A reflection related to the topic of journalism

You will produce a 1,000 to 2,000 word reflection that will outline your research project for semester 2. You will be provided guidance in class as to how to complete the reflection. A template for the reflection will also be provided in class. Your reflection will need to include the following sections:

Introduction: topic and justification for the topic you have chosen.

Chosen journal: Name the journal you have decided to write for and justify why you think your article falls into the aims and scope of that journal.

Brief review of the literature: Identify the relevant areas of literature (and the main arguments/approaches etc.) and show how your own research relates to existing literature and how it fills a gap i.e. contributes to the field.

Proposed research question(s): Having identified a research gap in the literature, you will put forward a research question (or more than one) that you hope to answer with your own research.

Research Method: State which method(s) you have chosen, define them clearly and show they help you achieve/answer your research aim/question

Potential challenges: Here we would like you to anticipate any research challenges that the carrying out of this project might face. This is not about language skills/reading speed but issues relating to the research itself (data collection for example).

Analysis of the Communication Strategy and Communication Value
of Cross-cultural Short Videos
——Take the YouTube “Li Ziqi” video as an example
Word Count: [1646]
1. Introduction
In the context of globalization, technology has broken down the boundaries of time and space.
New media such as YouTube have become an important platform for cross-cultural
communication between ethnic groups and countries. Li Ziqi is the first Chinese language
creator to reach 10 million followers on YouTube. Her video recreates the beauty of rural life
in China in a well-crafted and meaningful way, showcasing the charms of the Far East to a
worldwide public. This article takes the 128 video series posted by Li Ziqi on YouTube from
2017 to 2021 as a research sample. From a cross-cultural communication perspective, I am
using content analysis, text analysis, and case study methods to explore the reasons for the
cross-cultural popularity of the videos and their communication strategies. It also explores the
communication value contained in Li Ziqi’s short videos and provides a deeper understanding
of the development of cross-cultural short videos. I decided to write this article for Global
Media and Communication, positioned in line with my paper.
2. Chosen journal
Global Media and Communication is a journal launched to illuminate critical debates and
developments in the changing global media and communication landscape. The journal
addresses new and controversial research agendas and promotes a fully transnational and
interdisciplinary academic dialogue within its scope. Its scope encompasses communication
and media studies, anthropology, sociology, and it is a groundbreaking platform for exchanging
ideas and multiple perspectives. In terms of length, Global Media and Communication does not
have a specific word count requirement for papers. However, most of the papers published in
the journal are 7000-9000 words. Therefore, my research is in line with the journal’s publication
policy. In terms of content, my article analyzing a typical Video blogger on YouTube across
cultures fits well with the journal’s goal and scope of transnational scholarly communication.
Firstly, there is an early precedent for cross-cultural content analysis in the journal. A content
analysis comparing American and Swedish newspapers on the Muhammad cartoons was
published (Strömbäck, Shehata and Dimitrova, 2008). At the time, new media had not yet
developed to the current level, and my research will refine new developments on this topic in
the new media age. Secondly, the journal had recently published a study investigating four of
the best-selling multinational men’s lifestyle magazines to open up the Indian male market for
international companies by analyzing the content of their advertisements (Mishra, 2017). My
study also has a clear target audience and research value. Finally, as a global journal, Global
Media And Communication has many articles related to Chinese culture. For example, the
article ‘Think globally, act locally’ uses the MTV channel as an example to illustrate a global
media company’s localization strategy. It argues that multinational media companies and
Chinese authorities have created a state-owned global media complex (Fung, 2006). On the
other hand, my paper focuses on cross-cultural communication strategies in China at the
individual or company level, which helps fill the relevant research gap in the new era.
3. LITERATURE REVIEW
3.1. Cross-cultural communication in the New Media Age
Simmel (1955), who first theorized about cross-cultural communication, saw intercultural
communication as the main idea between two or more individuals interacting at a visual
distance. Hall and Hall (1959) argued that cross-cultural communication refers to activities
between individuals, groups, or organizations from different cultural backgrounds. For the first
time juxtaposed intercultural and communication. Nowadays, the advent of new media has
brought about a huge change in how cross-cultural communication is carried out. New media
cross-cultural communication research is considered the next frontier in intercultural
communication research and will explore the intersection between ICT and intercultural
communication (Shuter, 2012). As a typical new medium, social media allows people
worldwide to present themselves in a particular way and form virtual communities to stay
connected in the network. Most previous research on social networks has been based on a single
cultural context. Cho and Park (2013) studied the use of social networking sites (SNS) from a
qualitative methodological perspective, looking at Asian and Western countries, filling a gap in
research on cross-cultural social network users. However, the study is broad in scope and not
purposefully grounded in a specific country context. My research will choose Li Ziqi, a
representative cross-cultural Internet celebrity in China, to have a more detailed direction and
depth of study.
