows a tendency toward longer stories.
(Insert Table A-1: Number of stories by length here)
Even though the length of stories varied between stations, the format of the stories did not vary (Chi-Square 2.749 n.s.). The data shows that Station C is running similar story formats (packages, voice-overs with bites, voice-overs and anchor readers) to the other stations, but that the time allotted to the traditionally longer packages. The breakdown between Station A and Station B is virtually identical.
Station C has a tendency to use team reports in their newscast. This usually is coverage of the same story from different angles by two reporters. In this format, packages tend to be shorter in length and also more numerous across newscasts. This could explain the higher than expected number of packages for this station.
(Insert Table A-2: Number of stories per format type here)
Many people make the argument that newsroom diversity begets diversity in news stories. A comparison of stories by station on reporter race, where it was possible for coders to determine the race of the reporter, brought the following results. Again, Station A and Station B are similar, with each station having 4 stories in the sample reported by black reporters. Station C had no black reporters show up in the sample. Even with the large discrepancy at Station C, the results were not significant (Chi-Square 6.694, n.s.).
(Insert Table A-3: Race of Reporter covering story here)
The coding also looked at the inclusion of black people in the news stories for each station. There was a significant difference between stations in this area (Chi-Square 7.162, sig. at .05). Again, Station C shows a deficiency with only 20 percent of the stories in the sample including black people. Station B had the most stories that included black individuals at 64% and Station A followed with 46% of their stories being inclusive.
(Insert Table A-4: Include Black People in Stories here)
Another common argument is that stories containing minority portrayals tend to be racial stories. The study results show that at all of the stations a majority of stories that included black people were stories about race. There was also a significant difference between stations (Chi Square 8.837, sig. at .05). Station A and Station B are similar with about twice as many stories including black people focused on race. Station C shows a much higher tendency to include portrayals of black individuals only in race related stories.
(Insert Table A-5: Number of stories with racial themes here)
The focus of this research is a comparison of racial portrayals. However, the results of the content analysis in this area for the station comparison are not significant (Chi-square 5.950, n.s.). Still, it is interesting to point out that both Station A and Station B had more positive portrayals while Station C had more negative portrayals of black people in their news stories. This coding was determined by combining the positive and negative codes for audio, video, a combination of audio and video, and bites. If there were more positive portrayals overall than negative portrayals, the story was coded positive and vice versa. If there was a tie, the story was coded as a tie.
(Insert Table A-6: Overall Story portrayals here)
When you look specifically at the content of the story for portrayals of black people, the results are also not significant (Chi square 1.686, n.s.). However, Station A and Station B again have a predominately positive content while Station C has almost no content, positive or negative.
(Insert Table A-7: Comparison of minority content here)
When you break out the symbolically constructed content, which in the coding was determined to be a combination of audio and video elements, the results are again not significant (chi square 5.492, n.s.). Once again Station C shows a predominance of negative symbolic portrayals of black people while the other two are predominately positive.
(Insert Table A-8: Symbolic minority portrayals here)
In comparing the stations' results, Station C had a higher number of stories per newscast and the stories were shorter in length. This makes sense when looking at the type of stories that are predominate in their newscast. While Station A and Station B tend toward longer stories and more reporter packages, Station C appears to focus heavily on VO/SOT's, VO's and anchor readers.
It is important to note that Station A and Station B each had a number of stories reported on by black reporters. Station C had no black reporters in the sample. This is particularly interesting when you look at the number of stories on each station where black people were included in the content, either positively or negatively. Station C has only about 17 percent of their stories including black individuals while both Station A and Station B have more black people in their stories. Station B had the highest number, with 39 percent of their stories including black representations. This high number may be a direct result of their formal policy on inclusion of minorities in news stories. Station A came in a little lower at 32 percent.
Station C not only had the fewest stories including black people, but it also had a significantly higher number of stories containing racial themes as compared to the other two stations. In fact, 85 percent of Station C's stories included racial themes. Station B had the fewest racial theme stories with only 61 percent and Station A was not much higher with 66 percent.
While none of the story content categories produced significant results, it is still interesting to look at the direction of the proportions in these categories for each station since the problem of significance may be due to a lack of statistical power. Both Station A and Station B contained about a 2-to-1 ratio of positive portrayals of black individuals, while Station C contained a little less than a 2-to-1 negative ratio of portrayals of black people.
These results appear to provide some evidence in support of the formal policy on including diversity in news stories at Station B. However, it should be noted that Station A is operating without a clearly stated overt policy and is achieving positive results. The data also provides support for increasing the diversity in the newsroom, since the station without such diversity showed negative trends in their coverage of minorities.
