Pacific Sociological Association: University of California Press

Pacific Sociological Association
The Dominant Ideology and Brazilian Tabloids: News Content in Class-Targeted Newspapers
Author(s): Frederick Schiff
Source: Sociological Perspectives, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Spring, 1996), pp. 175-206
Published by: University of California Press
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Perspectives
Sociological Vol. 39, No. 1, pp. 175-206
Copyright 01996 PacificSociologicalAssociation ISSN0731-1214
THE DOMINANT IDEOLOGY

AND BRAZILIANTABLOIDS:
News Content in Class-Targeted Newspapers
FREDERICKSCHIFF
University of Houston
ABSTRACT: A contentanalysisof thepressin a middle-sizedcity in Brazil

finds that the news agendaand local scopeof the tabloiddailiesare oriented
to the workingclasses.Working-class-oriented tabloidstendto be the strongest
ideologicalsupportersof capitalistlegitimacyand continuedelitecontrolin the
midst of rapidindustrializationand newspapercompetitionin the provincial
capitalof Curitiba.Moreseriouspapersorientedtowardthe middleclassestend
to allow for less hegemonicpoints of view in the periodafterthe end of the
militarydictatorship.Ideologyvariablesareshown to be empiricallypowerful,
secondonly to agenda-settingin explainingrun-of-the-paper news contentand
secondonly to news values in predictingthe mostprominentnews contentfor
all sampled papers. Stories with dominant ideologicalthemes are played
prominentlyin all newspapersand, in addition,are run more frequently
throughoutthe tabloids.
INTRODUCTION
In the industrializing cities of southern Brazil, a half dozen or more newspapers
may compete for attention. Some of the most popular papers are sensationalist-
or in what might be called tabloids even though they are broadsheets-featuring
front-page pictures of dead bodies, crash scenes, women naked to the waist, and
sports heroes, all in color. In sharp contrast to the dailies that survive in most U.S.
cities in the 1990s, sensational daily papers also constitute a dynamic segment of
the national newspaper market in Britain.' The question is: why are tabloids so
prevalent in Brazil and Britain and not the United States? Indeed, the uneven
historic and societal distribution of so-called tabloid dailies raises questions about
managerial policy, targeted audiences and news content.
Schudson (1978) describes the penny press that emerged in 19th century America
as the first mass-circulation newspapers. They appealed to the new urban middle
* Direct all
correspondenceto: FrederickSchiff,Associate Professorof Journalism,School of Communication,
Universityof Houston,4800CalhounHouston,TX77204-4072. e-mailfschiff@uh.edu
176 SOCIOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVESVolume39, Number 1,1996
and workingclasses drawnto the cities duringthe periodof rapidindustrialization.

The penny press replacedlimited-circulationpapersthat had more directpolitical
party connections and were oriented to the commercialand mercantileelite. As
newspapers were increasinglysubsidized by advertisingrevenues and relatively
less expensive forsubscribers,the mass-circulationcommercialpress displacedthe
partisan papers. Labor-orientedpapers with less or no advertising tended to
disappear,and newspapers targetingsubordinategroups faced increasingstartup
costs and capital requirements.2The entrepreneurswho owned the rising mass
press sought to appeal to the working and lower middle classes. The circulation
wars between papersat the end of the 19thcentury-for instance,between Joseph
Pulitzer'sNew YorkWorldand WilliamRandolphHearst'sNew YorkJournal-bred
so-called "yellow journalism."3By 1900,about a third of the metropolitandailies
were sensational,featuringscreamingheadlines,extensive photography,and color
printing (Emery and Emery 1992:204).Unfettered competition also produced
downsized tabloid papers (startingwith the New YorkDailyNewsin 1919),fully
illustratedwith sensationalstories of crime,sex, violence, and scandal.By the late
20th century, however, competition gave way to bankruptcies,mergers, and
acquisitions;maderemainingU.S.papersin single-newspapertowns and citiesinto
cash cows; and converted publishers from local propertiednotables to national
corporate elites (Bagdikian 1990). So, tabloids seem to survive and become
prevalentunder competitive marketconditions.
Brazilis a case where the interactionbetween ownership,target audience,and
news content can be studied holding ownership constant because all the papers
areowned by membersof the upper class,and mediamoguls frequentlyown both
seriouspapersand tabloids.A division seems to exist between the "serious"press
(which is self-consciouslyconstrainedby norms of "objective"reporting,relies on
textual description,and offersa range of general-interesttopics) and what I shall
call the "popular" press (which is often sensationalist, uses photographs
extensively, and is devoted to sports, scandals,and crime).
The present study describesthe news content and some readershipparameters
of sensationaland moreseriousdailiesin a middle-sizedprovincialcapitalin Brazil.
Witha populationof 1.3million,Curitibais the seventh largestcity in the country.
Brazilis considereda newly industrializingcountry,rankedninth in economicsize
and sixth in populationin the world.The differencesin content and apparentclass
readershipbetween the "serious"and "popular"newspapersin Curitibaprovides
the focus for the rest of this article.Despite the fact that all Curitibanopapers are
competitive, free-marketenterprises, this study shows that all papers share a
similarinterpretationof events or a common vision of daily life. Inferencesare
drawn about the ideological role of class-targeted newspapers and class
relationships.
If tabloids appeal differentiallyto the working classes, one question is whether
they also present a different point of view-that is, an alternative ideological
orientation.My researchchoice reflectsan attempt to look at news organizations
in the midst, ratherthan at the forefront,of ideologicalconflict deep within the
andBrazilian
TheDominantIdeology Tabloids 177
world capitalist system.4 Studies of the prestige press and newspaper samples
within core countries have long received extensive attention (e.g., Gans 1980;
Hermanand Chomsky1988;Parenti1989).Thenatureof coveragein the provincial/
regional press and in ThirdWorld countries has been less frequently examined
(see Rippey 1978; Rugh 1987; Salwen and Garrison 1991; Schramm 1980;
Windhauser 1977). For elite papers in leading capitalist countries to support
capitalismis not surprising,but can it be shown that newspapers do the same
in semi-peripheralindustrializingcountrieswhere capitalistbenefitsarenot spread
as widely to their working-classreaders?
In terms of a general theory of news content, the broader question is: how
important are ideological orientations compared to other factors (Shoemaker
1987:20;Shoemakerand Reese 1991).Four related theories of news content are
examinedto explainthe differencesamong papersin Curitiba.The interpretations
arelabeledforthe key constructsthat aresaid to influencenews content:dominant
ideology, partisan bias, news values, and agenda-setting.Such analytic factors
typically overlap and are not discrete.The conceptualissue here is: which set of
overlappingvariablesis most powerful.
The dominant ideology approach(Hartz 1955;Jensen 1987;McChesntey 1992;
Parenti 1986;Tavares 1982) argues that a society tends to share a consensual
ideology.5An ideology is often considered to embody the worldview, and to
represent the interests, of a class or ethnic group, often an upper class that may
include elites that differon many policy issues.6Whetheran ideology constitutes
a consensus among members in an upper class in a specific country is a matter
capableof being determinedempirically.An ideology that representsupper-class
interests is said to be "dominant"or "hegemonic"to the extent that subordinate
classes and ethnic groups consent to, and identify with, policies and modes of
organizationthat dominatethem. FollowingGramsci(1971),hegemony is defined
as "a ruling class's (or alliance's)domination of subordinateclasses and groups
through the elaborationand penetrationof ideology (ideas and assumptions)into
their common sense and everyday practice."7
In capitalist countries, news media organizations have become leading
corporationswhose ownerstypicallyaremembersof the elite.An explanationof the
differencebetween seriousand pop newspapersis sought in the taken-for-granted
processof newspaperownersappealingto,andinfluencingthe views of,otherclasses.
Eventhose arguingagainstthe dominantideologythesis (e.g.,Abercrombie, Hill,and
Turner 1980) concede that working-class cooptation and quiescence in the
contemporaryperiod contrastswith pre-industrialdevelopmentin France,where
pro-capitalistideology never penetratedto subordinateclasses. Dahrendorf(1959)
suggests that under (what others might call) oligopolisticmarket conditions in
modem society,the upperclassesaresometimeseffectivein transmittinga dominant
ideology to the working classes, who now accept the rules of bargainingand
negotiationto gain economicbenefitswithout challengingpoliticalarrangements.8
So the questionis: has the popularpress nowadays developed into a mode of mass
communicationthat transmitsthe dominantideologyto subordinateclasses?
178 SOCIOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVES
Volume39,Number1,1996
A second approach,focusingon "bias,"or partisancoverage,often asks whether

