Trends in the international news coverage on Latin America in Germany in the 21st century

Regina Cazzamatta

doi:10.1590/1982-25532020245236

Abstract

Abstract This study aims at analysing the main developments in foreign reporting of Latin America by the German press. The paper provides a content analysis of 3.831 articles published in quality German publications (SZNenhum, FAZ, Der Spiegel, and tazNenhum) between 2000 and 2014. The most common news factors related to the continent are found to be “magnitude,” “power status,” “economic proximity”, and “personification.” Additionally, we identified a decrease in hard news over the years (6 pp within Politics and 8 pp amidst Economy). Despite depoliticisation, a tendency towards tabloidisation was not confirmed since factors such as personification and crisis remained constant.

Highlights

This study aims at exploring the trends of Latin America’s foreign reporting by German quality press during the first fifteen years of the 21st century
The author does not understand the concept of news value as a theory to explain news selection, but as a useful instrument to describe and analyse media reality. Based on this theoretical perspective, this paper aims at answering the following research questions: RQ1) What are the principal news factors associated with Latin America foreign-reporting by the German press? RQ2) What are the main trends of coverage over the last 15 years? RQ3) Is there any tendency towards tabloidisation2, i.e., tabloids news values such as personification and conflict-orientation?
The power status of a country is crucial for the press coverage, accurately how often a particular nation is reported and receives press attention (r = .813, p

Summary

Introduction

This study aims at exploring the trends of Latin America’s foreign reporting by German quality press during the first fifteen years of the 21st century. The structures of global news and Latin America’s geopolitical order underwent considerable changes with the dawn of the new millennium. A report of the Ibero-American Institute on Latin American research in Germany indicates a lack of studies regarding the continent. While there is a considerable amount of international analysis about a few Asian countries and the Islamic world, Latin American’s research is insufficient and outdated (GÖBEL, BIRLE & SPECHT, 2009). Technological progress, and economic changes have had a substantial impact on the process of international newsgathering One can consider other parts of the world, such as Latin America or Africa as invisible to the media map (SCHRAMM, 1959; SREBERNY-MOHAMMADI & GRANT, 1985; TIELE, 2010; WU, 2004)

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