3.2. Research on cross-cultural communication in social media for China
The impact of new media on cultural identity has become one of the most important issues in
cross-cultural communication research (Shuter, 2012). The use of new media has placed crosscultural communication in a ‘network society’ where civil society and cultural identity are
redefined. Various virtual communities have been created, and unique artistic identities
constantly emerge through the new online media. Moreover, virtual communities are not
culturally neutral. Western culture still has an implicit power advantage even in cyberspace,
which means that inherently asymmetrical power relations also challenge the existing cultural
identity of community members (Chen and Dai, 2012). In this context, it is essential to study
the image of China in English-speaking social media. Xiang, D (2013) provides a more
objective and realistic example of China’s diverse international image through content analysis
of profiles in social media such as Digg, Red Edit, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Li Ziqi’s
global influence has received recent scholarly attention. Guo and Abidin (2021) outline the
emerging typology of Chinese rural netizens on YouTube by analyzing the content of Li Ziqi’s
videos. However, most of the existing studies have focused on the national level, and few
scholars have focused on the value of cross-cultural communication brought by individuals.
Research on cross-cultural communication for China in social media, especially regarding
individuals, has not received enough attention, and there is still room for further investigation.
4. Research methods
After sorting out the context in which the research problem arose, a more representative
YouTube was selected as the research platform to elaborate on this study’s theoretical and
practical implications. This study will mainly adopt a content analysis approach, a textual
analysis approach, and a case study approach concerning the dimensions of previous
researchers’ analysis of the problem.
Content analysis is a method of investigation that provides an objective, systematic and
quantitative description of the content of explicit communication. As this paper will examine
the content of Li Ziqi’s videos, the content analysis method, which is objective, systematic, and
universal, is chosen. This paper will conduct a statistical analysis of the 128 video contents of
Li Ziqi’s videos on YouTube and examine the video themes. The characteristics of Li Ziqi’s
videos will be analyzed and summarised.
Textual analysis is indispensable to studying cultural criticism (Belsey, 2013, p160). It goes
from the surface of a text to its depths, thus discovering deeper meanings that cannot be grasped
by ordinary reading. This study will primarily employ semiotic analysis to explore the
connections between the video symbols presented in the videos. In-depth analysis is conducted
at three levels: the food symbols contained in the video, the traditional cultural signs, and the
aesthetic symbols of film and television to uncover the deeper connotations and cultural values
conveyed by the video. This study will also crawl through the video commentary texts, as
audiences’ perceptions are often tinged with subjective understandings. Analyzing the video
comments helps clarify the reasons for Li Ziqi’s popularity.
The case study method is a focused, analytical and in-depth approach to field research. The case
study attempts to provide a comprehensive understanding of the events under investigation and
to present a more general theoretical statement about the patterns of the observed phenomena
(Fidel, 1984, p274). The author will select a few videos in the sample with high airplay and
wide reach for detailed elaboration in the specific analysis. With this as support, the strategy
and value of the cross-cultural communication of Li Ziqi’s videos will be summarised.
The article begins with a comprehensive overview of Li Ziqi’s YouTube account situation. Then
it starts from the theoretical perspective of cross-cultural communication and takes the video
content as the object of study. Exploring what content is mainly produced in the cross-cultural
category of short videos. After this, several types of symbols conveyed by the video are further
discussed. Combined with the video comments, this paper considers why Li Ziqi’s video is
loved by netizens worldwide and summarises the successful experience. Finally, the article will
summarise the cultural revelations and cross-cultural values of Li Ziqi’s video, providing
successful experiences for creators of short videos from other outstanding cultures.
5. Potential challenges
The potential challenges of my research are mainly related to the content analysis and textual
analysis methods I will be using. Both content analysis and textual analysis are used to analyze
the content of materials that have been preserved in records such as text, graphics, symbols,
audio, and video. The main potential challenges with my research include the following. Firstly,
I need to prevent subjective assumptions in analyzing to avoid the errors caused to the findings.
