國際傳媒之人權與責任敘事：比較中美報紙以何框架看待敘利亞難民危機之內容分析 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學國際傳播英語碩士學位學程 International Master’s Program in International Communication Studies College of Communication National Chengchi University Master’s Thesis. 碩士論文 SEEKING REFUGE: INTERNATIONAL MEDIA NARRATIVES OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITY A Comparative Content Analysis of Chinese and American Newspaper Framing of the Syrian Refugee Crisis. 國際傳媒之人權與責任敘事：比較中美報紙以何框架看待敘利亞難民危機之內容分析. Student: Dorothy Behre 白莉 Advisor: Dr. Barry Fong 方孝謙教授. 中華民國 105 年.

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(3) Abstract This study examines how two selected American and Chinese newspapers framed, sourced and crafted narratives attributing responsibility in the coverage of the ongoing Syrian Refugee Crisis. Through a content analysis of 624 news stories sampled from The New York Times and People’s Daily between June and December 2015, this study will examine and compare the frames employed by the two newspapers in the coverage of the refugee crisis. The ways in which framing may have changed over the selected six months in 2015 will also be explored, as the time period witnessed several key events, namely the death of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi in September and the Paris Attacks in November, both of which sparked intense international media attention. The implications of these events on the framing of the refugee crisis will be discussed. The study will also examine how the U.S. and Chinese newspapers portray refugees: as individuals or as masses. The results of the content analysis reveal that American and Chinese news outlets frame the conflict differently and place responsibility on different players, in accordance to the respective countries’ policies towards the region.. Keywords: Media Framing, Content Analysis, Comparative Study, Newspaper Coverage, Crisis Communication, Syrian Refugee Crisis.. 2.

(4) Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Barry Fong for his support and thoughtful comments on my research. I am also grateful to my committee members Dr. TJ Shih and Dr. Liu Yi-Jun for being extremely supportive and encouraging throughout my thesis research process. I also deeply appreciate the hard work of my co-coders and codebook editors who helped me immensely with processing and analyzing the Mandarin-language data. I could not have completed the project without them. This thesis is dedicated to Syrian refugees,. It is my hope that further research and understanding about how the Refugee Crisis is framed in the newspaper media of diverse countries can shed light on how we as academics and global citizens can take action to help the millions of refugees seeking a safe harbor.. 3.

(5) Table of Contents Abstract ..........................................................................................................................................2 Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................................3 Contents .........................................................................................................................................4 List of Tables ..................................................................................................................................5 Chapter One: Introduction ..........................................................................................................6 1.1 Research Purpose .........................................................................................................8 1.2 Research Context .........................................................................................................9 1.3 Significance of Study..................................................................................................16 1.4 Organization ...............................................................................................................20 Chapter Two: Literature Review ...............................................................................................21 2.1 Historical Background of Syrian Refugee Crisis ...................................................21 2.2 Crisis Coverage ..........................................................................................................25 2.3 Framing and International Relations ......................................................................29 Chapter Three: Research Questions and Methods ...................................................................37 3.1 Research Questions ....................................................................................................38 3.2 Methodology ...............................................................................................................38 3.3 Data Sources ...............................................................................................................39 The New York Times ..............................................................................................39 People’s Daily .......................................................................................................43 3.4 Time Frame ................................................................................................................45 3.5 Data collection ............................................................................................................47 3.6 Coding procedure.......................................................................................................50 Chapter Four: Results .................................................................................................................53 4.1 Implications from RQ1 ................................................................................................53 4.2 Implications from RQ2 ................................................................................................59 4.3 Implications from RQ3 ................................................................................................72 4.4 Implications from RQ4 ................................................................................................74 4.5 Implications from RQ5 ...............................................................................................78 Chapter Five: Discussion.............................................................................................................80 5.1 Chinese policy and newspaper framing ......................................................................83 5.2 U.S. policy and newspaper framing ............................................................................78 Chapter Six: Conclusion ............................................................................................................94 References ...................................................................................................................................101 Appendices ..................................................................................................................................116 Appendix A: Codebooks ..................................................................................................116 Appendix B: List of NYT articles quoted .......................................................................123 Appendix C: PD original Chinese excerpts .....................................................................125. 4.

