Press trumps state?
An analysis of current U.S. press-state relations and the influence of the media on an escalation of the North Korean conflict
Isabella Mulder Student number: 11397993
Master’s Thesis Graduate School of Communication University of Amsterdam Master’s programme Communication Science Track Political Communication Supervised by Dr. Carlos Brenes Peralta February 2nd, 2018
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Abstract
This paper looks at the use of peace-and war-elements in conflict frames, as described by Galtung (1998b) in his models of Peace and War Journalism, within U.S. foreign policy and U.S. media coverage on North Korea to analyse press-state relations regarding foreign policy issues. This study aims to show that, by placing the occurrence of peace- or war-oriented frames in the media within the model of cascading activation, we might have a clearer
understanding of the influence of the media on U.S. foreign policy in the seemingly reciprocal relationship between the press and the state. Moreover, using Galtung’s Peace and War
Journalism model gives us a proper framework to speculate about the actual effects of conflict framing on peace building or conflict escalation. Using a content analysis on both online state foreign policy correspondence and online news articles, I found that the media perpetuates the state’s war-oriented conflict frame while covering the U.S. diplomatic conflict with North Korea. Putting this within the cascading model and linking it to Galtung’s model of Peace and War Journalism, the findings suggest that the media is unknowingly contributing to a possible escalation of the conflict. This result pushes for a re-evaluation of the role and responsibility of the press in our current democratic society.
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Press trumps state?
An analysis of current U.S. press-state relations and the influence of the media on an escalation of the North Korean conflict
“North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his,
and my Button works!” - (Trump, 2018, January 2).
Trump’s first tweet on North Korea in the new year was hardly a surprising one. Following the first months since Trump’s inauguration, the world has gotten acquainted with a more outspoken U.S. administration when it comes to both domestic and foreign issues (BBC, 2017; Cox, 2018). But as much as the media has been criticizing the harsh words of Trump and his regime, many have also started questioning the press and their style of reporting on the same issues (Greenwell, 2017; Kelly, Kung, Park & Abrahamian, 2017; Warren, 2018). News articles predicting the apocalypse are not uncommon nowadays, which has prompted the question to what extent the media in fact contributes to an escalation of the tensions between the U.S. and North Korea (Bever, Kaplan & Ohlheiser, 2018; Cox, 2018; Greenwell, 2017). News media thus seems to follow the same rhetorical line and narrative as the
administration.
At the same time, the current press-state relations in the U.S. has become increasingly hostile, creating an unfamiliar political environment in which it is difficult to apply current press-state theory (Kalb, 2017). Most often, the press and the media are in sync when it comes to framing an issue they both are addressing (Ho Lee & Wang, 2016). However, current U.S. press-state relations are entangled in a so-called “state of war” (Drezner, 2017; Ember & Grynbaum; 2017; Zelizer, 2017). Are U.S. media therefore in fact unknowingly supporting a government they condemn by covering the governments seemingly war-oriented rhetoric, thus
4 contributing to an escalation of the situation with North Korea? In this paper, I will look at the use of peace and war frames within U.S. foreign policy and U.S. media coverage on North Korea (Galtung, 2000). These frames will subsequently be incorporated and placed within the model of cascading activation to explain the reciprocal relationship between the press and the state in conflict framing and the possible influence of the media on U.S. foreign policy (Entman, 2004). This brings us to the overarching question at the centre of this paper: How
does US media coverage influence the current foreign policy of the Trump administration on North Korea within U.S. press-state relations?
When we look at conflict inciting news coverage, we cannot ignore the influence of the state in setting the agenda and determining the initial frame. Understanding press-state relations is key in framing theory. The role of the state should therefore be discussed in issues of conflict framing and Peace and War Journalism, which is something that has rarely, if never, been done. Current research on Peace and War Journalism has mainly focused on media coverage, its influence on public opinion and possible peace building activities (Kelling & Horvat, 2017; McGoldrick & Lynch, 2016). This can be considered as the last steps of the process. But to understand how Peace and War Journalism works and how we could possibly change journalism in becoming more morally aware, we need to return to the foundation of framing and see how these certain peace- and war-oriented frames are initially constructed and subsequently perpetuated. The study’s social relevance therefore manifests itself through determining the moral obligations of the state and the press in our ever-changing techno-democratic societies.
To analyse the current press-state relations in the U.S. and its influence on North Korean foreign policy and conflict resolution through frame alignment, I conducted a content analysis on official online state correspondence documents and online news articles of several prominent U.S. news outlets covering 5 events involving the U.S. and North Korea within the
5 initial months of the new Trump administration (Fischer-Baum & Vitkovskaya, 2018).
The paper is structured as followed: I will first explain the theoretical concept and model behind my research, followed by the research method, a brief explanation of the analytical approach, the result section, and the concluding discussion.
The theoretical background
Press-state relation: An evolution of the role of the media
The nature of press-state relations in democratic societies has been in continuous debate and challenges existing assumptions of the role of the media (Bennett, 1990). While many scholars initially described the role of the press as a tool of the government to
communicate its messages to the public, others have credited the press in becoming more independent and critical, assuming a watchdog role as a modern vigilante and encouraging public participation in certain democratic societies (Strömbäck, 2005). Specifically, in the United States we have witnessed a changing public sphere. Because of the liberal democratic system promoted by the U.S., the public has been encouraged to take a more active role in matters of society (Ferree, 2002; Habermas, 1989). This has resulted in a changing role of the media from a competitive, in which party messages prevail within the media, to a deliberative system, in which the media claims to serve the public while also being supported by it
(Blumler & Kavanagh, 1999; Curran, 2010; Entman, 2004; Strömbäck, 2005).
