MASTER THESIS
“Framing of the NATO Bombing of Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia by the UK, the US and
Yugoslav media”
_______________________________________________________________________
Degree program: Master Journalism Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Unit of study: Master thesis Supervisor: Dr. C.J. Peters Second reader: Dr. T. S. Graham
Date: February 2013 Milan Lisica
S2196409
“When it comes to complicated, either domestic or foreign policy stories, many reporters are out of their element. And then I think there's also just some bad habits at work in our business. I once read a description of journalism & first simplify, then exaggerate. When you do that, you oftentimes present a somewhat distorted picture of reality, and I think a lot of our Kosovo coverage can be critiqued along those lines.”
John Harris (1999), The Washington Post
“The four-year-old Albanian boy whose arm was amputated in Prizren hospital was real, and so was the girl with dark curly hair and the blood-spattered face. I know taking us to see them provides propaganda for the Serbs. But it doesn't alter reality: these Albanian peasants were injured and others died in an air campaign which was supposed to save them. I saw no immediate evidence that Korisa was a ‘legitimate military target’. But even if it was, nothing I have seen has convinced me that the bombing is protecting the Albanians, or driving the Serbs out of Kosovo.”
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank to the JoinEU-SEE board for their decision to grant me the scholarship for Master of Journalism at the University of Groningen. Without the scholarship this thesis wouldn’t exist, thus I want to express my sincere gratefulness.
Also, I especially wish to thank to Erika Kastelein and Ansgard Heinrich for their decision to nominate me for the scholarship, and later on for their immense help during my studies. Thank you ladies, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I wish to thank to my colleagues who made my studies be something special, and to all others that I met in Holland. I especially want to mention Alexander Fingleton and Alexander Chaplin, who were also super copy-editors of my thesis. As well, I want to thank to Milan Trkulja who translated some media studies and articles from Serbian to English.
A big thanks goes to Ivana and my family for their endless support and for being there all the time.
Abstract
This thesis examined how the UK, the US and Yugoslav newspapers framed the NATO bombing of former Yugoslavia in 1999. Dominancy and presence of media frames were explored by utilizing content analysis. The study focused on seven frames: conflict, human interest, responsibility, morality, economic consequences, political consequences and other frame. Likewise, the study explored sources and overall tone of an article towards groups involved in the conflict. The sample contains 92 articles, with 26 from The Guardian, 26 from The New York Times and 40 from Blic. It was found that the newspapers didn’t emphasize all frames equally, and that the human lives and conflict were the most emphasized frames during the conflict. As well, the study revealed that a tone towards groups involved in the conflict had a connection between newspapers and the country of their origin. Likewise, the study found that British and American dailies used mostly Western sources, while Blic most of the time used Yugoslav sources.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements...3
Abstract...4
TABLE OF CONTENTS...5
1 INTRODUCTION ...7
2.0 BACKGROUND TO THE WARS IN THE BALKANS...9
2.1. Historical background of Kosovo and Yugoslavia...9
2.2. Outbreak of War in Kosovo...10
2.3. Reports of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity...12
2.4. Role of NATO in the Balkans...14
2.4.1 Allegations Against NATO...15
2.4.2 Allegations Against Yugoslavia...16
2.4.3 Allegations Against Kosovo Albanians and the KLA...17
2.5 Aftermath of the War and Civil Casualties...19
3.0. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK...20
3.1. Framing...21
3.2.The Influence of Media Framing on Public Opinion...25
3.3. Journalism and War...26
3.4. The Coverage of the Kosovo War and the NATO bombing...30
3.4.1. Framing and the Kosovo War and the NATO bombing...30
4.0. METHODOLOGY...35
4.1. The Code Book...37
4.2. Frames...38
4.3. Tone of the News Coverage towards a particular group...41
4.4. Sources in newspapers...42
4.5. Selection of News Articles...43
5.0. DATA COLLECTION...45
5.1. Data analysis...45
6.0. FINDINGS AND RESULTS...46
7.0. CONCLUSION...63
BIBLIOGRAPHY... 67
APPENDIXES...77
A Code sheet ...77
B Abbreviations ...80
1. INTRODUCTION
On March 24th 1999 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), started with the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The publicly-stated objectives of NATO were to end the Kosovo civil war between Yugoslav and Kosovo Albanian forces, and to move Yugoslav forces out of Kosovo. The bombing lasted for 78 days, and officials even today can’t be sure about the total number of military and civilian casualties. The NATO bombing is considered to be a part of the Kosovo war, in which Yugoslav side was accused of, by Western leaders, ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians. The bombing led to the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from Kosovo, and the stationing of a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping presence in that region.
The air strikes were seen from different stances in the international community. Some leaders saw it as a salvation of Kosovo Albanians, while others perceived it as an attack against the sovereignty of Yugoslavia. The majority of West European countries and America stood on the Kosovo Albanian side, while Russia and China, as East powers, supported the Yugoslav side by stating that the NATO shouldn’t intervene in the internal affairs of one sovereign country. Based on these two dominant perspectives of the conflict, this thesis explores how media in three different countries, Britain, America and former Yugoslavia, framed the NATO bombing and presented it to their respective audiences. I chose to employ cross-national comparisons in order to evaluate to what extent prominent daily newspapers framed the NATO bombing in a different manner.
The NATO bombing was one of the world’s top stories in 1999, and very often made front pages around the globe. Soon after the bombing ended, media scholars (Chomsky 1999; Barnett et al. 2000; Johnstone 2002; McLaughlin 2002; Eko 2002; Yang 2003; Su and Sui 2003; Gibs 2009) started to write about the media aspect of the bombing.
The thesis aims to check how media in three different countries presented the bombing. Likewise, the study examines number and origin of sources and overall tones of the reports toward groups involved in the conflict. I have to stress that this is the first time one media study gives a glance on the bombing coverage of one former Yugoslav daily. Therefore, I think that my thesis will contribute to the current scholarship by filling that gap.
These concepts were interconnected during the bombing due to war reporters employ frames, as other journalists, in order to present a story with a certain point of view.
Further, the theoretical framework begins with the notion of framing, which has been very popular among media scholars, as well as investigating war reporting, in the last two decades. Media uses frames to present an event to the audience in a certain way. This process, of portraying some event in a particular way and selection of parts of reality and presentation to the public, is referred to as framing. Entman (1993) argues that the two crucial elements of framing are selection and salience. For him to frame means “to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text” (Entman 1993, p. 52, cited in Su and Sui, 2002, p. 9).
The next chapter outlines war reporting as a concept, which consists of a way how journalists act in a war and how they craft their reports from war torn countries. This concept is very important for the thesis, since its main focus is on the NATO bombing. As well, journalists have an important role during a war, and it's essential to elaborate about their task to tell the world what is happening in a war-torn country. Griffin (2010) argues that how war is covered has an impact on the public opinion about the nature of the conflict and the parties involved.
