POWER RELATIONS AND THE MEDIA
How do economic power relations influence
the media’s coverage of an issue?
Daphne van Kollenburg 6043771
Master’s Thesis
Graduate School of Communication
Master’s Programme Communication Science Yph Lelkes
Abstract
Although it is recognized that frames are visible in international relations, little is known about the underlying factors that influence news coverage. It is important to gain insight into these factors, as biased news coverage can be powerful in shaping readers’ and politicians’ opinions. In this thesis it is examined if, when and how economic power relations influence the media’s coverage of an issue. News coverage of the MH17 crash is examined from the perspective of different power positions. Seven newspapers from the U.S., Australia, the Netherlands and Malaysia are examined in the first month after the crash, while focusing on the sources, the tone of the messages and the frames used. It was found that economic power relations are likely to influence some elements of the tone of the message and some types of frames, but that economic power relations are less likely to influence the sources used. Overall, this thesis provides a first step in research on the influence of economic power on reporting foreign news.
Introduction
The “family photo” - the annual photo of all attending leaders - of the G20 held in Brisbane in November 2014, showed an interesting placing of the leaders. President Putin, considered to be one of the most powerful current leaders (Howard, 2014), stood in a notable place: on the flank. Only a year ago, when Russia hosted the G20, Putin formed the middle point of the picture. And before that, Putin was never placed on the flank. Immediately after the MH17 crash on July 17th, 2014, Australian politicians started discussing whether Putin would still be welcome at this G20 (Balogh, 2014). Does this picture reflect politicians’ underlying
relationships?
News coverage of international relations has been investigated in a number of ways. For example, Mintz and Redd (2003) examined the effects of framing and showed that “the most common target is an opposing nation-state” (p. 199): in order to get support from the public for their foreign affairs policy, national leaders will try to frame opposers and competitors in hostile terms (p. 199). Also, Entman (1991) found that the U.S. framed the KAL and Iran Air incidents completely differently, although both incidents were very similar.
These scientists are one of the few exceptions, but Carragee and Roefs (2004) noted “that a number of trends in framing research have neglected the relationship between media frames and broader issues of political and social power” (p. 214). Although the above
research tells us something about news coverage in a broader context, both researchers do not say anything about economic power. However, it seems that economic sanctions are the main way to harm other countries during a conflict, which the sanctions during the Crimea crisis in 2014 clearly illustrate (Peeperkorn, 2014). To date, it is not known whether economic power relations influence news coverage. Therefore, the following research question is formulated: “How do economic power relations impact the media’s coverage of an issue?”. The aim of this research is to show if, when and how economic power influences news content.
To formulate an answer to this question, news coverage of the MH17 crash will be examined from the perspective of different power positions. Whereas several studies have focused on news sources within one country (Auerbach & Bloch-Elkon, 2004; Entman, 1991; Galtung & Ruge, 1965), foreign news coverage in general (Chang, Shoemaker, &
Brendlinger, 1987; Wu, 2000), or framing differences between different kinds of media (De Vreese, Banducci, Semetko, & Boomgaarden, 2006; Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000), this thesis will aim to contribute to the field of political communication by examining power relations in the media. This thesis concentrates on the economic relationships of countries, whether they are economically dependent on each other, and how this influences news coverage. The study focuses on four countries that are all involved in a different way: the United States, Australia, the Netherlands, and Malaysia. News coverage of seven different newspapers from these countries in the first month after the crash is examined while focusing on three angles: the sources, the tone of the message and the frames used.
First, existing theories on news coverage and power relations of the countries involved will be discussed, followed by an examination of the methodology and results. In this thesis, it is found that economic power relations are likely to influence some elements of the tone of the message and the use of the responsibility frame, but that economic power relations are less likely to influence the sources used.
Theoretical framework
Power relations in international conflict
Power relations are central to international conflict. According to Weber, power is “the ability of an actor (or actors) to realize his or her will in a social action, even against the will of other actors” (Shortell, n.d.). Morgenthau (1960) states that keeping and increasing one’s power is the principal activity during a conflict (as cited in Diehl, 1992, p. 334). Moreover, the
“balance-of-power thought” is that “large-scale conflict between nations will be avoided when their power is approximately equal, and, conversely, will be more likely to diverge in their power” (Siverson and Tennefoss, 1984, p. 1057). But also when an international conflict already exists, power relations play a substantial role. During an international conflict,
countries try to influence the development of a conflict. For example, after the 9/11 attack, the U.S. started the war on terror, which stimulated other countries, like France and the
Netherlands, to send soldiers to the Middle East to defeat al-Qaeda.
Also the media plays a very important role in international conflict. Holding the war on terror example, it has been acknowledged that the U.S. used a “lot of self-censorship and that the U.S. media in general has been cowed by patriotic fever” (Shah, 2007) while reporting. It is plausible that this style of reporting has stimulated other countries to help the United States to fight for justice. Because the media is not only enormously powerful in shaping citizens, but also politicians’ perceptions (McCombs & Shaw, 1972; Wanta, Golan, & Lee, 2004), it is very important to know what factors influence the type of content that appears in the media.
Representation of foreign countries in the media
We would expect that these power relations are visible in the media. Generally, almost all former studies prove that the view of the world that the media provides differs per country (Lee, Chan, & Zhou, 2011). Moreover, there is some literature on how and how often foreign countries are mentioned in the media.
First, the U.S. dominates the media in almost every country (Wu, 2000; Segev, Sheafer, & Shenhav, 2013). Wu (2000) concluded this after an investigation in 38 countries: the U.S. was the country mentioned most often. Other strong countries, like France and Russia, are also eminent in the news. Similarly, Segev et al. (2013), concluded their research
“that the world is not getting flatter” and that the U.S. is at the “absolute center over the last 50 years” (p. 2545). So, the U.S. is not only prominent in a lot of countries, but the country is also prominent over time.
