Dutch Newspapers Research Articles

Public Housing in Medan during the Dutch Colonial Period

As the center of government and economy in the East Sumatra region during the Dutch colonial era, the city of Medan continued to develop and grow in line with the success of the surrounding plantation businesses. This situation resulted in many people coming to Medan to stay and settle down. The large number of people who came to Medan resulted in an increase in population in Medan which resulted in an increase in the number of housing needs at that time, especially houses that met health and safety standards. Since there were many houses that did not meet the standards at that time, the Medan City Government considered that this housing problem had to be taken seriously so they made a policy to establish public housing that met the standards set, which was called “Volkshuisvesting” or people's houses. This housing development policy was also widely carried out in several Gemeente in the Dutch East Indies at that time. Volkshuisvesting itself is public housing aimed at middle and low income people with the aim of helping them to have a decent place to live in. Many things have been prepared by the Medan City government to realize this public housing policy for the people or Volkshuisvesting, starting from planning, provision of funds, housing areas etc. Using historical methods and using sources such as the Dutch colonial archives, newspapers and books that discuss housing published during the Dutch colonial period, this article explains how the Medan City Government plans to build public housing in Medan.

Klimaatbeleid in de krant

Abstract The legitimacy of climate policy is a necessary condition for the broad acceptance of government interventions and civic participation. News media are an important source of information for public perceptions and beliefs concerning climate change and climate policy, which people will use to grant or deny legitimacy. In this article we apply the theoretical perspective of media framing to analyse Dutch newspaper coverage of climate change and climate policy during April and May 2019, by means of systematic manual content analysis. We use these empirical findings to further reflect on their potential significance for policy legitimacy as experienced by their readership. Overall, the newspapers pay little attention to climate change as a contested phenomenon and to humanity’s contribution to its cause and solution. In the fight to reduce CO2-emission, the Dutch government is portrayed as the principal agent. The responsibility of individual citizens is less often highlighted. Hence, newspaper coverage does not seem to challenge the fight against climate change as a legitimate policy goal. It does, however, pay ample attention to specific policy interventions to reduce CO2-emission and the controversies that surround them. In line with, or as a reflection of these findings, differences within public opinion are to be expected concerning the legitimacy of policy interventions, both with regard to their desirability on paper (input) and their actual (side) effects (output).

Framing systemic traffic violence: Media coverage of Dutch traffic crashes

Traffic crashes undeniably levy a significant and detrimental toll on contemporary societies. They are a disruption of every-day traffic order, and the specifics of their coverage in the media offer insights into how a society frames and perceives this underlying order.This study analysed the terms and frames that are used in 368 reports on traffic crashes in local Dutch newspapers. The coding is embedded in the larger debates about competing frames of mobility (efficiency versus justice), and informed by recent studies on traffic crash reporting. The study adds a novel geographical context to the Northern American focus of earlier work, and a broader scope of traffic crash types (including non-fatal crashes and all vehicle types).The reviewed articles support the previous findings that media coverage largely dehumanizes traffic crashes, presenting them more as glitches in the machine (efficiency) than human tragedies (justice). Crashes are presented as episodes instead of as part of a larger pattern, in a factual tone. Parties involved in a crash, and especially secondary parties are most often referred to as vehicles instead of persons and most often the headlines use a non-agentive grammar.However, the study also demonstrates that the way we currently study this coverage is limiting us in develop a full understanding of the complex nature of traffic crashes. To overcome this, we need to deploy mixed methods and a richer coding scheme that help us to get a better grip of the systemic violence of our contemporary traffic.

Shooting for neutrality? Analysing bias in terrorism reports in Dutch newspapers

Similar to other nations, terrorism is a compelling preoccupation in the Netherlands. One issue in the public debate concerning news coverage is whether it fairly reports the perpetrators’ racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds. This article asks whether there is disproportionate attention (coverage bias), selection (gatekeeping bias) and presentation (statement bias) in various Dutch newspapers between 2015 and 2017. Using content analysis, the authors find all three types of bias present, albeit to different degrees. We propose that Critical Race Theory (CRT) usefully explains how bias is often unintentional and that journalistic outcomes are the consequence of unconsciously imprinted ideas about what constitutes a ‘terrorist’, facilitated and amplified by institutionalized media practices and wider societal power relations.

