Article
Newsworthy Spaces: the Semantic Geographies of Local News
Aether
(2009)
Abstract
This paper explores the semantic geographies inscribed by the news-making process. Previous research suggests that the commercial value of news audiences may contribute to the selection of places deemed worthy for reportage by publishers and editors. For example, the “newsworthiness” of different municipalities, or the ability of specific cities to attract news coverage, has been found to be related to financial aspects of municipalities as news markets. This study examines the amount of news attention given to local cities in a metropolitan area, and the geography that is created by the act of mentioning places in media texts. I utilized an automated content analysis of local news articles from 1999-2007 from a large metro daily newspaper in Phoenix, Arizona. Names of local cities were identified and mapped by their prevalence and co-occurrence in these newspaper articles. Results showed that per-capita rates of news coverage were positively correlated with city per-capita incomes, but not related to median age, total population, or proximity to the newspaper’s main office. Cities mentioned together within news articles also exhibited high rates of spatial autocorrelation; cities were more likely to be mentioned with neighboring cities than distant cities. I contend that the process of news production is also a cartographic process, since journalists are involved in representing places—and implicitly mapping places—through the semantic geographies of their media texts.
Disciplines
Publication Date
2009
Citation Information
Peter D Howe. "Newsworthy Spaces: the Semantic Geographies of Local News" Aether Vol. 4 (2009) p. 43 - 61 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/peter_howe/50/