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Newspapers

This guides describes how to find newspapers for research projects.

Analyzing Newspaper Content

Researchers sometimes use newspaper content to address both qualitative and quantitative research questions. The table below should help you decide which newspaper platform may work for your research project. 

If you need to search a specific newspaper that is only covered in one database, you'll need to go that route. But if your research question isn't specific to a particular title you may want to consider: 

  • Is the content available to the public, or library licensed? If library licensed, your access is contingent upon your registration as a student or staff member of Ohio University. 
  • Scale: how will you be analyzing your data and at what scale? If you want to run a computer assisted text analysis, you may want to look for a platform that will let you bulk download article metadata and full text. For smaller studies where you'll be looking closely at the data, this may not be as important. 
  • Searching: what kind of search will you need to do to locate articles relevant to your research question? Some database offer advanced search strategies that let you be very specific about how your keywords are represented in the article. Deciding on a search strategy is a great time to consult a librarian! 

Newspaper Platforms and Databases 

 

Lexis Nexis / Nexis Uni 

Access World News

Chronicling America

EBSCO / Articles Plus

ProQuest / US Newsstream

Access Newspaper Archive

Library licensed

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Download article metadata in spreadsheet

Yes

No

No

Yes, via the Export Manager

Yes

No

Download full text in bulk

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

No

Search all words

Use AND between words

Use " " for exact order

Use AND between words 

Use " " for exact order 

Use AND between words 

Use " " for exact order 

Search "...with all of the words" in Advanced Search

Use AND between words 

Use " " for exact order

Use AND between words

Use " " for exact order

Use "With All of the Words" in Advanced Search

Use "With the Exact Phrase" in Advances Search for exact order

Search related words or synonyms

Use OR between words

Use OR between words

Use OR between words 

Search "...with any of the words" in Advanced Search

Use OR between words

Use OR between words

Use "With At Least One of These Words" in Advanced Search

Exclude words from search

and not

Use NOT between words

Not available

Use NOT between words

Use NOT between words

Use "Without the Word(s)" in Advanced Search

Wildcard - within word

?

?

Not available

?

?

Not available

Truncation - end of word

! or *

*

Not available

*

*

Not available

Proximity searching

Replace n with the relevant number for your search

/n 

NEARn

Use "...with the words" in Advanced search (5, 10, 50 or 100 words)

Nn

NEAR/n or N/n 

Not available

Proximity searching - words appearing in order

Replace n with the relevant number for your search

pre/n 

ADJn 

Not available

Wn

PRE/n or P/n

Not available

Resources that are library-licensed are only available to those with a current Ohio University affiliation. Accessing the resources will require the use of your OHIO ID and password. If you are not currently affiliated with the university, there is a set of computers on the 2nd floor available for guest access to our library licensed resources. You may also want to reach out to your public library for access. Many now subscribe to research databases or can help you get connected to resources licensed for public libraries across the state.

Some newspaper databases let you download article metadata (author, article title, publication, date, etc) as a spreadsheet for analysis.

This tells you whether the database will let you download the full text of articles in bulk, usually as a PDF or Word file.

When you want to search for articles that include all of a set of terms. Example: water AND safety should show you articles that include both search terms. Most databases also let you use quotation marks to search for words in a specific order. Example: "drinking water" AND safety will only include articles that have the phrase drinking water in addition to the word safety.

If there are multiple words that are tied to a concept in your search, you can use OR between words to tell the database that your results can include any of those words. Example: water AND safety AND (Ohio OR West Virginia) will show you articles including water, safety, and either West Virginia or Ohio (or both)

If you find that there are words you need to tell the database to ignore, most databases will have some soft of exclusion option using NOT. Example: water AND safety NOT lead will show you articles mentioning water and safety, but ignore those with the word lead.

Wildcards and trunctation symmbols let you search for words that have similar constructtions. Example: water and safe* should show you articles with water and safe, safer, and safety. Wildcards are usually used within a word. Example: wom?n will search for articles with women or woman.

Proximity searching gives you the ability to find words that near each other. The specific strategy for this varies more than most other search tools (see the table above for common platforms). Example: water /4 (Ohio or West Virginia) AND safety returns articles where water appears within 4 words of Ohio or West Virginia and the word safety is also included (in Lexis Nexis/Nexis Uni). You can sometimes indicate that words should appear in a particular order by using a different operator. Example (Ohio or West Virginia) pre/4 water AND safety indicates that water must cappear within 4 words after Ohio or West Virginia.

Subjects: Journalism