Mediatized Conflicts Between West and East:

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Yun Long

A Thesis of Master Degree in Journalism

D r . A . H e i n r i c h D r . T . S . G r a h a m F A C U L T Y O F A R T S U N I V E R S I T Y O F G R O N I N G E N

Mediatized Conflicts Between

West and East:

Comparing The Framing of

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My sincere thanks to:

Julia Kramer, thank you for being my proofreader even during the busy time of your internship.

Jan-‐Pieter van der Berg, thank you for helping me check grammar and typos, again and again.

and Ansgard Heinrich, thank you for your very patient, careful and useful supervision for this thesis, and encouraging me making progress through the whole study.

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Abstract

This research is aiming to investigate and compare the framing of the North Korean nuclear crisis in four newspapers in the United States (The New York Times and Washington Post) and China (Reference News and People’s Daily). Based on the theory of framing, this thesis illustrates the relation of framing and source studies in the arena of political communication in studying the case of North Korean nuclear crises. The thesis applies a quantitative content analysis on the main/secondary frames and sources of the four newspapers’ report on the “Six-‐Party Talks” and nuclear tests as the core events in the long-‐lasting crises. The results show the U.S. newspapers framed the North Korean nuclear crises with highlighting the threat, difficulties in dialogue and sanctions, while the Chinese newspapers presented the crises as the promoter of unstable international relations, and calling for more dialogues. Official sources are the dominant influencing sources in all newspapers’ framing.

Key words: mediatized conflicts, news framing analysis, North Korean, U.S. newspapers, Chinese newspapers.

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List of tables and figures

Figure 1. An overview of framing research of Scheufele

Figure 2. The Cascading Network Activation in Domestic U.S. Media of Entman

Table 1. Comparing newspapers in report amounts in five different time periods on reporting the North Korean nuclear crises

Table 2. Comparing Main Frames in the U.S. and Chinese newspaper on reporting the North Korean nuclear crises

Table 3. Comparing Secondary Frames in the U.S. and Chinese newspaper on reporting the North Korean nuclear crises

Table 4. Comparing source usage in the U.S. and Chinese newspaper on reporting the North Korean nuclear crises

Table 5. Comparing the usage of four categories of official sources in the U.S. and Chinese newspapers on the reporting the North Korean nuclear crises

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1. Introduction

On February 12th 2013, North Korea conducted the third nuclear test. Compared with the past two tests, this time it drew a huge amount of international attention, both in the West and East. Especially in the five countries the United States, South Korea, Japan, Russia and China, media coverage of the nuclear test dragged the North Korean nuclear crises again to the central attention of international affairs. Global media did focus on the Korean Peninsula and the nuclear crises, coming up with reporting around the country’s nuclear activities and different reactions and attitudes from different parties.

Among all these countries, the voices and reactions of the U.S. and China are regarded to be vital for they are the two significant diplomatic powers. As can be observed from their mainstream media, the first reactions of both countries’ news reports focused on “surprise” or calling for “condemn”. Even though, some differences can be found in what the aspects the reports have selected and stressed, in another word, how they “framed” the issue. For instance, when first reported on the second nuclear test in 2009, the American newspaper The New York Times stressed that the test is “defying international warnings and drastically raising the stakes in a global effort to get the recalcitrant Communist state to give up its nuclear weapons program”. This report accounted only on the responses from the U.S. and its ally South Korea, stressing the test would largely affect the three nations’ relations (see report “North Korea Says It Tested Nuclear Device”, on The New York Times, May 25, 2009). On the other side of the world, the top seller Chinese newspaper Reference News’s front page shows more efforts in reporting the global condemns and responses, and rather than voices from China’s officials or media, some foreign media are largely applied as news sources, such as Reuters, Agence France-‐Presse, Associated Press, etc. Instead of the Chinese official response, the report largely presented responses from the U.S, South Korea, Japan, Russia and U.N., expressing how they call the nuclear test as the “threat” to global security (see the Reference News May 25, 2009).

