Flemish Newspapers Research Articles

EPA-0679 - Stigmatization of schizophrenia in flemish newspapers

Background A considerable social stigma is attached to psychiatric disorders in general. However, research also shows differences between psychiatric disorders related to stigma. There are indications that the portrayal of schizophrenia in the media is particularly negative. Aim To compare the coverage of autism and schizophrenia in the Flemish newspapers regarding stigma. Method On the websites of the seven Flemish newspapers all articles published between 2008 and 2012 were screened for the keywords autism/autistic and schizophrenia/schizophrenic. The collected articles (N=4,181) were then graded to stigmatizing content. Results In the collected articles the coverage of autism was mostly positive and the coverage of schizophrenia was predominantly negative. The contrast is very substantial (p Conclusion The social stigma that rests on schizophrenia is poignantly reflected in the Flemish newspapers. The observation that a somewhat similar disorder such as autism is covered in a clearly more favorable way indicates that a more positive image of schizophrenia is not only desirable but also possible.

INCREASED NEWS ACCESS FOR INTERNATIONAL NGOs?

The combined interplay of commercialisation, digitalisation and globalisation offers opportunities for international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to gain more news access. We set up a quantitative content analysis to study how and to what extent press releases from the international NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) were adopted in foreign coverage by four Flemish newspapers (1995–2010). First, the analysis shows that fewer articles were based on MSF press releases in 2010 than in 1995. Furthermore, we found that Flemish journalists generally supplemented the MSF press releases with additional information. The decreased agenda-building capacity of MSF can be explained by the nature of events (violent conflicts in 1995 versus natural disasters in 2010) and by the increased competition between NGOs in 2010. The fact that MSF press releases and articles increasingly discuss global issues nonetheless indicates that globalisation offers opportunities for international NGOs to enhance their agenda-building capacities. Second, our research found less evidence to support often heard complaints about “churnalism” in newsrooms and showed that public relations can also be a positive factor in the news production process; specifically, we found that MSF press releases are often used to counterbalance the “official” message coming from political representatives or contending parties.

De eurocrisis in het nieuws

European debt crisis in the news. A frame analysis of Flemish newspaper coverage European debt crisis in the news. A frame analysis of Flemish newspaper coverage This research examines the news frames used in the news coverage about the European debt crisis. The mainstream media are the main source of information for the European citizens concerning this crisis in the Eurozone. Therefore, it is interesting to research the news coverage through an in-depth content analysis. First, we conducted an inductive analysis to recognize the dominant news frames about this issue. Three dominant frames were identified: conflict, disease and natural disaster. Secondly, we executed a deductive analysis to measure the frequency of these frames. The conflict frame appeared the most, followed by the disease frame and the natural disaster frame. In this article we studied the news coverage in Flemish newspapers. However, this research is the first part of a larger study that will analyze more EU member states.

Reporting Catalonia in Belgian newspapers

As two regions with national aspirations for autonomy, Catalonia and Flanders are often compared. This article analyses how this is reflected in the press, focusing in particular on Belgian press reports about Catalonia. On the one hand, we analyse how much Catalonia is written about, as an indication of the perceived relevance of Catalan news to Belgian readers; in particular, we investigate whether Flemish newspapers (which may feel more proximity to the Catalan case) write more about Catalonia than French-language newspapers. On the other, we analyse how Catalonia is written about. Specifically, is the Catalan context explicitly compared to Belgium? Is there a focus on particular themes related to national conflicts? And is there a difference between (Flemish) Dutch-language and French-language newspapers in this respect? A full year of reporting (1 June 2010 to 31 May 2011) was analysed, both quantitatively and qualitatively, for our research