The thesis continues with the literature review where I investigate the literature on the war coverage of the Kosovo war. This part plays an important role in the thesis due to in the results part I reflect on this part, along with the framing and the war reporting part as key concepts of the thesis. Also, this part serves the thesis in terms of presenting the conflict from more specified stance.
Further, in the chapter about the propaganda during the Kosovo war the thesis looks at techniques that were used by Yugoslav and NATO press machines to influence framing. Media scholar Eko (2002) claims that beside of the bombing war, the propaganda war was very intensive. As well, Eko claims that NATO and Yugoslav propaganda machines were extremely powerful.
2.0. BACKGROUND TO THE WARS IN THE BALKANS
The Kosovo issue has a long and troublesome history, in other words the history of conflict between Serbians, who were majority in former Yugoslavia, and Albanians in Kosovo, who were minority in former Yugolavia. The historical claims of both ethnic groups entirely contrast each other (Batakovic, 2007). They both claim to always have been treated unjustly by the other, and that the other side has committed atrocities many times.
2.1. Historical background of Kosovo and Yugoslavia
For many Serbians Kosovo is their holy land, the cradle of their civilization, which was brutally occupied by the Ottoman empire for more than 500 years. Before the more recent conflict started and up to date the official name of, once Yugoslavia’s and now, Serbia’s disputed southern province is Kosovo and Metohija. In the Serbian language Kosovo means field of blackbirds and Metohija means monastic property, which is directly related to its circa 1,500 churches and monasteries. However, when people refer to Kosovo and Metohija, they usually use only the first word of the official name – Kosovo, which is what I also use in this thesis.
Furthermore, for the sake of a better understanding of how the conflict started, I will discuss the demographic structure of Kosovo, which is directly relevant to the recent conflict. The following background information helps to understand the thesis better and explains the very complex history of this part of the Balkans.
The last centuries, Kosovo had seen a few different regimes: the Ottoman rule (1455– 1912), the Nazi occupation (1941–1945) and former Yugoslav strongman Tito’s communist regime (1945–1990). Even though “Kosovo is seen as epitomizing both the national and cultural identity of the whole Serbian nation” (Batakovic, 2007, p. 9), Kosovo Albanians have outnumbered Serbians in Kosovo for a long time already.
Tensions between the two groups intensified during the 1970s. In 1974, former Yugoslav strongman Josip Broz Tito gave Kosovo the status of an Autonomous region, and since then Serbians in Kosovo started to lose much of their former power (Pavlica, 2011). This status meant that Kosovo got its own government and parliament, and that it had more power at local level. It further meant that the percentage of employees in public institutions had to correspond to the relative number of people of each ethnic group present in Kosovo. In other words, more and more Albanians occupied official positions and many Serbians lost their jobs when the percentage-rule was put in force in state-run institutions and factories.
Soon after this rule had been launched, many Kosovo Albanians who had previously left Kosovo returned, and many Albanians from Albania came, attracted by the better standard of living in Yugoslavia (Pavlica, 2011). Serbians living in Kosovo claim that shortly after that the atmosphere in Kosovo became very hostile, and thousands moved out of Kosovo. All major political decisions remained in the hands of the Yugoslav federal government and not the Kosovo government. This didn’t go far enough for the Kosovo Albanians: they had long requested the Yugoslav government to turn Kosovo into Yugoslavia’s seventh republic, attaining the same status as Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia.
2.2. Outbreak of War in Kosovo
Towards the end of the 1980s, Serbian politician Slobodan Milosevic emerged as the new Yugoslav leader and “fearing that Ethnic Albanians would secede from Yugoslavia, brought the province under the direct rule of Serbia and did all in his power to crush Albanian culture and nationalism” (Semelin, 1999, used in Eko, 2002, p. 9). In 1989, Milosevic decided to alter the status of the region, removing Kosovo’s autonomy and bringing it under the direct control of Belgrade (NATO 1, 1999). This decision sparked protests in Kosovo during which 24 people were killed and many imprisoned (Human Rights Watch, 2001, cited in Pavlica, 2011). At the same time Milosevic named Kosovo “The heart of Serbia”, which became a frequently used slogan for Serbian patriotists.
As a response to the abolishment of the autonomous status, the Kosovo government, mostly consisting of Kosovo Albanians, in June 1990 proclaimed Kosovo as a republic equal to other Yugoslav republics. That decision sparked anger in the Yugoslav government, which discharged Kosovo’s regional government and cut funds for Kosovo institutions. Subsequently, Kosovo Albanians started to form parallel institutions and secretly developed a constitutional law to form “the secret new government” (Pavlica, 2011). During the following period, Kosovo had two systems: a Yugoslav and a Kosovo Albanian one. Later on, this led to the beginning of a real war, which was followed by the NATO bombing.
The wars that tore apart most of former Yugoslavia, mostly known as the Bosnian war (1991-1995), ended with the Dayton Peace Accords, brought by the UN and the United States, and a cease-fire was introduced. By that time, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia were independent countries, while Serbia and Montenegro stayed together under the name Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The Dayton Peace Accords increased tensions in Kosovo. Eko (2002) argues that Kosovo Albanians felt betrayed because the Dayton Accords didn’t solve their problems. Jansen (2008) writes that Kosovo Albanians were disappointed because Dayton didn’t bring them independence. However, “the absence of the Kosovars in Dayton suited the Serbs, who … wanted to solve the ethnic problems between the Kosovars and the Serbs within the framework of the remaining states of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” (Eko, 2002, p. 8).
KLA was to bring Kosovo independence, and they criticized Kosovo Albanian leaders for their passive approach. During 1998, the number of KLA members increased and fights with Yugoslav police forces continued. Many civilians were implicated, as well.
During the period following, the international community became very concerned about the humanitarian consequences of the conflict and the possibility that it would spread to other countries (NATO 1, 1999). One of the turning points of the conflict started with Milosevic’s refusal to cooperate in the 1998 process of peaceful problem negotiation. That led NATO, on October 13th 1998, to authorize “Activation Orders for air strikes” (NATO 1, 1999). In other words, NATO decided to use air strikes against Yugoslavia if necessary. The main aim of NATO was to force Milosevic’s regime to withdraw forces from Kosovo and to stop the killings in Kosovo.
However, despite NATO’s warnings, things didn’t improve in Kosovo, and “the situation in Kosovo flared up again at the beginning of 1999, following a number of acts of provocation on both sides…” (NATO 1, 1999). All this led to the outbreak of the Kosovo war, which was halted by the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
2.3. Reports of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity
One of the first allegations made during the conflict in Kosovo are human rights violations. The international community claimed that Yugoslav forces conducted inhumane and violent treatment of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Troebst (1998) claims that after the fall of 1997, tensions in Kosovo increased rapidly. He writes that in fights with the KLA in 1998, Yugoslav forces killed more than 80 Albanians, and among those were children, women and elderly persons. However, Jansen (2008) writes that the KLA too “entered into a campaign of terrorism by killing Serbs in the refugee camps and Serbian policemen and border guards in order to radicalize the situation” (2008).
the Racak massacre sparked media attention around the globe and Johnstone (2002) claims that this is also one of the key events in the preparation of public opinion for the bombing campaign. However, international investigations after the bombing ended didn’t find evidence of the massacre actually having occurred (Shah, 2003). The investigation indeed found 45 people dead, but they were killed in a fight between the Yugoslav forces and the KLA.