The different choices of reporting aspects about the North Korean nuclear test could come from the different roles of the U.S. and China play in this international affairs: while the U.S. wants to keep its ally and power in the Northeast Asia, China tries to hold its regional benefits, influence and safety and meanwhile shows responsible and peace-‐like leading feature (Bajoria and Xu, 2013, online; Ogden, 2007: 6, 46-‐50). Furthermore, the differences in their media systems and the state-‐press relationships would lead to how different media present or criticize the state’s ideas to domestic audience, and this might be another reason of the observed differences in the reports between the two countries.

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state-‐press relations in political communications. The framing theory generally stresses the fact that news events, instead of objectively reflected, are in fact selected and portrayed by news media. Sources, as the information provider, have large impact on the framing process. In the genre of political communication, the differences of state-‐press relations and news media’s different social roles would lead to different use of sources and how much political players intervene in news framing progress.

Therefore, the present thesis is to find out how the North Korean nuclear crises have been framed by the U.S. and Chinese mainstream media. It is also to add the empirical research to the framing theory, in relation with sourcing practice in the genre of political communication, by conducting a quantitative content analysis on frames and sources usage of four main newspapers.

News has the significant power of influencing people’s knowledge or image about a specific object or reality, as Maxwell McCombs emphasizes that “news influence on our picture of the world” by structuring and organizing the world around us (1994:3). In some arenas that are relatively “closed” or “limited” to the rest of the world, such as war zones, dangerous places or secluded areas, only professional journalists can access a specific conflict area or country. In this case, mainstream media become the only source for people to understand a conflict. Therefore, their impact will be relatively enlarged since how they portray or frame an event through every news they produce will directly influence people’ knowledge of a specific event, or in a higher level: the whole image of the issue or the region.

One of the significant examples of such a “limiting” area is North Korea: the country that is “door-‐closed” to the outside world and under the suspicion of developing nuclear weapons. In this case, how people get to know the crises or the country per se, and how people build their opinion and standpoint about the issue are directly influenced by how media actually report it. This makes it meaningful to investigate the news framing of the North Korean nuclear crises both in theory and journalistic practice.

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The different diplomatic roles the U.S. and China play in the North Korean nuclear crises, and the different state-‐press relations in the U.S. and China’s media systems, together makes the case of North Korean nuclear crises worthy studying for news framing and political influences in framing.

In the political communication field, media plays a vital role in the triangle between political parties – media – audience (McNair, 2003). Political factors influence news framing in two levels: as the regular and supervisor of media organizations and the whole media system; and as the authoritative and official news sources, especially for political news events.

Within different social and media systems, the state-‐press relation differs in what Hallin and Mancini (2004) call the “political parallelism”. In the U.S., news media is regarded as the “Fourth Estate” holding the right of criticizing the state; while in the single-‐party communist China, the press is called the “mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party and government”, and it is monopolized by the authority.

In the process of framing, sources play the vital role as holders of information, what they tell largely influence how reporters frame an event. In the case of political issues, officials are regarded to be the predominant sources of reporters due to their accessibility and authority (Strömbäck et al., 2008, 2013). Political players try to influence the news frame media conduct, thus to lay impact on public sphere for their interests.

All in all, it is significant to keep studying the framing of the nuclear crises with journalistic practices, and this thesis is to find out: how do political sources influence the framing of a political issue like the North Korean nuclear crises? Do the reporters from the U.S. and China with different state-‐press relations rely on official sources differently? And, concerning the international relations and own country’s standpoint, how do they frame the nuclear crises? These are the main questions the present thesis is going to address.

By selecting, repeating and stressing certain frames (regarded as the main frames) and neglecting others, news framing show its impact on audiences. The sources that are mostly relied on would affect news framing in larger degree than others. Therefore, this thesis applies a quantitative content analysis on all reports from five time periods of the North Korean nuclear crises, in order to find out the frequencies of main frames and sources. The five time periods cover the most significant events of the nuclear crises: three rounds of the “Six-‐Parties Talks” (from 2005 to 2007) and two nuclear tests (2009 and 2013). The thesis examines four newspapers The New York Times, Washington Post, Reference News and People’s Daily, as they are the biggest players representing each country.