Secondly, to pursue objective and comprehensive research results, I plan to select all 128 videos
of Li Ziqi on YouTube as a sample for content analysis, which means that it will be timeconsuming in terms of data collection and collation. Thirdly, representative cases need to be
selected for the textual analysis of the video content. The selection criteria and the number of
samples chosen are issues to be considered in advance. Finally, although some studies on crosscultural short videos on social media platforms, there is little research on Li Ziqi and her videos,
as she became popular recently. There may be a lack of relevant and comparable experiences
when I analyze the communication strategies and values of Li Ziqi’s cross-cultural
communication videos. Therefore, I will innovate my research based on the existing diplomatic
literature. I also propose piloting or conducting content analysis experiments with several
videos before completing a full analysis of all the videos I wish to investigate.
Bibliography
[1] Belsey, C., 2013. Textual analysis as a research method (pp. 160-178). Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press.
[2] Chen, G.M. and Dai, X., 2012. New media and asymmetry in cultural identity
negotiation. New media and intercultural communication: Identity, community and politics,
pp.123-138.
[3] Cho, S.E. and Park, H.W., 2013. A qualitative analysis of cross-cultural new media research:
SNS use in Asia and the West. Quality & Quantity, 47(4), pp.2319-2330.
[4] Fidel, R., 1984. The case study method: A case study. Library and Information Science
Research, 6(3), pp.273-288.
[5] Fung, A., 2006. ‘Think globally, act locally’ China’s rendezvous with MTV. Global Media
and Communication, 2(1), pp.71-88.
[6] Guo, C. and Abidin, C., 2021. LIZIQI AND CHINESE RURAL YOUTUBE VIDEOS:
SCOPING A GENRE. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research.
[7] Hall, E.T. and Hall, T., 1959. The silent language (Vol. 948). Anchor books.
[8] Mishra, S., 2017. Looking westwards: Men in transnational men’s magazine advertising
in India. Global Media and Communication, 13(3), pp.249-266.
[9] Shuter, R., 2012. Intercultural new media studies: The next frontier in intercultural
communication. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 41(3), pp.219-237.
[10] Simpson, R.L., 1955. SIMMEL. The Web of Group Affiliations (Book Review). Social
Forces, 34(1), p.183.
[11] Strömbäck, J., Shehata, A. and Dimitrova, D.V., 2008. Framing the Mohammad cartoons
issue: A cross-cultural comparison of Swedish and US press. Global Media and
Communication, 4(2), pp.117-138.
[12] Xiang, D., 2013. China’s image on international English language social media. Journal of
International Communication, 19(2), pp.252-271.
Reflection——Analysis of the Application of Data Visualisation in Online
Environmental News
Word Count:1532
Introduction
The advent of computer graphics, advances in statistics, democratised data, and
advancements in information and communication technology（ICT）have combined
to drive the widespread use of modern data visualisation. These visualisations of
quantitative information, maps, charts, and others can be displayed statically,
dynamically, or interactively. In comparison to traditional simple visual graphics,
modern data visualisation extends the ability of the public to interact with data and
understand complex topics (Grainger, Mao and Buytaert, 2016), which is an
invaluable means of communicating information. The scope of application in data
visualisation is also gradually expanding into various fields such as medicine,
architecture, finance, journalism, and environmental research.
As a result of years of rapid development, the world is under enormous environmental
and ecological pressures. Environmental risks are increasingly moving from a
marginal topic to a global priority. For example, the much-anticipated UN Climate
Change Conference of the Parties; and the G20 Leaders’ Summit, which is a growing
focus on global environmental governance. Benign environmental communication can
help achieve effective and harmonious social management in this context. The news
media is at the core of environmental communication, and media reporting on
environmental issues can directly influence the public’s perception and judgement.
Therefore, mass media communication is considered crucial in the public’s
understanding of risk (Wahlberg and Sjoberg, 2000). The construction of
environmental news is inherently challenging. On the one hand, most ecological
issues develop slowly and imperceptibly (Peeples, 2011). On the other hand,
environmental data is often abstract and complex due to its long time and large spatial
span.