Further, Chossudovsky (2006) quotes Roland Keith, a former field office director of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM), who was in Kosovo prior to the start of the bombing. Keith claims that she didn’t witness any incidents of ethnic cleansing. She also claims in her report “Failure of Diplomacy, Returning OSCE Human Rights Monitor Offers A View From the Ground in Kosovo” (1999), that “there certainly were no occurrences of ‘genocidal policies’ while I was with the KVM in Kosovo” (cited in Chossudovsky, 2006). On top of this Keith argues that what happened during NATO’s bombing campaign, after the OSCE monitors were evacuated on March 20th, “obviously has resulted in human rights abuses and a very significant humanitarian disaster as some 600,000 Albanian Kosovars have fled or been expelled from the province.” Keith connects the humanitarian disaster “directly or indirectly to the NATO air bombardment and resulting anti-terrorist campaign,” since it happened only after the bombing started (cited in Chossudovsky, 2006). However, Secretary of State in the time Madeleine Albright (1999) stated that many Kosovo Albanian refugees reported crimes against humanity, and which included:
2.4. Role of NATO in the Balkans
As the international community didn’t see any progress on both sides and after several attempts to stop the killings in Kosovo NATO came up with the Rambouillet Peace Talks. Negotiation happened in France in Rambouillet from February 6th to 23rd, followed by a second round in Paris from March 15thto 18th, where Yugoslav and Kosovo Albanian delegations met.
Hammond (2004) claims that NATO’s idea was “to get the Kosovo Albanian delegation to sign, but make the terms so unacceptable to the Serbs that they would refuse, thereby precipitating bombing” (from Allan and Zelizer, p. 176). During the talks British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook “openly invited the ethnic Albanian delegation to sign so that air strikes could be carried out” (BBC Ceefax, February 21, 1999, at Allan and Zelizer, p. 177). At the same time some Western journalists were told by a senior State Department official that “the bar was set too high for Serbs to comply … they need some bombing” (Kenney 1999, at Allan and Zelizer, p. 177). In addition, only the Kosovo Albanian side signed the agreements, while Yugoslav refused because they felt the accord gave too much to the Kosovo Albanians.
According to the Rambouillet Accords, NATO required Yugoslavia to surrender many aspects of its national sovereignty (Jansen, 2008). It needed to grant the Kosovo Albanians greater autonomy, supervised by NATO, and it had to withdraw its forces from Kosovo (Eko, 2002). Yugoslav officials saw the Rambouillet Accords as independence for Kosovo, and in the eyes of the majority of Serbians those agreements were totally unacceptable (Gladreeper, 1999).
Rendall (1999) argues that from the beginning of the NATO bombing, the air strikes were presented in the media “as the consequence of Yugoslavia's stubborn refusal to settle for any reasonable peace plan in particular its rejection of plans for an international security force to implement a peace plan in Kosovo” (Rendall, 1999).
However, it is important to note that the Yugoslav government:
Likewise, after the talks NATO stated that Serbian forces continued with their operations against Kosovo Albanians, and that thousands of people needed to flee their homes (NATO 1, 1999).
On March 23rd NATO stated that “Milosevic refused to comply, and the order was given to commence air strikes (Operation Allied Force)” (NATO 1, 1999).
NATO forces “led by the United States, conducted an air war against Yugoslavia in effort to halt and reverse the human-rights abuses that were being committed against citizens of its Kosovo province by Yugoslavia’s president, Slobodan Milosevic” (Lembeth, 2001, p. 13).
Hammond (2004) argues that NATO’s main motive to start with an air campaign was to prevent a refugee crisis, and that NATO didn’t go to war because of the atrocities. In an interview for the BBC, Tony Blair said that “fail to act now… and would have to deal with… hundreds of thousands of refugees” (March 25, 1999, cited in Allan and Zelizer, p. 178). However, after the bombing started thousands fled Kosovo (Hammond, 2004) - the opposite effect the air campaign was supposed to have. Also, Chossudovsky (2006) says that public dissatisfaction with the NATO bombing was marked as “Serb propaganda.”
2.4.1. Allegations Against NATO
In this section, I will present criticisms against NATO's bombing campaign in Yugoslavia.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO is an intergovernmental military alliance formed in 1949. It was created with three purposes: deterring Soviet expansionism, preventing the revival of nationalist militarism in Europe through a strong North American presence on the continent, and encouraging European political integration (NATO 2, 2010). However, its core purpose is to “safeguard the freedom and security of its members through political and military means” (NATO 2, 2010).
-protecting western democracies from the Soviet threat” (p. 347). Thussu (2000) is not the only one who claims that the NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia was a violation of international law, other media scholars also argue (Johnstone 2002; Chassudovsky 2006; Eko 2002). NATO’s main argument for getting involved in Kosovo was that the conflict was seen as a threat to international peace.
After the bombing was over (March 24thuntil June 10th):
“Teams of international law professors from several countries including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Greece, filed complaints against NATO at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, alleging violation of the laws of war” (PARENTI, supra note 67, at 127, cited in Eko, 2002, p. 27).
The violations mainly pertained to civil casualties and violation of the laws of war. However, Louise Arbor, Canadian ICTY chief prosecutor in 1999, and her successor, the Swiss Carla Del Ponte, refused to investigate NATO’s violations during the bombing campaign of Yugoslavia. Carla Del Ponte, in an ICTY press release (2000) said that “there was no deliberate targeting of civilians or any unlawful military activity by the alliance during Operation Allied Force” (ICTY press release 2000, cited in Eko 2002, p. 2). On the other hand, the International Action Centre claimed that Carla Del Ponte ignore human rights violations of Serbians.
2.4.2. Allegations Against Yugoslavia
One of the crucial arguments that made NATO decide to start their air strikes were claims that the Yugoslav government has a secret plan codenamed “Operation Horseshoe”, planning the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer on April 1999 revealed the documents supporting these claims (Hammon, 2004). However, after the bombing ended, “German Brigadier General Heinz Loquai, a former OSCE adviser, exposed the supposed blueprint for genocide as a fake concocted by the German intelligence service” (Sunday Times, April 2, 2000, cited in Alan and Zelizer, p. 179).
“In the year before the bombing, according to NATO sources, about 2,000 people had been killed in Kosovo and several hundred thousand had become internal refugees. The humanitarian catastrophe was overwhelmingly attributable to Yugoslav police and military forces, the main victims being ethnic Albanians, commonly assumed to constitute about 90 percent of the population” (Chomsky, 1999).