Moreover, trade is one of the most significant predictors of news coverage. Both Wu (2000) and Segev et al. (2013) found that the size of a country’s economy is of great
importance in how prominently a country is represented in the news. The countries having the most economic and political power are mentioned most often in the media (Wu, 2000).
Similarly, Swain’s research (2003) on Western coverage of the Sub-Saharan AIDS crisis concluded that almost all power measures that were included in her examination forecasted AIDS coverage: when countries were economically not relevant, coverage was minimal.
These findings tell us something about when and why certain countries appear in the news. However, they do not tell us anything about the type of content that appears and what factors influence this content. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap by examining how economic power relations influence news content.
Power in the news
Usually, we focus on framing when looking at content. According to Entman (1993), to frame is to “select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a
communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation” in a certain text (p. 52). Frames “define problems, diagnose causes, make moral judgements and suggest remedies” (p. 52). Previous research shows that framing indeed has an important influence. At the level of an individual, attitudes and opinions of citizens are affected by the frames used, and on a societal level, framing has an effect on social processes like “political socialization, decision-making, and collective actions” (Chong & Druckman, 2007; De Vreese, 2005, p. 52).
Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) identified five news frames frequently used in the news. They found that the “attribution of responsibility” frame, which focuses on who is responsible for the problem or solution, was most often used in news messages (pp. 96, 105). The
“conflict frame”, which focuses on conflict between different actors, was the second most prevalent frame used while reporting (pp. 95, 105). After that, the “economic” frame, the “human-interest” frame and the “morality” frame followed. Moreover, they found that the nature of the outlet was more important than the medium that was examined.
Visibility in international relations
Frames are visible in international relations. Luther and Zhou (2005) found that due to the U.S. and China’s strained political relations, American newspaper articles focused on harmful economic outcomes while reporting SARS (p. 860). Moreover, Mintz and Redd (2003) focused on how important world leaders used frames to shape political debates and issues of national security while concentrating on prospect theory (p. 193). They state that the most typical target while using frames is a conflicting nation-state: “National leaders, in attempts to gain public support for foreign policy actions, will likely attempt to frame enemies and
opponents in unfavorable terms” (p. 199). This suggests that similar incidents would be framed in a different way, in order to get public support for policy actions.
Indeed, different studies prove that U.S. framing of international events coincides with the interests of the administration (Entman, 1991: Zaller and Chiu, 1996). Entman (1991) showed that the U.S. framed two similar incidents completely differently. In his study, U.S. coverage of the Korean Air Lines (KAL) and Iran Air incidents was studied. The KAL flight was brought down by a Soviet aircraft, whereas the Iran Air flight was brought down by a U.S. navy force. The frames used describing the KAL incident stressed “the moral bankruptcy and guilt of the perpetrating nation”, whereas the frames used reporting the Iran Air incident
“de-emphasized guilt and focused on the complex problems of operating military high technology” (p. 6). The consequences were enormous: the news reporting formed the fundament for several political decisions. This is confirmed by Zaller and Chiu (1996), who examined how the U.S. media reported external crises between 1945 and 1991.
Moreover, Entman (1991) also proved that the tone of the KAL news differed substantially to the tone of the Iran Air news. For example, in naming the KAL and Iran Air incidents, the KAL incident was described most often as an “attack”, whereas the Iran Air crash was described as being a “mistake” (p. 18). In addition, for the KAL victims it was often emphasized that they were “innocent human beings” that died in the crash, whereas the Iran Air victims were most often described in neutral terminology, such as “travellers” (p. 17).
In sum, Entman’s article shows that the U.S. framed their own shooting as being an accident, whereas the Soviet shooting was framed as a deliberate attack. Probably, a long history of mutual dislike caused these differences in reporting. Interesting to see, however, is whether news coverage would be different if their economic power relations were different. If the U.S. was more dependent on Russia in economic terms, would this have led to more equal reporting? This is important to examine, because again, the media is very powerful in shaping citizens’ and politicians’ opinions. Before investigating this expectation, the MH17 case will be discussed.
The MH17 incident
On July 17, 2014, a Malaysia Airlines flight with 298 people aboard crashed in eastern Ukraine. MH17 departed from Amsterdam and was on its way to Kuala Lumpur. All 298 passengers died in the crash. The crash of the MH17 caused an international crisis, with politicians accusing each other of being guilty for this crash. But there were more problems:
there were fights on the crash site, Russia did not hold back pro-Russian rebels and Western countries started setting up economic sanctions.
Because the victims of the crash were of ten different nationalities and lived in eight different countries (Rijksoverheid, 2014), large number of countries were instantaneously involved. These countries all directly started to use their power to affect the process: political leaders, like Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Russian President Vladimir Putin and
Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbot, called each other in order to make sure that the crash site would be investigated impartially and that the victims would come home safely (“Rutte: Intens gesprek …”, 2014). However, there were more topics of discussion. These questions focused, for example, on Malaysia Airlines, and why the company was still flying over Ukrainian airspace (Neate & Glenza, 2014), and also on the ‘guilt’ question, specifically on the role Russia potentially played in the run-up to the crash. Because all countries discussed the same country and its political leader - Russia and President Putin - this case is accurate for investigating the influence of power positions on the media’s news coverage of an issue: the situation stays the same, but all countries reported the news from their own perspective. In this way, differences in reporting are likely to be visible.
