News and Public Opinion
Fall Trimester 2001
Dr. Susan Banducci
Research Paper
Due 21 December, 2001 17 hrs
The paper should be no more than 15 pages (excluding tables, notes and references), typed and double spaced. The list of references should indicate that you have consulted a number of sources to support your research question and design. Many of these references will be from the course readings but other will come from your own research.
Your paper should be based on your original research. You are expected to address an important question about public opinion, design a research project to address the question, execute it and report your findings. There are two possible approaches to take to the design of the research project:
(1) Content Analysis of News Coverage
Many of the readings suggest that public opinion is a reflection of what the media report. In addition, much of the information that contributes to the formation of public opinion is gained from news coverage. Your research question may be how a particular issue is framed in the newspapers or on television news. You may also want to measure the visibility of a particular issue. Take a sample of newspapers (or news broadcasts) and analyze the content of the news coverage of the issue.
In order to complete the project you will need to construct a coding sheet outlining the variables that you want to measure in each news story and select of sample of days of news coverage. It will be possible to use internet versions of newspapers for the content analysis. If possible, you can select a period of time around a specific national or international event and analyze the news coverage. See the required reading for examples of how to take a sample and construct a coding scheme.
Another approach, is to analyze public opinion as measured in letters to the editor or in opinion pieces. You might also choose to analyze how public opinion polls are reported in the newspaper. Again, you will need to select a sample of days and newspapers to analyze.
Resources
Riffe, Daniel, Stephen Lacy, and Frederick G. Fico. (1998). Analyzing media messages: Using quantitative content analysis in research. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998.
Weber, Robert P. (1990). Basic content analysis. Second ed. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
(2) Analysis of Survey Data
You can select one of the listed data sets and analyze some aspect of public opinion as measured by the survey instrument. In your analysis you should either look in depth at a single country or compare a set of countries. It is possible to either analyze the distribution of opinion on a single issue and what factors, such as socio-demographic characteristics, influence opinions on this issue, how attention to the media shapes opinions on this issue or how opinion varies across countries and some explanations for this. The data sets are in SPSS format. For those not familiar with SPSS some resources are listed below and there will be a brief demonstration in class.
Resources and data sets available (data sets will be available online)
Euro-barometer 53: April-May 2000 Questions include opinion about the European Union, opinions about who should be allowed to immigrate. Also includes questions about routine media behavior. Codebook (available online)
Euro-barometer 52.1: November-December 2000 Focus on opinions about genetic engineering and bio-technology (cloning, food production, etc.). Also includes questions about routine media behavior. Codebook (available online)
SIMPLE STATISTICAL ANALYSIS IN SPSS from Information Systems Services at Leeds University http://www.leeds.ac.uk/iss/documentation/tut/tut53/tut53-Introduc.html
Wolfgang Ludwig-Mayerhofer: Internet Guide to SPSS for Windows http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wlm/wlmspss.htm
Paper Format
Your paper should NOT be merely a descriptive or chronological account of events. Nor should it merely be a summary of the literature. You will be penalized in your grade is you submit such a paper. You should put forth a question or hypothesis based on previous research on the subject, and design and carry out a study to address the question.
Your paper should have four sections: (1) Introduction - Review of the literature associated with the research question; (2) Methods - Discuss your design, sample, variables, operationalization of concepts, and form of analysis; (3) Findings/Results - Summarize the main points based on tables or charts designed to address the research question; (4) Discussion/Conclusion - Discuss problems with the project, possible relevance for further research and relate findings to larger body of research introduced in literature review. You may want to label each section as above. You will notice that this is the standard form of a journal article. It is in the methods section where you will need to define public opinion and how it is being measured in your paper.
Your data should be presented in tables or charts. Each table or chart should be well labeled. The idea is to take a great deal of complex information and present it simply. You will most likely rely on percentages rather than raw numbers in these tables. Also, the sample size (number of cases on which the analysis is based) should always be reported in the tables.
A number of factors will contribute to the evaluation of your paper: the logic, strength and creativity of the arguments; the range of sources consulted; use of appropriate methods for referencing and citation; and adherence to the paper guidelines outlined in this document.