scholarly journals Media influence on humanitarian interventions: analysis of the Rohingya refugee crisis and international media coverage

Author(s):  
Michelle J. Lee

AbstractIn 2017, the long-festering discriminatory treatment to the Rohingyas in Myanmar, both in law and practice, resulted in the largest cross-border humanitarian crisis in Asia. During the 2016‑2017 Rohingya refugee crisis, the aerial shots of burnt villages and images of people trudging toward the horizon in search of refuge in neighboring nations dominated the Western media. However, for humanitarians, the question of whether the media helps with humanitarian crises remains complicated and unclear. This study examines the effects of media coverage on the Rohingya refugee crisis based on articles from two liberal, elite newspaper sources, The New York Times and The Guardian between 2010 and 2020. The study reveals that the attempts of international pressure to stop the crisis have increased through media coverage and political pressures; however, the number of Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar intensified due to worsening violence and human rights violations committed by the Myanmar army. Findings are discussed using the lens of cultural and ideological context. The study suggests that in Myanmar, where authoritarian military culture is pervasive, there is a limited influence of the international press on the state-sponsored ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya population and questions whether consistent international pressure could have changed the outcome.

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 845-874 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Hawdon ◽  
James Hawdon ◽  
Atte Oksanen ◽  
James Hawdon ◽  
Atte Oksanen ◽  
...  

Abstract Although considerable research analyzes the media coverage of school shootings, there is a lack of cross-national comparative studies. Yet, a cross-national comparison of the media coverage of school shootings can provide insight into how this coverage can affect communities. Our research focuses on the reporting of the school shootings at Virginia Tech in the U.S. and Jokela and Kauhajoki in Finland. Using 491 articles from the New York Times and Helsingin Sanomat published within a month of each shooting we investigate how reports vary between the nations and among the tragedies. We investigate if one style of framing a tragedy, the use of a “tragic frame,” may contribute to differences in the communities’ response to the events.


2021 ◽  
pp. 073953292110501
Author(s):  
Noam Tirosh ◽  
Steve Bien-Aime ◽  
Akshaya Sreenivasan ◽  
Dennis Lichtenstein

This comparative study examines framing of migration-related stories (focused on media coverage of World Refugee Day [WRD]) between four countries, and framing developments over 18 years, specifically if (and how) the 2015 peak “refugee crisis” altered news coverage of refugee issues. Elite newspapers, the New York Times (USA), the Times of India, Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Germany) and Haaretz (Israel) were content analyzed. Newspapers gave only sparse attention to WRD itself, but WRD was a “temporal opportunity” to discuss migration that increased coverage. But the 2015 peak refugee crisis had little effect on coverage over the long run.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Lewandowsky ◽  
Michael Jetter ◽  
Ullrich K. H. Ecker

Abstract Social media has arguably shifted political agenda-setting power away from mainstream media onto politicians. Current U.S. President Trump’s reliance on Twitter is unprecedented, but the underlying implications for agenda setting are poorly understood. Using the president as a case study, we present evidence suggesting that President Trump’s use of Twitter diverts crucial media (The New York Times and ABC News) from topics that are potentially harmful to him. We find that increased media coverage of the Mueller investigation is immediately followed by Trump tweeting increasingly about unrelated issues. This increased activity, in turn, is followed by a reduction in coverage of the Mueller investigation—a finding that is consistent with the hypothesis that President Trump’s tweets may also successfully divert the media from topics that he considers threatening. The pattern is absent in placebo analyses involving Brexit coverage and several other topics that do not present a political risk to the president. Our results are robust to the inclusion of numerous control variables and examination of several alternative explanations, although the generality of the successful diversion must be established by further investigation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 255-275
Author(s):  
Yiqin Ruan ◽  
Jing Yang ◽  
Jianbin Jin