Road Block in the Streets of Brussels

This paper examines the translations of Hergé’s comic strip Quick & Flupke during the period 1940–1990. When Quick & Flupke was first published in a francophone Belgian newspaper in the 1930s, it portrayed the complex linguistic character of Brussels, where the adventures of the street boys are set. Hergé’s characters employed the type of linguistic code-switching between French and Dutch that was typical for the inhabitants of Brussels at the time. The original comic strip also contained cultural references to Brussels and Belgium. A comparative analysis of the first French version and the first Dutch translations of the comic, which appeared in Flemish newspapers in the 1940s, with the most recent Dutch and French translations from the 1990s reveals important changes in both the intralingual and interlingual translations. In particular, the analysis reveals how economic and cultural-political factors have led to the increased standardization of textual (and some pictorial) aspects of the comic strip which has made it less Belgian and more international. The paper demonstrates how different translations of the comic strip operate at the micro level as an indicator of the changes that have taken place in the linguistic and cultural identities of Belgians and Brusselers.

Analyzing Consumers' Reactions to News Coverage of the 2011 Escherichia coli O104:H4 Outbreak, Using the Extended Parallel Processing Model

This article describes and analyzes Flemish consumers' real-life reactions after reading online newspaper articles related to the enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) O104:H4 outbreak associated with fresh produce in May and June 2011 in Germany. Using the Extended Parallel Processing Model (EPPM) as the theoretical framework, the present study explored the impact of Flemish (Belgian) online news coverage on consumers' perception of the risk induced by the EHEC outbreak and their behavioral intentions as consumers of fresh produce. After the consumers read a newspaper article related to the outbreak, EPPM concepts were measured, namely, perceived severity, susceptibility, self-efficacy, and affective response, combined with behavioral intentions to eat less fresh produce, to rinse fresh produce better, and to alert loved ones concerning the risk. The consumers' reactions were measured by inserting a link to an online survey below every online newspaper article on the EHEC outbreak that appeared in two substantial Flemish newspapers. The reactions of 6,312 respondents were collected within 9 days for 17 different online newspaper articles. Looking at the perceived values of the EPPM concepts, the perceived severity and the perceived susceptibility of the risk were, as expected, high. However, the consumers thought they could prevent the risk from happening, which stresses the importance of increasing consumers' knowledge of emerging food safety risks. Furthermore, analyses showed the moderating role of government trust and its influence on the way consumers perceived the risk, how worried they were, and their behavioral intentions.

THE PRINTED RISE OF THE COMMON MAN

Journalists have traditionally focused on a small range of elite sources. Far less attention went to ordinary or common people, resulting in little visibility for that community in news output. However, bottom-up Web 2.0 technologies have given common people new communication tools, allowing them to disperse information autonomously. This has made traditional news media aware of a public desire for bottom-up participation in the news production process. Accordingly, some news media have begun to offer their own participation features. Bearing this context in mind, we address the question whether Web 2.0 has helped increase the visibility and importance of the common people in daily news output. Via a content analysis of five Flemish newspapers, the current representation of ordinary citizens is compared to a decade ago, before the appearance Web 2.0. The analysis shows that citizens appear more prominently in the news nowadays.

Ongeschoold maakt onbemind

Uneducated, unloved. A thematic content analysis on the social presentation of the low- and high educated in two Flemish newspapers Uneducated, unloved. A thematic content analysis on the social presentation of the low- and high educated in two Flemish newspapers This paper contributes to the growing body of research that documents the social representation of social groups in the media. Whereas this type of research repeatedly has been applied to groups defined by gender, ethnicity or social class, we apply it to groups defined by educational level. A qualitative content analysis on 824 articles published by two Flemish newspapers during the periods 1990-2000 and 2009-2010, reveals six meaning constructions of meaning that contribute to the social representation of low en highly educated groups and their mutual relationship. In line with the literature that considers educational credentials a form of symbolic capital, it is found that the differences between high and low educated people are represented as very large but in an essentially non-conflicting manner.

