Atlas reports: Global television constructions of economic crisis

Abstract

The setting of Rand’s dystopic classic Atlas Shrugged is a world in which people revolt against their governments and refuse to bow to attempts to regulate the economy. Rand borrowed the title for her 1957 paean to the philosophy of ‘objectivism’ from Greek mythology, and the name of the giant who bore the world on his shoulders. This article analyses the work of actors who carry the world in their broadcasts, rather than on their shoulders, and whose philosophy is a professional one of objectivity. It compares representations of crisis by broadcasters anchored in different parts of the global communicative sphere, with different financing solutions and relations to political power. The results show that not all global broadcasters are alike – or, for that matter, global in their narrative strategies. The differences between the four newsrooms’ reporting suggest a need for critical reconsideration of generalising claims made in the scholarly literature about how crises are depicted in global media, and particularly those about ‘homogenization’ and which see global news in terms of infotainment.