Getting to Zero Alcohol-Impaired Driving Fatalities A Comprehensive Approach to a Persistent Problem (2018) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix B: Content Analysis of Alcohol-Impaired Driving Stories in the News - Deborah A. Fisher
Appendix B: Content Analysis of Alcohol-Impaired Driving Stories in the News - Deborah A. Fisher
Pages 447-476
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From page 447... ...
To provide guidance on how to resume progress on the issue, the Committee on Accelerating Progress to Reduce Alcohol-Impaired Driving Fatalities was established and tasked with identifying promising interventions for preventing impaired driving, barriers that exist and approaches to overcome them, and ways interventions may need to be changed or adapted to resume a downward trend. One area for potentially refining or redirecting prevention approaches is the information environment around alcohol-impaired driving.
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From page 448... ...
found in a longitudinal study using data from 1978 to 1995 that news coverage of alcohol-impaired driving significantly contributed to impaired-driving-related policy actions, which, in turn, were associated with a reduction in impaired driving among young and high-risk drivers. The current content analysis of alcohol-impaired driving news stories was conducted to support the work of the committee by providing an assessment of the news environment around alcohol-impaired driving.
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From page 449... ...
driving or drunk! driving or drunken driving or drunk driving or alcohol impaired driving or alcohol impaired fatalities or alcohol related deaths or alcohol related driving or alcohol intoxication or binge drink ing or drinking behavior or drunken driving or alcohol involved driving)
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From page 450... ...
Applied to alcohol-impaired driving news stories, those that focus on a specific incident of impaired driving (e.g., a crash, an arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol) represent the
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From page 451... ...
Coding categories for focus included historical/epidemiological, call for action, program/policy/legislation, alcohol/drinking culture, sales/marketing/promotion of alcohol, court challenges, and so forth. Stories that included discussion of an alcoholimpaired crash or arrest together with broader social issues related to alcohol-impaired driving were coded for both the specific incident (i.e., episodic frame)
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From page 452... ...
; • Responsibility for the problem (e.g., individual, enforcement of alcohol laws) ; • Types of prevention or alcohol-impaired driving countermeasures discussed (e.g., prevention/general deterrence, intervention/ specific deterrence, harm reduction)
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From page 453... ...
Other reasons for eliminating stories were incomplete transcripts or finding that a story did not actually involve impaired driving (e.g., an article on drowsy driving that had one mention of impaired driving as a comparison regarding degree of impairment; a story about how numerous red flags, one of which was impaired driving along with owing back taxes, multiple divorces, and so forth should have resulted in revocation of an individual's security clearance; a story on research from the Netherlands on effects of alcohol and cannabis on aggression)
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From page 454... ...
Thus, their coverage of alcohol-impaired driving events includes a combination of highly publicized national incidents as well as short stories of local arrests and crashes, many of which are covered within a day or two of the event's occurrence before much information is known. These variations in story length between cable television news outlets and newspaper sources may also reflect assumptions about the TABLE B-2 Frequency Distribution of News Stories Across News Outlets for All Alcohol-Impaired Driving Stories, n = 147 Number of Percent of Average Word News Source Stories Sample Count The New York Times 30 20.4 571 The Washington Post 56 38.1 554 The Wall Street Journal 5 3.4 N/A*
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From page 455... ...
used a thematic frame, with a discussion of the broader societal issues either alone (e.g., a comparison of different versions of alcohol-impaired driving laws pending in a state's legislature, a traffic safety organization's recommendations that all states lower their illegal per se BAC limit from 0.08% to 0.05%) or in combination with an incident of alcohol-impaired driving (e.g., how a fiery school bus crash in a state was the impetus to a shift in norms and attitudes about alcoholimpaired driving and activism that resulted in stronger legislation, or renewed support for a stronger interlock law following the death of a police officer struck by an impaired driver while working on a holiday driving while impaired [DWI]
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From page 456... ...
Judge/justice 6.1 (9) advocacy group representative quoted in a story about an injury crash in which a vehicle driven by a suspected impaired driver entered a biking path and struck a bicyclist, or an official with the National Conference of State Legislators in a story about calls for tougher state impaired driving legislation.
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From page 457... ...
tough alcohol-impaired driving Failure of family 13.6 (20) Need for evidence- 3.4 (5)
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From page 458... ...
Table B-5 displays the frequency of mentions of a wide array of topic categories and specific story topics across the sample of alcohol-impaired driving stories. The categories of topics represented most often in stories were prevention/ intervention approaches to dealing with alcohol-impaired driving (63.9 percent; e.g., prevention/general deterrence, intervention/specific deterrence, sanctions, harm reduction)
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From page 459... ...
Grassroots advocacy 2.0 (3) rights Alcohol-Impaired Driving 23.8 (35)
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From page 460... ...
Table B-6 presents the frequency with which news stories involving alcohol-impaired driving incidents involved different types of events (e.g., fatal crash, arrest without crash) , substances used, and persons of public interest, including celebrities and local persons of prominence in the community (e.g., local politician, well-known businessperson)
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From page 461... ...