Discussion
The formal policy at Station B worked to increase the diversity in the news stories and limit the unintended creation of symbolic racism in the station's news product. Racial coding was found in the content of the stories. This was more the case with the station that lacked newsroom diversity in this sample. However, it also occurred at the station with a formal diversity policy. Station B reporters noted that time and resource constraints can override the desire to add diversity to the news.
The organizational level proved to be much more powerful in this area than was originally anticipated. This supports Gans and Tuchman's work at the organizational level. It also lends support to creation of formal diversity policies as a means of combating stereotypical racial constructions in the news. The findings support the efforts at station B in working to create a more diverse newsroom and a more diverse content through organizational structures and also education in open newsroom discussions.
The difference between Stations A and B as compared to Station C is dramatic in that it shows the problems created by not having a diverse newsroom which represents the community covered by the organization. Still there are questions here on how closely the news organization must represent the community. It appears that this research encourages the organization to err on the side of more diversity rather than less. The data show the need for a tie between newsrooms and minority communities. This gets back to the need for greater diversity in newsrooms in general.
However, the data also show a benefit in creating an atmosphere where diversity is discussed regularly and openly in the newsroom. This benefit appears to be most prevalent in greater on-air diversity in news stories and a greater push for diversity inside the newsroom. It relates back to the argument that it is not enough to just hire a more diverse staff in the newsroom, minority workers must also be given a voice in coverage and hiring decisions at the station. Through this open communication, multiple truths may be discussed within the newsroom, allowing for a better overall presentation of news to the various groups that make up the viewing audience. This partially answers complaints from the minority audience that they are not accurately represented in the news.
In short, the organizational structure can impact the individual's reporting to increase diversity through the hiring of minorities, providing an open arena for discussion of diversity issues in the newsroom and as a part of a formal policy on the creation of diversity within the news content. However, the organizational structure appears to have little impact on encouraging reporters to develop ties to minority groups or in developing an understanding among reporters of the multiple truths possible for any one story or event. These are both operating at the individual level. It is the individual reporter who must be aggressive in developing these ties and a true understanding of the perspectives various communities have on the issues and stories the reporter covers. This is to say that it is not enough for the news organization to hire minorities, develop a diversity policy and hold diversity discussions. The reporters must also work to develop their own connections to minority communities and work to better understand the views of that community. It is possible that the organization may play a role in encouraging reporters to take these steps, however, it is ultimately the responsibility of the reporter to establish these ties. This is especially true as organizations look to provide more news content for an expanding news hole in the future. As resources and personnel are stretched even further, less opportunity will exist for the organization to take time to work on improving diversity. Reporters will also be taxed by these resource pressures. Still, they are the ones who are ultimately responsible for the diversity content in their stories.
Future Prospects for Research:
The area of race and television news is a wide-open arena for research. Several elements need work in this area as a continuation of this research. First, a better code guide is needed to capture covert constructions. This will be difficult since it is not simply counting manifest content. Capturing this latent content is a key to improving the quality of content analyses studying race.
Access to local news content is a problem since there is currently no group collecting this content. The Vanderbilt archives are a good resource for national content, but no comparable archive exists for local news content. Thus researchers must obtain access to newsrooms, which is no small task considering the focus of the research.
The audience response to diversity changes should be measured. It is important to understand how the audience views diversity, what they attend to and how the changes impact them as viewers. This might be accomplished most effectively in an experimental format where two versions of the same story are shown to the groups to gage their reaction to diverse content or sources. This research should be related in some way to how the reporters perceive the desires of their audience and how that can affect coverage at the station.
Finally, if there is no scientific basis for changing the organizational or individual reporting structures, then news managers and journalists cannot be expected to work toward change with any speed or diligence. Researchers need to provide evidence to propel mainstream organizations into making changes to improve newsroom and newscast diversity.
References
Altheide, D. L. (1976). Creating Reality: How TV News Distorts Events. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
ASNE (1985). Newspaper Credibility: Building Reader Trust No. American Society of Newspaper Editors.
Atwater, T. (1984). Product Differentiation in Local TV News. Journalism Quarterly, 61(4), 757-762.
Berkowitz, D. a. D. B. A. (1990). Information Subsidy and Agenda-Building in Local Television News. Journalism Quarterly, 67(4), 723-730.
Bernstein, J. M. a. S. L. (1992). Contextual Coverage of Government by Local Television News. Journalism Quarterly, 69(2), 329-340.
Carroll, R. L. (1989). Market Size and TV News Values. Journalism Quarterly, 66(1), 49-56.
