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The concept of hard and soft news (HSN) is regarded as one of the most important concepts in journalism research. Despites this popularity, two major research voids can be assigned to the concept. First, it lacks conceptual clarity: the concept gets used interchangeably with related concepts such as sensationalism, which has led to fuzzy demarcations of HSN. Also, it is still not agreed on of which dimensions the concept in composed. Second, little is known about the factors that influence the production of news in terms of their hard or soft nature. The present disserta-tion casts a twofold glance on the HSN concept – it aims to assess the conceptual status of the concept and production of hard and soft news.
At the outset, this dissertation delineates the theoretical base for three manuscripts in total and presented considerations on concepts in social sciences in general and hard and soft news in particular as well as the production of news, particularly of hard and soft news. The first paper proposed a theoretical frame-work model to distinguish HSN and related concepts. Based on a literature review of in total five concepts, this model suggested a hierarchy in which these concepts can be discerned according to their occurrence in media content. The second pa-per focused on the inner coherence of the HSN concept in its most recent academ-ic understanding. The results of a factorial survey with German newspaper jour-nalists showed that, indeed, four out of five dimensions of the HSN concept com-prised what the journalists understood by it. Hence, the most recent academic un-derstanding is to a great extent coherent. The third study shed light on the produc-tion of HSN, focusing on the influence of individual journalists’ and audience’s characteristics on whether news was presented in hard or soft way. The findings of a survey with simulated decision scenarios among German print journalists showed that the HSN dimensions were susceptible to different journalistic influ-ences and that a perceived politically uninterested audience led to a softer cover-age. The dissertation concluded with connecting these findings with the considera-tions on concept evaluation and the production of news. Implications for research on and with the concept of HSN were presented, before concluding with limitations and suggestions for future research.
Animated children’s films can be seen as integral parts of western children’s culture and are very popular among their young target group. Accordingly an accurate scientific examination of these film’s contents seems useful. Previous quantitative content analyses are mainly concerned with “classic” Disney animated films. There is less research regarding more modern computer-animated films from different film studios. Thus the aim of the quantitative content analysis in this study is to contribute to the research field by examining portrayals in 20 very popular computer-animated films from 2000 to 2013. The focus here is on the relations between demographic, physical, linguistic as well as on personality-based and behavioral features of the film characters and their “goodness” or rather “evilness”. In conjunction with analyses of extreme groups the features of particularly “good” or rather particularly “evil” film characters are also taken into account.
In addition the features of film characters undergoing a fundamental change of their “goodness” or “evilness” during the film plot are examined. Hereby a comprehensive picture of depiction-tendencies regarding the “goodness” or rather the “evilness” of animated film characters and of the extent to which they may be associated with certain stereotypes should be enabled. In the theoretical part of this study important findings from the actual state of research concerning typical depictions in animated children’s films are summed up. Then theories and empirical findings about possible effects on children who watch such films are described. Subsequently in the empirical part of the study the methodological approach in this content analysis is explained and the corresponding results are mentioned and discussed with regard to possible effects and pedagogical conclusions. The findings indicate that the portrayal of “good” and “evil” in the films examined as a whole can be considered as stereotypical only in some points: For example “good” film characters are significantly more attractive and achieve better results at the end of a film compared to “evil” characters. But in total the findings of this content analysis can be viewed rather positive, also regarding potential effects on children. Nevertheless further research on that topic can deemed to be of concern.
