The quantitative and qualitative professional representation of ethnic minorities in Dutch media

The quantitative and qualitative professional

representation of ethnic minorities in Dutch media

Lior Sela (10172661)

Master’s Thesis - Political Communication

Master’s programme of Communication Science - Graduate School of Communication

Supervisor: Jasper van de Pol Word Count: 7153

Abstract

The representation in public broadcast television of the four largest ethnic minorities in the Netherlands: Antilleans, Moroccans, Surinamese, and Turks, was examined. Using content analysis on news- and current affair programs, while focussing at the identity of presenters, commentators, reporters and experts, this study finds a skewed representation of ethnic minorities in Dutch media compared to people with a merely Dutch background. Looking at the findings considering differences in actual societal composition compared to media-representation, as well as differences in topic coverage and background emphasis, this study first of all concludes that there is no fair representation of ethnic minority groups in terms of appearances of media representatives. Second of all, neither are these minority-representatives fairly represented in terms of the topic they cover, nor in the way they are actually being presented within the Dutch public broadcast media outlets.

The Quantitative and Qualitative Professional Representation of Ethnic Minorities in Dutch Media

The role of the mass media and journalism in society is of ongoing change. This study determines to what extent ethnic minorities are being represented in Dutch mass media, specifically televised media, and focusses on media representatives such as journalists. Studies examining the representation of minorities in the media in the Dutch context, or in similar journalistic contexts such as countries with the same media systems (Halin & Mancini, 2004), are still lacking in the field of communication and journalism.

This study derives from a constructionist perspective of democratic theory and mass media discourse, that views the role of journalism as one that grants access to and focusses on all voices that are being marginalized in society (Ferree et al., 2002). From this perspective, I argue that in order to comply to this role of journalism, mass media organizations have the responsibility to be an inclusive and fair representation of society. The reason being, that to mirror a society in a fair matter, diversity among media personnel, as well as diversity in news content is required (Larrazet & Rigoni, 2014).

The field of research of ethnic diversity in mass media does have many different focusses. Studies have for example considered ethnic diversity of media content and its effects, and found that media practices regarding ethnic affairs tend to reproduce a legitimizing ethnic inequality discourse. Terrorism coverage specifically was found to feed into an Orientalist-discourse and a culture of fear of Islam (Hussain, 2000; Powell, 2011). Other studies have focussed on the way ethnic-cultural minorities, specifically Muslims, are being portrayed or framed in European media, concluding that they are systematically being depicted negatively (Bleich et Al., 2015; Berbers et al., 2016). The framing of ethnic minorities, such as refugees for example, as being a threat to the status quo or as being victims (Van Gorp, 2005; Berbers et al., 2016), can be seen as an example of a phenomenon of hidden power of dominance and inequality towards the “non-Western other” (Said, 1977). Structurally looking at, and framing certain groups differently from the accepted societal norm or the status quo, creates a sense of “otherness” (Said, 1977) which in turn can contribute to social polarization. On the other hand, even if certain ethnical groups were to be presented ‘neutrally’ (i.e. not framed in a certain manner), yet are still being systematically underrepresented in the media, this could still contribute to a phenomenon of social exclusion (Vandenberghe, d’Haenens & Van Gorp, 2017). When a lack of reflection of the diversified composition of societies exists in the media, mass media can feed into the phenomenon of

social distance. When a phenomenon of societal- or social segregation is existent, the media could theoretically help overcome certain biases. The viewer can be informed about certain groups that he is usually distanced from in everyday life. However, when misrepresentations of minorities are found in the media, these different groups that are already distanced from one another are socially speaking being distanced even more (Larrazet & Rigoni, 2014). Mediated skewed minority representation can thus be considered a struggle for social cohesion and interaction in society. It is therefore necessary to not only look at how minorities are being portrayed in the media, but also at the quantity in which they appear. Besides the reflection of the diversified composition of society in the media, called the ‘quantitative representation’, this study also looks at the topics that these minority groups in the media cover, which will be referred to as ‘qualitative representation’. This form of representation focusses on how certain groups are being represented, instead of their (quantitative-) numerical representation. This qualitative focus, and the distinction between these two forms of representation in one research still remains unstudied in the European context and can therefore be considered as a theoretical contribution to the field of political communication. Ethnical-, racial, or cultural-minorities’ appearances in television news (their quantitative representation), as well as differences in news topic coverage between these minority-media representatives and the majority-ones (or ‘qualitative representation’) have thus far been studied separately, and outside a European context (Avraham & First, 2010; Entman & Rojecki, 2010; Poindexter, Smith & Heider, 2003). These studies have all shown that an underrepresentation of ethnically diverse media representatives exists in television news. The fact that these trends occur in the US- (Poindexter, Smith & Heider, 2003) or Israeli- (Avraham & First, 2010) context, obviously does not indicate towards the same trends in the Dutch context. However, in a society where segregation and polarization do not seem to decrease (SCP, 2017), it is of utmost important to examine if potential contributors to these societal phenomena exist.

The focus of this research is on televised media, since this outlet has a large impact on how the viewer in general perceives the world, due to cultivating attitudes, as one that resembles the reality presented on screen (Gerbner & Gross, 1976; Koeman, Peeters & d’Haenens, 2007). This study specifically focusses on the Dutch public broadcaster (the NPO) because, besides their societal responsibility described earlier, this organization has the duty to mirror a pluralist society according to Dutch law (art. 2.1 lid 2 Mediawet 2008). This study analyses the Dutch Public Broadcaster’s (NPO) most watched current affairs program

and news-bulletin of 2017, being ‘De Wereld Draait Door’ and ‘NOS Acht Uur Journaal’ (Stichting Kijkonderzoek, 2017).

To determine if a professional (in terms of media representatives) ethnic skewness exists in Dutch televised media, the main research question of this study is as follows:

RQ: To what extent is there a fair representation in terms of qualitative- and quantitative representation of ethnic minority groups in Dutch Public Broadcasting’s news- and current affair programs, when looking at the identity of presenters, commentators, reporters and experts?

Theoretical Framework

This section outlines the theoretical concepts, based on existing literature, providing a framework on which the hypotheses for the empirical research are based.

The first body of theory grasps the concept of media representatives, which is followed by a conceptualization of ethnic minorities, specifically in the Dutch context. Furthermore, diversity in media is conceptualized and a distinction is made between diversity in terms of quantitative representation and qualitative representation. The concept of credibility of communication sources (i.e. media representatives specifically), and the possible lower credibility of minority groups as these sources are finally be covered.

