ABSTRACT
This chapter provides 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. It offers the somewhat neglected Facet Theory as a fruitful approach to such research. The chapter illustrates the potential use of "mapping sentences" in the three main subareas of research on television news—content, cognition, and control. It presents three illustrative mapping sentences for the kind of comparative research that might be conducted on television news. Keeping with the tripartite taxonomy of the main aspects of television news, one mapping sentence deals with the content of news, the second with cognition, and the third with control. Some of the research deals with the contents of the news; some is concerned with cognitive aspects and the audience; and some with various control functions of television news.
