Houghton Mifflin College

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Doing Empirical Political Research
James M. Carlson, Providence College
Mark S. Hyde, Providence College

Web Exercises
Chapter 11: Collecting and Organizing Data from Published Sources

Exercise 11.3: Analyzing the Content of Newspaper Web Sites

In this exercise you will examine and categorize news stories that appear on newspaper web sites. You will test the hypothesis that "national newspapers" report proportionally more international news than "non-national" newspapers. National newspapers include the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, Christian Science Monitor, and USA Today. Non-national newspapers include city newspapers such as the Tacoma News Tribune, Albuquerque Journal, and the Providence Journal. Your source of newspaper web sites is Newslink.

To undertake your analysis:

1. Operationally define "international news" and "domestic news" providing examples.
a. international news:
b. domestic news:

2. Choose three national newspapers and three non-national newspapers. Examine the web sites of your chosen papers on two days.
a. national newspapers:
b. non-national newspapers:

3. Using the coding form below record the name of the newspaper, the date, and the counts of domestic, international, and total articles on the first page of the web site. Count only articles that at least begin on the first page. Do not count simple links.

Coding Form for a Study of Newspaper Web Pages

Newspaper	Publication Date	# of Domestic News Articles	# of International News Articles	Total Articles

4. Examine your data, and write a brief essay indicating whether the hypothesis is supported.





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