How States, Markets and Globalization Shape the News

Abstract

This article presents a comparative content analysis of the US and French national press in the 1960s and 1990s to test hypotheses about the influence of media structure on journalistic discourse. The US and French press are presented as strongly contrasting models, with the US press more commercialized, and the French press more closely tied to the political field. Using a variety of story- and paragraph-level content indicators, this studyshows that the French press ( Le Monde and Le Figaro) offers relatively more critical coverage, a greater representation of civil society viewpoints, a stronger emphasis on both the ideological and strategic ‘game’ aspects of politics, and a higher proportion of interpretation and opinion mixed with factual reporting. Representing the US national press, The New York Times is shown to ‘index’ its coverage more closely to political elite viewpoints. Despite globalizing pressures, French-US differences have not diminished over time.

Towards A Typology of Conflict Frames

“…This aspect of interventionism differs from journalistic intervention in the form of interpretation, because it includes a reference to the journalist's explicit personal perspective. In contrast, an interpretative style entails the explanation of a fact, without necessarily including a value judgment (Benson and Hallin 2007). This dimension closely resembles the "watchdog role" (Weaver and Wilhoit 1996).…”

Digital Media Framing of the Egyptian Arab Spring: Comparing Al Jazeera, BBC and China Daily

“…In addition, their comparative analysis of American and French news organizations found that on the aforementioned situations, the US media strongly relied more on the political authorities than the French ones. As far as 'Arab Spring' is concerned, Bruce (2014) proved the findings of Benson & Hallin (2007), which suggest that in times of unrest the western media outlets tend to rely more on the political authorities. Furthermore, many reporters described the Egyptian 'Arab Spring' as a story of civil unrest.…”

“…This finding depends on the results of the other researchers of the field (Benson & Hallin, 2007;Bruce, 2014). Meanwhile, the Chinese news outlet was the only one that contained an economic framed news story.…”

“…This result proves the connection between the flow of information and the influence of politicians, who are recognized in cases of turmoil or festivities as authority. Journalists turn to them to hear their point of view about peculiar events in order to construct the main issues of the future debate (Benson & Hallin, 2007).…”

“…Secondly, there is the 'Public affairs frame', which focuses mostly on political actors or authorities. Benson and Hallin (2007) revealed the connection between the flow of information and the influence of politicians. Journalists turn to them to hear their point of view about peculiar events in order to construct the main issues of the future debate.…”