coveragefavorsone majorpoliticalparty,candidate,or interestgroup.In the United
States, researchersask whether the press favors the liberalor conservative side
on an issue (e.g., Bozell and Baker1990;Cirino 1971;Hofstetter 1976).Studies of
news bias often considerthe compositionof the reportorialstaffas the reason for
the alleged slant of the news (e.g.,Lee 1985;Lichter,Rothman,and Lichter1986).
Other studies examine the preferencefor authoritativesources or the go-easy
approachto advertiserinterests (Whitneyet al. 1989;Ramaprasad1993;Tankard
and Peirce 1982). Often discounted are inquiries into the socioeconomic
backgroundand politicalorientationof owners and/or senior managers,who are,
after all, in the most powerful position to hire and fire, to enforce unwritten
newsroomnorms,and to alterthe tone, angle,and treatmentof controversialtopics
(Bagdikian1972,1990;Dreier1982;Exoo 1987;McChesney1992;Picardet al. 1988).
Nevertheless,this approachwould expectpapersto be differentiatedalongpartisan
lines. This study examines whether a source of partisanbias is the media-owning
elites who seek to influenceand framenews in terms of competing definitionsof
nationalinterest and nationalsecurity.Given the institutionaldifferentiationand
segmentationin modem capitalistsociety, Gitlin(1980)arguesthat the governing
elite comes to depend on the relativelyautonomousculturalapparatus(the press,
mass entertainment,sports,and advertising-though he might also have included
educational institutions) to win the consent of the subordinate classes to the
establishedorder.Gitlin'sview seems to qualifythe dominant ideology thesis by
recognizingthat media-owning elites may occasionallyor partiallydiverge from
the authorizedconsensus on a range of issues. Capitalisthegemony is not rigid,
absolutist,or totalitarian;it allows forpoliticaldiversitywithin a rangeof legitimate
consensus. Capitalisthegemony includesboth ideologicaldominanceand political
tolerance.Both dominance and toleranceare matters of degree;a few consensus
matters become issues of legitimate controversy among competing elites, and
gradualpartialchanges in status quo arrangementsare made. If day in, day out,
the press repeatingly or prominently reproducesan ideologicalview of current
events in terms of a range of dominantthemes or frames,that variationdoes not
constitutepluralism.Nor is pluralismevidencedby oppositionalstoriesthatappear
occasionally,that are buried deep in the newspaper,or that are disseminatedin
secondarypublicationswith a smallshareof the mass market.Partisandifferences
on political ideology reflect the narrow range of inter-elitedifferenceson policy
alternatives;the dominant ideology reflects a wider consensus on the societal
assumptions and conditions. So, the dominance of a mainstreamideology is
compatiblewith politicalideologicalpluralityamong elites in a society.
In the particularcase of Brazil,elites in the country's reemerging multiparty
system are arrayedaround development and security issues and are not simply
polarized along a liberalor conservative dimension. McDonough (1981,esp. pp.
138-168)examines the partisanorientationsof Brazilianelites and finds that the
bureaucraticauthoritarianregime, under which the Brazilianmilitaryruled from
1964to 1985,lacked legitimacyamong the country'straditionalelites. Aftermore
TheDominantIdeology
andBrazilian
Tabloids 179
than 20 years of militaryintervention,the BrazilianDemocraticMovement Party

(Partido doMovimento Democratico known as the PMDB)came to represent
Brasileiro,
private-sectorcapitalistsagainst the public-sectorcorporatebureaucracyand the
military (Pereira1978;Dassin 1984). McDonough finds that the majority view
among the Brazilianelites supports an officialmodel of economic-growth-at-all-
costs in the absence of an all-inclusiveelite consensus on developmentalpriorities.
The majoritarianelite view, as he sees it, is that economic growth eventually
produces the conditions for the amelioration of social inequalities but that
democratic participationmust be delayed until a later stage of development
(growth first,democracylater).Instead of a sequencing of priorities,the formerly
excluded elites (that is, politicians and most of the business community) see a
tradeoffbetween priorities-favoring equity over growth and politicallibertyover
authoritarianorder.Althoughthe rulingcoalitionhas changedsince McDonough's
workin the early1970sand the newly articulateelites may have become governing
elites since he wrote, the present study in partlooks at whether the same partisan
divisions persisted into the late 1980s.9The newly articulate elites reject the
excesses of governmentalpower (representedby the militaryand the managers
of the public companies), says McDonough.McDonough divides the elites into
three groups:those favoringeconomicaccumulationat any cost, those demanding
political liberalizationeven at the cost of slower economic growth, and a third
group,composed of those he calls socialreformers,who seem to fallin the middle,
favoringmoderate distributionof economic rewards and politicalopening-that
is, growth and democracy. For a country such as Brazil, in the midst of
industrialization,each partisanorientationwith its prioritiesand programmight
be labeled a "developmentalideology." Does news content reflect the biases of
partisanelites?
Being partisanor biased refersto a favorableor unfavorableorientationtoward
a consciously held, more or less rationalized,set of policies that Bluhm(1974)calls
a "politicalideology."He distinguishesbetween manifestand latent ideologies;the
latter are the taken-for-grantedexpectations and latent consensual assumptions,
which I call the "dominantideology." Elites (and the political parties they lead
or support as well as many members of subordinate classes and sectors) may
disagree on what to do next and how to divide the benefits, and yet they may
agree on the way things are and how things happen. The dominant ideology is
the consensus that supportscapitalismand that legitimatescontinuedelite control.
In other words, the dominant ideology represents a consensus among different
factions within the upper class, whereas partisan bias may be seen as conflict
among upper-class elites-often between governing and nongoverning elites-
over policy issues. The dominant ideology consists of taken-for-granted
assumptions,commonidentities,sharedexpectations,and apperceivedrelevances.
The dominantideology in the United States includes liberalismand conservatism;
in Brazil it includes all three development ideologies. But the dominant ideology
is not necessarilya status quo orientation.Forinstance,the U.S.consensus usually
favors technological change, whereas the big business elites and the parties
180 SOCIOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVESVolume39, Number 1, 1996
financedby them areoften describedin termsof differencesin favoringor opposing

changesin governmentalpolicy to respondto "natural"and supposedly inevitable
technological"progress."
A third theoreticalapproachfocuses on news values-newspapers are staffed
by editors and journalistswho share a common set of values and judgments of
newsworthiness (Agee 1983:30-33;Brooks et al. 1986:4-18;Mencher 1994:50-53).
Papersreflectsharedprofessionalvalues as well as readerconcernsand community
standards.Throughhiring,selective promotion,and socialization,editors develop
a sense of news judgment (Janowitz1975).The mix of news values depends on
the degree of professionalismof the staff and the audience-sharestrategy of the
organization.News workersoften subscribeto norms of objectivity,of mirroring
reality from a nonpartisanpoint of view, and of being independent from media
management and advertising control (Schudson 1978).Politicalpartisanshipof
owners or senior editors and advertiserbiases supposedly have no place in the
newsroom (Bennett,Gressett,and Haltom 1985;Cirino1971).The news value of
a story is consideredto be objectiveor unbiased;alternatively,news that is partisan
or favors one side is usually seen as propagandisticor biased (Hackett1984).To
the extent that they seek out professionalreportersand editors,news organizations
would share the same standards of newsworthiness. Given the fact that
newspapersin Curitibadrawtheirpersonnelfromthe same normativecommunity,
and despite obvious differencesin graphic presentation,do news values differ
minimallybetween serious and popularpapers?
A fourth agenda-setting approach suggests that the news media do not tell
people what to think, only what to think about (Shaw and McCombs1977).The
mediaelites and theirmanagers,actingas gatekeepers,influencepublicpolicy and
electoral campaigns by setting a news agenda that provides selective factual
information,constrainsthe public'sview of societaland politicalreality,and focuses
attention on and gives prominence to some issues and not others (Windhauser
1977;Grady 1982:1-60).Though agenda-settinginitially referredto the effects of
the news on the public, agenda-setting among news organizations is well
established.For instance, the story budgets of The AssociatedPress and the New
YorkTimesclearlyinfluencelocalpapersand broadcaststations(Todd1983;Whitney
and Becker1982;Wilhoitand Weaver1983).Agenda-settingeffects operateat two
levels: in influencingnews selection and in affectingwhat audiences perceive as
important. Competing elites seek to impose their definition of the issues or
problemsin society by setting the agenda of topics and the loci of attention,first
for the newsroom and indirectlyfor newspaper audiences. Newspapers are the
agents of advertisers,who in a competitivesituationselectivelyplace ads and seek
to appeal to an audience base segmented according to demographic and
geographic interests. Differentiatedhere are the effects of competing elites in
seeking to appeal to the topical interests and, separately, in focusing on the
geographicalconcernsof newspaperreaders.Tothe extent that news organizations
set the agenda for (and appeal to) an audiencebase, do newspapersdifferin their
topicaland geographicfoci?
andBrazilian
A COMPARATIVE HYPOTHESIS
A problem in trying to compare various theories of news content is illustrated by
the construct of agenda-setting. The topical content of a paper represents an
editor's priorities; that is, some subject matter appears more visibly, thoroughly,
or frequently than others. Agenda-setting, like the concept of news values, may
be interpreted in the newsroom as trying to appeal to the apperceived interests
of the audience. For example, in recent years, lifestyle sections have largely replaced
women's and society pages; business sections have grown; and medical and
environmental problems have become news beats. Then, there is the geographic
focus, which is another overlapping component of agenda-setting. The geographic
scope of a story might arguably be considered as a part of the focus of concern
set by news agenda, as the news value of proximity, or even as a form of hegemony
associated with localism or nationalism.
Thus, analytic constructs are never discrete; they always overlap. All four
theoretical approaches explain news content in varying degrees; all are aspects of
a interrelated complex and interactive sequence of journalistic activities. Granting
that scholars have shown that each concept "significantly" influences news
content, the interesting theoretical issue for me is which analytic construct is most
powerful and parsimonious in describing the news product. The merit of the
present study consists not in confirming the "significance" of one of these partially
competing approaches but in beginning to establish which of them better accounts
for news content of class-targeted newspapers.
My problem, in short, is to establish the relative importance or explanatory power
of these four approaches. To what extent do ideologies, partisan views, news values,
or agendas account for the differences in news content of popular and serious
Curitibano newspapers?
The variables considered do not need to be mutually exclusive; a measure of
association can compare competing hypotheses. The relationships between news
content and each variable (that is, the set of indicators for each variable) were
investigated separately but are not reported here.?1My project is to compare the
degree of association explained by each factor.A summary hypothesis can be stated
thus: the differences in news content between types of newspapers can be
accounted for more fully by dominant and developmental ideologies than by news
values and news agendas.
Note that the content analysis presented here is a case study. The data is limited
to news stories in popular and serious newspapers in one middle-sized Brazilian
city. Nor does the study attempt to locate the intra-organizational reasons for the
differences between popular and serious newspapers, although the publisher and/
or most senior editor(s) from each paper were interviewed.
Even so, the present study of news content has broader theoretical implications
for class relations, ideological formation, and capitalist hegemony. My work is
linked to critical cultural studies, which seek to demonstrate how the upper class
uses its control over the means of producing the news to construct a reality that
182 SOCIOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVESVolume39, Number1, 1996
reinforces societal arrangements.Events are portrayed in the news within an

