Centered on a series of dramatic murders in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Richmond, Virginia,The Body in the Reservoiruses these gripping stories of crime to explore the evolution of ...sensationalism in southern culture.In Richmond, as across the nation, the embrace of modernity was accompanied by the prodigious growth of mass culture and its accelerating interest in lurid stories of crime and bloodshed. But while others have emphasized the importance of the penny press and yellow journalism on the shifting nature of the media and cultural responses to violence, Michael Trotti reveals a more gradual and nuanced story of change. In addition, Richmond's racial makeup (one-third to one-half of the population was African American) allows Trotti to challenge assumptions about how black and white media reported the sensational; the surprising discrepancies offer insight into just how differently these two communities experienced American justice.An engaging look at the connections between culture and violence, this book gets to the heart--or perhaps the shadowy underbelly--of the sensational as the South became modern.
Abstract
Despite the scholarly popularity of important developments of political communication, concepts like soft news or infotainment lack conceptual clarity. This article tackles that problem and ...introduces a multilevel framework model of softening of journalistic political communication, which shows that the 4 most prominent concepts—(a) sensationalism, (b) hard and soft news (HSN), (c) infotainment, and (d) tabloidization, and, additionally, (e) eroding of boundaries of journalism—can be distinguished in a hierarchical model. By softening, we understand a metaconcept representing developments in political journalism that are observed on different levels of investigation, from journalism as a system (macrolevel) down to single media items (microlevel).
The increasing penetration of the internet and new media technologies has created more avenues for the participation of people, formerly known as media audiences, in the news production process ...through a practice termed citizen journalism. News about events, people and places break on-the-go as reported by individuals with smartphones, internet connection and social media accounts. However, citizen journalism has promoted sensationalism because sharing of emotion-provoking content is fast becoming a popular culture on social media, thereby posing ethical challenges that call for regulation. This study investigated sensationalism as an ethical issue in citizen journalism among undergraduates in selected universities in Ogun State, Nigeria. It was anchored in social responsibility media theory. The population of this study comprised 53,749 full-time undergraduates of Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta; Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijagun; and Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo all in Ogun State, Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique was adopted to select 381 respondents studied using a self-structured questionnaire. Results revealed that a majority of the undergraduates participated in citizen journalism; they mostly shared entertainment content; they were motivated by entertainment, appeal, and controversies in sharing sensational content; but they perceived sensationalism to be ethically wrong. The study recommended media literacy and fact-checking as antidotes to sensationalism in digital media.
Resumo Este artigo estuda a pioneira contribuição de Condillac à Economia, que antecipa em diversos aspectos as teorias neoclássicas do valor e trocas. O trabalho argumenta que a teoria econômica do ...autor se relaciona com sua filosofia, o sensacionalismo, que provê uma fundamentação possível para uma Economia baseada no conceito de ação humana e escolha. A rejeição por parte dos economistas do século dezenove do modelo de trocas e da teoria do valor desenvolvidos por Condillac é relacionada no artigo com as diferenças nucleares entre as perspectivas plutológica e catalática. A despeito dessa rejeição, mostramos como a filosofia do autor ainda assim influencia as obras de alguns economistas do período, notadamente Destutt de Tracy.
Abstract This article studies Condillac’s pioneering contribution to economics, which in many ways anticipates modern neoclassical value and exchange theory. The paper argues that his economic theory is related to his philosophy, known as sensationalism, which provides a possible foundation for an economic theory based on the concept of human action and choice. The rejection by nineteenth-century economists of the exchange model and theory of value developed by Condillac is related in the article to the core differences between the plutological and catallactic perspectives. Despite this rejection of his contributions, we show how the author’s philosophy still influenced the works of some economists of the period, notably Destutt de Tracy.
The present paper critically examines the covid-19 reporting in the electronic media of Pakistan that how the electronic media is helping to fight or sensationalize the reports and updates of ...Coronavirus. In particular, it pays attention to the concepts of sensationalism related to natural calamities in electronic media. It also considers the impact of Covid-19 reporting how the electronic media is helping viewers through awareness campaigns whether it is creating motivation or stress among viewers. The data is collected by employing the survey method. Based on the data insights, the paper concludes by arguing that Pakistan's electronic media is creating stress, fear, and negative reporting and have low awareness campaigns related to Covid-19. The chapter suggests the implementation of guidelines by PEMRA. Moreover, more campaigns should be executed to create awareness and reducing fear among people.
The well-known phrase ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ describes the sensational approach that has penetrated the history of news. Sensationalism is a term without complete consensus among scholars, and its ...meaning and implications have not been considered in a digital environment. This study analyzes 400 articles from online-native news organizations across the Americas, evaluating the sensational treatment of news categories and news values, and their associated social media interaction numbers on Facebook and Twitter. Findings suggest that ‘hard’ news topics like government affairs and science/technology were treated sensationally just as often as traditionally sensationalized categories like crime or lifestyle and society. In addition, audiences are not necessarily more likely to respond to sensational treatments. This study also finds that online-native news organizations use sensationalism differently, and there is significant variation in publications from the United States, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.
La declaración del estado de alarma por la pandemia del Covid-19 ha confinado a millones de ciudadanos en sus domicilios. La situación de aislamiento tiene enormes consecuencias en múltiples niveles: ...social, psicológico, económico, educativo..., y también comunicativo. A partir de una encuesta realizada a 1.122 personas durante la fase de confinamiento más severa, el presente artículo tiene como objetivo analizar cómo el consumo informativo se ha visto modificado durante este período de tiempo y cómo perciben los ciudadanos la cobertura mediática realizada por los medios de comunicación. Los resultados muestran que la ciudadanía se informa más y con mayor frecuencia que antes de la crisis sanitaria. Con todo, mantiene una actitud crítica con la información que proporcionan los medios, que realizan una cobertura condicionada por la línea editorial, de forma sensacionalista y generando alarma social innecesaria.
This book analyzes the National Police Gazette, the racy New York City tabloid that gained an audience among men and boys of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Looking at how images ...of sex, crime, and sports reflected and shaped masculinities during this watershed era, this book amounts to a story of what it meant to be an American man at the beginning of the American Century.
Negativity in the news sells, but is such news also perceived as more credible and shareworthy? Given that negative information is more impactful and processed more easily, a positive-negative ...asymmetry might also exist in news processing. This negativity bias is explored in a two-part experiment (N = 696) where respondents rated (a) multiple positive and negative news items and (b) conflicting news on perceived credibility and shareworthiness. Results reveal no straightforward patterns: Audiences only hold a negativity bias in their credibility assessment under certain conditions, and even less so when it comes to sharing news. When confronted with conflicting information, audiences do not seem to use negativity as a cue to determine which news to believe or share.
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