The government-media nexus in U.S. foreign policy followed a similar trend. The dominant hegemonic theory of press-state relations in the early post-war period describes the media as subservient to the government’s message (Kernell, 1993). Within this idea of total acquiescence there was no room of a possible reciprocal influence of the media on state
policy. This type of media role was certainly apparent in Cold War coverage (Entman, 2004). However, the hegemonic theory became contested following societal developments in the U.S. during the Vietnam war (Entman, 2004; Mermin, 1999; Sobel, 2001). The media is
6 said to have played a vital role in changing the country’s foreign policy sentiment from pro-war to anti by following increasingly negative popular opinion of both the opposition and the public, as echoed in the media (Entman, 2004; Jacobs & Shapiro, 2000; Boettcher & Cobb, 2006). We subsequently witnessed a growing influence of media logic in an age where the press has become “the most important source of information and vehicle of communication between the governors and the governed” and more autonomous (Blumler & Kavanagh, 1999; Strömbäck, 2008, p.230; Strömbäck & Esser, 2014; Strömbäck & van Aelst, 2013).
Scholars became more open to the possibility of a reciprocal relationship between the media and government (Van Aelst & Vliegenthart, 2014). Indexing theory, for example, considers the possible existence of disagreement within the elite ranks and argues that the media would reflect discord if critical views were expressed (Bennett, 1990; Mermin, 1999). Yet, it still viewed the media as being at the mercy of government control with the media being a “vehicle for government officials to criticize each other (Mermin, 1999, p.7). Entman (2004) argues that these models have become redundant with the end of the Cold War and the changing political and social landscape. He is part of third category of scholars who identify the reciprocal press-state relationship as being both semiotic or, at times, adversarial (Bennett, Lawrence & Livingston, 2008; Vu & Lee, 2012). According to them the media has assumed a different behaviour and has shown an increasing ability to influence foreign policy by both facilitating and undermining the legitimacy of a president or policy (Entman, 2004). Entman (2003) describes this occurrence in his model of cascading activation (see figure 1).
The Cascading Model
Central to the Cascading model is the process of the adaption or contestation of the frames presented by the government in the media. Framing theory describes how the media and other stakeholders shape the news by highlighting certain aspects of an event or news
7 item (Entman, 1993). The media relies on the government to provide them with foreign policy information as they are their most predominant source (Bennett, 1990; Hall, Critcher,
Jefferson, Clarke, & Roberts, 1978; Ho Lee & Wang, 2016). Subsequently, dominant White House frames in the earliest instances of an event coverage can activate and spread among the public when congruent with the overall thoughts and feelings of the society and its cultural and historical background (Entman, 2003). This results in a positive mental association corroborating the specific frame (Lodge & Stroh, 1993; Shapiro, 1994). These mental associations among the public are normally in line with state and media frames and thus strengthen the proposed frame within societal discourse, encouraging active support for certain policy actions for example (Burstein, 2003; Hobley, 2012; Hussain & Rehman, 2015; Page & Shapiro, 1983).
Entman’s cascading activation model thus explains how governments try to impose a specific issue frame on the public through the media to influence public opinion in favour of their policies. But it also shows how they sometimes fail. Frame contestation occurs when the proposed frame proves to be culturally incongruent within a society. A state frame can then be rejected and countered by a contesting public frame, creating frame parity (See figure 2). These contesting frames are more and more being picked up by the media (Holsti, 1996; Sobel, 2001). Confronted with contesting media coverage, the administration would be forced to reckon with public discontent to maintain its legitimacy by either publicly addressing the issue or even adjusting state policy or reconsider state action (Robinson, 2002; Sobel, 2001). This shows the growing influence of the media in its ability to frame the news and
8 Figure 1: Cascading network activation (Entman, 2003).
Figure 2: Frame contestation continuum (Entman, 2003).
War and Peace Journalism
Within the cascading model, we can thus study the acceptance and contestation of certain policy frames. One such frame which has proven to have a significant influence on state policy, is conflict framing. The media has shown to have a great influence on peace building or, negatively, the escalation of conflicts by becoming a dominant actor in formulating policies during international crises and breaking diplomatic deadlocks by influencing policy makers (Dayan & Katz, 1992; Gilboa, 2002; Ho Lee & Wang, 2016; Robinson, 2002).
At times, the press distanced itself from government narrative, implementing alternative conflict frames in favour of different outcomes (Vu & Lee, 2012). The framing
9 choices journalists make while covering conflicts could influence the degree to which a
society can imagine and subsequently work towards creating a peaceful outcome (McGoldrick & Lynch, 2005). Robinson (2002) stresses the fact that the media does not cause policy
action, but that they serve as enablers and builders of support toward peace building processes.
More specifically, Galtung suggest that news articles embedded with peace-oriented elements contribute to peace keeping processes, while war-oriented elements in news
reporting incite conflict (1998a; 2002; Hanitzsch, 2004)1. These elements, constituting Peace and War journalism, have come to serve as journalistic recommendations for good practice (Kempf, 2012; McGoldrick & Lynch, 2005; Shinar, 2007). Galtung’s model of peace and war-journalism started as a proposed structure guiding qualitative research into the effects of conflict framing (Neumann & Fahmy, 2016). It formed the basis of an extensive amount of scholarly work on media effect in politics and has been used as the foundation of quantitative research models (Bratic, 2006). The need for responsible and fair media is supported by Kempf (2007a), who, building on Galtung’s model, introduced a similar model showing the effect of the media in war coverage, differentiating between conflict escalating and conflict de-escalation reporting.