ideology that establishesfacts,expectations,and relevancesand that framesissues
and policy alternatives.Curitibanonewspaper publishers stand on the "semi-
periphery"(Wallerstein1979)of the world capitalistmarket.And yet, I intend to
show that working-classreadersareacculturatedinto a dominantideologicalview
of realitythat is consistent with the interests of core capitalistcountries.I intend
to show that the inclusion of ideologicalvariablesis at least as powerfulas other
established theories (news values, agenda-setting,etc.) in accounting for news
content. Pro-capitalist ideological acculturation might be expected among
privileged working classes in the core countries.Under the harsh conditions of
rapid industrialization, accelerted capital concentration, and stark income
inequality in semi-peripheralcountries,the role of the national bourgeoisie and
the media-owningelite is less certainlypro-capitalist.My question is not what is
happeningin the vanguardof capitalistdevelopmentbut the degreeof penetration
of capitalist ideological hegemony. Brazil is, thus, a prototypical test of the
dominant ideology thesis, and the role of its press system offers prima facie
evidence of a more generalprocess.Is it the case that deep within a middle-sized
city in a growth region of an industrializingThirdWorld country, the national
bourgeoisieis actively but surreptitiouslyengaged in ideologicallydominatingthe
indigenous workingclass?
Besidesthe ideologicalrole of the tabloidpress,one furtherimplicationwarrants
elaboration.The existenceof the tabloidpress is probablyspecificto mediasystems
at immaturestages of capitalistdevelopment.Competitive("perfect")marketsmay
be a result of new technology, newly emerginglevels of competition,or antitrust
government regulation that prevents, delays, or reverses concentration.Class-
targeted newspapers may only flourish (1) in the absence of industry-wide
monopoly concentration,(2) in local or nationalmarketswith competitionamong
numerousnewspapers,and (3) in countrieswith a consolidatedworkingclass. In
local monopoly markets, in contrast, mass circulationpapers supply centrist,
nonpartisan content oriented to class and ethnic groups with upper levels of
disposable income. Mass circulationpapers may be analogous to the "variety"
programmingsupplied in certainperiods by the Americanduopoly in radio and
the tri-opolyamong televisionnetworks,whereasthe existenceof the tabloidniche
may be more akin to formatradioand cable narrow-casting.
NEWSPAPERTARGETAUDIENCES
The sample consists of the eight morning newspapers that compete in Curitiba.
Three papers are popular or sensationalist.Five other papers offer serious, gray
journalism.A ninth paper,a tabloid,was excluded from considerationbecause it
is an afternoondaily.11
The differencescannot be due to differentownership interests or styles. Four
propertiesareowned by two mediagroups,each with a tabloidand a seriouspaper.
Each group owns television and radio stations. One of these groups is tied to a
andBrazilian
TABLE1
Newspaper Readershipby SocialClass
Classa A B C D E Estimated
Circulationb
Tribunado Parana 6 17 49 25 2 83,000
Folhade Curitiba 28 71 - -7,000
Estadodo Parana 7 28 64 14,000
Gazetado Povo 32 33 25 10 1 135,000
Correiode Noticias 20 60 20 5,000
Notes: a Thisdatawas collectedby a privateBrazilianfirmgiven to me by the circulationmanagerforGazeta doPovo,
who was unable to define the categoriesor specify the criteriaused to operationalizethe differences.He
did say they were class categoriesand they were labeledas such. Consequently,social"class"position is
definedonly minimallyas an ordinalrank,with "A"beingrelativelymoreupperclassand"E"beingrelatively
lowerclass.
b
Total estimated circulation.The figures are averages calculatedby the author from estimates made in
interviewswith editorsand publishers,who did not agreewith each other.
Source:A privateresearchfirmIBOPEin Curitibadid a marketstudy, XXVIIIEstudosMarplan(1986),for Gazetado
Povoand cited circulationfigures from the nationaladvertisingcontrol agency, known as the Instituto
Verificadorde Circulacao(IVC).The sutdy coveredreadersof TuesdaythroughSaturdayeditionsfor 1986;
percentagesareforfive days,TuesdaysthroughSaturdays,1986.
federal deputy.'2 Three other papers are essentially party organs or political
vehicles for their owners.'3 Another of the papers is primarily oriented to the special
interests of businessmen. One morning paper gets the majority of all classified
advertising.
Some Curitibano newspapers compete effectively with smaller papers in the
interior of the state but are, in turn, challenged by several national circulation dailies
from Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (respectively, about 250 and 500 miles northeast
in neighboring states).
Curitiba, which grew 110% from 1970 to 1985 to become the seventh largest
metropolitan area in Brazil (Almanaque1988:155;EuropaYearbook1974, 1986), is the
capital of the Parana, an agro-export state in the newly industrializing south of
the country.
The largest circulation daily, Gazetado Povo, commissioned a study'4 of the
readership of local papers, presented in Table 1. Readers were categorized in terms
of social class, defined as an ordinal rank with "A" being relatively more upper
class and "E"being relatively lower class. Unfortunately, only five of the nine dailies
were included in the market study. Most readers of two popular tabloids (Tribuna
and Folha) come from class categories C and D, whereas the median readership
for two of the more serious papers (Gazetaand Correio)comes from class category
B. Another serious paper (Estadodo Parand)appeals heavily to class category C but,
unlike Tribunaor Folha, has a larger proportion of class A and B readers as well.
As is common practice, Brazilian audience research agencies use similar ordinal
measures of class position without further category definitions. However,
corroborative information from interviews suggests that Tribunaand Folhaappeal
184 SOCIOLOGICAL
to white-collar and working-class readers while Gazeta,Correio,and Estadoappeal

to professional, business, and salaried middle-class readers.
Of the eight morning dailies, weekday circulation is highly concentrated in two
Curitibano newspapers, Gazetado Povoand A Tribunado Parana,together penetrating
to at least 50%and perhaps more than 80%of the readers.'5 Aggregate circulation
data must be interpreted with caution since marginals often do not add up and
totals from different sources usually do not correspond. I interviewed the chief
editors of all the newspapers in Curitiba as well as three of their publishers in
December 1987. Editors' estimates of the circulation of their own and other papers
vary widely. However, the editors tended to confirm the estimates of the relative
size of the newspapers. As mentioned, Gazetais taken to be one of the more serious
newspapers, and Tribunais considered a more popular or tabloid newspaper.
METHODS
A content analysis of the newspapers was done for the eight morning newspapers
for a reconstructed week, using Wednesday, December 9; Thursday, December 10;
Saturday, December 12; Sunday, December 13; Monday, December 14; and Friday,
December 18. Because of weekend editions that covered two or three days, there
were 49 possible editions among eight morning newspapers. In fact, only 44
editions (90%)could be found in archives or recovered from back issues.
Although the Christmas season may have influenced some economic coverage,
and the end of the year may have affected other social news, the variety of stories
and depth of issues confronting the city and country seemed "ordinary."'6In the
study period, the constitutional convention was still in session, and state and city
government carried on normal operations. For example, on December 10, the lead
story was a package of wage and tax concessions by the minister of economy. An
enamored 14-year-old boy took his admiring cousin on a four-hour joyride in a
city bus; the Brazilian soccer team beat Chile; almost all the members of a leading
Peruvian soccer team died in a plane crash; national telephone workers were on
strike; updates on weather and commodity markets were run prominently. On
December 18, faced with a cool response by the Brazilian president, the economy
minister was rumored to be about to resign over discontent with his recent policy
proposals; prisoners made a jail break in the neighboring state capital; the national
soccer cup matches generated controversy; spring thunder showers were predicted
again. Meanwhile, all papers gave minimal coverage to the world at large as
President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met in Washington to sign
an intermediate nuclear force treaty.
Brazilian newspapers, much more than U.S. or British papers, use the front page
as a bulletin board to promote stories. Papers have a high story count on page
one. On average, about nine stories are located on page one per edition of the three
pop papers, as compared to about 16 per edition on page one of the five serious
papers.7 In both groups, front page stories tend to summarize in the same words
what is said inside rather than continue or "jump" to the rest of the story. Tabloids
TheDominantIdeology Tabloids
andBrazilian 185
tend to use their front pages for banner headlines and promotionalphotographs
of stories on the inside. Since the popularpapers use more graphicson page one,
they carry fewer front-pageitems. But all the papers tend to use the first page
to promote stories carriedsubstantiallyinside.
Becauseof the design and layout of the Braziliannewspapers,two subsamples
(labeledA and B) are used. SubsampleA consists of all of the stories that are on,
jump from,or arepromotedon, the frontpage. SubsampleA consists of only front-
page stories, but because there are so many, one might argue they represent all
the prominent stories. SubsampleB consists of a random sample of eight stories
fromeach edition,stratifiedby page and locationin each edition.18The total sample
contains 440 cases with 217 stories from subsample A and 223 stories from
subsample B. The unit of analysis is the story. Stories from the two subsamples
do not significantlydifferin portrayalcharacteristics.Thatis, storiesfromthe front
pages of popularand seriousnewspapersdo not significantlydifferfroma stratified
sampleof storiesforthe same newspaperswith regardto measuresof the dominant
ideology, development ideology, news values, geographicscope, or news topics.
OPERATIONALDEFINITIONS
Two outcome variables are examined: prominence score and run-of-the-paper
(ROP)presence.
The prominence score or relative prominence is the weight editors give in
selecting, trimming,and laying out stories, measured as an additive score based
on placement and the length (in column inches).'9This weighting applies to both
subsamples A and B. But because of Brazilianpage-one design, two methods of
scoring front-page stories are examined.The first counts all stories on the front
page as front-pagestorieseven if only headlinesor a picturewith expandedcaption
appear.The second counts front-pagestoriesas promotionsforinside storieswhich
are weighted for their inside location.20A Spearmancorrelationof 0.9658between
these two ordinalmeasures of relativeprominenceis significantand suggests the
substantive similarityof the two methods of scoring.
A second prominencevariableis a qualitativemeasure of whether a story is or
is not in a given paper.Prominencehere is more basic;editors considereda story
worthy of being covered, edited, and printed,or not. "Run-of-the-paperstories,"
a phrase I invented, are a measureof the presence or absence of news items. The
term is taken from run-of-the-paperadvertisements,which are display ads (as
opposed to classifieds)that can be placed anywhere in the paper. ROP news is
a measure of the repetitive day-in, day-out content of the paper as a whole.
Essentially,ROP news is a categoricalvariabledifferentiatingpapers (in this case,
types of papers and presumably their staffs) in terms of the stories that they
repeatedlyignore or censor versus those they routinelypromote or include. This
categorizationpresumes that newspapers as organizationsdiffer in terms of an
unstated and unarticulatednews policy, which staffmemberslearnthroughyears
of example and socialization (Gans 1980:78-115;Janowitz 1975). Similarly,
186 PERSPECTIVESVolume39, Number 1, 1996
SOCIOLOGICAL
newspaperscan be characterizedin terms of ideologicalor partisanthemes, news

values, geographicfoci and topics found in any and all stories that appearin one
paper as opposed to characteristicsfound in stories that appearin other papers.
Five broad news content variables were defined and operationalizedusing
multiple, dichotomous indicators for each variable. The content variables are
labeled:dominantideology,developmentideology,news values,geographicscope,
and news topics. Besides the elemental indicatorsfor each variable,higher-order
indexes are constructed.
I define 10 dominant ideological themes or dimensions. In the news stories,
dominantthemes referto (1) present-timeorientation,(2) populardemobilization,
(3)conformity,(4)normality,(5)individualism,(6)sex roles,(7)racialconsciousness,
(8) middle-classvalues, (9) boosterism,and (10) consumer-orientation.To repeat,
all the developmentalpolicy differencesamong the elites may be hegemonic.Gans
(1980:42-69) describesthe American"newsideology"as a partiallyintegrated"para-
ideology" characterized by eight "enduring values."21Since the concept of a
dominantideology is elusive and taken for granted,definitionsare given here for
each elemental indicator or thematic dimension. Furthermore,empiricistsoften
discount studies of ideological dominance as tautological,defining ideology so
broadly as to include everything. For this reason, hegemonic and oppositional
themes are defined separatelyfor each dimension.
THEMESOR DIMENSIONS
DEFINITIONSOF IDEOLOGICAL
Present-timeorientationis seen in a story's immediate,event-centeredapproach,
whichassumesthe existenceof establishedrelationshipsor reiteratescommon-sense
causesforfactswithoutusing evidence.Storiesthattry to explainor interpretcurrent
developmentsin terms of broadersocietallinkages,their global context,historical
origins,or causalcomplexity-that try to explainwhy-are coded as oppositional.
Populardemobilizationmeans that in a story public authoritiesand officialsare
acting and resolving problems,issues, or crises,so that people do not need to act.
"Objective"or "value-neutral"stories usually depoliticize or demobilize the
citizenry.Oppositionalstories portraythe actualityor possibilityof directpopular
participation in public policymaking with the story explicitly or implicitly
mobilizing the citizenry by taking a shocked, outraged, critical,adversarial,or
advocacy stance regardingcurrentevents, trends,and patterns.
Conformityor socialcontrolthemes referto the properrelationshipand implied
consensus between authoritiesand publics-to the idea that because we all agree
on what is good and proper,privatecitizens should conformto authorizedpolicies
and accepted practices. In a second hegemonic variant, stories recognize that
individualsdo violate the law and deviate from the properstandardsof conduct
but that such incidents are "scandals"or exceptions. Crime stories are the best
examplesof scandalstories.Oppositionalstoriesare at least nonjudgmentalabout
incidents of resistance to legitimate authorities or about expressions of radical
disagreementagainst normal,natural,and/or legal arrangements.
andBrazilian 187
Normality themes are present when being rational, sane, conscious, under
control, and unaffected by illegal drugs is considered valuable or is demonstrated
by respect for authority, established rules, and law and order. The dimension refers
to attitudes expressed by authorities or popular attitudes toward authorities with
a positive value on maturity and moderatism. Oppositional stories see deviance
as normal or view defiant or rebellious behavior as having positive social
consequences.
Individualism means that personalities (self-made individuals or voluntaristic
"stars")make the important decisions, changes, and differences in life, society, and
history. In oppositional stories, the agent of social action or historical change are
impersonal forces or collective efforts by groups. For instance, inflation is often
treated as a force of nature while the causes for a governmental policy change are
usually personalized or attributed to a particular political figure.
Sex role themes are present in stories where men are normally and naturally
expected to be leaders, take initiative, take risks, show strength, produce, and
succeed. Hegemonic stories are sometimes tales of bravery, courage, and honor
associated with praiseworthy aggressive or violent male behavior, or protective
and chivalrous males. Sexist stories may provide physical and emotional
characteristics of different sexes. Characterizing people as emotional, weak,
submissive, diminutive, and/or deferential may be paternalistic or homophobic.
Oppositional stories are gender neutral, leaving out the gender identity of the
participants or specifically confounding gender expectations by focusing on
women who take initiative, achieve success, and/or lead active, dynamic,
competent, or enterprising lives.
Racially conscious stories include ethnic typifications and simplifications
associated with individuals or groups. Individuals are identified by race or ethnicity
and said to be leaders, criminals, or whatever. Oppositional stories are color blind,
leaving out the racial, religious, linguistic, nationalistic, or ethnic identity of
participants. Other oppositional stories explicitly portray successful, harmonious,
or intimate relationships among people of different ethnic backgrounds.
Middle-class value themes appeal to private property rights or concern benefits
to owners, managers, or white-collar workers. Hegemonic stories systematically
omit considerations of who benefits from policies, actions, or arrangements in class
terms. Some hegemonic stories only describe the benefits from the point of view
of owners, managers, and middle-class groups and ignore sources in other class
groups. Other hegemonic stories appeal to the rights of private property or the
norms presumed by the middle classes. Owners have a right to benefit from or
dispose of their property; those who are rich and famous deserve their rewards
because of their own past hard work and their conformity to middle-class
standards, ideals, and goals. Oppositional stories elaborate on the benefits and costs
to the working class, labor groups, or so-called little people. Other oppositional
stories presume or elaborate on the rationality and validity of populist expectations
(which are anti-government or anti-big business).
188 SOCIOLOGICAL
In booster stories, local groups and individuals (those from one's own
neighborhood,city, state, or country) are presented as the best and are expected
to triumphor to have successfulsolutions.Hegemonicstoriessupportgroups and
programswith local identities or nationalcharacteristics.Divergent social groups
or social systems are sometimes labeled as foreign, subversive, Communist-
inspired,Marxist-led,socialist-affiliated,oranti-democratic.Hegemonicstoriesmay
assume a definitionof the nationalinterestthat benefitsthe local or nationalelites,
justify inequitablepower relationshipswith externalgroups, and/or at the same
time deny the exploitiveor imperialisticnatureof such relationships.Oppositional
storieshave an internationalistor cosmopolitanorientation,celebratinggroupsand
programswith divergentgeographic/ethniccompositionor heterodoxorientation.
Consumer-orientedstories promote a materialisticlifestyle. The acquisition,
accumulation,and display of materialconsumer goods are the primarymarksof
success, achievement, and the good life. Oppositional stories include
representationsof spiritual, intellectual, naturalistic,artistic, environmental,or
humanisticvalues.
Takentogether these 10 themes define importantdimensions of the dominant
ideology but arecertainlynot exhaustive.Forexample,the dominantideology also
promotes technological progress. Furthermore, some dimensions may be
independentbut arenot mutuallyexclusive-for example,middle-classvalues and
consumer-orientation.Yet other themes are not included because they refer to
public myths, which do not actually represent the arrangementsor practicesof
a majorityof the society-for instance,corporatesocial responsibilityfor damage
to the environment,or charityfor the disadvantaged.
In examininga story for the presence of an ideologicaltheme, the news element
is either explicit in the text or else inferred from the existence of an angle,
assumption, or implication tied to specific passages in the story. Higher-order
variablesare constructedby counting the numberof themes present in each story
orin allthe storiesin a given paperand then dichotomizingthe scaleusing a median
split.
To construct a measure of developmental ideology, nine elemental indicators
are collapsedinto a four-waytypology. FollowingMcDonough(1981),stories and
newspapers are supportive of, or concerned with: (1) economistic growth, (2)
politicalliberalization,or (3) social reform.In a residual category are stories and
newspapers that (4) opt not to be concernedwith nationaldevelopment policies.
The elemental measures are collapsed as follows: economistic growth stories
mention (1) economic growth, capitalaccumulation,or industrialinvestment;(2)
the need for restraint on politics; or (3) support for authority, law and order.
Politicallyliberalstories referto (4) politicalliberty,permissivenessor openness;
(5) too much governmental power; (6) mobilization of masses or democratic
participation;or (7) civil liberties,due process,habeas corpus,human rights,or an
end to censorship.Stories with a bias toward social reformemphasize (8) wage
cuts, income, inflation,or the cost of living; or (9) equity, distributionof wealth,
social inequality,or land redistribution.
andBrazilian
Nine elemental news values are coded. Six news values are the traditional
standardsof newsworthinessmentionedin newswritingtexts:(1)immediacy(uses
a timely,event-orientedlead or a news peg);(2)human interest,emotionalinterest,
or ordinarypeople; (3) consequence, impact, or importance;(4) unusual, bizarre,
or offbeat; (5) prominent persons; and (6) conflict, controversy, issue, or
competition. Three additional value categories were derived from editors'
statements about their story preferences,describedas: (7) talk stories or readers;
(8)pocketbookconcernsor usefulinformation;and (9)localreactionpieces to wider
issues. Proximity, a tenth textbook news value, is included as a measure of
geographic scope. A summary index of news values consists of a dichotomized
count of news values.
In operationalizingthe notion of news agenda, researchersoften combine the
topical focus and geographicalscope of stories. Shapiroand Williams(1986),for
instance,lump issues into 10broadcategorieswith differentgeographicscope such
as (nationalissues) civil rights and conservation;(a state-wide issue) agriculture;
and (presumablycity-wide issues) crime,education,and municipalservices.Given
this ambiguity and redundancy, geographic focus/scope is treated as one
independent variable and the topical focus of stories is considered a separate
variable.
The geographicscope of a story may reflecta newspaper'stargetedcirculation
area as well as the self-perceivedmission of the paper in providing community
news, servingas an authoritativeregionalorgan,orbecominga nationalnewspaper
of record.Four dummy variableswere created.For example,either a story has a
local focus or it does not. Eachstory was coded four times as local,state, national,
and internationalor not. Forexample,the Brazil-Chilesoccer story could be coded
both national and international.Higher-ordervariables combining measures of
broadergeographicscope that assume intervalscalingarenot used in the analysis.
Furthermore,the concept of news agenda blurs the distinctionbetween a topic
and an issue, especially in aggregatingdata into broad issue areas.For example,
Shaw and McCombs(1977:12)write, "[I]ncreasedsalienceof a topic or issue in the
mass mediainfluences(causes)the salienceof that topic or issue amongthe public."
An "issue"may be definedas a conflictover a specificpublicpolicyor governmental
action in historicaland political context. Meanwhile,I preferto use "topic"as a
moregenerictermforsubjectmatter.Thirtytopics areidentifiedin the dataanalysis
here.2 Because each story contained multiple topics and most topics were not
relevant to any given story (creatinga problemof many missing values), higher-
ordervariablescombining broad topical areas could not be used in the statistical
analysis.
Each elemental indicatorfor the dominant ideology variableis dichotomous;a
theme is or is not present in a story. Summarymeasuresare createdby counting
the number of hegemonic and oppositionalthemes separately.Both variablesare
conceptuallyunidimensionaland quantifiable;for example,each story may have
few or many hegemonic themes on a given dimension. Oppositionalthemes to
the dominant ideology are not just residual categories but are substantively
SOCIOLOGICAL
defined. The variables are considered to be ordinal scale dimensions, but

