News Media and Social Movement Organizations’ Narratives
of the “European Refugee Crisis” in Italy
A Framing and Media Coverage Analysis
Name: Cecilia Badano Student number: 12319554
Graduate School of Communication, University of Amsterdam MSc Communication Science
Track: Corporate Communication
Master’s Thesis
Supervisor: dhr. dr. P.H.J. Schafraad 30th January 2020
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Abstract
Today, five years after its peak in 2015, the number of arrivals significantly decreased but the tragedies did not stop, making the Mediterranean migration route one of the deadliest in the world. For this reason, not only the “European refugee crisis” is still a central topic of discussion within the public and media discourses but is also affecting political agendas and building up tensions among the European Union members that are failing to provide a joined solution to this humanitarian “crisis”.
The present research paper analysed the framing of the “European refugee crisis” within news media and Social Movement Organizations’ (SMOs) communication in Italy. In particular, this study aimed to gain a better understanding of how this “crisis” is depicted by different news media and SMOs and to explore to what extent these two entities align in their narratives. In order to be able to define the frames applied, a first inductive phase of analysis was carried out and
resulted in the reconstruction of four distinct frames. In the next step, a quantitative content analysis has been conducted on a sample of 300 media contents (164 articles and 136 press releases) to explore the framing of the “crisis”. An additional research has also been executed to explore the amount and tone of news media coverage received by the four SMOs in analysis. The most
important finding showed that Italian news media differently apply frames reflecting their political ideologies, while SMOs produce a consistent narrative about the “refugee crisis”, which serves their goals of increasing awareness and mobilization. Moreover, SMOs seem to have a positive
resonance in the media discourse, having their preferred frame and their initiatives fairly covered by news media.
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Introduction
Italy in the “European Refugee Crisis”
Over the last ten years, most European Union state members have found themselves to cope with extensive influxes of migrants from other continents, in particular from African and Middle Eastern countries. This social phenomenon, defined as “European refugee crisis”1
by the media for its extension and resonance, came to its highest point in terms of arrivals in 2015, when 1,032,400 people were recorded to have reached the European territory (UNHCR, 2019). This peak can be partially explained by the social and political instability caused by the series of uprisings, known as the “Arab Spring”, that took place in North Africa and the Middle East after 2011 (Heller, & Pezzani, 2016).
Besides for the volume of the immigration movements, over the years the “refugee crisis” has gained wide media attention because of the tragic nature of the frequent shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea (Colombo, 2018). Even though the number of registered arrivals significantly declined after 2015, reaching 141,472 units in 2018, the number of deaths and missing people remained high, with 2,277 people that lost their lives during the crossing in 2018 (UNHCR,2019).
Italy is one of the most involved European countries since its geographical position, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, makes it a central point of arrival and a transaction region for those migrants who have their final destination in Northern Europe. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR, 2019) reports a total of 648.117 migrants recorded to have arrived in Italy by sea
between 2014 and 2018.2 As a consequence, one of the main reasons of discontent in Italy was (and still is) related to the European Union asylum system, defined by the “Dublin Regulation”, which
1 Definitions as “crisis” and “emergency” will be used in this study in order to align with the general public discourse on this social phenomenon. However, in no way these definitions mean to have a negative connotation within the present study. Moreover, it needs to be noted that the terms “migrants” and “refugees” are used as synonyms, overlooking their legal distinction.
2 Between 2014 and 2018, the UNHCR registered a total of 1.958.126 arrivals in Europe. The arrivals include both people reaching Italy, Cyprus, and Malta by sea and those reaching Greece and Spain by both sea and land. Most of the migrants arriving to Europe come from war zones as Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and from North Africa (UNHCR,2019).
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states that the arrival countries are the ones responsible for the asylum applications and for accepting the migrants in case of rejections from other EU member countries (Zaun,2018). A big part of the public opinion felt like Italy was left alone to face this “emergency” and, supported by some political parties, blamed the European Union (Harteveld, Schaper, De Lange, & Van Der Brug, 2018). In particular, this was criticized because of the limited help provided to migrants in need and because it failed to create a fair system to redistribute the refugees across the member countries (Bauböck, 2017).
This general state of dissatisfaction in the past years helped right-wing political parties across Europe to promote their anti-immigration political agendas (Musarò, & Parmiggiani, 2017) and to consequently gain popularity. As a consequence, in June 2018, in Italy, a coalition between the populist party “Movimento 5 Stelle” and the right-wing party “Lega Nord” was formed to govern the country and Matteo Salvini, the openly anti-immigration Federal Secretary of “Lega Nord”, became Deputy Prime Minister.
Because of Salvini’s strict politics in terms of immigration and of the past decrease in governmental research and rescue operations3, various Social Movement Organizations (SMOs), such as Doctors Without Borders and SOS Méditerranée, acquired a fundamental role in the management of the “crisis” in the Mediterranean Sea. However, because of their research and rescue operations, some SMOs have been accused by the Italian government to be a concerning “pull factor” for “illegal immigration”. As a consequence, by appealing to the so-called “Decreto Sicurezza” and its updated version “Decreto Sicurezza Bis” two national regulations wanted by Salvini himself, the Deputy Prime Minister made it more complicated for SMOs to rescue migrants in need in the Mediterranean Sea. In fact, Article 1 of this regulation allowed the government to prohibit the access to Italian waters to those boats that
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In 2013, Italy decided to increase its efforts in research and rescue operations near the Libyan coast (the so-called “Mare Nostrum” operation), following a shipwreck South of Lampedusa, which caused 250 deaths (Triandafyllidou, 2018). The operation was transformed the following year into a European initiative, called “Triton”, but this ended up having a lower budget and a smaller extension (Triandafyllidou, 2018).
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were considered to be a threat to national security in terms of aiding and abetting “illegal immigration” (Camilli, 2019). Moreover, Article 2 established the seizure of the boats and high fines for whoever disrespected the ban (Camilli, 2019).
Because of this adverse political approach to the “crisis”, some SMOs clashed with the government in their operations. Some decided to run the blockade to reach the closest harbour in Italy, by appealing to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982), which states that shipmasters have the duty to provide assistance to people in distress at sea and to take them to the nearest “port of safety” and that governments should cooperate in order to provide such safe places for survivors (United Nations, 2019). These heated debates between SMOs and the Italian government received wide media attention, in particular the cases involving the boats “Aquarius” (belonging to SOS Méditerranée and Doctors without Borders) and “Sea Watch” (German NPO).
