scholarly journals From the ‘Open door’ policy to the EU-Turkey deal: media framings of German policy changes during the EU refugee ‘crisis’

2021 ◽  
pp. 004711782199941
Author(s):  
Beatrix Futák-Campbell ◽  
Mira Pütz
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Policy Decisions ◽  
Open Door Policy ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
Media Discourses ◽  
The Eu

This article explores Angela Merkel’s decision to open Germany’s borders to refugees in September 2015 and her support for the EU-Turkey statement in March 2016. While the first policy offered relief to refugees, the second was designed to significantly reduce the number of refugees coming to Europe. Besides the seemingly contradictory rationale behind these two foreign policy decisions, the role that domestic media played in Merkel’s decision to open the borders was remarkable. The connection between media reports and public opinion has long been established, whereas the connection between foreign policy and the media is more recent. However, the link between all three and how they operate together is yet to be studied. By exploring these connections, we show how foreign policy decisions can be accepted by locals within a language context that fosters identification with outsiders. Similarly, a shift in the discourse, which contributed to the perception of a divergence of interests between the local population and the refugees, helps to understand the subsequent change in foreign policy. In short, we show how this shift provides an insight into the parallels between domestic media discourses, public opinion and foreign policy decisions. We apply deductive qualitative content analysis to demonstrate this connection.

International broadcasting: stages of development, specificity and functional structure

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4(13)) ◽  
pp. 51-60
Author(s):  
Ksenia Olegovna NEVMERZHITSKAYA ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Global Media ◽  
False Information ◽  
Broadcast Media ◽  
World Community ◽  
Media Agenda ◽  
International Broadcasting ◽  
The World ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Reports

The media influence politics by providing intelligence and arena for political statements. Therefore, the danger of spreading false information and deliberate disinformation can have serious consequences. It is impossible to accuse specific media outlets of unfair coverage, but one cannot fail to note the existing resonance in media reports from different countries. Interpretations of the same events are radically different, while a journalist must rely on facts. The world is faced with the problem of global misunderstanding and information discord. Modern international broadcasting plays an important role in shaping the picture of the event for the world community. It is impossible to deny that the information agenda of many foreign broadcast media depends to some extent on a number of reasons: nationality, foreign policy of his state, profitability. Otherwise, the global media would not contradict each other. We want to track how modern foreign broadcasting builds its agenda and what principles it is guided by. Keywords: Broadcasting, media, Media agenda

scholarly journals Image, krop og maskulinitet. Mediediskurser om skihoppere

2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gertrud Pfister ◽  
Rikke Schou Jeppesen
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Teenage Girls ◽  
Ski Jumping ◽  
Fan Communities ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Discourses ◽  
The 19Th Century

Artiklen beskriver og forklarer de forandringer, som sporten har gennemgået, og den indflydelse, som disse forandringer har haft på udøvere og på deres kroppe og images. Der er særlig fokus på mediernes rolle i forhandlingen om konstruktion af ambivalente maskulinitetsformer. Gertrud Pfister & Rikke Schou Jeppesen: Images, Bodies and Masculinities. Media discourses about Ski JumpersToday ski jumping can be considered a typical media sport: it has very few participants and no basis to become a »sport for all« movement. Nevertheless, the few specialists and their main events attract masses of spectators and great media attention. The high demands of skill and strength as well as the danger involved have made ski jumping a typical male sport. Since its beginnings in the 19th century a ski jumper was looked upon as the epitome of »true manhood«. Today ski jumpers are celebrities with fragile egos, skinny bodies, boyish looks, ambivalent masculinities and fan communities of teenage girls. With a constructivist theoretical approach, we will describe and explain the changes that have taken place in ski jumping and the effects of these changes on the athletes, their bodies, their images and their masculinities. The focus will be on the media representation of two German ski jumpers, Martin Schmitt and Sven Hannawald who dominated this sport between 2000 and 2003. Sources are the articles about these athletes in 6 German print media. With a qualitative content analysis, we explore the media coverage of ski jumping and the way the athletes are presented. The correlations between the images and the »doing gender« of the athletes and their presentations in the media along with the role of the media in constructing new and ambivalent masculinities will be the key issues of this article.

