International Newspapers Research Articles

A comparative analysis of media reporting of perceived risks and benefits of genetically modified crops and foods in Kenyan and international newspapers.

We empirically examine the reporting on biotechnology in Kenyan and international newspapers between 2010 and early 2014. We identify news articles that reported on biotechnology and analyze their use of words to determine whether there is a balance in the reporting of perceived risks and benefits. We also consider how the sources used in news articles and how the publication of the Séralini study of rats fed genetically modified maize affect the balance of reporting of perceived risks and benefits. We find that in Kenyan news reporting, more articles mention perceived benefits than risks, but when risks are mentioned, new articles contain more references to risks than to benefits. We also find that sources affect the reporting of perceived risks and benefits and that the Séralini study increased the likelihood that perceived risks are reported in Kenyan news reporting, but not in international newspapers.

The rise of the BRICS and their challenge to the G7

Purpose– This paper attempts to assess the economic growth prospects of the BRICS countries and their potential ability to challenge and overtake the G7 countries. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to answer the following question: Do the BRICS represent a tangible economic threat to surpass the G7, and if so, how?Design/methodology/approach– The authors adopt a qualitative research method based on secondary data sources, such as journal publications, reports published by international organizations, and newspaper and magazine articles. Data from these different sources is compiled and presented in tabular form to provide logical support to the arguments.Findings– Based on the data analysis, the authors conclude that the BRICS have the potential to overtake the G7 in the long run. However, this objective is not likely to be as easy as presumed by economists, since a number of factors and uncertainties may deter the growing economic power and influence of the BRICS.Originality/value– At present, there is hardly any study or research in the available literature that compares these two blocs of countries. Hence, this comparative study will contribute significantly toward the advancement of future comparative economic studies.

A Comparative Analysis of Media Reporting of Perceived Risks and Benefits of Genetically Modified Crops and Foods in Kenyan and International Newspapers

We empirically examine the reporting on biotechnology in Kenyan and international newspapers between 2010 and early 2014. We identify news articles that reported on biotechnology and analyze their use of words to determine if there is a balance in the reporting of perceived risks and benefits. We also consider how the sources used in news articles and how the publication of the Seralini study of rats fed genetically modified maize affect the balance of reporting of perceived risks and benefits. We find that in Kenyan news reporting, more articles mention perceived benefits than risks, but when risks are mentioned, new articles contain more references to risks than to benefits. We also find that sources affect the reporting of perceived risks and benefits and that the Seralini study increased the likelihood that perceived risks are reported in Kenyan news reporting, but not in international newspapers.

First Nations Experience of the 2013 Alberta Floods: Media Representations and First Hand Experiences

Background: In June 2013, a severe flood affected Southern Alberta. According to the Government of the scale and impact of the flooding [were] in Alberta, causing significant damage to homes and infrastructure. Many of the affected residents were from the First Nations reservations of Siksika and Stoney, outside the Calgary city limits. Objective: To explore how non-Aboriginal Canadians frame First Nations' experience of the floods in print media, and how individuals involved in flood relief coordination respond to these frames. Methods: We combined the results of a media analysis of mainstream print media with semi-structured interviews to achieve our objective. Articles from four Canadian newspapers and one international newspaper were included in the media analysis. Three individuals involved in flood relief coordination on reserve were interviewed. Results: Four frames emerged from the media analysis; the sympathetic, unprecedented support, unappreciative (or whining), and property damage or loss frames. The interview data revealed a perception of bias in print media and that the media coverage of First Nations' experience of the floods was inadequate and inequitable. Participants felt the bias in the media reflected larger social issues surrounding First Nations in Canada. Participants perceived the media as a tool and as a double-edged sword. Discussion: We found evidence of what has been characterized as passive racism in the media. We also found evidence of a dichotomy between First Nation and non-First Nation communities, reflecting a larger social divide. The interview data confirm that.

