2026-09-22T13:00:55Z https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/22863 2023-07-10 col_2142_5131 col_2142_17395 com_2142_5130 com_2142_181 com_2142_8903

Whitney, D.C. Ehrlich, Matthew Carleton 2011-05-07T13:54:01Z 2011-05-07T13:54:01Z 10000-01-01 1991 "This work seeks to develop a critical, ethnographic understanding of competition in local television journalism. Using methods of participant observation, focused interviews, and critical textual analysis, the author argues that competition is ritualized within and among news organizations. Television news can be seen as a kind of race: a race for news, a race for ratings, and a race against deadlines. Competitive norms are embedded in common newsroom rituals such as ""monitoring the opposition,"" checking overnight ratings, etc. These rituals are in many ways similar to the ""strategic ritual"" of objectivity described by Tuchman; newsworkers engage in the rituals in order to demonstrate that they are acting competitively and to shield themselves from professional disapproval." "These kinds of rituals are consolidated into competitive rites and ceremonials like ""sweeps"" periods. Such rites help enact and reenact a competitive news environment. That is, newsworkers and their organizations generate a competitive environment through their actions and interactions and their ongoing efforts to interpret each other's actions. Ritualized competition also helps reproduce a ""competitive ethos""--a competitive ideology that guides the work of television journalists. They act on the basis of a shared understanding that their business is, in fact, competitive and that their professionalism will be judged to a large extent on how well they compete. This competitive ethos, in turn, helps legitimate the status quo in society by reproducing the powerful competitive ideology that lies at the heart of our culture--an ideology that prizes individualism and the open marketplace of goods and ideas." Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T13:54:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4922 bytes, checksum: 910b249b4beec47e7ab768910c8f966f (MD5) 9210793.pdf: 11466663 bytes, checksum: f4e85fbbe81d3bf20c9478885f9459b4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1991 Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Howard Ding (hding2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-07T15:00:32Z Item is restricted indefinitely. Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:28:38-05:00 Original Data Group with Access UIUC Users [automated] Release Date: none Reason: ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission U of I Only AAI9210793 (UMI)AAI9210793 http://hdl.handle.net/2142/22863 eng Copyright 1991 Ehrlich, Matthew Carleton Journalism Sociology, General Mass Communications Competition in local TV news: Ritual, enactment, and ideology text Communication Communication University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Dissertation Ph.D.