Interlocking among American Newspaper Organizations Revisited

Pressure from the Top” and Its Influence on Newsroom and Content

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7513655
AutoresAdam J Saffer (0000-0001-8032-4256, University of Minnesota, autor de correspondencia), Deborah L Dwyer (0000-0002-0839-0264, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Jennifer L Harker (0000-0002-0483-5465, West Virginia University), Christopher E Etheridge (0000-0002-0739-6410, University of Kansas), Mariam Turner (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Daniel Riffe (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Año2020
Volumen24
Número3
Páginas441-469
Fecha de publicación2020-12-27
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaMass Communication & Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1520-5436 • E-ISSN: 1532-7825
EditorialTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/15205436.2020.1868523
OpenAlexW3116304761
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas45

Today’s media companies seem to be more intertwined than ever. But are they? Do these “interlocks” affect editors and the content journalists produce? This study uses a three-method design to examine the connections among newspaper organizations and corporations. The network analysis examined the interlocks among newspaper companies’ directors. The second phase surveyed editors of newspapers owned by these companies to assess the influence on the newsroom from the board and parent company. In the third phase, news coverage of directors and their affiliated organizations was content analyzed for newspapers whose editors perceived pressure “from above.” The network analysis results suggest a monolithic interlocking structure that previous scholars feared. For one-third of survey respondents, corporate parents and the boardroom were seen as influencing the newsroom. These “pressured editors” perceived significantly stronger pressures from the boardroom, “ownership/upper management,” and business interests than editors who did not indicate pressure from above. So, how did pressured newsrooms cover ownership and directors? Routine coverage of directors and their affiliated organizations was lacking. Disclosure of a relationship between a director or affiliated organization and the newspaper was disclosed half of the time and traditional journalistic scrutiny was applied less than half of the time

Advertising · Business · Content analysis · Newspaper · Political science · Public relations · Scrutiny · Social science · Sociology · Media Influence and Politics · Media Studies and Communication · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Law