Identifying influential speakers in multi-party conversations has been the focus of research in communication, sociology, and psychology for decades. It has been long acknowledged qualitatively that controlling the topic of a conversation is a sign of influence. To capture who introduces new topics in conversations, we introduce SITS-Speaker Identity for Topic Segmentation-a nonparametric hierarchical Bayesian model that is capable of discovering (1) the topics used in a set of conversations, (2) how these topics are shared across conversations, (3) when these topics change during conversations, and (4) a speakerspecific measure of "topic control". We validate the model via evaluations using multiple datasets, including work meetings, online discussions, and political debates. Experimental results confirm the effectiveness of SITS in both intrinsic and extrinsic evaluations.

Solutions journalism, which is defined as rigorous and fact-driven news stories that include responses to social problems, has gained momentum in U.S. newsrooms. To date, research on this journalistic practice is scant, and has primarily focused on text. This study synthesized literature about solutions journalism, visual communication theory, and photojournalism norms and ethics. The result of this analysis is a proposed set of best practices that suggests visual solutions journalism should be comprehensive, humanizing, and precise. Then a content analysis and a social semiotic analysis of visuals from solutions journalism identified newspaper stories were conducted. The content analysis identified visual trends in current solutions journalism reporting. The social semiotic analysis assessed visual work that best exemplifies solutions journalism and photojournalism tenets. This semiotic analysis yielded support for the proposed best practices for visual solutions journalism. The findings advance visual communication theory and offer photojournalists and editors a set of practical guidelines for applying solutions journalism tenets to photography.

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This content analysis investigated whether Photos of the Day online galleries fromThe New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post present the world outside the United States in a negative manner. This study compared the results to previous content analyses of the winning images of the Pulitzer Prize and Pictures of the Year International contests. A composite month sample of 738 photographs from all three papers was coded according to themes. The findings were that Photos of the Day galleries depicted more feature and general news photos and fewer images of war and social problems than the Pulitzer Prize-winning and Pictures of the Year Internationalwinning images. Therefore, it is argued that Photos of the Day galleries expand the newsworthiness criteria for pictures of events abroad, redefine excellent international photojournalism, and are a rare space in US photojournalism where international news is presented in a more balanced and nuanced manner.

Photojournalism contests have been criticized for continually awarding top prizes in hard news categories to images that depict conflict, disaster, poverty, and other problems. Pictures like these, which have a social issues visual frame, usually focus on people from countries other than the United States and on minorities. Some photojournalism contests, like Pictures of the Year International (POYi), include a features category. Traditionally, the purpose of feature photographs is to celebrate the human condition; however, in recent years of the POYi contest the features category has been dominated by images that stress hardship. To investigate whether this represents an increasing trend in POYi of awarding prizes to pictures that focus on social issues, a content analysis of the winning photographs from the past 20 years was conducted. Understanding whether the feature category in Pictures of the Year International has evolved is important because when it comes to shaping discourses about social issues, national identities, ethnicity, and race, feature photos have the potential for emphasizing commonality. If the newsworthiness of feature photos starts to become tied to similar criteria as hard news photos, that potential will be diminished.