News Research Journal

San José State University (SJSU) athletics typically does not attract much national media attention. The team became a topic of discussion during the 2024 U.S. presidential election, where trans athletes’ participation in sex-segregated sports became a political issue. The current study investigates how news outlets framed SJSU’s volleyball season and set an agenda that contributed to the broader culture war over trans athletes.

Covering a mass shooting can change a journalist’s outlook on the profession and craft of journalism. Some journalists thought of themselves as trusted in the community and righting wrongs, while others questioned the value of their coverage, regretted their processes or reflected on the ethical challenges they faced. The 51 journalists interviewed in this article demonstrated the media functions described by Weaver et al.—interpretive-watchdog, adversarial, disseminator and populist-mobilizer.

This study investigates how media frames shape public perceptions of individuals featured in news coverage, focusing on transgender representation. In a between-subjects experimental design, researchers randomly assigned participants to read one of three versions of a mock news article that differed only in framing—positive, negative or neutral. Afterward, participants completed a questionnaire assessing perceptions of the article, evaluations of the featured athlete and agreement with stereotype-based statements. Data analysis examined whether framing significantly influenced credibility judgments, perceived likability and stereotype endorsement. By showing how subtle editorial choices shape audience perceptions and affective responses, this study advances research on media effects and framing theory and highlights journalists’ ethical responsibilities when covering marginalized groups.

Within specialized beats such as the arts, reporters may rationalize accepting perks from external influences such as sources or public relations representatives, as an integral part of their job responsibilities. The purpose of this study was to test whether Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) is connected to arts journalists’ willingness to accept job-related perks, as well as to establish network relationships and maintain job status. A survey of U.S.-based journalists (n = 48) found that FoMO, maintaining working relationships, competition with influencers, job security, and a reporter’s specific beat all increased arts journalists’ willingness to accept external perks. The constantly shifting landscape of contemporary media may affect each reporter differently, depending on their beat, including deciding whether to accept external perks or not. Denying such offers could lead to the journalist fearing they may be missing out on an eventful experience, building network relationships or maintaining their job status in the competitive nature of modern journalism, which includes the presence of influencers who navigate similar spaces as specialized reporters.

This study examines how legacy news organizations in Bangladesh are navigating digital transformation within a repressive political system and a moderately developed media market. Drawing on the frameworks of disruptive innovation and post-industrial journalism, it employs a mixed-methods approach to analyze how digital adaptation is reconfiguring journalistic labor, editorial practices, and professional norms. Findings suggest that news organizations are increasingly adopting platform-oriented content strategies to reach large domestic and diasporic audiences, with particular emphasis on algorithm-driven and sensationalized news distributed through official YouTube channels. This shift is accompanied by the expansion of multimedia desks staffed primarily by digitally skilled younger journalists. While these “innovative” strategies are perceived as generating new revenue streams, they also intensify job insecurity among senior journalists and raise concerns about the erosion of journalistic quality. The study also contributes to scholarship on the digital transformation of legacy media in politically constrained Global South contexts.

In this article, we provide a fresh perspective about aspiring journalists who study journalism in English but practice in a context where English is neither an official language nor a cultural language, so they practice journalism in local languages. This study utilizes interviews with journalism communities in Kazakhstan. Our findings suggest that journalism education in English serves as a professional disadvantage to aspiring journalists who must practice journalism in their native languages. Linguistic capital, they seek and obtain, is being directed to other fields by aspiring journalists leading to Kazakhstani “capital diversion effect.”

The rule of anticipated importance holds that journalists allocate limited resources to stories deemed most significant to audiences, often disadvantaging third-party candidates. This study explores the Jamaican context through a content analysis of 100 newspaper articles. Results show no difference in the level of coverage between third and mainstream parties, contrary to mostly U.S.-based studies. However, third parties were framed as less conventional. These findings highlight the need to examine Global South media systems more deeply.