From the above described, the data visualisation is highly adaptable for environmental
news construction and delivery. However, less research has been carried out to
analyse its practical applications. Current studies have focused more on
environmental science, policy, or traditional environmental communication. The
visualisation of these aspects is more about technology tools, design frameworks, or
symbolic analysis of images, photography, and television pictures. There is a demand
for data visualisation practical usage situation in contemporary environmental
journalism optimisation. The internet better represents today’s data visualisation than
traditional news delivery platforms. Therefore, this study aims to explore the current
status of data visualisation applied to online environmental reporting. Moreover,
attempt to draw some conclusions by addressing the following four research questions:
How is data visualisation presented in online environmental reporting? What is the
tendency of online environmental news in terms of the data visualisation types chosen?
1
How frequently is data visualisation used in different environmental topics? What is
the correlation between different environmental topics and types of data visualisation？
Chosen journal
The journal I chose is Environmental Communication, which has a particular
influence (impact factor: 2.848) in the field (Taylor & Francis Online, no date).
Environmental Communication is a multidisciplinary and international research forum
that assesses the many intersections between environmental issues, communication,
society and media. (Taylor & Francis Online, no date). Among the scope of papers
published in the journal are, but are not limited to, analysis on climate change,
ecosystems, natural resources, wildlife, environmental protection, sustainable
development, energy and emerging technologies (Taylor & Francis Online, no date).
This research in environmental journalism is essential for conveying environmental
information. It has direct relevance to the public in assessing environmental risks and
adopting behavioural decisions, in line with the scope of the journal’s environmental
protection. Meanwhile, the environmental news in the study contains information on
climate change, natural resources, wildlife, and others, which is also within the scope
of the journal. In addition, the visualisation of environmental journalism conforms
with one of the journal’s aims for published content, which is to contribute to the
media portrayal (Taylor & Francis Online, no date). Regarding article word count
requirements, the journal has a word limit of 6,000-8,000 for research articles (Taylor
& Francis Online, no date), which is almost in keeping with the 7,000-9,000 words I
need to write. For the above reasons, I chose the journal Environmental
Communication.
Literature
The main areas of literature that will be addressed in the article are two related areas:
visual studies of environmental journalism and data visualisation. On the one hand,
compared to the earlier development of environmental textual analysis, there is not a
wealth of research on visual representations. The earliest visual studies of
environmental journalism were mainly combined with semiotic theories to explain the
symbolic meaning assigned to images and footages (Cottle, 2000; Hansen and Machin,
2008; Lester and Cottle, 2009; Linder, 2006). Hansen and Machin (2013) summarised
and sorted out previous studies of environmental visuality and incorporated the
environmental visual representation into the broader study of vision, including visual
contextual analysis and cultural background analysis. These studies have all
systematically concentrated on the visual depiction of the environment. However,
they have only stayed with the analysis of images and television footage in traditional
media and have talked less about the visual presentation of data. Subsequent research
literature shows scholars touching on data visualisation. However, most of them do
not treat it as a separate research topic but as a part under the scope of environmental
visualisation. For example, Smith and Joffe (2009) refer to a selection of graphics (e.g.
line graphs, bar charts) in their visual analysis of climate change reporting in the UK,
2
pointed out that graphics add science to environmental news communication and
provide a clearer format for audiences. But there is no in-depth analysis of this trend.
On the other hand, while data visualisation is still a relatively new area in the media
portrayal of environmental journalism, it is not a modern age product. According to
the history of data visualisation sorted out by Michael Friendly (2008), data
visualisation can be traced back to the early maps and charts before the 17th century,
just to be revived by the modern cross-collaboration and development of various
technologies and disciplines. The presentation of data visualisations is expanding in
the digital information age. These visual interfaces can be infographics, maps, static
or dynamic displays (Tufte, 2001; McInerny et al., 2014) or interactive visualisations
based on human-computer interaction and user-centred (Kosara, 2013). Several
scholars have also begun to explore the role and purpose of data visualisation. Most
studies have argued that data visualisation helps to understand through the
presentation, exploration or analysis and, in some lay contexts, raises awareness and
provokes emotional responses (Ballantyne et al., 2015; Ziemkiewicz and Kosara,
2009). In addition, it has been argued that user bias can be avoided (McInerny et al.,
2014).
