News reporting in the West and the East: content analysis of attribution style in American and Japanese newspapers

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2004-01-01
Authors
Nagaoka, Takayuki
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Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication
The Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication offers two majors: Advertising (instructing students in applied communication for work in business or industry), and Journalism and Mass Communication (instructing students in various aspects of news and information organizing, writing, editing, and presentation on various topics and in various platforms). The Department of Agricultural Journalism was formed in 1905 in the Division of Agriculture. In 1925 its name was changed to the Department of Technical Journalism. In 1969 its name changed to the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications; from 1969 to 1989 the department was directed by all four colleges, and in 1989 was placed under the direction of the College of Sciences and Humanities (later College of Liberal Arts and Sciences). In 1998 its name was changed to the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication.
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Abstract

In many Western cultures, where an individual is perceived as a unique, independent entity and as separate from others and social contexts, people are inclined to explain others' behavior it terms of the actor's personal dispositions. In contrast, in East Asian cultures, where an individual is viewed as related and connected to others in society, people are more likely to place an emphasis on situations and contexts in explaining others' behavior. The present study examined cultural differences in attribution style in newspaper accounts of social events. Content analysis of the New York Times and the Yomiuri Shimbun revealed no evidence of cultural differences in attribution style in the coverage of youth crime and media scandals between the two newspapers; however, a significant difference in dispositional attributions emerged in the coverage of adult crime, indicating that American newspapers are more likely to make dispositional attributions than Japanese newspapers in depicted adult crime news.

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Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 UTC 2004