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combined theories of sourcing practice with the theories of news framing. Furthermore, as few studies have been conducted on the case of North Korea, this thesis also adds values to the studies of foreign crises reporting. By comparing different media systems of the U.S. and China, the thesis as well add values to comparative studies on media systems in the case of reporting political crises and diplomatic issues.

Brief outline of the thesis: the next chapter is going to illustrate the North Korean nuclear crises with the core international relations and diplomatic standpoints of the U.S. and China, and the importance of the case for news framing studies. The following chapter demonstrates the theoretical foundation of this thesis: core ideas of framing theory and sourcing studies in political communications, and their interactive relations. Known the theoretical framework and as it is the crucial element in framing a political conflict, the different political/governmental impacts and state-‐press relations within the distinguish U.S. and Chinese media systems are illustrated in the next chapter. The following methodology chapter introduces the quantitative content analysis and the variables of frames and sources that are applied by this thesis, in order to find out how U.S. and Chinese newspapers framed the crises, and what role different sources played in the framing progress. The results show that the two countries’ chosen newspapers framed the North Korean nuclear crises differently, related to the different diplomatic roles the U.S. and China played on the international stage, and official sources played the largest role in all four newspapers.

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2. Describing the case: nuclear crises on the Korean peninsula

The case of North Korean nuclear crises stands out for it is a political conflict “beyond individual direct experience”. The long-‐lasting North Korean nuclear issue per se is a vital international news topic with plenty of news events. Besides, the U.S. and China have shown disparate diplomatic relations with North Korea and played different roles during the nuclear issues, which would impact how the two countries’ newspapers frame the crises, concerning their national interests and political influences. Therefore, it is a significant case for framing and sourcing studies in political communication.

North Korea as a closed country to the rest of the world, its image and national identification is known by normal people nowhere else but through global media (see more study of framing North Korea: Dai and Hyun, 2010; Choi, 2006; Lim and Seo, 2009, etc.). As Rozman put it as a basic review of this country that “North Korea is a repugnant regime because of extreme oppression and denial of basic human rights to its own people. Its rhetoric and often-‐threatening posture mark it as a belligerent state too” (2007:1). North Korea has been framed with a negative image as “threat” in Western media for decades (Dai and Hyun, 2010:304-‐305).

The North Korean nuclear issue has lasted for about three decades, and its developments and changes are largely related to the international diplomacy changes. The main involvers in the nuclear crises are the U.S., China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.

Historically, the U.S. brought the nuclear crises into international attentions back in the 1980s, and it is playing the main judging role under its global security strategy. Besides negotiations, the U.S. government keeps pushing for sanctions through its diplomatic power in the UN and the Far East (mainly South Korea and Japan, both has the U.S. army base). In 2002, the Bush government listed North Korea among the “Axis of evil” together with Iran and Iraq, as helping terrorism and seeking for weapons of mass destruction (Bush, State of the Union address, January 2002). This statement worsened the hostile relation between the States and North Korea. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Stalinist North Korea, against tones of prediction that it would follow the “big brother”, remained its existence and turned even more closed-‐door and authoritarian. Already since the Cold War, the U.S., together with its allies South Korea and Japan, regards North Korea as a dangerous time bomb, who puts lots of efforts in developing nuclear powers in order to threaten its “enemies”.

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Korea as an effort to limit the U.S. power in Northeast Asia, meanwhile to present itself a responsible and peace-‐like leading power in the region (Bajoria and Xu, 2013, online; Ogden, 2007: 6, 46-‐50).

