8. Notes & Bibliography
Development of the Supplement
The study was guided by a Steering Committee consisting of the Council 's Chairman, Professor Ken McKinnon, Executive Secretary, Jack Herman, and Policy Officer, Inez Ryan.
Persons responsible for researching and/or drafting various chapters are noted in the Contributors section at the front of this report. Harry Dillon (Charles Sturt University) and Associate Professor Ian Richards (University of South Australia), with the assistance of colleagues, developed and conducted the original research on the analysis of elections reported in chapter 6. They retain the rights to all the data they developed during the project and are free to publish further, more detailed analyses of those data. Drafts of the document were subjected to subbing and detailed editorial scrutiny by members of the Steering Committee. Initial editing was the responsibility of Professor Ken McKinnon, with Jack Herman responsible for the final edit.
The Council is very grateful for the unpaid work of industry and academic colleagues and partners, especially for the enhanced access to industry information that their availability ensured.
The Press Council approved publication of the final document.
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Chapter 2
The Press Council continues to rely on the data provided by Roy Morgan Research (readership) and the Audit Bureau of Circulation (circulation). It has used in this Supplement the data on website visits published by Neilsen/Net Ratings. It also thanks the Audit Bureau of Circulations and The Newspaper Works for their comments on, respectively, the new system of auditing circulation and its review of readership methodologies.
List of magazines used in circulation figures:
- Australian Woman 's Weekly
- Woman 's Day
- New Idea
- Reader 's Digest
- That 's Life
- TV Week
- Better Homes and Gardens
- Cleo
- Who
- Cosmopolitan
- NW
- Dolly
- Picture
- Time
- Girlfriend
- Marie Claire
- Australian Home & Garden
- Bulletin
- BRW and
- Australian Good Taste
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Chapter 4
Selected sources for "On-line news 2007"
- APN News and Media, "Market Announcement", 14 August 2007, http://www.apn.com.au
- Audit Bureau of Verification Services, "On-line advertising tops $1billion mark", 12 February 2007, http://www.auditbureau.org.au/ABC/info_resource/frame.html
- Harris Poll, "TV Network News Top Source of News and Information Today", Harris Interactive, 11 June 2007, http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=768
- Kirk, David, "The year ahead: the next steps in implementing our strategy", Fairfax Media Announcement, 27 April 2007, http://www.fairfaxmedia.com.au
- Livesly, James, "Brisbane 's warm glow", B & T Weekly, 29 June 2007
- McIntyre, Paul, "On-line news rivals at war over top site", Sydney Morning Herald, 9 August 2007
- Ricketson, Matthew, "Papers trail as readers flock on-line for news", The Age, 18 May 2007
- West Australian Newspapers, "Presentation on 2006/7 results",
6 August 2007, http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=81
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Chapter 6
Notes on the methodology of the analyses
Harry Dillon adapted a method pioneered in election studies at Canada 's McGill University 's Institute for the Study of Canada and used in reports such as its analysis of the 2006 Canadian federal elections
(http://media-observatory.mcgill.ca/pages/2006election.html). The Queensland report is based on a content analysis of all news, editorial and opinion pieces related to the election in the Courier-Mail and Sunday Mail. These stories are identified manually from the hard copies of each edition of the newspaper during the campaign. A small team of coders analysed each story. The vast majority of codes are purely objective. Coding identifies the first three parties mentioned in each article, in order; the same for leaders, and for issues. Thus the analysis tracks the total number of times that parties, leaders or issues are mentioned in election stories, as well as tracking "first mentions". "First mentions" are seen as a particularly valuable indication of the most prominent parties, leaders and issues. Articles are categorised as either primarily campaign-focused or primarily issue-focused. This gives a sense for how much coverage is focused on polling results, or stories about the campaign trail, versus policy issues.
There is additionally a set of "tone" codes - positive or negative - for parties and leaders. These codes necessarily involve more subjective judgment. To ensure as much reliability as possible, all coders go through practice coding sessions. The goal is to minimise the amount of subjectivity involved. There is a relatively well-defined set of decision rules for coding tone. The tone is based on the entire article and, most importantly, the default "tone" for all party and leader mentions is neutral, and a mention has to be very clearly positive or negative in order to be coded as such.
"Net tone" is measured by coding the tone (positive, negative, neutral) for every mention of a party or leader in the stories coded; taking the percentage of party/leader mentions that are positive, and subtracting the percentage that are negative. Associate Professor Ian Richards was supplied with a copy of the McGill research and methodology and also with hard copies of each edition of The Age and Sunday Age through the campaign. While the format of the Victorian report is different to that of the Queensland report, the analysis on which the reports were based is similar.