The present study
News media hold a central role within the discourse around the “European refugee crisis” because the way in which they narrate the events and actors related to this social phenomenon affects both the public opinion and the political agenda of the countries involved (Smets, & Bozdağ, 2018). By applying different frames, news media have the power to shape how this “crisis” is perceived by the public and the policymakers (Vreese, 2005), which have severe effects on the integration and hospitality practices in Europe.
However, within the public discourse, “meaning construction” is a complex process influenced by several factors, such as ideologically opposing news media, social events and independent organizations (Benford & Snow, 2000). As seen in the previous section, in the past years, SMOs have also become central actors within the discourse about the “European refugee crisis” in Italy and, as well as news media outlets, these organizations make strategic use of frames in order to underline the importance of the cause they are supporting, suggest potential solutions,
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indicate the responsible entities and mobilize individuals (Benford & Snow, 2000). Even if, nowadays SMOs possess numerous channels to directly interact with their public and supporters, media relation practices are still of great importance for them because mainstream news media embody the place “where the symbolic power to represent social reality is largely
concentrated” (Lee, 2016, p. 189). For this reason, SMOs still reach out to news media in order to get their preferred frames to the public and political debates (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2012).
Taking what has been discussed thus far as a starting point, the present study aims to shed light on the narratives used by both news media and SMOs to cover the themes related to the “European refugee crisis” in Italy. The leading purpose is to determinate whether such a crucial topic is framed consistently by these entities and whether there is an alignment between what SMOs communicate in their press releases and how news media decide to depict such events, initiatives or “issues”. Consequently, a qualitative and quantitative content analyses have been conducted in order to address the following overall research question:
How do news media outlets and SMOs frame the “European refugee crisis” in Italy?
By answering this question, the present research paper intends to add significant knowledge about the framing practice of this “crisis” in Italy and on the relation between news media and SMOs. We believe this research is going to fill a knowledge gap since the past literature focused on either direct forms of communication, such as social media (Auger, 2013), used by NPOs to reach their audience, or on SMOs media coverage (Amenta, Caren, Olasky, & Stobaugh, 2009; Andrews & Caren, 2010; Lee, 2016) overlooking the central role of mediated communication in building a favourable position in the public sphere (Smets & Bozdag, 2018). Moreover, despite several studies (Colombo, 2018; Greussing &
Boomgaarden, 2017; Holzberg, Kolbe, & Zaborowski, 2018; Hovden, Mjelde, & Gripsrud, 2018, Musarò & Parmiggiani, 2017; Triandafyllidou, 2018) analysed how the “European
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refugee crisis” has been narrated within different news media systems across Europe in
2015/2016, none of them aimed to compare the news media coverage with the communication practices implemented by SMOs.
The results of this study would enrich the existing literature and provide SMOs professionals with interesting insights to improve their communication with news media, underlying common and divergent approaches to such a delicate and relevant social topic. An alignment of frames across different information sources would benefit the cause, enhancing the public mobilization (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2012), which is central for those
organizations that need to rely on public funding and support.
Finally, since several scholars have shown that SMOs, like other private organizations, benefit from an increase in mainstream news media coverage in terms of audience reach, relevance of the events discussed and social legitimacy (Liebes & Blum-Kulka, 2004; Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2017) this study intends to provide an overview of the level and quality of media attention received in Italy by those organizations acting in support of the “refugee crisis”. Therefore, an additional research question will be addressed:
What are the amount and the tone of the media coverage received by SMOs in Italy?
Even if the process of influencing news media to obtain positive coverage of the
organization and its initiatives is complex and mostly unpredictable, communication practitioners may use the results of this study to reflect on their role in the Italian debate around the “refugee crisis” and their consequential position within the news media scenario.
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Theoretical background
Framing
As suggested by Entman (2003), “framing entails selecting and highlighting some facets of events or issues, and making connections among them so as to promote a particular interpretation, evaluation, and/or solution” (p. 417). Its relevance in communication practice is given by the fact that framing goes beyond the first surface of communication (the transmission of a message from a sender to a receiver). In fact, by introducing frames to a text, the sender also provides the receiver with an orientation towards a specific way of perceiving the message shared (Van Gorp, 2005). Therefore, framing is considered to be a “meta-communicative” narrative expedient (Van Gorp, 2005) that is used to influence how the receivers read the message by providing them with shared meanings and ready explanations for issues that may result complex per se (Vreese, 2005; Van Gorp, 2010). As a consequence, the way in which news media frame a particular issue, by
emphasising certain aspects more than others (Vreese 2005), influences the public opinion, in terms of attitudes and assessments; therefore, according to the “framing theory” (see Goffman, 1974) not only news media suggest the public which issues to think about, as the “agenda-setting theory” states (see McCombs & Shaw, 1972), but they also have the power to influence how people think about a certain topic (Terkildsen & Schnell, 1997).
When considering the power of framing in shaping public opinion, it gets clear why this communication expedient is so central for SMOs, which aim to influence the policy processes of the countries they operate in and the public opinion in favour of the cause they are supporting
(Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2012). To do so, they need to get their messages and frames covered by news media, which play the role of “intermediary actors” (Vliegenthart, Oegema, & Klandermans, 2005) between the SMOs and the political agenda since they are the main platform where cultural, political, legal and economic discussions take place (Andrews & Caren 2010). Moreover, it is important for SMOs to be able to align their frames with the ones produced by journalists and
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provide the public with consistent communication on the topic in order to mobilize collective action (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2012).
Since little is known about how nowadays the “refugee crisis” is framed within the Italian media discourse, in the initial phase of this study an inductive process of frame reconstruction has been conducted through a qualitative content analysis. This phase of the research followed the guidelines given by Van Gorp (2010) and will be further explained in the Methods Section. The resulting Frame Matrix can be found, together with the Codebook, in Appendix A.
The frames that were reconstructed include four central elements: definition of the “refugee crisis”, representation of refugees, themes discussed, and solutions suggested. The reconstruction process resulted in the following four frames:
Frame 1 | Humanitarian Frame: in this frame, the “European refugee crisis” is defined as a humanitarian “crisis” that needs to be addressed and the refugees are represented as victims in need of help. There is a focus on the negative aspects of the “crisis” from refugees’ perspective (e. g. shipwrecks, violence, wars etc.) and the solutions suggested focus on the prioritization of migrants’ security.
