Elsevier

Cities

Volume 17, Issue 5, October 2000, Pages 363-370
Cities

Cities and their news media images

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0264-2751(00)00032-9Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper discusses assorted aspects of the images of cities in the news media. Images affect perceptions and various spatial decisions made by three groups: the general public, decision makers on the national level and the place's inhabitants. Thus, media portrayal has implications for the position of cities in the growing international and national competition for various resources such as tourism, investments and businesses. The first part of the paper discusses three general aspects of the subject: how to measure a city's news media image, types of images, and level of research in the field. In the second part, which is based upon a literature review, an integrated model is suggested that illustrates the four factors that determine the amount and nature of cities' coverage patterns in the national news media. These factors are: (1) the city's characteristics: population size, geographical location, crime rate and number of national institutions; (2) editorial policy towards the coverage of the city (allocation of reporters, definition of “news” about the city and sources used, definition of target audience) and the personal background of the newspeople; (3) social – political environment in which the media operate (central values of society, political culture, etc.); and (4) the public relations efforts made by the city.

Introduction

Mayors, urban planners and policy makers are all concerned about their cities' coverage patterns in the news media (Avraham, 1993, Harris, 1976, Graber, 1989, Tilson and Stacks, 1997). These decision makers tend to accuse newspeople of distorting their cities' images by means of news definitions that focus mainly on negative events such as crime, violence and social problems, while ignoring positive events and important developments. The journalists and editors usually respond that their audiences prefer this kind of news. While it seems that both sides are right (and wrong) to some degree, analysis of the subject reveals that city media portrayal is much more complicated than either news definition or audience preference; rather, city representation in the news media is affected by a variety of factors. This paper is addressed to policy makers from local government who are interested in a better understanding of the factors which influence the construction of images of cities in the national news media. The discussion will illustrate how city coverage patterns are affected by four groups of factors: the city's characteristics, decisions made by the newspeople, the social – political environment and the city's public relations efforts.

The news media images of cities are only rarely touched upon among scholars in the fields of mass media, geography and urban studies. The lack of research is unexpected because of the increased importance and centrality of the mass media in our day-to-day lives. It is surprising that the images of cities do not receive more attention, as they are important and have a considerable effect—along with other factors—on the ability of cities to change their position in the growing national and global competition for various resources. A city's position in this competition might be affected by its image because people will usually hesitate to invest in, move to or visit cities that are covered mainly in relation to crime, poverty or social disorder.

The importance of a city's portrayal in the national media stems from our belief that such images affect three groups: the general public, the decision makers on the national level and the place's inhabitants. For the general public, the image of cities affects a multitude of decisions, including those about tourism, migration, investments, and transferring or establishing businesses (Burgess, 1982, Gould and White, 1986, Judd, 1995, Kotler et al., 1993, Kunczic, 1997, Paddison, 1993, Tilson and Stacks, 1997). For the national policy makers, the image affects decisions regarding revenue grants, capital and resources allocation, legislation and rule making (Walker, 1997). In addition, the external media image of a city affects the self image of the inhabitants and their relations with inhabitants of other cities (Ettema and Peer, 1995, Fredin and Kosicki, 1989, Galician and Vestre, 1987). It is for these reasons that it is important to research the media image of cities and to understand it.

People construct place images and cognitive maps according to the kind of information they receive from various sources; accurate information results in more precise perceptions (Kariel and Rosenvall, 1978, Gold, 1980). The role of the mass media in this process is crucial. While people usually become aware of occurrences in their immediate environment from direct contact with the events, they learn about events that occur in more distant places primarily from the media. Information about a far away place is not considered crucial to most people and thus they do not attempt to locate firsthand sources to verify what happened there (Kunczic, 1997). For this reason, the “reality” that the media transfers from distant places is conceptualized as the places' “objective” or “true” reality by those who do not live there (Adoni and Mane, 1984, Burgess and Gold, 1985, Gold, 1980, Pocock and Hudson, 1978, Relph, 1976).

The findings of various studies on cities' news media representation will help us present an integrated model that illustrates the types of factors involved in the construction of such images. Although a number of models have been presented in earlier studies (Dominick, 1977, Graber, 1989, Kariel and Rosenvall, 1978, Kariel and Rosenvall, 1981), this model is much more comprehensive and contains factors with which previous models did not deal. I will discuss these factors in the following pages, but first it is necessary to discuss the concept of media image and address the questions of how to measure the image of places in the news media, types of place images and levels of analyses in the field.

Section snippets

Measuring images of places in the news media

In every nation there are four types of city coverage patterns: (1) cities that receive a great deal of negative coverage; (2) cities that are ignored by the media unless they are being covered in a negative context; (3) cities that receive much positive coverage; and (4) cities that are mainly ignored by the media but when covered receive primarily positive coverage. Thus, research that has dealt with the coverage patterns of places in the media regard the subject in two dimensions: nature and

Types of place images

When discussing the image of places in the news media, there is a need to distinguish between “rich image” and “one-dimensional image”. Places with a rich image in the news media are places that receive coverage for a wide variety of subjects and events that occur in them, such as politics, economics, social events and cultural developments. Places with a one-dimensional image are those that only receive coverage when events of a certain nature take place within them, such as crime or

Two basic levels of analysis: national and international

In studies to date, coverage patterns of places in the news media are dealt with on two basic levels: international and national. The international level deals primarily with the coverage patterns of countries in the international news media. This level of analysis concentrates on the “imbalanced” news exchange between developed and developing nations that began after World War II (Kim and Barnett, 1996). The second level of analysis is the national, which deals with the coverage patterns of

City characteristics

Cities differ from each other in many aspects, including population size, geographical location, crime rate, etc. Do these varying city characteristics cause a difference in the quantity or nature of the coverage in the news media?