Further, Thussu (2000) claims that the number of killed by Yugoslav forces was extremely overstated by the US, the UK and NATO leaders. In line with this claim comes the number of exhumed bodies, and according to Carla del Ponte, 2.100 had been exhumed due November 1999. Important to note is that “it was not clear how many of these had been killed in fighting between the Yugoslav army and the KLA, it was clear that the US had willfully exaggerated the extent of war crimes committed by Serbian forces in Kosovo” (Thussu, 2000, p. 352).
Albright (1999) states that NATO aimed to stop Milosevic's murderous rampage. While doing so, she claimes that “NATO is playing its rightful role as a defender of freedom and security within the Euro-Atlantic region” (1999). Also, other allegations made against the Yugoslav side are already mentioned in the chapter 2.3. “Reports of war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
2.4.3. Allegations Against Kosovo Albanians and the KLA
The role of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in the NATO bombing has been very controversial from the very start of the bombing. Thussu (2000) writes that the US government and the US rights groups in 1998 labelled the KLA as a terrorist organization. The KLA in those days was seen as an organization funded through drug smuggling. However, later on the image of the KLA was transformed into freedom fighters (Vistica, 1999). Media scholars (Chomsky 2000; Johnstone 2002; Thussu 2000; Chossudovsky 2006) argue that the KLA was trained, armed and supported by western intelligence agencies.
While NATO publicly stood up to defend people from ethnic cleansing in Kosovo:
Pavlik sees the KLA as NATO’s ground force, and states that NATO used it to achieve its own goals in Yugoslavia.
One of the connections between the KLA and NATO is analyzed by Butterworth (1999). He asserts that the bombing campaign wasn’t the only one that forced Yugoslavia to the negotiation table, it was also the ground war led by the KLA. Butterworth quotes US journalist Paul Richter of the Los Angeles Times, who explains an incident in which the KLA helped the NATO to hit Yugoslav forces:
“A Yugoslav armored brigade, based in Prizren, emerged from camouflaged positions at the beginning of the week to block the rebels' advance with troops, tanks, personnel carriers and artillery. The Yugoslav troops needed to concentrate their forces to hold off the rebels' advance; yet because they were in the open, they gave NATO 'the best opportunity so far in the air campaign to hit Serb forces hard,' German Maj. Gen. Walter Jertz, a NATO spokesman, said in Brussels” (Los Angeles Times, cited in Butterworth, 1999).
Additionally, US journalist Dana Priest at the time wrote in The Washington Post that the NATO and KLA forces “worked together to kill more troops and destroy more military equipment last week than in any other week of the war” (1999, cited in Butterworth, 1999).
Chossudovsky (2006) also claims that NATO’s campaign wasn’t a triumph of air forces solely. The author quotes Roland Keith, a former field office director of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM), who was in Kosovo prior to the start of the bombing. Keith claims that the KLA started the most of the violence. Even, US state secretary at the time, Madeleine Albright (1999) stated the KLA was “committing provocative acts of its own.”
Furthermore, fights between the KLA and Yugoslav forces continued until the very end of the bombing campaign. Important to note is that after the bombing ended:
2.5 Aftermath of the War and Civil Casualties
After the NATO bombing ended, 78 days after it started, Yugoslav forces were withdrawn from Kosovo. The United Nations took control over Kosovo, while it in fact legally remained an integral part of Yugoslavia. However, some claim that the UN presence on Kosovo “gave de facto independence to the Kosovo Albanians” (Chomsky 2000, used in Batakovic 2007, p. 124). Also, in the following period many Kosovo Albanians returned to Kosovo, while more than 100,000 Serbians left that region (Pavlica, 2011).
The exact number of civil and military casualties caused by the NATO bombing is still unknown, but some assumptions suggest up to 3.000 people. Director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies Robert Hayden stated that:
“The casualties among Serb civilians in the first three weeks of the war are higher than all of the casualties on both sides in Kosovo in the three months that led up to this war, and yet those three months were supposed to be a humanitarian catastrophe” (cited in Chomsky, 1999).
Chomsky (1999) argues that the casualties “among Albanians in the first three weeks, estimated at the time in the hundreds though presumably much higher, was surely far beyond that of the preceding three months and probably the preceding years.”
Further, in his report for the meeting of the Federal Socialists in Boon in May 1999, German professor Dr. Siegwart-Horst Günther states that the NATO was also waging:
“A low intensity nuclear war using toxic radioactive shells and missiles containing depleted uranium. Amply documented, the radioactive fall-out causes cancer potentially affecting millions of people for generations to come. According to a recent scientific report, ‘the first signs of radiation on children including herpes on the mouth and skin rashes on the back and ankles’ have been observed in Yugoslavia since the beginning of the bombings” (cited in Chossudovsky, 2006).
“Fire broke out and huge quantities of chlorine, ethylene dichloride and vinyl chloride monomer flowed out. Subsequently, workers in Pancevo, fearing further bombing that might blow up dangerous materials, released tons of ethylene dichloride, a carcinogen, into the Danube” (Press Release of International Action Center, 1999, cited in Chossudovsky, 2006).
Additionally, NATO later on confirmed that some bombs contained depleted uranium, which is a radioactive and chemically toxic material. Thussu (2000) writes that “many of the compounds released can cause miscarriages and birth defects” (p. 352). The radioactive contamination was the most devastating in Kosovo, however, where the majority of the population were actually ethnic Albanians (Chossudovsky, 2006).
NATO presented the bombing campaign to be an act of humanitarian intervention, but in fact “brutal air raids of towns and villages in Kosovo have triggered the exodus of refugees” (Chossudovsky, 2006).
The UNHCR reported that 4.000 residents of Kosovo left for Macedonia and Albania in the period of three days after the bombing started (Chomsky, 1999), and within a week the same institution reported that over 350,000 left Kosovo. By the end of the bombing, the figure of refugees who left Kosovo had almost doubled.
In 2008, the Kosovo government declared independence and many counties around the globe accepted that decision. The Serbian, former Yugoslav, government, however, strongly objects to Kosovo's declaration of independence.
Nowadays, for many Serbians Kosovo is their holy and ancient land, which they have been chased out of. For many Kosovo Albanians, on the other hand, Kosovo is an ancient Albanian territory, and they point out the connection between the Kosovo Albanians and the ancient Illyrians of Dardania (Bataković, 2007).
3.0. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
the audience. The war reporting part consists of the way how journalists act during a war and how they craft their reports from war torn countries. This part is also concentrated on the war coverage of the Kosovo war. In the subchapter on spin, I analyzsed what kind of techniques were being used by Yugoslav and NATO press machines to influence framing in news reports. I decide to give an overview on propaganda concepts because scholars such as (Eko, 2002), claim that the spin war was very intensive alongside NATO’s air war, and thus I think that is an integral part of understanding a broader picture of the bombing.
3.1. Framing
Framing has been in the focus of media scholars worldwide in the last few decades. Also, very often news frames have been used for an analysis of war coverage and that led me to an idea to have it as a key concept in this thesis. Likewise, I think that the framing analysis of the Kosovo war and the NATO bombing itself is very important, since both issues have had the international dimension. As well, the NATO bombing was a top story in 1999 and that makes it an interesting topic for analysis.