The cores events during the long-‐lasting crises are the “Six-‐Parties Talks” and the nuclear texts conducted by North Korea. The “Six-‐Parties Talk” was set up after North Korea withdrew from the Treaty on the Non-‐Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in 2003, seeking for a peaceful diplomatic way to solve the crises through dialogues between high-‐officials of the six countries (they are North Korea, the U.S., China, Japan, Russia and South Korean). There were six rounds of meetings from 2003 to 2007, and China was the sponsor and host of these meetings. As the biggest international attempt in solving the nuclear problem, it witnessed huge media attention, especially of the media from the six countries. North Korea conducted nuclear tests three times, in 2006, 2009 and 2013. The first nuclear test is said to be “small” and was considered as “partial success” by some Western experts. While the last two tests are said to be “successful” by the North Korean officials, media put their massive attention on the nuclear tests, as Dai and Hyun point out both the opponents and allies regard it as a threat of the global peace (2010: 304).

Dai and Hyun (2010) investigate how news agencies of the U.S., China and South Korea frame the North’s nuclear test in the landscape of global risk. Their study proves that the “national political interests” have vital impacts on the construction of frames. On the basic agreement on “threat” frame, the three news agencies identify four different “media packages”, which are basically main frames: the Associated Press connects the nuclear issues to the wider “War on Terror” frame; the South Korean news agency Yonhap contextualize the issue in the reemerging “Cold War” frame; the China’s state run Xinhua News Agency promotes diplomatic solution as the “negotiation” frame (2010:313). Dai and Hyun’s study demonstrates that in reporting international conflicts, even though it is generally accepted as the same “threat”, media’s own country’s interests would lead to different news frameworks.

Lim and Seo (2009) investigate the frame flow between government and news media of the U.S. in framing North Korea. The study adopts Entman’s cascading network model and prove that government frames significantly influence news media frames, which will determine public opinions to support the sanction frames (2009: 218-‐219). By examining and comparing the U.S. government’s policy statements and news stories of The New York Times, Lim and Seo’s study also proves what Entman’s cascading network model suggests: a mutual influence between the government frames and news media frames (2009: 219), and “the magnitude of the frames shifted as U.S.-‐North Korean relationships shifted” (2009: 204).

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portrayed as the “outlaw state whose misdeeds warranted economic sanctions” (1998: 207). North Korea is one of few communist states (as well as China) after the Soviet Union’s collapse, and it is regarded as autocratic and totalitarian (Rozman, 2007: 1). The diplomatic and media frames of the U.S. are largely influenced by the “Cold War” frames, in which the international relations directly defined how newspapers portal events (1998: 208). Besides the influence of the “Cold War” frames, the “Axis of evil” put forward by the Bush government as part of “War on Terror” also shows strong impact on the portrays of North Korean issues. Sigal summarizes the three dominant questions of the American journalists: “did North Korea already have the Bomb? Was it about to start a war? How soon would it collapse, like the rest of the communist bloc?”. The U.S. news reports were preoccupied by the topic of “the nuclear past, intention and prospects for sanctions and war” (1998: 208).

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate news frames of the U.S. and Chinese news media, as well as the sourcing practice in reporting the North Korean nuclear crises. In the practice of reporting a political issue like the North Korean nuclear crises, the potential influencing factors in the framing-‐building process would be lying in the differences of press-‐state relations in each media system, as well as in the diplomatic relationships and own country’s interests. The press-‐state relations would also impact on the sourcing practice, especially when officials influence news content as sources. Therefore, the next chapter is going to illustrate the theoretical frameworks of this thesis: framing theories stressed by scholars like Entman and Scheufele, sourcing studies of Strömbäck and Sigal, etc., and McNair’s political communication.