(6) List of Tables & Figures Tables 1. Generic Frames Coding Key .......................................................................................... 34 2. Intercoder Reliability Results ......................................................................................... 53 3. Major News Sources ...................................................................................................... 56 4. Relation between News Source & Frames ..................................................................... 58 5. News portrayal of refugees ............................................................................................ 76. 6. Attribution of responsibility ........................................................................................... 77. Figures 1. Number of NYT and PD articles about Syrian Refugee Crisis .........................................47 2. Framing by NYT and PD ...................................................................................................61 3. Conflict frame distribution across time..............................................................................63 4. NYT frame distribution across time ..................................................................................70 5. PD frame distribution across time .....................................................................................71 6. Framing before and after death of Aylan Kurdi.................................................................72 7. Framing before and after the Paris Attacks .......................................................................73. 5.

(7) Chapter One Introduction Newspaper media is undergoing a fundamental metamorphosis. Major reductions in funding have limited the amount of foreign coverage news organizations are capable of producing, while at the same time advances in technology have slashed borders and boundaries, facilitating unprecedented levels of human communication and connection. News media is increasing in speed, accessibility, and scope of coverage as new technologies give journalists the ability to reach the furthest corners of the world to make the struggle of people in a distant land become the struggle of the entire world. Tales of faraway tragedies and crises confront media consumers daily, appearing as dramatic images and terse headlines that are endlessly repeated on the front pages of newspapers and on TV sets. The recent international news coverage of the Syrian Refugee Crisis illustrates the capacity of newspaper media to show the faces of struggle, displacement, and violence (Atterton and Calarco, 2010: 78). As digital technology and rapid newspaper reporting make the public more aware of the humanitarian crises occurring around the world, Atterton and Calarco (2010) assert that these developments in communications call for a “revolution in our ethical thinking,” arguing that newspapers reporting on these crises often implicate readers in the suffering of marginalized groups and move the audience to take action towards addressing the problem. If living in a globalized world means living in a world in which the terms far and near, local and foreign, and stranger and neighbor, no longer have the same fixed binary definitions as they once did, then perhaps it follows that the plight of the most marginalized members of global. 6.

(8) society – refugees – has become a fundamental concern framed by newspaper media across the world. Despite the hailed effects of interconnectedness and equality brought by globalization, national borders remain more rigid and foreboding than ever, and other barriers of cultural, linguistic, and religious differences continue divide nations despite the declaration of an erasure of borders in the postmodern age. A new space is created: a global space – a space of transits, transparent and virtual (Serres, 1995). However, the strict maintenance of national borders is evidenced by the recent conflicts arising from mass influxes of refugees pouring into Europe, coming mainly from Syria but also from Afghanistan, Sudan, Libya, and other conflict-torn regions. This mass exodus, which has come to be simply called the Syrian Refugee Crisis by the news media, has been identified as the most serious humanitarian crisis of our time. Borders – both concrete and ideological – present very real obstacles for the millions of Syrian refugees who have been displaced from their homes by the violence of war. It is the goal of this study to determine the extent to which the barriers confronting these refugees are enforced through media framing in newspaper coverage of the crisis, and whether or not those barriers are consistent across two different countries. This study will examine the newspaper coverage of the Syrian Refugee Crisis in the United States and China. Relevant literature concerning the history of the Syrian conflict and concurrent refugee crisis, as well as background research on crisis reporting and media framing will be reviewed to establish a theoretical background and to position this study within an academic context. Specifically, research will undertake a comparative content analysis of The New York Times and People’s Daily to uncover the various frames employed by both newspapers to craft stories about Syrian refugees and the “migrant crisis” that has gripped the world. More. 7.

(9) broadly, the research will investigate how the U.S. and Chinese newspaper coverage treats the refugees as individuals or masses, and whether or not the newspaper framing encourages readers to act as members of a “global village” (McLuhan 1964) by caring about the wellbeing of marginalized groups of people who are distant from their own geographic location, culture and language.. Research purpose This study will examine how two selected American and Chinese newspapers framed, sourced, and crafted narratives in their coverage of the Syrian Refugee Crisis. The researcher will conduct a comparative content analysis of 624 news stories from the New York Times and People’s Daily published during the six-month period between June and December 2015. This research aims to unravel the common narratives that have been woven about the crisis in both the United States and in China to reveal if there are any common threads or illuminating differences. This research asks whether The New York Times and People’s Daily frame the Syrian refugee crisis similarly or differently, especially with respect to the attribution of responsibility, portrayal of refugees as individuals or masses, and a moral framework of human rights. This study has 2 main objectives: (1) to systematically assess the news coverage of the Syrian Refugee Crisis and the extent to which the two selected newspapers employed five generic frames to communicate the issue to the public, and (2) to illuminate the dynamics of framing in a comparative context and contribute to its further theoretical development. By comparing media framing in newspaper coverage of the same event as reported by two different countries and in two different languages, this study aims to reveal significant insights into the respective countries’ policies and perspectives on the crisis.. 8.

