State of the News Print Media in Australia 2006

Appendix 2

Methodology

Ch.2   Audit Bureau of Circulation disc analysis

Analysis involved:
Other issues:

A peculiar value for 30/ 09/ 84 for regional daily (id=27 Barrier Daily Truth, Broken Hill) appeared in the data. The circulation value was given as 81574, however all other entries close to that date for the same publication are approximately 8100. As it seemed an obvious data entry error, it was changed to 8157 and recalculated.


Ch.4   News content analysis

Structure

The Steering Committee selected the newspapers to be sampled, based on their potential for reflecting as accurately as possible the Australian print media array. The 14 newspapers selected were:

The Australian ND News
The Age MD Fairfax
The Daily Telegraph MD News
The Sydney Morning Herald MD Fairfax
Herald Sun MD News
The Canberra Times MD Rural Press
Sun Herald MS Fairfax
Sunday Tasmanian MS News
Sunday Herald Sun MS News
Sunday Mail (SA) MS News
The Sunday Mail (QLD) MS News
Newcastle Herald RD Fairfax
Ballarat Courier RD Rural Press
Northern Territory News MD News

The high number of Sunday newspapers reflects circulation figures; Sunday newspapers are the highest selling in the country.

Twenty-eight days from throughout 2005 were then randomly generated by computer. The dates were:

Four coders were employed to analyse the first five news pages of each edition of the newspapers on the following days. Coder training was held over two weeks. Coding took place between March and July, 2006 resulting in the analysis of 2448 articles. Coders worked with a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, developed by academic researchers with assistance from the Spatial Analysis Unit (SPAN) of Charles Sturt University.

Criteria

Topics in the news
Changes were made to the US report template to suit the Australian environment. Politics was divided into Federal, State and Local. The categories were;

Federal Politics
federal issues/ politicians

State Politics
state issues/ politicians

Local politics
local council

Crime
murder, robbery, assault, fraud etc, where a criminal investigation has been launched or charges laid

Foreign Affairs
political issues of overseas countries that are not related to military, terrorism or war

Military
issues of military organisations that are not terrorism or war

Terrorism
bombings or acts of violence that are not part of traditional warfare

War
conflicts that are generally regarded as a war, for example, a clash between US military and Iraqi insurgents is war, the London bombings are terrorism

Entertainment
stories involving film, television and other celebrities

Lifestyle
'softer" magazine style stories on living

Business
financial stories
Science
reports of technological developments and scientific discoveries

Health
medical stories that are more consumer than science oriented

Accident/ Emergency
incidents where emergency services, police, fire, ambulance, SES are required but do not involve a criminal act

Sport
reports involving sports matches and/ or identities

Weather
general weather stories that do not involve cataclysmic events

Other
stories that do not fit into the other categories

Coders were instructed to identify the dominant topic of the news report so, for example, a report on the devastation of Hurricane Katrina would be an Accident/ Emergency story while an accompanying article about the factors contributing to the US hurricane season would be a weather story. Similarly a technological development for a tsunami warning system would be a science story.

Article length

The number of words appearing on the page for each article were added and divided into the four categories. The length of a story on page one, that spilled onto another page, was calculated as the length appearing on page one, and not the total length. This was done to give an indication of the volume of reports on each page.

Sources

Initially stories were coded for the number of sources quoted. A source was identified as a person or a statement or "an anonymous source'. Furthermore, each source was then categorised under the following.

Anonymous
A source identified as "anonymous" or where no identification was given

Government
A politician or person employed by a government department

Non Government Organisation (NGO)
A non political or corporate organisation

Company head
The executive, managing director etc of a corporation

Emergency
A member of the emergency services including police, ambulance, fire, SES

Academic
A university employee engaged in academic research

Medical
A doctor, nurse or other health provider

PR
Where the source was identified as a Public Relations spokesperson or statement

Statement
Where the source was only identified as coming from "a statement'

Celebrity
Where the source was only known for the status as a film, television or other "star'

Member of public
Where the source had no other qualification for comment other than their public citizenship

Other
Where the source could not be identified by other categories

If a source corresponded to more than one category, coders were instructed to identify their dominant purpose in the article and select that category. The PR source category could only be used where the source was identified as a PR spokesperson or statement. This does not reveal the level of involvement of Public Relations in media content. For example, many of the company heads sourced may have been provided by Public Relations staff to talk to the media.

Sources were further identified by gender.

While the statistics reveal a strong male bias a further breakdown of Member of Public sources, where there should be an even chance of male/ female sources, still demonstrates a male bias at 61.4 per cent compared to 38.6 per cent female. This is not, however, as great as the overall differential. It is suspected the male bias reflects the number of males in senior positions within government and corporations.

Framing

Framing categories were initially based on the US study. It was found, however, many were steeped in US vernacular, such as "reality check." Instead a mix of US frames and other frames was used, with a strong bias towards traditional news values as frames. It is hoped to further develop framing guidelines for future reports. The frames used were the following.

Conflict
Stories that emphasised a clash of ideas or forces

Consequence
Stories that emphasised the impact of a decision or event

Winner/ loser
Where the fortunes of a topic were emphasised

Problem to be solved
Where the main issue was presented as a difficulty to be overcome

Fear
Stories that emphasised a reason to be fearful

Human Interest
Stories that presented no other reason for publication apart from their appeal to the unusual

Proximity
Stories that highlighted the closeness of the topic to the publication's population

Prominence
Where a story was framed around the reputation of a person

Gender
Stories that highlighted gender as the main focus

Religion
As above but where religion was the dominant focus

Multiframe
Where more than one of the above categories applied

No frame
A straight, inverted pyramid style report with no obvious frame.

Coders were instructed to identify a single frame where it was clearly dominant over others. Where several frames were used without a dominant frame stories were deemed to be multiframe.

Data analysis

Once coding was complete the Spatial Analysis Unit of Charles Sturt University, which had assisted in database design, collated data into a final spreadsheet. In all 2448 articles were coded including 1573 from metropolitan newspapers, 442 from regional dailies and 435 from Sunday newspapers. Analysis was then performed by academic researchers.

Ch.5   Credibility

The "Opinion Leaders" sample was drawn from the "top end" of Roy Morgan Single Source—a well constructed Australia-wide sample of people of income $80,000+ or in the top occupational categories, and included booster samples from Henry Thornton Readers, Crikey Readers, Australian Institute of International Affairs Members, Marcus Oldham Associates, Davos Connection Associates and the Australian American Association members.