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3. Theoretical framework

Conflicts and crises reporting is a vital part of journalism: as communication technology shortens the distance of information flows, crises happening faraway can be accessed fast and easily via global media. However, in the process of news spreading, the way that different national or regional media present the remote crises to local audience may be not the same. Crises and conflicts abroad are mediatized in this global communication age, as Simon Cottle (2006) argues:

“[C]onflicts are variously defined, framed and visualized; elaborated, narrativized and evaluated; moralized, deliberated and contested; amplified and promoted or dampened and reconciled; conducted and symbolized; enacted and performed. In a word: mediatized” (2006: 185). Cottle’s argument on the notion of “mediatized” stresses the fact what people from different countries read, hear or watch about the same conflict from news would be different according to how media actually report it. By stressing the medium and journalists’ role of disseminating information and making the world known to their audience, Cottle furthermore presents the opinion that media monopolize the information of conflicts, and he argues that “it is in and through the different mediums, forms and appeals of the world today and this daily infusion is delivered into the rhythms and routines of our everyday lives – and can do so 24/7 and via real-‐time modes of communication” (2006: 3).

Journalists’ public gatekeeper and watchdog roles are playing its important effect in journalism’s social functions, even in the global information age with all fast-‐developing alternative media. According to Cottle, the view of self-‐conception and journalism profession inflects the widespread public prospects of “the social responsibilities and political function of journalism in democratic societies” (2006:3). While as he also argues that media’s “stressing conflicts may challenge these social democratic situations, because the way how conflicts are mediatized decides the array of views and voices that surround them and the public spaces that they manage to secure to define and defend their claims and aims” (2006:3). Therefore, as the news media hold the important responsibilities in social democracy, the existence of news framing especially in reporting conflicts and how it impacts audience and further public sphere is an important genre of communication researches.

Cottle’s idea of conflicts are “mediatized” refers to the theory of framing in mass communication, which illustrates the important fact that news is manipulated as it is selected, produced and presented in a certain way to deliver and promote certain information or opinions. As one of the famous definitions of “framing” by Robert M. Entman (1993) outlines framing is:

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particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described” (1993:52).

Entman (1993: 51) also stresses that it is not possible to have a perfect explanation or definition of framing to show how it literally or psychologically coexists and effects across social science fields. However, from the start of the “framing” theory, Goffman (1974) argues that frames work as locater, perceiver, identifier and label of events. Further studies by scholars like Entman (1993, 2004, 2007), Scheufele (1999,2000) and Reese (2001, 2007) etc. discuss the unavoidable phenomena of framing in communications, especially on how frames function in journalism, what factors influence the framing process, and how do they influence audience and public sphere. This chapter is going to review the literatures on framing theories, ranging from its various explanation to the influencing factors in news framing. The impacts of framing on social communication mark the importance to continue study and enrich the news framing theory with different case studies.

As the present paper is to investigate the framing of the North Korean nuclear crises, an international political conflict, the conception of framing in political communication is another theoretical cornerstone of the paper. McNair’s “Introduction to Political Communication” (2003) stresses media is a significant part of political communication -‐ media is a political player. In order to investigate how political factors influence media’s framing process in reporting political crises, the present study detects the source practice of newspapers, and how much do political sources intervene in framing the nuclear crises. Thus, besides framing theory per se, this chapter is going to illustrate the role of framing in political communication and source study. The last section of this chapter describes the study case of North Korean nuclear crises, in particular the core issues, involved diplomatic relations with the U.S., China and North Korea, as well as the focus of this thesis on the case.

Framing, frames and the effect

Framing speaks for the phenomena that news media select and make “salience” of certain aspects in reporting news stories. The word “salience”, as used by Entman in expressing framing, means most prominence and noticeability. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “the quality or fact of being more prominent in a person's awareness or in his memory of past experience”. Framing as a construction of social reality (Scheufele, 1999: 104-‐105), conceptualizes one of the most important theories in media effects research, and in the field of communication science (Scheufele, 2004:401).