Soap Opera and Muddy Affairs in Indonesia

In May 2006 a devastating mudflow engulfed East-Java’s densely populated area of Sidoarjo. Nine years later, the origin of the disaster still remains the topic of an ongoing scientific debate. Two opposing conclusions dominate: the catastrophe was either ‘natural’—caused by an earthquake—or ‘man-made’, triggered by drilling activities of the oil and gas company Lapindo Brantas. Soon after the eruption of the mudflow, a Surabaya-based artists’ association produced a Javanese-language soap opera called Gali lubang, tutup lubang , ‘Dig a hole, fill a hole’. Several national and international newspapers described the television programme as a damage-control device, because the series was sponsored by the oil-and-gas-winning company implicated in the disaster. This article, however, shows that the series cannot simply be set aside as propaganda. A profound study of the production process and of the content of the soap opera—placed within the broader context of the (inter)national debate on the origin of the mudflow catastrophe—reveals the panorama of self-interests and cultural politics that gave shape to a controversial series about a controversial topic.

Agency, ‘good motherhood’ and ‘a load of mush’: Constructions of baby-led weaning in the press

Synopsis In this age of ‘intensive motherhood’, new mothers are flooded with information on the best ways in which to raise their children. One of the key issues is infant feeding, in particular, the timing and method of weaning their children onto solid food. This paper examines a new approach called ‘baby-led weaning’ (BLW) in which the child feeds themselves instead of being spoon-fed, that came into popular parenting culture in recent years, considering the ways in which it is represented in National and International newspapers. The media search database Proquest International Newsstand , was searched for ‘baby-led weaning’, producing an eventual sample of 78 articles from a number of countries. The articles were subjected to a critical discursive psychological analysis. The key themes that emerged from the newspapers focused around two main areas; the infant as agentive in their eating behaviours; and, constructions of maternal identities and resisting ‘good motherhood’.

Listening to Distant Sufferers: The Kony 2012 Campaign in Uganda and the International Media

We use the mediated debate on the Kony 2012 campaign as a case study to explore whether and how traditional and new media practices enable sufferers of humanitarian conflicts to find a voice and to be listened to in both the local and international news media. Within the context of political voice, we emphasise political voice as a social process that involves not only speaking, but also the right to be listened to and to be engaged in conversation. The empirical material for this study consists of a selection of Ugandan newspapers and social media platforms, as well as a selection of international newspapers. Media texts related to the Kony 2012 campaign during the 2 months following the launch of the campaign were singled out and studied with the help of qualitative claims-making analysis. Our findings show that the voices of northern Ugandan victims were heard and conveyed through personal testimonies of Ugandan bloggers and via privately owned local news media. Despite Ugandan victims being temporarily listened to internationally during a short-term Kony 2012 ‘hype’, today, there is not much space for alternative reporting that would make voices of present-day victims in the Central African Republic of Congo or the Democratic Republic of Congo heard.

Framing Chevron Protests in National and International Press

Romanians have been protesting against the gas exploration of the US giant, Chevron, in the village of Pungesti. An issue which may have seemed local, has gradually turned into an international one and, thus, it has become visible not only in the national press but also in the international media. This study presents a comparative analysis of the news media coverage of the Chevron crisis and of the forum comments in the online versions of national and international daily newspapers (Adevărul and The Guardian). In our qualitative content analysis of the news stories and of the forum comments we will use two theoretical frameworks: Semetko & Valkernburg's typology of frames (attribution of responsibility, conflict, economic consequences, human interest, and morality) and Nabi's emotion-as-frame perspective. The comparative content analyses will reveal which emotions, themes and frames were most visible in the national and international media (news articles and forum comments).

