Looking over the channel: The balance of media coverage about the “refugee crisis” in Germany and the UK

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Maurer ◽  
Jörg Haßler ◽  
Simon Kruschinski ◽  
Pablo Jost
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Television News ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
British Government ◽  
News Value ◽  
The Uk

Abstract This study compares the balance of newspaper and television news coverage about migration in two countries that were differently affected by the so-called “refugee crisis” in 2015 in terms of the geopolitical involvement and numbers of migrants being admitted. Based on a broad consensus among political elites, Germany left its borders open and received about one million migrants mainly from Syria during 2015. In contrast, the conservative British government was heavily attacked by oppositional parties for closing Britain’s borders and, thus, restricting immigration. These different initial situations led to remarkable differences between the news coverage in both countries. In line with news value theory, German media outlets reported much more on migration than did their British counterparts. In line with indexing theory, German news coverage consonantly reflected the consensual view of German political elites, while British news media reported along their general editorial lines.

scholarly journals News values on social media: Exploring what drives peaks in user activity about organizations on Twitter

Journalism ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 633-651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theo Araujo ◽  
Toni GLA van der Meer
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
News Values ◽  
News Value ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Twitter Activity

Since news circulation increasingly takes place online, the public has gained the capacity to influence the salience of topics on the agenda, especially when it comes to social media. Considering increased scrutiny about organizations, this study aims to understand what causes heightened activity to organization-related topics among Twitter users. We explore the extent to which news value theory, news coverage, and influential actors can explain peaks in Twitter activity about organizations. Based on a dataset of 1.8 million tweets about 18 organizations, the findings show that the news values social impact, geographical closeness, facticity, as well as certain influential actors, can explain the intensity of online activities. Moreover, the results advocate for a more nuanced understanding of the relation between news media and social media users, as indications of reversed agenda-setting patterns were observed.

scholarly journals Beyond the ‘refugee crisis’: How the UK news media represent asylum seekers across national boundaries

2020 ◽  
pp. 174804852091323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenda Cooper ◽  
Lindsey Blumell ◽  
Mel Bunce
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Daily News ◽  
News Websites ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
The Uk

Migration is one of the most pressing, divisive issues in global politics today, and media play a crucial role in how communities understand and respond. This study examines how UK newspapers ( n =  974) and popular news websites ( n =  1044) reported on asylum seekers throughout 2017. It contributes to previous literature in two important ways. First, by examining the ‘new normal’ of daily news coverage in the wake of the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’ in Europe. Second, by looking at how asylum seekers from different regions are represented. The content analysis finds significant variations in how asylum seekers are reported, including terminology use and topics they are associated with. The article also identifies important commonalities in how all asylum seekers are represented – most notably, the dominance of political elites as sources across all media content. It argues that Entman’s ‘cascade network model’ can help to explain this, with elites in one country able to influence transnational reports.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shawn J. Parry-Giles
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Television News ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Gendered Spaces ◽  
Gendered Politics ◽  
Visual Framing ◽  
American Nation

This introductory chapter discusses the major themes that have informed the news coverage of Hillary Clinton since the start of her public life. In particular, emphasis is placed on news media and its preoccupation with “authenticity”—an issue that has often permeated media coverage of Clinton. This chapter briefly sets out the evolutionary news narratives and visual framing devices used to cover one very public political woman over the span of sixteen years. Furthermore, it considers the historical and gendered spaces of the American nation-state, wherein this coverage is situated. As the chapter shows, scholarship on nationalism and its connection to theories of character and authenticity, gendered politics, and news function as the primary critical lenses used to examine the television news coverage of Hillary Clinton.

scholarly journals Enduring Gender Bias in Reporting on Political Elite Positions

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 395-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Hooghe ◽  
Laura Jacobs ◽  
Ellen Claes
Keyword(s):  
Gender Bias ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Television News ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Rapid Evolution ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Multilevel Regression ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Women In Parliament

In Belgium, like in numerous other democracies, the representation of women in parliament has risen sharply in recent decades, partly because of gender quota legislation. This rapid evolution implies that traditional notions on the presence of gender bias in media reporting need to be re-assessed. Relying on data from more than six thousand full newscasts, we examine the allotted speaking time to members of parliament (MPs) from 2003 until 2011 in the two main television news broadcasts in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium. Multilevel regression analyses were conducted to determine which factors influence the probability and volume of television news coverage of MPs. The results indicate that—even controlling for alternative explanations—news media persist in a biased treatment of female MPs: Female MPs are significantly less likely to be allotted speaking time, and they receive less speaking time than their male colleagues. Moreover, results show that this gap in media coverage is present especially for elite and thus newsworthy positions. Apparently, gender bias in the media persists, even when the political system evolves rapidly toward equal representation.