New Aspects of Discourse about the Berlin’s Realpolitik

2015 ◽  
Vol 59 (12) ◽  
pp. 30-40
Author(s):  
V. Vasil'ev
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
German Society ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
European Security ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Government ◽  
The U.S ◽  
The Eu

The article investigates approaches taken by major political parties and civil society in the FRG toward the Transatlantic partnership. It reveals the tendencies of the prospective promotion of Berlin’s cooperation with Washington; the article also gives a forecast of further interaction between the EU and the USA, indicates the direction of discourse regarding the future Russia–Germany relations model in the context of the Ukrainian crisis and in reference to the increased transatlantic solidarity. Disputes in German socio-political circles on the issue of the FRG’s policy toward the U.S. are emerging all the time, but they have to be considered within a concrete historical and political context. Being of primary significance for all German chancellors, the Trans-Atlantic factor has been shaping itself in a controversial way as to the nation’s public opinion. This has been confirmed by many opinion polls, including the survey on the signing of the EU–U.S. Agreement on the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Chancellor A. Merkel is playing an important role: she is either ascribed full compliancy with Washington, or is being tentatively shown as a consistent government figure in advancing and upholding of Germany's and the EU's interests. A. Merkel has implemented her peace-seeking drive in undoing the Ukrainian tangle by setting up the “Normandy format” involving the leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine while having cleared it through with the U.S. President B. Obama well in advance. Despite the increasing criticism of Washington’s policy among some part of Germans, for the majority of German voters, the USA remains a country of implementable hopes, the only power in the world possessing a high education level and the most advanced technologies. Americans, for their part, are confident of the important role that Berlin plays in world politics, particularly in what concerns the maintenance of unity within the EU. Berlin aims at further constructive interaction with the USA in the frame of NATO as well as within other Trans-Atlantic formats. Notwithstanding the steady tendency toward increasing of the Washington policy’s critical perception degree in German society, officially Berlin continues as Washington’s true ally, partner and friend. There is every reason to believe that after the 2017 Bundestag elections, the new (the former) Chancellor will have to face a modernized Trans-Atlantic partnership philosophy, with a paradigm also devised in the spirit of the bloc discipline and commitments to allies. The main concern for Berlin is not to lose its sovereign right of decision-making, including the one that deals with problems of European security and relations with Moscow. Regrettably, Germany is not putting forward any innovative ideas on aligning a new architecture of European security with Russia’s participation. Meanwhile, German scholars and experts are trying to work out a tentative algorithm of a gradual return to the West’s full-fledged dialogue with Russia, which, unfortunately, is qualified as an opponent by many politicians. Predictably, the Crimea issue will remain a long-lasting political irritant in relations between Russia and Germany. Although not every aspect of Berlin’s activation in its foreign policy finds support of the German public, and the outburst of anti-American feeling is obvious, experts believe that the government of the FRG is “merely taking stock of these phenomena and ignores them”. Evident is the gap between the government's line and the feeling of the German parties’ basis – the public. It is noteworthy that the FRG has not yet adopted the Law on Holding General Federal Referendums on key issues of the domestic and foreign policy. There is every indication to assume that the real causes of abandoning the nationwide referendums are the reluctance of the German ruling bureaucracy and even its apprehensions of the negative voting returns on sensitive problems, – such as basic documents and decisions of the EU, the export of German arms, relations with the U.S., etc. The harmony between Berlin’s "Realpolitik" and German public opinion is not yet discernible within the system of Trans-Atlantic axes.

10. The role of media and public opinion

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piers Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Persuasive Communication ◽  
The Public ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
The Media

This chapter examines the relevance of media and public opinion to our understanding of foreign policy and international politics. It first considers whether public opinion influences foreign policy formulation, as argued by the pluralist model, or whether the public are politically impotent, as argued by the elite model. It then explores whether the media can influence foreign policy formulation, as argued by the pluralist model, or whether the media are fundamentally subservient to the foreign policy process, as argued by the elite model. It also integrates these competing arguments with theoretical frames used in the study of international relations: namely, realism, liberalism, and critical approaches (including constructivism and post-structuralism). The chapter concludes by discussing contemporary debates concerning organized persuasive communication and the ‘war on terror’.

Czech Public Opinion on Turkey's Accession to the EU: An Analysis through the Lenses of Sociological and Discursive Institutionalism*

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-95
Author(s):  
Pelin Ayan Musil
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Discursive Institutionalism ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Eu

While Turkey lacks significant levels of public support from the Czech Republic in its EU bid, the existing studies of European public opinion on the question of Turkey do not bring any reasonable explanation as to why this can be so. To shed light on this problem, this article offers an analytical framework derived from sociological and discursive institutionalism. First, it shows that the historical/cultural context in the Czech Republic has created an informal institution built around the norms of “othering” Muslim societies like Turkey (sociological institutionalism). Second, based on the media coverage of selected political issues from Turkey between 2005 and 2010, it argues that this institution both enables and constrains the “discursive ability” of the media in communicating these issues to its audience (discursive institutionalism). Since the media—as a political actor—mostly acts to maintain this institution and does not critically debate it, the public opinion of Turkey as the “cultural other” remains as a dominant perception. The official support of the political elite for Turkey's accession to the EU does not countervail the media influence, as this support is often not conveyed to the Czech public agenda.