Frame 2 | Securitization Frame: the “crisis” is depicted as a problem for national stability, security and/or economy and refugees are presented as potential threats. The narrative focuses on the negative effects and potential threats of the “refugee crisis” from a European and national perspective. The solution suggested are related to the need of the EU to stop migrations, strengthen the national borders and make asylum regulations stricter.
Frame 3 | Political Frame: the “refugee crisis” is presented as a political matter and refugees are portrayed as subjects in the middle of the international and/or national political scene. Within this frame, an accent is posed on the political aspects of the “crisis” (e.g. diplomatic
tensions, political decisions, and so on). The main suggestions made are political and related to the idea that the European countries should cooperate to manage the “crisis”.
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Frame 4 | Legal Frame: in this frame the “crisis” is seen from a legal point of view, as a reason for legal discussion and controversy. Refugees are portrayed either as victims of legal injustice or as people breaking national and/or international regulations. The narrative focuses on legal regulations and/or lawsuits related to the “refugee crisis”. The texts suggest that the “crisis” should be solved either by applying or enhancing existing regulations or by creating new ones.
The “Refugee Crisis” in the News
Being such an extended social phenomenon, the “European refugee crisis” received wide international news media coverage. Therefore, several studies have been conducted in order to illustrate the news media narratives created in different European countries to portray the “crisis” during its peak in 2015 and 2016. Overall, according to the literature, the factors that need to be taken into account to understand the different narratives can be grouped in the following categories: representation of refugees, themes discussed in relation to the “refugee crisis”, and frames adopted.
Within the same national media system, including the Italian one, refugees were depicted either as potential threats to the national society and culture or as victims of the “crisis” (Greussing & Boomgaarden, 2017), depending on the frames adopted by the media outlet (Triandafyllidou, 2018). Moreover, Italian and German media generally did not provide background information (such as demographics and life stories) about the people reaching the European territory, ending up publishing “dehumanized representations” of refugees (Holzberg, Kolbe, & Zaborowski, 2018; Musarò & Parmiggiani, 2017). This narrative contrasts with the one created by Scandinavian news outlets that mostly “humanized” refugees by sharing information about their conditions,
demographics and feelings and by giving them room for “self-representation” (Hovden, Mjelde & Gripsrud, 2018).
The literature also analysed the themes discussed in relation to the “crisis”. The Italian media discourse in 2015 focused mostly on the research and rescue operations conducted by the Coast Guard on the Mediterranean Sea and on the political discussion about the actions that the
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European Union should have taken in order to assist the “countries of arrival” (Colombo, 2013). The critical situation on the Mediterranean Sea was also largely represented by German media (Holzberg, Kolbe & Zaborowski, 2018), while Scandinavia ones tended to focus more on the refugees crossing the national borders (Hovden, Mjelde & Gripsrud, 2018). Other themes discussed in relation to the European Union include migratory and border security regulations, which were largely addressed in Austria (Greussing & Boomgaarden, 2017).
Finally, scholars have detected some of the main frames constructed by national news media across Europe in order to narrate the “refugee crisis” in 2015/2016. These studies showed that the main frames that appeared to be used were the “Humanitarian Frame” and the “Securitization Frame” (Holzberg, Kolbe, and Zaborowski, 2018) also called “Moralizing Frame” and “Threat Frame” (Triandafyllidou, 2018). According to Colombo (2018) and Musarò and Parmiggiani (2017) both these frames, even if contrasting, were used within the Italian media system, with the
“Humanitarian” one resulting to be the most frequent. Based on the qualitative content analysis conducted (inductive phase), these two frames resulted to be still present nowadays within the national media discourse, together with the “Political” and “Legal” ones. Therefore, in order to further understand how the Italian press frames the “refugee crisis”, a quantitative content analysis has been conducted addressing the following sub-question:
RQ1a. How do news media frame the “European Refugee Crisis” in Italy?
Even if the newspapers in analysis and their selection process are going to be further discussed in the Methods Section, it is necessary to gain basic knowledge of the Italian media landscape in order to reach a clear understanding of this study and its empirical results.
Hallin and Mancini (2004) placed the Italian media system within the so-called
“Mediterranean” or “Polarized Pluralist Model”, together with France, Greece, Spain and Portugal. The media systems belonging to this category are characterized by low circulation of printed press, high political parallelism, strong state intervention and low levels of professionalization. As a
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consequence of all these factors, in Italy, even without direct ownership connections, news media tend to reflect political ideologies. One of the main reasons of this complexity is due to the fact that, in Italy, the most prominent channel of communication is still represented by television (Shehata & Strömbäck, 2011), which penalizes the circulation of online and printed news media. Due to this low circulation, the Italian press finds itself in severe financial difficulties and in need of external support, from private companies or national subsidies, which makes the press strongly influenced and/or even dependent by its funders. Because of these characteristics of the Italian media
landscape, an additional sub-question has been added in order to be able to detect how the different frames are applied by news media outlets reflecting opposing political ideologies:
RQ1b. To what extent do the frames used in the articles differ between the four news media
analysed?
SMOs – News Media Relation
The current section aims to provide an overview of the literature that explored the relationship between SMOs and News Media. According to McCarthy and Zald (1977), a social movement organization can be considered as any “complex, or formal, organization which
identifies its goals with the preferences of a social movement or a countermovement and attempts to implement those goals” (p.1218).
The relationship between SMOs and news media has been the focus of academic research because of its dynamic and symbiotic nature. Vliegenthart and Walgrave (2012) defined the relation between these two entities as based on “mutual dependency” while other scholars pointed out the asymmetry of this relation stating that SMOs generally depend more on news media than vice versa (Gamson & Wolfsfeld, 1993).
On one hand, SMOs deploy news media outlets in order to try to introduce their own
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In fact, even if nowadays some more direct forms of communication, such as social media, play a significant role as news sources for the public in the first and fast evolving stages of events, studies have shown how traditional news media are still considered to be the most reliable channels of information by the wider public (Sung & Hwang, 2014).
On the other hand, the press has become more and more dependent on SMOs’ public
relation materials as “information subsidies” (Davis, 2000; Ryan, Anastario, & Jeffreys, 2005). The reasons behind this increased dependency on PR sources are various: first, the decline in the
financial and professional resources available together with the increased publishing expectation and second the fact that SMOs, as well as other “non-official” sources, generally attract the public interest by providing newsworthy topics of discussion (Davis, 2000).
In this scenario, SMOs try to make a strategic use of PR communication practices by adjusting their frames to the ones used by news media but they also aim to remain true to their
raison d’être and goals by promoting their own interpretation (Gamson and Wolfsfeld, 1993).
