Honors Theses
Date of Award
2017
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Journalism
First Advisor
Bradley Schultz
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
This thesis researches newspapers in effort to find anti-Catholic bias particularly in the South. It also studied if the bias had changed over time. The study looked at five categories: Nature of Headline, Presentation of Headline, Supportive Picture or Not, Body Text Content, and Tone of Story. The Tone of Story category refers to the types of sources, which sources are placed where in the article, the location of where harsh and supportive words were placed within the article, and the taste in the mouth the researcher was left with upon completing the article. This category proved to be the biggest sign whether an article was bias or not. Nature of Headline, which took into account the words used in an article's headline, also proved to be a good indicator of bias. The results suggested that northern and southern newspapers did not vary much at all. Ultimately, the research suggested that there was no bias in either the northern or southern newspapers examined. The study also suggested that anti-Catholic bias has lessened over the years.
Recommended Citation
Lawton, John Cooper, "Investigating Potential Anti-Catholic Bias in Southern Media" (2017). Honors Theses. 461.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/461
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