International press and diplomatic circumstances in Kosovo in the years 1988-1990

The dramatic events of 1988 and 1989 years in Kosovo, followed by strikes, protests and demonstrations in defense of the autonomy of Kosovo began with Trepca miner’s incarceration in seven-day strikes in the depths of the mine galleries. Students and Kosovo people continued strikes, affected agencies and the strongest international newspaper journalists to come in Kosovo and inform their readers what actually was happening in Kosovo. Events in Kosovo undertaken by internal affairs organs of the Yugoslav Federation caused numerous reactions in domestic opinion as well as in the international. CNN, BBC, France Press, DPA, Corriere della Sera, ANSA and many other mediums were giving a completely true situation in front of other official state propaganda then. These media correspondents were reporting on the continuing violence arrests and killings of Kosovo citizens by these state bodies. These were brave journalists who disseminated in public the appearance of intellectuals isolated in Kosovo that were being held in prisons without the right decision and the question of: What would happen to them if they do not come on the front pages of news in these media? As a merit of their work, Kosovo came on the front pages of all prestigious international journals which set in motion the intellectual elite of their countries and official reactions to the states. Thanks to these reports Kosovo for the first time was visited by a European Parliament delegation who was informed closely with the real situation. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n19p274

News as business: the global financial crisis and Occupy movement in the Wall Street Journal

This article examines a leading US business newspaper's coverage of the global financial crisis (GFC) and Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the most influential international business newspaper with a global audience, is used as a case study. Although the GFC and OWS are closely related, we found significant differences in the way that they were reported in business news. Specifically, we found divergent frames in the WSJ's coverage: an ‘institutional’ framing of the GFC starkly differs from a ‘hegemonic’ framing of OWS. We relate this framing divergence to (1) the instability and inconsistencies in journalism's ‘occupational ideology’ and (2) the challenges social movements encounter in influencing public discourse.

Adversarial Framing: President Bashar al-Assad’s Depiction of the Armed Syrian Opposition

<em>This paper evaluates how Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is framing his opponents in the context of the Syrian civil war. The question is addressed by conducting a qualitative thematic analysis of 13 interviews he gave to international television news networks and newspapers between March and November 2013. It is found that Al-Assad consequently labels the armed opposition as “terrorists” preponderantly composed of groups affiliated to Al-Qaeda. The “terrorists” are framed as posing a threat to the region as well as to international security on a global scale. Furthermore, Al-Assad denies the armed opposition its Syrian grassroots by portraying them as outside aggressors fighting for foreign interests. They are also depicted as “enemies of the Syrian people”, responsible for all the atrocities and human suffering committed during the Syrian civil war.</em> <div><em><br /></em></div>

Wikileaks e il ruolo dei media nella società dell’informazione eccessiva

Wikileaks settles in a communication landscape dominated by web 2.0: anybody may offer information in a reflexive modernity where nothing is taken for granted anymore, and where the power reveals its vulnerabilities and its deep crisis of legitimacy. However, Wikileaks becomes a globally important phenomenon not because of its leaks, but thanks to its ability to highlight them through a smart interaction with traditional mass media. The informations revealed by Wikileaks are indeed difficult to understand by a common reader, and would anyway be indistinguishable, in the bustle of the Internet, from plenty of other conspiratorial informations. International newspapers interacting with Wikileaks provided with the fundamental technical skills needed to understand the documents and their collocation in the international historical context. Above all, they provided with visibility in the realm of the globalized public sphere. Far from representing a case of dis-intermediation of communication, the Wikileaks phenomenon confirms the need and importance of intermediaries that provide individuals with cognitive strategies essential to cope with the information overload.