De opkomst van de ‘nationale ramp’

Abstract In the early nineteenth century the concept of ‘national disaster’ makes its appearance in Dutch periodicals, marking a rich variety of events, developments and ideas as disastrous for the wellbeing and integrity of the nation. This article shows how the concept of ‘national disaster’ is rooted in changes in the meaning and use of the concept of ‘disaster’. Guided by a computational analysis of Dutch newspaper discourse in the period between 1750 and 1850, the article demonstrates how the concept of ‘disaster’ was increasingly used in political discourse from the early nineteenth century onwards. The politicization of the concept of disaster, and its application to ideas about the public sphere and national territory led to the emergence of the ‘national disaster’.

Clouded reality: News representations of culturally close and distant ethnic outgroups

Abstract The current study explores how the cultural distance of ethnic outgroups relative to the ethnic ingroup is related to stereotypical news representations. It does so by drawing on a sample of more than three million Dutch newspaper articles and uses advanced methods of automated content analysis, namely word embeddings. The results show that distant ethnic outgroup members (i. e., Moroccans) are associated with negative characteristics and issues, while this is not the case for close ethnic outgroup members (i. e., Belgians). The current study demonstrates the usefulness of word embeddings as a tool to study subtle aspects of ethnic bias in mass-mediated content.

Highly esteemed science: An analysis of attitudes towards and perceived attributes of science in letters to the editor in two Dutch newspapers.

Understanding attitudes towards science is crucial to safeguard the future of science, the application of its results and the inclusivity of decision-making processes related to science and technology. Most studies focus on attributes of social groups to explain attitudes towards science. In this study, we aim to move the discussion forward by focusing on perceived attributes of science itself by analysing over 300 letters to the editor in two Dutch national newspapers. The authors of these letters express a large degree of trust in science as a source of societal progress, if research is conducted according to a specific set of rules. Yet, they believe that these rules are under attack. The interests of universities as organizations and individual academics as well as the involvement of industry and government in research are perceived as conflicting with these rules. We conclude with recommendations for further research and practice.

Loved and feared in fortress Europe: Framing the European refugee crisis

Abstract The European refugee crisis is an important topic on media, political, and public agendas. Due to its scope and impact, its continuing prevalence on the media-agenda and the divisiveness of public debate, new research is needed to understand the media’s framing of the issue. This study inductively analyzes framing of the refugee crisis of 2015–2016 by two Dutch newspapers. Portrayal of the refugee crisis consists of ten different frames and counter frames. The frames are communicated on the level of the refugee, on the level of the crisis as an event, and on a societal level. Results show that recent reporting on the refugee crisis is relatively nuanced and portrays the crisis from a variety of perspectives. Framing changes following certain transitory events, but only slight differences were found between popular and quality papers.

The Eurocentric Fallacy. A Digital-Historical Approach to the Concepts of ‘Modernity’, ‘Civilization’ and ‘Europe’ (1840–1990)

According to recent literature, the idea of Europe as it developed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries coincided closely with the concepts of ‘civilization’ and ‘modernity’. This article examines this claim by testing the existence of modernity, civilization and Europe as a conceptual ‘trinity’ by using digital history techniques. Word frequencies, collocations and word embeddings are employed to analyze four Dutch newspapers (Algemeen Handelsblad, Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, De Telegraaf, De Leeuwarder Courant) spanning the period 1840–1990. It transpires that semantic relations between the three elements are hardly visible; in so far as they appear, they hardly constitute a close-knit ‘trinity’. Alternating combinations among the three components were more significant than direct connections between all three, while ‘the West’ was more central than Europe. These findings suggest that popular media like newspapers have a different take on culturalpolitical concepts than writings by the intellectual elite.

