A Content Analysis of Organ Donation Stories Printed in U.S. Newspapers: Application of Newsworthiness

Abstract

The current study applied a theory of newsworthiness to the topic of organ donation. Specifically, content analysis of newspaper stories published in the United States (N = 1,988) was performed to identify whether deviance and significance of a story predicted story prominence, measured as story length and placement in the newspaper. Results indicated support for study hypotheses: Longer stories and front-page stories pertaining to organ donation were more deviant and more significant in content. Analyses also indicated stories more negative in nature were more likely given front-page coverage, represented international events, and were high on deviance and significance. Higher circulating newspapers were more likely to publish stories recounting negative events in organ donation. Results indicated organ donation coverage represents a valid application of newsworthiness theory, and implications of study findings are discussed in relation to the agenda-setting function of news stories.

Notes

¹ To notate the contingency coefficient statistic, C is used in this report.

² Length of story was highly skewed and in many cases variances around mean estimates were significant when running tests of homogeneity (e.g., Levene’s test). A square root transformation was conducted to attempt to normalize distributions and this was successful (see Fink, 2009). For test statistics, the transformed values were used, and for descriptive statistics, the untransformed values are used, for ease of interpretation.

³ Any given article can be coded as both positive and negative and 11% of the sample had both codes, so the percentages do not necessarily add up to 100%.

⁴ Only 39 of the 42 newspapers reviewed had publicly available circulation information. Thus, correlations were based on this subsample.