Main Newspapers Research Articles

The perception of the Japanese in the Estonian soldiers’ letters from the Russo-Japanese war (1904-1905)

The Russo-Japanese war (1905-1904) had a great impact on the Estonian society as it instigated the discontent in the society that in the end lead to the turbulent events of the Russian revolution in 1905 and pursue of political independence that was achieved in 1918. It also changed the content of the Estonian printed media as these two years escalated a Japanese boom that was never seen before or after: almost in every single newspaper issue there were articles written about Japan (war news, foreign news, opinion stories, fiction, travelogues, etc). As a new genre, newspapers started to publish the letters of the soldiers who were sent to the battlefield in the Far East. On the whole about 10.000 Estonian men were mobilized that was a considerable proportion of the nation of 1 million and the Estonians back at home were eager to know every piece of information how their men are doing in the distant warfare. Consequently the war created a genre in newspapers that was providing war news without the mediation of foreign languages or journalists. In the context of the research of the Estonian printed media history, the soldiers’ letters have not been researched as a type of journalistic genre in the newspapers. The aim of the current paper is to study how did the Estonian soldiers construct in their letters the Japanese as an enemy and which topics and comparisons did they use while writing about the war. The thematic analysis was used as a research method to study the letters published in three main Estonian newspapers from spring 1904 up to spring 1905. Main topics in the letters have been divided into directly war related issues or descriptions of the surrounding environment. In both categories the positive or negative images of Japanese have been analysed.

Analyzing Newspaper Maps for Earthquake News through Cartographic Approach

This study focuses on newspaper maps, which have an important role in conveying spatial information to newspaper readers. Maps and map-like items in the main Turkish newspapers within a certain period were evaluated in regard to the scope of the study. A database was constructed to organize the collected data and conduct the analysis. In addition to cartographic and thematic analyses, the database allows “georeferencing” to be conducted as well. However, the current study focused on the cartographic and thematic properties of these maps. Their deficiencies were identified from a cartographic perspective and with that, the parts of newspapers that maps are mostly included in were investigated, and we aimed to identify the topics and events that increase map usage in newspapers. For this purpose, maps of earthquake-related news were evaluated as a case study to show some spatial and thematic determinations. Thus, the contribution of newspapers to spatial thinking abilities and geographic knowledge of the readers was evaluated by cartographers. The study proves the importance of cartography in spreading knowledge through maps in newspapers. This opens up new possibilities for future studies to develop a different cartographic perspective on map usage and improve the geographic knowledge of newspaper readers.

The management and communication of a food risk controversy: the Swedish campylobacter case

Between September 2016 and May 2017 levels of campylobacter infections in Swedish conventionally reared broilers doubled to more than 20%. The increased levels of infected broilers in turn led to a massive increase in Swedes getting sick from campylobacter food poisoning. In April 2017, for example, the Swedish medical community reported that there were five times higher levels of Swedish campylobacter poisonings compared to a normal year and a vast majority of these were from domestic rather than foreign sources. This paper evaluates how the risks of campylobacter food poisoning were communicated by a number of different actors involved with the scare and is based on a content analysis of 10 of Sweden’s main newspapers in the period June 2016–September 2017 and 12 elite interviews with some of these individuals. In conclusion, I suggest a number a policy recommendations that the Swedish Agricultural Board and the Swedish Food Agency may want to implement going forward.

From “Leftist” To “President”: Journalism and Editorial Coverage of Brazil’s Lula in Five Elections

ABSTRACTThe article analyzes the image that O Estado de S. Paulo (one of the main Brazilian newspapers) constructed of the presidential candidate Lula da Silva over the course of five electoral campaigns: 1989, 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2006. Our hypothesis is that OESP editorials have an adversarial positioning towards Lula da Silva in all presidential races, despite slight variations brought on by the newspaper's perception of his chances of victory. The study uses a quanti-qualitative methodology supported by Iramuteq (lexicometric analysis) to examine 181 OESP editorials. We found out that OESP features Lula in different ways, adapting its position-taking over time: the characterization of the candidate ranges from “the leftist” (1989 elections) to “the president in permanent campaign” (2006 elections). Notwithstanding, OESP editorials are repeatedly willing to consider him as unsuitable for office. The longitudinal study highlights OESP's political positioning and allows us to discuss journalism and political interests in the Brazilian case.