Media representatives

The focus of this study is on the media representatives in the Dutch Public Broadcaster’s

(NPO) news- and current affairs programs: these are journalists, presenters of the broadcasts, reporters, and experts that are invited to comment on specific events (i.e. commentators). In other words, media representatives are those people that bring news stories to the public and they function as representatives of the public sphere (Gans, 2011). The reason for this focus, is because news- and current affair media are considered the major content supplier of the public sphere, and the journalists that appear in programs that cover these topics, should also function as representatives (Gans, 2011). This means that journalists should ideally represent “…all demographic groups in society, be they in the majority or minority” (Vandenberghe, d’Haenens & Van Grop, 2017, p. 2). According to Avraham and First (2010), it is not only journalists that bring news stories to the public, but also the presenters of the news broadcasts or current affair programs, as well as experts on certain topics that are asked to comment on particular events (i.e. commentators), and reporters (Avraham & First, 2010).

Ethnic minorities in the Netherlands

Minority groups are usually defined as any group of people that is singled out from others in the society it lives in because of physical or cultural characteristics, by differential and unequal treatment (Hacker, 1951).

Ethnicity on the other hand is a social construct of broad and complex nature, relating to personal-, as well as group identities, and is place-, time-, and context-specific (Ford & Harawa, 2010).

In the Netherlands, official statistics on the immigrant population are based on ethnicity, instead of nationality or country of birth, due to the focus on parents’ backgrounds instead of one’s own (Focus Migration, 2007). With the adoption of a minority policy in 1989, called ‘Allochtonenbeleid’, the Dutch government was emphasizing the fact that those who up until then were treated as ‘minorities’, were from a different background and culture than the Dutch (Guiraudon, Phalet & Wal, 2005). Although the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) and the governmental institution Statistics Netherlands (CBS) decided on stopping this type of categorisation (by eliminating the words ‘allochtoon’ and ‘autochtoon’) in 2016 (Bovens, Bokhorst & Jennissen, 2017), the distinction of and emphasis on the background of migrants still remains a way to classify ethnic minorities in the Netherlands.

Nowadays, the official classification between groups when reporting on social-economic issues are: ‘people with a Dutch background’ and ‘people with a migration background’. The latter category falls under two sub-categories: people with a Western migration background, or a non-Western migration background (CBS, 2018).

The Dutch government and its institutions discern the following four groups with a background other than merely Dutch, when categorizing in official reports: Antilleans, Moroccans, Surinamese, and Turks (Bovens, Bokhorst & Jennissen, 2017). These groups are often highlighted by these institutions, because they are the largest groups of people with a non-western background (or the former term: ‘allochtoon’). Studies show that these groups are mostly being marginalized due to their occupation of disadvantaged socio-economic positions (Cornelisse-Vermaat et al., 2006), and a perceived cultural distance between these groups and the majority group being ‘people with a Dutch background’ (or the former term: ‘autochtoon’) (Mahfud et al., 2017; SCP, 2017).

News coverage in general reflects the distribution of social and political power in society and minority coverage contributes to this reflection. Both underrepresentation and stereotypical representation of minority groups in the media tend to cause racial prejudices, due to the fact societal attitudes are reflected and shaped by the media (Entman & Rojecki, 2001; Gerbner & Gross, 1976; Gilens, 1996; Oliver, 2003). For example, when there is a consistent focus on one group, thereby neglecting another, citizens are being primed to focus on the former, which in turn can influence individuals’ racial cognitions (Domke, McCoy & Torres, 1999; Oliver, 2003). This mechanism of influenced racial cognitions is thus (partly) being caused by a biased representation of different groups of people, which indicates a need for unbiased representation in order to minimize these effects. This concludes that when diversity in content is lacking either in absolute (quantitative) representation of certain groups, or in the way these groups are being (qualitatively) represented, news-media can be seen as a contributing factor to (racial) prejudices in society.

Additionally, from a journalist perspective, the determination of what is news by professional journalists, seems to be heavily subjective. News judgment on the selection of topics for example reflects the perceptual biases and cultural anchors of those who are making this judgment (Gist, 1991). This means that if a cultural lack in diversity exists amongst media professionals, these cultural anchors and perceptual biases (due to their same backgrounds) are more homogenous. This would furthermore indicate that this topic-selection by media professionals could also be more homogenous, thereby contributing to an underrepresentation of certain topics. An example of homogenous source selection the Netherlands where a native Dutch journalist predominantly interviewed white people in a multicultural district in Amsterdam (Papaikonomou & Dijkman, 2018), shows how (unintended) journalistic actions can eventually lead to a more homogenous news outcome than if a variety of backgrounds and ethnicities would have equally been approached.

It is of utmost importance that televised media not only fairly represents ethnic minorities in the way these groups are covered in the news, but also in terms of who brings the stories to the public in the first place: the media representatives. In the Netherlands, a fair representation cannot be demanded from commercial television broadcasts since they are not bound to a media law in the way the public broadcaster is. It can however be demanded from the latter, which is the reason to focus on the NPO in this study.

The NPO states to aim towards being more ethnic-culturally representative. According to the broadcaster, “diversity should be visible in their range of programs, to make sure that the broadcaster exists for all citizens in the Netherlands” and the organization claims

to focus on a “more balanced representation in all its programs of women and people with a non-Western migration background” (NPO, 2018).

I argue that if the NPO aims to be more ethnically representative, it should not merely have a balanced ethnical representation throughout its range of programs, but also within programs such as those covering news- and current affairs. News- and current affair media can be seen as the major content supplier of the public sphere (Gans, 2011), which makes it relevant to find out if diversity exists within these types of programs specifically. Media representatives such as journalists bring symbolic reality to the viewer (Avraham & First, 2010), and should therefore especially be represented in a balanced way.

Although the NPO aims for and focusses on a ‘more balanced representation’ of (amongst other categories) people with a non-Western migration background, the organization fails to specify what this ‘balanced representation’ means. I argue that when deciding if Dutch ethnic minorities are being fairly represented in NPO-programs in terms of their professional appearances as media representatives, one should look at their professional “quantitative representation” as well as their “qualitative representation”.

Quantitative representation

This form of representation looks into the number of minority media representatives in the NPO-programs compared to the level of actual representation in society. This conceptualization is based on the term “representationalism” by Deuze (2015), who looked into the number of minority journalists in a newsroom to measure the extent to which this group was being represented (Deuze, 2015). According to Vandenberghe et al. (2017), this form of representation can be interpreted as a reflection of social reality. In other words: “… the extent to which the various demographic groups are given a voice in direct proportion to their prevalence in society” (Vandenberghe et al., 2017, p. 3). In this study, the ratio between ‘people with a Dutch background’ and the four major categories of ethnic minorities in the Netherlands will be determined in order to see if a discrepancy exists between the prevalence in society and on TV (SCP, 2018).

A fair quantitative representation of media representatives is not only important because skewed minority representation can be seen as a struggle for social cohesion and interaction in society, but also because of the diversification effect. Research on the diversification of media personnel found that this concept of diversification has a noticeable impact on the actual media content. Diverse staff (among other factors such as the broadcasting’s corporate culture and resource deployment) appears to bring diversity to news

content (Fleras, 2011). Studies however show that this phenomenon of a diverse staff is not the case in the Netherlands. Most newsroom-compositions in the Dutch context are found to be predominantly white and too often male (Papaikonomou & Dijkman, 2018). Therefore, the lack of diversity is also expected to be present in Dutch public broadcasting, in addition to the fact that the Dutch Public Broadcaster has stated to lack in terms of cultural-diversity in its programs as a whole:

H1: “A discrepancy in the Netherlands exists between the prevalence of ethnic minorities in society and on the NPO, looking at the media representatives.”