The evolution of a media image: Newspaper attention to the Flemish far right 1987–2004

This article investigates changes in attention to the far right in Flemish newspapers. Not only the volume of attention will be analysed but especially how newspapers pay attention to the far right, focusing on the portrayal of far-right actors (substantial attention), and on favourable and unfavourable attributions of third parties in the news texts (support attention). For the content analysis, 2356 articles from three newspapers are investigated. The Flemish far right (Vlaams Blok) is unique because of its uninterrupted electoral growth between 1987 and 2004. Flemish newspapers still portray the far right as a controversial outsider. Such an image is constructed in the 1980s by focusing on a limited set of controversial characteristics of the far right. Even though the far right became the largest Flemish opposition party in the Belgian parliament and although media attention became more nuanced over the years, this media image was not replaced with another media image: the controversial outsider image remained dominant in the coverage between 1987 and 2004.

Media coverage in times of political crisis: A text mining approach

At the year end of 2011 Belgium formed a government, after a world record breaking period of 541days of negotiations. We have gathered and analysed 68,000 related on-line news articles published in 2011 in Flemish newspapers. These articles were analysed by a custom-built expert system. The results of our text mining analyses show interesting differences in media coverage and votes for several political parties and politicians. With opinion mining, we are able to automatically detect the sentiment of each article, thereby allowing to visualise how the tone of reporting evolved throughout the year, on a party, politician and newspaper level. Our suggested framework introduces a generic text mining approach to analyse media coverage on political issues, including a set of methodological guidelines, evaluation metrics, as well as open source opinion mining tools. Since all analyses are based on automated text mining algorithms, an objective overview of the manner of reporting is provided. The analysis shows peaks of positive and negative sentiments during key moments in the negotiation process.

Framing van de Eerste en Tweede Intifada in de Vlaamse en Nederlandse pers

Framing the First and Second Intifada in the Flemish and Dutch press: a case study of De Morgen and NRC Handelsblad Framing the First and Second Intifada in the Flemish and Dutch press: a case study of De Morgen and NRC Handelsblad This article studies the coverage of both Intifadas in the Flemish newspaper De Morgen and the Dutch daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad by means of a deductive frame analysis. This comparative and longitudinal research aims to broaden empirical data on the coverage of the Intifada beyond the American, British and Israeli media context. Besides it focuses on the operationalisation of frames, what has proved difficult in other international framing studies. The two researched frames are the law and order frame and the injustice and defiance frame as introduced by Wolfsfeld. Based on a signature matrix, we identified five framing and three reasoning devices to operationalise, to define and to study both frames. The results reveal a certain evolution and some divergences in the coverage between both Intifadas and between the studied newspapers.

News media and the (de)construction of risk: How Flemish newspapers select and cover international disasters

News media play an important role in giving publicity and meaning to global suffering, as it is mainly through media reports that the world perceives international risk situations. This article focuses on natural and technological disasters as part of the contemporary risk society and their (de)construction by Flemish news media. Applying quantitative content analysis, the study reveals that 70.8 per cent of all disasters occurring between 1986 and 2006 are neglected by the newspapers, for the large part disasters in less developed countries. Regarding news coverage, proximity appears to be the guiding principle. Disasters developing in western or high-income countries are well covered while distant crises in the peripheral south are struggling to get attention, unless they affect a huge number of (western) people. In general, this article supports the claim that disasters and other instances of risk are essentially media constructs: they exist only when covered by the media.

Bilingual Education in Flanders: Policy and Press Debate (1999–2006)

Although Belgium is officially trilingual (Dutch, French, and German), its legislation does not allow for bilingual education (BE). Recently, concerns about the position of Dutch in the face of French and immigrant languages have politicized the issue in the bilingual capital of Brussels and the Dutch‐speaking region of Flanders. Considering Belgium's linguistic and educational policies, the authors analyze the media coverage of BE in Flanders by looking at the region's major newspapers for the pivotal period 1999–2006. Their content‐analytical approach reveals a fairly positive bias toward BE. Yet, Flemish newspapers also reflect a tendency described by Brisk (2005): the tension between the promotion of BE for the majority (i.e., native speakers of Dutch and French) and its rejection for minorities (i.e., immigrants). Nevertheless, the fear of “frenchification” remains prominent in articles on majority‐language BE. The study therefore sheds light on the complexities of the BE public debate in Flanders and on current political developments in the field.