FÚTBOL, PRENSA E IDENTIDADES NACIONALES EN ESPAÑA, 1975-2017

O objetivo desta pesquisa foi analisar o papel desempenhado pelo futebol como meio para a construção, configuração e fortalecimento das identidades nacionais na Espanha entre 1975 e 2017. No âmbito metodológico, revisaram-se a bibliografia e as principais revistas e jornais espanhóis, tanto de esportes quanto de informação geral desse período. Os principais resultados obtidos nos mostram como a imprensa reescreveu as várias narrativas sobre a identidade nacional espanhola desde os últimos anos, tornando-se a ferramenta ideal para associar certos estereótipos e mitos à seleção espanhola e aos principais clubes de futebol. Do mesmo modo, a relação entre o futebol e a imprensa também desempenhou um papel fundamental na criação e transformação dos discursos identitários na Catalunha e no País Basco durante as últimas décadas.

Art, Idleness and Food: The Ethics of War Communism and the Origins of Production Art, 1918–1919

The article examines the impact of the discourses concerning idleness and food on the formation of “production art” in the socio-political context of revolutionary Petrograd. The author argues that the development of the theory and practice of this early productionism was closely related to the larger political, social and ideological processes in the city. The Futurists, who were in the epicenter of Petrograd politics during the Civil War (1918–1921), were well acquainted with both of the discourses mentioned, and they contrasted the idleness of the old art with the dedicated labor of the “artist-proletarians” whom they valued as highly as people in the “traditional” working professions. And the search for the “right to exist” became the most important goal in a starving city dominated by the ideology of radical communism. The author departs from the prevailing approach in the literature, which links the artistic thought of the Futurists to Soviet ideology in its abstract, generalized form, and instead elucidates ideological influences in order to consider the early production texts in their immediate social and political contexts. The article shows that the basic concepts of production art (“artist-proletarian,” “creative labor,” etc.) were part of the mainstream trends in the politics of “red Petrograd.” The Futurists borrowed the popular notion of the “commune” for the title of their main newspaper but also worked with the Committees of the Rural Poor and with the state institutions for procurement and distribution. They took an active part in the Fine Art Department of Narkompros (People’s Commissariat of Education). The theory of production art was created under these conditions. The individualistic protest and “aesthetic terror” of pre-revolutionary Futurism had to be reconsidered, and new state policy measures were based on them. The harsh socio-economic context of war communism prompted artists to rethink their own role in the “impending commune.” Further development of these ideas led to the Constructivist movement and strongly influenced the extremely diverse trends within the “left art” of the 1920s.

28 June in the Serbian calendar of 1985-1991

The article is devoted to the formation of the contemporary Vidovdan tradition in the Socialist Republic of Serbia in 1985-1991. Beings the key date in modern Serbian national history, 28 June was used to provide commemorative practices by various Serbian forces during the decomposition of centralised power in Yugoslavia in that period. The process of codifying of a new national mythology precipitated by the disintegration processes in the SFRY after the death of Tito, is examined on the background of the political discourse in Serbia. The research uses sources such as the public speeches and writings of leading political figures (above all Slobodan Milosevic), which are openly available, for example the Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and which were published in the three most popular newspapers in the Socialist Republic of Serbia: Борба (Struggle), Политика (Politics) and Вечерње новости (Evening News) and the two main newspapers of the Autonomous Province of Kosovo: Rilindja (Revival) and Jeдинство (Unity). The research concludes that it is obvious that the establishing of a tradition of celebrating the anniversary of the Kosovo Battle as an annual public holiday is directly related to the interests of the political forces in SR Serbia.

“With Little Blood Shed and a Mighty Blow…”: The Peculiarities of Designing an Image of the Red Army in Soviet Prewar Newspaper Discourse

This article examines the influence of the ideologised social and political environment of prewar Soviet Russia on newspaper texts about the Red Army, its tactical efficiency, class principle of formation, key political principles of teaching and upbringing, and the ability to protect the country from internal and external enemies. The author analyses aspects conditioning the determination of publications about the Red Army by Bolshevist ideology and establishes the main concepts of Soviet prewar newspaper discourse forming the image of the Army in the military and civilian reader. Referring to numerous examples from materials of the main newspapers of the country, the author demonstrates features of these concepts functioning in the discourse of mass media of the prewar period. For the purpose of the article, the author employs methods of critical discourse analysis revealing, classifying and characterising conceptualised definitions and political metaphors used in publications of the Soviet newspapers between 1937 and 1940. The article refers to issues of the Soviet newspapers Krasnaya Zvezda , Pravda , Izvestiya , Komsomolskaya Pravda , Literaturnaya Gazeta devoted to various aspects of the development of the Red Army between 1937 and 1940. Overall, the author considers over fifty publications containing the keywords “army”, “war”, “defense”, “Bolshevism”, and “enemy”. Based on the analysis of newspaper publications, the author draws some conclusions about the propaganda nature of texts about the Red Army. In these texts, the real journalistic analysis of progress and issues of battle training is replaced with concepts of political propaganda. They are presented as axioms with no need for proof and are designed to create an ideal image of the Army ready to defeat any enemy suffering insignificant losses and in the enemy’s territory.

