Our War?
The Domestication of the News Coverage of the Ukraine Crisis Laura Myllymäki
Student ID: 10832815 Master’s Thesis
Graduate School of Communication
Erasmus Mundus Journalism, Media and Globalization Degree University of Amsterdam
Knut De Swert 23.6.2015
Abstract
This master’s thesis looked into the media coverage of the first year of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine in four different European countries. By the means of quantitative and comparative content analysis, the research project seeks to answer how the crisis is domesticated in the media. Domestication stands for the techniques through which the crisis is made approachable and understandable for the national readership. The study also addresses the question of the prevalence of national perspectives in the coverage of the crisis. The research question of the project asks whether there is a difference in the level and the way of domestication of the coverage of the Ukraine crisis in Finland, Sweden, the UK and Ireland. The results show that there are differences in the domestication techniques among the countries. The countries that are close to Russia also use slightly more national perspectives in their reporting. However, there are overarching factors in the coverage, too, as the countries included in the study share a common journalistic technique of reporting the crisis.
Introduction
The ongoing crisis in Ukraine can be dated back to November 2013, when the government in Kiev abandoned a trade deal with the EU (BBC, 2013). The decision was followed by a series of demonstrations that escalated into violent clashes. In the follow-up of these horrifying events, the world has witnessed the annexation of Crimea by Russia, a state of war in the eastern Ukraine, the downing of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 and a trade war between the West and Russia. The crisis in Ukraine makes an excellent case to study the domestication of news, and this master’s thesis is an attempt to scrutinize the topic. The concept of
domestication refers to the ways the foreign event is linked to the home country in order to provoke audience interest. The study focuses on the first year of the media coverage of the crisis, and it makes use of cross-national comparison. The research focuses on the level and type of domestication in four different European countries: Finland, Sweden, the UK and Ireland. The advantage of such a comparative research design lies in the fact that macro-level values can be better detected with the approach (Kwon & Moon, 2009). The societal
relevance of the study draws on the idea that the way certain events are portrayed in the media has an influence on policy-makers and the way public opinion is formed which in turn has an influence on the political agenda (Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006; Page & Shapiro, 1983; Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007). In other words, the way the Ukraine crisis is domesticated in the media shapes the citizens’ view about the conflict and its stakeholders. The scientific relevance of this study ascends from the fact that by comparing domestication techniques between different countries, we can seek to establish an understanding about what kind of national narratives or national prisms (Lee, Chan, Pan, & So, 2005) are at stake in different contexts. On a more general level, the paper adds to the scientific knowledge on
domestication, which has been studied previously by several scholars (see e.g. Nossek, 2004; Clausen, 2004; Alasuutari, Qadir, & Creutz, 2013; Lee, Chan, & Zhou, 2011; Olausson,
2014), but only rarely using a useful international comparative approach (but see Lee et al., 2005; Cohen, 2013).
Theoretical framework and research questions
The concept of domestication was introduced by Gurevitch, Levy and Roeh (1991) in a study on news exchange systems and the practice of sharing coverage across nation-state borders. Key to their line of argument is the idea of the globalization of news. In this context, the domestication of news is “a countervailing force to the pull of globalization” (Gurevitch et al., 1991, p. 207). In a domesticated piece of coverage, the foreign events and phenomena are constructed in a manner that renders them into “comprehensible, appealing, and ‘relevant’ to domestic audiences” (Gurevitch et al., 1991, p. 206). In addition, this kind of coverage seeks to reflect the “dominant ideology” of the culture in question (Gurevitch et al., 1991, p. 206). According to Lee, Chan, Pan and So (2005), the process of turning a global phenomenon into domestic news involves selection “through the lens of professional norms, national interest, cultural repertoire and market dynamics” (p. 321). Journalists use national narratives to contextualize the present with a view of the past and future that is influenced by ideology and the need to attract and keep the mass audience interested (Lee et al., 2005). Moreover, the differences in the coverage are to be found between nations, not within them (Lee et al., 2005, p. 321). However, domestication is not only a typical practice of journalists. Politicians can also make use of foreign news events that can be associated with domestic politics (Alasuutari et al., 2013). Here, the logic is to seek to benefit from a news event for the sake of policy-makers’ own benefit (Alasuutari et al., 2013). In such a context, the news event becomes capitalized on by national politics (Alasuutari et al., 2013). In relation to the crisis in Ukraine, there are many political stakeholders involved, as the crisis has evolved around actors from the US, EU and supranational organizations, such as NATO. Building on this, it is interesting
to investigate what kind of pronunciations will emerge from the coverage and what actors are given the space to raise their voice.
As stated earlier, the concept of domestication is evidently connected to the concept of globalization, as the two terms represent opposite strategies for making sense of complex news events (see Gurevitch et al., 1991). In journalism, globalization has marked a frame for a new world order that replaced the so called Cold War frame that persisted until 1989 (Kim & Weaver, 2003). In a broader sense, globalization has been discussed mainly in relation to the economic globalization (Beck, 2006). For Beck, another dimension to
globalization can be found in cosmopolitanization, which refers to the “transnational forms of life” (Beck, 2006, p. 9). The cosmopolitan outlook, for Beck, does not mean replacement of nationalism, but rather that “in a world of global crises and dangers produced by civilization, the old differentiations between internal and external, national and international, us and them, lose their validity and new cosmopolitan realism becomes essential to survive” (Beck, 2006, p. 14). Technically, the pursuit of labeling news that have different levels of domestic and foreign ingredients in them has been sought after by the means of categorization. The news can be categorized in four different categories on the domestic—foreign axis: the domestic news that only concern domestic events, domestic news with foreign involvement, foreign news with domestic involvement and foreign news with no domestic references (Stępińska, Porath, Mujica, Xu, & Cohen, 2013). On the level of news selection, proximity has served as a point of reference in relation to what is covered in a specific country, and, indeed, it
dominates in comparison to the global view (Ruigrok & van Atteveldt, 2007). However, the categorization is an attempt to “to reconcile a conventional practice with calls for an
alternative, more phenomenological approach, which Crang (1998, p. 11) refers to as
“geography inside people’s head” (Cohen, Hanitzsch, Stępińska, Porath, & Heimprecht, 2013, p. 8). It indeed seems like the tendency to domesticate foreign news dies hard even in the age
of globalization. To understand the dynamics of domestication better, it is of importance to look into cross-national differences (Kwon & Moon, 2009). By doing so, we can better understand which issues are reported in the same manner in different contexts and which issues, on the other hand, are domesticated.