Media scholar Lindita Camaj (2010) argues that:
“The involvement of the international community in the political discourse of Kosovo status gave us reason to anticipate a considerable media attention of this issue that offers an ideal opportunity to investigate framing in cross-national comparisons” (p. 641).
Further, the concept of frames is the key one in the thesis. Frames matter a great deal since they affect perceptions of certain issues and also behaviours of the audience. One of the earliest concepts of framing was mentioned in the work of Goffman (1974) who argued that “the type of framework we employ provides a way of describing the event to which it is applied” (p. 24, cited in Scheufele 2000, p. 301). In other words, the framework media employ is crucial for the audience’s perception of an event. This concept is very important for my thesis because later on in the methodology and results sections I will elaborate on how the US, the UK and Yugoslav media framed the bombing.
composed of little tacit theories about what exists, what happens, and what matters.” (p. 6) Therefore, frames highlight certain ideas and send a message to the audience about the media’s reality. Gitlin presents the connection between framing and journalists as very tight. One of his explanations of the connection states that “media or news frames serve as working routines for journalists, allowing them to quickly identify and classify information and to package it for efficient relay to their audience” (Gitlin, 1980, p. 7). In my opinion Gitlin highlights the crucial point of the framing concept. His concept reflects on journalistic habits and practices that they employ while reporting.
News in the media, very often, is driven by journalists’ values and by internal and external influences on a media company. Scheufele (2000), on the basis of previous research, argues that at least five factors may potentially influence how journalists frame a given issue: social norms and values; organizational pressures and constraints; pressures of interest groups; journalistic routines; and ideological or political orientations of journalists.
In line with this concept, Pan and Kosicki (1993) name media frames as outcomes of journalistic norms, as well as organizational constraints (used in Scheufele, 2000). For Scheufele (1999) two concepts of framing need to be specified in order to make a distinguish between presenting and understanding news reports. I will use the definition of media frames by Gamson and Modigliani (1987) who argue that media frames are “a central organizing idea or story line that provides meaning to an unfolding strip of events” (p. 143, cited in Scheufele, 2000, p. 106). Entman (1993) provides a definition of audience frames as: “mentally stored clusters of ideas that guide individuals’ processing of information” (p. 53). Therefore, both scholars claim that the essence of frames is grounded in their messages and codes for understanding.
While framing, journalists and media select some parts of a particular event and emphasize it in their reports. To this effect, journalists “guide” public opinion about certain issues or events (Griffin, 2010). In fact, Wahl-Jorgensen and Hanitzsch (2009), by reflecting upon existing literature about framing, state that “most of the framing literature, empirical and theoretical, implies that what matters above all are the effects of single framing messages on individual citizens’ opinions…” (p. 175).
Etman’s (2004) claim that the framing also occurs in the minds of individual citizens. Thus, this explains what framing does in terms of an impact on the audience. While framing, the media influence the way people perceive an issue, thus possibly changing their final evaluation of that issue (Su and Siu, 2003). Media is a source of information for the people around the globe, especially about issues that are out of people’s sight. Thus, people have the media as their major source of information and that is a direct influence on an audience’s perception about some issue or event. In addition, journalists by framing point out to the audience how to perceive certain issues, and because of that, the media is very influential while transmitting specific messages.
Walter Lippmann, progenitor of framing theory (Wahl-Jorgensen and Hanitzsch, 2009), argued that “the world that we have to deal with politically is out of reach, out of sight, out of mind” (1922, p. 32). In line with this argument, people don’t have access to all information and due to that use media as their window to the world.
Further, I see media reports not just as a pure reflection of reality, I rather agree with the claims of Schoemaker and Reese (1996) who assert that “news is a social created product, not a reflection of an objective reality” (p. 21, cited in Akhavan-Majid and Ramaprasad, 1998, p. 132). In line with this statement, I classify news as a part of reality influenced by many factors, such as journalists’ own preconceived opinions, media ideology and politics. According to Akhavan-Majid and Ramaprasad (1998) framing constitutes an inevitable step while journalists craft their reports. Likewise, Norris (1997) claims that the framing theory:
“Suggests that journalists commonly work with news ‘frames’ to simplify, prioritize, and structure the narrative flow of events. News frames bundle key concepts, stock phrases, and stereotyped images to reinforce certain common ways of interpreting developments” (Norris 1997, p. 275).
In my opinion, frames are engaged in news coverage to produce a specific meaning and transmit a message to the audience. Additionally, through frames the audience creates opinions about certain issues, thereby in my opinion, frames are crucial in news coverage.
In other words, journalists use frames to tell the audience what the story is about, and how the public should understand it. Frames hold certain media influence, and they are powerful tool that media hire to shape public opinion about some issue or event.
Norris, Kern andJust (2003) argue that “the essence of framing is selection to prioritize some facts, images, or developments over others, thereby unconsciously promoting one particular interpretation of events” (p. 11).
Furthermore, some other media scholars such as Chong and Druckman (2007) see framing as a pattern for the audience, to build their concept of an issue or to rethink about the issue. They state that “the major premise of framing theory is that an issue can be viewed from a variety of perspectives and be construed as having implications for multiple values or considerations” (p. 104).
I see this pattern as a way to emphasize some part of media’s reality, and present it to the audience with that framework. By doing this media has great influence on how people value and understand some event or issue.
Framing has been in the focus of media studies in the last few decades, and it is not without reason. Entman, Matthes and Pellicano (2008) assert that framing can be considered as political strategic tool.
“Framing in communication texts arises from networks of professional communicators who engage in framing, defined as selecting some aspects of a perceived reality and constructing messages that highlight connections among them in ways that promote a particular interpretation” (Entman et al. 2008, p. 176).
All the above-mentioned led me to explore how the media in three countries framed the NATO bombing. Also, everything mentioned in the previous pages presents the significance of the role that frames have in the media world.
3.2. The Influence of Media Framing on Public Opinion
Media has very significant role in the society, since it is the main source of information for most of the world’s population. At the time of the NATO bombing, the Western media had much bigger readership than Yugoslav media, thus its influence was greater in terms of western perspective.
Media scholar Busher (2006) claims that “an influence of the media lie within its ability to frame” (p. 19). Busher uses work of Scheufele (1999) who claims that people tend to favor the facts that are brought to their attention through frames, and the way an event is framed by the media can affect how audiences understand the event. Busher supports her work by using Druckman’s (2001) thoughts and says that “framing effects occur because citizens do not seek out additional information, but instead look to credible sources for answers” (Busher, 2006, p 19).
Important to note is that Blic, The Guardian and The New York Times at the time of the bombing were credible sources in their countries. In addition, I think that The Guardian and The New York Times had greater influence, firstly due to the wide readership of English language media sources in comparison to Serbian, but also, The New York Times is the newspaper of record: an authority granted by the government but also accepted by the readership.