Frame Variation in the News Coverage of the Refugee Crisis: The Romanian Perspective

2020 ◽  
pp. 088832541989066
Author(s):  
Hanna Orsolya Vincze ◽  
Radu Meza ◽  
Delia Cristina Balaban
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
The European Union ◽  
News Frames ◽  
Media Type ◽  
European Crisis ◽  
Occurrence Patterns

The 2015 refugee crisis has held the attention of Romanian news media as well, as one of the most challenging issues for the European Union in the last decade, even though Romania is not situated on the main routes on which refugees arrive. Our research focuses on the variation of issue-specific news frames in time, according to media type, and by the countries covered, also addressing the locally salient issue of religion. Articles from the websites of the top-ranked six Romanian news outlets were analyzed, including three quality papers and three tabloids (N=6,183), from 1 April 2015 to 30 September 2017. Using a computer-assisted, clusters-based frame analysis, we identify six primary, mutually exclusive and six secondary, nonexclusive frames: European crisis, context/victimization, relocation/distribution, international conflict, and social problem, national costs, religious issues, US immigration policy, humanitarian/international. The variations in their salience follow the general European tendency toward securitization. At the same time, the emphasis on the issue as a European crisis indicates a tendency characteristic of Central and Eastern European media coverage. Co-occurrence patterns of frames and specific countries also indicate that the salience of some globally recurrent frames varies by countries covered.

How does beauty shape political television news? The effect of Israeli politicians’ facial attractiveness on the tone of their news coverage

Journalism ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (10) ◽  
pp. 1397-1414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Markowitz-Elfassi ◽  
Yariv Tsfati
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Television News ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Facial Attractiveness ◽  
Political Consultants ◽  
Unit Increase ◽  
The Public Sphere

Media coverage plays an important role in the political career of politicians. The news media attention that politicians receive depends not only on political and socio-demographic variables, but also on their communication skills and personal characteristics such as physical appearance. This study explores the effect of facial attractiveness on the tone of the televised news coverage of Israeli parliament members. Results demonstrate a positive association between facial attractiveness and the overall coverage. In addition, each unit increase on the attractiveness scale was associated with an increase of 34 percent in the expected number of favorable appearances on TV news, but this association was slightly above the accepted 0.05 criterion for hypothesis testing. There was no significant effect of facial attractiveness on unfavorable or neutral coverage. These findings are interpreted. Implications for journalistic practices, political consultants, and access to the public sphere are discussed.

Issue ownership as a determinant of political parties’ media coverage

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten Van Camp
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Television News ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Good News ◽  
Issue Ownership ◽  
News Sources ◽  
Source Of Information

Abstract For many citizens, news media are the most important source of information about relevant political topics and actors. As a consequence, it is crucial to investigate who gains media coverage and why. Leaning on two classic news sourcing criteria, suitability and availability, we claim that issue owners can be seen as good news sources. By combining a content analysis of television news with data collected through a journalist survey, we investigate whether issue ownership is a determinant of political parties’ news coverage. Results confirm that issue ownership is a predictor of parties’ news coverage, even when controlling for ministerial competences.

Proactive crisis communication? News coverage of international conflicts in German print and broadcasting media

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arne F Zillich ◽  
Roland Göbbel ◽  
Karin Stengel ◽  
Michaela Maier ◽  
Georg Ruhrmann
Keyword(s):  
Crisis Communication ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
International Conflicts ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
News Value ◽  
Analytical Research ◽  
Peace Journalism

This study examines the ambitions of proactive crisis communication in the realm of international conflicts. Based on the concept of peace journalism, the authors analyse whether German media coverage on international conflicts complies with normative demands. So far, most studies have investigated the media’s role during the climactic stages of conflicts and have neglected the pre- and post-escalation phases. Therefore, the study distinguishes four specific phases of a conflict. With regard to news value theory, it shows that international conflicts exhibit different news factors in their particular phases; in addition, it illustrates that the propositions of peace journalism, although considered relevant by journalists, are hardly being fulfilled in their day-to-day conflict reporting. Combining content analytical research with semi-structured interviews proves to be fruitful for critically reflecting the demands of proactive crisis communication.

Constructing the refugee: Comparison between newspaper coverage of the Syrian refugee crisis in Canada and the UK

2020 ◽  
pp. 001139212094638
Author(s):  
Man Xu
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Syrian Refugee ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Syrian Refugee Crisis

The media play a key role in informing public opinion during refugee crises. Representations of refugees in the media shape public understanding of what a ‘refugee’ is and policy decisions over who to include or to exclude. Although extensive literature has examined representations of refugees in news media, few systematic comparative investigations look at discourses across types of immigration countries. In this article, the author compares news coverage of the Syrian refugee crisis in Canada and the UK, to consider how media discourse is affected by a nation’s historical relationship with and current policies of immigration. The author follows existing literature in arguing that the dominant discourses in the newspapers racialize refugees through a ‘victim–pariah’ couplet, and further argues that this shared model of racialized representation serves the particular nation-building projects and asylum regimes in the two countries. In addition, a comparison between coverage in newspapers that represent divergent political orientations shows that news stories that attempt to ‘give voice’ to refugees are more prevalent in the more left-leaning newspapers in both countries. Nonetheless, these attempts to ‘re-humanize’ refugees do not invalidate the Orientalist image of refugees as passive victims without agency and history.

Welcome to the Party

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khadijah Costley White
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Audience Appeal

This chapter lays out the Tea Party’s history as a mass-mediated construction in the context of journalism, political communication, and social movement studies. It argues that the news coverage of the Tea Party primarily chronicled its meaning, appeal, motivations, influence, and circulation—an emphasis on its persona more than its policies. In particular, the news media tracked the Tea Party as a brand, highlighting its profits, marketability, brand leaders, and audience appeal. The Tea Party became a brand through news media coverage; in defining it as a brand, the Tea Party was a story, message, and cognitive shortcut that built a lasting relationship with citizen-consumers through strong emotional connections, self-expression, consumption, and differentiation.

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