Biotechnology, as an emerging technology, has drawn much attention from the public and elicited hot debates in countries around the world and among various stakeholders. Due to the public's limited access to front-line scientific information and scientists, as well as the difficulty of processing complex scientific knowledge, the media have become one of the most important channels for the public to get news about scientific issues such as genetically modified organisms (GMOs). According to framing theory, how the media portray GMO issues may influence audiences’ perceptions of those issues. Moreover, different countries and societies have various GMO regulations, policies and public opinion, which also affect the way media cover GMO issues. Thus, it is necessary to investigate how GMO issues are covered in different media outlets across different countries. We conducted a comparative content analysis of media coverage of GMO issues in China, the US and the UK. One mainstream news portal in each of the three countries was chosen ( People's Daily for China, The New York Times for the US, and The Guardian for the UK). We collected coverage over eight years, from 2008 to 2015, which yielded 749 pieces of news in total. We examined the sentiments expressed and the generic frames used in coverage of GMO issues. We found that the factual, human interest, conflict and regulation frames were the most common frames used on the three portals, while the sentiments expressed under those frames varied across the media outlets, indicating differences in the state of GMO development, promotion and regulation among the three countries.


2003 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Almeida ◽  
Mark Lichbach

We compare activist-based internet data with four other media sources—Lexis Nexis Academic Universe, The Seattle Times, Global Newsbank, and The New York Times—on their coverage of the local, national, and international protests that accompanied the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Third Ministerial Conference in Seattle, Washington in late 1999. Using the Media Sensitivity-Protest Intensity Model of event reporting, we find that activist-based web sites report a greater number of transnational protest events at the local, national, and international level. We also find that activist-based websites are less positively influenced by the intensity properties of protest events. In the age of globalization, research on transnational movements should therefore combine conventional media sources and activist-based web sources.


Author(s):  
Laurits Harmer Lassen ◽  
Søren Kjellberg Ishøy

The article describes the American presidential election in the two largest American and Danish newspapers: USA Today, New York Times, Jyllands-Posten and Politiken. Two weeks of news about the election have been analysed and showed that around 60 to 70 percent of all stories focused on the political processes contrary to the political substance. At the same time the analysis show that in broad terms the Danish and American newspapers coverage are quite similar. On the basis of theories of democracy the article makes a critique of the media coverage and give possible explanations of, why the focus is more on the political game than on the political substance.


2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 525-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Volker Daniel ◽  
Magnus Neubert ◽  
Agnes Orban

Abstract We study the role of global media during the Greek debt crisis and relate it to the transmission of events on financial actors’ expectations. To identify news coverage about the Greek debt crisis, we apply topic modeling to a newly compiled dataset of over 430,000 articles from The International New York Times and Financial Times from 2009 to 2015. We identify a Greek debt crisis topic and relate it to events concerning Greece during this time period. Our finding is that events are only relevant for financial markets when they are covered in the media, whereas events without media coverage have no effect. News coverage without immediate events is equally irrelevant for financial markets.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-38
Author(s):  
Yelena Yermakova

The changing situation in the Arctic due to global warming has prompted media coverage of a supposed “scramble for the Arctic,” an “Arctic boom,” or an “Arctic Bonanza.” Some even go further, deploying the rhetoric of a “New Cold War,” predicting an inevitable clash between the United States and Russia over interests in the region. The press coverage in both countries over the past decade reflects this new sensationalism. The academic literature unequivocally confirms that the press exerts substantial influence on governmental policy makers, and vice versa. However, while scholars agree that international organizations (IOs) are essential to shaping policies, the existing literature lacks research on media’s relationship with IOs, which often struggle to obtain the coverage and publicity they deserve. The Arctic Council has provided an effective platform for constructive dialogue and decision making involving the USA and Russia. Accordingly, despite disagreements in other regions of the world, the two global powers have managed to cooperate in the Arctic – notwithstanding recent media coverage painting a different and incomplete picture. This project surveys the media coverage of the Arctic over the past decade in Russia and the USA and its correlation with the Arctic Council’s activities. The analysis draws upon two prominent news organizations in Russia (Kommersant and Izvestiya) and two in the USA (the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal), as well as the Arctic Council’s press releases from June 2006 to June 2017. The paper finds that there is a clear disconnect between media coverage of the region and the Arctic Council’s activities. It recommends that the media pay more attention to the organization, particularly since it is the only prominent platform for international cooperation in the Arctic.