Idolatry versus authenticity: A lexical and systemic-functional analysis of the coverage of the World Youth Day 2005 in the Flemish press

This article investigates the way (catholic) religion and youth are represented in different Flemish newspapers. The case of World Youth Day (WYD) 2005 offers a well-defined corpus, which is very suitable for an analysis of the discourse on religion, youth and media. Based on a linguistic analysis of the corpus, we have been able to describe the representation given to the WYD, of the presence of the pope and of the young participants. It turns out that, although the coverage is on the whole very precise, it shows remarkable patterns of inconsistency. On the one hand, most newspapers overemphasize the meaning of the presence of the pope at the WYD in relation to the overall meaning of the event. But this idolatry does not correspond with the view of the Flemish participants, who also get a lot of attention and who are represented in an authentic way. Furthermore, in a number of cases, the journalists revert to presuppositions and stereotypes in their representation of the event.

Newspapers in Education: a critical inquiry into the effects of using newspapers as teaching agents

Background: More than 52 countries make use of the ‘Newspapers in Education’ programme. In the last 10 years, in Belgium, an application of the international programme Newspapers in Education has become a well-known way of stimulating adolescents to explore the political realm and challenge the way they think about and participate in democracies. However, the longer-term effectiveness of the programme is not fully understood because studies tend to focus on a period shortly after programme participation. Purpose: This study aimed to investigate whether pupils who participated in the Newspapers in Education programme scored more highly on scales of media use/habits and social and political attitudes, in a survey conducted more than half a year after programme participation. Programme description: The programme Newspapers in Education was evaluated. Newspapers in Education makes newspaper reading accessible to young people by providing a free newspaper package containing a variety of national newspapers for each student. This way, the programme aims at connecting young people to current affairs, and wants to stimulate interactive ways of teaching to attain the goals that are often specified when the teaching of citizenship education is concerned. The programme, moreover, has the firm intention of creating a generation of critical thinkers and informed citizens. Sample details: For the assessment of the effects of the Newspapers in Education programme, the ‘Belgian Youth Survey’ was used. The Belgian Youth Survey 2006 is a representative survey conducted in 2006 among more than 6000 15- and 16-year-olds in Belgium (both in the French and Dutch communities). However, for these analyses we focussed on the data of the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, i.e. Flanders (N = 3453), because the Newspapers in Education programme has manifested itself on a continuous basis in this community for several years. Design and methods: The Belgian Youth Survey 2006 is based on written surveys filled out by the respondents in schools. The response rate at the Flemish school level is 72%. This survey tried to tap into social and political attitudes of young people and also provided us with specific background characteristics, which we could control for when looking into programme effects. Because the aim of this study was to uncover longer-term effects of the Newspapers in Education programme whilst controlling for individual background effects, bivariate and regression analyses were used. Main findings in relation to the research goals/objectives: Results suggested that the participants of Newspapers in Education may follow the news, particularly on the Internet, more often than their non-participating peers; they also displayed a slightly higher level of political knowledge. However, many other differences between participating and non-participating groups were not significant. In addition, a slight association was apparent in the media use of students receiving vocational education. The relationship between participating in the programme and tolerance towards ethnic minorities was also significant for the whole sample. Main conclusion: In this study, only minor differences were detected between the media use/habits and social and political attitudes of participants and non-participants in the Flemish Newspapers in Education programme. It is possible that the brevity of the programme itself may make it difficult for its impact to be evident six months after participation.