Qualitative representation

This term covers the representation of the actors in terms of their media coverage (soft- versus hard-news topics, and the phenomenon of minority-coverage). To explain the concept of qualitative representation, I’m referring to the work by Entman and Rojecki (2010) who studied the representation of Black and White experts in televised media in the US. They found that Black experts only sometimes appear as “knowledgeable persons with newsworthy, insightful things to say” (Entman & Rojecki, 2010, p. 68). They argue that Black experts are mostly ‘ghettoized’ as experts only on ‘Black’ issues (Ibid, p. 68). In their study, Black issues were operationalized as issues such as racial discrimination, gangs, and Martin Luther King to name a few. They found that these stories featured more Black experts than White, while in non-Black issues-stories White experts disproportionally outnumbered Black experts (Entman & Rojecki, 2010). Pritchard and Stonbely (2007), conducted a similar study on written news content, by looking into the extent to which journalists of colour are disproportionately assigned to cover minority-oriented issues (Pritchard & Stonbely, 2007). Their findings show that race indeed influences the kind of topics that are covered by journalists; a pattern they call ‘racial profiling’ (Ibid, 2007).

I argue that since race appears to influence the type of topics covered by experts (Entman & Rojecki, 2010) and journalists (Prichard & Stonbely, 2007), this could also be the case for other types of media representatives such as commentators or guest speakers. This phenomenon, in which a skewed representation is present in televised media between the coverage of minority issues stories by minority experts and journalists, has not been studied in the Dutch or even European context, but is hypothesized to occur due to this existing pattern found by the former studies mentioned:

H2: “Media representatives belonging to an ethnic minority disproportionally cover minority-topics.”

Hard news and soft news

For this study, a distinction exists between the Dutch eight-o’clock news bulletin (NOS journaal) and the current affairs talk show DWDD in terms of the first covering mainly ‘hard news topics’ while the latter also discusses ‘soft news topics’. A distinction between hard- and soft news topics must be made, since the expectation is that hard- and soft news topics differ in coverage by media representatives. No consensus exists in academia on the definition of hard and soft news as a whole (Reinemann et al., 2011). Some scholars say that it is misleading to predetermine the hard or soft character of news based on a topic, but consider how a topic is framed to the public good, policy issues, or societies at large to be a key qualification of this distinction between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ (Curran et al., 2009; Reinemann et al., 2011). The focus of this study however is not on the framing of news stories, but on the people who bring the items to the public. Therefore, it makes more sense to focus on hard- and soft news topics. Hard news is usually seen as breaking events that involve for example top world leaders, major issues, or significant disruptions in the routines of daily life (Patterson, 2000). Hard news topics are foreign and domestic politics, finance and economy, and the society as a whole (De Swert, 2007; Boukes & Boomgaarden, 2015). Soft news topics on the other hand are non-policy issues such as sports, celebrities (including the royal family), non-political scandals, and crime (De Swert, 2007; Reinemann et al., 2011; Scott & Gobetz, 1992).

The following section explains how a difference in hard- and soft news coverage between minority- and non-minority journalists and other media representatives could be existent, due to the phenomenon of credibility of communication sources.

Credibility of communication sources

One could argue that ‘media representatives’ should be considered credible sources by the majority of society due to their journalistic or academic experience. As pointed out by Gans (2011), these are the people that bring the stories to the public – while functioning as representatives of the public sphere (Gans, 2011).

Studies in the field of communication psychology show that communication coming from sources either less of an authority, less credible, or less easy to identify with, is systematically less persuasive (Druckman, 2001; Hartman & Weber, 2009; Mondak, 1993). I

argue that people with ethnic-cultural backgrounds, that differ from the norm and are a minority, are perceived as less credible sources in society by the majority. As shown in an earlier study by Khatib (1989), who focused on the difference between Blacks and Whites and their preference for communication sources, each ethnical group tends to select its own respective racial source as being the more credible one (Khatib, 1989). Therefore it is less likely for a source belonging to a minority group to be selected as a credible communication source by the majority of society. This lack of credibility for ethnic minorities would probably be maintained if a structural underrepresentation of minorities in televised media exists.

The expectation that minority groups will cover other types of content than their majority group colleagues, was already previously outlined in this study on the basis of the ‘racial profiling’ argument (Pritchard & Stonbely, 2007). This current argumentation however furthermore points out that ethnic minorities disproportionately cover minority-oriented issues, and therefore (mostly) cover the powerless segments of society. They’re white or ‘majority’-colleagues on the other hand, will mostly cover white-dominated arenas of government and business, that can be seen as powerful institutions (Ibid, 2007).

I expect people with ethnic-cultural backgrounds belonging to a minority group, therefore differing from the norm, to be perceived as less credible sources in society by the majority. As pointed out, I furthermore hypothesize that minority-oriented issues (that can be seen as the powerless segments of society), will disproportionally be covered by ethnic minorities (a mechanism explained in the previous hypothesis-section). Based on the distinction between hard- and soft news on the basis of topics, minority-oriented issues will mostly fall under the soft news category of topics that mostly cover non-policy issues. Therefore a mechanism of disproportional soft news coverage by ethnic-minority journalists due to lack of communication source-credibility is expected to occur:

H3: “Media representatives belonging to an ethnic minority, tend to cover more soft news topics than hard news topics.”

Although studies haven’t focussed much on the relationships between credibility of media representatives as sources and race (or ethnicity), scholars have argued that minority organizations and spokespersons are less likely to be approached as being credible sources, compared to their non-minority-colleagues, which is especially the case if they do not confirm the prevailing white elite consensus which marginalizes them as being too radical

(van Dijk, 1996; Pritchard & Stonbely, 2007). Building on this theory, I once again argue that there might be a possibility that media representatives belonging to minority groups are less likely to be seen as being credible sources, due to their perceived ‘otherness’ compared to the status quo (Said, 1977). The fact that the norm of whiteness carries on as being a “natural, inevitable, ordinary way of being” (Pritchard & Stonbely, 2007, p. 233), puts emphasis on the fact that anyone differing from this normality is perceived as odd or different (Ibid, p. 233). This indicates that when a person belongs to a minority group, his or her background could potentially be an emphasized factor ‘worth mentioning’. His or her opinion might be inherently viewed as ‘not in line with the general consensus’, and could therefore be marginalized by explicitly referring to the person’s background (Pritchard & Stonebly, 2007):

H4: “The background of experts that belong to an ethnic minority is more frequently explicitly mentioned than that of Dutch-native origin.”