News coverage of U.S., Australian, Dutch and Malaysian newspapers is studied to answer the research question of this thesis. As read in the introduction, during international conflicts, the U.S. usually takes initiative and sets an example for other countries. Also, a few months before the crash, the U.S. and Germany stepped forward in trying to solve the Crimea crisis which started in February 2014 (Boon, 2014). Because the U.S. is often a role model for many countries, the U.S. will be studied. Australia is the second country explored, due to its number of lost passengers (27), and also as it has a geopolitically ‘unique’ position in the world; it is situated in a place that is mostly without conflicts (“Our leading lights …”, 2014). The Netherlands is the third country that will be investigated, because most of the victims
(196) were of Dutch origin. This country immediately had very strong interests in bringing the victims back home. Lastly, Malaysia will be studied, again due to the number of lost inhabitants (42), as well as having hosted the flight. Moreover, Malaysia is a non-Western country and therefore possibly of note; for example, the U.S. might be less of a role model for them. To see whether the economic power of these four countries influenced their news reporting, one should first be familiar with their economic power positions.
Power positions of the United States, Australia, the Netherlands and Malaysia
There are two power indexes that could tell something about the power positions of the four countries: the National Power Index (NPI) and the Composite Index of National Capability (CINC). First, the NPI measures a country’s economic power (35 percent), its military power (35 percent), its diplomatic power (10 percent), its technological power (10 percent) and its popularity (10 percent) (“NPI methodology”, 2011). Second, the CINC is made up of six components which are all as important: population size, total urban population, total steel and iron production, total primary energy consumption, total military personnel and total military budget (Kim et al., n.d.). The scores can be found in Table 1 (Kim et al., n.d.). Because this thesis focused on countries’ behavior towards Russia, Russia is also included.
Table 1. Power indexes of the countries examined
Country NPI (2012) CINC (2007)
United States 1 2
Russia 11 5
Australia 12 26
The Netherlands 15 32
In both indexes, the United States is considered to be the most powerful country. Also Russia is considered to be quite powerful. After the U.S. and Russia, the Netherlands and Australia follow. Malaysia is considered to be the least powerful country in this group.
This thesis focuses especially on the economic power of countries, which is “the ability to control material resources: to direct production, to monopolize accumulation and to dictate consumption” (Shortell, n.d.). It is unknown what the possible influence of economic power relations on new content is, but these power relations might have a substantial
influence in shaping citizens’ - and also politicians’ - opinions. Moreover, as Entman’s article showed, biased news reporting can form the fundament for several political decisions.
Furthermore, power in the modern world, seems to be economic power. For example, during the Crimea crisis, the European Union punished Putin with economic sanctions in order to navigate Putin’s behavior (Peeperkorn, 2014). Also, in 2011, the European Union and the U.S. came up with economic sanctions because of Iran’s nuclear programme (“Strengere economische EU-sancties …”, 2011). Moreover, economic power is relatively reliable to measure, more reliable than, for example, symbolic power. Lastly, because of the
globalization process, the power of one’s economy became more important; countries have to compete with each other more than ever before. Therefore, a few more specific economic factors will be included.
Graph 1, which can be found on the next page, shows the GDP per capita for the countries involved from 2005 to 2013 (World Bank, 2014). This is the “gross domestic product divided by the midyear population” (in dollars) (World Bank, 2014).
Graph 1. GDP per capita
As can be seen in the graph, Australia is the country with the highest GDP per capita (67,46 US dollar in 2013). The U.S. (53,04) and the Netherlands (50,79) are the second and the third countries. Fourth is Russia, having a GDP of 14,61. The country with the lowest GDP per capita is Malaysia (10,54).
Next, the amount of imports and exports tells something about a country’s power, because it shows how dependent a country is on other countries. The “exports of goods and services represent the value of all goods and other market services provided to the rest of the world”, like merchandise and insurance. The “imports of goods and services represent the value of all goods and other market services received from the rest of the world” (World Bank, 2014). The results are shown in Table 2. (World Bank, 2014).
Table 2. Exchange of goods and services
Country Exports (% of GDP) Imports (% of GDP)
Russia 28 22
United States 13 17
Australia 20 21
The Netherlands 83 73
As Table 2 shows, Russia, the U.S. and Australia are countries that export and import about 20 percent of their GDP. Meanwhile, the Netherlands and Malaysia have a relatively high amount of imports and exports of products. This means that these countries can considered to be less (economically) independent.
In sum, the U.S. and Australia can be considered to be economically powerful, whereas the Netherlands and Malaysia can be considered to be less economically powerful.
Relationship with Russia
Now that the power positions of the countries concerned have been discussed, it is important to ascertain whether they have a specific economic link with Russia. Then, not only potential differences in news coverage between economically weak and economically powerful countries will be visible, but also potential differences in economic dependency on Russia.
First, as the power indexes show, the United States is one of the most powerful countries in the world. As a result, the U.S. is not economically dependent on Russia, its 28th trade partner in 2013 (U.S. Department of Commerce, 2013). Moreover, Australia is a
relatively powerful country according to the power indexes. Australia has a very low import and export rate and the highest GDP per capita and therefore they are less economically dependent on other countries. Also, Australia is not economically dependent on Russia. In 2013, Russia was Australia’s 31st trade partner (Australian Government, 2014).
Although the Netherlands scores similarly to Australia on the power indexes, the Netherlands has very high import and export rates and is therefore economically more vulnerable. The country is quite dependent on other countries, moreover highly economically dependent on Russia, relying on Russian fuels (ING, 2012). This dependency is two-sided: the Netherlands is Russia’s most important trade partner (Simous, Landry, & Hidalgo, 2012a). Lastly,
Netherlands, the import and export rates are very high. However, there is an important difference: Malaysia is economically weak, but not economically dependent on Russia. Russia is not in the top 20 trade partners of the country (Simous, Landry, & Hidalgo, 2012b). In sum, the economic relationships can be found in Table 3.
Table 3. Economic power positions of the countries concerned
Country Economic power position Position towards Russia
United States very powerful independent
Australia powerful independent
The Netherlands medium dependent
Malaysia weak independent
Hypotheses and research questions
In order to answer the main research question of this thesis, three aspects of the news articles will be examined: the sources, the tone of the message and the frames used.
