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Tonality In Journalism

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There are different types of stories that can be seen in newspapers every day; it is what constructs the world and why social meanings are created (Archetti, 2010). All of these have their respective sections in the newspaper, but not all stories were given opportunity to get published due to the fact that there are certain criteria of newsworthiness or news values that news media apply when selecting the news (Stromback, Karlsson, & Hopmann, 2012). Gatekeeping also has its support in this research. It is the manner how journalists select, report and display their work for the public to consume (McElroy, 2013), develop their own instincts about audience preference based on their assumptions and intuitions (Shoemaker, Vos, & Reese, 2009), and …show more content…

The analysis of the tonality in media content is a process to analyze the framing of an issue. (Messner and South, 2011). In the 2012 research of Pew Research Center in Washington, DC where they examined the tone of media coverage of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney five days after the second presidential debate (a month before 2012 United States presidential elections), it turned out that both candidates received more negative stories than positive ones. Michaelson and Griffin (2005) stated that the analysis of tonality uses a subjective assessment to determine if content is either favorable or unfavorable to whom being discussed. In contrast with the 2012 coverage, the research also showed that the media coverage of Obama in the 2008 US presidential election campaign against John McCain was more favorable than it was in 2012. Obama received 36% positive-toned news in 2008, while chopped down to about half, 19%, in 2012. Accordingly, Obama’s percentage of negative-toned news hasn’t changed drastically: 31% in 2012, and 29% in 2008. Furthermore, the research found out that neutral coverage has grown significantly from 35% in 2008 to 50% in 2012. Tonality, linked with the study of framing, is an important component in examining how an audience perceives certain issues (Messner and South, 2011). In a nutshell, the research has somehow proved that tones in news coverage, particularly this event, could be a factor that influences voter’s preference, due to the fact that there is irregularity in news coverage between the candidates, which evidently, Obama was the victor.
Contrary to the Pew Research Center research about the tone of media coverage of Obama and Romney, Schoenbach and Semetko (1992) suggests that the positive tone in news coverage of a certain issue reduces the salience of that issue on the public

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