(10) There are very few scholarly studies yet published that specifically focus on the Syrian Refugee Crisis, as it is still unfolding day by day and will perhaps continue for many more years to come. Despite holding peace talks and the declarations of ceasefire in May 2016, Syria’s civil war continues to rage on, while half the country’s pre-war population - more than 11 million people - have either been killed in the conflict or forced to flee their homes (Mercy Corps). As the Syrian conflict and refugee crisis continue, the inspiration for conducting research on how this crisis is framed and presented to the American and Chinese publics is not only to contribute to the growing field of media framing research, but also to examine whether or not the newspaper coverage of the event reflects the theories of transnationalism that suggest today’s global citizens are interconnected and thus share responsibility for the wellbeing of marginalized groups like the Syrian refugees. This study is conducted under the belief that searching for the answer to this question may offer potential solutions and future directions for international media to cooperate and address disastrous humanitarian crises.. Research Context The current refugee crisis is the largest since World War II, and is still growing in size. As of 2014, approximately 50 million people had been forcefully displaced from their homes by conflict and war; now, the number is 60 million. According to UNHCR, there were 3 Syrian million refugees in 2014, and now there are currently 4 million. However, the horror and magnitude of the crisis cannot be fully communicated through mere figures and statistics. Thus, this study examines how such a devastating, large-scale crisis is expressed through narrative frames. Some have argued that the best way to convey such enormous humanitarian crises is to focus on individual stories. As Angela Merkel asserted in a 73-minute-long speech, "it is not human masses that are coming to us, but individual human beings” (Smale, 2015). Head of 9.

(11) Communications and Chief Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Melissa Fleming has argued that in order for the public to conceive this huge, overwhelming crisis, the focus must be on individual human stories: tales of care, growth, and family in the face of lost education (UNHCR). But is this how newspapers have framed the crisis? In order to investigate this question, the selected newspapers’ focus on the “individual” versus the “masses” will be examined in the content analysis of this study. In addition to being “storytellers” of both individual tales and national movements (Fisher 1984), according to Taylor (2000), journalists are also the first historians. Although journalists’ work usually requires correction and elaboration, news writers often are the first to document the events that shape our world. Given their role as social historians, a better understanding of the methods and meanings conveyed by the media via framing can provide insight into the meanings that society places on certain news events. International media have followed the Syrian civil war and resulting refugee crisis since the first seeds of conflict were planted in 2011. The meanings that international media and society have placed on the crisis have yet to be explored. The facts, however, are clear. What began as anti-government, pro-democracy protests sparked during the Arab Spring of 2011 quickly escalated into a brutal full-scale civil war in Syria. By June of 2013, approximately 90,000 people had been killed in the conflict, as reported by the UN Human Rights Commission (Price, Klingner, Qtiesh, and Ball, 2013). According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, today about 250,000 people have been killed and 1.5 million people wounded or permanently disabled. Perhaps even more striking is that more than 11 million Syrians have been forced from their homes, as groups loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad battle with those opposed to his rule, in addition to fighting with jihadist. 10.

(12) militants from Daesh or the so-called Islamic State. According to UNHCR statistics, over 3 million of these displaced Syrians have fled to the country’s immediate neighbors – Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq – and beyond to Europe, while 6.5 million remain internally displaced. As displaced Syrians flee their homes to protect their lives, their families and their futures, their transnational movements into neighboring countries in the Middle East, and across the Mediterranean into the European Union has gained unprecedented momentum, especially in recent years. The policies and infrastructure facing refugees along migratory routes into Europe and within Europe are also changing rapidly. Meanwhile, diverse international opinions and political agendas are flourishing, as voiced in the news media, yet are often lacking a background of accurate, up-to-date information. Furthermore, it is extremely challenging to communicate the magnitude of the scale of the crisis through figures and statistics alone. Thus, it is also difficult for newspaper readers in the United States or China, physically distant from the conflict, to imagine what millions of displaced people look like, let alone the essence of their daily struggles and real methods for providing them with assistance. While the exodus of Syrian refugees into neighboring and European countries has been accelerating during the years since 2011, it wasn’t until relatively recently that the whole world started paying attention. On September 2, 2015, a three-year-old Syrian boy named Aylan Kurdi was discovered washed up on the shores of Turkey, having drowned along with his mother and brother whom were among a group of Syrian refugees trying to reach Greece by boat (Al Jazeera, 2016). The image of Alan’s tiny, lifeless body made global headlines, shocking the world and prompting a wave of sympathy for the plight of refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war. On September 2, 2015, the Syrian Refugee Crisis was no longer merely a Syrian problem, a Middle Eastern problem, or a European problem, but became the entire world’s heartbreak.. 11.