Literature on news coverage showed that the U.S. was the country most often mentioned. But, this does not tell us anything about the type of content that appears in the media. There is no specific literature on this topic, but there might be a connection between economic power and the sources used in a certain text; for example whether national or foreign politicians are cited, or if in an article, a national or an international expert is being interviewed. Moreover, the sequence could be interesting: does the article start with national or international sources? It may be the case that an economically strong country is more nation-oriented and an economically weak country is more world-oriented. This is important to examine, as news coverage could influence citizens’ and politicians’ views on other countries. Therefore, it is asked whether an economically powerful country uses less foreign sources than an economically less powerful country:
RQ1: Do the U.S. and Australia refer less to foreign countries and foreign
politicians than the Netherlands, Australia and Malaysia?
Following this line of reasoning, there also may be a connection between economic dependency and news coverage. If a country is highly economically dependent on another country, both politics and the media might be more focused on this country and might also cite more sources from this country. Therefore, it is questioned whether there is a connection between economic dependency on Russia and the use of Russian sources:
RQ2: Does the Netherlands use more Russian sources than the U.S., Australia
and Malaysia?
As could be read in the theoretical framework, Entman’s article shows that the U.S. reported on two similar events in a very different way: the tone used to report the Russian incident was different from the tone used to report the Iran Air incident. Entman found these differences in the amount of moral assessments, descriptions of the victims, the nature of the act and in the general tone of the messages. Would this news coverage have changed if their economic power relations had been different? Would this have led to more equal reporting? It is expected that economic power could explain the tone of news messages while reporting international crises. This is examined by the factors mentioned in Entman’s article:
H1a: News articles from the U.S. and Australia contain more moral
assessments than news articles from the Netherlands and Malaysia.
H1b: News articles from the U.S. and Australia humanize the
H1c: News articles from the U.S. and Australia discuss the guilt question
more often than news articles from the Netherlands and Malaysia.
H1d: News articles from the U.S. and Australia attribute the act more often
towards the country as a whole than news articles from the Netherlands
and Malaysia.
H1e: News articles from the U.S. and Australia have a more negative tone than
news articles from the Netherlands and Malaysia.
Moreover, according to Entman, it could also be expected that the frames of economically powerful countries will differ from less economically powerful countries. First, economically powerful countries might use the attribution of responsibility frame more often. Powerful countries are less afraid of pointing a finger towards another country, because they have less to fear. The attacked country could come up with economic sanctions, but this would not substantially influence the powerful country’s economy:
H2: News articles from the U.S. and Australia will use the attribution of
responsibility frame more than news articles from the Netherlands and
Malaysia.
Following this argument, it might also be the case that economically powerful countries focus more on the conflict frame, as they are not afraid to emphasize disagreement between their own country and Russia. Additionally, possible economic sanctions would probably not have large consequences:
H3: News articles from the U.S. and Australia will use the conflict frame more than
news articles from the Netherlands and Malaysia.
Also, these countries might focus on the morality frame, as they are not afraid to make moral assessments and present social prescriptions on behavior. Furthermore, requital actions are less likely to influence their economy:
H4: News articles from the U.S. and Australia will use the morality frame more
than news articles from the Netherlands and Malaysia.
However, economically powerful countries might be less interested in economic consequences, because their own country is probably not immediately affected by and therefore less focused on these consequences:
H5: News articles from the U.S. and Australia will use the economic frame less
than news articles from the Netherlands and Malaysia.
Lastly, economically independent countries may not focus on the human-interest frame. Because the country is relatively self-reliant, they are nation-oriented. Consequently, they are less focused on peoples’ lives outside the country:
H6: News articles from the U.S. and Australia will use the human-interest frame
Methods
Sample
A content analysis was conducted to answer these questions. Newspaper articles in four different countries were analyzed. As already mentioned in the theoretical framework, Semetko & Valkenburg (2000) found that the most significant differences in the use of these frames were between types (serious or sensational) of newspapers. This thesis focuses on differences in reporting between countries, and - because the type of newspaper would probably influence the results - only one type of newspaper will be examined. In every country quality newspapers are analyzed. To determine what newspapers were selected, their circulation (high) and political orientation (neutral, or one more left-oriented and one more right-oriented) was considered. For the United States, the New York Times and the
Washington Post were analyzed. The Age and The Australian were used for Australia. For the
Netherlands, NRC Handelsblad and De Volkskrant were studied. For Malaysia, Free
Malaysia Today, an online newspaper, was investigated. Although it is an online newspaper,
it is one of the few independent newspapers in Malaysia. In Table 4, situated at the end of this paragraph, the newspapers and their circulation per week can be found (AdNews, 2013; Edmonds, Guskin, Mitchell, & Jurkowitz, 2013; HOI, 2014). In the case of Malaysia, the amount of visitors a month is visible (Statbrain, 2014).
Newspaper articles were found on LexisNexis using search terms related to the crash (“MH17”, “Flight 17” or “Malaysia Airlines”). Moreover, the search term “Putin” was included, in order to find articles focusing on Russia’s putative role. Opinion articles, letters from readers and editorial comments were not included. Because only pro-government newspapers were available on LexisNexis, the Free Malaysia Today articles were consulted directly via the website, using the same search terms. All articles in the first month of the crash, between July 17th and August 17th, 2014, were selected. This resulted in a sample of
230 articles: 40 New York Times articles, 32 Washington Post articles, 22 The Australian articles, 31 The Age articles, 48 NRC Handelsblad articles, 27 De Volkskrant articles and 30
Free Malaysia Today articles. For every country, the newspapers were examined in the first
month after the crash, which allowed us to get insight in the general approach the newspaper took in reporting the act.