Research by Bratic (2006), Kempf (2007a;2007b), Shinar (2007), and Hussain and Rehman (2015) exemplifies how the use of elements of a peace-oriented frame change the attitude of its audience towards a conflict and how public opinion can push for changes in state policy. This is done by enabling the audience to consider violent or non-violent responses to conflicts by triggering the mental associations of empathy and hope or anger (McGoldrick & Lynch, 2016). This ties neatly in with the process of network activation and cultural congruency as explained in Entman’s cascade model (See figure 3). Schaefer (2006)
10 further proved this theory by finding that individuals are more receptive to the idea of violent responses towards conflicts after reading war-oriented conflict coverage. The media can therefore actively support and encourage an administration’s policy stance or counter it. The cascading model will function as a framework on which I will base the theoretical
argumentation of my hypotheses which will focus on understanding U.S. press-state relations through an analysis of conflict frame alignment regarding the North Korea issue.
Figure 3: The effect of peace-oriented frames in news coverage.
Foreign Policy: North Korea
Officially, U.S. Foreign Policy has remained the same as during the Obama administration, following the more nuanced diplomatic approach as introduced by the Bush administration (Dias, 2017; Fuchs, 2017; Fischer-Baum & Vitkovskaya, 2017; Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, 2017). The strategy focuses on maintaining the commitment to engage with adversaries such as North Korea, rather than to (directly) confront them. The preferred strategy includes deterrence and bilateral and multilateral diplomatic efforts. Obama, however, tried to place more importance on “soft power” diplomacy in international relation, initially conducting a strategy of persuasion and patience to push for negotiations;
11 while the Bush administration preferred coercive and “hard power” diplomacy, involving more
sanctions (Dunne, Kirki & Smith, 2013; McCormick, 2014; Nye, 2004). But when it came to the nuclear threat posed by North Korea, Obama’s administrations quickly realized the limits of their approach of strategic patience. The Six-Party Talks initiated by the Bush administration were suspended during Obama’s second term when both parties accused each other of not fulfilling commitments (McCormick, 2014, p.226). Obama was forced to reconsider its ‘soft power’ stance on North Korea, instead
implementing economic sanctions, accelerating missile defences systems and ordering strikes through “electronic-warfare techniques”, while refusing to resume negotiations (Sang-Hun, 2017)
Current discourse between state officials and academic experts thus still revolve around the question which approach is more suitable. Trump’s senior officials favour ramping up the threats of military action; conducting international political and economic pressure campaigns; and increasing the execution of cyber and information wars (Sang-Hun, 2017; Sonne, 2017). Meanwhile, foreign policy experts stress for the return to the negotiating table to engage in peaceful and diplomatic dialogue (Westcott, 2017). Trump initially followed the overall strategy of emphasizing diplomatic engagement while refraining from ordering direct military action. However, over the course of events, he has increased more “hard power” strategies by running a coordinated pressure campaign, including more economic and diplomatic sanctions and military deterrence strategies (Liptak, 2017; Toucas, 2017). Trump considers the era of strategic patience to be over (Liptak & Diamond, 2017; Restuccia, 2017). Considering the increase in ‘hard power’ measures against North Korea by Trump, I expect (H1a) state
correspondence on North Korea to be more war/conflict oriented (hard power) than peace-oriented, which is in line with the current pressure approach of the administration.
Moving on, state correspondence can be distinguished by sources. Only recently, government officials have confirmed the authenticity of Trump’s twitter messages as official statements (Landers, 2017; Vitali, 2017). This news was met with criticism, as many argue Trump’s tweets divert from other statements by the White House or Pentagon (Beauchamp, 2017). Trump’s personal rhetoric is accused
12 of being increasingly become more violent in nature, favouring conflict through military action (Gramer & McLeary, 2017; Nakamura & Gearan, 2017; Trump, 2018). While previous administrations
communicated in a more moderate and nuanced manner, Trump’s demonizing and angry twitter
statements have been regarded as provocative and possibly conflict-escalating (Hirschfeld Davis, 2017). Galtung and Lynch (2014) included language-based indicators to determine peace/war
orientations in news frames, arguing that emotive, partisan, victimizing and demonizing language strengthen war frames (Galtung, 1998b; Maslog, Lee & Kim, 2006). Because of the presumed differences between the official representatives of the administration’s rhetoric and the president’s, I further hypothesize (H1b) Trump’s personal twitter to be more war-oriented than the other state
sources.
Media coverage: War- and Peace-journalism
Following the Cascading model, it can subsequently be determined how this state frame affects the news media. News agencies normally conform to their national interest, with their initial issue framing being an extension of their domestic and foreign policies (Bennett, 1990; Ho Lee & Wang, 2016). The public seems to favour the frame presented by the White House in times of crisis, pulled by the urge for strong leadership (Entman, 2004; Kernell, 1993). More specifically, research shows that the media seems to favour masculine, interventionist American foreign policy strategies (Entman, 1997; 2004; Lynch, 2003). After all, shocking, sensational and negative news sells (Hardcup & O’Neill, 2017). I therefore expect the (H2a) Media coverage on North Korea will follow the war-oriented frame presented by the administration.
The dependence of the media on state control is also said to be influenced by the type of administration in place (Entman, 2004; Mitchell et al, 2017). Republicans are said to enjoy more success in dominating news frames due to their core ideological precepts (Lakoff, 2002). They are more unified in foreign policy and more amendable to following disciplined
13 leadership, whereas democrats are more fractured (Entman, 1989, ch.3). As a result, media coverage differs according to the ideological alignment of news outlets. Outlets identified as conservative offer more positive evaluations of Trump’s administration and are less likely to challenge the presidential and White House narrative (Mitchell et al, 2017). I therefore expect (H2b) conservative media to follow the frame presented by the Trump administration more
strongly than liberal media.