Methodology Research design

For this study, a content analysis of the Dutch Public Broadcaster’s (NPO) programs ‘De Wereld Draait Door’ (DWDD) and ‘NOS Acht Uur Journaal’ was conducted. The reason for using this research methodology, which is fundamental to mass communication research (Lombard, Snyder-Duch & Bracken, 2002, p. 587), is to dismantle certain potentially existing patterns of minority representation within this broadcaster. The overarching goal is to understand the role that this mass media outlet plays in Dutch society, and how societal attitudes could be shaped by the visible composition of media representatives its programs.

Sample

For the content analysis, the archives that were used to gather the data are ‘Beeld & Geluid’, ‘NOS.nl’, and ‘NPO.nl’. The population is equal to all the aired DWDD-episodes of the year 2017, since this was the most recent full year to analyse when conducting the study. Analysing a full year of news- and current affairs airing is relevant, since the inclusion of all months and seasons make sure the sample is equally represented in terms of time (Slater et al., 2009). An overrepresentation of a certain moment in time within the sample could have led to an overrepresentation of certain topics, which in turn would lower the validity of the study.

DWDD aired 136 conventional episodes during that year (special episodes are for example those dedicated to a specific year as a flashback and can therefore not be seen as a ‘current affair episode’). Since DWDD has a summer-stop of three months (June, July, August), nine months were left. For the NOS the same dates were used; the reason for this being that the topics in both programs on the same day are more or less the same which makes the comparison between the two programs more valid. In addition to this, every day a DWDD episode was aired, there was also an eight o’clock news bulletin.

A stratified sampling technique was used to extract the eventual sample. For each month, three episodes were randomly sampled to, again, make sure to study a random and evenly spread sample, so that every day during each month had an equal probability of inclusion in the sample (Ibid, 2009). The eventual sample consisted of 27 current affairs episodes (of one hour each) and 27 prime time news-bulletins (half an hour each) that aired on the same day, and is made up of 54 cases. In total, 40.5 hours of televised public broadcast media content have been analysed, in which all individuals in the form of presenters, journalists, spokespersons, commentators, and experts were coded. This eventually resulted in a total of 674 units of analysis, of which 445 news bulletin-, and 229 current affairs media representatives). The two tables below show the composition of the studied sample in terms of background and type of media representatives.

Table 1.

Media representatives – Background

N Percentage Dutch only 582 86,4% Antillean 8 1,2% Moroccan 5 0,7% Surinamese 16 2,4% Turkish 2 0,3% Western 41 6,1% Non-western 26 3,9% Unknown 3 0,4% Table 2.

Media representatives - Type

Presenter 54 8% Co-presenter 54 8% Journalist 164 24,3% Expert 102 15,1% Commentator 170 25,2% Spokesperson 130 19,3%

Variables in the codebook

A codebook capturing all the research variables was conducted. Up to ten variables/characteristics were coded per unit of analysis. The type of actor was firstly determined (Presenter, Co-presenter, Journalist, Expert, Commentator, Spokesperson), after which the name was a necessity in order to continue the analysis since actor’s backgrounds had to be looked up (online) in case the person’s background was not explicitly mentioned or written in the item itself. Much confusion could otherwise exist between people with a Surinamese or Antillean background, and between a Moroccan or Tunisian background for example. Name-based online search provided the exact background-information in almost all cases, except for three representatives whose background was coded as ‘unknown’. More general categories such as ‘western- and ‘’non-western background’ were also added to the coding scheme.

The next section of the codebook related to the topic of the fragment. A distinction was made between minority- and non-minority topics. For every analysed topic it was determined if the focus of the story was on people of colour, or issues connecting to Dutch ethnic minorities such as topics on Moroccans in the Netherlands or even (for example) societal integration of ethnic minorities in other countries. Non-minority topics respectively were all items that covered issues of broad (national- and international) relevance with no overt racial or ethnic context (Pritchard & Stonbely, 2007).

Lastly, another four categories helped answer the hard/soft-news topic question (hard news, soft news, unsure, presenter). Presenters of the news programs were treated differently in the analysis, since they all ‘covered’ different topics throughout the program which makes a categorization on type of news and topic-connection impossible. The exact operationalization of all the variables can be found in the Code Book (Appendix A).

When starting the data collection (i.e. coding the media representatives within the programs), the first 10% of the total dataset (being three DWDD episodes, and two NOS news bulletins) was coded twice by two different coders, in order to calculate Intercoder Reliability (Riffe, Lacy & Fico, 2014, p. 105-118). Intercoder reliability tests using Krippendorff’s Alpha (α) method (Lombard, Snyder-Duch & Bracken, 2002), indicated a reliable level of agreement on all the variables used for this study. The reliability coefficient for ‘actor’, ‘ethnic background’, ‘explicit mentioning of background’, ‘minority topic’, and ‘hard/soft news topic’ was 1.0, .96, .90, .94, and .94 respectively.

Strategy of Analysis

The units of analysis of this study are media representatives. For the analysed news, media representatives were sometimes coded more than once per bulletin. An example is a journalist or reporter that covered two different topics. For the current affairs however every media representative was coded once, since they were all invited to talk about a specific topic.

The initial focus of the current study was on the identity of these media representatives. Analysing the identity of these representatives, helped answer the research question in terms of quantitative representation. Furthermore, in terms of qualitative representation, the absence or presence of focus on ethnic background, and the type of topics (hard- and soft news topics, and minority- and non-minority topics) that are covered by the media representatives were analysed.

In the following section the results of the statistical tests per hypothesis are presented. The quantitative representation, followed by the qualitative representation of media representatives in the Dutch public broadcasting-media are both covered. A more in depth understanding and interpretation of these results can be found in the concluding section.

Results Quantitative representation – society and media

The composition of the sample in terms of background, was compared in absolute numbers and percentages to the composition of the Dutch population, based on the numbers by the Dutch Central Agency for Statistics (CBS) as presented in 2017 (CBS, 2018).

As table 3 shows, the representation of people with a ‘Dutch only’ background was statistically significantly higher in the sample than the population’s ‘normal’ representation. The results as presented in table 3 and 4 should be interpreted with caution, since every

variable was tested separately using a single T-test (Benjamini & Hochberg, 1995). In order to avoid a Type I Error, the alpha (i.e. critical value) for this model being 5%, should be divided by the total amount of T-tests. This means that any p-value above 0,005 is not considered to be significant for table 3, nor does any p-value above 0,007 for table 4.

Table 3.

Representation – migration backgrounds

Dutch population Media representatives

N Percentage N Percentage T-test

Dutch only 1 13.218.754 77,4% 582 86,4% 6,76 ***

Background any other than Dutch (multiple possible)

3.862.753 22,6% 92 13,6% -5,18 *** - Western 1.689.030 9,9% 41 6,1% -3,17 ** - Non-western 2.173.723 12,7% 60 8,9% -3,81 ***  Moroccan 391.088 2,3% 5 0,7% -4,71 ***  Antillean 153.469 0,9% 8 1,2% 0,69  Surinamese 349.978 5% 16 2,4% -4,45 ***  Turkish 400.367 2,3% 2 0,3% -9,55 ***  Other non-western 878.821 5,1% 26 3,9% -1,91

Total number of:

Moroccans, Antilleans, Surinamese, and Turks Unknown 1.294.902 - 10,5% - 31 3 4,6% 0,4% -7,27 *** - Total population 17.081.507 100 % 674 100% -

Notes. **p < ,005; ***p < ,001. Source Dutch population - Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS, 2018).