“Diarios chicos” y “diarios grandes”: la crítica visión de la prensa chilena según los periódicos satíricos, 1880-1910

Se analizan las estrategias textuales y graficas utilizadas por algunos de los principales periodicos satiricos de la capital chilena (que se llamaban a si mismos “diarios chicos”) para describir la actividad de la prensa a partir de las ultimas dos decadas del siglo XIX y, en especial, para cuestionar la posicion enunciativa de los “diarios grandes”. Al denunciar las sospechosas relaciones entre hombres de finanzas y periodistas, asi como ridiculizar el trabajo dentro de las salas de redaccion, se erosiono la posicion dominante que tenian publicaciones como El Ferrocarril y El Mercurio . Las imagenes y textos satiricos mas certeros se dirigieron sin embargo contra los diarios catolicos, cuyos redactores fueron representados como seres irracionales y, por tanto, inhabilitados de participar en el espacio publico, en contraste con los propios editores de los “diarios chicos”. El blanco de los ataques vario hacia 1905, cuando la pugna contra el clericalismo dejo de ser primordial y la prensa satirica adquirio un lenguaje clasista, a partir del cual interpreto la actividad periodistica durante los siguientes anos. Palabras clave: prensa satirica popular, periodismo moderno America Latina, periodistas chilenos c. 1880-1910.

What Does the Liberal-Conservative Scale Measure? A Study among Clergy and Laity in the Church of England

Abstract The Liberal-Conservative (LIBCON) scale is a seven-point semantic differential scale that has been widely used to measure identity within the Church of England. The history of the development of liberalism in the Church of England suggests that this scale should be associated with specific beliefs and attitudes related to doctrine, moral issues and church practices. This study tests this idea among a sample of 9339 lay and ordained readers of the Church Times (the main newspaper of the Church of England) using twelve summated rating scales measuring a range of beliefs and attitudes. Of these twelve variables, eleven were correlated with the LIBCON scale. Discriminant function analysis produced a linear function of these variables that correctly identified 35% of respondents on the scale, and 69% to within one scale score. The best predictors were scales related to either doctrine or moral issues, and these performed consistently across traditions (Anglo-catholic, Broad church or Evangelical) and between clergy and laity. Scales related to church practices suggested ‘conserving tradition’ was also involved in the liberal-conservative dimension, but this was less so for clergy and for Evangelicals. The scale is commended as an empirical measure of one dimension of Church of England identities, especially if used alongside a parallel scale measuring church tradition.

Scientific Quality of Health-Related Articles in Specialty Cannabis and General Newspapers in San Francisco

Recreational cannabis is being legalized in states across the USA. The public relies on popular media for health information about cannabis. We assessed the accuracy of reporting on health effects of cannabis use in GreenState, a specialty publication on cannabis published by the San Francisco Chronicle and the main newspaper using the Index of Scientific Quality for Health Related News Reports. Results were compared using t-tests. Seventeen GreenState articles and four San Francisco Chronicle articles were identified for analysis. Health articles in GreenState scored 2.9 (±1.1 [SD]) Global, with the highest scoring category Applicability (4.5 ± 0.4) and the lowest Precision (2.4 ± 1.0) on a scale of 1–5. In contrast, the San Francisco Chronicle articles received a Global rating of 4.6 (±0.2), ranging from Applicability (5.0 ± 0) to Benefits (3.8 ± 0.9). Articles in the San Francisco Chronicle scored significantly higher in all categories but Benefits which was not significantly different for the San Francisco Chronicle compared with GreenState (3.8 vs. 3.6, p = 0.77). The public, clinicians, and policymakers need to be aware of this pattern and treat information in publications like GreenState with an appropriate level of skepticism until the quality of reporting improves to general journalistic standards.

Politicisation of the Eurozone crisis in Finland: adaptation toward the radical right?