Editorial policy and the city coverage

In addition to the specific characteristics of a city, there is a need to examine the policy of media organizations towards the coverage of that city and the background of the newspeople who cover it. The term “policy” relates to the decisions made by the media organizations towards the coverage of a certain city. Examples include the decision whether or not to allocate reporters to cover the city, if the city's residents are considered to be a target audience of the media organizations, and

Social – political environment

The third question to be addressed is that of the social – political aspect of news coverage. By “social – political environment”, I mean the context in which the media operate and interact with different actors. Journalists and editors always operate within a certain social – political context which affects the ways they collect and report events. This context consists of the central values of their society, the political culture and the political arena, etc. (Johnson, 1997, van Dijk, 1996,

Public relations

The fourth question addresses the public relations efforts of cities. In the previous sections we saw that many types of factors can affect, in a positive or negative way, the image of a city in the news media. So far we have seen that a city's image is determined by factors over which, for the most part, the city does not have control. Cities cannot control the social – political context, the editorial decisions or most of their characteristics. This does not mean, however, that a city can not

Summary

The integrated model that has been presented allows cities' policy makers and researchers a better understanding of the many factors which take part in the construction of image of cities in the news media. It also enables us to predict to some degree the ways a city will be portrayed in the news media, providing we know what the other factors that may affect the coverage patterns of the city in the news media are. The complexity of the subject of cities' news media images makes it difficult

References (65)

  • D.R Judd

    Promoting tourism in US cities

    Tourism Management

    (1995)
  • D.J Tilson et al.

    To know us is to love us: the public relations campaign to sell a business-tourist-friendly Miami

    Public Relations Review

    (1997)
  • W.C Adams

    Whose lives count? TV coverage of natural disasters

    Journal of Communication

    (1986)
  • H Adoni et al.

    Media and the social construction of reality: toward an integration of theory and research

    Communication Research

    (1984)
  • Avraham, E (1993) The Media in Israel: Center and Periphery, Coverage of the Development Towns (in Hebrew). Breirot,...
  • Avraham, E (1998) Media and the social construction of reality: the coverage of settlements in marginal areas in...
  • Bjornlund, L (1996) Media Relations for Local Government: Communication for Results. ICMA,...
  • S Brooker-Gross

    Spatial aspects of newsworthiness

    Geografiska Annaler

    (1983)
  • J Burgess

    Selling places: environmental images for the executive

    Regional Studies

    (1982)
  • Burgess, J and Gold, J R (eds) (1985) Geography, the Media and Popular Culture. St Martin's Press, New...
  • J Dominick

    Geographic bias in national TV news

    Journal of Communication

    (1977)
  • K.M Dunn et al.

    Place making: the social construction of Newcastle

    Australian Geographical Studies

    (1995)
  • Elizur, J (1994) Israel and the US: images of flawed paradise. Paper presented in the American – Israeli Relations and...
  • Epstein, E J (1973) News from Nowhere. Random House, New...
  • J.S Ettema et al.

    Good news from a bad neighborhood: toward an alternative to the discourse of urban pathology

    Journalism Quarterly

    (1995)
  • J.E Fair

    War, famine and poverty: race in the construction of Africa's media image

    Journal of Communication Inquiry

    (1993)
  • E.S Fredin et al.

    Cognitions and attitudes about community: compensating for media images

    Journalism Quarterly

    (1989)
  • M Galician et al.

    Effects of “good news” and “bad news” on newscast image and community image

    Journalism Quarterly

    (1987)
  • J Galtung et al.

    The structure of foreign news

    Journal of Peace Research

    (1965)
  • W.A Gamson et al.

    Movements and media as interacting system

    Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

    (1993)
  • Gans, H J (1979) Deciding What's News. Random House, New...
  • Gold, J R and Ward, S V (eds) (1994) Place Promotion: The Use of Publicity and Marketing to Sell Towns and Regions....
  • Gold, J R (1980) An Introduction to Behavioral Geography. Oxford University Press,...
  • Gold, J R (1994) Locating the message: place promotion as image communication. In Place Promotion: The Use of Publicity...
  • Gould, P and White, R (1986) Mental Maps. Allen and Unwin,...
  • D.A Graber

    Flashlight coverage: state news on national broadcasts

    American Politics Quarterly

    (1989)
  • W.W Harris

    “A nice place to visit, but...”: television's image of the city

    Public Telecommunications Review

    (1976)
  • Harrison, S (1995) Public Relations: An Introduction. Routledge,...
  • H Herzog et al.

    Media discourse on Jewish/Arab relations

    Israel Social Science Research

    (1994)
  • A.G Hoare

    Making the news, spatial and non-spatial biases in British parliamentary reports of the Rowntree-Mackintosh takeover

    Geografiska Annaler

    (1991)
  • Jakubowicz, A, Goodall, H, Marin, J, Mitchell, T, Randall, L and Seneviratne, K (1994) Racism, Ethnicity and the Media....
  • Jerin, R A and Fields, C B (1994) Murder and mayhem in the USA today: a quantitative analysis if national reporting of...
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text