ABSTRACT
My objective in this chapter is threefold: first, to provide a rationale for the need to conduct comparative research on television news, especially given its widespread consumption around the world, and despite some predictions that the phenomenon may be waning in the foreseeable future; second, to offer the somewhat neglected Facet Theory as a fruitful approach to such research; and third, to illustrate the potential use of “mapping sentences” in the three main subareas of research on television news—content, cognition, and control. Given the limited scope of the chapter, I do not provide a broad survey of the cumulative voluminous research in this area. I do, however, provide some examples from my own research over the years which help to place these goals in context.