occasionallyboth hegemonicand oppositionalthemes arepresentin a story,which
is then coded as "both"on that dimension.Sincemany content characteristicsmay
not be relevant to a given story, the value on that indicatoris coded as "neither"
and is treatedas a user-missingvalue. Forexample,a new tax packagestory could
contain elements from "both"managementand workers'points of view (middle-
class values) and have themes that are relevant to "neither"sexism or gender
neutrality.
On the other hand, the dichotomous alternativesfor the other variables are
dummy categories. Each theme for the development ideology, news values,
geographic focus, and news topics is present or not; no counter-themes are
substantively defined. Summarymeasures of each variablecount the number of
themes present.23
Content analysis of a 20%subsampleof stories showed intercoderreliabilityat
the 84%level (Krippendorff1980:146-154). Intercoderreliabilityis defined as the
mean of the numberof elementalvariablesthat were coded the same by two coders
over the total numberof variablescoded.
FINDINGS
For the sake of brevity, cross-tabulationsof each content variablewith the two
outcome variablesof story prominenceand ROPstory presence are omitted here.
Rather,clusters of indicatorsfor each content variableare sought to distinguish
more prominent from less prominent stories or else to separate story themes
present in some papers but not in others. A method of distinguishingbetween
types of newspapersis availablethroughdiscriminantanalysis,in which a function
combining specific variables is created that most adequately classifies the
newspapersinto differentgroups.
This method was chosen (over other regression techniques) because a
discriminantfunction properly applies to dependent variablesthat are categoric
or ordinalscale (Siegel 1956;Stevens 1986).24
In temporaland possibly causalterms,the newspapersexisted priorto the news
stories. In other words, the types of newspapers are independent variablesand
the content characteristicsof storiesare dependent variables.Forinstance,though
the researcherin actualityexaminesthe ideologicalthemes in an already-existing
news story,presumablyit is the ideology of the news organizationthat produced
those stories.Conveniently,in discriminantanalysis,the membershipgroups are
consideredthe independentvariablesand the factorcharacteristicsare dependent
variables.The factors are used to explain the differencesbetween membership
categories.In Table 2, the membership categories are differencesin run-of-the-
paper storiesin two types of newspapers-that is, between ROPstoriesin serious
and popular newspapers. In Table 3, the membershipcategories are differences
between storieswith high and low prominencescores in all samplednewspapers.
TABLE 2
StandardizedCanonicalDiscriminantFunction: Run-of-the-PaperStoriesGroupedInto Population
Percentof Canonical
Function Explained Correlation Numberof Degreeso
Steps Variablesin the Function Variancea Coefficient Cases Wilks'Lambda Freedo
I. CasesNariables-Ratio Exceeded 35.3 0.63437 418 0.5976 32b
II. Agenda Setting and Hegemony 30.2 0.55870 432 0.6878 6
1. Local Focus 0.34709 0.8737
2. Sports Topics 0.64636 0.7982
3. Crime and Drug Topics 0.46529 0.7393
4. Demobilizing-Advocacy
Themes 0.33258 0.7218
5. National Focus -0.38135 0.7077
6. International Focus -0.32776 0.6878
Notes: aThe squareof the canonicalcorrelationcoefficient(R)is analogousto the percentageof explainedvariance.The adjustedR2
forthe numberof variablesused in the function.WhereN is the numberof cases and p is the numberof variablesin the func
AdjustedR = 2 - {p (1- R) }
1,,, , _i N-p-l1
b The ratioof the numberof cases to the numberof variablesshould be at least 20,
accordingto Stevens (1986).With32 varia
arenot enough cases to use this procedure.Furthermore,the variablesare so heterogeneousas to be meaningless.
SOCIOLOGICAL
If all the variablescould be run, 80.2%of the cases could be correctlyclassified

into the three popular and five serious newspaper groups. Even though such a
function with 32 variables would explain 35.3%of the variance, it would be
conceptually and statisticallymeaningless.The ratio of variablesto the number
of cases limits functionsto no more than 22 variables.With 66 elementalvariables
and 18 higher-ordervariables,a strategy to limit systematically the number of
variablesin a functionis required.
A discriminantfunction is a measureof association,which makes it possible to
compare the strength of variables to each other and show which of the four
approachesto news contentbest explainsthe observeddifferencesin class-targeted
newspapers.
The strategy used here is to enter a subset of variables of a given type (for
example,all the dominantideology themes) into a function to find the indicators
that significantlydiscriminatethe storiesinto two differentgroups of newspapers.
Thisproceduremakesit possible to isolatethe best explanatoryindicatorsforeach
variable.The best indicatorsfor each type of variablecan then be comparedin
terms of their ability to account for the variance between the stories appearing
in serious or popularnewspaper groups.The problemis to decide systematically
how many of each type of variable to combine into a overall function. In this
procedure,variablesenterthe functionin a step-wise fashion,selectingthe variable
that contributesmost to the explainedvariance.Using the F-valueat the 0.05level
of probabilityas the criterionfor including each step-wise variable,numerous
discriminantfunctions are significant.While as many as 22 significantvariables
can be added, each successive variabletends to contributeless to the power of
the overallfunction.Wilks'lambdais inversely proportionalto the errorvariance;
specifically,the squareof the canonicalcorrelationcoefficient(R2)is equal to one
minus lambda.For example, for every variablethat lowers the value of lambda
by .01, the amount of explained variance(R2)is increased approximately1%.By
examiningthe lambdavalues of the variablesin the function,the contributionof
each variable can easily be compared. Even though a given indicator may be
significant,its contributioncould be minimal.Indicatorsthat do not contributeat
least 1%to the explained variance are eliminated.The most powerful indicators
for each variableare then combined, and the step-wise regression is run again.
Finally,those variablesthat do not contributeat least 1%of the varianceare again
eliminatedfromthe combinedfunction.The marginalvariablesthat were excluded
fromthe table are describedbrieflyin the text.
In the function in Table 2, just one variable-a bivariatemeasure of the local
focus of a story as distinguished from any broadergeographicscope-accounts
forroughly13%of the variance(Wilks'lambda= 0.8737).Of all the variablestested,
local focus is the most powerful predictorof tabloid content and, if it were in a
functionby itself,would be able to correctlyclassifynearly 71%of the "grouped"
stories. Stories in more popular papers are significantlyand substantiallymore
likely to have local angles than stories in more serious papers.
andBrazilian
The next most highly correlated variables are a set of two news topic indicators-
identifying crime or drug stories, and those about sports-that add about 13%to
the explained variance. Again, were these two variables in a separate function (not
shown here), crime and sports stories would correctly classify 75.2% of the
"grouped" stories (R = 0.4189, Wilks' lambda = 0.8245, p = 0.000).
Table 2 shows that adding variables or combinations of variables to the
discriminant function with the highest standardized canonical coefficients
improves the amount of variance accounted for.
What stands out most is that knowing simply whether the story had to do with
local crime or sports would account for 23.5% of the variance (the so-called
"adjusted" R2).Since the more variables in the function, the higher the canonical
correlation coefficient, the adjusted R2 used here discounts the number of
explanatory variables and the size of sample to give a better estimate of explained
variance (Norusis 1988:152-153).
In examining groups of variables, the indicator that accounts for the next highest
percentage of variance is one of dominant ideology themes, the distinction between
demobilizing and advocacy portrayals. Some stories present public authorities and
officials as acting and resolving problems, issues, and crises, whereas other stories
about shocking events or problems explicitly advocate or implicitly aim to mobilize
direct popular participation in policymaking. While popular demobilization is the
single best ideological indicator, a dichotomized summary count of the number
of hegemonic themes is also powerful and is perhaps a better measure of hegemony.
Substituting such an overall measure of hegemonic ideology for the distinction
between local crime or sports stories (versus all other stories) in a separate four-
variable function would explain 25.1%of the variance (Wilks' lambda = 0.7280, p
= 0.000). Stories in popular papers are more demobilizing and in general more
hegemonic.
Besides the four variables already mentioned, there are two dummy variables
that indicate whether a story is national or not, and international or not. Popular
papers focus relatively more on local stories while the more serious press more
fully rely on national and international coverage. Together the six-variable function
explains 30.2%of the variance (R = 0.55870, p = 0.000) and correctly classifies 76.8%
of the cases.
The combination of six variables is worth noting because, compared to other
discriminant functions, it contains a parsimonious number of conceptually related
variables and substantially boosts the overall canonical correlation coefficient.
Another eight variables (not shown) contribute more marginally to the effect. Of
separate importance are two summary measures of ideological themes (counting
the number of hegemonic themes in different ways). Still another ideological
indicator distinguishes between stories that imply consensus and those that allow
for the expression of opposition points of view. And yet another ideological variable
differentiated sexist versus gender neutral stories. The tabloids are consistently
more hegemonic with demobilizing and sexist stories supporting social control.
Two news values contribute to the function with the serious papers running more
TABLE3
StandardizedCanonicalDiscriminantFunction: Storiesin Low and High Prominen
Percentof Canonical
Function Explained Correlation Numberof Degreeo
Steps Variables
in theFunction Variancea Coefficient Cases Wilks'Lambda Freedo
III. News Valuesand Hegemony 17.9 0.43831 436 0.8079 7
1. TalkValue 0.64018 0.9433
2. SocialControl-Deviance
Themes -0.52579 0.8863
3. ConflictValue 0.32635 0.8648
4. AgriculturalTopics 0.30832 0.8492
5. Crimeand DrugTopics 0.38194 0.8316
6. ImpactValue 0.30701 0.8201
7. Ahistorical-Trend
Themes -0.30118 0.8079
' See
Note: note a to Table 2.
Tabloids
andBrazilian
TheDominantIdeology 195
featuresand macro-societalimpactstorieswhile the tabloidsoffermoretimely spot