Moreover, according to Rohlinger (2006), SMOs tend to adapt their communication strategies to the political context they find themselves in. They remain quiet in order to trigger discussion when the political context is favourable, while they seek media collaboration when the leading political force is opposing their causes (Rohlinger, 2006). Based on both contextual and structural factors, SMOs communication may vary (Rohlinger, 2002; Sobieraj, 2010), which leads to the following sub-questions:
RQ2a. How do SMOs frame the “European Refugee Crisis” in Italy?
RQ2b To what extent do the frames used in the press releases differ between the four SMOs
analysed?
Even with SMOs making wise and strategic use of PR communication strategies, the power of selecting which frames will be applied to a story is still in journalists’ hands and SMOs cannot be sure that their interpretations will be picked up by the press since many factors influencing this
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decision are out of their control (Terkildsen, Schnell, & Ling, 1998). It has been shown that, most of the times, at the beginning of a debate news media rely on organizations’ frames to provide the public with the first interpretation of the occurrences, while, once the situation matures, they start being more proactive and independent (Terkildsen, Schnell, & Ling, 1998). In addition to this, when framing, news media prefer to rely on more legitimate sources of information (if available), such as political institutions, rather than SMOs (Lee, 2016; Rohlinger, 2002).
As discussed in the Introduction of this study, during Salvini’s mandate, SMOs found themselves to significantly clash with the political authorities governing the country, which tried to capitalize the narratives about the “European refugee crisis” in order to create public concern and seek consensus. For this reason, it is interesting to explore not only how SMOs decided to contrast the institutional communication but also to make a comparison with news media’s frames in order to detect their level of alignment and/or misalignment. Therefore, the following sub-question has been addressed:
RQ3 To what extent do the frames used by SMOs differ from the ones used by the news
media?
News Media Coverage of SMOs
Even when the frames used by SMOs in their press releases are not aligned with the ones proposed by the press, the simple fact of receiving media attention allows SMOs to express their views and ideas in the mainstream media and also to trigger political initiatives (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2012). The agenda-setting theory (see McCombs & Shaw, 1972) helps explain why SMOs depends on news media attention since it demonstrates that those issues and actors that receive bigger media attention are likely to become more salient within the public agenda
(Wonneberger, & Jacobs, 2017). According to Gamson and Wolfsfeld (1993), SMOs can benefit from media coverage in three distinct ways. First, it can foster public participation and support for
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the SMO’s cause (mobilizing). Second, media coverage can play a key role by legitimizing the organizations and their claims within the political agenda (validation). Finally, it attracts other actors’ attention on a given issue or event, turning them into potential supporters (scope
enlargement). Therefore, the relation between media and SMOs is even more unbalanced in favour
of the news media that act like “gatekeepers” with the power to decide on what to draw public attention and, consequently, to influence the public and political agenda (Andrews & Caren, 2010).
Anyway, it is important to note that media attention does not necessarily result in favourable coverage. Even when an organization may meet news media criteria of
newsworthiness it could still be represented in a negative way (Terkildsen, Schnell, & Ling, 1998). According to Deephouse (2000), favourable media coverage can positively affect an organization’s reputation and relations with stakeholders, which are both central outcomes for SMOs since they do not have the institutional power that would guarantee them legitimacy (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2012). For this reason, besides analysing the amount of media attention received by SMOs we considered also the overall tone of the coverage received by addressing the following research questions:
RQ4a. Is there a difference in the amount of media coverage received by each of the SMOs? RQ4b. Is there a difference in the tone of media coverage received by each of the SMOs?
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Methods section
In order to address the research questions discussed above, a qualitative content analysis was firstly carried out followed by a quantitative one.
Sampling procedure - Independent Variables
As previously introduced, this study focuses on the communication practices carried out by news media and SMOs to portray the “European Refugee Crisis” in Italy. In regard to SMOs, we collected press releases from four of the most relevant and involved organizations in the rescue and integration operations in Italy: Doctors without Borders, Save the Children, The United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and SOS Méditerranée. The definition of Social
Movement Organization, as expressed by McCarthy and Zald (1977), allowed us to consider both governmental and non-governmental organizations so to have a wider coverage of the entities operating. Moreover, these SMOs differ for their main field of action. Doctors without Borders is a medical governmental and profit organization (NPO), while Save the Children is a non-governmental NPO focused on supporting young people. The UNHCR and SOS Méditerranée both focus on refugee, but while the first is a global governmental organization, the second is a non-governmental NPO specialized in search and rescue operations on the Mediterranean Sea.
For the analysis of the journalistic narrative, instead, we selected four different Italian newspapers considering their divergent ideological backgrounds, in order to have a balanced coverage of the Italian news media landscape, and their national circulation: la Repubblica (Centre-Left), Corriere della Sera (Centre-Right), il Giornale (Right) and il manifesto (Left).
The press releases have been extracted manually through the consultation of the press areas of the cited SMOs, while the news media contents have been collected manually from the digital archive of the newspapers. After a preliminary research that was conducted within the qualitative part of this study, two keywords have been identified and consequently used to filter the media contents relevant to our analysis: “migranti” (migrants) and “Mediterraneo” (Mediterranean Sea).
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These two keywords were chosen to keep the media contents as general as possible while focusing on the topic of interest.
An additional criterion used concerns the publishing time frame. Since we wanted to analyse the narrative in a period of political stability in Italy, we decided to use as temporal extremes the beginning and the end of the Salvini’s mandate as Italian Deputy Prime Minister (1 June 2018 – 5 September 2019). This period resulted to be extremely rich of media contents about the “refugee crisis” because of the anti-immigration positions of the leader of “Lega Nord”, which led to several conflictual episodes between the Italian government and some SMOs.
Since the criteria applied resulted in a large amount of news media articles, a systematic sampling procedure was used in order to obtain a smaller sample representative of the whole time period and balanced with the number of press releases available. Following this procedure, we ended up coding 136 press releases and 164 news articles (N = 300).
Frames - Dependent Variables
Firstly, since relatively little is known about how the “refugee crisis” is narrated in the modern days by news media and how SMOs practice PR on this topic, an inductive method of data analysis has been applied in order to reconstruct the frames (dependent variables) and their
respective categories necessary to create the codebook. The qualitative content analysis was particularly suitable because it allowed exploring a large quantity of textual data on what has been produced and to analyse them in a comparative way. Moreover, its inherent flexibility has
provided interesting analytical tools and causes for reflections over SMOs and news media’s communication.
Thus, in the initial phase, we conducted a qualitative content analysis on a random sample of 24 texts by open coding them using the CAQDAS software Atlas.ti, which resulted in more than 1000 codes. Afterwards, the guidelines provided by Van Gorp (2010) for frame reconstruction were followed. This author considers frames as “media packages”, products of media routines, and states
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that, in the texts, there are several manifest elements that function as indicators of these “packages”, the so-called “framing devices” (Van Gorp, 2010). Examples of these devices are themes, actors, actions and settings, linguistic choices and causal connections. In our research, the codes resulted from the qualitative content analysis, which represented the “framing devices”, were clustered and used to fill in the Frame Matrix (Van Gorp, 2010) containing the four frames introduced in the previous section of this study and their four respective dimensions (see Appendix A1). A validity check of these categories was conducted based on the findings of the literature about the
representation of the “refugee crisis” in the news discussed in the Theoretical Background and an alignment with the theory was detected.
Following, the Frame Matrix was employed to construct the Codebook used in the deductive phase of the research, the quantitative content analysis (see Appendix A2). For each frame, four questions were included in the Codebook, reflecting the four dimensions, in order to be able to determinate the strength of the presence of the frames used. This resulted in a total of 16 categorical variables (dichotomous yes/no, 1/0), standing for the four distinct frames.
Media Coverage – Dependent Variables
The second part of the codebook (11 questions) was included in order to assess the amount and tone of news media coverage received by the SMOs and consequently was used only to analyse news media articles. For each SMO taken into account by this study and the general category of “SMO”4, it was asked if they were mentioned within the article and whether the narrative was positive, neutral or negative towards them. More details can be found in the Codebook, in Appendix A2.
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It needs to be noted that, within this category, also SMOs not present in the current study were coded for media coverage. Please see the Codebook in Appendix A2.
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Quantitative Coding Procedure
The coding procedure was conducted by one coder, the researcher herself, in a time period of three weeks (from 3rd December to 24th December 2019). Once the Codebook had been created based on the outcomes of the qualitative content analysis a first phase of pre-test was conducted in order to determinate whether the frames reconstructed and their relative questions were suitable and to adjust the coding instructions.
In order to determinate the intra-coder reliability, 10% of the total sample (30 texts) was re-coded at the end of the whole process. For the part of the analysis related to the “frames”, the Krippendorff’s α was assessed on 16 variables and ranged from 0.65 to 1. The section related to the media coverage, instead, was assessed on 10 variables and the Krippendorff’s α ranged from 0.9 to 1. Overall, most of the intra-coder reliability scores were above the threshold of 0.8, which means that are considered to be sufficiently reliable. Only two variables scored between 0.7 and 0.8 and two between 0.65 and 0.7 while none has intra-coder reliability under the minimum acceptable value of 0.6. The complete lists of Krippendorff’s α values can be found in Appendix B.
Results
In the following section the seven sub-questions previously discussed have been addressed by applying a series of statistical tests.
Framing Analysis
RQ1a. How do news media frame the “European Refugee Crisis” in Italy?
In order to answer this first exploratory sub-question about the use of frames by news media, a descriptive statistic test has been applied so to determinate the mean and standard deviation of each frame. It has been decided to compute as a new variable the mean of the four categorical variables standing for each frame in order to have the measure of the strength of each frame’s
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presence, ranging from 0 to 1. As it can be seen by the scores displayed in Table 1, the most prominent frame used by news media to narrate the “European refugee crisis” was the “Political Frame”, (M = 0.53, SD = 0.29), followed by the “Humanitarian Frame” (M = 0.42, SD = 0.33). Finally, the least used frame appears to be the “Securitization Frame” (M = 0.25, SD = 0.32).
Table 1. Descriptive statistics of the frames used by news media.
M SD Humanitarian Frame 0.42 0.33 Securitization Frame 0.25 0.32 Political Frame 0.53 0.29 Legal Frame 0.38 0.36 Note. N = 164
RQ1b. To what extent do the frames used in the articles differ between the four news media
analysed?
To be able to answer this research question, four separate One-Way Analyses of Variance (ANOVA) were carried out, one for each frame. These statistical analyses were used in order to assess whether there were any differences between the four newspapers in their use of frames.
For the “Humanitarian Frame”, the analysis of variance revealed a moderate significant effect of the type of news media outlet on frame use, F (3, 160) = 13.30, p < .001, η2 = 0.20. Post hoc comparisons (Bonferroni) indicated that the mean score of la Repubblica (M = 0.59, SD = 0.34) was significantly different from the one of il Giornale (M = 0.20, SD = 0.21; Mdifference = 0.40, p < .001) and from the one of Corriere della Sera (M = 0.40, SD = 0.34; Mdifference = 0.20, p = .023), but it was found not to statistically differ from the mean score of il manifesto (M = 0.51, SD = 0.29;
Mdifference = 0.09, p = 1.000). Moreover, Bonferroni post hoc test demonstrated that the mean score of il Giornale was statistically different from the one of Corriere della Sera (Mdifference = - 0.20, p =
20
.017) and il manifesto (Mdifference= - 0.31, p < .001). Anyway, no significant difference was found between the mean scores of Corriere della Sera and il manifesto (Mdifference = - 0.11, p = .602).
Regarding the “Securitization Frame”, a strong effect of newspaper type on the frame used was detected by the analysis of variance, F (3, 160) = 18.30, p < .001, η2 = 0.26. Bonferroni post hoc comparisons test revealed a significant mean difference between la Repubblica (M = 0.10, SD = 0.18) and il Giornale (M = 0.51, SD = 0.35; Mdifference = - 0.41, p < .001) and also Corriere della
Sera (M = 0.27, SD = 0.31, Mdifference = - 0.18, p = .026). On the other hand, the mean difference between la Repubblica and il manifesto (M = 0.13, SD = 0.24) was not significant (Mdifference = - 0.04, p = 1.000). Moreover, the Bonferroni test indicated that the mean score of the “Securitization Frame” in il Giornale significantly differed from the one in Corriere della Sera (Mdifference = 0.23, p = .001) and from the mean score in il manifesto (Mdifference = 0.37, p < .001). Anyhow, there is no statistically significant difference between the media scores of Corriere della Sera and il manifesto (Mdifference = 0.14, p = .139).