Public Opinion and Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Foyle
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
New Media ◽  
Information Acquisition ◽  
Opinion Dynamics ◽  
Domestic Policy ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
New Research ◽  
Traditional Approaches

Dramatic changes in the way the public acquires information and formulates its attitudes have potentially altered the opinion and foreign policy relationship. While traditional approaches have treated public opinion on domestic and foreign matters as largely distinct, the culmination of a series of changes may eliminate the effective distinction between foreign and domestic policy, at least in terms of how the American political system operates. All the factors central to the opinion and foreign policy process, such as information acquisition, attitude formation, media effects, the effect of opinion on policy, and presidential leadership now appear to mirror the processes observed at the domestic level. This analysis reviews historical trends in the literature on public opinion and foreign policy that has focused on the rationality of the public’s opinions, the structure of its attitudes, and its influence on foreign policymaking. The traditional Almond-Lippmann consensus portrayed an emotional public with unstructured attitudes and little influence on foreign policy; however, revisionist views have described a reasonable public with largely structured views on foreign policy that can, at times, constrain and even drive those policies. More recently, the rise of “intermestic” issues, contain both domestic and international elements, such as globalization, inequality, terrorism, immigration, and climate change, have interacted to transform the domestic and international context. The bulk of this analysis highlights emerging new research directions that should be pursued in light of the changes. First, scholars should continue to evaluate the “who thinks what and why” questions with particular attention to differences between high- and low-information individuals, the effect of misinformation, and information sources. In doing so, research should build on research from non-American contexts that points to the important influences of societal and institutional factors. In addition to continued examination of traditional demographic factors such as partisanship and ideology, additional attention should turn to consider potential genetic and biological foundations of attitudes. Finally, researchers should continue to evaluate how the new media environment, including social media, affects how the public accesses information, how the media provides information, and how political elites attempt to shape both. Given these changes, scholars should consider whether it continues to make sense to treat public opinion dynamics regarding foreign policy as distinct from domestic policy and its implications.

scholarly journals Confrontational Argumentative Strategies in the Discourse of Foreign Policy Experts

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-55
Author(s):  
Samira Allani
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Strategic Maneuvering ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Dialectical Method ◽  
Argumentation Analysis ◽  
Argumentative Strategies ◽  
The Media

The aim of this study is to explore the discursive practices of foreign policy experts. While policy decisions involving war and peace keep people alarmed all over the globe, most of these decisions are shaped by policy experts who work on influencing public opinion through the media (Manheim, 2011). This study adopts a critical discursive stance and uses argumentation analysis to examine the ideological backdrop to the discourse of thirty opinion articles authored by American foreign policy experts in print media. Drawing on the Pragma-dialectical method of augmentation analysis (van Eemeren and Grootendorst, 2004), and more particularly on its notion of strategic maneuvering, the analysis examines the confrontational strategies used by this group of experts and attempts to determine the rhetorical goals pursued by these strategic maneuvers.

scholarly journals Out of the ordinary: Media reports on wet eldercare facilities

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 330-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Håkan Jönson ◽  
Tove Harnett
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Nursing Homes ◽  
Older People ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Alcohol Problems ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
The City ◽  
Care For Older People

The aim of this article was to investigate presentations of “wet” eldercare facilities in Sweden, a type of facility that provides care for older people with long-term alcohol problems and where the consumption of alcohol is allowed. Wet eldercare facilities challenge traditional Swedish policy on alcohol treatment, and their approach constitutes a breach of mainstream policies on alcohol and treatment, where abstinence is a goal. Data for the study consisted of articles that reported on two nursing homes in the City of Gothenburg during 1995–2017, a total of 65 articles. Qualitative content analysis was used to identify relevant themes. The study revealed that with the exception of a media scandal at one of the facilities in 2017, reports were mostly positive. Residents were portrayed as “chronic” alcoholics (kroniker) who were resistant to treatment, but in need of the type of permissive approach and care that was provided at the facilities. In the article we refer to this as a framework of matched arrangements. Readers of several media reports were invited to see the person behind the scruffy addict and the approach was in some cases developed into a critique of unrealistic ambitions of mainstream treatment. This critique was, however, not developed into a coherent framework. A conclusion was that the surprisingly positive portrayal of residents and descriptions of the facilities as “different” should be understood in relation to the way the media creates interest by reporting on events and arrangements that appear as out of the ordinary.

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