Further, data gathered by the American Enterprise Institute, summarized in their compilation Public Opinion on Kosovo (1999), shows that in the period March 1999 to April 1999 ”there was an increasing number of Americans believing US interests were at stake and an increasing public support for the US to be involved in Kosovo to protect the US interests” (cited in Yang, 2003, p. 246).
3.3. Journalism and War
The history of mankind is at the same time the history of warfare. News about wars were firstly carried out by runners-messengers and one of the first journalist or war reporters could be considered Greek Phiddipides. He ran for approximately 42 km to pass on news about the Greek victory against Persians. It was almost 2,500 years ago, and in his honour every year a 42 kilometre marathon is being organized. According to the legend, when he came to Athens he just said “We have won” and then he died.
Controversy over media coverage of an armed fight has surrounded every conflict from the very beginning of war reporting. Joseph Mathews in his book “Reporting the Wars”, written more than fifty years ago, said that every government along with waging a war devotes big efforts to “psychological warfare” where news is “a vital element” (1957, p. 3).
According to Mathews, the central part of war news is information about wars and people who are involved in them. War reporting has been a very important part of the news business in the nineteenth century due to the audience’s interest in it, and since the very beginning, war reports have been on the top of the news agenda.
“News of the wars became a ‘must’ for the newspapers, regardless of how far removed from the conflict they and their readers might be. Frequently the best and most extensive war coverage was offered by the journalists of neutral states” (Mathews, 1957, p. 4). In addition, by luring readers media outlets increase profit and ratings which have been the two main aims of every media outlet since the very beginning of the media industry. Mathews argued (1957) that war interests the pubic the most in the beginning and particularly when the readership’s country is engaged in the war. Likewise, this is the case in the modern war reporting, which, according to Mathews, can be traced back to the mid-nintheenth century.
internal and external factors. As they are eye witnesses of wars, they are challenged by patriotism, professionalism, casualties, human suffering and company and government interest.
Kate Adie, BBC veteran war correspondent says that “the principles of reporting are put to a severe test when your nation goes to war” (1998, quoted in Alan and Zelizer, 2004, p. 3). Even for Adie after many years on a frontline, the answer to what is the role of reporters when they face the consequences of war and challenges that go along with it, is not obvious. She says “I don’t have answers, but I keep asking questions” (1998, p. 54, cited in Alan and Zelizer, 2004, p. 3).
War reporters often have a hard time while trying to be objective and responsible in comparison to their colleagues – domestic reporters (Moorcraft and Taylor, 2008). Authors reason their statement by saying that:
“War correspondent’s job is quite different from domestic reporting, not only because it is so personally dangerous and professionally demanding nor even because only a small minority of journalists graduate into professionals by being good (or crazy) enough to cover conflicts effectively. Rather, war reporting can have a dire impact on the number of lives lost-or saved. Domestic reporting may sometimes topple governments, but it rarely kills” (Moorcraft and Taylor, 2008, p. XI).
In line with this quote is the claim by Alan and Zelizer (2004) who argue that covering the war represents a “higher order of journalism.” On top of this, war journalists have often been killed while reporting. Also, their role is very important due to they being the only source of information for most of the population and thus have great importance. Also, during a war journalistic profession is put on test. Crafting a report and choosing what is going to be in the report, and what not, is oftentimes one of the biggest challenges for war reporters. For John Burns, chief correspondent for The New York Times, during reporting what is most at stake is the need “to tell people as much of the truth as you can” (interview for CBC on November 23, 2003, cited in Alan and Zelizer, 2004, p. 4).
Boyd-Barrett (2004) claims that war reporting is a “distinct category of journalism.” In fact, maybe the dangerous nature of the work and many challenges are the main reasons why war reporters are so highly-esteemed in the journalism world. Along with that dangerousness come difficulties to write accurate stories by using reliable and objective sources and facts. However, the above-mentioned challenges are “essence of war reporting, and these attributes figure into the genre of war reporting that results” (Boyd-Barrett, 2004, p. 26). However, all those challenges need to be faced in order to have a good story, and war reports for media are “good stories,” that boost ratings. However, Moorcraft and Taylor (2008) assert that “war is often hell, and war correspondents are not angels...” (p. XII).
Further, for Löffelholz (2008) war coverage has two dimensions of journalism. He states that the first one represents content in the relation to war-related issues. The second one refers to the way media produce and shape content about the war. Over the time war reporting has changed significantly in terms of media technology and “economic interests, the abuse of journalism for political purposes as well as information and entertainment desires of the audience represent characterizing factors of war coverage” (Löffelholz, 2008, p. 822).
However, before even war reporters are sent to war zones, their editors need to decide about the way how they are going to cover a war. Griffin (2010) asserts that some images of war never reach the ether due to various factors that influence news production. He names “political pressures, negotiations with governments over the media policy and access, negotiations with military censors, negotiations between photographers and editors” (p. 35), as factors that influence news.
Also, very important to note is the relationship between military officials and media is very tight during a war. Moorcraft and Taylor (2008) say that in a war, journalists and military, while going through the same challenges on war, learn to make a deal. However, along that goes certain constraints and “correspondents frequently self-censor their reports to keep their vital military sources ‘on-side’” (Moorcraft and Taylor, 2008, p. XII). In fact, sources are the most important factor of during coverage.
should do their best to present both sides. Especially when their nation is in a war, because “this is the prime imperative of war reportage” (Moorcraft and Taylor, 2008, p. XIII).
In terms of the media, wars and conflicts are known as ‘hard news’ and the media always puts it to the forefront. Thussu (2003) argues that, for instance, TV reports require visual impact and a dramatic story, and like that wars or conflicts have higher ratings than events without any dramatic detail. Thussu (2003) goes even further by saying that “wars and civil conflicts are, therefore, good news for 24/7 networks: audiences turn to news channels when there is a natural or man-made crisis” (p. 123–4, cited in Griffin 2010, p. 9).
All this has led to media scholars’ interest in analysing war coverage and the issues that surround a war. Griffin (2010) in his recent article “Media, War and Conflict” argues that media scholars are interested in media coverage of war because reports are about life and death, and they have big public attention, and have an impact on public opinion.
Haridakis, Hugenberg and Wearden (2009) claim that the relationship between media and war is transparent. These authors argue that governments use media to support war efforts and media images are “created or manipulated to inform, persuade, or otherwise guide interpretations of those images” (Haridakis, Hugenberg and Wearden, 2009, p. 1).
Boyd-Barrett (2004) claims that war reporting serves as propaganda. He adds that “its generic character has been exploited by state and other propagandist in way that cripple the capacity of media consumers to make useful sense of the world” (p. 25).
Matheson and Allan (2009) write about the close relationship between media, military and politics. They mention that “others have taken the argument a step further to regard the media as an integral part of military and political campaigns to wage the war in first place” (p. 9).
