News coverage of CSA in the United States by Yixi Zhao https://padlet.com/yixizhao/2tqpmto3p2emwk5n The most dominant news source & The most prominent factor of newsworthiness en-us 2020-10-20 13:51:04 UTC 2026-02-18 20:19:03 UTC hello@padlet.com Methodology: Content analysis yixizhao https://padlet.com/yixizhao/2tqpmto3p2emwk5n/wish/844890332 Content analysis has been widely used in media and communication research (Lacy, Watson, Riffe & Lovejoy, 2015). It can convert non-quantitative information in news texts into quantitative data. This method is suitable for my research because it can develop an overview of the news articles on CSA published by the US news media, and to find out its most dominant news source and the prominent factor of newsworthiness.

For this study, news articles about CSA published by The New York Times will be selected as samples for analysis. There are two reasons. Firstly,  The New York Times is the top three selling newspaper in America and has a considerable influence in the whole country (Cision, 2019). Secondly, The New York Times is one of the liberal media in the US and has a positive attitude in many editorials, such as gay marriage, women's abortion rights, and gun control. Therefore, The New York Times might be more diversified and open in its coverage of CSA issues.

]]> 2020-10-20 14:03:57 UTC https://padlet.com/yixizhao/2tqpmto3p2emwk5n/wish/844890332 News coverage of CSA in the US yixizhao https://padlet.com/yixizhao/2tqpmto3p2emwk5n/wish/844944128 Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a widespread and serious problem in American society. Media plays an essential role in promoting public awareness of CSA. 

News coverage of CSA is mostly case-based, focusing mainly on criminal justice details (Mejia, Cheyne & Dorfman, 2012; Popovic, 2018). A study conducted by Cheit, Shavit and Reiss-Davis (2010) found that the news articles on American magazines relied heavily on unofficial sources (people unrelated to national institutions or law enforcement agencies, such as scholars, propaganda groups, and people involved in the crime). Besides, reports on CSA by news media are generally the same as those on other crimes, which means that reports on CSA tend to take scandal, uniqueness and celebrity participation as their standards of news value (Mejia et al., 2012; Cheit et al., 2010). ]]> 2020-10-20 14:14:29 UTC https://padlet.com/yixizhao/2tqpmto3p2emwk5n/wish/844944128 Preliminary Findings yixizhao https://padlet.com/yixizhao/2tqpmto3p2emwk5n/wish/845068376 I randomly selected 10 news articles for analysis. At present, I only  have preliminary results on the most dominant news sources of these articles.

Among the 10 reports, 6 articles mainly use official sources, and 4 mainly use unofficial sources.

Among the six articles that mainly used official sources, five of them adopted legal sources and one adopted school official sources. The four articles using unofficial sources all used the victim's statement as the main news source.]]> 2020-10-20 14:38:49 UTC https://padlet.com/yixizhao/2tqpmto3p2emwk5n/wish/845068376 Conclusion yixizhao https://padlet.com/yixizhao/2tqpmto3p2emwk5n/wish/845071384 In conclusion, according to the current findings,  the main news sources of the news coverage of  CSA by The New York Times are official sources, and a large part of them are legal sources.

This is only a preliminary conclusion. I still have 10 other news articles that have not been analyzed, so the final conclusion needs to be re integrated with the remaining 10 articles.]]> 2020-10-20 14:39:25 UTC https://padlet.com/yixizhao/2tqpmto3p2emwk5n/wish/845071384 References yixizhao https://padlet.com/yixizhao/2tqpmto3p2emwk5n/wish/845072538 Cheit, R. E., Shavit, Y., & Reiss-Davis, Z. (2010). Magazine coverage of child sexual abuse, 1992–2004. Journal of child sexual abuse, 19(1), 99-117.
Cision, S. (2019). Top 10 U.S. daily newspapers. Retrieved from https://www.cision.com/us/2019/01/top-ten-us-daily-newspapers/
Lacy, S., Watson, B. R., Riffe, D., & Lovejoy, J. (2015). Issues and best practices in content analysis. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 92(4), 791-811.
Mejia, P., Cheyne, A., & Dorfman, L. (2012). News coverage of child sexual abuse and prevention, 2007–2009. Journal of child sexual abuse, 21(4), 470-487.]]> 2020-10-20 14:39:40 UTC https://padlet.com/yixizhao/2tqpmto3p2emwk5n/wish/845072538 The reason for choosing CSA as the research topic yixizhao https://padlet.com/yixizhao/2tqpmto3p2emwk5n/wish/856669025 2020-10-23 17:20:40 UTC https://padlet.com/yixizhao/2tqpmto3p2emwk5n/wish/856669025