Table 4. Newspapers and their circulation per week/visitors a month
Country Newspaper Circulation/Visitors Year
United States New York Times 1,613, 865 2012
United States Washington Post 462,228 2012
Australia the Australian 367,040 2013
Australia the Age 332,518 2013
The Netherlands NRC Handelsblad 189,979 2013
The Netherlands de Volkskrant 255,097 2013
Malaysia Free Malaysia Today 745,209 2014
Codebook
In order to answer the research question, a codebook and manual were designed, which can be found in Appendix 1.
The first part of the codebook focuses on the sources used in the news messages. For the first 5 sources in the article, features like the nationality and the background of the source were coded.
The second part of the codebook contains information concerning the tone of the news message. Based on Entmans’ article on U.S. framing of the KAL and Iran Air incidents, questions have to be answered about importance, agency, identification, categorization and generalization (Entman, 1991, p. 9-11). For example, the question was asked whether the headline and text contained any moral assessments, and if that was the case, it was coded
towards what country that was (p. 10). Moreover, there was a question concerning the way the victims were described: Were the victims humanized, by describing them as “loved ones” and “298 people” or was neutral terminology, like “passengers” and “298 lives” used? (p. 17). In addition, a question was designed to answer how the act was being described in the article. Was the act described as deliberate, using words like “attack” and “crime”, or as a mistake, using words like “tragedy” and “accident”? (p. 18-20). In line with this, the degree of generalization was measured, asking the question whether the act was contributed by an individual, to, for example, pro-Russian separatists, or a country as a whole, like Russia. Lastly, the general tone of the message, on a scale from negative to positive, was coded.
The third part of the codebook concentrates on the frames used in the news messages. The current study will take a deductive approach, which means that the frames investigated are already clarified and operationalized before the examination starts (de Vreese, 2005, p. 53). The frames are based on Semetko & Valkenburg’s research (2000). In the codebook, each question is illustrated by an example, in order to make the coding process more reliable. The first frame is the responsibility frame. This frame “presents an issue or problem in such a way as to attribute responsibility for its cause or solution to either the government or to an individual or group” (p. 96). The second frame is the human-interest frame. This frame “brings a human face or an emotional angle to the presentation of an event, issue, or problem” (p. 95). The conflict frame forms the third frame and “emphasizes conflict between
individuals, groups, or institutions as a means of capturing audience interest” (p. 95). The fourth frame is the morality frame, which “puts the event, problem, or issue in the context of religious tenets or moral perceptions” (p. 96). The last frame is the economic consequences frame, which “reports an event, problem, or issue in terms of the consequences it will have economically on an individual, group, institution, region, or country” (p. 96).
Analysis
The articles were coded in Numbers and analyzed in SPSS. To check whether other researchers would draw similar conclusions, an inter-coder reliability test using
Krippendorff’s alpha was carried out (Krippendorff, 2004, p. 215). Ten percent of the sample (N = 23) was coded by a second coder, who had foreknowledge on media and politics, but did not follow the Communication Science master. All alphas were between 0.75 and 1.00, except for the question “Does the story refers to winners and losers?” measuring the conflict frame. Therefore, this question was not included in the analysis. All Krippendorff’s alpha values can be found in Appendix 2.
A principal component analysis (PCA) was conducted to explore whether all framing questions measured the same dimensions (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000). A factor coefficient of .5 was used as a cutoff, a minimum regularly used by investigators (Pedhazur & Pedhazur-Schelkin, 1991, as cited in Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000, p. 99). All questions received the minimum value. However, for the attribution of responsibility frame there were two
components in the five questions asked. Therefore, only the first (Does the story suggest that some level of government has the ability to alleviate the problem?) and the second (Does the story suggest that some level of the government is responsible for the issue/problem?) questions measuring the responsibility frame were included. After this, a reliability analysis was done, in order to measure “internal consistencies” (Cronbach, 1990, as cited in Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000, p. 99). Cronbach’s alpha was .67 for the attribution of responsibility frame, .70 for the conflict frame, .65 for the morality frame, .78 for the economic frame and .83 for the human-interest frame.
Results
Sources
A T-test showed that powerful economic countries used less foreign sources than less powerful economic countries (M = 3.59, SD = 1.40 vs M = 3.91, SD = 1.53). However, the differences were not significant, t (128) = -1.225, p = .22, 95% CI [-.82, .19]. Therefore, the answer to RQ1, which asked whether the U.S. and Australia would use less foreign sources than the Netherlands and Malaysia, is “no”.
Moreover, the Netherlands used slightly more Russian sources than the other countries (M = 1.19, SD = 1.20 vs M = 1.13, SD = 1.13), also determined by a T-Test. But again, the relationship was not significant, t (228) = .354, p = .72, 95% CI [-.26, .38]. Also the answer to RQ2, which asked whether the Netherlands would use slightly more Russian sources than other countries, is “no”.
Tone of the message
Hypotheses H1a-H1e focused on the tone of the messages. The hypotheses are answered using cross tabulation. All tables show the percentages for the four countries. However, in the analysis the U.S. and Australia and the Netherlands and Malaysia are combined in order to see whether the results were significant.
First, H1a expected that news articles from the U.S. and Australia would contain more moral assessments than articles from the Netherlands and Malaysia. Table 5, situated on the next page, shows the results.
Table 5. Moral assessments in text or title (in %)
Country No moral assessment In text or title Both text and title
United States 15 18 67
Australia 32 2 66
The Netherlands 35 5 60
Malaysia 40 10 50
Only in 15 percent of the cases, the U.S. made no moral assessments. For Australia, the Netherlands and Malaysia, this was the case in about one third of the articles analyzed. The U.S. and Australia also made the most moral assessments, although the differences were small. However, a significant relationship between the countries and their use of moral assessment did not exist, χ² (2, N = 230) = 5.85, p = .054, and therefore H1a is not supported.
Furthermore, H1b expected that the U.S. and Australia would humanize the victims more than the Netherlands and Malaysia. Table 6 presents the results.