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(2007) made clear distinctions between the three: according to them, agenda setting “refers to the idea that there is a strong correlation between the emphasis that mass media place on certain issues”, while priming as often referred to as an extension of agenda-‐setting, it suggests that “mass media can also shape the considerations that people take into account when making judgments about political candidates or issues” (Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007:11). To understand agenda-‐setting and priming, they are more based on the notion of salience and accessibility, and by setting the level of importance, media can influence the standards of different issues in the mind of audience (see more, Scheufele 2000). On the other hand, framing, based on the notion of attribution, influences how individuals think about certain issues. Thus framing theory is sometimes understood as the second-‐level of agenda-‐setting (e.g. McCombs, Shaw & Weaver, 1997; Entman, 2007). On a practical level, framing is about how to report a certain issue, instead of what issue to report or what is more important for people to know (Scheufele 2000:300-‐302). The present research focuses on framing work of media: how the chosen newspapers frame the case of the nuclear crises.

The earliest frame analysis studied by Goffman (1974: 10) aims to “isolate some of the basic frameworks of understanding available in our society for making sense out of events”. In his work, Goffman argued that individuals cannot make full understanding of the mass world, therefore they need to actively refer to their life experience to make sense of the world around, meanwhile they analyze “the special vulnerabilities to which these frames (e.g. what they receive from mass communication like news) of reference are subject” (1974: 10). This definition suggests that people would rely on what we call “common knowledge” to judge the subjectivity of news frames. However, in the fields that are beyond personal and interpersonal experience, the media expressions build up the common knowledge for their audience. “Definitions of a situation” are effectively “built up in accordance with principles of organization which govern events – and our subjective involvement in them”(Goffman 1974: 10-‐11), and Goffman calls this basic scheme of interpretation of the individual reaction to information gathering “primary framework” (1974: 24). The social framework of framing is to “locate, perceive, identify and label” events (1974: 21). By applying this argument to the genre of mass communication and journalism, how events are received and established in individuals’ minds is therefore actively and sometimes subconsciously affected by the mass media. More specifically, it is the framework presented by journalists that contains the impact, as Goffman argues: “the type of framework we (refers to the news media) employ provides a way of describing the event to which it is applied” (1974: 24).

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have adapted the framing theory in fields of communication science, political relations and journalism. In the stage of journalism, the frame theory becomes more and more vital and outstanding. “News is not the mirror of reality” (Strömbäck et. al., 2008), is the core argument of most studies. They stress the inevitable framing process of news coverage: instead of a mirror, news is more a reflection of reality through journalists’ different filters and colored lenses. News events are framed and manifested in these lenses.

To completely clarify the definition of “framing” or “frames” is difficult as it can be related to various research fields, and as Entman points out that no general statement could exactly explain the effect and power of framing theory embedded within text or in audiences’ minds (1993:51). However, to understand the meaning of “framing” and “frames” is essential as the cornerstone to research its influence in the area of journalism and political communication. Entman regards the main functions of frames as to “promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described” (1993: 52), and they “introduce or raise the salience or apparent importance of certain ideas, activating schemas that encourage target audiences to think, feel, and decide in a particular way” (2007: 164). In other word, frames are set to influence how people think of an event or issue, and further on their relative actions.

The “schemas” is not only lying on an individual level, but also on the level of the whole society, or the so-‐called “culture” and “the stock of commonly invoked frames” (Entman 1993:53, 2009: 179). According to Entman (1993, 2004, 2009), frames exist not only in the news productions or the minds of communicators, but also in the information sources and the degree of receptions of the audience. Therefore, how source practice functions in the framing progress, and especially what type of sources has the most influence in the framing of the nuclear crises is the other crucial aspect of the present study, which will be further illustrated in the later section.

Scheufele (1999) argues that framing needs to be specified into two concepts and levels, i.e. media frames and audience frames. A media frame as he cited Gamson and Modigliani (1987: 143) is defined as “a central organizing idea or story line that provides meaning to an unfolding strip of events … the frame suggests what the controversy is about, the essence of the issue” (cited by Scheufele in 1999: 106). While individual frames defined by Entman are “mentally stored clusters of ideas that guide individuals’ processing of information” (1993: 53, cited by Scheufele, 1999: 107). Later in his work, Scheufele further introduced the typology of framing and different approaches to framing in two dimensions (between-‐level dimension and within-‐level dimension) of three distinct processes: framing-‐setting, framing-‐building and individual-‐level outcomes of framing (2000: 306-‐307, see figure 1).