In relation to global crises and domestication of news, the idea of the pull of the national seems to persist in the global news landscape (Cottle, 2009). Quite often the so-called national prism is made use of in war and conflict reporting (Cottle, 2009). This can refer to the use of the national interest perspective and the practice of giving space to the voices of the “nationals” and reporting “the actions and reactions” from the own nation’s perspective (Cottle, 2009, p. 509). For example, Rowling, Jones and Sheets discovered that Bush’s administration “constructed and communicated three types of national identity-protective frames—minimization, disassociation, and reaffirmation” during the Abu Ghraib prison scandal (Rowling et al., 2011, p. 1057). Indeed, as Lee, Chan, Pan and So (2005) suggest, through domestication, media reinforces the existing structures of national perspectives that are rooted in “existing order of power and privilege” (p. 322). Furthermore, the media creates “a local narrative” of an event by the means of using rhetoric, frames, metaphors and logic unique for a specific cultural context (Lee et al., 2005, p. 322). In the media coverage of foreign events, the concept of national interest often refers to the idea of state’s security and the protection of the state’s interest, such as physical and economic interests, and these perceptions are also cut out for targeting media’s attention to certain events over others (Hawkins, 2009). Technically, in recent years, newspapers have engaged in parachute journalism to cover special foreign events that are important to them, which has also been feared to contribute to a more confusing view of the world (Norris, 1995). However, Erickson and Hamilton (2006) found in their study that in fact, parachute journalism has been a way for the American newspapers to extend their beats beyond the national borders. The decision of
the media corporations to send reporters to cover certain foreign events is partly conditioned by economic factors, but it has also been seen to increase foreign reporting in the case of local news outlets (Hamilton & Jenner, 2004). The idea of parachute journalism is relevant for this study since the remote events in some parts of Ukraine attracted a lot of foreign press on ground temporarily. Moreover, a link between foreign news and trade has been detected by previous scholarship. It seems that foreign trade and foreign news correlate more often in small countries and countries that are dependent on trade (Pietiläinen, 2006).
The role of a specific culture has also played a role in the domestication discussion. Domestication has been defined as a mechanism of “making information comprehensible to audiences in a given culture” (Clausen, 2004, p. 29). In this context, the interpretations that the public prefers play a role, as a nation forms “the foundational interpretive community” that has its own set of values that are also reflected in the news (Kwon & Moon, 2009, p. 273). When news is domesticated, the level of collectivism is extra prominent; however, the level of collectivism in the news may vary according to the “cultural predisposition to collectivism” (Kwon & Moon, 2009, p. 273). In addition, domestication has been a relevant concept in sports reporting, where the accomplishments of national athletes and the degree of domestication are almost a domestication routine. In Beijing Olympics’ case, media that represented countries with large Chinese communities were found to domesticate the international event extensively (Lee et al., 2011).
In relation to reporting the nation’s interest, Nossek (2004) suggests that the closer a news item is to national interest, the less journalists apply professional values in their reporting. The point Nossek makes is of relevance when we try to understand what
determines the selection of the way foreign news are reported. This means that in foreign reporting, the national frame is so persistent that “(i)t precedes all other frames and dictates which line the coverage will take and which other journalistic and cultural frames will be
selected” (Nossek, 2004, p. 363). The foreign event coverage applies logic that either treats foreign news as the outcome of professional journalism and its practices and values or as the outcome of extraneous factors, such as “political, economical and technological” (Nossek, 2004, p. 344). Whether the journalist decides to use one of these frames depends on “the type of event”, “the location of the event” and “the event context” (Nossek, 2004, p. 350). These factors shape the way the event gets its definition and, ultimately, whether the reporter chooses to use “a professional or a national-patriotic ‘frame’ when covering the event” (Nossek, 2004, p. 350).
When studying media texts, domestication can thus be perceived as either presence or absence of links to the home country or presence or absence of national perspectives of the home country. The first type of domestication refers to the journalistic strategy where the journalist creates links to the home country when (s)he is reporting a foreign news event. This form of domestication is applied to make the news piece more attractive to the domestic audience. The second type of domestication refers to the change of focus in the news content, and refers to the national prisms (Cottle, 2009; Lee et al., 2005) that can be at the locus of reporting. In other words, in the case of domestication that makes use of national perspectives in the coverage, there is more to the content than mere links to the home country.
In relation to the crisis in Ukraine, the concept of domestication is interesting for several reasons. First, since it is a crisis taking place in Europe, the European media is likely to channel attention to the key events of the crisis. Proximity as a factor contributing to the event being covered was already articulated in the classic study on Congo, Cuba and Cyprus crises in Norwegian press by Galtung and Ruge (1965). More recently, previous scholarship has studied the news visibility of the EU, for example, showing that EU-related events are cut out for increasing the visibility of EU-related coverage and that the variation is largely similar
across EU-countries (Boomgaarden, Vliegenthart, de Vreese, & Schuck, 2010). Building on this, we have reason to believe that the major violent events in Ukraine have affected the amount of attention given to the crisis in the European media. In the context of this research, the focus is on the level and way of domestication of the crisis in two different geographical settings. The theoretical framework discussed earlier is relevant for this study since the four countries chosen for this research represent different contexts (see Nossek, 2004) to Russia, the country that is one of the key players in the crisis. Even though all the countries are part of the European Union and share the same core values that can be expected to be articulated through the EU membership, they might have different ways of reporting the crisis. Despite the trend of globalization, these national prisms (Cottle, 2009; Lee et al., 2005) can be different in different countries. They need to be studied in order to understand how the crisis can be reported in different contexts (see Kwon & Moon, 2009). The threat of Russia towards Finland and Sweden is very different from the threat Russia poses towards Britain and
Ireland, due to the fact that Finland is a neighboring country of Russia and Sweden is also located close to Russia. For example, there has been rhetoric by Russia according to which Finland’s NATO membership would be a threat to Russia (Forss, 2009). The recent real-life examples of the security threat to Finland and Sweden posed by Russia come from, for example, the Swedish submarine hunt and the information war Russia has undertaken in Finland1. The similar kind of threat, no matter how psychological, does not fall upon Britain and Ireland due to these geopolitical realities. Here, the concept of geopolitics draws on Parker’s (2015) idea that studying geopolitics is to scrutinize the interface of geography, politics and their interactions. In other words, it is linked to “the political and strategic relevance of geography” (Østerud, 1988, p. 191). To study the domestication of a foreign
1
In November 2014, Sweden exhibited pieces of evidence that a foreign submarine had violated its territory. Russia has been suspected to be responsible for it, but the country has disputed doing anything like it (Groll, 2014). In Finland, the public broadcaster Yle studied the ways Russia has been exercising information war. In an investigative piece, Yle discovered that the so-called Russian trolls have systematically manipulated and
event in this context is fruitful since it can provide some explanation as to what factors can influence the level and the way of domestication. In other words, in this research, the geographical proximity to Russia, one of the countries involved in the Ukraine crisis, is expected to be an independent variable that affects the level and type of domestication in the crisis’ coverage. Mirroring this to the theoretical framework discussed earlier, we may assume that due to proximity, the countries that are close to Russia domesticate the Ukraine crisis more and use national perspectives in their reporting more often than countries that are far away from Russia, for whom the expectation is that they would treat the crisis as purely foreign news. This logic builds on the assumption that the Ukraine war is more “our war” (Nossek, 2004, p. 344) in Finland and Sweden due to the aforementioned external factors that contribute to the use of national interest framing devices. In other words, the proximity has to do with the presence of links to the home country and presence of national perspectives of the home country. Building on this, I pose the following research question and the consecutive hypotheses:
RQ1: Is there a difference in the level and the way of the domestication of the Ukraine crisis media coverage in Finland, Sweden, Ireland and the UK?