coverage.Two news topic categoriesappearwith items on real estate and religion
discriminatingthe agenda in serious papers.The 14-variablefunction bumps up
the adjustedR2to 32.1%and slightlyimprovesthe cases correctlyclassifiedto 79.3%.
In the analysisso far,run-of-the-paperstories,which might be placed anywhere
and constitute a qualitativeprofileof the kind of stories present in a given paper,
are groupedinto popularand seriousnewspapers.Presenceis a minimaldegree of
prominence.If the membershipgroupingwere to take into accountthe prominence
score of the storiesthat appearin Curitibanopapers,ratherstartlingmodifications
occurin the discriminantfunctions.The same step-wisemethod is used to limitthe
numberof variablesin a functionthat minimizesWilks'lambdaand that excludes
variablesthat in successioncontributeless than 1%to the explainedvariance.
Sincethe prominencescoresareordinalintegers,the samplecould not be evenly
split at the mean and an unbalanced median-splitof high and low prominence
storiesis used instead.A seven-variablefunction(see Table3) producesthe highest
explained variance for high and low prominence stories. The function accounts
for 17.9%of the variance,is significantat the 0.0000level, and correctlyclassifies
68.8%of the cases. News values contributemost decisively to the function with
so-called"talk"stories,those about conflictand issue controversiesand those that
have macro-societalimpact, receiving substantiallyhigher priorityin all papers.
Again,the dominantideology makesan importantdifferencewith storiesthat tend
to support social controland to cover decontextualized,ahistoricalevents getting
the most attention. Overall, news topics dealing with crime and (in the agro-
industrialstate of Parana)agriculturalitems are played up.
In an expanded 11-variablefunction of the best indicators for each variable
(including those already mentioned), developmental ideology characterizes
prominent stories in two differentways, either the stories favor social reformor
else they opt out of the developmentalpolicy debates. High prominenceis given
to two additionalnews topics:politics and elections, and science and technology.
News values and measures of hegemonic ideology seem to have the most effect
on story prominence.
One qualificationis in order.Since there are more stories from serious papers
than fromtabloidsin the sample,the characteristicsof prominentstoriesthat show
up in the function may tend to overrepresentthe serious papers.
DISCUSSIONAND SUMMARY
The uneven distributionof sensationalistnewspapers among industrializedand
industrializingcountriesis the initialbasis for curiosity.Braziloffersa site of study
because upper-classpublishersoften own morethan one paperin the same market.
When a publisher owns two papers, the papers seem to target different class
audiences,with the tabloidsappealingto or popularamong working-classreaders.
In terms of the four majortheories of news content, the results of the analysis
are mixed. The pop and serious papers do manifest differencesin news agendas
196 SOCIOLOGICAL
(thatis, in the topicalfocus and geographicalscope of theirstories)in theirgeneral

