Mapping the Local News Ecology of Harrisburg Area

Nakho Kim

Communication, School of Humanities

nmk5360@psu.edu

The purpose of this project is to build a framework for exploring how a diverse local community can stay well-informed about the civic issues in their own locality, by using a better combination of existing local news outlets.

The first phase involves mapping out the diverse media outlets carrying local news, ranging from mainstream mass media to prominent clusters on social networks. The second phase will research how specific civic topics spread among those outlets, and the discussion patterns therein. The third phase will involve finding gaps in that local news ecology, which once bridged through other communication efforts will result in overall better informedness of the community.

While the second and third will involve larger data-based research dependent on funding resources, the first phase started out by performing basic data collection about local media entities.

 

Comparing Local and National News framing of #Metoo

Nakho Kim

Communications, School of Humanities

nmk5360@psu.edu

This research seeks to answer how representations of gender issues change between national and local news discourses. Coverage about the  initial stages of the #metoo movement by national news media and local Harrisburg news media  will be analyzed to explore differences in agency, narratives and framing in general.