The close proximity to Russia is a key characteristic of Finland and Sweden. The UK and Ireland, on the other hand, are located on the west edge of Europe. They are not close neighbors of Russia. The expectation here is that the proximity can affect the amount of the media coverage of the crisis. Thus, I propose the following hypothesis:
H1: The countries closer to Russia target more attention to the Ukraine crisis than the countries far-away from Russia.
In addition, as the study focused on the media coverage of the first year of the crisis, it is of interest to see whether the peak moments in the coverage were the same and shared in four
countries during the year. As previous scholarship has shown (Boomgaarden et al., 2010), the media attention is event-related and rather uniform across countries, giving us reason to believe that the coverage of the Ukraine crisis has its peak moments during the key events and that there is not much difference between the countries in relation to the attention given to the peak moments. This is also a form of agenda-setting. As the coverage of a certain event affects the audience’s perception of what is important, the attributes attached to the event also contribute how the audience thinks about the event (Wanta & Golan, 2004). Previous
scholarship has also shown that key events can trigger a more extensive form of reporting on the topic and topics that are thematically related to the event (see e.g. Kepplinger &
Habermeier, 1995). The second hypothesis proposes the following:
H2: The attention to the crisis is concentrated in key events and these events are the same for every country.
The third hypothesis builds on the first hypothesis, stating that countries closer to Russia also domesticate the crisis by applying national perspectives more often than the far-away
countries. This is expected due to the fact that these countries may have more national interest at stake than the far-away countries. In other words, for the close-to-Russia countries, the Ukraine crisis is an event that has a relevance to the home country from the perspective of domestic politics (see Alasuutari et al., 2013):
H3: Countries close to Russia domesticate the Ukrainian crisis by using more national perspectives in the reporting than the far-away countries.
Also, as there might be some level of variation in the ways these countries domesticate the Ukraine crisis, it is of interest to look into the different techniques that are present in these domestication processes. As Nossek (2004) theorizes, the journalists choose between two ways of reporting: the one that favors the use of professional values or the one that makes use
of national perspectives which is shaped by the event context. Building on this, we can propose a fourth hypothesis, which assumes that the proximity to Russia influences the reporting in such a way that there is a difference in the ways the countries domesticate the crisis:
H4: There is a difference in the domestication techniques between Finland, Sweden, the UK and Ireland.
In addition, in order to take into consideration the aspect of the NATO membership, I propose a second sub-research question. The line of argument follows the ideas of globalization and cosmopolitanization where we can expect that certain things transcend national borders. In this study, I take into consideration whether the NATO membership of a country, mainly that of the UK, can affect the level of domestication. The optimal here would be to have another country close to Russia that would belong to NATO, but due to language constrains, only non-NATO members close to Russia were selected. However, to control the NATO-membership factor, Ireland was chosen as a non-NATO member from the West Europe. Unlike the UK, Ireland is not part of NATO, and we can seek to see whether there is a difference between these countries that are geographically located far from Russia. Thus, I pose the following sub-research question:
RQ2: Does the membership of an international organization contribute that there is more domestication of the Ukraine crisis in the country?
Method
In order to tackle the research question, a quantitative content analysis was chosen as the method. In each country, the biggest quality national daily newspaper measured by circulation (Media Audit Finland, 2015; Medievarlden.se, 2015; The Guardian, 2014; News Brands Ireland, 2014) was chosen. To choose to focus on the biggest quality newspapers’ coverage of
the crisis is sensible since these newspapers reach the widest possible national audience. In addition, the fact that these newspapers are the biggest quality dailies in their home countries makes them, to some extent, comparable with each other. The dailies can be expected to serve as “a satisfactory proxy for the general media landscape on the aggregate” (Boomgarden et al., 2010, p. 511). The newspapers were Helsingin Sanomat from Finland, Dagens Nyheter from Sweden, The Daily Telegraph from Britain and The Irish Independent from Ireland. However, these quality dailies are not identical. Helsingin Sanomat has been described as a liberal newspaper until 1930’s, after which the newspaper resigned from party politics, although it has fostered its relations to the elite forces of the society later on (Lounasmeri, 2010). Dagens Nyheter, on the other, has been described as an independent liberal daily published in Stockholm (Nationalencyklopedin). In contrast, The Irish Independent and The Daily Telegraph represent somewhat different newspaper traditions. The landscape of Irish politics is not heavily dispersed in terms of the main socioeconomic topics like elsewhere in the Western Europe, and the newspapers, including The Irish Independent, “take a broadly right-of-center line” (Mcmenamin, Flynn, Malley, & Rafter, 2012, p. 174). The Daily Telegraph, too, has been described as a “right-wing newspaper” (Charteris-Black, 2006, p. 564). Thus, the close countries to Russia, Finland and Sweden, share the same kind of ideological environment for the media to some extent, like do Britain and Ireland with each other. Admittedly, this can be considered as a limitation for the study, as the four newspapers are not identical in their ideological history.
The countries were selected for the study due to their geographical profile in relation to Russia. Here, Finland and Sweden represented countries that are located close to the Russian border, whereas Ireland and the UK represented countries that are situated far from the Russian border. In addition to this precondition, the language skills of the coder were
taken into account when choosing the countries. These factors make the chosen sample partly a convenient sample.
The data was collected from the period which was defined as the first year of the crisis, spanning from November 21, 2013 to November 21, 2014. In total, 42 dates were taken into account in the constructed sample of which start date was a random starting point (see appendix 1). The Helsingin Sanomat articles were retrieved from the Helsingin Sanomat digital archive, the Dagens Nyheter articles from Retriever AS service, and the Daily Telegraph articles and the Irish Independent articles from Lexis Nexis database. The
keywords Ukraine and Ukrainian were used in every respective language to narrow down the search results to articles that were relevant to the Ukraine crisis. Each article that appeared in the sample was evaluated in regards to their relevance to the Ukraine crisis. Irrelevant articles that did not relate to Ukraine crisis, such as sports stories that mentioned the keyword Ukraine in the article, were not included in the sample, nor were the articles that were too short in a sense that they did not form coherent sentences. In assessing whether an article was relevant in relation to the Ukraine crisis, an assessing criterion was taken into account: the article had to have an explicit reference to the crisis in Ukraine. In other words, a sheer mention of the word ‘Ukraine’ was not enough. Only the headlines, introduction chapters and the body-texts were included in the sample and photos or charts were excluded, due to the fact that some digital archives were not able to retrieve the layout of the articles. All articles were coded by one person, except for the reliability subsample.
