Framing types of news story represe

Framing types of news story represented how news stories were framed in terms of empa¬thy, distance, or other. This category attempted to investigate whether the reporters would be sympathized with the gays and lesbians in news stories and be emotionally involved with gay marriage while reporting the gay marriage stories. If not, the category wanted to examine whether the reporters would use an objective approach while they described the gay marriage stories.
Relational space was aimed at examining what kinds of sources were cited as well as whose voices were provided in news stories. This category contained official-speaking people, unofficial-speaking people (elite or ordinary), official written documents, unofficial documents (e.g., elite, ordinary, or others). More specifically, official-speaking people were those who served for the governmental institutions (e.g., president, mayors, state governances, senators, or officials). Elites were those opinion leaders who did not serve for the government (e.g., professors, scholars, or professionals in some specific areas). Otherwise, ordinary people were those who were not opinion leaders as well as did not serve for the governmental institutions.
Ideology of source orientation was coded to explore the position of news sources on gay rights. In general, people who held conservative ideologies were represented to protect Ameri¬can values and traditions. By contrast, liberals were described as those who were open-minded to defend gay rights.
Persons who appeared and made some statements or comments in news stories were coded to examine their characteristics and their perspectives of gay marriage based upon whether their statements were for or against gay marriage legitimization or which political party they belonged to. This category was aimed at examining who was more frequently reported by news in the public debate over gay marriage.
2.3. Inter-coder reliability
Two graduate assistants coded the materials in this content analysis. One coded all news stories from the sample, and the other coded 30 news stories randomly selected, approximately 25% of sampling. Scott’s pi generalized formula (1955) was used to calculate the inter-coder agreement on each coding category. The overall reliability of Scott’s pi value was about .87. Specific reliability for each variable is in the following: .96 for story location, .93 for story source, .83 for story type, .91 for topic associated with gay marriage, .84 for news approach, .86 for news tone; .86 for framing type of news story, .88 for relational space, .83 for ideologies of source orientation, .84 for description of gay and lesbian partnerships, and .87 for persons who appeared and made statements in news stories.
3. Results
RQ1 was designed to find the differences between The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune in terms of topics related to gay marriage. As indicated in Table 1, although the proportions of different topics in the two newspapers were slightly different, four major topics were heavily exposed in both newspapers: Constitutional amendment (26.6% for The New York Times and 27.2% for the Chicago Tribune), equal rights (33.6% and 19.1% separately),
Table 1 Topics associated with gay marriage in The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune.
Topics New York Times (%) Chicago Tribune (%)
Constitutional amendment 26.6 27.2 Equal rights 33.6 19.1 Adoption law/policy 7.7 7.4 AIDS epidemic 0.7 1.2 American tradition and family values 17.5 22.2 Religious disciplinary 11.9 19.8 Workplace discrimination 2.0 1.9 Sexual crime/violence 0 1.2
Total 100 100
American tradition and family values (17.5% and 22.2% separately), and religious disciplinary (11.9% and 19.8% separately). More specifically, among the four top topics, Constitutional amendment was more frequently reported. However, more topics about equal rights were identified in The New York Times (33.6%), compared with the Chicago Tribune (19.1%). By contrast, the topics concerning American tradition and family values and religious disciplinary were presented less in The New York Times (17.5% and 11.9% separately) than in the Chicago Tribune (22.2% and 19.8% separately). Other topics associated with gay marriage, such as AIDS epidemic, workplace discrimination, sexual crime, etc., received less attention.
RQ2 examined how many people who were pro-gay or anti-gay marriage cited in The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. Table 2 indicated the percentage of people cited in the news coverage based on their attitudes toward gay marriage. According to the results, a total of 186 people representing their perspectives of gay marriage were cited in The New York Times. Before gay marriage legitimatization 11.8% pro-gay marriage people and 5.4% homosexuals were reported in The New York Times. On the other hand, after the legitimization 45.6% pro-gay marriage people and 20% homosexuals were identified in the news coverage. Statistically, there was a visible increased number of people who supported gay marriage covered in The New
Table 2 Coverage of People’s attitudes toward gay marriage before and after its legitimization.

a Homosexuals are only those who have been clearly identified as gays or lesbians or open with their sexual orientation by themselves in news coverage.

Official speaking 15.7** 31.3** 18.8* 27.1* Elite speaking 25.5 28.1 37.5 35.6 Ordinary people speaking 29.4 28.1 35.4 16.9 Official written 13.7 3.1 4.2* 15.3* Elite written 15.7 7.8 6.3 5.1 Ordinary people written 0 1.6 0 0
∗ p < .05. ∗∗ p < .01.
York Times after gay marriage legitimization. On the other hand, the percentage of anti-gay marriage people covered in The New York Times also increased from 5.4% to 11.8%.
Different from The New York Times, there was not a significant increase in the Chicago Tribune. As showed in Table 2, a total of 110 people expressing their attitudes toward gay marriage were covered in the Chicago Tribune. Before gay marriage legitimization, 10.0% pro-gay marriage people and 10.9% homosexuals were identified in the Chicago Tribune; after the legitimization, 19.1% pro-gay marriage people and 11.8% homosexuals were cited in the news coverage. There was an increase in the Chicago Tribune in terms of the percentage of people who supported the legitimization of gay marriage, but the increasing percentage of people who supported the legitimization was not as significant as it was found in The New York Times. The results also found that the percentage of anti-gay marriage people cited in the Chicago Tribune increased from 21.8% to 26.4%, which was relatively stable.
RQ3 examined news sources that were used more frequently in the two newspapers before and after the gay marriage legitimization in the state of Massachusetts. Descriptive data were shown in Table 3. Before the legitimization, unofficial-speaking people, including elite and ordinary people, were the major sources for The New York Times; after the legitimization, the source of official-speaking people increased dramatically, X2 (1, 59) = 10.40, p < .01. That is, official-speaking, elite-speaking, and ordinary-speaking people became the major sources for The New York Times.
Similar results were found in the Chicago Tribune. Before gay marriage legitimization, elite-speaking and ordinary-speaking people were also the major sources. However, after the legitimization, the source of official-speaking people increased considerably, X2 (1, 61) = 4.53, p < .05. Additionally, official written documents also increased dramatically, X2 (1, 61) = 6.22,
Table 4 Ideology of source orientation in The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune.