How Media Content is Formed

The methodology employed by the authors is a content analysis that includes research from a wide variety of publications from the fields of journalism, psychology, communications, sociology and the mass media. Theoretical concepts are backed up by specific examples. The audience the book is directed at is upper-level undergraduates and graduate students, and with that in mind the book can be viewed as an academic textbook.

In Chapter 1 the authors state their purpose and method in writing this book: to "compare and contrast the existing research in media content, point out similarities among these various theoretical approaches, and thus take the first step in building theory" (p. 7). Their main argument is that media researchers have not analyzed media content, but have focused on a microlevel or individual analysis of mass communications. The difference between traditional studies of media content and the authors' is that traditional studies use media content as a starting point, thereby taking content as a give

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hey were influenced by other journalists or college professors (p. 101). The point stressed by Shoemaker and Reese is that how journalists define their jobs affect what they consider news, and the content they produce. The role of media routines is scrutinized in Chapter 6. Some of the ideas here, such as the reliance of journalists on official sources, have been discussed in previous chapters, but the routines are looked at more closely here. Shoemaker and Reese believe that media routines developed as a necessity of the organizational need for efficiency. Some of the classic routines discussed are the beat system, gatekeeping, pack journalism and reliance on official sources. The authors define media routines as "patterned, routinized, repeated practices and forms that media workers use to do their jobs" (p. 105). Routines, however, while adding to efficiency in producing a product, also result in constraints upon a journalist. "Media routines, although helping fit the flow of information into manageable physical limits, impose their own special logic on the product that results" (p. 119). For example, events that fit into a media routine, such as a press conference prior to deadline than afterwards, are more likely to be cove
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Approximate Word count = 2705
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)