The codebook of the research project may be found in the appendices (appendix 2). The variables in this research were coded both on the article level and the actor level. The first set of variables consisted of the presence of links to the home country, and they were coded at the article level. The second set of variables consisted of presence of national perspectives, and they were also coded at the article level. The first and second sets of
variables were mainly dichotomous variables that measured the presence or absence of a certain form of domestication. Additionally, the countries involved in the article were also coded, as well as the most important country in the article. The third set of variables concerned the actors, and they were coded at the actor level. These variables were string variables, as the coder coded the name of the actor, the function of the actor and the
nationality of the actor. Additionally, a dichotomous value was given in relation to whether the actors received a quote in the article or not. Actors were coded up to 10 actors, due to time constraints and the lack of peer coders.
For inter-coder reliability, Krippendorff’s alpha values were calculated for all relevant variables. After the first round of the reliability test, the codebook was adjusted so that the problematic variables were checked and re-written. After the second inter-coder reliability test round, the Krippendorff’s alpha values were .6486 or higher, which can be regarded as satisfactory to very good. See appendix 3 for the overview of the reliability values of each variable.
Results
When we look at the volume of the coverage in quantitative terms, we can see that the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat covered the crisis the most extensively (N=141). The Daily Telegraph had 121 articles in total, Dagens Nyheter 104 articles in total, and The Irish Independent 67 articles in total. With this observation, we can say that the H1, the countries closer to Russia target more attention to the Ukraine crisis than the countries far-away from Russia, is partly supported. The closest country to Russia, Finland, had the most articles concerning the crisis. Britain ranked as second, which, indeed, makes the hypothesis 1 only partly supported. However, the Swedish newspaper had a fairly high amount of articles, too, and the lowest amount of articles came from the Irish newspaper. Britain being an outlier in
the data, we can still see that the close-to-Russia countries (Finland and Sweden) tend to target attention relatively extensively to the crisis in comparison to countries far away from Russia (Ireland). Figure 1 illustrates the total amount of articles between the newspapers in the sampled period. The figure also shows that the countries that had the most articles also had the most articles that were domesticated (articles that included home country/home country nationality/home country adjective mentions). In other words, domestication in itself did not make a big difference in relation to the amount of attention given to the crisis. The Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat had 59 articles that had the home country somehow mentioned, the British daily The Daily Telegraph 49, the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter 23 and the Irish daily The Irish Independent 22 articles. These were explicit links or references to the home country within the Ukraine coverage.
The attention given to the crisis was not uniform throughout the year. Instead, there were a couple of peak moments during the year when more attention was given to the
Figure 1. The amount of articles with the home country mention and no mention per newspaper. 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 Helsingin Sanomat The Daily Telegraph Dagens Nyheter The Irish Independent
Home country mentioned Home country not
conflict. The first peak was in March 2014. During the month, Crimea was annexed to Russia. Here, there amount of articles rose in every country. The second peak was in May 2014. The month witnessed the presidential election in Ukraine and, earlier, the declaration of
independence in Luhansk and Donetsk by pro-Russian rebels.
Figure 2. Amount of articles in the sampled newspapers concerning the crisis in Ukraine by month.
Here too, all the newspapers increased their coverage of the crisis. The third peak was in July. During the month, the Malaysian Airlines MH17 flight was downed in Eastern Ukraine. Again, all the newspapers increased their attention targeted to the crisis. In the first peak, Helsingin Sanomat published articles the most (N=21) among the sampled newspapers. In the second and the third peak, The Daily Telegraph published the most (N=18; N=25). Figure 2 illustrates the distribution of articles over the first year of conflict. To see whether the peaks resemble each other statistically, Spearman’s r was calculated for the newspapers and the
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Helsingin Sanomat (N=141) Dagens Nyheter (N=104) The Daily Telegraph (N=121) Irish Independent (N=67) Total amount of articles (N=433)
studied time period. Table 1 shows that the correlation coefficients were statistically
significant for each newspaper pair. The British and the Irish newspapers correlated the most, as could be expected with the division of the newspapers into close and far-away countries. The fact that the UK and Ireland correlated the most also makes sense from the perspective of the newspapers’ profile as similar kind of newspapers. It is an indication that the newspaper share similar approach to covering the crisis. However, it is also indisputable that the actual external events in Ukraine themselves guided the attention and space given to the crisis by the newspapers. With these observations, we can say that the H2, the attention to the crisis is concentrated in key events and these events are the same for every country, is supported, as we can see a change in the amount of coverage during the peaks in every newspaper’s case. Furthermore, this is backed by strong correlation coefficients and statistical significance. Table 1. The resemblance of the news peaks during the sampled period in the coverage between the newspapers (ρ).
Helsingin Sanomat Dagens Nyheter The Daily Telegraph The Irish Independet Helsingin Sanomat 1.000 .768** .775** .895*** Dagens Nyheter .768** 1.000 .828*** .847***
The Daily Telegraph .775** .828*** 1.000 .917*** The Irish Independent .895*** .847*** .917*** 1.000 N=13. Significance levels: *: p<.05; **: p< .01; ***: p<.001.
To be able to detect differences between the countries that are close to Russia and the countries that are situated further away from Russia, Finland and Sweden were grouped as “the close-to-Russia countries” and the UK and Ireland as “the far-away-from-Russia countries”. When we look into the presence of the national perspectives in the
coverage, we can see that the countries close to Russia domesticate the crisis more often than the countries far away from Russia, when measured by the different domestication techniques
they use. Out of the 14 variables measured in the national perspective category, 9 variables showcase that the use of national perspectives is more prevalent in the close countries’ case. The biggest difference between the close and far-away countries was with the variable us versus them dichotomy. For each variable that measured the presence of the national perspective, Goodman and Kruskal’s tau was calculated to check whether there was an association between the countries and the specific domestication variable. It is important to state here that the Goodman and Kruskal’s tau is an asymmetrical measure of association that can be used for nominal variables. The tau value indicates whether being a close or a far-away country matters for the variables present. The figures in the case of each country and in the case of the grouped variables ‘far’ and ‘close countries’ are illustrated in the appendix 4. As we can see, the significance between far and close countries reaches statistical significance in the case of some variables only. The exceptions can be found in the use of the us versus them dichotomy, which the close countries use more often than the far away countries, the
references to safety, which the close countries have more than the far-away countries and the use of expressions that illustrate how the home country can alleviate the crisis, which the far away countries have more often than the close countries. However, the tendency to have a reference about the ways the home country can alleviate the crisis is not very prevalent, as it is present in only 1.2 % of the coverage in the close countries’ case and 4.3 % of the coverage in the far-away countries’ case. Again, if we look at the individual countries, the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat used different national perspective tools more often than the other newspapers. What strikes the most among the results is that the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat also had references to safety of the home country more often than the other newspapers. This difference between the countries also reached the level of statistical significance (tau=.019; sig.=.042), and also with the grouped variables far and close countries, where the close countries had references to safety more often than the far-away countries
(tau=.012; sig.=.021). In sum, the H3, countries closer to Russia domesticate the Ukrainian crisis by using more national perspectives in the reporting than the far-away countries, is partly supported, since there is a tendency for the close countries to use national perspectives in the reporting more often than the far-away countries, but not always to a statistically significant degree. The use of national perspectives is the most significant for the close countries in the cases of references to safety and the use of the us and them dichotomy.