3.4. The Coverage of the Kosovo war and the NATO bombing
In the following pages I will elaborate, and present a literature review, on the war coverage of the Kosovo war and the NATO bombing. As well, I will make a relation between propaganda, Kosovo war and the bombing. In addition, I will analyse what kind of techniques were used by Yugoslav and NATO press machines to influence the coverage of the war and the bombing. I decide to give an overview on the concept of propaganda because scholars such as Eko (2002), claim that the spin war was very intensive along with NATO’s air war, and thus I think that is an integral part of a broader picture of events surrounding the bombing.
3.4.1. Framing and the Kosovo war and the NATO bombing
The Kosovo issue has had an international context since its beginning and media scholars around the globe have written about it from various perspectives.
Su and Siu (2003), in their work concentrated on the media coverage of NATO's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, which occurred on May 7th. They analysed US, Chinese and Taiwanese media coverage, and claim that countries displayed different frames. Authors have found that the US dailies “justified Kosovo War as against Milosevic’s genocide policy and as a war safeguarding the values of democracy and freedom” (p. 13).
Furthermore, similar studies “Framing the NATO air strikes on Kosovo across counties: Comparison of Chinese and US Newspaper Coverage” (2003) by Jin Yang was even more fruitful for my thesis. Yang argues that “the US newspaper framed the air strikes as a humanistic aid to Albanians to stop the ethnic cleansing initiated by Serbians” (p. 231). The conclusion of Yang’s article is that in international news reporting national interest is the most influential amongst all factors and has an impact on the employment of frames. Thus, in my opinion it was expected that the US media frame NATO air strikes in the same manner, since that was the main statement of their officials.
presented to the American audience a picture of a just war providing humanistic aid to Albanians and the legitimacy of the action was taken for granted” (Yang, 2003, p. 244). Boyd-Barrett (2004) claims that if the media don’t cover war, war is unimportant and not in the scope of Western interests. The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia certainly was in the centre of media attention around the globe. During the bombing “more than 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched and 20,000 ‘smart’ and 5,000 conventional bombs were dropped. NATO ‘won’ the Kosovo conflict without a single life lost in combat operations on its own side” (Thussu, 2000, p. 346). The intensity of the bombing was substantial and Western media broadly reported about it.
Media scholars (Thussu 2000; Eko 2002; Johnstone 2002; Chassudovsky 2006) claim that the US media was in particular partisan towards US policy to wage, and later on to continue, the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
McLaughlin (2002) interviewed Sky News’ journalist Jake Lynch who was reporting from the NATO briefings in Brussels during the bombing, who claims that:
“Journalists were prepared to accept the fundamental framing of the conflict which NATO was conveying, namely that this was all the fault of Slobodan Milosevic for being unreasonable... and that therefore the only way of resolving it was to coerce the Serbs into backing down” (p. 258).
Lynch argues that the crucial point also is that some reporters were resistant to NATO’s spin control, and that NATO’s spin wasn’t entirely influential on all stories frames in the media. However, I believe that for the majority of war reporters the aim is to be as objective as possible and to have both sides presented in a story, but sometimes those aspirations go beyond their possibilities and they are shorthanded in terms of having a lot of information in the story.
Further, Boyd-Barrett (2004) claims that virtually all Fleet Street newspapers (British press) supported the NATO bombing “even calling for the deployment of ground troops (which not even the generals dared adopt as policy)” (p. 51). However Boyd-Barrett’s survey among columnists showed a brighter picture, with a result that one in three columnists opposed the air war against Yugoslavia.
broadens the picture about the Kosovo issue and is a good introduction for the methodology and results parts of this thesis.
3.4.2 Public Opinion, Propaganda and the Kosovo war and the NATO bombing
The airwave war during the NATO bombing was very intense (Thussu 2000; Eko 2002; Johnstone 2002). That feature of the air war painted the picture of the conflict around the globe. In this chapter I will elaborate on the connection between war reporting and propaganda.
Boyd-Barrett (2004) claims that war reporting is usually one-sided and that “the media typically cover war from the point of view of the country in which they and their major owners and readers are based, reflecting the point of view of that country’s government and its foreign policy elites” (p. 28). Therefore, it was expected that Yugoslav media frame the bombing in line with Yugoslav’s government policy, as well as from the point of view of the Yugoslav audience.
Journalists during the NATO bombing didn’t have an easy job discovering what the truth was and was not. British journalist Lindsey Hilsum, who was reporting from Yugoslavia in 1999 for Channel 4 News, says that she had a hard time finding out what was real during the bombing. “I have done stints in Belgrade, Kosovo, Albania's refugee camps and NATO headquarters and, back at the start of the war, I sat through interminable MoD briefings in London. So everybody has had a chance to spin me and, if you are not careful, reality shifts each time you get off the plane” (Hilsum, 1999).
In her book “Fools’ Crusade” (2002) Diana Johnstone states that the most decisive of all wars in Yugoslavia was the public relation war. Thussu (2000) notes that frames that spin doctors came up with were very influential on NATO’s policy to wage the air war. Add to this, Eko (2002) writes how NATO’s propaganda strategy, when the bombing started, was to dominate the airwaves. In addition, the US “cargo plane crammed with broadcasting and transmission equipment took the skies over Yugoslavia and began broadcasting a round-the-clock schedule of American-produced radio and television programs in Serbo-Croatian, on FM, AM, and Serbian television channels” (Eko, 2002, p. 19).
respective publics. They also wanted to be the main, if not sole, source of information on the war for their people and the rest of the world” (Eko, 2002, p. 16-17).
One other feature characterized both propaganda machines through the war, and that was a limited amount of information. Cleghorn (1999) writes that “facts hardly got off the ground during the first two weeks of the air war against the Serbian dictatorship.”
Furthermore, for its part, Eko (2002) notes, Yugoslavia closed off Kosovo and permitted reporters only to photograph victims of the NATO bombing. On the other side NATO “allowed reporters only glimpses of planes taking off and landing at its air bases” (p 17). Broadcasted images, that the US and European media used in their reports on the bombing, “were selected, edited cockpit video images from fighter pilots returning from war. Thus, the reporters heard only what NATO wanted them to hear in a well-orchestrated press briefings...” (Eko, 2002, p. 17).
On the contrary, the Yugoslav propaganda machine, orchestrated by Slobodan Milosevic, was very powerful, and at the same time very influential among the media in Yugoslavia. The propaganda campaign was prepared ahead and “Belgrade media began spreading war fever back in October, when NATO bombing was still just a threat“ (Gladreeper, 1999).
Zarana Papic, Serbian anthropologist and media analyst, in interview to Gladreeper (1999), claimed that the Yugoslav propaganda strategy was prepared in advance. Papic mentioned that:
“On the first night of the bombings, state TV broadcast an epic film about the fabled 1389 battle of Kosovo Polje that the Serbs gloriously lost to the Ottoman Turks… At the same time, the media introduced one of the most important cliches of the current crisis: the phrase ‘NATO's criminal aggression on the sovereign state of Serbia’ ” (quoted in Gladreeper, 1999).