But not just the source of the news article is said to influence a conflict frame. A study by Tod Gitlin (2003, March 18) also observed a difference in pro-war and anti-war narratives within news editorials and op-eds. News editorials value the journalistic principle of neutrality in reporting. They follow journalistic standards such being ‘balanced’ and ‘impartial’ and contextual norms, such as ‘seriousness’, ‘objectivity’ and ‘the separation of facts and
opinions’ (Van der Wurff & Schönbach, 2011). Yet, within op-ed pieces, the rules are slightly bent. In these specific texts, the expression of opinions, bias and possible partisanship are encouraged to be voiced to serve public discussion (Golan, 2012; 2013). The use of these elements in op-eds could thus imply an increased bias for war-oriented frames. Gitlin (2003) corroborates this theory by finding that in op-ed columns support for war frames were found to be expressed more strongly during the Iraq war in 2001 and 2003 (Entman, 1997; 2004; Lynch, 2004). I therefore also hypothesize that (H2c) Op-ed columns of online news media
will be more war-oriented than editorial news content.
Lastly, the aim of the study was to establish the existence of an interaction between the state frame and the frame presented by the media. As previously explained when discussing the cascading model, the main line of argumentation of this research argues that press-state frames often correspond and interact. However, when frame contestation in the media does occur, this is said to affect the state frame through a feedback loop. Putting this in the context of conflict framing using the peace/war model of Galtung, it can then be argued that
14 corresponding war-oriented frames reinforce each other, thereby possibility contributing to an escalation of conflicts, whereas corresponding peace-oriented frames can build towards peace. A war frame that is contested by a peace-oriented frame then becomes less war-oriented and possibly gradually even peace-oriented by enabling the state to consider non-violent responses which are communicated through peace-oriented frames2.
If the state frame is war-oriented and the media follows the state’s frame, this would mean that (H3) there should be frame alignment between the state and the news media for
them to perpetuate their war-oriented frames.
Method
To investigate the press-state relation within the North Korean foreign policy issue in the U.S., I conducted a manual, quantitative content analysis on both official online state documents and news articles3. In previous research involving war and peace journalism, a content analysis proved to be the most resourceful method for analysing the occurrence of framing elements within texts, which makes this method most suitable for this study as well (Abunales, 2016; Hussain & Rehman, 2015; McGoldrick & Lynch, 2016). All texts were retrieved within the timeline of the Trump administration, starting in January 20th until September 2017, with a focus on five specific events.
Sample
To compare corresponding state and media frames, I looked at official state
communication documents and news articles following and responding to the following key events 1) The first ballistic missile launch of the Trump administration on the 11th of
February; 2) The launching of a missile right before the U.S. China meeting on April 4th; 3)The first test of an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) right before Independence
2
See Figure 2 for a visualization of the feedback-loop involving peace frames. 3 See Appendix C for the Codebook.
15 day on July, 3rd ; 4) The first ICBM said to be capable of reaching U.S. mainland on the 28th of July; and 5) The first test of a hydrogen bomb on the 3rd of September. The key
developments were chosen according to the amount of generated media coverage and public interest using Lexis Nexis and Google Trends.
State documents. The official state documents were retrieved from the archives of 1) the White House Press Secretary; 2) the U.S. department of Defense (Pentagon); 3) the U.S. State Department; and 4) Trump’s Twitter account using the keyword ‘North Korea’, limiting the searches to the initial day of each of the events until 21 days later. All available official state correspondence related to the previously determined events were taken as part of the state documents sample (N=72)4.
News articles. News articles of four major American news outlets, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN and Fox News, were gathered using the Academic Lexis Nexis database and the official online Foxnews and WSJ archives using the search terms ‘North Korea’ and ‘United States’, with North Korea also mentioned in the lead. The search terms were quite broad to capture as much articles as possible. Each media outlet is included in the top 25 U.S. news providers (Engel, 2014; Olmstead, Mitchell & Rosenstiel, 2011). News outlets were selected according to their political alignment as research by PEW, with CNN and the New York Times selected to represent liberal media, while Fox News and the Wall Street Journal represented the conservative aligned press (Mitchell et al, 2014). For each of the four news sources, I selected 50 articles in total, thus having 10 articles covering each key event (N=200). News articles included 33 op-eds and 167 editorials. All news articles discussed the diplomatic relation between the Unites States and North Korea in the context of current developments.
As a sampling method, I conducted a non-random, multistage sampling approach. The
16 chosen sample constituted of the first 10 articles per event of each news source. The reason for picking the first 10 was twofold. Firstly, for some events, some news sources did not write more than ten articles. I therefore kept the number of articles consistent when sampling for other events. This would also keep the number of articles to be coded feasible. Secondly, many studies argue that the initial frames presented by involved parties, in this case the government and the media, shape the course of possible frame alignment or contestation in events of crisis (Arpan & Pompper, 2003; Entman, 2004; Van der Meer et al, 2014; Lee, 2016). Research has shown that cultural congruence with government narratives often appears in the initial stages of situations when foreign developments threaten a country and its
dominant democratic values, as happened during the 2002 Afghanistan invasion (Entman, 2004). Since initial state statements determine the initial media narrative, it is therefore important to analyse the initial frames presented to see whether the state and media frames interact and influence each other.
Operationalization of the concepts
As previously mentioned, this study focuses on analysing U.S. press-state relations in the context of the U.S. diplomatic conflict with North Korea. More specifically, the study looks at the use of war- and peace-oriented conflict frames within state correspondence and news media coverage which might influence the escalation or de-escalation of the conflict. The central concept of the study therefore is the ‘conflict frame’ within U.S. foreign policy and its media coverage. Its units of analysis are entire news articles and state documents or press releases.