Based on the above research findings in related fields, I suggest that this study brings
the visual media portrayal of environmental journalism into the current digital age and
can be seen as an extension and expansion of environmental media visualisation
research. Data visualisation has been developed with a wealth of practical and
theoretical results and can be explored as a separate topic in visual studies for
environmental journalism. This research project could fill a small gap in the current
missing data visualisation component of the environmental journalism visualisation
field and provide some examination values for future data visualisation research.
Method
According to the research questions posed by this study, I will use the content analysis
method that combines qualitative and quantitative approaches to analyse the reports.
“Content analysis is a research technique for the objective, systematic and quantitative
description of the manifest content of communication” (Berelson, 1952, p. 18).
Quantitative methods allow quantitative comparisons and analysis of the
characteristics of different units, but it is not easy to obtain in-depth information.
Qualitative, conversely, provides explanations and summarisations of the nature and
characteristics of a phenomenon or object through induction, classification and
comparison. However, the results are often based on individual case studies and are
not generalisable.
Thus, I have chosen to combine them both. The quantitative analysis will help this
study provide overall quantitative statistics and comparisons of the reported sample
for the selected period. The qualitative analysis then plays a role in characterising and
classifying environmental topics and data visualisation types and interpreting the
correlation between the two. The two research methods work together to ultimately
address the questions posed by the research and draw some conclusions. The study
3
will select the digital environmental reports of The Guardian and The New York
Times from 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2021 as the data sample. Statistical tools
such as Excel or SPSS will be used for the data collection and collation phase.
Potential challenges
The potential challenge I predict for this study centres on data collection, specifically
the potential for sample omission between a large amount of data and the information
retrieval. Some environmental news may directly have “data” or “visualisation” in the
keywords to facilitate information retrieval. Nevertheless, parts of the environmental
news also do not directly give the apparent keywords, resulting in omissions in the
sample collection. To maximise sample omission, I will attempt to expand the range
of search terms used in the data collection in the study. For example, keywords such
as “interactive”, “map”, “graphic”, which are common in digital news, will also be
included in the retrieval analysis to try to maintain the integrity of the study sample.
Reference list
Ballantyne, A.G., Wibeck, V. and Neset, T.-S. (2015) ‘Images of climate change – a
pilot study of young people’s perceptions of ICT-based climate visualization’,
Climatic change, 134(1-2), pp. 73–85. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-015-1533-9
Berelson, B. (1952) Content analysis in communication research. Glencoe, IL: Free
Press.
Cottle, S., (2000) ‘TV news, lay voices and the visualisation of environmental risks’,
in Allan, S., Adam, B. and Carter, C.(eds)Environmental risks and the media. London:
Routledge, pp. 29–44.
Friendly, M. (2008) ‘A brief history of data visualization’ in Chen, C.H., Härdle, W.
and Unwin, A. (eds) Handbook of data visualization. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg,
pp.15-56.
Grainger, S., Mao, F. and Buytaert, W. (2016) ‘Environmental data visualisation for
non-scientific contexts: Literature review and design framework’, Environmental
modelling and software: with environment data news, 85, pp. 299–318. doi:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2016.09.004
Hansen, A. and Machin, D. (2008) ‘Visually branding the environment: climate
change as a marketing opportunity’, Discourse Studies, 10(6), pp. 777–794. doi:
https://doi-org.sheffield.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/1461445608098200
Hansen, A. and Machin, D. (2013) ‘Researching Visual Environmental
Communication’, Environmental communication, 7(2), pp. 151–168. doi: https://doiorg.sheffield.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/17524032.2013.785441
4
Kosara, R. (2013) ‘InfoVis Is So Much More: A Comment on Gelman and Unwin and
an Invitation to Consider the Opportunities’, Journal of computational and graphical
statistics, 22(1), pp. 29–32. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/10618600.2012.755465
Lester, L. and Cottle, S. (2009) ‘Visualizing climate change: Television news and
ecological citizenship’, International Journal of Communication, 3, pp. 920–936.
Available at: https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/509/371
Linder, S.L. (2006) ‘Cashing-in on Risk Claims: On the For-profit Inversion of
Signifiers for “Global Warming”’, Social Semiotics, 16(1), pp. 103–132. doi:
https://doi-org.sheffield.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/10350330500487927
McInerny, G.J. et al. (2014) ‘Information visualisation for science and policy:
engaging users and avoiding bias’, Trends in ecology & evolution (Amsterdam), 29(3),
pp. 148–157. doi: https://doi-org.sheffield.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/j.tree.2014.01.003
Peeples, J. (2011) ‘Toxic Sublime: Imaging Contaminated Landscapes’,
Environmental
communication,
5(4),
pp.