TABLE B-6 Frequency of Incident Types, Substances Involved, and Noted Persons in News Stories with Alcohol-Impaired Driving Incidents, n = 104 Local Person of Type of Incident Percent Substance Involvement Percent Celebrity Percent Prominence Percent Arrest 26.9 Alcohol only 86.5 Perpetrator 13.5 Perpetrator 15.4 Injury crash 6.7 Alcohol plus 3.8 Victim 0.0 Victim 2.9 prescription drug Fatal crash 56.7 Alcohol plus illicit 2.9 Passenger with 0.0 Passenger with 0.0 drug perpetrator perpetrator Property-damage crash 6.7 Alcohol plus drugs 1.9 Passenger with 0.0 Passenger with 0.0 (unspecified) victim victim Other 2.9 Prescription drugs 1.0 Other 0.0 Other 0.0 only Alcohol plus 3.8 prescription and illicit drugs Total 99.9 Total 99.9 13.5 18.3 461
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From page 462... ...
Information on the distribution of the news stories with alcohol-impaired driving incidents across different time frames and the frequency with which different consequences associated with alcohol-impaired driving events were reported is presented in Table B-7. Nearly two-thirds of stories (63.5 percent)
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From page 463... ...
Research question 6: What approach to discussing larger societal/ environmental issues do news stories taking a thematic frame to the issue of alcohol-impaired driving use? Table B-8 displays the occurrence of different approaches to discussing broader societal/environmental issues across the 81 thematically framed news stories on alcohol-impaired
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From page 464... ...
. In 17.3 percent of stories on alcohol-impaired driving there was discussion of broader societal issues by discussing alcohol/drinking culture or linking an incident to issues of politics/corruption, bias/ preferential treatment by the judicial system, or illegal immigration.
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From page 465... ...
were coded for using a broader social/ environmental approach; however, the specific topics discussed were not related to prevention/intervention of impaired driving but issues such as illegal immigration, efforts to establish online criminal registries, and underage drinking education efforts. Within each of the three framing techniques, there was considerable variability in the patterns of general population versus individual focus of prevention/intervention approaches.
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From page 466... ...
Finally, for the entire sample, the voices most often represented in news stories included law enforcement, traffic safety advocates, prosecutors, and other attorneys/legal analysts. In terms of stories with alcohol-impaired driving events, stories overwhelmingly (almost 80 percent of the time)
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From page 467... ...
In the current analysis, slightly more than half of the stories in the entire sample used a thematic frame and, among those using the three most frequent thematic framing approaches, only 55 percent included a discussion of solutions targeting the broader social context of impaired driving and population-based approaches to the problem. To move forward in reducing impaired driving fatalities, efforts to engage news outlets in media advocacy on the issue should focus on encouraging news organizations to move away from stories of simple problem descriptions to those that contain more critical analysis of the social/environmental causal factors and discussion of broader-based solutions through primary prevention.
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From page 468... ...
Stories confined to crashes are likely to recount details of the incident often in its immediate aftermath; stories on impaired driving without a crash event will more likely discuss causal factors beyond individuals and increase the prevalence of thematic framed stories. The current study provides up-to-date information on alcoholimpaired driving in the news, yet has several limitations.
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From page 469... ...
First, to the extent that there are cultural differences across regions of the United States regarding impaired driving, the values/themes may have reflected those of East Coast and urban areas disproportionately. Second, news outlets that focus on a national audience (such as USA Today and the three cable television news outlets)
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From page 470... ...
2016. Traffic safety facts, 2015 data -- Alcohol impaired driving.
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From page 471... ...
1. Alcohol-impaired driving incident featured [if N, skip to Broader Focus]
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From page 472... ...
Broader focus on societal/environmental issues [Code all that apply; If N, skip to Voices] Historical/epidemiological Call for action/more action on alcohol-impaired driving Program/policy/legislation
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From page 473... ...
Law enforcement Prosecutor Policy maker Victim Victim's family Perpetrator Perpetrator's family Traffic safety advocates -- e.g., MADD, IIHS, community alcohol impaired driving task force/coalition Government public health/safety org. -- e.g., NHTSA, NTSB, CDC Alcohol industry or industry-funded lobbying/advocacy groups Alcohol retailers -- e.g., owners/managers of local bars, clubs, or restaurants Researcher Medical/health professional Perpetrator's attorney Other attorney/legal analyst Media Callers into show Other If Other, specify __________________________
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From page 474... ...
Victimization Injustice Punishment Individual problem or responsibility Collective problem or responsibility Alcohol retailer/industry problem or responsibility Failure of family Entitlement/above the law Liberty/personal freedom Effects on alcohol-impaired driving enforcement/prosecution Economic interests Cultural change in norms/attitudes Personal engagement/activism Protective role of government Influence of special interests beyond industry Recovery/personal transformation Targeting social versus heavy/hardcore drinkers Need for evidence-based prevention Experiential learning to prevent risky driving Avoiding holiday alcohol-impaired driving Getting serious/tough on alcohol-impaired driving Other If Other, specify __________________________ TOPICS (all stories)
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From page 475... ...
Community Grassroots advocacy efforts -- community-based efforts (e.g., alcohol impaired driving coalition/task force, work of traffic safety advocates, other citizen-led efforts) Alcohol-Impaired Driving System Failures/Problems Failures in alcohol-impaired driving system overall/unspecified Failures in/greater action needed on alcohol-impaired driving legislation/policy Failures in/greater action needed on enforcement of alcohol laws (e.g., sobriety checkpoints, compliance checks)
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From page 476... ...
Successes related to alcohol retailers (e.g., RBS training, improved ID checking) Successes related to alcohol industry Successes related to other entities (e.g., universities, fraternities)
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