news coverage as well as in their more prominentstories.But hegemonic themes
areclearlythe next most heavilyweightedfactorsin explainingdifferencesbetween
types of papers. Turningfrom the presence or absence of stories to their length
and placementin papers,news values and hegemonicthemes seem to distinguish
most powerfullythe prominencegiven stories.
My conclusion is that, while news coverage seems to be controlledfirmly by
local news agenda and news play by professionalvalues, the struggle for wider
ideological influence among the working classes makes news content in the
popularpress in Curitibaa key to ongoing upper-classcontrol.The popularpress
has a distinctideologicalrole.Pro-capitalistthemes seem to differentiatenewspaper
content with the tabloids being more hegemonic than the more serious papers.
Despite the fact that all Curitibano papers are presumably profit-oriented
enterprises,the papers appealing to those who might have the least interest in
established arrangements seem to portray events with the most hegemonic
interpretation.The results suggest that the tabloids actively reproduce "false
consciousness" among those classes whose acceptance of capitalism is most
tenuous. Authorities are routinely portrayed as taking initiative and solving
problems-in effect, demobilizingworking-classtabloid readers.In addition,the
more prominentstories in all papers portrayevents more often in the absence of
historicalcontext and in termsthat supportsocialcontrol.In the news, individuals
or points of view that challengeBrazil'sdemocraticelitism are considereddeviant.
Hegemonicthemes are thus of majorimportancein discriminatingbetween types
of papersand between storiesthat areprominentor buriedwithin papers.Whereas
the dominantideology is not the leadingpredictorof day-in,day-out story content
nor of the most prominent stories, ideological themes are the second most
importantpredictorsof news content in both these regards.
Meanwhile,politicalideology turns out not to be a powerfulvariableinfluencing
news content. Developmentalbiases do not differentiatethe news portrayalsof
tabloid and serious papers in their run-of-the-paperstories. The differences
between Brazilianelites over developmental policy are not reflected in distinct
class-targetedand politicallybiased types of papers.Nor do developmentalbiases
significantlydifferentiateamong more and less prominentstories although there
is a marginaltendency forlead storiesto favorthe developmentalideology of social
reform(ratherthan politicalliberalizationor economic development at all costs).
Social reformincludes the institutionalbias that all the papers have in favor of
freedomof the press.Developmentalideologiesaremarginalin accountingfornews
content. Political biases, whether they represent the biases of sources,
newsworkers,and/or newspaper-owningelites, do not differentiatetabloids and
serious papers.The fact that politicaldifferencesare not articulatedin the papers
allows the elites to make policy behind the scenes, reinforcinga united front of
democraticelitism toward all subordinateclasses, which McDonoughnotes.
As fornews values, popularBraziliannewspapersappearnot to differfromtheir
more serious competitorsin terms of stories characteristicallyfound in theirnews
TheDominantIdeology
andBrazilian
Tabloids 197
pages. News values are marginal when they do appear in more inclusive
discriminantfunctions-to a slight extent, tabloids preferfeature treatment,and
the serious papers use stories with macro-societalimpact. On the other hand,
prominenceis largely determinedby news values. Curitibanopapers all play up
so-called "talk"stories, the sort that engross "readers"and provoke lunch-time
chit-chatat workor get strangersat a bus stop to talkto each other.Brazilianpapers
in general are interested in stories of conflictand in the macro-societalimpact of
events. So, common-sense news values are the most importantdeterminantsof
prominence but are marginalor unimportantin distinguishing types of papers.
If news values are taken as an indicatorfor professionalnorms of newsworthiness,
the papers seem to draw their staff from the same pool of reportersand editors
who agree at least about what is of interest in Curitiba.Readers,whatever type
of paper they buy, are exposed to news content in terms of the journalism
profession'sown occupationalideology of newsworthiness and objectivity.
Contraryto my expectations,news agendas seem to turn out to be the most
parsimonious way to differentiatethe popular from the more serious press in
Curitiba.The pop press favorslocalstorieswhile storiesin the seriouspaperscover
a widergeographicscope, especiallynationaland internationalstories.The tabloids
also focus more on the topics of crime,drugs,and sports as opposed to the broader
range of topics in the serious papers.Agenda-settingis clearlythe best predictor
of ROPcontent.My inferenceis that,whereasagenda-settingdifferencesconstitute
the content that appeals to working-class-targetedaudiences, the hegemonic
content constitutes the owner's (owners')class perspective,embedded in stories
throughnewsroom policies,throughsocializationexperiences,and throughhiring
and promotion practices that affect reportersand editors. Without the agenda-
setting appeal,the hegemonic messages might never get read.
As for the effect of agenda-settingon the prominenceof stories, selected news
topics are important,but geographicfocus is not at all important.Topics such as
crime,drugs, and agricultureare played up, and to a lesser extent so are politics
and elections, and science and technology. Crime and politics might be leading
agenda items in any mass-circulationcommercialpaper, while agriculturaland
technology topics would seem to reflect the particularinterests of readersin an
agro-industrialstate in a rapidlydeveloping ThirdWorldcountry.
Thus, traditionalapproaches that emphasize agenda-settingand news values
do explain to a large degree differentaspects of news content. The suspicion that
political biases determines news content is not supported since developmental
ideologicalthemes have a minimalrolein determiningthe content of differenttypes
of papers and a minor role in news play.5 In contrast to such partialeffects,the
dominantideology is importantin explainingboth aspectsof news content.Tabloid
and serious papers as well as the stories that are run most prominentlyin them
differsubstantiallyin the hegemonic ideologicalthemes that the stories convey.
The dominant ideology accounts for a substantialproportionof the variance in
the presence of ROPstories and the prominenceof stories.
198 SOCIOLOGICAL
Any conclusions must be qualified by saying that the category definitions might
be further refined, intercoder reliability could be further improved, and the
newspapers are grouped only in the simplest way. The sample does not include
any working-class-oriented papers that attack the whole capitalist system or that
are owned by radical opposition politicians or revolutionary parties, such as the
Voz Proletariaof the Communist Party in Colombia. Nor is there in Curitiba the
sort of mass-oriented weekly tabloids, often called "door-hangers" or "throw-
aways," that have become advertising vehicles for U.S. grocery chains and local
retailers. Thus, the range of types of newspapers considered is limited to
commercial dailies. The argument in favor of the importance of the dominant
ideology is strengthened, rather than weakened, by finding that it differentiates
newspapers even within this restricted range.
As always, a hypothesis is derived in part from theory that provides a context
for the study but that is not tested. The assumptions of the theory need to be stated,
so that the variables can be conceptualized and, at some later point, measured
explicitly. Such contextual variables are constants that could be stated as
conditional clauses, appended to the hypothesis. The hypothesis would seem to
be apply to capitalist countries with competitive elites, commercial media markets,
a substantial industrial work force, and multiple newspapers in the circulation area
under study. The present case fits such conditions. Brazil is a newly industrializing
capitalist country with competitive elites and a commercial media market. Curitiba
has a consolidated working class and numerous newspapers. The tabloids occupy
a niche in the urban market for news and information.
The tabloids use their news agenda to target the working class. Their use of
ideology in news content is more subtle and complex. My summary hypothesis
about the primary importance of ideological factors is not confirmed: news agendas
are more important than the dominant ideology in accounting for the news content
of different types of newspapers, and news values are more important than the
dominant ideology in accounting for the prominence of stories. Still, the dominant
ideology is the second most important factor in accounting for news content
whichever way content is defined. The ideological component is most visible when
a reader compares news content in one type of paper to the ideological orientation
in another type of paper. Even then, the ideological component may be obscured
by the more obvious differences in topical content (crime, accidents, sports, and
sex). In the more usual situation where a reader sees a single newspaper, news
values play a more important role in the more prominent stories. A reader or
newsworker of one given newspaper would tend to overlook the ideological
component.
Note that a narrow range of variation in the use of dominant ideological themes
does not constitute pluralism-which would be the case if it were shown that
stories with oppositional themes tended to run day-in and day-out or tended to
be played up in Curitibano papers. Neither the tabloids nor the more serious papers
are oppositional; the tabloids are merely more hegemonic than the serious papers,
which are also hegemonic.
andBrazilian 199
Gitlin's notion that bourgeois capitalist ideology is flexible and absorptive may
apply more to news media directed to the middle classes, whereas a stricter
ideological orthodoxy may be more often the case for working-class-oriented
papers. Despite some historical work that would refute the dominant ideology
thesis (Abercrombie et al. 1980) and most empirical approaches to news production
that would ignore ideological variables (Shoemaker 1987), capitalist hegemony in
modem times seems to be vigorously supported by papers in the midst of
industrialization. Tabloids with a news agenda oriented to working-class readers
tend to be the strongest supporters of capitalist legitimacy.
A key unanswered question is whether the differences reflect a differing
perception of readership appeal or a strategy for maintaining class control. Are the
papers just giving their readers what they want or are they pursuing a surreptitious
strategy of ideological acculturation?
Prima facie evidence comes from most Curitibano editors, who say the serious
Gazetado Povois the only paper that makes money, although a few editors say Diario
Popularand JornalIndustria& Comerciodo Paranamay also run at a small profit. The
loss-making of most Curitibano newspapers seems to reflect ideological rather than
commercial motives behind the seeming competition. Perhaps like independently
owned U.S. papers of an earlier era, Curitibano dailies may have more leeway to
be class, partisan, and personal career vehicles. Ideological interests rather than
market considerations (that appeal to professional news values) may be primary.
Their sensationalism may have ideological rather than remunerative payoffs.
The theory of news content has other implications for class relations and the role
of ideology. Regarding strictly political differences that exist among newspaper
owners, ideological themes are marginally more likely to come out in the middle-
class press. Stories for the working-class readers of the tabloids tend to be devoid
of policy alternatives. This quiescence is even more striking because Brazil has
emerged into a period of civilian rule after a long stage of military intervention in
building public-sector capitalism and because the ruling elites maintain a political
stance derived from their long exclusion. I might have expected some of PMDB
publishers to be ardent supporters of development strategies at variance with
economic triumphalism and strongly opposed to state-led development. Inter-elite
political competition has apparently not eroded the united front of elite control.
Within the news media, support for capitalist hegemony may be subtle and
surreptitious, and yet systematic. Judging from their news product, Curitibano
publishers are united in portraying events in terms of more or less hegemonic
themes. The publishers apparently differ only in how active their papers' are in
prosyletizing and acculturating their class-targeted audiences. One inference might
be that, compared to the American media that Gitlin studied, Brazilian elites who
own the press are not semi-autonomous from the government in Brasilia or from
corporate elites in Sao Paulo. In the recently democratized countries of Latin
American, there is a history of military censorship and the continuing and chilling
effect of the military's potential return to repression. Third World patronage often
includes government advertising and newsprint quotas that may keep publishers
200 SOCIOLOGICAL
more closely establishmentarian. Another inference is that the views of news

editors and reporters are effectively censored since oppositional themes rarely
surface in news stories and since newsworkers certainly do not fully share the
commitments of their elite owners. A pro-capitalist interpretation of events
provides a taken-for-granted shared ideology seemingly as consistent on the semi-
periphery of the modem world capitalist system as at its core.
These findings from Brazil suggest the need for further studies designed to
determine (1) to what extent and in what ways does the taken-for-granted ideology
shared by nationalist bourgeoisie (and media owners individually) in
industrializing Third World countries differ from the dominant ideology of the
corporate upper class in core countries; (2) under what conditions does a dominant
consensual capitalist ideology pervade the news discourse in semi-peripheral
countries and peripheral regions; (3) what are the unwritten, detailed newsroom
mechanisms of selection, socialization, and social control that operate to reproduce
ideological conformity at an organizational level; and (4) to what extent and under
what conditions do individuals and segments within the working classes and in
the Third World adopt a dominant capitalist ideology when their communities and
countries are exposed to media acculturation.
Acknowledgements: The author would like to thank the University of Dayton

and the University of Houston for grants that made this study possible, The author
is also endebted to David W. Bieres, Jon Lorence, David Francis, and John Horton
for their assistance and advice.
NOTES
1. Becausethey are not daily,Americansupermarketweeklies do not fill the same news
niche.
2. The disappearanceof the Northern Starin 19th-centuryEnglanddespite its enormous
circulationis perhaps the most classic case. When the Chartistmovement collapsed,
subscriptionrevenues froma readershiplargerthan that of TheTimes(of London)were
insufficient to support the Leeds paper (Harrison 1974:104-135).Workers lacked
sufficientdisposableincome to attractadvertisers-who nowadays contribute70-75%
of newspaperrevenues.
3. The two papers fought for readers,introducingcomic strips, lovelorn columns, and
promotionalevents. With a newly acquiredcolor press, Hearsthired an illustratorto
steal the Yellow Kid, the hero of Pulitzer'spopular comic "Hogan'sAlley.""Yellow
journalism"became a pejorative term associated with the exaggerated,inaccurate
reporting;screamingheadlines;and the xenophobiccoverageof the Spanish-American
Warof 1898.
4. Whatever their market situation in response to local competition, working-class-
targeted appeal still has to depend on the existence of a substantialand compact
working class in semi-peripheralcountriesin a world-capitalistdivision of the labor
market,in which semi-peripheralcountrieslike GreatBritainand Brazilhave returned
TheDominantIdeology
andBrazilian
Tabloids 201
to or become primarymanufacturingcenters for financialcapitalsin core countries,