Finally, the analyses of variance showed that there was no significant effect of type of newspaper on use of the “Political Frame”, F (3, 160) = 0.76, p = .517, η2 = 0.01, and “Legal Frame”, F (3, 160) = 0.19, p = .902, η2
= 0.04. Consequently, no result was found to be significant by the post hoc Bonferroni test.
The descriptive statistics and the results of the Bonferroni test for each frame can be found in Appendix C. Moreover, the analyses discussed above is visualized in Figure 1 below, which shows the use of each frame by the four newspapers expressed in values ranging from 0 to 1.
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Figure 1. Frame use by newspaper.
Note. N = 164
RQ2a. How do SMOs frame the “European Refugee Crisis” in Italy?
To address the present research question a descriptive statistic test has been applied. As it can be seen from Table 2 below, the most prominent frame used by SMOs was the “Humanitarian Frame”, (M = 0.72, SD = 0.20), followed by the “Political Frame” (M = 0.44, SD = 0.30). The least used frame by SMOs was by far the “Securitization Frame” (M = 0.02, SD = 0.09), which was barely present.
Table 2. Descriptive statistics of the frames used by SMOs.
M SD Humanitarian Frame 0.72 0.20 Securitization Frame 0.02 0.09 Political Frame 0.44 0.30 Legal Frame 0.38 0.33 Note. N = 136 0,59 0,1 0,49 0,34 0,2 0,51 0,54 0,4 0,4 0,27 0,5 0,38 0,51 0,13 0,58 0,39 0 0,1 0,2 0,3 0,4 0,5 0,6 0,7 0,8 0,9 1
Humanitarian Frame Securitization Frame Political Frame Legal Frame la Repubblica il Giornale Corriere della Sera il manifesto
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RQ2b To what extent do the frames used in the press releases differ between the four SMOs
analysed?
Four distinct One-Way Analyses of Variance (ANOVA) were conducted in order to assess the effect of SMOs on the frames applied. Anyway, for all the frames, no significant result was found: “Humanitarian Frame”, F (3, 132) = 0.30, p = .824, η2 = 0.01; “Securitization Frame”, F (3, 132) = 1.38, p = .252, η2 = 0.03; “Political Frame”, F (3, 132) = 2.38, p = .073, η2 = 0.05; “Legal Frame”, F (3, 132) = 0.28, p = .838, η2
= 0.01. The results of the One-Way ANOVA tests showed that there is no statistically significant difference between the mean scores of each frame across the different SMOs. Therefore, it is not possible to conclude any significant difference in frame use by the four SMOs. This is shown in Figure 2 below. Tables displaying the descriptive statistics and the results of the Bonferroni post-hoc test for each frame can be found in Appendix C.
Figure 2. Frame use by SMO.
Note. N = 136 0,73 0,51 0,41 0,72 0,01 0,41 0,42 0,71 0,03 0,39 0,36 0,76 0,57 0,35 0 0,1 0,2 0,3 0,4 0,5 0,6 0,7 0,8 0,9 1
Humanitarian Frame Securitization Frame Political Frame Legal Frame Doctors without Borders Save the Children UNHCR SOS Méditerranée
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RQ3 To what extent do the frames used by SMOs differ from the ones used by the news media? In order to address this research question, one separated independent samples t-test was carried out for each frame, resulting in four distinct tests. For all the frames, the tests were conducted in order to examine whether and to what extent SMOs and newspaper differed in their use of the four frames.
For the “Humanitarian Frame”, the independent samples t-test revealed that SMOs (M = 0.72, SD = 0.20) made use of this frame significantly more than newspapers (M = 0.42, SD = 0.33),
t (275.37) = 9.59, p < .001, 95%CI [0.24;0.36], Cohen’s d = 1.15.
Results showed that the “Securitization Frame” was used by SMOs (M = 0.02, SD = 0.09) significantly less than by news media (M = 0.25, SD = 0.32), t (191.43) = -8.98, p < .001, 95%CI [-0.28; -0.18], Cohen’s d = 1.30.
For the “Political Frame”, the test revealed that SMOs (M = 0.44, SD = 0.30) made use of this frame significantly less than newspapers (M = 0.53, SD = 0.29), t (298) = -2.72, p = .007, 95%CI [-0.16; -0.026], Cohen’s d = 0.31.
Lastly, for the “Legal Frame”, the independent samples t-test did not detect a statistically significant difference between how much SMOs (M = 0.38, SD = 0.33) and news media (M = 0.38,
SD = 0.36) used this frame, t (298) = 0.01, p = .994, 95%CI [-0.08; 0.08]. The results of these
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Figure 3. Frame use by source type.
Note. * p < .05; N = 300
Media Coverage
RQ4a. Is there a difference in the amount of media coverage received by each of the SMOs? In order to answer this question, a Chi-square analysis has been performed. The analysis showed a significant association between the different SMOs and the amount of media coverage received, χ2 (4) = 233,70, p < .001. This is a strong effect, Cramer’s V = .53. The media coverage received is much higher when considering the general category “SMOs” (51,8%) compared to the specific SMOs in analysis. Moreover, the media coverage is higher when considering Doctors
without Borders (9,1%) and SOS Méditerranée (7.9%), compared to UNHCR (4,3%) and Save the Children (0,0%), which was never mentioned. The percentages are shown in Table 3 below.
0 0,1 0,2 0,3 0,4 0,5 0,6 0,7 0,8 0,9 1
Humanitarian Frame* Securitization Frame* Political Frame* Legal Frame SMOs Newspapers
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Table 3. Amount of Media Coverage received by the different SMOs.
“SMOs” DwB* StC** UNHCR SOS M***
Yes 51.8% 9.1% 0% 4.3% 7.9%
No 48.2% 90.9% 100% 95.7% 92.1%
Note 1. *Doctors without Borders, ** Save the Children, *** SOS Méditerranée; N = 164. Note 2. Some percentages reflect counts lower than 20.
RQ4b. Is there a difference in the tone of media coverage received by each of the SMOs?
In this part of the research, the unit of analysis considered was the number of times SMOs were mentioned within the articles explored (N = 120). Therefore, Save the Children was not included in this analysis because it did not result in receiving any form of media coverage.