Defending Black Pete: strategies of justification and the preservation of tradition in Dutch news discourse

ABSTRACTDutch icon Black Pete has been scrutinized for using blackface. The construction of a national narrative through journalistic practices is one element in the creating or contesting of this tradition. Through analysis of articles in two major Dutch newspapers—de Telegraaf and NRC handelsblad—this article examines how news discourse can deal with threats to national identity. The positioning of the issue, from mainly editorial to news reports, shines light on the debate as it moves from peripheral to central in the national consciousness. De Telegraaf employs strategies of justification by presenting the holiday as integral to national identity through ahistorical myth building and evocation of childhood. NRC often contests similar narratives for a more socially liberal point of view. As emotional strategies seem to fail over time, more neutral coverage that seems to respond to a need for increased objectivity.

Technology legitimation in the public discourse: applying the pillars of legitimacy on GM food

ABSTRACTThe public sphere, reflected by the public discourse, is an important domain for the legitimation of technology. In the institutional literature, four pillars of legitimacy are distinguished: normative, cognitive, regulative, and pragmatic. The aim of this study was to investigate to what extent these pillars can be used as a framework for analysing the legitimation of technological innovations in the public discourse. We conducted a qualitative media analysis of the case of GM food in the Netherlands, analysing 287 articles from nine Dutch newspapers in the period of 1996–2016. The results show that the pillars provide insight into legitimacy in a multi-dimensional way and serve as a structure for the dynamics of legitimation processes. Regarding GM food, the public debate was pre-dominantly negative, with a strong focus on the normative pillar. Emotional rhetoric exceeded knowledge and understanding (cognitive pillar) of GM food. The regulative and pragmatic pillars were hardly addressed.

Degree Resultatives as Second-Order Constructions

Resultatives in English and Dutch have developed special degree readings. These readings stem from a reinterpretation of the resultative predicate as indicating a high degree rather than an actual result. For example, when a parent saysI love youtodeath, one need not call the cops, since the sentence is not about love turning lethal, but merely indicative of a high degree of affection. Such cases have often been noted in the literature as idiomatic, but this view ignores the fact that these are not isolated cases but productive constructions that can be used with a variety of verbs. We explore various resultative constructions in English and Dutch, and give a classification of the subtypes involved as well as their diachronic development from ordinary to degree interpretation. We link these subtypes to lexical semantic classes of verbs. Both English and Dutch show a steady growth in the lexical and structural diversity of degree resultatives throughout the early modern and contemporary periods (1600-2000). We focus in our paper on the period 1800-2000, for which we did an extensive corpus study using the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA) and Delpher (a collection of digitized Dutch newspapers, journals, magazines, and other resources). One of our findings is that, similar to other types of expressive language, such as degree modification and emphatic negation, taboo expressions play a role in degree resultatives; in fact, their role is excessive. We outline a number of the commonalities among the semantic domains of expressive language used in resultatives.

Something about the Weather. Using Digital Methods to Mine Geographical Conceptions of Europe in Twentieth-Century Dutch Newspapers

How was Europe portrayed as a geographical entity in the texts of weather reports published in Dutch newspapers between 1950 and 1990? To answer this ostensibly simple question, this article uses digital methods, including text mining and visualisation techniques. It shows that digital historical research offers a way of objectifying long-term, stable subjectivities. The Dutch perception of Europe that emerges from this qualitative analysis is remarkably slanted towards distinctions between a first, second and third-degree Europe, findings that may help explain the tenacious resistance to Europe as an inclusive political project. Hoe werd Europa als geografische entiteit afgebeeld in weerberichten in Nederlandse kranten in de periode tussen 1950 en 1990? Om deze schijnbaar eenvoudige vraag te beantwoorden worden in deze bijdrage gebruik gemaakt van digitale methoden, zoals text mining en visualisatietechnieken. Het artikel toont aan dat digitaal historisch onderzoek een manier biedt om het bestaan van langdurige, stabiele subjectiviteiten te objectiveren. De Nederlandse perceptie van Europa die uit deze kwalitatieve analyse naar voren komt is opvallend gekleurd, met een duidelijk onderscheid tussen een eerste-, tweede- en derdegraads Europa. De bevindingen kunnen helpen om de hardnekkige weerstand tegen Europa als een politiek project te verklaren. De paginering van de online versie van dit artikel wijkt af van de paginering van de gedrukte versie, dit omwille van de verschillende plaatsing van de illustraties. Due to the divergent position of the illustrations, the page numbers of the online version of this article differ from the page numbers of the printed version.