Author(s):  
Alba Silva-Rodríguez

In a world characterized by information overload and a multiplicity of channels and platforms, content curation is becoming increasingly important. First emerging approximately 400 years ago, newsletters remain a useful medium through which to disseminate specialized and personalized news. Over the last four years, an upward trend has been observed in the number of users who receive newsletters and informative alerts through their mobile devices. Publishers thus seek to drive more direct traffic to their websites to retain subscribers and attract an audience. Email communication acquired significant value after the state of alarm was declared as a result of the Covid-19 global pandemic. Various media outlets have created specific newsletters on this topic, summarizing and providing updates on the most relevant information and data on this subject on a daily basis. This article analyzes coronavirus-related newsletters from four leading international media: Eldiario.es (Spain), The New York Times (USA), The Guardian (UK), and Observador (Portugal). The content analysis is supported by the vision of five professionals, experts, and academics who have a connection with the topic of study. The aim is to assess the relevance of this format as a new business model in a context of crisis, in addition to analyzing how it relates to the growing trend in modern journalism towards specialization and personalization. The results reveal that the media use Covid-19-specialized newsletters with an informative-strategic purpose, where expert sources prevail and a personalized structure is apparent. Moreover, these are signature newsletters that work as excellent channels to promote user participation.  Resumen En un contexto dominado por la sobreabundancia informativa y la multiplicidad de canales y plataformas se hace cada vez más importante la curación de contenidos. Los boletines, formato nacido aproximadamente hace 400 años, emergen y se mantienen como medios útiles para difundir noticias especializadas y personalizadas. En los últimos cuatro años se observa una tendencia al alza con relación a la proporción de usuarios que consumen newsletters y alertas informativas desde sus dispositivos móviles. Los editores buscan generar más tráfico directo a sus sitios web para retener suscriptores y atraer audiencia. El correo electrónico adquirió un importante valor desde que se decretó el estado de alarma a raíz de la pandemia mundial de la Covid-19. Diversos medios de comunicación crearon newsletters específicas sobre este tema resumiendo y actualizando diariamente las informaciones y los datos más relevantes sobre este acontecimiento. Este artículo analiza las newsletters especializadas en el tema del Covid-19 de cuatro medios internacionales de referencia: Eldiario.es (España), The New York Times (EUA), The guardian (Reino Unido) y Observador (Portugal). El análisis de contenido se complementa con la visión de cinco profesionales, expertos y académicos relacionados con el objeto de estudio. El objetivo consiste en valorar la importancia de este formato como nuevo modelo de negocio en un contexto de crisis, además de descubrir si este responde a la tendencia creciente del periodismo actual hacia la especialización y la personalización. Los resultados muestran que los medios utilizan los boletines especializados en Covid-19 con una finalidad informativo-estratégica, en donde priman las fuentes expertas y se vislumbra una estructura personalizada. Además, se trata de newsletters de autor que sirven como un canal excelente para promover la participación de los usuarios.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Erin M. Evans ◽  
Edwin Amenta ◽  
Thomas Alan Elliott

Abstract In the 1970s and 1980s, there was a marked increase in non-moderate, or “radical,” non-human animal advocacy organizations. Social movement scholars argued that these organizations have greater difficulty than “moderate” ones in receiving substantial news coverage. But forms of substantive news coverage have increased for both moderate and non-moderate animal advocacy organizations. To address this, media analyses were conducted using content coding of The New York Times articles from 1946–2011. Logistic regression and qualitative, comparative analyses examined the conditions under which both moderate and non-moderate organizations had their demands in news coverage. Aligned with an augmented political mediation model, the findings indicated that non-moderate organizations are more likely to get substantive coverage when they target non-governmental entities on a local level through “assertive collective action.” The conclusion was that non-human animal advocacy organizations that have radical goals or tactics do not compromise the quality of media coverage in the long-term.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document