373–392.
doi:
https://doiorg.sheffield.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/17524032.2011.616516
Smith, N.W. and Joffe, H. (2009) ‘Climate change in the British press: the role of the
visual’, Journal of risk research, 12(5), pp. 647–663. doi: https://doiorg.sheffield.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/13669870802586512
Tufte, E. (2001) The visual display of quantitative information. 2th edn. Graphics
Press (Cheshire, Conn.)
Taylor & Francis Online (no date). Available at: https://www-tandfonlinecom.sheffield.idm.oclc.org/journals/renc20 (Accessed: 14 January 2022)
Wahlberg, A.F., and L. Sjoberg. (2000) ‘Risk perception and the media’, Journal of
Risk Research, 3(1), pp. 31–50. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/136698700376699
Ziemkiewicz, C. and Kosara, R. (2009) ‘Embedding information visualization within
visual representation’ in Ras, Z.W. and Ribarsky, W. (eds) Advances in Information
and Intelligent Systems. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 307-326.
5
Module Title: JNL61005 Global Journalism-Research Portfolio
ReflectionTransphobia in sports journalism: a case study of Laurel Hubbard.
Word Count: 1373
Introduction
My research topic is Transphobia in sports journalism: a case study of Laurel
Hubbard. Since 2015, the Olympics Games’ stipulations have stated athletes who
have transitioned from male to female can compete in women’s sport, and Laurel
Hubbard is the first transgender athlete to compete in an individual event at the
Olympics Games. Her story has been widely covered by the news organization. The
study of transgender athletes in sports journalism is limited and lack specific case
studies. My aim is to find out the existing dominant gender values about transgender
athletes the in sports journalism by researching the case of Laurel Hubbard. My
research question is ：
What are the similarities and differences between the coverage of Laurel
Hubbard in The Sun and The Daily Mail? In terms of the expression of：(1)
Laurel Hubbard(2) The transgender policies(3) Transgenderism(4)The game
In general, I will use qualitative content analysis to research my topic, and my aim
journal is Journalism Studies.
Journal
Journalism Studies provides a platform for scholars to study and discuss journalism
both at the academic and practice level. The reason that I chose this as my aim journal
is that it has the same aims and scope as mine and meets the word count requirement.
Firstly, the social and cultural dimensions of journalism are one of the scopes of the
journal, which are related to my topic. my research will focus on transgender athletes
in gender culture, and sports journalism in the news, matching the scope of its scopes.
The privies research related to my topic and submitted to Journalism Studies
included: Representations of Trans People in Swedish Newspapers. Secondly,
Journalism Studies allows for a 6,000-9,000-word essay, which is largely in line with
my essay word count requirements.
Literature
As a powerful site of ‘hegemonic masculinity, the sport is at the centre of gender
studies，as well as the sports journalism (Hardin et al., 2009). The Research of the
LGBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) has been widely studied by scholars in
sports journalism (Hardin et al., 2009, Kian and Anderson, 2009, King, 2009, Kian,
– 1 –
Anderson and Shipka, 2015 ). However, the focus of these studies has been more on
the ”LGB” and the ”T” is not considered as an insignificant presence and is not given
separate consideration (Hargie, Mitchell and Somerville, 2017, Billard, 2018). “LGB”
is about sexuality and “T” is about gender and they should be treated differently (Li,
2018). As homosexual marriage is already being recognized in several countries,
transgender human rights will be the next human rights agenda (Allen, 2015, cited in
Li, 2018,p8). Therefore, research on how transgender people is presented in the news
media is important, especially in the sport area.