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Figure 1: An overview of framing research of Scheufele

Scheufele’s argument (2000: 307) shown in figure 1 also points out that the social elites are largely influencing media frames in the frame-‐building progress. The “elites” include politicians or the authorities that are seeking for support and are the major social players particularly in political news (Entman, 1993: 55). By influencing media frames, political elites can have a large impact on how audiences receive a certain story.

According to Scheufele (see 1999, 2000 and 2007), the media framing level, often examined as independent variable, leads it to the two questions: 1. “What factors influence the way journalists or other societal groups frame certain issues” and 2. “ How do these processes work and as a result, what are the frames that journalists use” (1999: 108). While on the individual framing level, he argues that studies should focus on the questions of what factors and how they influence the establishment of individual perceptions and frames of certain issues (1999:108). The two types of frames are also referred to as “frames in communication” (media frames) and “frames in thought” (audience frames), as Druckman (2001b) emphasizes and Entman, Matthes and Pellicano (2009) illustrate. As the latter argue, both types together form the framing effect concerning the power impacting in “emphasis or salience” through the process from frames in communications to frames in thoughts (2009:181). This study is focusing on the media framing level, which is to analyze the media’ frameworks, what the U.S. and Chinese mainstream media emphasize and salience the North Korean nuclear crises, and how they framed it.

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The framing effect works in a psychological arena as the persuasion and cognitive accessibility provider (Entman et al. 2009:183-‐184), which suggests that frames influence publics by telling them what information and considerations to take, or “through the temporary activation and enhanced accessibility of concepts and considerations in memory” (2009:183). The choice of tones in the frames for a specific issue also shows different influence. As emphasized and summarized by Entman et al. (2009:182), studies (e.g. Levin et al. 1998 and Meyerowitz et al. 1987) illustrate that frames contain negative content (e.g. losses or damages) have larger impact than positive frames which are logically equivalent with the other. For instance, a report of 25% casualties will have greater impact than a report of 75% survivals, even though the fact is the same. On the cultural level, by repeating and emphasizing one specific frame within a diachronic impact, once the frame becomes widely understood and accepted enough, it will contribute to inherent thoughts embedded in public thinking mode, hence the frame becomes part of the culture, which will recall a specific meaning every time it is mentioned, e.g. associating “9.11” with “war on terror”, or “weapon of massive destruction” with “nuclear crisis” (Entman et al. 2009: 176-‐178).

While framing theories underline the core idea that frames select, highlight and enhance salience the “presence” as what to understand and how to react, it is also vital to mark the “absence”, as Entman argues that “frames simultaneously direct attention away from other aspects” when the selected aspects are promoted by the frames, and “the omissions of potential problem definitions, explanations, evaluations and recommendations may be as critical as the inclusion in guiding the audience” (1993:54). Therefore, to detect the use of frames, what is omitted or paid less attention to is also an indispensable part of studying the framing and its effect.

Also as argued by Entman, Matthes and Pellicano (2009), the effect of framing is “complicated” in real life, since instead of a simple one-‐sided frame, there are realistically multiple frames, which are sometimes in a competitive relation. Thus, they stress what most past studies lack is taking the realistic complexity into measurement and paying attention to the “competition of frames”, which “complicate framing effects” (2009: 186, emphasized in the text). According to this argument, towards one specific issue, several frames will be applied at the same time while shown different, even competing aspects, and in different situations (e.g. different media or countries) the same frames may also show differences in the way it is actually presented or how often it is repeated.

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U.S’s and China’s foreign policy in the global and regional stages and media’s function in the different society systems.