Chestnut, J.L. Jr. & Cass, J. (1990). Black in Selma: The Uncommon Life of J.L. Chestnut Jr. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Crane, V. (1992). Listening to the Audience: Producer-Audience Communication. In B.V. Lewenstein (Ed.). When Science Meets the Public (pp. 21-32). Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Dates, J.L. and Barlow, W. (1990). Split Image. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press.
Entman, R. M. (1991). Blacks in the News: Television, Modern Racism and Cultural Change. In Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, (pp. 36). Chicago, IL:
Fiske, J. (1993). Power Plays, Power Works. London: Verso.
Gans, H. J. (1980). Deciding What's News. New York: Vintage Books.
Gomes, R.C. & Williams, L.F. (1990). Race and Crime: The Role of the Media in Perpetuating Racism and Classism in America. Vol. 14, Urban League Review, pp. 57-69.
Gray, H. (1987). Race Relations As News. American Behavioral Scientist, 30 (March/April, No. 4), 381-396.
Hall, S. (1990). The Whites of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media. In M. Alvarado & J. Thompson (Eds.), The Media Reader (pp. 7-23). London: B.F.I.
Kluegel, J. R. and Bobo, L. (1993). Opposition to Race-Targeting: Self- Interest, Stratification Ideology, or Racial Attitudes. American Sociological Review, 58 (August, No. 4), 443-464.
McCracken, G. (1988). The Long Interview. (pp. 1-88) Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications Inc.
McManus, J. (1990). How Local Television Learns What Is News. Journalism Quarterly, 67(4), 672-683.
Papper, B. and Gerhard, M. (1998, August). About Face? Communicator.
Sears, D. O. (1988). Symbolic Racism. In P. A. a. D. A. T. Katz (Eds.), Eliminating Racism (pp. 53-84). New York: Plenum Press.
Thomas, E. (1984). The Other America: Race-Related News Coverage. The Journal of Ethnic Studies, 11 (Winter, No. 4), 124-126.
Tuchman, G. (1978). Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality. New York: The Free Press.
Voakes, P., Kapfer, J., Kurpius, D.D. and Shano-yeon Chern, D. (1993). Diversity in the News: A Conceptual and Methodological Framework. In Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, (pp. 58). Kansas City, MO.
Weaver, D.H. & Wilhoit, G.C. (1991). The American Journalist: A Portrait of U.S. News People and Their Work. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Wilson, W. J. (1987). The Truly Disadvantaged. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Wisconsin Crime and Arrests 1991. Uniform Crime Reports. Wisconsin Office of Justice Assistance.
1993 Green Book. U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means. pp. 591, 708-709.
Appendix A: Tables
Table A-1: Number of stories by length
Station A
Station B
Station C
30 Sec.
17
15
40
72
Length
60 Sec.
13
13
6
32
of Stories
90 Sec.
2
2
8
12
120 Sec.
11
8
8
27
121+ Sec.
4
8
3
15
47
46
65
158
Table A-2: Number of stories per format type
Station A
Station B
Station C
Package
18
18
20
56
Story
VO/SOT
13
12
22
47
Type
VO
11
8
12
31
Reader
5
8
11
24
47
46
65
158
Table A-3: Race of Reporter covering story
Station A
Station B
Station C
Race
White
5
9
9
23
of
Black
4
4
0
8
Reporter
Unknown
6
5
2
13
15
18
11
44
Table A-4: Include Black People in Stories
Station A
Station B
Station C
No
32
28
54
114
Yes
15
18
11
44
47
46
65
158
Table A-5: Number of stories with racial themes
Station A
Station B
Station C
Story
Race
31
28
55
114
Type
Non-Race
16
18
10
44
47
46
65
158
Table A-6: Overall Story portrayals of Black People
Station A
Station B
Station C
Story
Positive
10
10
3
23
Type
Negative
5
5
6
16
Tie
0
3
2
5
15
18
11
44
Table A-7: Comparison of minority content
Station A
Station B
Station C
Story
Positive
5
8
1
14
Type
Negative
2
2
1
5
Tie
0
1
0
1
7
11
2
20
Table A-8: Symbolic minority portrayals
Station A
Station B
Station C
Story
Positive
10
8
3
21
Type
Negative
5
4
5
14
Tie
0
3
2
5
15
15
10
40
Appendix B
Content Analysis Cast Code Sheet
Station: A B C Newscast Date:
Coder: ____________________________ Date Coding Completed: _________________
**If a story is marked to be coded, code on a story code sheet and attach to this sheet. Be sure to use same story name on both sheets.
Story
Length
Type
Reporter
Code????
