title: Framing Autism: A Content Analysis of Five Major News Frames in U.S.-Based Newspapers.
abstract: The portrayal of child autism-related news stories has become a serious issue in the United States, yet few studies address this from media framing perspective. To fill this gap in the literature, this study examined the applicability of a media framing scale (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000) for the deductive examination of autism-related news stories in U.S.-based newspapers. Under the theoretical framework of framing theory, a content analysis of news stories (N = 413) was conducted to investigate the presence of the five news frames using an established questionnaire. Differentiating between local and national news outlets, the following five news frames were measured: (a) attribution of responsibility, (b) human interest, (c) conflict, (d) morality, and (e) economic consequences. Findings revealed that news stories about autism most frequently fell within the human interest frame. Furthermore, the study shed light on how local and national newspapers might differ in framing autism-related news pieces and in their placement of the autism-related story within the newspaper (e.g., front page section, community section).
authors.affiliation: a Department of Public Health Sciences , University of Miami Miller School of Medicine , Miami , Florida , USA.
authors.forename: Jessica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wendorf Muhamad
authors.affiliation: b School of Communication , University of Miami , Coral Gables , Florida , USA.
authors.forename: Fan
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D001321:Autistic Disorder; D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D009524:Newspapers as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States