| The research problem was to take a major political event in American history---the John F. Kennedy assassination---explore major media coverage of the event, and then examine media construction of social issues.;The assassination of President John F. Kennedy has two official versions in our nation's history. The Warren-Ford-Dulles Commission came to the conclusion that, without assistance, a man in a building shot a man in a car. In 1979, pursuant to post-Watergate cynicism in government, the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded there was a conspiracy and a second gunman fired from a different direction. However, high school textbooks have reified only the first version of history---that of a single lone assassin.;A content analysis of CBS and Time-Life coverage is made using Lasswell's methodology of surveillance, correlation, and transmission. CBS produced the most television assassination documentaries and Time-Life owned the Zapruder film which was crucial evidence. Of the four perspectives on media coverage (the Fourth Estate, Mirror Approach, Marketing, and Hegemony), only hegemony fits the consistent pattern of the media coverage.;Berger and Luckman's (1967) social construction of reality involves reification, legitimization, and institutionalization. As Kuhn (1962) notes in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, normally when the number of anomalies to a theory becomes too great, we are forced to switch to another explanation. However, this did not happen with the Kennedy Assassination. We must ask why. The Fourth Estate would predict the media pursue the story with a check and a balance of government by responsible investigative reporting, as the Marketing Approach would give the consumers what they want. The Mirror Approach is where the media represents a neutral transmission of information while with Hegemony, the major media would dissipate the greatest possible doubt of a conspiracy in order to create the impression that the political structure was secure and legitimate to create an image of the stable institution of government. The study concludes that hegemony best explains media coverage of the event. |