Table 6. Use of assertions mentioning the victims (in %)
Country Humanized Neutral Both
United States 29 20 51
Australia 43 19 38
The Netherlands 24 59 17
Malaysia 28 16 56
As the table shows, the U.S. and Australia humanized the victims indeed more often than the Netherlands and Malaysia, although the differences were very small. It is clear that the Netherlands is the country that used the most neutral assertions. The relationship between economic power and assertions was significant, χ² (2, N = 158) = 10.21, p < .05. Cramer’s V
= .25, which means that there is a weak positive association between the countries and how they mention the victims. Consequently, H1b is supported.
In addition, it was also the case that the U.S. and Australia were the countries that suggested most often that the plane was deliberately shot down, as Table 7 shows.
Table 7. Use of assertions discussing the crash as deliberate or as mistake (in %)
Country Deliberate Mistake Both
United States 88 0 12
Australia 72 16 12
The Netherlands 60 20 20
Malaysia 66 3 31
Remarkably, there was no U.S. news article which did solely suggest that the act was a mistake. The relationship between the economic power and the assertions was significant, χ² (2, N = 184) = 8.31, p < .05, indicating a weak positive association (V = .21). H1c is
supported.
However, the U.S. and Australia did not attribute the act more often towards the whole country (Russia) instead of towards a certain group (for example soldiers) than the
Netherlands and Malaysia χ² (1, N = 143) = .97, p = .325, as Table 8 demonstrates.
Table 8. Discussing whether the act could be attributed to an individual or a country (in %)
Country Individual level Country level
United States 27 73
Australia 67 33
The Netherlands 48 52
The table demonstrates that the U.S. indeed attributed the act most often towards a whole country. Meanwhile, Australia attributed the act most often towards an individual or a certain group. The Netherlands and Malaysia both used the individual and the country level.
Therefore, H1d was not supported.
All countries most often used a negative tone in reporting on the MH17 incident, as Table 9 confirms.
Table 9. General tone of the news article per country (in %)
Country Negative Neutral Positive
United States 81 18 1
Australia 92 6 2
The Netherlands 72 23 5
Malaysia 80 13 7
Moreover, the Netherlands and Malaysia used - although the differences are small - most often a positive tone. The relationship between the countries and the general tone in news articles was almost significant, χ² (2, N = 230) = 5.52, p = .063, but H1e is not supported.
Frames
The appearance of frames was tested by six one-way analyses of variance (ANOVA). The means and standard deviations of the frames per country can be found in Table 10 at the end of this paragraph.
There was a significant interaction between the countries and the use of the attribution of responsibility frame (F(3, 226) = 5.432, p = .001). A Bonferroni post hoc test revealed that Australia (Mdifference = .17, p < .05) used the responsibility frame significantly more than the Netherlands. The U.S. used the responsibility frame also more than the Netherlands and
Malaysia. Therefore, H2 - which stated that the U.S. and Australia would use the responsibility frame the most - is supported.
Similarly, there was a significant interaction between the countries and their use of the conflict frame (F(3,226) = 8.667, p < .001). A Bonferroni post hoc test revealed that the U.S. (Mdifference = .21, p < .05), Australia (Mdifference = .27, p < .001) and Malaysia
(Mdifference = .21, p < .05) used the conflict frame significantly more than the Netherlands. However, it was expected that the U.S. and Australia would use the conflict frame not only more than the Netherlands, but also more than Malaysia. Consequently, H3 is not supported.
It was also not the case that the U.S. and Australia used the morality frame more than the Netherlands and Malaysia. There was a significant interaction (F(3, 226) = 6.015, p = .001), but a Bonferroni post hoc test revealed that Australia (Mdifference = .18, p < .05) and the Netherlands (Mdifference = .25, p < .001) used the morality frame more than the United States. As a result, H4 is not supported.
Hypothesis 5 expected that the U.S. and Australia would use the economic frame less than the Netherlands and Malaysia. According to the results, there was a significant
interaction between the countries and the frames used (F(3,226) = 6.046, p = .001). A Bonferroni post hoc test revealed that the U.S. (Mdifference = .25, p < .01) and Malaysia (Mdifference = .24, p < .01) both used significantly more economic frames than Australia. The Netherlands used the economic frame the least. Therefore, H5 cannot be supported.
There was no significant interaction effect between the different countries and the human-interest frame (F(3,226) = 1,962, p = .121). Instead of the Netherlands and Malaysia, the Netherlands and Australia used the human-interest frame the most. Malaysia used the frame the least. Because of this, Hypothesis 6 is not supported.
Table 10. Means and standard deviations of the use of frames per country Country N Responsi-bility frame Conflict frame Morality frame Economic frame Human in- terest frame M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD United States 72 .94 .24 .83ANM .31 .30AN .34 .41AM .41 .38 .38 Australia 75 1.0N .00 .89UNM .24 .48UN .38 .16UM .34 .46 .47 The Neth- erlands 53 .83A .30 .62UAM .41 .55UA .37 .27 .32 .40 .36 Malaysia 30 .90 .28 .83UAN .27 .43 .35 .40UA .37 .25 .29 Total 230 .91 .25 .78 .35 .44 .37 .30 .37 .39 .39
Note : U = United States, A = Australia, N = the Netherlands, M = Malaysia indicates that the mean differences between these countries are significant at p < .05.
A summary of each research question and hypothesis and whether there is evidence found or not can be found in Table 11.