Cosmopolitanism united by electricity and sport: James Gordon Bennett Jnr and the Paris Herald as sites of internationalism and cultural mediation in belle époque France

Proprietor and director of the Paris Herald newspaper, James Gordon Bennett Jnr (1841−1918) was a key agent in the development of international sporting competitions during the belle époque, promoted and mediatised by the Herald. This international newspaper, managed by an American representative of a growing upper-class society of affluent expatriates in Europe, was a key site of ‘internationalism’, merging its owner’s fascination with sport and technological progress, especially in mechanised sport, with the facilitation of an ‘imagined community’ of the leisured elite who attended and participated in these prestigious sports events and recognised shared values in the newspaper itself. The study of Bennett and the Paris Herald using Geyer and Paulmann’s theoretisations (2001) of ‘sites of internationalism’, and Lamizet’s conceptualisations (2000a, 2000b) of ‘cultural mediation’ and of the ‘passeur culturel’ (2005) reveal how sport and the media interacted during the 1890s and 1900s in the Herald in the development of internationalised sport and society.

Different Visions of Framing Violence in International Press News

Mass media can play an important role in capturing the dynamic between social groups and institutional environments. This paper presents a quantitative content analysis of international news to determine and analyze the themes covered by the international news press in relation to violence in Mexico and to explore entrepreneurs’ reaction to the covered news. We also analyze journalists’ treatment of this news (Semetko & Valkendurg, 2000) and differences among newspapers from the U.S., Mexico and the European Union (EU). A sample of 200 news histories was constructed by integrating international and Mexican newspapers from 2006 to 2012. Our results showed that overall, U.S. and EU newspapers present more news related to violence towards entrepreneurs than Mexican outlets, which more often adopt the avoid strategy (Oliver, 1991). The conflict frame was more widely used in EU newspapers than in U.S. and Mexican newspapers, and the economic frame was more present in the U.S. and Mexican press than in the EU press. The morality frame was used more frequently by Mexican journalists than U.S. and European journalists. The results made it possible to observe the effects of framing on the dynamic between informal and formal institutions (North, 1990) in the context of organized crime and violence in Mexico.

Impression Management and Organizational Audiences: The Fiat Group Case

In this paper we investigate whether, and how, corporate management strategically uses disclosure to manage the perceptions of different organizational audiences. In particular, we examine the interactions between the FIAT Group and three of its key organizational audiences—the local press, the international press, and the financial analysts, which are characterized by different levels of salience for the company. We focus on both how management reacts to the optimism level existing within each audience and how the narrative disclosure tone adopted by FIAT influences the ex-post optimism in the local and international press or in the financial analyst community. We investigate the disclosure of the FIAT Group over a 6-year period (2004–2009), during which 70 price-sensitive press releases were published. On the basis of 1,887 (331) news articles published in Italian (international) newspapers and 411 analyst reports, we report evidence of different strategic patterns in the interaction processes between FIAT and its audiences. Our findings also indicate some differences in the way FIAT is affected by, and in turn, affects the sentiment of each audience, thus highlighting that the salience of the stakeholder is an important driver of the adoption of impression management techniques. Taken together, our findings point to issues related to setting the “tone at the top” and potential ethical matters.

Synchronous surgical training and academic profile development in current atmosphere: Impractical or plausible?

A total of 28 publications and over 52 (oral and poster) presentations in both national and international meetings happened in that duration. The publications included research, review and case reports in international peer reviewed journals. 8 audits were carried on and one comment was published in an international news paper. All the trainees had one or more publications or presentations during the course of this study.

Framing the tiger — A biodiversity concern in national and international media reporting

International forest and environmental governance processes assume that ideas and concepts surrounding biodiversity at the international level will be made accessible at a national level so that they can be easily adopted by national forest and environmental policy arenas. One prerequisite for a seamless implementation of these ideas and concepts is a common definition of specific problems at different political levels. Different perceptions mirrored by media reporting on problems at different political levels may affect the implementation of policies that must be carried out at a national level, even if decisions concerning this implementation are made at an international level. Using the illustrative case of human–tiger interaction, this article shows how national and international media reporting differ in their framing of a particular problem. Based on a theoretical framework consisting framing and media selection theory, and on initial empirical observations, the article recommends blueprints for future in-depth research on the relationship between media framing and policy at different political levels. This case study is based on quantitative content analysis of reports on tiger–human interaction published between 2005 and 2010 in an international newspaper and a national one from Bangladesh. Our example shows that the selected national newspaper frames the tiger as a threat to the livelihood and well-being of local people, whereas the international newspaper stresses biodiversity and climate-change related aspects of human–tiger conflicts. These results indicate that the framing of an issue in the media can differ considerably at different levels and that this is a fruitful field for future in-depth research.

