Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

This project investigates the consequences of the shift from hard to soft news, and from international to domestic news, in the media, and the effect that this shift is having on public knowledge. The UK data form part of a larger international project involving the USA, Finland and Denmark which are not available from the UK Data Archive due to copyright issues.

In the UK, news material was collected in a 4 weeks period (between March and April 2007) from three national newspapers (Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Sun), and one local newspaper (Manchester Metro), in addition to the main news programmes on BBC1 and ITV (10/10:30 editions). News topic, location (in terms of national/international news), type (in terms of hard/soft distinction) and dimension were tabulated. Information was also classified for the Guardian, though this was not incorporated into the final sample used for the study.

An on-line questionnaire was also administered to a representative sample of 1,000 respondents in order to assess citizens’ knowledge of topics, issues and people that featured in the news during the preceding period. Socio-demographic indicators, civic engagement and political orientation data were also collected as potential moderators of the relationship between media coverage and knowledge.

Further information can be found on the ESRC Award web page.
Main Topics:

The main topics investigated are:

• implications of the movement towards entertainment-centred media
• market-driven media and its effects on public knowledge
• civic engagement and media exposure
• media tabloidisation
• perceptions of crime