Table 11. Summary of the hypotheses, research questions and results Hypothesis/ Research Question Supported Not supported Hypothesis/Resear ch Question Supported Not supported RQ1 X H1e X RQ2 X H2 X H1a X H3 X H1b X H4 X H1c X H5 X H1d X H6 X
Discussion
Surprisingly little is known about the relationship between economic power and the media’s coverage of an issue. This thesis aimed to fill this gap by examining news articles’ sources, tone and frames of countries holding different power positions. The research question was: “How do economic power relations impact the media’s coverage of an issue?”. It was examined if, when and how economic power relations influence news coverage. To answer the ‘if’ question, in this research, economic power does influence news coverage. It is demonstrated that the U.S. and Australia used a different tone in reporting the nature of the act and reporting the victims than the Netherlands and Malaysia. Moreover, economically powerful countries used the responsibility frame more than less powerful countries. To answer the ‘when’ question, it is likely that economic power influences news coverage when analyzing the tone of message and some type of frames. Lastly, the ‘how’ question could be answered. It could be expected that economically powerful countries are reporting in a more daring way: they are less afraid of answering a guilt question and attributing responsibility towards a certain country or group of people. In sum, this thesis showed that economic power relations are likely to influence some elements of the tone of the message and the use of the responsibility frame, but that economic power relations are less likely to influence the sources used.
As expected, the U.S. reported on the incident in a more negative way than the other countries. There was no single news article in which the U.S. did not suggest that the act happened deliberately and the country attributed the act most often to Russia as a whole. Although several differences in tone are not significant, these findings may be explained by the country’s enormously economic power. The U.S. is one of the most powerful countries in the world and this seems to resound in their news reporting. That the U.S. reported on Russia
in a negative way, is similar to Entman’s research (1991), finding that the U.S. reported on the Soviet Union in a very negative way discussing the KAL incident (p. 18).
Australia also reported the incident in a negative way; it was the country using a negative tone most often in the articles. On the other hand, it was also the country that did attribute the act in about two thirds of the cases towards an individual or group instead of towards a whole country. The other three countries attributed the act more often to Russia as a whole. Moreover, Australia focused substantially on the moral and human side of the story. That being so, Australia did not report the incident as negatively as the U.S did. This may be explained by economic power as well: following the power indexes, Australia is powerful, but not as powerful as the United States.
According the tone of the messages, it seems that there is some connection between economic dependency and news reporting. The Netherlands reported most carefully. In 35 percent of the articles, the Dutch did not make a moral assessment. In addition, the
Netherlands suggested most often that the act was a mistake. But, this style of reporting may also be explained by the amount of citizens that the country lost, 196. For the Netherlands, the first priority was to bring the victims back home. Blaming pro-Russian separatists for the act would be risky while still being dependent on them for access to the crash site. Given this fact, it is hard to determine whether it was economic power that determined their more careful news reporting.
Similarly, Malaysia reported also relatively carefully. For example, in 40 percent of the articles, they did not make a moral assessment. Also, the country most often used a positive tone while reporting. Interpreting these results, it seems that an economically weak country reports more carefully than an economic strong country. There news reporting was not similar to the U.S., which may be explained by the fact that Malaysia is a non-Western country. But again, differences may also be explained by the fact that Malaysia lost 42
citizens. Remarkably, Malaysia used the human-interest frame substantially less than the other countries, which could be explained by the fact that the country felt highly responsible for what happened: Malaysia Airlines was the company hosting the flight.
There was no connection between the countries’ economic position and their use of foreign and Russian sources. All countries did use a lot of foreign sources, which could be explained by the fact that for journalists it was inevitable to mention Russian and Ukrainian sources, because the crash site was a pro-Russian rebel-held area in Ukraine. It is possible that the results would be different when a different topic is examined. Moreover, the only
significant relationship examining the frames was found in the use of the responsibility frame. For the other four frames, no significant relationship was found. This may be explained by the fact that, as found by several researchers (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000, p. 106), the most significant differences in the use of these frames appear between serious and more sensational newspapers.
This thesis has some limitations. First, it is hard to generalize the results of this thesis, because the possible influence of economic power is only examined on one topic, focused only on four countries and the sample only consisted of 230 articles. This could influence the reliability of the results. But, although 230 articles is a relatively small sample, more
researchers based their conclusions on small samples (Auerbach & Bloch-Elkon, 2004; Zaller & Chiu, 1996). The second limitation concerns the methodology. Because some framing questions were excluded due to a too low Krippendorff’s alpha value or too low internal consistency, not all frames were measured with all the questions that measured them. Most importantly, the responsibility frame was only measured with two questions. This could also influence the reliability of the results. Third, this thesis only focused on the countries’
behavior against Russia and President Putin especially. It could be the case that some findings of this thesis are influenced by the fact that Russia is not seen as a very democratic country.
Mintz and Redd (2003) proved that there is a connection between the success of framing and the amount of democracy of a country: leaders of a democratic country are expected to be more successful in “negatively framing” politicians and actions of “non-democratic” countries than politicians of non-democratic countries themselves. Again, this could influence the reliability of the results. Fourth, there are also some factors which probably play a big role and are not controlled for because of the limited time available, like historic relations and the general tone of the national media. For example, it could be possible that the Netherlands has - in general - a more neutral tone of reporting than the U.S. on all topics.
Although there are some limitations, this thesis contributed to the field of political communication by examining news coverage in the context of social and political power. Whereas Mintz and Redd (2003) showed that an opposing nation-state is the most typical target in framing and Entman (1991) showed that the U.S. framed similar incidents
completely differently for political reasons, this thesis provides a first step in research on the influence of economic power on reporting foreign news.
This topic provides a lot of opportunities for future research. First, it could be examined whether these results hold when other countries than Russia are examined - for example when there is a crisis in a very democratic country, but also when there is an international crisis in a non-democratic country. Another possibility is to conduct a similar analysis on different crises to see if the results hold - for example whether the results would be different if the crisis would be economical. Third, the influence of economic power could be examined over time: do changing economic relations also cause changes in news
reporting? Fourth, there could be a focus on other relationships between countries, like whether being an ally or enemy influences news reporting. Although it may be hard to determine the exact relationship between countries on this topic, it is very relevant to provide insight in what underlying factors influence news coverage.
