The Correspondence between Individuals’ Frames and Circulation Size: Analysis of U.S. Daily Newspapers’ Letters Sections

초록

To f ully u nderstand news f raming proc esses, r esearc hers s hould i nvestigate h ow individuals frame public discourse toward the news media, because individuals’frames interact with news media’s frames. Thus, the present study examines how letter writers organize their opinions by analyzing letters published in California daily newspapers. The negative frame is the most frequent perspective found in the letters, followed by the positive and negative frames. As circulation size increases,the frequency of negative and positive frames increase in the letters. These are the key c ontributions o f the present study. T hat i s, t he d ominanc e of n egative perspectives in the letter sections of daily newspapers reflect the combination of stressful lifestyles of people in large cities and the preference of the newspapers for such negative responses. Daily newspapers should correct these biased attitudes toward readers’ letters and promote healthy public discussion among c itizens. Future researchers should examine whether biases and negativity similar to these findings exist in the online disc ussion f orums of news Web s ites.

키워드