Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Manship School of Mass Communication

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

This dissertation employs a mixed methods design to integrate findings from three empirical studies that seek to understand how financial journalism uses news values in the context of record-breaking economic uncertainty as measured by the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index. Grounded in literature on news production and economic news during crisis, I argue that news values can be viewed as the manifestation of gatekeeping processes affected by a hierarchy of influences that inform the various stages of news production. Journalism provides accounts of reality that shape how individuals make economic decisions. Therefore, media representations of economic developments become particularly important during periods of extreme economic uncertainty, when the public relies on the financial press to seek orientation. This dissertation brings together literature on economic crisis coverage and news values through the lens of news production, contributing to a contextual understanding of how news values operate in times of economic instability.

Using a sample of Wall Street Journal online news articles (N=564) during crisis periods in May 2020 and April 2025, Study 1 used quantitative content analysis to examine the presence of news values and show how they co-exist within articles. Consistent with economic crisis news literature, the findings suggest that WSJ predominantly relied on the news values of Eliteness and Influence and Relevance to portray economic developments related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the imposition of steep tariff increases by the U.S. government. Based on a subsample of the articles that employed the most news values in Study 1 (n=59), Study 2 delved into the discursive construction of newsworthiness using qualitative thematic analysis. Emerging themes pointed to political disagreements on and social reactions to policy changes and the effects of the pandemic while a subtheme involved attribution of responsibility for the imposition of tariffs. Finally, Study 3 used quantitative content analysis to compare the use of news values across May 2020 (n=280) and April 2025 (n=284) with Proximity and Personification showing the largest variation. Overall, these findings demonstrate that WSJ prioritized a narrow set of news values that generally persisted across uncertainty contexts. Since audiences rely on news more in times of crisis, implications extend to public perceptions of risk and authority.

Date

4-8-2026

Committee Chair

Moon, Ruth

LSU Acknowledgement

1

LSU Accessibility Acknowledgment

1

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