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A riot obviously is a newsworthy event. But how much attention it garners in the media depends on several mundane and technical considerations, says Notre Dame sociologist Daniel J. Myers. Analyzing the civil unrest of the late 1960s and early '70s, the assistant professor of sociology found that all riots are not created equal when it come sto news coverage. "We discovered that the level of coverage depended a great deal on seriousness of the riot, time and location," Myers says. The more people arrested, injured or killed and the longer the duration of the riot, the more coverage a disturbance received in the press, he says. Typically, a riot that occurred on a Monday, traditionally a "slow" news day, received more attention than a Friday riot. "Where" also appears to be as crucial as "when" when it comes to airtime and ink. "If the riot happened near a place where reporters were likely to be already, such a a capitol building, it was more likely to get greater |
coverage," Myers says. On the other hand, if the location was out of the way, requiring reporters to travel a great distance from the station or newspaper, it was less likely to received extensive coverage."
The ND sociologist also found that riots in cities with large black populations were given more notice. "We're not exactly sure why that is," he says. "One hypothesis is that a heighten media awareness of racial tensions during the '60s caused media outlets to pay more attention to riots in cities with significant black populations." The riot media findings are especially important to social scientists, Myers says. "So many sociologists rely on media traces [references in the media] to create their data. However, if you think you are analyzing a body of events from mewspaper accounts, you're badly mistaken. You are really analyzing a biased subset of them," the ND sociologist points out. "And obviously, that can have important implications for interpreting findings." |