Looking at the presence of links to the home country, as we group Finland and Sweden together as close countries to Russia and the UK and Ireland as far-away countries from Russia, we can see that the far-away countries use different techniques of linking the event to the home countries more often than the close countries. Only one linking technique, the use of the expression that the newspaper is on location, is more prevalent in the close countries’ case than in the far away countries’ case. The home country mention in the articles was more prevalent in the far-away countries’ case than in the close countries’ case, and the far-away countries had edited the story more often in the home editorial office than the close countries. The other options in this category were that the article had been edited abroad completely, that the article had been edited abroad partially, or that it was impossible to determine where the article had been edited. Looking at the individual countries, we can see that with most variables, again, Finland and the UK domesticate the crisis more than Sweden and Ireland. Amongst the four countries, Finland ranked first as to which country had the home country as the most important country in the articles (28.4 %). Again, for each variable, Goodman and Kruskal’s tau was calculated to check whether there was an association
between the countries and a specific domestication variable. In other words, the influence of the country on the domestication variable was checked. The differences are illustrated in the appendix 5. As we can see, the overall differences between the close countries and the far-away countries are not statistically significant, neither are they in the case of individual
countries. The differences are statistically significant in the case of whether the article is edited in the home country or not. Close countries have gone abroad to report the crisis more often than the far away countries. The UK had edited the stories at home the most, with 90.9 % of the articles edited at the home editorial office. With these observations, we can say that the hypothesis 4 is also supported. There seems to be a difference in the use of domestication techniques between the close and far-away countries. This also applies in the case of using different national perspective techniques, which were presented earlier.
By looking at the type of actors present in the articles, we can see that there is a lot of variation between the close and far-away countries. Overall, the far away countries’ coverage included home country actors more often than the close countries’ coverage. On the other hand, the close countries made use of home country government affiliated actors more often than the far away countries, which may be an indication of the influence of the political elites in the coverage (see Alasuutari et al., 2013). However, only some of the differences between the countries reach the level of statistical significance. The exceptions can be found in the use of Ukrainian actors, the use of home country experts and the use of EU actors. The close countries use the Ukrainian actors, the home country experts and the EU actors in the coverage more than the far away countries, and these differences are also statistically significant. The detailed differences in the use of different actors are illustrated in the
appendix 6. These observations also contribute to supporting the hypothesis 4: there is also a difference, to a certain degree, in the use of actors between the close countries and far away countries.
In addition, as we look deeper into the technique of using Ukrainian actors, we can see that the use of both home country actors and the Ukrainian actors in the same article is relatively uncommon in every newspaper’s case. The Daily Telegraph has the both actors co-occurring the most, as we can see from table 2. Overall, rather than being a nation-specific
domestication technique, the use of either domestic or Ukrainian actors seems to be a
commonly shared journalistic practice among the newspapers. This observation contributes to answering the RQ1, whether there is a difference in the level and the way of the
domestication of the Ukraine crisis coverage in Finland, Sweden, Ireland and the UK or not. Despite the differences in the level and the way of domestication, the newspapers share professional techniques that influence the choice of actors present in the coverage.
Table 2. Ukrainian vs. home country actors present in the coverage (%). Ukrainians and no home country actors Home country actors and no Ukrainians Both Helsingin Sanomat 75.4 50.0 24.6 Dagens Nyheter 81.4 48.9 18.6
The Daily Telegraph 61.4 55.8 38.6
The Irish Independent 88.0 50.0 12.0
To answer the RQ2, whether the membership of an international organization contributes that there is more domestication of the Ukraine crisis in the country or not, we compared the UK newspaper to the Irish newspaper to see whether these two differed to a statistically significant degree. Cross-tabulations were done for the newspaper pair and the key variables present in the codebook. With 9 variables, The Daily Telegraph and The Irish Independent were statistically significantly different (see appendix 7). This gives us reason to believe that there is a connection between the NATO membership and the more extensive tendency to domesticate the event. For example, with the variable V2e, the article has a reference about home country’s defense, the difference between the UK and Ireland is statistically significant (tau=.031; sig.=.016). Although we do not know enough about the causal relationship between the NATO membership and the increased tendency for a country to domesticate the crisis, we can say that there seems to be a relationship between these two factors, since the proximity-to-Russia factor is also similar for these two countries.
In addition, during the coding project, it was noted that The Irish Independent used material produced by The Daily Telegraph in its foreign section. Sometimes these articles that had been purchased from The Daily Telegraph were edited or shortened in The Irish Independent. In a way, however, this decision of the newspaper to cover the crisis by using content that was produced elsewhere can be a manifestation of the ignorance towards the conflict. If observed purely quantitative terms, The Irish Independent covered the conflict the least. This observation, in a way, supports the notions that the further the countries are from the epicenter of the events, the least they have interest in the course of events, too. However, the UK’s NATO membership can be expected to broaden the country’s interest towards the conflict, which can explain the relatively heavy interest in the conflict.
Table 4 summarizes the key findings of the research. To answer the research question RQ1, whether there is a difference in the level and the way of the domestication of the Ukraine crisis coverage in Finland, Sweden, Ireland and the UK, is to say that there is a difference to a certain extent. It seems that countries closer to Russia target more attention to the crisis, at least if we look how Finland covered the crisis. However, the coverage was similar in a sense that in every country, the coverage intensified during the key events.
Differences came to the fore again in the use of national perspectives that are more prominent in the case of the close-to-Russia countries. Additionally, the techniques of domestication differed, especially in the case of having reporters on location, which close-to-Russia countries had significantly more than far-away countries. However, there is also a shared journalistic practice among the newspapers which implies that the media tends to choose either home country actors or local-foreign actors when reporting about the crisis, and that these actors rarely co-occur in the coverage. Finally, there seems to be an association between the NATO membership and the increased tendency to domesticate the Ukraine crisis. The UK and Ireland, the countries regarded as the countries with a similar profile and proximity
Table 4. Summary of the results.
Formal features National perspectives Actors Other H1: The countries closer to Russia
target more attention to the Ukraine crisis than the countries far-away from Russia.
Partly supported. Finland had the most articles concerning the crisis.
Not supported: Britain had the most domestic actors.
H2: The attention to the crisis is concentrated in key events and these events are the same for every country.
Supported. There is a statistically significant change in the amount of coverage during the peaks in every newspaper’s case. H3: Countries closer to Russia domesticate
the Ukrainian crisis by using more national perspectives in the reporting than the far-away countries.
Partly supported. There is a tendency, but not always to a statistically significant degree. H4: There is a difference in the domestication
techniques between Finland, Sweden, the UK and Ireland.
There is a difference in the use of domestication techniques
There is a difference in the use of domestication techniques There is a difference in the use of domestication techniques. RQ1: Is there a difference in the level and the
way of the domestication of the Ukraine crisis coverage in Finland, Sweden, Ireland and the UK?