The visual digital turn: Using neural networks to study historical images

Digital humanities research has focused primarily on the analysis of texts. This emphasis stems from the availability of technology to study digitized text. Optical character recognition allows researchers to use keywords to search and analyze digitized texts. However, archives of digitized sources also contain large numbers of images. This article shows how convolutional neural networks (CNNs) can be used to categorize and analyze digitized historical visual sources. We present three different approaches to using CNNs for gaining a deeper understanding of visual trends in an archive of digitized Dutch newspapers. These include detecting medium-specific features (separating photographs from illustrations), querying images based on abstract visual aspects (clustering visually similar advertisements), and training a neural network based on visual categories developed by domain experts. We argue that CNNs allow researchers to explore the visual side of the digital turn. They allow archivists and researchers to classify and spot trends in large collections of digitized visual sources in radically new ways.

The Politicization of the Immigration Debate in the Netherlands

This article analyses public discourses in the Netherlands about the arrival of boat refugees in Europe. By comparing three Dutch newspapers with received knowledge about migration in academic literature, we compare and contrast policies advocating border control in order to stop the arrival of boat refugees with scientific evidence about these proposed solutions. We argue that discrepancies exist between policy suggestions and the evidence provided by migration scholars since increased border control generally is argued not to lead to a decline in migrants, but instead to riskier routes and more deaths. Accordingly, we contend that not evidence but a nationalist discourse spreading anxiety influences the political debate. In order to corroborate this argument, we conducted a content analysis of various newspaper reports on boat refugees and their framing of the proposed policy solution of border control. This demonstrates that media are not systematically instigating moral panic as migration scholars would often like us to believe. On the contrary, much diversity is found in newspapers regarding the representation of boat refugees and many similarities may be found in arguments provided by media and scholars.

Understanding Dutch Attitudes to European Integration in the Early 2000s Through the Referendum on the European Constitutional Treaty

On 1st June 2005, Dutch citizens rejected the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (ECT) in a referendum. Reasons for this rejection have been explored in previous studies on media framing. In these studies, scholars contend that the media influence citizens’ voting behaviour through the manner in which the news is depicted. This article aims at uncovering qualitatively what frames two Dutch newspapers, NRC Handelsblad and de Volkskrant, used to report on the referendum and why. In this manner, it adds to the existing understanding of the influence of the media coverage on the Dutch electorate. The results show that the responsibility frame is the most salient frame in the news coverage on the referendum on the ECT, indicating that newspapers discussed the referendum on the ECT in terms of the invisibility of debate on Europe in general and the incumbent government’s failure to provide sufficient and reliable information on the ECT. This is striking with regard to the fact that most authors attribute the rejection to a rise in Euroscepticism or discontent with the speed and direction of the integration process.