AbstractThis paper analyses the politicisation of the Eurozone crisis in Finnish public debate, in May-November 2010. We emphasise how the mainstream parties responded to the radical right Finns Party's framing, in addition to two context factors: first, the constraints posed on domestic policymakers by EU and EMU-level decisions, and secondly, the sharp, economic downturn, encouraging a zero-sum interpretation of distributive claims. To trace actor positions, we analyse 1183 actor-issue statements coded from Finland's main newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat. Our findings suggest that radical right-wing parties can benefit from the high salience of socio-economic issues, if distributive conflict can plausibly be portrayed as a in- and out-group conflict, and that the mainstream parties did not only adopt nationalistic rhetoric as a response to the radical right-wing Finns Party's framing, but were responding to a constraints such as the diminished room for maneuver in the EMU, moving them towards the Finns Party's position.

O papel da mídia nos processos de impeachment de Dilma Rousseff (2016) e Michel Temer (2017)

As tensas relações entre mídia e política no Brasil são bem conhecidas pela literatura especializada. Getúlio Vargas, João Goulart e Fernando Collor são alguns exemplos de presidentes que não terminaram seus mandatos e que sofreram resistências por parte da imprensa. O presente artigo argumenta que esse histórico de atuação dos meios de comunicação em processos de desestabilização permanece atual. A hipótese foi testada a partir da observação de 35 editoriais dos principais jornais impressos do país durante a tramitação dos processos de impeachment de Dilma Rousseff em 2016 e de investigação de Michel Temer em 2017. O primeiro caso contou com certa unidade entre esses jornais, e o impeachment foi vitorioso; no segundo, houve divergências na imprensa e o impeachment não ocorreu.

The treatment of information on migratory flows in the media of the Mediterranean countries

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo identificar y analizar la información difundida por los medios de comunicación sobre los flujos migratorios registrados en el contexto del Mediterráneo y el tratamiento dado al sujeto migrante en las representaciones en torno a la movilidad de personas entre países de la región. Un grupo internacional e interdisciplinar de investigadores ha analizado 3452 noticias relacionadas con la cuenca mediterránea, y producidas por los principales periódicos y canales públicos de televisión de Argelia, Egipto, España, Francia, Italia, Marruecos, Reino Unido y Túnez. Junto a los primeros canales de televisión de ámbito estatal, en el caso de España también se consideran cuatro canales públicos autonómicos. La selección de la muestra corresponde a dos semanas del mes de mayo de 2013. La matriz de análisis contempló aspectos formales de selección y jerarquización de contenidos, así como, los temas tratados, los actores destacados en la información y sus denominaciones. Los resultados revelan pocas diferencias en la agenda temática de los medios analizados. La migración y el migrante se presentan en la prensa y televisión de ambas orillas del Mediterráneo como un problema, asociado a fuente de conflictos más que a una idea de oportunidad para los migrantes y también para los países de acogida.

Femicide in a small Nordic welfare society

The purpose of this study was to examine femicide cases in Iceland, which is a small Nordic welfare society. Cases of femicide were explored during a 30-year time period from 1986-2015. Femicide was defined as the murder of a woman by a partner, former partner or related to passion. Verdicts and news of the incidents were analysed. Verdicts were found using the search machine Fons Juries, run by a private legal company, which collected all verdicts from the Supreme Court from 1920, and all verdicts from the district courts existing in electric form. News that included murders of women was collected from websites of the main newspapers in Iceland. Eleven women were killed during this time period according to the definition used in this study. Most of the incidents happened in the home of the perpetrator, victim or both. Nearly all of them took place during the night or in the evening during weekends, with more incidents occurring during cold and dark months than brighter and warmer months. All of them took place in the capital city or in that area. Strangulation was the most common murder method, followed by stabbing the woman with a knife. Only one woman was shot, and that perpetrator was the only one who killed himself afterward. The mean age of the perpetrators was 29. Most of them had a low level of education or their education was unknown, and had a low paying job. Two-thirds of them were under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs when the incident happened and the majority had a psychiatric problem, mainly personality disorders or symptoms of such disorders, such as antisocial personality disorder. Even though it is rare, femicide incidents do exist in a small Nordic welfare society such as Iceland, despite an extensive welfare policy and gender equality.

“Germany’s victory over Brazil was like the Blitzkrieg”:: the sport-politics nexus in Israel during the 2014 World Cup

Various voices assert that the sport-politics nexus that characterized international sport events during the Cold War era is irrelevant in the current age of globalization. This study examines the validity of this argument via a case study of Jewish-Israelis’ fandom tendencies during the 2014 World Cup. A survey conducted during the World Cup games among a representative sample of the Jewish-Israeli population revealed that the Dutch team, whose popularity in Israel has been attributed to the Netherland’s perceived support of Jews during the Holocaust, was the most supported team. The teams most rooted against were Iran, Germany, and Algeria, indicating the potential role of the Holocaust and contemporary Jewish-Islamic relations on fandom tendencies. To better understand the animosity towards the German team, which is surprising in light of current improved Israel-Germany relations and the strength of the German team, we analyzed user comments on Israel’s main online newspaper following the German team’s glorious 7-1 victory against Brazil. The analysis revealed that 51 of the 287 user comments made direct or indirect references to the Holocaust, further highlighting the centrality of nationalism in contemporary sport fandom.