For people with a Moroccan, Surinamese, or Turkish background, their representation in the sample was found to be significantly lower than their representation in society. This means that these three groups are underrepresented in Dutch media, when looking at media representatives.

Furthermore, when looking at the four largest groups of ethnic minorities, the total representation in the sample was found to be statistically significantly lower than the

1

In this study, the term Dutch only is based on the CBS (2018) term “Person with a Dutch background: Person

representation of these ethnic minorities in society. Based the results of this sample, the first hypothesis (H1) can be confirmed, and one can say that a discrepancy in the Netherlands indeed exists between the prevalence of the four largest groups of ethnic minorities in society and in Dutch public media broadcasts, when looking at media representatives.

Figure 1. News- and current affairs: representation-percentages of minority-groups per outlet. This figure illustrates the representation of minority media representatives for NOS and DWDD.

Table 4.

T-tests comparing representation between different outlets and the population

News outlet (NOS) Current affairs outlet (DWDD) N Percentage T-test N Percentage T-test

Non-western 32 12,7% -4,49 *** 21 8,9% -,79 - Moroccan 4 0,9% -3,13 ** 1 0,44% -4,26 *** - Antillean 4 0,9% -,01 4 1,75% ,98 - Surinamese 8 1,8% -5,08 *** 8 3,5% -1,239 - Turkish 0 0% - 2 0,87% -2,32 0,90% 0,90% 1,80% 0% 3,60% 7,19% 1,75% 0,44% 3,50% 0,87% 6,55% 9,17% 0,00% 1,00% 2,00% 3,00% 4,00% 5,00% 6,00% 7,00% 8,00% 9,00% 10,00%

Antillean Moroccan Surinamese Turkish Largest groups

(4) ethnic minorities Non-western background (total) NOS DWDD

- Other non-western 16 5,1% -2,02 6 3,9% -,54 Total of

Moroccans, Antilleans, Surinamese, Turks

16 10,5% -7,81 *** 15 4,6% -2,41

Total media representatives 44 100 % - 22 100% -

Notes. **p < ,007; ***p < ,001.

However, when comparing the representation of minorities between the two different outlets (being news- and current affairs), some differences were found. Figure 1 illustrates the overall differences between news- and current affairs representation. Table 4 shows that the representation of the total of non-western media representatives in the current affairs program, does not differ statistically significant from their actual representation in Dutch society, while it does for media representatives in the news outlet. Moroccans were found to be underrepresented in both the news- and current affairs programs, while Surinamese media representatives in the news seem to be structurally underrepresented compared to current affairs programs. Furthermore, when looking at the total of the four largest ethnic minorities in the Netherlands, this group only seems to be significantly differing from the population in terms of representation in the news bulletin. These differences are based on representation-percentages of the total analysed media representatives per outlet.

Qualitative representation – minority topic coverage

This study furthermore aimed to find out if media representatives belonging to an ethnic minority cover minority topics more frequently or disproportionally compared to their non-minority colleagues. Presenters (N = 54) and co-presenters (N = 54) were left out of this analysis, since they all covered multiple minority- and non-minority topics per broadcast or episode. Looking at the 27 minority-media representatives, 56% covered minority topics, while 44% covered non-minority topics. When analysing the 539 “majority” media representatives, only 12% covered minority topics, compared to the 88% covering non-minority topics.

A chi-square test was performed and a significant association was found between media representatives’ backgrounds (either belonging to an ethnic minority or not) and whether or not they cover minority-topics χ2 (1, N = 566) = 39,33, p < ,001. As shown in table 5, a medium association was found between the two variables. This found difference between the two groups would ideally speaking not exist in an unbiased world, since no association

should be present between minority-topics and minority-media representatives covering these.

Table 5. χ2

-test results comparing minorities and non-minorities on minority topic coverage Topic: minority issue?

No % Yes % Total ϕ

Minorities (Antilleans,

Moroccans, Surinamese, Turks)

12 44% 15 56% 27 ,264 ***

Non-minorities 473 88% 66 12% 539

Total 485 81 566

Notes. *p < ,05; **p < ,01; ***p < ,001.

Qualitative representation – hard news and soft news coverage

The expectation was that those representatives belonging to an ethnic minority in the Netherlands, would cover more soft news-topic than hard news topics compared to their Dutch-only colleagues. Presenters and co-presenters were left out of this analysis, due to their coverage of multiple topics. 566 experts, journalists, commentators, and spokespersons who either belong to an ethnic minority, or were merely Dutch were analysed. Minority-representatives covered roughly three times as much soft news topics compared to hard news topics, while native Dutch representatives covered roughly twice as much soft news topics compared to hard news topics. As shown in table 6, no statistically significant results however were found to support this relationship between minority media representatives and a discrepancy in coverage of hard- and soft news topics.

Table 6. χ2

Type of news-topic (hard- and soft news)

coverage Hard % Soft % Total ϕ

Minorities (Antilleans,

Moroccans, Surinamese, Turks)

20 74% 7 26% 27 -,034

Non-minorities 358 66% 181 34% 539

Total 566

Notes. *p < ,05; **p < ,01; ***p < ,001.

Finally, as already presented in table 4, significant differences were found in terms of presence of ethnic minorities between the mainly hard news program (NOS news bulletin) and the more soft news current affairs program (DWDD). Based on this this test comparing the two programs, one can conclude that the Dutch Public Broadcaster does not have an equal spread of ethnic minorities throughout its range of programs, since they are found to be underrepresented in hard-news media and not in the soft-news media outlet. The third hypothesis (H3) however cannot be confirmed, since no differences in hard- and soft news-topics coverage were found between minority media representatives and their “majority” colleagues.

Qualitative representation – emphasis on background

When comparing media representatives in terms of background emphasis, the background of minority-representatives is statistically significantly more frequently mentioned compared to their non-minority colleagues. As shown in table 7, the background of minority-representatives was explicitly mentioned in 22,6% of the cases, while the background of non-minorities was only emphasized in 1,6% of the cases.

Table 7.

χ2

-test results comparing background emphasis on minorities and non-minorities on news- and current affairs outlets

Presence of emphasis on background

Coverage Yes % No % Total Cramér’s V

Media Representatives:

- Non-minorities 633 98,4% 10 1,6% 643 ,281 ***

- Total 4 minorities (Antilleans, Moroccans, Surinamese, Turks)

- Antilleans - Moroccans - Surinamese - Turks Outlets:

- Current affairs outlet (DWDD) - News outlet (NOS)

5 5 13 1 13 4 62,5% 100% 81,3% 50% 5,7% 0,9% 3 0 3 1 216 441 37,5% 0% 18,7% 50% 94,3% 99,1% 8 5 16 2 229 445 ,244 *** -,014 ,161 *** ,165 *** ,144 *** Notes. *p < ,05; **p < ,01; ***p < ,001.