Framing and political communication

As studied by scholars like Entman, Reese etc., framing plays an important role in the political communication field as well as in journalism. Reese says: “… framing suggests more intentionality on the part of the framer and relates more explicitly to political strategy” (2007: 148), as he suggests further in the article about the potential value of framing to bridge different parts of media and communication research (see more Reese, 2007). Based on and developing the organizing concept of bias, Entman conceptualizes the “implications for political power” of framing (as well as agenda-‐setting) (2007:163), as he argues that “powerful players devote massive resources to advancing their interests precisely by imposing such patterns (persistent, politically relevant patterns that media framing effects audience) on mediated communications” (2007: 164). From this perspective and based on the previous studies, this paper is going to detect and discuss how mainstream media build the framing of significant political crises and how political (or other factors’) impact news frames. Specifically in the genre of international affairs and the case of North Korean nuclear issues, it is also about how different diplomatic relations impact on the news framing of the U.S. and Chinese newspapers. Thus some basic theories of framing in political communication need to be further discussed.

Entman’s cascading model of the network activation in domestic U.S. media clearly points out the impact flow from authorities/administration and elites to media and news frames, eventually shaping public opinions (see figure 2, Entman, 2008: 90-‐91). This model is formed from studying mediatizing U.S. foreign policy and public diplomacy, and it is also useful to help understand the influence of political factors on media and news frames, as well as the effect of news frames on public opinion.

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Figure 2. The Cascading Network Activation in Domestic U.S. Media of

Entman

also the ideal of the “Fourth Estate” putting esteem in a democratic society. As “objectivity, impartiality, partisanship and advocacy” are the core professional principles of news media, however, media are also realistically commercial organizations, thus they have to follow organizational rules and commercial purposes, as well as political or social laws and regulations, which are considered to be the “restrictions” on media’s freedom (2003: 48-‐52).

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is “authored” the right to criticize and comment on government, and newspapers “editorial” pages are the important platform for a paper’s political identity (2003: 77-‐79). All in all, besides reporting politics, media can also intervene and contribute to political discussions and decisions. This social effect largely embedded in media’s framing function, for its significant influence on public opinion. Entman’s cascading model of the domestic U.S. media, as a proof for media’s such effect, claims the counter-‐flow of frames from media back to political elites, and eventually to the administration network (Entman 2008: 90:92). McNair stresses the media’s role as: “the media not only provide cognitive knowledge, informing us about what is happening, but they also order and structure political reality, allotting events greater or lesser significance according to their presence or absence on the media agenda” (2003:51-‐52).

This argument connects to agenda-‐setting and framing theories. The association between agenda-‐setting and framing, how media precisely put an issue, how they use the sources differently, and particularly how they maintain the relationship with official interferences, are directly lead by frames and frame theory’s internal relations with political communication.

As Entman et al. regard framing as “an organizational process and product” as well as “a political strategic tool” (2009: 175), the power and effect of framing in political communication and the relationship within the circle of media-‐elites-‐public has been largely discussed and studied (e.g. McNair 2003, 2007; Brewer and Gross 2010; Scheufele 1999, 2000; Bennett 1990, etc.).

To name some of the previous studies, Entman, Matthes and Pellicano raise the awareness towards political sources of frames with their effects and impact on frame production on a macroscopic view. They argue that framing’s power attracts politicians to use it as a PR strategic indicator in order to shape public opinion for their own interests (2009:179). The frame of “War on Terror” is one outstanding target of framing studies. Example of Stephen Reese’s (2010) examining the case of “War on Terror” frames in “a Web of culture”, he argues that frames are used for the purposes of constructing culture and social values (2010:17-‐22). By conducting a qualitative analysis on journalistic practice and productions, Reese finds out that “the War on Terror was accepted from the beginning”, embedded in “common sense”. He argues that journalists transmit and amplify the framing from their implicit knowledge that enable framing as an “organizing principle”, “which has worked to shape profoundly U.S. foreign policy” (Reese, 2010: 36-‐38).