A second Chi-square analysis detected a significant difference between the distinct SMOs and the tone of media coverage they received, χ2 (6) = 13,91, p = .031. Anyway, this is a weak effect, Cramer’s V = .24. The general “SMOs” category showed a quite balanced coverage, since it received 40% neutral and about 30% positive and negative media attention. In general, the tone of the media coverage received by this category differed from the one of the individual SMOs in analysis, which, instead, were quite similar, mostly positive and hardly ever negative. In fact,
Doctors without Borders, SOS Méditerranée, and UNHCR received wide positive media attention (60%, 57.1% and 61.5% respectively) and a moderate amount of neutral coverage. Finally, while
none of the media coverage of UNHCR and SOS Méditerranée had a negative tone, 6.7% of
Doctors without Borders’ media coverage resulted to be negative.
Besides the differences, the overall media coverage received by SMOs was mostly positive (39.2%) and neutral (39.2%). All the results of this analysis can be found in Table 4 below.
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Table 4. Tone of the Media Coverage received by the different SMOs
Not e 1. *Doctors without Borders, *** SOS Méditerran ée Not e 2. Some percentage s reflect counts lower than 20.
Conclusions and Discussion
In the final section of this study, a summary of the results will be presented together with the related conclusions. The previously mentioned research questions will be addressed and answered. Moreover, we will explore which implications the outcomes of this study may have for
communication practice. Finally, the limitations of this work and some recommendation for future research will be discussed.
Conclusions
Through our frame reconstruction and consequent analysis, we assessed how both news media and SMOs narrated the themes related to the “European refugee crisis” in Italy.
Previous studies (Colombo, 2018; Musarò & Parmiggiani, 2017) have shown that, when discussing themes related to the “refugee crisis” at its peak in 2015, news media made use of both the “Humanitarian” and the “Securitization” frames, with the first being more prominent than the second. The outcomes of our study are in line with the conclusions drawn by these authors, but they also reveal the use and relevance of the “Political” and “Legal” frames within the Italian media discourse. In fact, our analysis revealed that news media preferred frame was the “Political” one,
“SMOs” DwB* UNHCR SOS M*** Total
Positive 30.6% 60% 57,1% 61,5% 39.2%
Neutral 40% 33.3% 42,9% 38,5% 39.2%
Negative 29.4% 6.7% 0% 0% 21.7%
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followed by the “Humanitarian” and the “Legal” frames that were also moderately applied, while the “Securitization Frame” was only present in a minority of articles.
SMOs, instead, showed to prefer the “Humanitarian Frame”, which was largely employed within the press releases analysed. Moreover, these organizations also made a moderate use of the “Political” and “Legal” frames, while the “Securitization Frame” was barely detected within their communication. Since, to the author knowledge, this study is the first to explore the framing of the “European refugee crisis” within the SMOs’ press releases, our results in this field do not find a theoretical collocation but could serve as new insights that may trigger future research on such a relevant topic.
When considering these outcomes together, the first thing that stands out is that these
entities differed in the preferred frame used. An explanation of this dissimilarity can be provided by considering the organizations’ motives and the nature of the frames analysed. In fact, while news media articles have their raison d'être in providing reliable and relevant information to their public while catching its attention, SMOs’ press releases intend to enhance awareness on a specific cause in order to gain public support. It may be discussed that the “Political Frame” is the one serving better the “cause” of journalists, being the most factual and consequently “newsworthy” one among the frames analysed. In fact, by applying this frame to the articles covering the “refugee crisis”, journalists can include relevant “news factors”, such as controversy and eliteness (Boukes & Vliegenthart, 2017), so to attract public’s interest. On the other hand, it does not come as a surprise that SMOs widely applied the “Humanitarian Frame”, the one portraying the “crisis” as a
humanitarian “emergency” and the refugees as victims in need of help. In fact, this is a
“motivational frame” that allows these organizations to interpret the events in such a way to trigger public empathy and collective action towards the “issue” (Benford & Snow, 2000).
After providing an overview of the use of frames, we focused on the two entities analysed separately in order to detect potential differences across the distinct news media outlets and SMOs. With regards to the media discourse, the results of our study demonstrated that the “Humanitarian”
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and “Securitization” frames, which are opposing in the way in which the “refugee crisis” is approached and interpreted, were employed differently by the four newspapers. In general, these differences reflect how, in Italy, political ideologies stand behind the interpretations given to events by news media revealing the “political parallelism” theorised by Hallin and Mancini (2004). In fact, the two left-oriented newspapers, la Repubblica and il manifesto, resulted to apply the
“Humanitarian Frame” in a more prominent way compared to the right-wing newspaper, il
Giornale. In the same way, a clear distinction between il Giornale and the other news outlets was
detected in the use of the “Securitization Frame”. This newspaper was the only one to make large use of the “Securitization Frame” showing an alignment with the anti-immigration positions of the right-wing Italian parties. Anyways, the outcomes also revealed an alignment between il manifesto (left) and il Corriere (centre-right) in the use of both the “Humanitarian” and the “Securitization Frame”, which may demonstrate that, nowadays, in Italy, the political ideology is not the only factor to influence news media framing practices; timing and available information sources are just two of the many factors that additionally have effects on this process (Lee, 2016; Rohlinger, 2002; Terkildsen, Schnell, & Ling, 1998) but that were not further explored by the present study. Finally, the “political parallelism” of the Italian media landscape did not result to play a role in the use of the “Political” and “Legal” frames, which were similarly applied by all the newspapers. With regards to the “Political Frame”, it must be noticed that, even if all newspapers covered political themes and potential diplomatic solutions to the “crisis”, differences in tone and political alignment have been detected within the qualitative content analysis but, due to structural limitations of this study, it has not been possible to further explore them within the deductive phase.
Across the four different SMOs analysed, instead, no significant difference was found in the use of frames. Thus, we can conclude that there is consistency in how these organizations interpret and narrate the “refugee crisis” to news media and consequently to the larger public. Moving away from the study of Rohlinger (2002), that stated that based on several factors, both internal and external to the organization, SMOs communication may vary, we see how all the SMOs studied
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have made use of the four frames to similar extents, preferring the “Humanitarian Frame” but also moderately applying the “Political” and “Legal” ones. Even though this alignment across the four SMOs goes against our expectations, it can be explained by the fact that the SMOs analysed, besides having different fields of focus, supported the same cause and shared the same goals, which are both factors known to drive the framing processes of these organizations (Gamson and
Wolfsfeld, 1993).