Race Story
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
W/ B /O
Yes / No
Yes / No
Appendix C
Content Analysis Story Code Sheet
Coder: ________________________ Coding Date ______________ Sheet ____ of ______
Station: A B C Newscast Date:
Story ____________________________ Type: (1) PKG (2) VO (3) VOSOT (4) RDR
Length of story ___:___ Reporter _________________ RPTR Race ________________
Were black people included in the story in any manner? (1) Yes (2) No
***If black people are not included in the story, stop coding now.***
Issue Topic (Overt topic in story): (1) Race related (2) NOT Race related
========================================================================
Length (Time) Code: (code length of each incident coded below)
1. less than :15
2. :15 - :29
3. :30 - :44
4. :45 - :59
5. 1:00 - 1:14
6. 1:15 - 1:29
7. 1:30 - 1:44
8. 1:45 - 1:59
9. 2:00 and over
========================================================================
**If 2 or more stereotypes are apparrant in a single portrayal, code only the most dominant stereotype. If the portrayals are separate, code the stereotype for each.
1000 Positive
1000 Negative
2000 Positive
2000 Negative
3000 Positive
3000 Negative
4000 Positive
4000 Negative
Appendix D
Content Analysis Code Guide
Station: A B C Newscast Date:
Story ____________________________ Type: (1) PKG (2) VO (3) VOSOT (4) RDR
Length of story ___:___ Reporter _________________ RPTR Race ________________
Issue Topic (Overt topic in story): (1) Race related (2) NOT Race related
===============================================================================
Length (Time) Code: (code length of each incident coded below)