(13) The newspaper coverage and framing of this event, within the reportage of the Syrian refugee crisis as a whole, reveal several things about newspaper reporting on crises today. First, images are highly effective in capturing audience attention and inspiring sympathy, especially if the subject is a small child. Second, oftentimes the story of one individual may be more effective in capturing public attention than the story of millions. The image of Aylan lying face down on the beach captivated the world's attention and even resulted in refugee policy changes in countries as far away as Canada and the United States (Slovic, 2015). However, 14 Syrian children drowned in the Aegean Sea the next day, September 3, who didn’t receive nearly as much media attention as Aylan’s story. According to Slovic (2015), newspaper coverage of tragic, disturbing events such as these struggles to capture public attention amidst the phenomenon of “compassion fade” and desensitization to such stories in the media. In studies published last year in the journal PLOS One, Paul Slovic and colleagues asserted that "compassion fade" can occur even when an incident involving a single person expands to as few as two people; for instance, Aylan Kurdi’s death shocked the world, but 14 more cases of children drowning becomes a strain on audience compassion. In fact, as of March 2016, over 300 other refugee children have drowned during their journey to Europe (Stanton, 2016). Therefore, it is implied that the compassion levels in response to a tragic case of millions will be even lower. The final concept that the news reportage of Aylan Kurdi’s death reveals is that storytelling via narrative frames is an ideal method for conveying of symbolism and meaning, especially in times of crisis. Using Fisher’s narrative paradigm theory (1984), this study will focus on how storytelling through framing may form the basis for public meaning creation, particularly in the context of crisis reporting.. 12.

(14) Lipschutz (1999) writes of narrative news reporting, “The initial impression is what counts, not the causality; the flash and bang draw attention, not the detailed minutiae that follow from long, drawn-out investigations" (Lipschutz: p. 413). Increasingly, striking visual images or video clips are used to make a lasting impression on the audience. Therefore, if an “impression" is extrapolated to convey meaning, then Lipschutz and others are correct when they suggest that news reporting helps create the realities we experience (1999; also, Berry, 1983; Bird & Dardenne, 1988; Gill, 1995). For example, consider how influential the 1960 Kennedy vs. Nixon televised debates were in creating impressions and realities in the public’s mind, as Nixon’s uncomfortable physical presence and lack of charisma affected the audience’s opinion of him more than the issues that he attempted to address (Berry, 1983, p. 368). Therefore, narratives presented through framing of stories in newspapers not only exist but also influence us as “homo narrans,” or story-telling beings (Fisher, 1984). The study of crisis reporting in the media through narrative framing is not a new concept (Iyengar & Simon, 1993; Jacobs, 1996; Scott, 2000; Ungar, 1998). Indeed, much research has also been conducted on crisis coverage and how it may influence polls and public opinion (Kent, Harrison, & Taylor, 2002). Within the context of media coverage of notable disasters and crises in the past twenty-five years, several recognizable patterns and themes can be identified; thus, the existence of different types of narratives forms the foundations of such crisis coverage (Caldiero, 2007). Fisher’s narrative paradigm, while it does not provide a directly causal relationship to narrative patterns that form, allows for greater insight into how and why publics are able to make sense of and assign meaning to the narratives that newspapers provide. Upon examination, many scholars have argued that the narrative structure employed by news media conducting crisis coverage becomes evident, revealing that news media do more than merely. 13.