Finland covered the crisis most extensively in
quantitative terms; Ireland the least.
Close countries used more national perspectives in the coverage than far-away countries. There is a shared journalistic practice guiding the choice of actors. RQ2: Does the membership of an
international organization contribute that there is more domestication of the Ukraine crisis in the country?
There are differences between Ireland and UK that can be due to NATO.
to Russia in this study, were different in the case of 9 important variables that measured the aspects of domestication.
Discussion and conclusion
This master’s thesis looked into the domestication of the Ukraine crisis in Finland, Sweden, the UK and Ireland. The study was able to detect that there are some differences in the level and the way of domestication between the countries and the country groups: the countries that are located close to the Russian border and the countries that are located far away from the Russian border. The hypothesis that the countries closer to Russia target more attention to the crisis was partly supported, as Finland was the country that had the most articles that
considered the crisis measured by quantitative terms. National perspectives were slightly more prominent in the close countries’ than far-away countries’ case. If we study the question of whether there is such a thing as Nossekian (2004) ‘our war’ in the case of the Ukraine crisis in Finland, Sweden, the UK and Ireland, we can state that for countries close to Russia the war seems to be relevant from the perspectives of standing out from Russia, which was articulated through the use of us versus them dichotomy in the articles. Furthermore, for the close countries, the Ukraine crisis became domesticated through references to safety, which can, purportedly, have an influence on the experience that the crisis is relevant to countries close to Russia. The domestication techniques applied varied, but the differences were significant in relation to having reports on ground from Ukraine. Indeed, there was evidence in the data that Britain’s NATO membership could have affected the level and the way the UK domesticated the crisis, since here and there, the country domesticated the crisis more than Sweden, for example. Britain’s domestication techniques differed from those of Ireland, the other west European country in the study, and the British newspaper also had the most domestic actors present in the coverage in comparison to other countries and newspapers. This is a factor that future studies should assess more profoundly to better understand the
relationship between a country’s NATO membership and the potential increased level to domesticate a NATO-affiliated event. The fact that the UK’s level of domestication passed that of Sweden makes the results difficult to generalize. However, while it remains tricky to state that countries close to Russia domesticate the Ukraine crisis more than countries far-away from Russia, we can say that certain forms of domestication are more present in the countries that are close to the Russian border. This is an important observation, as the mechanism of domestication can be very nuanced. The research question of this study asked whether there is a difference in the level and the way of the domestication of the Ukraine crisis coverage in Finland, Sweden, Ireland and the UK. As discussed above, these differences prevail yet remain sophisticated, detailed and nuanced. The clearest difference in the amount of attention given to the crisis was between the country situated the closest to Russia and the country situated the furthest away from Russia, Finland and Ireland. With this regard, the results give us reason to consider that the way the Ukraine crisis is domesticated can be implicit rather than explicit, yet it is partly influenced by the geographical proximity to Russia.
On the other hand, there were also similarities between the countries: the newspapers studied had a similar journalistic strategy of favoring either domestic or foreign actors in the coverage, as these two actor types did not co-occur often. This observation is of importance from the perspective of journalism culture and values. In Nossek’s view (2004), the proximity of a news story to national interest dictates the choice of using national perspectives over professional approaches in the reporting. The results here do not support this view entirely, since there seems to be a tendency for journalists to stick to using certain journalistic techniques, as the choices of using either Ukrainian or home country actors in our study showcase. This interpretation is further justified by the fact that, overall, national perspectives were not too prominent, since even though the close countries had more national
perspectives present in their coverage, they were not present in the majority of the articles. On the other hand, the close countries used government affiliated actors more often than the far-away countries. This is in line with previous scholarship’s view according to which events that are important to national politics are also shaped by domestic political actors that are present in the coverage (Alasuutari et al., 2013). When judging by the presence of the
government actors in the coverage, there is some evidence that for countries that are closer to the Russian border, the Ukrainian events become important in relation to domestic politics and, consequently, domestic governmental actors are given space in the coverage. The question of the prevalence of the political figures in the coverage gives substance for future studies which should address the question of the type of actors that are important in the case of the Ukraine coverage. These findings are of importance from the societal point of view, too, as it relates to the questions of agenda-setting and the possible influence the actors
present in the coverage may bear on those who receive the stories (see Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006).
The results tell a story about both, the logic of domestication and the prevalence of journalistic norms and values in the reporting. A closer scrutiny on certain domestication techniques applied in the Ukraine crisis coverage further showcases these observations. Consider the issue of close countries having more reports from abroad. One can approach the tendency of newspapers to send reporters abroad as a manifestation of the importance of the event in question (Erickson & Hamilton, 2006; Norris, 1995). Thus, the fact that Finland and Sweden had more articles edited abroad can be a sign of emphasizing the importance of the event from the national perspective. On the other hand, it can also be a form of journalism practice that is more prevalent in the Nordic countries than in Britain and Ireland, as sending reporters on location can also be a manifestation of a specific journalism culture.
the effect of different journalism cultures on the way the crisis is reported. In the famous Hallin’s and Mancini’s (2004) theory on media systems, Finland and Sweden are placed in the category of the democratic and corporatist model, whereas Britain and Ireland are
regarded as a part of the liberal model. In these models, the professional journalism culture is more institutionalized in the democratic and corporatist model’s case (Hallin & Mancini, 2004), which may partly explain the partial denouncement to extensively domesticate the crisis in Finland’s and Sweden’s case. These observations together with the findings that all the newspaper favored either domestic or Ukrainian actors in the coverage give way for future research to assess the implications of a specific journalism culture and professional values on the way the Ukraine crisis is reported.
This study, however, has its shortcomings. In relation to coding, only the articles that stated explicitly that the article was edited abroad were coded under this category. This means that more articles could have been edited abroad than were coded for this study. This might have skewed the results here in favor of the close countries in relation to the variable that measured how many articles were edited abroad. In addition, the study did not discuss the possible impact that the resources the media has at its disposal can have on the solutions that affect the level and way of domestication. This is also substance for future research that should assess the economic factor in the editorial stance on domestication. Another
shortcoming is that to be able to better assess the NATO factor in the Ukraine crisis coverage, it would be fruitful to have another NATO country close to the Russian border. This was not feasible due to convenience issues, such as language skills of the coder. In addition, the data collected in this research is not thoroughly comparable with each other, as the total amount of articles was different in each newspaper’s case. For example, the relatively low amount of articles in Ireland’s case raised the proportions of domesticated articles present. Overall, the study would have benefitted from a bigger dataset, which, however, was not feasible taking
into account the nature of a master’s thesis project. Finally, the Nordic newspapers were not necessarily best comparable to the Irish and British newspapers, since they represented slightly different cultural newspaper traditions, with the UK and Irish newspapers being clearly right-wing in comparison to their independent-proclaimed Nordic counterparts (Hallin & Mancini, 2004; Lounasmeri, 2010; Mcmenamin, Flynn, Malley, & Rafter, 2012; Charteris-Black, 2006).