A chi-square test was performed and as shown in table 7, a significant medium association was found between media representatives’ backgrounds (either belonging to an ethnic minority or not) and whether or not their background was explicitly mentioned or emphasized on χ2 (1, N = 674) = 63,18; p < ,001.

Looking at the four groups of ethnic minorities separately, Moroccan-minorities seem to be the only ones whose background is not significantly more emphasized compared to any other ethnic group. The background of Antilleans χ2 (1, N = 674) = 40,29; p < ,001, Surinamese χ2 (1, N = 674) = 17,55; p < ,001, and Turks χ2 (1, N = 674) = 18,39; p < ,001 is significantly more emphasized when compared to every other ethnic group. These findings are especially interesting considering the fact that every analysed media representative with an Antillean, a Moroccan, Surinamese and/or Turkish background, also held the Dutch nationality. The test results therefore confirm the fourth and last hypothesis of this study (H4).

At a program level, media representatives’ backgrounds in general were significantly more frequently mentioned in current affairs programs compared to news bulletins χ2 (1, N = 674) = 14,04; p < ,001.

Conclusion & Discussion

The main conclusion of this study is that based on the two analysed programs of 2017, media representatives belonging to an ethnic minority in the Netherlands are not fairly represented in the public broadcast’s news- and current affairs programs. Quantitative- and qualitative-wise, when looking at the identity of presenters, commentators, reporters and experts, the four largest ethnic minorities in the Netherlands are being underrepresented and treated differently than their merely Dutch colleagues.

When comparing the Dutch population’s composition with the NPO’s media representatives’ composition, people with a merely Dutch background are found to be disproportionally overrepresented in the media outlets. Simultaneously, viewing the four largest groups of ethnic-minorities in the Netherlands as one main ‘minority-group’, this group is found to be significantly underrepresented throughout the range of programs. People with a Moroccan background are especially underrepresented in both the NPO’s news- and current affairs programs. Therefore, based on these findings, the first hypothesis (H1) is confirmed.

A worrying finding concerns the difference in program-type and appearances of ethnic-minorities as media professionals. The most watched news-bulletin in the Netherlands shows an underrepresentation of media representatives who (amongst a Dutch nationality) belong to the overarching category of ethnic minorities. For the most watched current affairs program, which is considerably covering soft-news topics, this didn’t seem to be the case. This means that not only an overall underrepresentation of ethnic minorities by the public broadcaster is existent, but that a program with high credibility such as the news specifically shows this discrepancy.

A medium association is found to be present between minority topic-coverage and media representatives belonging to an ethnic minority (H2). This difference between the two groups would ideally speaking not exist in an unbiased world, since no association should be present between minority-topics and minority-media representatives covering these topics. No differences were found between media representatives belonging to an ethnic minority and the ethnic majority in terms of topic coverage when focussing on hard- and soft news distinctions (H3). Minorities’ backgrounds however were found to be more often emphasized, while this emphasis seems to be disproportionally absent looking at Dutch-only media representatives (H4). These findings indicate a lack of qualitative diversity, since a clear discrepancy was found between the representation of minorities and non-minorities, in the way they are mentioned (their background is emphasized) and because their type of topic coverage differs.

The findings of the current study are in line with the few comparable studies that were conducted in different contexts than the Dutch one, since journalists and experts who belong to an ethnic minority disproportionally cover minority-topics, compared to their merely Dutch colleagues, hereby confirming the findings of previous studies conducted in the U.S. (Prichard & Stonbely, 2007; Entman & Rojecki, 2010). Since the current study only analysed two different outlets within the public broadcaster, more studies should be conducted in order

to determine if this American pattern of “ghettoization” of media minority experts and minority issues as called by Entman and Rojecki (2010), is indeed also existent in the Netherlands.

This study furthermore found a significant emphasis on the background of minorities, while this emphasis was disproportionally absent looking at non-minority media representatives. These findings can be interpreted as being in line with the theoretical body that focusses on the phenomenon of credibility of communication sources. This social reality that is apparently existent in the Netherlands, indicates that minority spokespersons are less likely to be approached as credible sources. Why this pattern exists is unclear based on this research, but it could partly be because these minorities do not confirm the prevailing white elite consensus (van Dijk, 1996; Pritchard & Stonbely, 2007). As mentioned previously, those whose background was more frequently emphasized also held the Dutch nationality, and should therefore theoretically not be treated differently than their Dutch-only colleagues. The fact that they have another background however, apparently assigns them a factor of ‘otherness’ compared to the status quo (Said, 1977), which could be an explanation for the fact that this ‘different’ background is significantly more often mentioned. Obviously these are still hypotheses, since this study could not measure the relationship between the potential perception of otherness and an emphasis on background. Further experimental studies could help to understand this potential mechanism.

This study contributes to the field of political-communication and journalism, since skewed representations were found, indicating that further research is indeed necessary in this specific context. Combining both the quantitative- and qualitative representation of media representatives, this study is the first in its kind to do so.

Some critical notes must be made regarding the validity of this research. First and foremost, the external validity of this study is questionable. Two different news- and current affairs programs were analysed, and although these are the most-watched programs of their kind, it remains to be investigated if all other comparable programs by the Dutch public broadcaster are comparable in terms of the qualitative and quantitative representation of minorities. The results can therefore not be generalized for the NPO as a whole due to low transferability, when solely looking at this single research.

The analysed current affairs program’s duration is twice as long as the analysed news bulletin and usually has less media representatives per episode, which leaves more time to emphasize or mention features such as background for example. Therefore, the results regarding a program comparison of this emphasis should be interpreted with caution.

Furthermore, although a reasonable amount of 674 media representatives were analysed, the number of each ethnic minority-group was low, since a mere total of 8 Antilleans, 5 Moroccans, 16 Surinamese, and 2 Turks were present in the sample. In-group differences could therefore not always be found, and further research should be conducted to examine if some minority-groups are disadvantaged over others in terms of qualitative representation.

These low numbers however do immediately illustrate the low amount of minority media representatives in the Netherlands in the most watched NPO programs. Based on the findings of this single study, a discrepancy between the prevalence of ethnic minorities in society and in media-content is clearly visible when focussing on media representatives of the Dutch public broadcaster.

An absence of diverse media personnel contributes to a less diverse news content (Fleras, 2011). If the Dutch public broadcaster strives towards “diversity in its range of programs” to reach and embrace all citizens in the Netherlands (NPO, 2018), the results of this study show that in order to achieve this, it could focus on the diversification of its media personnel.