Discourses of the wound and desire for the Other: remembrances of the Katyń massacre and the Smoleńsk crash

ABSTRACTWe investigate the commemorative debate in Polish newspapers about how the Katyń massacre and the presidential plane crash near Smoleńsk, Russia, should be remembered. We demonstrate that a psychoanalytic discursive analysis elucidates the insistence on remembering past wounds, nationalist politics of victimhood, and the difficulties in reaching rapprochement in intercultural relations. To this end, we analyze the commemorative debates in two main Polish newspapers and a news magazine. We argue that an emotive discourse of “Katyń as a wound” yearns for a therapeutic healing of the rifts in Polish national mythology and postcommunist identity. This discourse revolves around a demand for recognition from the Russian Other of a wounded subject by employing evocative metonymies and transposing logics of equivalence and difference.

French Perspectives on the Northern Ireland Peace Process and the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement

Although the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement is often described as the peace accord which ended thirty years of conflict in Northern Ireland, it was one of many on the path to peace. This article proposes to return to the negotiations for peace from a transnational perspective, exploring how the peace process which culminated in the signing of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement was reported in France. It focuses on the four main national daily newspapers: the conservative paper, Le Figaro , the organ of the French Communist Party, L’Humanite , the left-wing daily, Liberation , and the newspaper of record, Le Monde . As this study shows, not all French daily newspapers supported the first peace attempts in Northern Ireland. Indeed, the two left-wing publications, L’Humanite and Liberation , showed a clear antipathy towards the different reconciliation projects until the early 1990s. These newspapers appeared to be prisoners of their own ideology: Liberation defended the idea of a fight for freedom, and supported the Republicans rather than peace, considering that any initiative that did not include the Republicans would fail. L’Humanite , which always saw the Northern Irish conflict as a colonial war, would only support the withdrawal of the British government from Northern Ireland. From the moment Sinn Fein was allowed to participate in the peace process and the British government stated it did not have any strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland, both newspapers supported the British initiatives to find a solution to the conflict. All French publications reported on the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement in 1998 and welcomed the ‘historical accord’.

Can you hear me Major Tom? News, narratives and contemporary military operations: the case of the Italian mission in Afghanistan

ABSTRACTThis research explores the relationship between public narratives and the Italian military contribution to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan (2001–2014). Despite attracting little attention in the literature, Italy has been one of the most crucial contributors of multilateral military missions around the world in the post-bipolar era. Italy has remained consistently engaged militarily in Afghanistan over the entire period of the ISAF mission. However, the country’s involvement has been characterised by differing and controversial views and perspectives among Italian political actors and the media. This study aims to reconstruct the core features of the strategic narratives and the media frames around the military intervention and it does so through a Qualitative Content Analysis on a collection of almost 200 articles published by four main Italian national newspapers. The goal of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, we systematically retrace the main discursive patterns and frames employed by the newspapers on the ISAF. On the other, we evaluate whether in the case of military interventions, the Italian media unveil critical inconsistencies and competitive arguments or whether they function as a repeater of the dominant political discourse. Thanks to the case study, we find that the Italian media supported the mainstream narratives.

Self-coverage for public interest or self-promotion: How media cross-ownership structures affect news content in South Korea

The growing phenomenon of cross-ownership by media conglomerates and the influence of that phenomenon on news content continues to receive considerable attention internationally. Such cross-ownership of media has triggered discussions about whether media firms prioritize their own business interests through self-promotion. In the context of South Korea where the three main newspapers are permitted by the government to cross-own cable TV network subsidiaries, this study looks at whether and to what extent self-coverage is done with the intent of self-promotion. Specifically, this study examined 1362 news articles about issues related to self-coverage published in five of South Korea’s major newspapers – three with cable TV networks and, for purposes of comparison, two without. Content analysis showed that the three newspapers that cross-own cable TV networks were more likely than their competitors to cover more frequently as well as more positively news about their primary shareholders along with news about programs broadcast by their own subsidiary cable TV networks. These results may suggest that self-coverage by newspaper companies in South Korea tend to favor their own private interests at levels higher than news of public interest.