Conflict frames. Both concepts, state and news frame, will thus be determined and measured using indicators based on Galtung’s traditional war- and peace- oriented framing
17 elements5. Due to feasibility and time constraints, I used Siraj’s (2008) model of Peace and War journalism, which includes 9 indicators for determining a peace-oriented frame and 9 indicators determining a war-oriented frame6. All peace- and war-indicators are dichotomous and coded as either present or absent in the text.
Moderator variables. Furthermore, the study analyses several moderating variables that are thought to influence conflict framing within state policy and media coverage. These variables are V1.3 state sources (1. The White House Office of the Press Secretary; 2. the Pentagon; 3. the State Department’s Office of the Press Secretary; and 4. Trump’s Twitter account); V1.7 the political alignment of newspapers (liberal/conservative); and the V1.2 type
of newspaper article (Editorial piece/Op-ed). And finally, I will compare the state frame with
the media frame across V1.6 events to determine frame alignment on the similar topics. All these moderator variables were simply coded for and cases were selected when analysing the specific hypothesis.
Reliability
To test the quality of the codebook, I conducted an inter-coder reliability test. Using a percentage agreement calculation, Cohen’s Kappa and Krippendorff’s Alpha for nominal variables, I determined to what extend my coding items could be misinterpreted by other coders. Ten percent (N=27) of the sample of both state documents and news articles where coded by a second coder, after which the inter-coder reliability was measured for all
indicators of both peace and war journalism. While the percentage agreement accepts items with a reliability of .80 and higher, Kappa and Krippendorff’s Alpha’s threshold accept .677 and above (Lombard, Snyder-Dutch & Bracken, 2002; Riffe et al., 2014). Moreover, similar research on peace and war journalism indicators has accepted a minimum of 0.7 for the
5
See Appendix A, Table I: Galtung’s Model of Peace and War Journalism 6 See Appendix A, Table II: Siraj’s elements of peace and war-frames
18 Cohen’s Kappa coefficient (Tenenboim-Weinblatt, Hanitzsch & Nagar, 2016). Therefore, all individual indicators constituting peace and war journalism can be considered reliable in this study as well7.
Analytical approach.
Measurement Peace/War-orientation. Using the peace/war indicators as tested by Siraj (2008), I computed the new variable of the ‘conflict framing score’ (V4.2) following the approach of Abunales (2016). The variable measures the strength of the peace- or
war-oriented frame by recognizing the presence of peace and war-war-oriented elements in the text; adding values for peace-oriented elements and subtracted when identifying war-oriented elements. Considering the total of 19 items taken from Siraj’s model of Peace and War Journalism8, this thus resulted in an ordinal variable measuring the continuous scale of conflict orientation on a range of -9 to 99. Everything above zero signals it is peace-oriented, whereas zero and below indicates the absence of peace-oriented elements and is therefore considered to contain a war frame (V4.3 Conflict frame).
This method argues that, when state and press frames align, the means of the scores for the degree of peace- and war-oriented elements in media coverage and foreign policy documents should not be significantly different. Frame contestation not only occurs when frames directly oppose each other (peace vs. war frames), but when there is also a significant difference between the means.
To test my hypotheses, I thus looked at 3 frame determinants within state documents and news articles: the conflict frame score measured from -9 to 9 (V4.2), the resulting peace or war conflict frame (V4.3), and the use of the specifically prevailing peace-or war-oriented elements (V2.1 to V3.9).
7
See Appendix A, Table IV: ICR results
8 See Appendix A, Table II: Description of peace-and war-oriented elements (Items) 9
19 Results
U.S. State Foreign Policy
An analysis of the frame of U.S. state documents. My first expectation (H1a) was that state documents (N = 72) communicating the U.S. foreign policy approach towards North Korea would be war-oriented, following the state’s current pressure approach.
A descriptive analysis of the variable of the conflict frame score (V4.2) showed an overall significant war-oriented score of -3.31 for the mean (SD = 2.74), with only 4 documents being peace-oriented (5.6%) compared to 68 being war-oriented (94.4%). Furthermore, comparing the means of the conflict framing scores across events by using a One-way Anova also confirmed no statistically significant difference F(4,71) = 1.74,
p =.153 10. Over time, the war frame score remained consistent.
Lastly, the overall war-orientated frame on North Korea presented by the state is corroborated by the overwhelming use of a total of 415 war-oriented elements (70.1%), compared to 177 peace-oriented elements (29.9%)11. Especially the war-oriented elements of Violence (V2.1) and Victory (V2.4) were significantly associated with state documents, while Elite (V2.2) and Differences (V2.5) were present in all state correspondence 12.
These results show that the conflict frame in state documents has been consistently war-oriented throughout the first half year of Trump’s term with no significant differences, which supports my first hypothesis.
The implications of state sources. For the second hypothesis (H1b), I looked at the sources of the state documents (V1.3) and expected to find Twitter to produce more war-oriented texts compared to the White House, Pentagon and State Department documents.
10
See Appendix B, Table 1 for the conflict frame means across events 11
See Appendix B, Table 1.1: Use of peace- and war-oriented elements in state document.
20 Findings indeed showed 100% of Trump’s Tweets to be war framed compared to the White House (96%), the Pentagon (92.9%), and the U.S. State Department (90.5%), but the difference proved to be insignificant; χ2 = 1.52, p = .678.
When looking at the conflict frame score means, Twitter showed to be more war-oriented than the other sources, producing a significantly war-war-oriented score of -3.92 (SD = 2.15)13. Yet again, a One-way Anova determined these differences to be insignificant; F (3,71) = .567, p = .638. Using a Two-way Anova across events, the differences between sources also remained insignificant; F (11,53) = .540, p = .867.