To sum up, this study found that economic power relations do influence news coverage. Economic power relations are likely to influence some elements of the tone of the message and the use of the responsibility frame, but economic power relations are less likely to influence the sources that appear in the news. Overall, this thesis provides a first step in research on the influence of economic power on reporting foreign news.
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Appendix 1. Codebook.
CODEBOOK Category A: article characteristics
A1 Numbering of articles To identify the articles in SPSS. [number]
A2 Date
Date that the article was published in the newspaper. For example, July 17th is coded as 0717. The year is not coded, because all messages analyzed are from 2014.
[MMDD]
A3 Source of the news item Tells what newspaper is coded. 1: New York Times
2: Washington Post 3: NRC Handelsblad 4: de Volkskrant 5: the Age 6: the Australian
7: Free Malaysia Today A4 Title of the news item
Tells the title of the newspaper article coded. [title]
A5 Words
Amount of words of the article. [number]
A6 Page
Page number in the newspaper. [number]
Category S: sources in the news messages
The following four questions are coded for the first five sources mentioned in the text. A source is someone/something that is considered to be a source if a statement, fact, opinion or quote is attributed to him/her/it. The first source is s1, the second source s2 and so on (last source is s5).
S1a What is the source mentioned? [name]
S1b What is the background of the source?
1: political (members of parliament, political parties and government) 2: administrative (civil servants, military, police, city majors)
3: expert or professional (scientists, lawyers, doctors, representatives from research institutes or consultancies)
4: business (company, trade organizations) 5: NGO
6: audience member, lay person, bystander
7: journalist, press agency or otherwise news media-related 8: other (please note in a separate file)
9: not known
- pro-Russian separatists are treated like ‘military’ people - victims and families of victims are treated like ‘other’ S1c What is the nationality of the source?
1: domestic 2: foreign 8: both 9: not known
S1d When foreign, from what country? 1: United States 2: Russia 3: the Netherlands 4: Australia 5: Malaysia 7: not foreign 8: other/not known 9: different countries
Category T: tone of the news messages Importance
T1a Is reference made to a President/Premier other than Putin? 1: yes
2: no
T1b If yes, to which President other than Putin? 1: Barack Obama
2: Mark Rutte 3: Tony Abbott 4: Najib Razak
5: 2 of the persons mentioned above 6: 3 or more persons mentioned above 0: no reference
T1c Is reference made to a foreign policy officer? 1: yes 2: no T1d To whom? 1: John Kerry 2: Sergej Lavrov 3: Frans Timmermans 4: Julie Bishop 5: Anifah Aman
6: 2 of the persons mentioned above 7: 3 or more persons mentioned above 0: no reference
Agency
T2a Does the headline contain any moral assessment? 1: yes
2: no
T2b Towards whom?
1: a person/group/city/the country United States 2: a person/group/city/the country Russia
3: a person/group/city/the country the Netherlands 4: a person/group/city/the country Australia 5: a person/group/city/the country Malaysia 6: 2 of the options mentioned above
7: 3 or more of the options mentioned above 8: other
0: no reference
T2c Does the story contain any moral assessment? 1: yes
2: no
T2d Towards whom?
1: a person/group/city/the country United States 2: a person/group/city/the country Russia
3: a person/group/city/the country the Netherlands 4: a person/group/city/the country Australia 5: a person/group/city/the country Malaysia 6: 2 of the options mentioned above
7: 3 or more of the options mentioned above 8: other
Identification
T3 Are the victims humanized in the story (i.e. are victims mentioned by name, “loved ones”, “298 people”) or is neutral terminology used (i.e. “travellers”, “passengers”, “victims”, “298 lives”)?* 1: humanized 2: neutral 3: both 4: no references to victims Categorization
T4 In naming the act itself, do the terms suggest the act happened deliberately (i.e. “crime”, “kill”, “murder”, “attack”, “illegal act”, “misdeed”) or that the act was a mistake (i.e. “tragedy”, “disaster”, “accident”, “catastrophe”, “fault”,
“misunderstanding)?**
1: deliberately 2: mistake 3: both
4: no references to the act Generalization
T5 Is the act attributed towards a single person or to the country as a whole? 1: individual level
2: country level
3: no references towards a person/country General Tone
T6 What is the general tone of the news message? 1: very negative
2: quite negative 3: neutral
4: quite positive 5: very positive
Category F: frames
Measuring five news frames: human interest, conflict, morality, attribution of responsibility and economic consequences. Possible answers:
1: yes 0: no
For every question, an example will be given where the question would be answered positively.
Attribution of responsibility (R)
FR1 Does the story suggest that some level of government has the ability to alleviate the problem?
“At a short news conference, Obama said Thursday’s tragedy might persuade
European allies and other nations to push more forcefully for an end to the conflict in Ukraine” (Eilperin, 2014).
FR2 Does the story suggest that some level of the government is responsible for the issue/ problem?
“In presenting the most detailed case yet alleging Russia’s involvement in the Ukraine crisis, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday that Russia had funneled large quantities of heavy weapons to Ukrainian separatists and trained them how to operate SA-11 antiaircraft missiles, the type of system that is believed to have been used to shoot down the Malaysian airliner over Eastern Ukraine” (Gordon, Kramer, & Herszenhorn, 2014).
FR3 Does the story suggest solution(s) to the problem/issue?
“The United States imposed a new and tougher round of sanctions on Russian companies and business executives on Wednesday before the downing of the airliner on Thursday. Rather, Ms. Merkel suggested that the best solution lay in ending the conflict” (Cowell, Kanter, & Bilefsky, 2014).
FR4 Does the story suggest that an individual (or group of people in society) is responsible for the issue/problem?
“The Obama administration expanded its case Sunday accusing Ukrainian separatists and Russian forces working hand in hand to acquire and operate a missile battery