In conclusion, the study was able to showcase interesting domestication features in the case of the coverage of the Ukraine crisis. It showed that to study domestication is to study sometimes very case-specific events that bear different meanings to different contexts. The tactics of domestication of news can be sophisticated; yet, this journalistic practice of making sense of foreign events prevails in the age of globalization. The case of the Ukraine crisis media coverage shows us that even though proximity still plays a role in whether or not an event is worth domesticating, there is also a shared journalistic approach to conflict
reporting. In order to fine-tune to the ways domestication takes its shape in the war and conflict reporting, it is of importance to compare the techniques in different cultural and political environments.
References
Alasuutari, P., Qadir, A., & Creutz, K. (2013). The domestication of foreign news : news stories related to the 2011 Egyptian revolution in British, Finnish and Pakistani
newspapers. Media, Culture & Society, 35(6), 692–707. doi:10.1177/0163443713491299
Aro, J. (2015). Tältä Venäjän verkkopropaganda tuntuu - suomalaisia saatu uskomaan valheisiin. Yle Kioski. Retrieved from http://erikoiset.kioski.yle.fi/jutut/1505-trollit-vaientaneet-suomalaisia/
BBC. (2013). Ukraine protests after Yanukovych EU deal rejection. BBC. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25162563
Beck, U. (2006). Cosmopolitan vision. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Boomgaarden, H. G., Vliegenthart, R., de Vreese, C. H., & Schuck, A. R. T. (2010). News on the move: exogenous events and news coverage of the European Union. Journal of European Public Policy, 17(4), 506–526. doi:10.1080/13501761003673294
Charteris-Black, J. (2006). Britain as a container: immigration metaphors in the 2005 election campaign. Discourse & Society, 17(5), 563–581. doi: 10.1177/0957926506066345
Clausen, L. (2004). Localizing the global : “ domestication ” processes in international news production. Media, Culture & Society, 26(1), 25–44. doi:10.1177/0163443704038203
Cohen, A.A. (Ed.). (2013). Foreign news on television. Where in the world is the global village? New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Cohen, A.A., Hanitzsch,T., Stępińska, A., Porath,W., & Heimprecht, C. (2013). Rationale, Design, and Methodologies. In Cohen, A. (Ed.), Foreign news on television: Where in the world is the global village? (pp. 3–22). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Cottle, S. (2009). Global crises in the news : Staging new wars, disasters, and climate change. International Journal of Communication, 3, 494–516. Retrieved from http://ijoc.org
Dagens Nyheter. (n.d.) In Nationalencyklopedin. Retrieved from
Erickson, E., & Hamilton, J. M. (2006). Foreign reporting enhanced by parachute journalism. Newspaper Research Journal, 27(1), 33–48. Retrieved from
http://www.newspaperresearchjournal.org/
Forss, S. (2009). Russian military thinking and threat perception: A Finnish view. CERI Strategy Papers, 5. Centre d'études et de recherches internationales (CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS). Available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2314909
Galtung, J. & Ruge, M. H. (1965). The structure of foreign news. Journal of Peace Research, 2(1), 64–91. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/423011
Groll, E. (2014). Swedes find definitive evidence of submarine, Russians call them unmanly. Foreign Policy. Retrieved from http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/11/15/swedes-find-definitive-evidence-of-submarine-russians-call-them-unmanly/?wp_login_redirect=0
Gurevitch, M., Levy, M. R., & Roeh, I. (1991). The global newsroom: Convergences and diversities in the globalization of television news. In P. Dahlgren, & C. Sparks (Eds.), Communication and Citizenship: Journalism and the Public Sphere (pp. 195–216). London: Routledge.
Hallin, D.C. & Mancini, P. (2004). Comparing media systems: Three models of media and politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hamilton, J. M., & Jenner, E. (2004). Redefining foreign. Journalism, 5(3), 301–321. doi:10.1177/1464884904044938
Hawkins, V. (2009). National interest or business interest: coverage of conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo in The Australian newspaper. Media, War & Conflict, 2(1), 67–84. doi: 10.1177/1750635208101352
Kepplinger, H.M. & Habermeier, J. (1995). The impact of key events on the presentation of reality. European Journal of Communication, 10(3), 371–390. doi:
10.1177/0267323195010003004
Kim, S. T. & Weaver, D.H. (2003). Reporting on globalization: A comparative analysis of sourcing patterns in five countries' newspapers. International Communication Gazette, 65(2), 121–144. doi: 10.1177/0016549203065002002
Kwon, K. H., & Moon, S. (2009). The bad guy is one of us : framing comparison between the US and Korean newspapers and blogs about the Virginia Tech shooting. Asian Journal of Communication, 19(3), 37–41. doi:10.1080/01292980903038998
Lee, C-C., Chan, J. M., Pan, Z., & So, C.Y.K. (2005). National prisms of a global ‘media event’. In J. Curran & M. Gurevitch (Eds.), Mass Media and Society (pp. 320–335). London: Hodder Arnold.
Lee, F. L. F., Chan, J. M., & Zhou, B. (2011). National lenses on a global news event : determinants of the politicization and domestication of the prelude to the Beijing Olympics. Chinese Journal of Communication, 4(3), 274–292.
doi:10.1080/17544750.2011.594554
Lounasmeri, L. (2010). Kansallisen konsensuskulttuurin jäljillä. Helsinki: Yliopistopaino. Retrieved from https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/23470/kansalli.pdf
Mcmenamin, I., Flynn, R., Malley, E. O., & Rafter, K. (2012). Commercialism and election framing: A content analysis of twelve newspapers in the 2011 Irish general election. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 18(2), 167–187.
Media Audit Finland. (2015). LT Levikkitilasto 2014. Retrieved from
http://mediaauditfinland.fi/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Levikkitilasto2014.pdf
Medievarlden.se. (2015). Orvesto Konsument. Medievärlden. Retrieved from http://www.medievarlden.se/taggar/orvesto-konsument
News Brands Ireland (2014). Circulation. NNI National newspapers of Ireland. Retrieved from http://nni.ie/data-centre/circulation/
Norris, P. (1995). The restless searchlight: Network news framing of the post-Cold War world. Political Comminications, 12(4), 357–370. doi: 10.1080/10584609.1995.9963084
Nossek, H. (2004). Our news and their news: The role of national identity in the coverage of foreign news. Journalism, 5(3), 343–368. doi:10.1177/1464884904044941
Olausson, U. (2014). The diversified nature of “ domesticated ” news discourse. Journalism Studies, 15(6), 37–41. doi:10.1080/1461670X.2013.837253
Østerud, Ø. (1988). Review essay: The uses and abuses of geopolitics. Journal of Peace Research, 25(2), 191–199. doi: 10.1177/002234338802500209
Page, B. & Shapiro, R. (1983). Effects of public opinion on policy. The American Political Science Review, 77(1), 175–90. doi: 10.2307/1956018
Parker, G. (2015). Western geopolitical thought in the twentieth century (Routledge library editions: Political geography). London: Routledge.