like the United States,Germany,and Japan(See Wallerstein1979).
5. "Ideology"refersto a complex of shared attitudes and behaviors,values and norms,
that together constitute the frameof reference,the standardsof evaluation,the goals
of life,the definitionof personaland collectivesituations,the limitsof legitimatepolicy
and governmental programs, and the norms of collective decision-making and
collectiveaction."Consensus"refersto the views of the majorityof membersof a class
and/orof the public at largewho agree on moralvalues, enduringtruths,legal norms,
and basic common policies. Bell (1960)and Dahrendorf(1959),for instance, suggest
that a pro-capitalistconsensus representsan "endof ideology"based on the negotiated
resolutionto antagonisticclass interestsin industrializedcountries.Wallerstein(1979)
countersthatthe ideologicalstruggleby globalizedcapitalismfordominationcontinues
in a world system with a division of laborincreasinglybased on class inequalitiesand
symbolic (national,ethnic, and gender)differentiation.
6. "Elites"referhere to persons with the authorityto rule or govern for a specificperiod
as well as to oppositionalpoliticalleaders,notablepersons in key economicpositions,
and celebritieswith high social status.
7. Hegemonic sectors include governing elites as well as the loyal politicalopposition.
Exposureto and acceptanceof the dominantideologyby some membersof subordinate
classes does not rule out the possibility that other sectors are engaged in resistance
and struggle from a point of view that is not only outside the momentarygoverning
elite party but also in opposition to the entire elite consensus.
8. One might speculate that at earlierstages, compact working-classcommunitieshad
their own cultures and ideologicalpoints of view. In the 20th century, urbanization
and enforcedlabormarketmobilitydisruptedsuch communities.Meanwhile,with the
spread of universal public education and the commodificationof culture, "middle-
class"values and myths and the entertainmentindustrieshave penetratedworking-
class ideologies.
9. The first national elections to replace the militarywere in 1985,and my newspaper
datawere collectedin 1987.The tripartitestructureof elite divisionsthat were so many
years in the making are expected to evolve gradually during the transition to
democracy.The question is empirical.I am examining whether these elite interests
generateenduringdivisionsthat have persistentconsequencesforthe news even after
the balanceof power has changed.
10. Hypotheses: (1) Newspapers differin their support for, or opposition to, a dominant
consensual ideology. (2) Newspapers differ in their development ideologies. (3)
Newspapers differin the news values of their stories.(4) Newspapers differin terms
of the geographicscope of their coverage.(5) Newspapersdifferin terms of the topics
that they emphasize. "Newspapers"refersto types of newspapers-that is, popular
as compared to more serious papers. Of course, the null hypotheses would predict
none of these factors would make significantor substantialdifferencesin the news
content of serious and popularnewspapers.
11. Popularnewspapers:DiariodaTarde, DiarioPopular, FolhadeCuritiba,
and Tribuna doParana.
DiariodaTarde,the only afternoonpaper,is excluded.Seriousnewspapers:O Estadodo
Parana,GazetadoPovo,Jornaldo Estado,Correio deNoticias,and Joral Industria & Comercio
doParana.Industria & Comerciois written for businessmen.
SOCIOLOGICAL
12. One media group owns Gazeta(the largest circulationdaily) and Diarioda Tarde(the
only afternoondaily).Anothergroup,headedby FederalDeputy PauloPimentel owns
Tribunaand 0 Estado.Gazetaand O Estadoare serious;Tardeand Tribunaare tabloids.
13. Correiois owned by a syndicate associatedwith the BrazilianDemocraticMovement
Party (PMDB).Folha was createdby a politicallyambitiouscalciummagnate,Benito
Chimelli.DiarioPopularis a vehicle forAbdo Kudri.
14. Estimatesof circulationand readershipfromdifferentsourcesvary.A privateresearch
firmIBOPEin Curitibadid a marketstudy, XXVIIIEstudosMarplan, in 1986for Gazeta
do Povoand cited circulationfigures from the national advertising control agency,
known as the InstitutoVerificadorde CirculaSao(IVC).
15. Figuresfrom Instituto Verificadorde Circulagao(IVC),and from IBOPEand XXVIII
EstudosMarplan.
16. Though quarterly circulation varies widely, figures available also suggest the
nonexceptionalnatureof December.Editorsare unanimousin saying that duringthe
summer-carnivalquarter from Februaryto April, the newspapers make up their
monthly losses for the rest of the year. Figuresfor Gazetareaders,for instance,for the
quarterthat includes November and Decemberof 1985and Januaryof 1986 for the
total weekday Tuesday through Saturdayuniverse (excludingthe weekend Sunday-
Monday edition),indicate that circulationis 92%of the yearly average.Decemberis
probablyeven nearerto the yearlymedianbecausereaderslook for Christmasseason
advertising.
17. In contrast,Americannewspaperstypicallyrun five or six stories on page one.
18. Two storiesarechosen fromthe frontpage above the fold;two othersarepickedeither
fromthe firstpage below the fold or fromanothersectionfront;two storiesareselected
from section one, pages 2 or 3 or the back page, in that orderpreferablyon different
pages; and two stories come from a designated inside page (page 6) or subsequent
pages, preferablyfromdifferentpages. Minimumstory length is three column-inches.
A page (or half page) has to have at least three stories to allow for randomselection.
Full-pageadvertisementsas well as entertainment,opinion and editorialpieces are
excluded.
19. Placement:A front-pagestory above the fold is worth four points; below the fold it
is worth three points; stories on page 2, page 3, or the back page of the first section
count two points; inside stories are given one point. Stories promoted on page one
gainan extrapoint.Storylength:Two columnsor morelong (atleast 42 column-inches)
receivefourpoints;morethan one columnand less than two (21to 41 inches)get three
points;less than one column (7 to 20 inches) get two points; and briefs (less than 6
inches) are given one point. Storiesunder 3-columninches are not included.
20. Those stories with seven or more column inches on page one get an additionaltwo
points and those with fourto six columninches of space get one point.All storieswith
less than fourcolumn inches on page one arecounted only on the basis of theirinside
story location.
21. Gans does not explicitlyconnect the news ideology to the dominantideology of the
broaderculture.His news values overlapthe thematicdimensionsdefinedhere.
22. News topics include:(1) sports, contests; (2) crime, drugs, criminalkidnaping,gang
violence,cops;(3)naturaldisasters,accidents,fires;(4)war,riots,civil war,nuclearwar;
(5) elections, candidates, horse race, parties, politics; (6) protest, demonstrations,
hostages, hijacking,political kidnaping,racial conflict;(7) labor strikes, organizing,
TheDominantIdeology
andBrazilian
Tabloids 203
negotiating, unemployment, jobs, benefits, wages; (8) the constitution, amendments;

(9) courts, trials, legal suits, judicial decisions, investigations; (10) government actions,
reports, speeches, decrees, or rulings; executive branch, city/county agencies; (11)
legislature, congress, bills, laws, hearings, ordinances, local councils/commissions/
boards, lobbying; (12) government budgets, taxes, deficits; (13) defense, nuclear
weapons/energy, spying, space; (14) education, library;(15) agriculture; (16) social issues
(abortion, homosexuality, teen pregnancy, school dropouts, hunger, poverty,
homelessness, child abuse, women's and minority rights, gay rights, AIDS, elderly, etc.);
(17) economy, business, industry, finance, banking, insurance, foreign trade; (18)
personal debt, savings, loans; (19) consumer affairs, weather, lottery; (20) health,
medicine, fitness, sanitation, mental health, nursing, retirement homes, disease, safety;
(21) science, technology, engineering, inventions; (22) energy, environment, ecology;
(23) transportation; (24) construction, real estate, zoning, annexation; (25) obituaries,
personality profiles, suicide; (26) festivals, holidays, social events, philanthropy; (27)
entertainment, TV, radio, press, movies, theater, dance, concerts, books; (28) food,
interior decorating, architecture, travel, tourism; (29) religion, church, family; and (30)
sex.
23. To describe an indicator as an additive part of a news value dimension, for example,
is to assume the existence of common underlying or reflective factors of classical
regression models. My indicators might better be conceptualized as production factors
of variables described in latent trait theory (Hambleton and Swaminathan 1985). The
point is that the usual measures of measurement reliability do not apply. A good
example of a latent trait variable is geographic scope. A story may have aspects which
are local, state, national, or international-one or several of which might be relevant,
and yet, unlike Likert-type scales, there is little correlation between values on the
dimension. The geographic scope/focus of a story is "composed of" these exhaustive
possibilities rather than a "reflection of" an underlying factor, along which a story
has some value. Unfortunately, statistical techniques for the manipulation of
production factors are relatively underdeveloped. For the dominant ideology,
developmental ideology, and news values, higher-order variables are created even
though the underlying dimensions are probably composed of latent traits. Each
indicator for geographic scope and for news topics are treated as bivariate dummy
variables.
24. The two types of newspapers constitute categoric differences, and the prominence
score is certainly ordinal, but the increments cannot be assumed to be interval scale.
Discriminant analysis is based on comparisons of the centroids of ordinal scale
variables. Even though most of the raw data is coded into nominal categories, the
dichotomous categorical variables are conceptually unidimensional and quantifiable,
thus ordinal, and so are accepted in discriminant analysis. One limitation is that in
comparison to measures of continuous or interval scale variables, the discriminant
function is not as sensitive. Stevens (1986) argues that another limiting consideration
in the proper use of discriminant analysis is the size of the sample, such that the number
of cases divided by the number of variables should not exceed 20. With N = 440,
therefore, as many as 22 variables might be used.
25. Perhaps a different definition of political (developmental) ideology among Brazilian
elites might have found more polarization among the newspapers.
204 SOCIOLOGICAL
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THE DOMINANT IDEOLOGY

ABSTRACT: A contentanalysisof thepressin a middle-sizedcity in Brazil

and workingclasses drawnto the cities duringthe periodof rapidindustrialization.

A second approach,focusingon "bias,"or partisancoverage,often asks whether

than 20 years of militaryintervention,the BrazilianDemocraticMovement Party

financedby them areoften describedin termsof differencesin favoringor opposing

reinforces societal arrangements.Events are portrayed in the news within an

to white-collar and working-class readers while Gazeta,Correio,and Estadoappeal

newspaperscan be characterizedin terms of ideologicalor partisanthemes, news

defined. The variables are considered to be ordinal scale dimensions, but

If all the variablescould be run, 80.2%of the cases could be correctlyclassified

featuresand macro-societalimpactstorieswhile the tabloidsoffermoretimely spot

(thatis, in the topicalfocus and geographicalscope of theirstories)in theirgeneral

more closely establishmentarian. Another inference is that the views of news

Acknowledgements: The author would like to thank the University of Dayton

to or become primarymanufacturingcenters for financialcapitalsin core countries,

negotiating, unemployment, jobs, benefits, wages; (8) the constitution, amendments;

Hofstetter,C. Richard.1976.Biasin theNews:A Studyof Network Coverageof the1972Campaign.

Shoemaker,PamelaJ.,with E. K. Mayfield.1987."Buildinga Theory of News Content:A

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