Bloggasm

Despite some media critics’ claims, new research led by the UCLA sociologist Steven Clayman and published in February’s American Sociological Review claims that White House journalists are “more assertive, more adversarial, and more demanding”.

Clayman and his colleague John Heritage scored more than 4,500 questions on five measures of aggressiveness–”initiative,””directness,””assertiveness,””adversarialness,”and ”accountability.”Questions got higher marks for ”initiative”if they began with a preamble that defined a context for the question and if there was a follow-up. ”Directness”measured conversational bluntness in contrast to conversational caution, politeness, or self-effacement. ”Assertive”questions called for a ”yes/no”response or even for a particular ”yes”or ”no”(”Aren’t we in an economic downturn?”). ”Adversarial”questions had preambles that were critical of administration policies. ”Accountability”questions explicitly asked for an explanation or justification of presidential policy in a ”Why did you …?”or a ”How could you …?”form. Fourteen coders worked together in pairs to analyze the data. The raw data, gathered from a sample of 164 press conferences staggered quarterly between 1953 and 2000, were analyzed to answer a question that is often asked, but rarely tested systematically: ”When does the watchdog bark?”

The study contradicts the idea that presidents get a “honeymoon”period from the media when they first enter office. It turns out that journalists are most aggressive when asking questions concerning the economy.

***

Related posts: Culture of Fear, F&%$ing awesome: digital newsstand