Pietiläinen, J. (2006). Foreign news and foreign trade: What kind of relationship? The
Rowling, C.M. , Jones, T.M., & Sheets, P. (2011). Some dared call it torture: Cultural resonance, Abu Graib, and a selectively echoing press. Journal of Communication, 61, 1043–1061. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.2011.01600.x
Ruigrok, N., & van Atteveldt, W. (2007). Global angling with a local angle: How U.S., British, and Dutch newspapers frame global and local terrorist attacks. The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 12(1), 68–90. doi:10.1177/1081180X06297436
Scheufele, D. A., & Tewksbury, D. (2007). Framing, agenda setting, and priming: The evolution of three media effects models. Journal of Communication, 57(1), 9–20. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00326.x
Stepinska, A., Porath, W., Mujica, C., Xiao, X., & Cohen, A. (2013). The prevalence of news: Foreign, domestic and hybrid. In Cohen, A. (Ed.), Foreign news on television: Where in the world is the global village? (pp. 21–40). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
The Guardian. (2014). ABCs: National daily newspaper circulation June 2014. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/media/table/2014/jul/11/abcs-national-newspapers
Walgrave, S., & Van Aelst, P. (2006). The contingency of the mass media’s political agenda setting power: Toward a preliminary theory. Journal of Communication, 56(1), 88–109. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00005.x
Wanta, W., & Golan, G. (2004). Agenda-setting and international news: Media influence on public perceptions of foreign nations. Journalism & Mass Communications Quarterly 81(2), 364–377. doi: 10.1177/107769900408100209
Appendix 1
The sample by dates
21.11.2013 27.11.2013 9.12.2013 15.12.2013 27.12.2013 2.1.2014 14.1.2014 20.1.2014 1.2.2014 7.2.2014 19.2.2014 25.2.2014 9.3.2014 15.3.2014 27.3.2014 2.4.2014 14.4.2014 20.4.2014 2.5.2014 8.5.2014 20.5.2014 26.5.2014 7.6.2014 13.6.2014 25.6.2014 1.7.2014 13.7.2014 19.7.2014 31.7.2014 6.8.2014 18.8.2014 24.8.2014 5.9.2014 11.9.2014 23.9.2014 29.9.2014 11.10.2014 17.10.2014 29.10.2014 4.11.2014 16.11.2014 22.11.2014
Appendix 2 The Codebook Codebook
Domestication of the Ukraine crisis in Finland, Sweden, Ireland and the UK
Sample: Newspaper articles from Helsingin Sanomat, Dagens Nyheter, The Irish Independent and The Daily Telegraph
Note: ‘Home country’ always refers to the country of origin of the newspaper. It means that the relationship that the coder is evaluating is between the home country (i.e. Finland) and Ukraine and/or Russia.
Variables
The article level domestication variables
These variables are coded at the level of one individual article. The article identification variables:
1. Name of the newspapers
Here, the coder codes which newspaper has published the article. The newspaper choices are Helsingin Sanomat, Dagens Nyheter, The Daily Telegraph and The Irish Independent. 2. The article ID
Identification of a news story begins with a letter combination identifying the newspaper in question. The letter combinations are the following:
HS = Helsingin Sanomat DN = Dagens Nyheter DT = The Daily Telegraph II = The Irish Independent
Each news story is also given a code based on the date it was published. If more than one story concerning Ukraine is published the same day, the article will be given an index figure
of a,b,c… and so on. For example, an identification code for an article could be the following: HS21112013a.
NOTE: for the inter-coder, the code is pre-given. 3. Date
Here, the coder codes the date when the article has been published. Variable set 1: Presence of links to the home country
This set of variables measures whether there is a simple presence of links to the home country.
V1a: Mention of a home country
Does the article contain the explicit name of the home country (e.g. Finland), the home country nationality (Finn) or the home country adjective (Finnish)? The coder codes either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.
V1b: The location where the story is edited.
Is the article edited in the home country editorial office? The presumption here is that if a location is not explicitly stated in the article or in the byline, the article is edited at the home editorial office. Also, if the story is a news agency story rather than in-house produced story, the coder considers that it is not edited on location. The coder codes either ‘completely made abroad’, ‘partially made abroad’, ‘not made abroad’ or ‘really not possible to determine’. The ‘completely made abroad’ option means that the newspaper has been reporting on the topic on location, and the information in the story has been gathered from the location. The explicit byline explanation that the reporter is on location or an in-text reference to the fact that the newspaper is on location identify whether the story is made abroad. The ‘partially made abroad’ option means that the article includes some elements that indicate that the story has been reported or edited on location. This can include elements such as references to the previous stories of the newspaper on location or eyewitness accounts on location when stated, for example, “XX told Helsingin Sanomat in Kiev last week”, or one of the contributors to the article can be based abroad. The ‘not made abroad’ option means that the article does not include any elements that the reporting or editing would have been done on location. V1c: The countries involved
What are the countries involved in the article? In each article, certain countries are present. Here, the coder codes all the countries that the news piece is involved with. The countries are separated with a comma. The presence of a certain country is measured by the mention of the country, country adjective or nationality.
Q3: The coder also codes for the most involved county. The explicitness of an involved country can be evaluated by the interpretation of the coder. In doubtful cases, the mention order of a country in an article explains the level of involvement of a country. In these cases, the country mentioned first in the article is the most involved.
V1d: Sources of the information in the story
What kind of information sources does the article have? This category is different from the actors identified in the story, as it seeks to map out what kind of information sources the journalist has used in order to craft the story. These information sources can be identified, if they appear in a sentence including “According to…” For example, an information source can exist in a following sentence: “According to Reuters, Russian trucks are moving ahead in the Eastern Ukraine.” The involvement of a news agency can also be identified with a mention of the news agency in the byline. If there is no explicit mention about the ways the information has been acquired, the coder leaves the options blank.
The possible information sources are the following: Western news agency
This can also mean other type of media, i.e. newspapers or broadcast media. Home country news agency
For example in Helsingin Sanomat’s case, the news agency has to be another media or a news agency from Finland.
Russian news agency
This category means that the information has been acquired by using Russia-based news agencies or other media.
This category means that the information has been acquired by using Ukraine-based news agencies or other media.
Russian military source
This category means that the information has been acquired by using a source from Russian military.
Ukrainian military source
This category means that the information has been acquired by using a source from Ukrainian military.
Home country military source
This category means that the information has been acquired by using a source from the home country military.
Press-release from Russia
This category means that the information has been acquired by using press-release from the Russian government.
Press-release from Ukraine
This category means that the information has been acquired by using press-release from the Ukrainian government.
Press-release from home country
This category means that the information has been acquired by using press-release from the home country government.
Press-release from the EU
This category means that the information has been acquired by using press-release from the EU.
Eye-witness Ukraine
This category means that the information has been acquired by using eye-witness accounts from Ukraine.