To Read or Not to Read

For some time European newspaper markets have been confronted with decreasing circulation and readership figures. Research focused on patterns of consumption reveals that young people in particular spend less time reading newspapers. Since 2003, the government in Flanders has supported the Newspapers in Education programme in search of more qualitative and long-term alternatives to press subsidy, aimed at the preservation of the future readership market. As a result, the government and Flemish newspaper publishers distribute almost 1 million newspaper copies to schools every year. Each school year, approximately 100,000 students participate in the Newspapers in Education project. Over the years the financial support has grown and recently the Flemish government decided to substantially increase its contribution to γ1.2 million, which will make it possible to expand the target group considerably, beyond the original focus on 16- to 18-year-olds. The research presented in this article analyses the shifts in pre and post test design survey results of the participants who took part in the Newspaper in Education project between February and May 2005.

Letters to the Editor: A Feedback Opportunity Turned into a Marketing Tool

Letters to the editor are valuable tools improving feedback procedures for traditional print media, placing topics that occupy the public at large on the public agenda. In this article, the results of research on selection procedures and editing practices in Flemish newsrooms are presented. In addition to content analysis of published letters in several Flemish newspapers and in-depth interviews of the editors-in-chief, the study includes some qualitative, innovative and creative research techniques. In an attempt to analyse objectively the selection procedures, the researcher wrote more than 100 letters to the newspapers’ editorial offices. The outcome of this part of the study offers a thought-provoking insight into the selection criteria as well as the editing of the letters section.

Politiek als One-Man-Show : Over de rol van kranten in de personalisering van de politiek

There seems a growing consensus on the personalisation of politics, meaning that not parties but more and more individual politicians have become the central actors in politics. The media, and especially television, are given a prominent role in this tendency towards 'candidate centred politics'. In this article we discuss the role of newspapers in this regard. Is there a more personalised and less party political way of reporting in the written press ? On the basis of a longitudinal study (1958-1999) of two Flemish newspapers we found only a modest and gradual tendency towards a personalisation of politics. Political parties have not been removed to the backstage of political reporting and remain a dominant player in the written press.

Politiek in de krant: hebt u iets gemerkt??': een onderzoek naar de tabloidisering van de politieke berichtgeving in vier Vlaamse dagbladen

In recent years, there is much controversy about 'tabloidisation'. Many have an opinion about the concept, but there is not much unanimity about its exact meaning. In this article, we give an overview of the different definitions and we search for back-grounds of this process, especially for the printed media. In the following, we focus on political coverage as one of the most important aspects for a newspaper if it wants to fulfil its public task. On the basis of a content analysis of the political coverage in 4 Flemish newspapers (2 'quality' and 2 'popular' newspapers), we found a bipolarisation: on one side the 'popular' newspapers, on the other side the 'quality' papers. In comparison with 1990, the 'popular' newspapers had in 2000 more tabloid characteristics. The differences between the 'quality' newspapers were not clear and more diffuse.

Female Ordination: A Sociological Analysis of a Debate on Rights and Religion in Flanders (Belgium) in the Mid Nineties

On 30 May 1994 Pope John-Paul II declared that the discussion on ordaining women was “definitively” closed. Women could not become priests, the Vatican repeated for the “very last” time. This event stimulated an unprecedented commotion in the Flemish (Belgian) Catholic community. The laity voluntarily working in the Church even threatened to strike. The debate on feminism and human rights within the Roman Catholic Church erupted more fiercely than ever before. The laity reacted in an astonishingly radical manner. The bishops tried to hold a position in between the displeased Catholics and the Vatican. An analysis of the debates held on these issues in the Flemish newspapers shows that the human rights discourse and the Vatican doctrine were worlds apart. Nevertheless, progressive Catholics tried to create a new discourse that was able to combine both perspectives. In this article, the interrelations between the several discourses and the dynamics of the debate are discussed, using the “commonwealth model” of Boltanski and Thevenot. It is argued that their model is useful but inadequate, because of its lack of attention to power and its ahistoricism.