In my essay, I will focus on how the ‘T’ in LGBT is presented by sports journalism,
and there are few studies exist in this area. scholars’ attitudes towards media reports
on transgender people are currently divided. On the one hand, Billard (2018)
researched the legitimacy of the language used to portray transgender people in the
media and found that media reports on the transgender community were extremely
limited and used a lot of delegitimized language, for example, incorrect names and
incorrect genders, sexualization of transgender bodies, and it could cause a negative
impact on the human rights of transgender people. On the other hand, Fink and
Palmer (2020) concluded that the news media’s display of transgender people has
begun to improve, and this is reflected through the fact that journalists rarely use the
wrong gender and pronouns when reporting on transgender people. Li (2018) also
found, through the study of the Caitlyn Jenner case, that sports news had changed its
setting of the agendas of transgender athletes, and this is reflected in media reporting
is more gender diverse, multi-angled and uses deep thematic frameworks. Tishev
(2019) interviews transgender athletes and found that transgender athletes themselves
were not willing to be massively featured in order to highlight their ‘transgender’
identity, and they prefer that the media can show more inclusion and respect in the
report. These studies have provided me with ideas. In conclusion, the number of
available studies is still limited and the vast majority of these studies are national or
even global in scope, scholars also have not analysed individual platforms deeply, nor
have they compared news organizations of different political standings and editorial
style, while scholars have not investigated the different presentations of transgender
people with different ethnicities and genders in news reports. My research will fill a
gap in this area, and I will be exploring whether there are similarities and differences
in the presentation of transgender athletes in British tabloid sports journalism.
In terms of the methodology, scholars mainly use textual analysis and quantitative
content analysis to do relevant study. Kian and Anderson (2009) and Kian et al.
– 2 –
(2015) Used textual analysis in a case study of how gay people are reported in the
news media. However, the method of textual analysis is merely interpretive and
subjective, and often multiple interpretations of a unified text can occur, which are
considered to lack credibility. Billard (2018) and Li (2018) use a quantitative content
analysis method in media research on transgender issues, which seems to be more
objective but has also been criticized for being out of context and lacking a deeper
analysis of the complex meanings of texts. My research will learn from their
experience and attempt to fill in the gaps in their methodology.
Method
My research is a case study of Laurel Hubbard, and I will use qualitative content
analysis to answer my research question. At first, according to Kohlbacher (2006),
case studies are appropriate when the research subject is a modern phenomenon and
where there is a lack of previous research theoretical foundations. Secondly,
Qualitative content analysis is considered suitable for use in case studies because it
can provide greater textual interpretation, such as the background of the story and the
potential structure of the text, making up for the lack of quantitative content analysis
(Mayring, 2000, cited in Kohlbacher, 2006, p14).
In my research, I will collect the research samples by typing the keywords “Laurel
Hubbard” on The Sun and The Daily Mail website. The reason for choosing these two
newspapers is that they can represent the British tabloids, with The Sun being the
highest selling newspaper in the UK and The Daily Mail in second place, and they
have a huge number of readers. The period will be set from 2021.07.23 to 2021.08.08,
during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. As a first step, I will code the content
according to the expression of: (1) Laurel Hubbard (2) The transgender policies(3)
Transgenderism(4) The game . In the second step, I will classify the codes according
to their links and relationships to each other. For example, if I find the words “men”,
“women” and “transgender” in the text, I will classify it as a subcategory of the
description of the gender of Laurel Hubbard and classify it in the expression of Laurel
Hubbard. After that, I will present my coding results in the form of tables according to
the four aspects of my study. Finally, I will analyse and compare the similarities and
differences between the expression of two newspapers based on the relationships and
connections between the different codes groups to derive the attitudes of the two
newspapers towards Laurel Hubbard’s participation in the Olympics as a transgender
athlete.
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Potential Challenge
Firstly, my concerns about the research are mainly in the use of qualitative content
analysis. Specifically, qualitative content analysis requires an in-depth understanding
and analysis of the text and does not usually involve a large number of research
samples. Therefore, if I were to collect too many samples, I would shorten the period,
thereby reducing the number of samples and ensuring the feasibility of the study.
My second concern is about the credibility of the findings. Given the reason that I will
do this research by myself, with means there is no other coder and lack of a coder’s
credibility test, there is a high risk that the conclusions of my essay will be personally
subjective. In order to solve this problem, after the first coding, I will do a second
coding to avoid errors and omissions in the first coding. I will also make my research
process and findings public to increase its transparency for readers’ scrutiny.
Finally, the lack of existing research related to the topic can pose a challenge to my
research. Therefore, I will refer to some interdisciplinary literature and analyse my
research in more depth to support my finding.
Reference
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of Transgenderism. International Journal of Communication, 10, pp.4193-4218. doi:
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Fink, K. and Palmer, R. (2020) ‘“We Have to Stand Out to Blend In”: Ordinary
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Kian, E. (Ted) M. and Anderson, E. (2009) ‘John Amaechi: Changing the Way Sport
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