On the other side, Thussu (2000) mentions one example which paints a picture of NATO’s press influence. News about the murder of four Kosovo Albanian politicians was released, and Yugoslav forces were named as the main culprit. It was stated that Pristina’s football stadium (the biggest city in Kosovo) “had been turned into a concentration camp” (Thussu, 2000, p. 349), but later on those claims turned as completely false.
Western propaganda claimed that The Balkans had caused the West problems because of “the appalling characters who live there. The reality is that the Western powers have caused the Balkan peoples no end of suffering because they continue to use the region as a theatre for their power politics” (Gowan, 1999, p. 105, cited in Thussu, 2000, p. 346-347).
Lindsey Hilsum who has reported for British Channel 4 News during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, describes NATO’s chief spokesman Jamie Shea as “smooth-tongued” who was at one point admonish her and her colleagues, for incorporation in Milosevic’s propaganda apparatus. When news about the death of 50 Kosovo Albanians came, Hilsum says that Shea was worried that that journalists wouldn’t “break free of their minders and carry out a full investigation” (Shea, cited in Hilsum, 1999).
However, Hilsum (1999) describes the Yugoslav military propaganda in a similar manner. She says that after the announcement by the Yugoslav government about the withdrawal of its forces, they were taken to one compound in Kosovo where the army was “withdrawing.” Hilsum recalls the situation by describing:
“20 beardless boys in bright new uniforms were cleaning their guns under the trees. As the cameras started rolling, they leapt to their feet, loaded their grenade-launchers on to their backs and jumped on to a truck. That was the withdrawal. So much for reality.” (Hilsum, 1999)
Further, in this chapter it is important to note the bombing of Radio Television Serbia (RTS), where 16 media workers were killed. Eko (2002) writes that RTS was bombed because it was the propaganda machine of the Yugoslav government, and promoted ethnic nationalism.
After the news about bombardment of the media station went around the globe, International Human Rights organizations, The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Committee to Protect journalists (CJP), criticized NATO for violating war laws and repression of the media (Eko, 2002). Likewise, NATO, with pressure arranged that the European Satellite Consortium EUTELSAT, take Yugoslavia off “its satellite circuits for domestic and international broadcasting... as a result, the Serbian state television network was reduced to broadcasting in black and white to a much-reduced audience” (Associated Press, 1999, from Eko, 2002, p. 22).
were killed. However, NATO claimed that the number of killed by Yugoslav army prior to the bombing was around 10.000 Kosovo Albanians. That figure was strongly criticised by Yugoslav leaders, who state that during the Kosovo war around 2.500 Kosovo Albanians and Yugoslavs died. However, officials even today can’t be sure about the total number of military and civilian casualties.
4.0. METHODOLOGY
The study analysed only hard news stories, and omitted news genres such columns, letters and editorial opinions. I see hard news stories as the most prominent and dominant in the media, and as well due to it is presented as factual and allegedly unbiased. Also, they are distinguished from the feature stories, comments and editorial letters, by its tone and mainly are most read stories in the media. Also, Tuchman (1972) claims that hard news are characterized “as having a high level of newsworthiness” (Lehman-Wilzig and Seletzky, 2010, p. 37-38). In addition, because of the large sample and length of articles, I chose only articles which addressed the issue of the bombing on particular dates that I selected. In the following pages, I will explain why I chose particular dates for the analysis.
Further, in order to generate my sample I used Lexis Nexis Academic for The Guardian and The New York Times articles, while Blic reports I acquired at the Matica Srpska library archive in Serbia. I chose content analysis as a method for my research, which concentrated on six key days during the bombing and one week after the bombing ended. My decision was led by my opinion that that a content analysis will display frames during the NATO bombing. As well, the analysis of content in the media reports has been a trend among media scholars and some of them name it as “the primary message-centred methodology” (Neuendorf, 2002, p. 9). In other words, content analysis summarizes an essential message from certain content. Likewise, I see content analysis as relevant for my research because it is “...a research method that uses a set of procedures to make valid inference from text” (Weber, 1999, p. 9, cited in Macnamara, 2003, p. 3). On top of all, content analysis has been used for text analysis.
The number of articles included in the sample is 92. The coding was done by me and I organized the data in Microsoft word using the coding sheet (Appendix A). Frames that I was looking for are: conflict, human interest, economic consequences, morality, responsibility, political consequences and other frame. The total number of frames doesn’t correspond with the total number of articles that I examined, due to the most of the articles included more the one frame. For every article I used the coding sheet (Appendix A) to document headline, date, frames, sources and the overall tone of the article toward particular groups.
4.1. The Code Book
I designed the code book in order to get reliable findings and to organize them in logical order. The code book is consisted of three parts in which I examined frames, counted sources and looked at the overall tone toward particular groups. Macnamara (2003) writes that a code book provides framework that guide researcher through the analysis, thus it is the key element for an extensive analysis. Author writes how a code book “should establish all the messages (both positive and negative) that are relevant” (p. 10). Moreover, I designed the code book in order to develop a comprehensive overview of the possible dominant themes in the war coverage, which potentially had a significant impact on how different elements influence the coverage. Also, the code book is designed to show which frames were established during the coverage in the three above-mentioned dailies. Likewise, I decided to look for sources in the reports and the overall tone of the articles. In a nutshell, I decided to examine frames, sources and tone in the coverage, because all of them are variables that have an impact on a text.
4.2. Frames
I decided to look for frames because I see them as influential and powerful elements in the media world. Frames can create an opinion about certain topics and they guide individuals in the process of information reception (Etman, 1993.) I think that a frame analysis is a good choice for my research due to the Kosovo conflict having had the international political dimension, and it will be analysed in-depth. The frames will reveal newspapers’ attitude towards the conflict that is in the focus of the thesis. As well, media frames describe an event and thus help journalist to make an informational package for the audience (Goffman, 1974.) That being said, my research design will allow me to uncover how The Guardian, The New York Times and Blic framed the bombing and like that guided the audience in its perception of the conflict.
Further, framing and content analysis allow me to look for a way of describing the conflict, how journalist reported from the conflicts and what patterns-frames media used during the coverage. Additionally, the framing analysis will help me to answer in the results part on central research questions: which were the dominant news frames employed by dailies and how the dailies framed the NATO bombing and what frames were more dominant in the media coverage of the NATO bombing in each daily.
I see the work of media scholars Semetko and Vlakenburg (2000) as perfect for my inquiry because it defines the frames that suit the topic I decided to analyse. Semetko and Vlakenburg identify five news frames: conflict, human interest, economic consequences, morality and responsibility. These frames are derived from their work “Framing European Politics: A Content Analysis of Press and Television News,” which looked at news frames surrounding the Amsterdam meetings of heads of state in EU in 1997. However, above-mentioned frames serve as a good model for my thesis because they also cover all key aspects of any war or conflict. Beside those five frames, I add two more frames to my analysis: political consequences frame (Serge, 2009) and other frame. Most of the conflicts are in charge of country leaders, and thus I decided to add the political consequences frame. The other frame is there in case that some of frames don’t fit to any of the above-mentioned frames.
