Introduction
News, defined in the 14th century as distinctive plural form of new or the French’s nouvelles or the German’s Neues is still relevant, functional and impactful in society. It is also a transcript or content of current events the news industry or individuals intends to share with the society through radio, television, newspapers, news websites and social media across cultures and borders. Descriptively, news hinges on relevance, worthiness of events and the process of assigning hierarchy of attention to issues in society through the tone of facts, exaggeration and emotiveness.
Functionally, news informs, educate, create awareness and guide society in forming opinion and interpreting events and threats around them. Besides, news offers entertainment and a platform for advertisement and commodity.
Ecologically, news formation, sources and ownership of news has changed since the introduction of the digital space. Today, digitalization platforms of tweet, blog post, Facebook, has blurred the old media and the new media news processes.
Notwithstanding, news provides a platform for social change, inspiration and enhances civic engagement for the betterment of society and human development. The media plays its awareness creation and its civic social change role through how it constructs news headlines and what it perceives through news as social reality.
News headlines is a critical summary that informs society about changing situations, characters and issues associated with our spaces beyond. Further, news headlines are positioned to activate a particular interest, attention, action and direction among policy makers and the public. In addition, headlines provide media’s editorial framing satisfaction and dissatisfaction about human state such as the US veterans’ homelessness and subsequently induce the needed policy action. United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), a cabinet-level executive branch of the federal government offers gratitude and support to the military men and women who fought to keep US safe and free and many who continue to fight. In spite of the support giving to US veterans through veterans’ health and benefits administration initiatives, many veterans experience challenges with homelessness. It is against this homelessness challenges facing veterans in the US that this study of how the media, as a force for social change is drawing public and policy attention to veterans’ homelessness through news headlines analysis.
Veterans Media Advocacy
According to the (World Population Review.com data:2022) on US homeless population by state, 36,658 veterans in the US are homeless. Considering the duty and honor accorded the US by veterans since American revolution, American Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq War and Afghanistan, veterans’ homelessness should remain important to all and the media as an agent for social advocacy. Contrary to this position, the US media paid insignificant attention to veterans’ homelessness in its news headlines as the study results show:
In an analysis of 364 news headlines from 168 US online news portals from January 2019 through to 30th of June 2022 it may be said the media hasn’t been equitable in its news headlines attributions. The study period was selected in order to capture 2020 data since COVID-19 related job losses rendered many homeless but the data results did not reflect that with only 2% of headlines related to veteran homelessness and 98% of non-veterans’ news headlines covered. Data was extracted using google custom-date sorting with the specific time scope and under the news category. The study used content analysis methodology with intercoder reliability at 85%. This study was hindered by subscription access hence it was only limited to available online news headlines, other studies may extend it to cover media platforms.
From an advocacy perspective, this article is not a critique on the media but an attempt to bring the issue of US veterans’ homelessness to the fore. Certainly, this study acknowledge that editorial decisions are influenced by economic, market and content hierarchy issues. All the same, US media is encouraged to be more sensitive to the plight of US Veterans’ homelessness in its news headlines. On the other hand, advocacy groups could enter into strategic media relations with the US media to promote veteran’s homelessness needs. Also, advocacy initiatives should be linked to consistent scientific media monitoring in order to generate standard measurement for media’s advocacy role as a force for social change. In all, the US media should use its headlines to build and promote veteran knowledge, create sense of urgency towards veterans’ needs and generate conversation around veteran related issues. This form of reportage from the US media will help embrace the US veteran in the constructive light of “Honoring All Who Served in Duty, Honor and Country”
About The Author:
Messan Mawugbe (PhD) is a strategic corporate communication consultant and a lecturer.
The Meadows: Castle Rock, Colorado.
Email: nekzy@yahoo.com
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