(15) report the news (Iyengar & Simon, 1993; Jacobs, 1996; Scott, 2000; Ungar, 1998)). Increasingly, media are also able to shape the very realities from which we make sense of the world (Iyengar, 1991; McCombs, 1981). Following the news of Aylan Kurdi’s death, Syrian refugees have continued to enter neighboring countries, Mediterranean regions, and the European Union in unprecedented numbers. The large scale and urgency of the refugee crisis has captured media attention worldwide, remaining on the news agenda as a universal concern in need of a universal solution. Such a solution requires communicating and receiving accurate information from the location of the conflict to other countries that are not directly affected, but may have other interests in providing assistance to the refugee population. The United States and China, for instance, are both thousands of miles removed from the core of this humanitarian disaster, with very few Syrian refugees entering onto their soil, or none at all, in the case of China. However, neither the U.S. nor China are totally unaffected by the plight of displaced Syrians, nor are they totally unconcerned. In fact, the refugee crisis has real political and economic implications for U.S. and Chinese foreign policy, and both nations must carefully decide how they will respond as world powers stepping up to the plate. As the first and second most powerful global economies respectively, the U.S. and China have been described in international relations as “giants” and “super powers” vying for dominance (Sedghi, 2013, Dellios 2005). It is also said that with great power comes great responsibility, and indeed, both the U.S. and China hold immense potential to sway the course of world events and help remedy large-scale crises. Although Syria itself is relatively unimportant as a trading partner for China, the region’s stability is nevertheless one of Beijing’s core concerns, not only because Iraq is among China’s main oil suppliers, and that Beijing’s $900-. 14.

(16) billion Silk Road initiative aims to connect Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe through a wide-ranging infrastructure network. But on-going fighting and terror attacks are putting this mega-project at risk. Syria is also a core concern for the United States, which seeks to stop the spread of terrorism. Yet both countries have assumed dramatically different stances on the global stage, especially in terms of human rights and formal relations with the Middle East. In fact, many studies and articles tend to emphasize the differences between the U.S. and China, depicting two great economies in a battle for dominance, with some going so far as to describe the two as opposites or even occasionally as enemies. However, while these binaries create excellent narrative tension, they are no longer useful in today’s highly interconnected world. It has become one of the most obvious clichés in international politics: the United States and China have the most important bilateral relationship in the world. What is not so obvious is the nature of that relationship. Until recently, most observers were willing to settle for an accurate but inelegant description: that the countries are neither friends nor foes. The world has become “flat” (Friedman, 2005) and de-centered (Appadurai, 1996), so that oppositions such as East vs. West, and even democratic vs. communist, become more blurred and less certain (Castells, 2000). Furthermore, the increasing magnitude of challenges facing the global community is such that no one nation can solve alone. The Refugee Crisis is a salient example of this, as it is a problem that extends across borders and contains a multitude of economic, cultural, religious, and ethnic related challenges. In the face of the threats posed by the refugee crisis, it has been argued that all countries have a responsibility to assist in finding a solution and maintaining stability, especially economic superpowers such as China and the United States.. 15.

(17) With the help of media communications among many other factors, the U.S. and China each maintain very different political systems, languages, cultures, and collective values. The two newspapers selected for this study – The New York Times and People’s Daily – reflect these differences in their diverse backgrounds and styles. The New York Times is not state-run and tends to be more liberal; therefore it is likely to focus on different details and employ different frames in its coverage of the refugee crisis than the People’s Daily, a state-run apparatus of the Chinese Communist Party. It is the goal of this study to compare and contrast media framing of these two newspapers, which maintain different political systems and different agendas. On a deeper level, this analysis of U.S. and Chinese newspaper coverage of the Syrian Refugee Crisis aims to reveal how the two countries value concepts borders, responsibility, and human rights by examining how these newspapers frame the conflict. Therefore, this study will also raise the question of whether different media frames evoke empathy, anxiety, or grief among other emotions; and how these frames operate within the context of the different linguistic, political and cultural backgrounds of the two selected newspapers. The ultimate hope of this study is that the results of the comparative content analysis will provide some insight into possible methods for communicating about crises in vastly different media cultures, in a way that encourages collective efforts to aid and assist refugees, or may form international consensus on the issue.. Significance of study It is both timely and significant to examine the frames employed by U.S. and Chinese newspapers in the coverage of the Migrant Crisis, in order to better understand the various ways in which the two countries present information about the Syrian refugee crisis to their citizens. The similarities and differences between the two countries’ newspaper coverage of the crisis may 16.