Printing newspaper free of mineral oil: report on a test run

The Swiss retailer Coop printed part of his weekly newspaper with inks formulated without mineral oil. The experiment explored this approach to reduce the migration of mineral oil into food when newspaper is recycled to paperboard for food packaging. The mineral oil was replaced by plant oils as well as poly alpha olefins (PAO) with the lowest mass above the n-alkane C24, i.e. of a volatility low enough to prevent transfer through the gas phase into food. With this composition, no major adjustments of the printing machine were necessary. The printing quality was judged excellent by the International Newspaper Color Quality Club (INCQC). As the carryover in the installations was known to be a serious problem, 30 t of inks were used, initially printing daily newspapers and other printed material. Measurement of the residual mineral oil in the inks as delivered to the printing plant and monitored at the top of a printing tower confirmed that no rapid exchange of inks is possible.

Understanding newsworthiness of an emerging pandemic: International newspaper coverage of the H1N1 outbreak

Background and ObjectivesDuring an evolving public health crisis, news organizations disseminate information rapidly, much of which is uncertain, dynamic, and difficult to verify. We examine factors related to international news coverage of H1N1 during the first month after the outbreak in late April 2009 and consider the news media's role as an information source during an emerging pandemic.MethodsData on H1N1 news were compiled in real time from newspaper websites across twelve countries between April 29, 2009 and May 28, 2009. A news sample was purposively constructed to capture variation in countries' prior experience with avian influenza outbreaks and pandemic preparation efforts. We analyzed the association between H1N1 news volume and four predictor variables: geographic region, prior experience of a novel flu strain (H5N1), existence of a national pandemic plan, and existence of a localized H1N1 outbreak.ResultsH1N1 news was initially extensive but declined rapidly (OR = 0·85, P < .001). Pandemic planning did not predict newsworthiness. However, countries with prior avian flu experience had higher news volume (OR = 1·411, P < .05), suggesting that H1N1 newsworthiness was bolstered by past experiences. The proportion of H1N1 news was significantly lower in Europe than elsewhere (OR = 0·388, P < 0·05). Finally, coverage of H1N1 increased after a first in‐country case (OR = 1·415, P < .01), interrupting the pattern of coverage decline.ConclusionsFindings demonstrate the enhanced newsworthiness of localized threats, even during an emerging pandemic. We discuss implications for news media's role in effective public health communication throughout an epidemic given the demonstrated precipitous decline in news interest.

Women's Hidden Agency in the News Coverage of the Tibetian Riots

This mixed methods case study on the international newspaper coverage of women in the Tibetan riots in March 2008 analyses to what extent women are represented according to prevailing gender stereotypes in conflict news. The study largely confirms news media’s gender bias, in that news media hides women’s agency. Women are either not included in the studied 62 articles from International Herald Tribune, China Daily, and the Tibet Post International, or represented according to prevailing gender stereotypes, namely as passive feminine objects. Interestingly, Chi-square testing reveals that the Tibet Post International, an online newspaper run by Tibetan exiles, deviated from the general tendency by representing remarkably frequent images of active Tibetan women. Around one-third (32 percent) of the Tibet Post International’s articles included press photos featuring women and the clear majority (88 percent) of these images represented them as active. However, the qualitative part of the study tells that text associated with the newspaper’s images of active Tibetan women reduced these women’s perceived agency. When introducing text into the interpretation of these images, the women in many cases were turned into potential victims. This points out that text-image interaction is an often overlooked, yet integral part of assigning meaning in conflict news.