Lastly, an overview of the numbers of peace-and war-oriented elements used per source showed that Trump’s Twitter makes relatively more use of war-elements than the other sources (74.2%)14. Yet, only the war-oriented element of One-Party Focus was significantly associated with state sources; χ2
= 9.60, p = .02215. Trump’s tweets, however, did not contain relatively more use of the element of One-Party Focus (15.3%) compared to the White House (13.7%), Pentagon (17.8%), and the State Department (16.8%).
These results show that the war-oriented conflict frame was therefore consistently applied through all mentioned state communication sources and across all events with no significant difference, thereby rejecting Hypothesis 1b.
U.S. news coverage
An analysis of U.S. news articles. For the second part of my research, I looked at the conflict frame within U.S. news coverage on North Korea and expected to find a similarly war-oriented conflict frame as found in state documents (H2a).
Of the total sample of articles (N = 200), 45 identified with being peace framed
13
See Appendix B, Table 1 for a comparison of conflict frame means.
14 See Appendix B, Table 1.3: Use of peace- and war-oriented elements in state documents according to sources.
15
See Appendix B, Table 1.4: Chi-squares: Use of peace- and war-oriented elements in state documents according to sources.
21 (22.5%), and 155 with being war framed articles (77.7%). Across events, this divide remained consistent with no significant difference (χ2 = 5.45, p = .244)16.
The overall mean for the conflict framing score, M = -1.32, SD = 2.88, showed that media coverage in general was moderately war-oriented. Comparing the means of the conflict frame scores across events using a One-way Anova also showed no significant difference;
F(4,199) = 2.13, p = .07917. The scores of the war-oriented conflict frames therefore was consistent throughout the chosen timeframe.
Lastly, with a total of 982 (57.8%), news articles made just about more use of war-oriented elements than peace-war-oriented element (n = 719, 42.3%),18. Five war-oriented elements were significantly associated with news media: Violence (V3.1), Zero-sum (V3.4), Elite (V3.3), Differences (V3.5); and One Party Focus (V3.8); p < .001 19.
All in all, these results show that hypothesis 2a is supported. Similar to the state frame, news media adopted a, yet moderately, war-oriented conflict frame when covering North Korea.
The implications of political orientations. Subsequently, I expected to find conservative media to be more strongly war-oriented in their reporting than liberal news outlets (H2b).
Results show that 83% of conservative media articles contained a war frame (n = 83), compared to 72% of liberal media articles (n = 72), but this showed to be insignificant; χ2 = 3.47, p = .063. Across events, however, there was a significant association between the political ideology and conflict frame within news articles relating to the 3rd event: missile launch right before Independence Day; χ2 = 4.29, V = .33, p = .038). In this instance, liberal
16 See Appendix B, Table 2 for the number of peace and war frames in news articles. 17
See Appendix B, Table 2 for an overview of the conflict frame means across events. 18
See Appendix B, Table 2.1: Use of peace- and war-oriented elements in news articles.
22 media articles contained almost as many peace frames (45%) as there were war frames (55%), while a clear majority of conservative media articles contained war frames (85%)20.
To test whether the conflict frame score of conservative media was more war-oriented than liberal, I ran an independent t-test. The results showed that the groups were not
comparable using Levene’s test for the equality of variances (p = .022). Keeping in mind that the equality in variances are not to be assumed, the t-test also showed that difference in the means for liberal (M = -1.07, SD = 3.13) and conservative (M = -1.56, SD = 2.60) were not significant; t (191.670) = 1.20, p = 0.230.
Using a Two-way Anova across events, however, there again proved to be a
significant difference between the crisis frame score of liberal and conservative news outlet articles related to the third event; F(4,190) = 3.17, p = .015. The simple main effects showed that liberal media contributed to less war-oriented mean of the conflict frame score for news coverage of the third event, around the 4th of July, reporting a moderately peace-oriented mean of .50 (SD = 2.95). Conservative media, on the other and, remained war-oriented with a moderately war-oriented mean of -2.05 (SD = 2.67).
Furthermore, conservative news outlets used slightly more war-oriented elements (n = 501, 59.2%) in their articles than liberal media (n = 481, 56.3%). However, only the item V3.5 Differences was significantly associated with conflict frame and ideology. Articles written by conservative media contained a more significant number of the war-oriented element of V3.5 Difference (83%) compared to liberal media articles (67%); p = .038.21 In conclusion, hypothesis 2b is only partly supported. There was only a significant association between the political ideology of a news outlet and the conflict frame within news
20 See Appendix B, Table 2 for the number of peace- and war-oriented frames according to the political alignment of news outlets.
21
See Appendix B, Table 2.4: Chi-squares: Use of peace- and war-oriented elements in news articles according to political ideology.
23 media covering the 3rd event. On this occasion, conservative media were significantly more war-oriented than liberal media, as the latter turned out to be peace-oriented.
The implications of the type of news article. For the last hypothesis on news articles, I theorized that op-eds produced stronger war-oriented frames than editorials (H2c).
Results showed that 79,0% of editorials and 69.7% of op-eds contained war frames across all events with no statistical difference; χ2 = 1.38, p = .240 22. Furthermore, the average score of the conflict frame for editorials showed to be slightly more war-oriented (M = -1.32,
SD = 2.66) than the average score for op-eds (M = -1.27, SD = 3.85), but according to a T-test
this difference was also statistically insignificant; t (38.264) = -.07, p = .943. Comparing the means of the conflict frame scores according to article type across all events using a Two-way Anova also proved to be insignificant; F (4,190) = 1.58. p = .182. This could be explained by the fact that the groups were incomparable according to Levene’s test, F (9,190) = 2.13, p = .017. Most probably because of the difference in sample size.