1. less than :15
2. :15 - :29
3. :30 - :44
4. :45 - :59
5. 1:00 - 1:14
6. 1:15 - 1:29
7. 1:30 - 1:44
8. 1:45 - 1:59
9. 2:00 and over
===============================================================================
1000 AUDIO
1100 Appearances during newscast:
1110 Positive (resiliency/overcoming)
1120 Negative (Fraud/Stuck in the system)
1200 Status level:
1210 High status context (corporate exec.)
1230 Middle status context (prison guard, store manager)
1220 Lower status context (construction worker, blue collar job)
1240 No status (welfare/crime)
1300 Industriousness: (worthwhile and productive activity)
1310 Favorable (active)
1320 Unfavorable (inactive)
1400 Competence: (reflects intelligence of character)
1410 Intelligent (ideas proposed, ability, university graduate)
1430 Above average capabilities (8th grade education or better)
1420 Below average capabilities (less than 8th grade education)
1440 Not Intelligent (unable to grasp simple concepts)
1500 Attractiveness: (dress, physical appearance)
1510 Glamorous (looks wealthy/well dressed)
1530 Casual (dressed down, but in nice clothes, uniform)
1520 Ordinary (blue-collar clothes-not ill-fitting/torn, jeans & T-shirt)
1540 Humble (tattered clothing/dirty/ill-fitting)
1600 Hostility: (degree of kindness or hostility displayed by each character)
1610 Very Kind
1630 Kind
1620 Hostile
1640 Very Hostile
1700 Morality: (classify the moral behavior of the character)
1710 Rejection of illegal or immoral acts/behavior
1730 Unqualified rejection of illegal or immoral acts/behavior
1720 Illegal or immoral acts/behavior
1740 Extremely Illegal or immoral acts/behavior
1800 Dominance: (individual appears dominate or subordinate)
1810 Dominant (Presents main idea which is focus of the PKG)
1820 Subordinate (reacting to dominant's ideas)
1900 Voice: (degree to which individual expresses own views)
1910 Given voice (explains views in a soundbite or quote)
1920 No Voice given (lists items, gives no opinion or idea of their own)
2000 VIDE0
2100 Appearances during newscast:
2110 Positive (resiliency/overcoming)
2120 Negative (Fraud/Stuck in the system)
2200 Status level:
2210 High status context (corporate exec.)
2230 Middle status context (prison guard, store manager)
2220 Lower status context (construction worker, blue collar job)
2240 No status (welfare/crime)
2300 Industriousness: (worthwhile and productive activity)
2310 Favorable (active)
2320 Unfavorable (inactive)
2400 Competence: (reflects intelligence of character)
2410 Intelligent (ideas proposed, ability, university graduate)
2430 Above average capabilities (8th grade education or better)
2420 Below average capabilities (less than 8th grade education)
2440 Not Intelligent (unable to grasp simple concepts)
2500 Attractiveness: (dress, physical appearance)
2510 Glamorous (looks wealthy/well dressed)
2530 Casual (dressed down, but in nice clothes, uniform)
2520 Ordinary (blue-collar clothes-not ill-fitting/torn, jeans & T-shirt)
2540 Humble (tattered clothing/dirty/ill-fitting)
2600 Hostility: (degree of kindness or hostility displayed by each character)
2610 Very Kind
2630 Kind
2620 Hostile
2640 Very Hostile
2700 Morality: (classify the moral behavior of the character)
2710 Rejection of illegal or immoral acts/behavior
2730 Unqualified rejection of illegal or immoral acts/behavior
2720 Illegal or immoral acts/behavior
2740 Extremely Illegal or immoral acts/behavior
2800 Dominance: (individual appears dominate or subordinate)
2810 Dominant (First bite in the PKG)
2820 Subordinate (reacting to dominant's ideas)
2900 Voice: (degree to which individual expresses own views)
2910 Given voice (explains views in a soundbite or quote)
2920 No Voice given (lists items, gives no opinion or idea of their own)
3000 COMBINATION OF AUDIO & VIDEO
3100 Appearances during newscast:
3110 Positive (resiliency/overcoming)
3120 Negative (Fraud/Stuck in the system)
3200 Status level:
3210 High status context (corporate exec.)
3230 Middle status context (prison guard, store manager)
3220 Lower status context (construction worker, blue collar job)
3240 No status (welfare/crime)
3300 Industriousness: (worthwhile and productive activity)
3310 Favorable (active)
3320 Unfavorable (inactive)
3400 Competence: (reflects intelligence of character)
3410 Intelligent (ideas proposed, ability, university graduate)
3430 Above average capabilities (8th grade education or better)
3420 Below average capabilities (less than 8th grade education)
3440 Not Intelligent (unable to grasp simple concepts)
3500 Attractiveness: (dress, physical appearance)
3510 Glamorous (looks wealthy/well dressed)
3530 Casual (dressed down, but in nice clothes, uniform)
3520 Ordinary (blue-collar clothes-not ill-fitting/torn, jeans & T-shirt)
3540 Humble (tattered clothing/dirty/ill-fitting)
3600 Hostility: (degree of kindness or hostility displayed by each character)
3610 Very Kind
3630 Kind
3620 Hostile
3640 Very Hostile
3700 Morality: (classify the moral behavior of the character)
3710 Rejection of illegal or immoral acts/behavior
3730 Unqualified rejection of illegal or immoral acts/behavior
3720 Illegal or immoral acts/behavior
3740 Extremely Illegal or immoral acts/behavior
3800 Dominance: (individual appears dominate or subordinate)
3810 Dominant (First bite in the PKG)
3820 Subordinate (reacting to dominant's ideas)
3900 Voice: (degree to which individual expresses own views)
3910 Given voice (explains views in a soundbite or quote)
3920 No Voice given (lists items, gives no opinion or idea of their own)
4000 SOUND BITE/DIRECT QUOTES
4100 Appearances during newscast:
4110 Positive (resiliency/overcoming)
4120 Negative (Fraud/Stuck in the system)
4200 Status level:
4210 High status context (corporate exec.)
4230 Middle status context (prison guard, store manager)
4220 Lower status context (construction worker, blue collar job)
4240 No status (welfare/crime)
4300 Industriousness: (worthwhile and productive activity)
4310 Favorable (active)
4320 Unfavorable (inactive)
4400 Competence: (reflects intelligence of character)
4410 Intelligent (ideas proposed, ability, university graduate)
4430 Above average capabilities (8th grade education or better)
4420 Below average capabilities (less than 8th grade education)
4440 Not Intelligent (unable to grasp simple concepts)
4500 Attractiveness: (dress, physical appearance)
4510 Glamorous (looks wealthy/well dressed)
4530 Casual (dressed down, but in nice clothes, uniform)
4520 Ordinary (blue-collar clothes-not ill-fitting/torn, jeans & T-shirt)
4540 Humble (tattered clothing/dirty/ill-fitting)
4600 Hostility: (degree of kindness or hostility displayed by each character)
4610 Very Kind
4630 Kind
4620 Hostile
4640 Very Hostile
4700 Morality: (classify the moral behavior of the character)
4710 Rejection of illegal or immoral acts/behavior
4730 Unqualified rejection of illegal or immoral acts/behavior
4720 Illegal or immoral acts/behavior
4740 Extremely Illegal or immoral acts/behavior
4800 Dominance: (individual appears dominate or subordinate)
4810 Dominant (First bite in the PKG)
4820 Subordinate (reacting to dominant's ideas)
4900 Voice: (degree to which individual expresses own views)
4910 Given voice (explains views in a soundbite or quote)
4920 No Voice given (lists items, gives no opinion or idea of their own)