University of Kentucky
Putnam Meets Rosen: A Story of the 2007 Kentucky Governor's Race
Institution
University of Kentucky
Faculty Advisor/ Mentor
Buck Ryan; Chike Anyaegbunam
Abstract
This exploratory study uses content analysis of newspaper headlines in the 2007 Kentucky governor's race to test whether findings by national scholars on civic life and journalism have relevance for citizens, particularly college students, in the Lexington area. As many scholars have pointed out, civic participation among American citizens has fallen. Many doubt the benefit of traditional-elite journalism, which focuses on societal conflict, and prefer public journalism, which focuses on societal problemsolving. This research sought to determine whether traditional-elite journalism is the most common form used by journalists. Results (from the Kentucky Kernel and the Herald-Leader) show that journalists from both newspapers used the traditional-elite style in over 75 percent of their headlines and used public journalism style in less than 25 percent. Voter turnout for the governor's election has declined in the past two decades, falling to 37.2 percent of registered voters in 2007. The results of this study would not surprise scholars Robert D. Putnam and Jay Rosen. Putnam holds the idea that the influence of the loss of the long civic generation may explain the low number of articles about the 2007 governor's race in the Kentucky Kernel, a college-based newspaper. The findings raise questions about whether traditional-elite journalism is a turnoff to citizens, especially college students.
Putnam Meets Rosen: A Story of the 2007 Kentucky Governor's Race
This exploratory study uses content analysis of newspaper headlines in the 2007 Kentucky governor's race to test whether findings by national scholars on civic life and journalism have relevance for citizens, particularly college students, in the Lexington area. As many scholars have pointed out, civic participation among American citizens has fallen. Many doubt the benefit of traditional-elite journalism, which focuses on societal conflict, and prefer public journalism, which focuses on societal problemsolving. This research sought to determine whether traditional-elite journalism is the most common form used by journalists. Results (from the Kentucky Kernel and the Herald-Leader) show that journalists from both newspapers used the traditional-elite style in over 75 percent of their headlines and used public journalism style in less than 25 percent. Voter turnout for the governor's election has declined in the past two decades, falling to 37.2 percent of registered voters in 2007. The results of this study would not surprise scholars Robert D. Putnam and Jay Rosen. Putnam holds the idea that the influence of the loss of the long civic generation may explain the low number of articles about the 2007 governor's race in the Kentucky Kernel, a college-based newspaper. The findings raise questions about whether traditional-elite journalism is a turnoff to citizens, especially college students.