This study tested how storytelling approaches in a Facebook news post shape perceptions of news credibility. Online experiment participants (n = 921) were randomly assigned to view a post written in one of five styles: quoting only a Republican lawmaker, only a Democratic lawmaker, both partisan lawmakers, contextual information without quotes, or quoting a government official. Results found a partisan hostile media perception where Republicans rated all storytelling approaches as less credible than Democrats.

In 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump proposed giving American mothers who birthed babies a $5,000 “baby bonus.” The proposal prompted conversations on social media and widespread coverage in the news media. The current study, drawing on journalistic sourcing theory, employed a content analysis of online news coverage of Trump’s proposed “baby bonus.” Findings suggest that news coverage was mainly framed politically, and male voices were prioritized as news sources. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.

This study examines social media discourse surrounding the EF-4 tornado that struck Rolling Fork, Mississippi, on March 24, 2023, killing 25 people and causing widespread destruction in a socially vulnerable community. Using the Social Amplification of Risk Framework, the analysis explores how online conversations evolved across three disaster phases. Findings indicate that preparedness discussions centered on damage predictions and severe weather forecasts, while response-phase mentions emphasized assistance requests and emotional appeals.

Newspaper coverage of medical aid in dying (MAID) in states that considered but did not pass such legislation commonly used frames of personal autonomy, protecting vulnerable sources, physician’s duty, and sanctity of life. Official sources were used most overall, but unofficial sources were dominant in news, briefs, and features and for the personal autonomy frame, which was dominant. The findings raise questions about the use of sources and effectiveness of news framing regarding legislative action.

This study examines how professionalism is constructed and negotiated within Nigerian journalism discourse. Drawing on 422 news articles mentioning the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) published between 1995 and 2025, this study employs a qualitative content analysis to identify the key actors who invoke the term, the contexts of its use and how professionalism is defined through media narratives. Grounded in field theory, the findings reveal that journalists and politicians most frequently employ the term during professional gatherings, discussions of issues affecting journalists collectively or tributes to deceased journalists. In most instances, the term remains undefined; when defined, it is often equated with enduring journalistic norms and values such as ethics and objectivity. The findings yield new insights while reaffirming enduring journalism principles, despite Nigeria’s evolving media landscape. The study contributes to the broader discourse on the professionalization of journalism by offering fresh evidence and perspectives from a less-studied African context.

The political landscape in Bangladesh is complex and multifaceted, with limited exploration in relation to the rapidly growing news industry. This study aims to address this gap by analyzing 15,801 news articles, utilizing trend analysis and topic modeling. The findings reveal a consistent decline in political news coverage, with sporadic increases during parliamentary election years. The dominant focus of news topics revolves around the two major political parties, the Awami League (AL) and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), indicating the country’s two-party-centric nature of politics. Smaller political parties receive media coverage primarily when they form coalitions with major parties, further highlighting the dominance of the two major parties in political news coverage. The study also uncovers a preference for individual political figures over incidents or events in news coverage, suggesting a patron-client relationship within major political parties and a hierarchical decision-making system. In addition, the study identifies shifts in news framing during significant events, such as national elections, indicating changes in person-centric news frames, but always involving one of the two major political parties. Finally, the study highlights and raises important questions about potential political control over media and journalistic activities, stimulating discourse on journalistic freedom and political free speech.

This study examines media trust and how members of the public perceive and value various journalistic roles using a nationally representative survey (n = 1,026) to redefine and confirm how the American public places significant value on the contextualist role of journalism. The individual journalistic functions that make up contextual reporting are also highly valued. Media trust is primarily predicted by overall journalistic role perception, even above ideological views, but not for the contextualist role.

This comparative study analyzes the representation of women in online news in three countries that rank differently along the gender equality continuum: the United States, Sweden, and Egypt. Based on a content analysis of 420 news articles, a total of 2,210 news subjects were analyzed from six news websites. Results suggest that women continue to be underrepresented in the news of the three countries examined and that stereotypical patterns continue to be dominant in the online digital environment although significant differences in gender portrayal among the three countries were noted.