Piano heritage by Sergei Bortkiewicz in the performance space of the first half of 20th century

The relevance of the study is due to insufficient knowledge of the creative heritage of Sergei Bortkiewicz against the background of constant trend towards increased interest in his work, as well as nature of his perception from modern composers of performers, critics and general public.The main objective of the study is to deepen the information on the performance of Sergei Bortkiewicz’s works by pianists in the first half of the twentieth century, whose names are most often found in his epistolary heritage and in scientific studies devoted to him. In addition, it is necessary to identify the most repertory and popular works of the composer in this historical period and expand the circle of names of famous performers of his music.The methodological basis of the study consists of the following methods: historicism, necessary to characterize a certain period in the composer’s activities and to process documents; systematic for systematization and evaluation of the performance activities of Sergei Bortkiewicz; descriptive, auxiliary method for reviewing and describing various sources. The article describes the concert life of the piano works of a musician in the first half of the twentieth century, as well as the aspect of perception of the composer’s works by his contemporaries. Based on the analysis of archival materials, the fact of the wide geography of the distribution of the composer’s works in the first half of the twentieth century: from Europe to Australia and America was established. By studying the archival newspapers, the most repertory and frequently performed works of the composer were identified: First Piano Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 16 in B Flat Major, First Piano Sonata, Op. 9 in B Major, as well as GavotteCaprice Op. 3, No. 3, etudes from Op. 15 and Op. 29, preludes and other miniatures, which became, in modern language, “hits” of radio concerts of the time. Among the performers there are a lot of obscure or quite unknown musicians in our time, such as Hermann Gopppe, Maria Neuscheller, Madeleine Kokorescu, Ethel Bonavia and many others. The appeal of the famous Ukrainian pianist Lyubka Kolessa to Sergey Bortkiewicz’s music was confirmed. Also, according to the information from the studied materials, the place of the composer’s works in the repertoire of such famous pianists as Maurice Rosenthal, Paul Wittgenstein, Hugo van Dalen and Paul de Conn. Their appeal to the music of Sergei Bortkiewicz testifies to the popularity of his works among the leading pianists of the time.Conclusions: the study of materials from German, Austrian, Dutch and Australian newspapers of the first half of the twentieth century, as well as from the letters of the composer himself, made it possible to identify the place that occupied the artist’s creative heritage in the cultural space of the first half of the twentieth century. The extensive performing geography of Sergei Bortkiewicz’s music indicates an interested perception of the composer’s music by his contemporaries.

Displaced persons, returnees and ‘unsuitables’: the Dutch selection of DPs (1945–1951)

AbstractAfter the Second World War, Dutch authorities allowed 8,000 displaced persons (DPs) to come to the Netherlands, but only 3,904 came, and 25 per cent of them returned to camp life in Germany. This article seeks to explain why debates on the DP issue changed so rapidly within a short period of time. In earlier publications, it has been claimed that ‘selling’ DPs as workers helped to solve the DP issue. This strategy did not work for the Netherlands. This article analyses how the DP issue was framed by organisations, the Dutch government, civil servants, the Dutch Homeland Security Department, newspapers and employers.

Vascular Complications of Parapharyngeal Abscesses

A Dutch newspaper article reports serious complications, presumably due to internal carotid artery perforation, following poking a parapharyngeal abscess in a 15-year-old boy. The patient cannot walk and speak anymore and stays in a rehabilitation Centre. His parents are going in court with the hospital denying responsibility. An impressive picture concerning the impact on daily life of the patient and his family is presented. Diagnosis, treatment, management and vascular complications are briefly reviewed in general, showing multiple decision moments in this process. Open communication is a prerequisite in these matters. Backdoor reports and politics do not prevent calamities in the near future.

Negentiende-eeuwse Nederlandse toneelbewerkingen van Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables

Abstract Theatrical Adaptations of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables in 19th-century Netherlands In the field of Adaptation Studies, in Anglo-Saxon countries and even more in the Netherlands, filming and not theatrical adaptation is focus of attention. In this article – a case study on Dutch theatrical adaptations of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables – is shown what this type of historical research into ‘page-to-stage’ appropriations can yield. In the 1860s adaptations of Hugo’s famous novel received a lot of attention in Dutch newspapers. Most reviewers seem to sympathise with the social criticism, manifested in Les Misérables. The critical debate over this type of theatrical adaptations is enlightening for scholars interested in the grey area between popular and more elitist culture.