Lastly, findings reported barely any difference between the use of war-oriented elements in editorial (57.9%) and op-eds (57.3%). Difference (V3.5), Invisible effects (V3.7) and the Use of demonizing language (V3.9), showed to be significantly associated with article type. Demonizing language is used more often in op-eds, as expected (p = .043). Examples of visible effects of war, such as casualties and wounded, are also more often mentioned in op-eds (p = .041). However, the element of Differences (V3.5) seems to be mostly present in editorial pieces (p < .001). Op-eds were apparently more nuanced when comparing the two groups, which goes against our initial assumption of the use of more bias commentary in op-eds. All other items were reportedly insignificant23.
22 See Appendix B, Table 3 for the number of peace- and war-oriented frames according to the type of news article.
23
See Appendix B, Table 3.2: Chi-squares: Use of peace- and war-oriented elements in news articles according to type of news article (V1.2).
24 Hypothesis 2c seems therefore also partly supported. Both editorial and op-eds were moderately framed and remained consistently so across events. Only on the level of war-oriented elements do op-eds show to make more significant use of the expressive use
demonizing language and is the war-oriented element of Visible effects more present. But these did not seem to influence overall frame orientation of op-eds.
State-press relations
Determining conflict frame alignment. For the last part of this research (H3), I hypothesized that there would be an alignment between the conflict frames of the state and media on dealing with North Korea.
When comparing the number of war-framed texts within state documents (N = 72)
and the news media (N = 200), I found that state documents statistically contained more war-framed texts (94.4%) compared to news articles (77.5%), χ2 = 10.29, p = .00124.
A Two-way ANOVA further showed that there is a small to medium significant effect of the type of document on the war-oriented conflict frame scores, reporting for news articles a moderately war-oriented frame mean of -1.32 (SD = 2.88) and for state documents a
significantly war-oriented mean of -3.31 (SD = 2.74); F (1,262) = 22.95, p < .001, η2 = .08. Across events, the results report no significant difference between the means of state documents and news articles, which implies that the differences between the conflict frame scores remains constant throughout the event timeframe; F (4,262) = 15.88, p = .093. Figure 4 illustrates the differences between the means of the conflict frame scores for state documents and news articles across events.
Looking at the specific use of war-oriented elements in the texts, results show that with a percentage of 70.1% (n = 415), state documents contain relatively more war-oriented elements compared to news articles (n = 982, 57.7%). The items Violence (V3.1), Elite
25 (V3.2), Victory (V3.4), Differences (V3.5) and One-Party Focus (V3.8) were mostly present in both state correspondence and news media, thus suggesting an overlap in the use of war-oriented elements2526.
In conclusion, it seemed the last hypothesis is only partly confirmed. Both state and media conflict frames are war-oriented, but the state’s frame is significantly stronger. Yet, they maintained their war-oriented conflict frame throughout the event timeframe, with no significant deviations. Moreover, both war frames consist of the prominent use of the same war-oriented elements.
Figure 4 Conflict frame scores (V4.2) per type of text (V0.2) across events (V1.6)
25 See Appendix B, Tables 1.1 and 2.1 for the use of peace- and war-oriented elements in state documents and news articles.
26
See Appendix B, Table 4.2: Chi-squares: Use of peace- and war-oriented elements according to type of text (V0.2). -5 -4,5 -4 -3,5 -3 -2,5 -2 -1,5 -1 -0,5 0 F E B R U A R Y : F I R S T N O R T H K O R E A E N C O U N T E R O F T R U M P A D M I N I S T R A T I O N A P R I L : T A U N T I N G T H E U . S . A N D C H I N A J U L Y : I C B M D E V E L O P M E N T B E F O R E I N D E P E N D E N C E D A Y J U L Y / A U G U S T I C B M D E V E L O P M E N T I I S E P T E M B E R : H Y D R O G E N B O M B D E V E L O P M E N T C onf li ct f ram e sc ore ( V 4.2 ) Events (V1.6)
26 Conclusion/Discussion
The aim of this research was to get a better understanding of current press-state relations in the U.S. in light of the diplomatic conflict between the U.S. and North Korea. As media coverage contributes to shaping the course of conflicts, the focus of the study was on conflict framing in both state correspondence and news media, using peace-and war frame indicators. I could therefore analyse the interaction between the government and the media while speculating on the possible effects on the evolvement of the conflict by placing framing theory within the Cascading model. Through the identification of the conflict frame indicators in both state document and news articles using a content analysis, I examined how U.S. media coverage influences the current communicated foreign policy stance of the Trump
administration on North Korea within their reciprocal relationship.
Following the trickledown effect of news framing within the cascading model, I first determined the conflict frame within U.S. state correspondence on North Korea. The first notable findings confirmed the war-oriented state frame. The administration’s commitment to hard-power measures are echoed in their state rhetoric (Sang-hun, 2017; Sonne, 2017). State correspondence showed to be very victory-oriented, discussed only violent and conflict related issues and emphasized the differences between the conflicting parties. Most interestingly, in none of the documents did the state provide any context to the conflict, ignoring the causes of the conflict and the reasons why both the U.S. and North Korea are conducting this threatening behaviour. The U.S. government only addresses the nuclear developments and missile tests, therefore limiting its observations and responses to the current conflict arena.
Moreover, contrary to the dominant claim (BBC, 2017; Nakamura & Gaeran, 2017), and what I hypothesized, results show that Trump’s twitter rhetoric is not more war-oriented
27 than the statements of other official government sources. By using the peace and war
-indicators to determine the degree to which a text could incite a conflict, I discovered that there was no significant difference in the use of the war-oriented frame compared to the White House, Pentagon and Department of state. Government officials may seem to contradict each other when it comes to the content of the statements (Beauchamp, 2017; Herb, 2017), the overall message seems to be clear: all government officials and departments involved with the diplomatic conflict push for a hard power approach of both diplomatic and military pressure of which only they could be the victor. They are thus as much responsible for inciting the conflict as Trump is.