The observations of this study can have a large impact on the Dutch population, since televised images and representations of society are viewed as actual societal realities by the viewers (Gerbner & Gross, 1976). Further research is needed to dismantle certain mechanisms, but it is urgent to determine if this skewness is contributing to the ongoing process of polarization and segregation in the Netherlands.

References

Avraham, E. & First A. (2010). Can a Regulator Change Representation of Minority Groups and Fair Reflection of Cultural Diversity in National Media Programs? Lessons From Israel. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 54(1), 136-148. doi:

10.1080/08838150903550469

Benjamini Y. & Hochberg Y. (1995). Controlling the false discovery rate: a practical and powerful approach to multiple testing. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society B, 57(1), 289-300.

Berbers, A., Joris, W., Boesman, J., d’Haenens, L., Koeman, J., Van Gorp, B. (2016). The news

framing of the ‘Syria fighters’ in Flanders and the Netherlands: Victims or terrorists? Ethnicities, 16(6), 798-818. doi: 10.1177/1468796815603753

Bleich, E., Stonebraker, H., Nisar, H., Abdelhamid, R. (2015). Media Portrayals of Minorities:

Migration

Studies, 41(6), 942-962. doi: 10.1080/01419870.2015.1103886

Boukes, M., Boomgaarden, H.G. (2015). Soft News With Hard Consequences? Introducing a Nuanced Measure of Soft Versus Hard News Exposure and Its Relationship With Political Cynicism. Communication Research, 42(5), 701-731.

doi: 10.1177/0093650214537520

Bovens, M., Bokhorst, M., Jennissen, R. (2017). Migration and Classification: Toward a Multiple Migration Idiom. Retrieved from http://english.wrr.nl

CBS - Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek. (2018). Bevolking; kerncijfers - 2017. Retrieved from http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?DM=SLNL&PA=37296ned&D1=

a&D2=0,10,20,30,40,50,60,66-67&HDR=G1&STB=T&VW=T

Curran, J., Iyengar, S., Lund, A. B., Salovaara-Moring, I. (2009). Media system, public

knowledge and democracy: A comparative study. European Journal of Communication, 24(1), 5–26. doi: 10.1177/0267323108098943

De Swert, K. (2007). Soft en hard nieuws als kwaliteitskenmerk van het televisienieuws [Soft and hard news as quality criteria for television news]. In: Hooghe M, De Swert K and Walgrave S (eds) De kwaliteit van het nieuws: Kwaliteitsindicatoren voor televisienieuws [The quality of news: Quality criteria for television news]. Leuven: Acco, 131–149.

Deuze, M. (2005). What is journalism? Professional identity and ideology of journalists reconsidered. Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism, 6(4), 442-464. doi: 10.1177/1464884905056815

van Dijk, T. A. (1996). Power and the news media. In D. Paletz (Ed.), Political Communication

and Action. 9-36. Retrieved from http://www.discourses.org/Old

Articles/Power%20and%20the%20news%20media.pdf

Domke, D., McCoy, K., Torres, M. (1999). News Media, Racial Perceptions, and Political Cognition. Communication Research, 26(5), 570-607. doi: 10.1177/009365099026005003

Druckman, J. N. (2001). On the limits of framing effects: Who can frame? The Journal of Politics, 63(4), 1041–1066. doi: 10.1111/0022-3816.00100

Entman, R. M., Rojecki, A. (2010). The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America. University of Chicago Press.

Ferree, M. M, Gamson, W. A., Gerhards, J., Rucht, D. (2002). Four Models of the Public Sphere in Modern Democracies. Theory and Society, 31(3), 289-324.

Fleras, A. (2011). The Media Gaze: Representations of Diversities in Canada. Vancouver:

UBC Press. Retrieved from

https://www.ubcpress.ca/asset/9231/1/9780774821360.pdf

Focus Migration. (2007). Country Profile: Netherlands. No 11.

Ford, C., Harawa, N. T. (2010). A new conceptualization of ethnicity for social epidemiologic

and health equity research. Soc Sci Med, 71(2), 251-258. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.04.008

Gans, H.J. (2011) Multiperspectival news revisited: Journalism and representative democracy.

Journalism, 12(1): 3–13. doi: 10.1177/1464884910385289

Gerbner, G., Gross, L. (1976). Living with television: The violence profile. Journal of Communication, 26, 172–199.

Gilens, M. (1996). Race and poverty in America: Public misperceptions and the American news media. Public Opinion Quarterly, 60, 515–541. doi: 10.1111/j.1460- 2466.1976.tb01397.x

Guiraudon, V., Phalet, K., Wal, J. (2005). Monitoring Ethnic Minorities in the Netherlands. International Social Science Journal, 57(1), 75-87. doi: 10.1086/297771

Hacker, H. M. (1951). Women as a Minority Group. Social Forces, 30, 60-69. Retrieved from

http://media.pfeiffer.edu/lridener/courses/womminor.html

Hartman, T. K., & Weber, C. R. (2009). Who said what? The effects of source cues in issue frames. Political Behavior, 31(4), 537–558. doi: 10.1007/s11109-009-9088-y

Hussain, M. (2000). Islam, Media and Minorities in Denmark. Current Sociology, 48(4), 95- 116. doi: 10.1177/0011392100048004008

Khatib, S. M. (1989). Race and Credibility in Persuasive Communications. Journal of Black Studies, 19(3), 361-373. doi: 10.1177/002193478901900306

Koeman, J., Peeters, A., d’Haenens, L. (2007). Diversity Monitor 2005: Diversity as a quality aspect of television in the Netherlands. Communications, The European Journal of Communication Research, 32(1), 97-121. doi: 10.1515/COMMUN.2007.005

Larrazet, C., Rigoni, I. (2014). Media and Diversity: A Century-Long Perspective on an Enlarged and Internationalized Field of Research. InMedia, 4, 1-9.

Lombard, M., Snyder-Duch, J., Bracken, C. C. (2002). Content Analysis in Mass Communication. Assessment and reporting of intercoder reliability. Human Communication Research, 28(4), 587-604. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2958.2002.tb00826.x Mahfud, Y., Badea, C., Verkuyten, M., Reynolds, K. (2017). Multiculturalism and Attitudes Toward Immigrants: The Impact of Perceived Cultural Distance. Journal of Cross- Cultural Psychology, 1-14. doi: 10.1177/0022022117730828.

Mediawet 2008. (2008, December 29). Retrieved December 11, 2017, from

http://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0025028/2017-02-01#Hoofdstuk2

Mondak, J. J. (1993). Public opinion and heuristic processing of source cues. Political Behavior, 15(2), 167–192. doi: 10.1007/BF00993852

NPO – Nederlandse Publieke Omroep (2018, March 5), Prestatieovereenkomst 2017-2020. Retrieved from https://over.npo.nl/organisatie/onze prestaties/prestatieovereenkomst

Oliver, M. B. (2003). African American Men as “Criminal and Dangerous”: Implications of Media Portrayals of Crime on the “Criminalization” of African American Men. Journal

of African American Studies, 7(2), 3-18. doi: 10.1007/s12111-003-1006-5

Papaikonomou, Z., Dijkman, A. (2018). Heb jij een boze moslim voor mij?. Over inclusieve journalistiek. Amsterdam University Press.

