No abstract

Compared to studies on peace-journalism content, little research examines journalists’ perceptions of peace journalism despite theoretical suggestions that individuals influence content production. To address this relative disparity, this study examines the social conditions shaping journalists’ perceptions of peace journalism using a hierarchy-of-influences perspective and data from 20 in-depth interviews with East African journalists, conducted between September 2020 and February 2021. Findings suggest that journalists generally understand peace journalism in one of two ways, each with distinct intended audiences, aims, and reporting interventions. Moreover, when examined alongside respondents’ professional situations, these perceptions tend to be stratified by varying degrees of professional precarity.

Against a backdrop of increasing opinion polarization and distrust in mainstream news media, we investigate when and how U.S. evening newscasts represent citizen opinions. This paper focuses on the different public opinion displays presented in the news and the viewpoints they portray. Using a content analysis of 1577 items from CBS, ABC, and NBC evening news, we find that public opinion is represented relatively more often in foreign and political news. Broad inferences to public opinion are most common in news coverage, followed by protests and vox pops. Lastly, we find that public opinion representation does not present notable viewpoint diversity.