Having determined the state frame, the second part of the study focused on the
resulting news media frame. Findings confirmed the war-oriented frame within news articles. This is in line with previous research claiming that news frames often conform to state policy and that news media in times of conflict often favour interventionist American foreign policy (Ho Lee & Wang, 2016; Entman, 1997; 2004). This gives the impression that the press unintentionally seems to encourage and support the state narrative on the issue of North Korea, even though they highly criticize the administration (Greenwell, 2017; Warren, 2018). Further findings show no overall significant difference in the degree of the frame orientation when it came to the political alignment of newspapers. This goes against previous research claiming that liberal media is more likely to challenge a republican administration than conservative media (Entman, 1989; Mitchell et al, 2017). Only on one occasion, when news was covering the North Korean ICBM test before the 4th of July, does liberal media show to divert from the war-oriented frames of the state and conservative media by producing an almost even number of peace-orientated articles and war-oriented articles. On all the other instances, the number of war-framed articles remained above 70% for both liberal and
28 media more hopeful of a peaceful resolution? In any case, overall results suggest this should be written of as an anomaly. Yet, it might be interesting for future research to see whether national holidays or festivities influence news coverage of outlets with a certain political alignment.
Furthermore, regarding the type of news articles, findings show no significant difference in frame orientation between editorials and op-eds. Op-eds were found to be as war-oriented as editorial pieces. This is in line with research suggesting the prevalence of war-oriented frames in op-eds due to the outspokenness of individuals and the tolerated partiality of the op-ed writers (Gitlin, 2003; Golan, 2012; 2013). However, findings also show that editorial pieces are certainly not more neutral and balanced, which seems to go against their professional code of conduct (Van der Wurff & Schönbach, 2011). According to the use of peace- and war oriented framing elements, these results suggest that editorial pieces are expressing war frames as strongly as op-eds and therefore implicitly encourage the state frame to the same degree.
The last notable findings analysing the degree of frame alignment in state
correspondence and news media determined the perpetuation of a war-oriented state conflict frame by the media in covering the diplomatic clash between the U.S. and North Korea during the first months of the Trump administration. Both frames made significant use of the same war-oriented elements. Yet, the results did not show a complete frame alignment between the state and the press. The media frame was significantly less war-oriented compared to the state frame, pointing to a small state frame contestation in news articles. These findings therefore only partly confirm my hypothesis and previous research that frames are passed on from the state to the media as an extension of state policy (Entman, 2003; Ho Lee & Wang, 2016). This small contestation, however, did not influence the orientation of the state frame over time, which I argued would happen as a result of studying the use of peace- and war-oriented
29 elements within the Cascading model. Both the state and media frame continued to remain war-orientated throughout the first few months of Trump’s term. This suggests that, for a frame to become less war-oriented, full contestation might be needed. Only the occurrence of a peace-oriented conflict frames in the media could possibly influence state policy, which is corroborated by Peace Journalism research (Aslam, 2016; Hussain & Rehman, 2015). All in all, these findings still paint a grim picture of current U.S. media coverage on North Korea. Instead of contributing to the possible realization of peaceful solution measures, the media encourages the perpetuation of a war-oriented attitude within state policy which pushes for military measures, sanctions and a possible continuation or even escalation of the conflict.
Moreover, it shows that the press, who often voiced critique towards the Trump regime, certainly does not promote enough alternative and peaceful measures on dealing with the issue of a nuclearized North Korea either. They claim to take a stand against the regime, but these results prove the opposite. All media outlets, regardless of their political orientation or their tolerance of alternative opinions in their op-ed sections, have been contributing to the continuing tensions between the conflict parties in equal measures by following, to some degree, the state frame.
Limitations. There have been, of course, some limitations to the study. Because the administration refused to comment on each issue relating to North Korea, I ended up with a rather small sample of online state correspondence documents (Sanger & Landler, 2017). This could have influenced the significance of the results involving state documents. Likewise, the relatively small sample of news articles and outlets could also have influenced the outcomes of the news media results. When analysing the influences of the political ideologies of the news outlets and the types of news articles, Levene’s test reported no equality of the
30 conflicts to increase the number of state documents and include more media outlets to
increase the reliability of the results.
Another limitation of the study is the fact that fair and equal coverage is more difficult when reporting on North Korea, which creates a bias for war-oriented frame coverage. The country is very isolated and secretive and doesn’t communicate much with western press. North Korea rarely makes official statements, and when they do, they include little details. Moreover, state citizens almost never speak with foreign press. Peace elements, such as context, multiple party focus, and people-oriented, are therefore already more difficult to expect in news articles; not because journalists refuse to implement them, but because this information is often simply not available. Future studies on conflicts with less totalitarian regimes might therefore offer a more balanced perspective of conflict reporting and might include more peace-oriented conflict frames. Results might then be different as the media could show to have a more positive effect on government policy when covering other conflicts.
Despite these limitation, the findings of this study emphasize the need for a normative debate on the role of the media and its responsibility to the democratic societies they are serving. In this instance, state policy defined the specific narrative on the U.S. diplomatic conflict with North Korea, which the media then seemingly took over almost without contention, thereby reiterating the state’s war-oriented and conflict inciting frame. News media needs to become more aware of the use of war-oriented elements in conflict coverage and acknowledge their accountability regarding their effect on conflict resolution. Because let’s be honest: no society in conflict benefits from a thorough analysis on the presumed size of a nuclear detonator. 27
27
The total number of words of the paper exceeds the word limit by 10% in accordance with the supervisor. This was done to maintain the quality of the study which analysed two samples, state document and news articles, using content analyses.
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