Patterson, T. E. (2000). Doing Well and Doing Good: How Soft News Are Shrinking the News

Audience and Weakening Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Powell, K. A. (2011). Framing Islam: An Analysis of U.S. Media Coverage of Terrorism Since

9/11. Communication Studies, 62(1), 9-112. doi: 10.1080/10510974.2011.533599 Poindexter, P. M., Smith, L., Heider, D. (2003). Race and Ethnicity in local Television News:

Framing, Story Assignments, and Source Selections. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 47(4), 524-536, doi: 10.1207/s15506878jobem4704_3.

Pritchard, D., Stonbely, S. (2007). Racial Profiling in the Newsroom. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 84(2), 231-248.

concepts, operationalizations and key findings. Journalism, 13(2), 221-239. doi: 10.1177/1464884911427803

Riffe, D., Lacy, S., Fico, F. (2014). Analyzing Media Messages. Mahwah NJ: Erlbaum Publishers. 3rd edition.

Said, E. (1977). Orientalism. London: Penguin Books.

SCP - Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau (2017, December 12), De sociale staat van Nederland 2017. Retrieved from

https://www.scp.nl/Publicaties/Alle_publicaties/Publicaties_2017/De_sociale_staat_v an_Nederland_2017

SCP - Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau (2018, January 18), Publicaties 2017. Retrieved from

https://www.scp.nl/Publicaties/Alle_publicaties/Publicaties_2017

Scott, D.K., Gobetz, R.H. (1992). Hard News/Soft News Content of the National Broadcast Networks, 1972–1987. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. 69(2), 406- 412. doi: 10.1177/107769909206900214

Slater. M. D., Hayes, A. F., Reineke, J. B., Long, M., Bettinghaus, E. P. (2009). Newspaper coverage of Cancer Prevention: Multilevel Evidence for knowledge-Gap Effects. Journal of Communication, 59, 514-533. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.2009.01433.x Stichting Kijkonderzoek (2017, December 31), Top 25, Stichting Kijkonderzoek. Retrieved from https://kijkonderzoek.nl

Vandenberghe, H., d’Haenens, L., Van Gorp, B. (2017). Women, ethnic minorities and newsworthiness: Journalists’ perceptions. Journalism, 1-17.

doi: 10.1177/1464884917724300

Appendices

Appendix A: Code book

CODE BOOK L. Sela

– CONTENT ANALASIS. NPO 2017.

PROGRAM

1. Name of the program 1. NOS (eight o’clock news)

2. Date of airing DD-MM-YYYY

3. Unit of analysis

The first person you code in the program gets number 1, the second 2, etc. etc.

ACTOR

4. What type of actor is this person?

1. Presenter of the program (for DWDD: this is always Matthijs van Nieuwkerk)

2. Co-presenter (for DWDD: code the ‘tafeldame/tafelheer’ as co-presenter, for NOS: the weatherman/woman = co-presenter)

3. Journalist - of the specific topic that is being discussed or reported on in the news (either in the field or in the studio not) (in Dutch usually defined as ‘verslaggever’)

4. Expert (in Dutch usually defined as ‘deskundige’) who is brought into the studio or interviewed in a separate shot on the matter; either in the field or not)

5. Commentator (for DWDD this will usually be the case: this is the ‘tafel gast’, so the people that are invited to talk about a certain topic)

6. Spokesperson / woordvoerder - of the institution that is being talked about in the newsitem. Examples: woordvoerder diabetes fonds (item = about policy proposal to reduce sugar in supermarket products), minister van onderwijs (item = “basisbeurs studenten”), lawyer of lawsuit (item = “uitspraak rechtbank Amsterdam”).

NOTE1: if any of the above is not the case, don’t code; move on to next fragment

--> examples of who not to code: Citizens on the street (or in the DWDD-public) are asked for their opinion on a matter that is being discussed in the news or in the studio.

CULTURAL-ETHNIC BACKGROUND OF THE ACTOR

5. If provided, insert name of the actor (first and last name when both available)

If not provided /mentioned in any way, insert “not mentioned”. - Insert here

6. The actor’s background is explicitly mentioned or put emphasis on.

i.e. when the actor is introduced, referred to, or as a text-insert on screen, or when this is explicitly made clear/emphasized in the fragment [could also be by actor him/herself])

Background could be i.e.; country of origin (Moroccan / Morocco), cultural/religious background (Muslim, Christian, etc.), parent’s country of origin (in the case of a second- or

third-generation immigrant for example).

If emphasis is put on an “immigrant-background”, “cultural minority”, colour of skin, etc → also code ‘1: yes’).

1. yes 0. no

7. Is it clear that the actor has an ethnic-cultural background, other than (merely) native Dutch?

(example: actor’s name- or appearance doesn’t seem native Dutch, but you’re not sure about the background; code ‘yes’. In this case: ‘google’ the person to see if a background is provided

online in order to answer the next question) 1. yes

0. no

8. What is the actor’s ethnic background?

8a. Native Dutch (note: assumption = that probably all Dutch speaking units of analysis will be coded as ‘present’)

8b. Antillean background 8c. Moroccan background 8d. Surinamese background 8e. Turkish background

8f. Western background (example: European, American, Canadian; and Indonesian & Japanese [according to CBS])

8g. Non-Western background (example: Chinese, Indian, Nigerian, Brazilian, etc.)

8h. Unknown (note: person seems non-native Dutch, but [online] information wasn’t providing enough to answer this question)

TOPIC OF THE FRAGMENT

The following questions relate to the main topic of the frame where the actor appears in.

Note for DWDD-actors: experts/commentators are invited to talk on a specific topic, but end up sitting at the table to talk about several other topics. This question relates to the specific topic the expert/commentator/guest is introduced with to talk about.

9. Provide a short description of the topic.

(example: Brexit negotiations EU, Syrian refugee crisis, integration of German-Turks in Berlin, Champions league final, portrait of a famous artist, etc.)

(for presenter / co-presenter only insert: presenter, since these people ‘cover’ all topics per episode)

Insert here –

10. Is the actors’ background connected to topic in any way?

(i.e.: Moroccan expert comments on integration of Moroccans in the Netherlands, or: Dutch-Turkish Muslim guest at DWDD commenting on Islam-related topic) 1. yes

2. no 3. unsure

4. (co-) presenter

To code the following variable, please keep in mind:

>> minority-topics: is the focus of the story on people of colour, or issues connecting to Dutch ethnic minorities? Example is any topics on Dutch Morrocans or socially contested topics connecting to the four ethnic minority groups such as societal integration. >> Non-minority topics: the story covers any issues of broad or small (national- and international) relevance with no overt racial or ethnic context (Pritchard & Stonbely, 2007). 11. Do you consider the topic to be a minority-topic?