Page 278 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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Wolfgang Donsbach and Thomas Patterson

were presented textual descriptions of four situations and asked to make
six news decisions (a headline decision, a newsworthiness decision, and
four visual-item decisions) about each of them (thus making a total
of twenty-four decisions). The situations were developed from actual
news stories and were identical in each of the five questionnaires except
for references to country-specific institutions. The following example
(British version) involving the issue of industrial pollution is one of the
four situations contained in the survey (the other three situations dealt
with taxes, prisons, and Third World debt obligations):
Situation: Broad government regulations aimed at eliminating
thousands of tons of air pollutants at chemical plants each year
were put into effect today. The regulations, developed under au-
thority of environmental protection laws, were put into effect de-
spite company arguments that the cost of plant modifications to
meet the new standards could cripple the industry.

A chemical industry spokesperson contended that the rules could
cost more than £50 million over the next decade, although envi-
ronmental officials have estimated the cost to be much lower. The
chemical industry has also asserted that the new rules would have
little effect because companies are already removing more than
90 percent of the pollutants at issue.

Newsworthiness: How would you rate this situation in terms of its
newsworthiness?

LOW HIGH
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Heading: How would you rate the following as a possible heading
for a news story based on the situation?
“Chemical Industry Predicts High Cost and Little Effect from New
Regulations”

UNACCEPTABLE ACCEPTABLE
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Visual: Suppose an editor asked you to select a visual to accompany
a story based on the situation. If the following visuals were available
to you, what would be your preference among them? Please rank
themfrom1(first preference) to 4 (last preference).

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