The last part of our research focusing on the framing of the “European refugee crisis” intended to detect the differences in use between SMOs and newspapers. Our study showed that these two entities made use of the same frames but to different extents. The only frame that resulted to be applied with the same intensity by both SMOs and news media was the “Legal” one; for all the others, moderate differences have been detected. While the results revealed that SMOs applied the “Humanitarian Frame” much more than newspapers, they demonstrated the opposite outcome for the “Political Frame” and the “Securitization” one. Anyway, it is interesting to notice how both entities prioritized the same frames: the “Humanitarian” and the “Political”. This finding leads to two relevant takeaways of this study. First, SMOs appear to have succeeded in having their preferred frame, the “Humanitarian” one, integrated within the Italian media discourse, since it appeared to be fairly employed by newspapers. Second, the fact that the SMOs applied both the “Political” and “Legal” frames, showing that these organizations do strategically tailor their
messages to fit media criteria (Gamson and Wolfsfeld, 1993) and aim to create “newsworthy” press releases to attract news media attention (Schafraad, van Zoonen & Verhoeven, 2016), which
increases the chances of both their contents and the related frames to be picked up by journalists. The second part of this study focused on the amount of media coverage received by the SMOs and explored exclusively the news media articles. The findings showed that more than half of the articles analysed mentioned the SMOs and their initiatives. Moreover, the results
demonstrated that Doctor without Borders and SOS Méditerranée appeared in the news largely more than UNHCR and Save the Children, which was never mentioned within any news articles in
30
analysis. This is due to the fact that, as discussed in the Introduction, Doctors without Borders and
SOS Méditerranée, because of their rescue operations with the boat “Aquarius”, were actively
involved in several heated debates with the political authorities. As proved by our findings, these episodes turned out to be actual “discursive opportunities” (Koopmans & Olzak, 2004) for these two organizations for the resonance they obtained within the Italian media and public discourse. Therefore, going against Andrews and Caren (2010), this study demonstrates that the actions taken by SMOs in particular circumstances influence the media coverage obtained by the organizations more than their reputation or visibility.
Besides analysing the amount of media coverage received by SMOs, this study aimed to explore also the tone of this coverage. This additional analysis revealed that, overall, SMOs received mostly positive and neutral media attention. The negative media coverage resulted to be higher, but still not relevant, when considering the “SMOs” general category compared to the ones of the three SMOs in analysis, which almost did not receive any.
Taken together the findings on the framing strategies and the ones on media coverage allow us to enhance our understanding of the relationship between news media and SMOs within the “European refugee crisis” arena. In fact, by showing how news media integrated the “Humanitarian Frame” within their narratives and how SMOs received a good amount of positive media attention in Italy, this study demonstrated that, overall, these organization have a positive level of “resonance in the mainstream” (Rohlinger, 2002), which is even more impressive considering the hostile political context in which they found themselves to operate. Therefore, this study supports the viewpoint of Davis (2000), that stated that also “non-official” sources, such as SMOs, can succeed, through a wise and strategic use of PR practices, to supply “information subsidies” to news media and to consequently influence the public and political agendas in favour of their cause.
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Practical Implications
Besides the theoretical contribution discussed in the previous section, the findings of this study have several implications that may result insightful for communication practitioners.
The first is related to the use of the “Political Frame” by news media. The results have shown how this frame is the most prominent one within the Italian media landscape in relation to the “European refugee crisis”. Based on this insight, we believe that PR practitioners serving the cause of SMOs should incorporate more this frame in the press releases in order to enhance the probability of the SMOs’ interpretation to be picked up by news media. In fact, by providing journalists with more contents having their preferred frame SMOs would enhance their position as “information subsidies”, gaining more power to contrast the “official” and legitimate sources of information (Davis, 2000).
Furthermore, the differences in frames use by news media demonstrated in this study should enlighten PR practitioners of the fact that such social and political phenomenon as the “European refugee crisis” tend to receive polarized media coverage, reflecting the ideologies behind the different news media. This must be taken into account when implementing PR to shed light on the organization itself and its initiatives: not all news media are likely to perceive and transmit the message in the same way.
Finally, an interesting insight came out from the analysis of SMOs’ media coverage. Even though the UNHCR, has been, among the organizations in analysis, the most active in terms of press releases published about the “refugee crisis” (75 between 1st
June 2018 and 5th September 2019), it received less media coverage than Doctors without Borders and SOS Méditerranée. This shows how SMOs should try to take advantage of those events, such as the clashes with the government over the rescue operations, that are real “discursive opportunities” (Koopmans & Olzak, 2004). Doing so requires active and physical participation of the organization rather than a constant, but passive, communication.
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The above-discussed outcomes need to be considered in light of the limitations of this study. First, this research only took into account well known and structured SMOs acting in Italy. Since not all the Italian SMOs involved within the “European refugee crisis” have the same structural characteristics, reputation and visibility of the four organizations analysed, our sample may represent a limitation for the generalizability of this study’s results and may have influenced the outcomes of RQ2b (“To what extent do the frames used in the press releases differ between the four SMOs analysed?”), which did not show any difference in frame use.
Second, a more extensive qualitative research would have probably allowed reconstructing a larger number of media frames able to detect the tone of the narratives used by both news media and SMOs. In fact, both the “Political” and the “Legal” frames resulted to be similarly present across the four newspapers, but these are not able to detect the tone of the media contents, being it positive or negative towards the immigration movements, the political authorities and so on. This may be used as a central insight for future research.
Finally, it must be noticed that one coder has conducted the quantitative content analysis, which may have implications on the reliability of the results. Anyway, as previously discussed, the intra-coder reliability has been assessed and it resulted to be acceptable.
Future research
Since our analysis has proven the presence and use of four distinct frames to narrate the “European refugee crisis”, future studies may use them to conduct further empirical research on this important social topic. For example, future research may consider enlarging the time frame in analysis to be able to detect potential changes over time. This would be interesting in order to understand how the SMOs and news media’s framing practices relate to each other in occurrence of particular events.
Moreover, as previously discussed, future research may try to enlarge the number of frames detected by including the tone and sarcasm into the equation, which would provide additional
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interesting insights on the “political parallelism” of the newspapers in Italy (Hallin & Mancini, 2004).
With regards to SMOs framing, this study did not detect any significant difference in how these organizations employ the four frames. Future studies should try to structure their sample by considering more structural features of these organizations, such as their economic and human resources, membership and reputation. These would allow researchers to detect differences and be able to make assumptions on those factors influencing the framing and the media coverage of SMOs.
Finally, since this analysis is movement-centred, it may be very insightful to also understand to what extent the SMOs and their frames are covered in news media compared to other actors involved in the same “issue arena” (Luoma-aho & Vos, 2010), such as political parties and governmental institutions.
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