(18) reveal potential areas for cooperation, as well as insights into how crises are framed in two very different media cultures. As of yet, no research has been conducted that specifically examines media framing of the Syrian refugee crisis, as it is still unfolding each day. Thus, as a current event, the majority of the discourse and analysis about the refugee crisis takes place in the arena of daily newspapers, news magazines, blogs, NGO websites, and statistical fact sheets published by the UN and other international organizations. It is important to acknowledge that the ways in which the Syrian refugee crisis is framed in the news may hold important implications for public perception, understanding and evaluation of the event, as well as potential government responses to the ongoing issue. Thus, this study will be among the first to examine the Syrian refugee crisis through the lens of media framing, especially in the context of American and Chinese perspectives. Furthermore, D’Angelo and Kuypers (2010, p. 3) have argued that framing research is a victim of its own success, as academic specialization has led to a fragmented understanding of what framing is and how it works. This study seeks to contribute to this extensive body of research with an examination of a timely, socially relevant topic. Also, because the current literature contains few studies concerning the comparative analysis of U.S. and Chinese news framing, particularly in relation to humanitarian crises and events in the Middle East, this crossnational, bilingual content analysis will contribute to the corpus of research on framing, which seeks to uncover how factors such as national, institutional, political, and social backgrounds, as well as cultural differences in journalism practices, norms, and roles, may influence the development of frames in the news (De Vreese, Peter &Semetko, 2001.) Additionally, a comparative study of news framing is a significant method of research, in that the act of. 17.

(19) comparison holds the potential to fully and reliably disclose frames which are often difficult to identify, as they may appear to be natural and thus unnoticeable choices of words and images. This study, therefore, makes efforts to emphasize that such narrative choices are never inevitable, but reflect the widespread salient in the country (Entman, 1991). One of the key reasons that scholars have developed such a keen interest in the process of media framing is based on the assumption that framing may have important consequences for democracy (Patterson 1993; Cappella & Jamieson, 1997; Weaver, 1998; Aalberg, de Vreese & Strömbäck, 2012). Because much of what happens in the world is out of the immediate reach of the audience, it has to be reported from afar (Lippmann, 1954, pp. 3-32), and thus by bringing information to the public, newspapers plays a decisive role in the discursive construction of the public opinion and policy. It is, therefore, proposed that media assessments largely contribute to how the public comes to interpret politically relevant issues such as the Syrian refugee crisis, and the importance that people attach to it (Weaver, 1998, p. 2; d’Haenens, 2005, p. 422). This issue will be particularly salient in the comparison of newspaper media under the American democratic system in contrast to the media run by the Chinese Communist Party. Additionally, media influence over the judgments of people, including policy makers, could entail crucial changes of individual’s willingness to engage in the crisis via humanitarian aid, as well as changes in foreign policy decisions. Since journalists are the prime suppliers of information about how the refugee crisis has been documented over the last few years, the influence of the media on public attitudes is more than plausible, adding to the significance of this study, although this research will not measure public reactions, but instead will strictly focus on the content of newspaper framing.. 18.

(20) One additional element that enriches the relevance of this newspaper framing study is the fact that it was through media that the Syrian people first encouraged one another to stand up for themselves and challenge the Assad government to address. Social media in particular gave the opponents of the Assad regime an outlet to express their views, register their solidarity and coordinate their actions (The Economist, 17.12.2011). Equipped with social media and ICTs, their revolutionary cries were echoed in many other Arab countries, leading to a cross-border call for democracy, justice and human rights known as the Arab Spring. Thanks to the media, the movement was brought to the attention of Western democracies, leading to an enhanced international interest and vigilance in the Middle East. In China, however, the movement sparked different effects. Soon after the onset of the “Arab Spring” demonstrations and regime changes first in Tunisia and then in Egypt, China experienced the most serious and widespread wave of repression since the Tiananmen Square crackdowns 27 years ago (Fallows, 2011). The importance of the media and communications technology to the current Refugee Crisis is further compounded by the fact that it is through social media and ICTs that today’s refugees, fleeing the failed attempt of the Arab Spring, are able to navigate their way to Europe, keep in touch with family and friends at home, and also follow various refugee routes. Finally, while many components of the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis are worth investigating, examining media coverage in the United States and China is especially significant because such research might help to enrich the current understanding of how the United States and China position themselves in relation to the crisis, as well as what kinds of potential exist for collaboration to alleviate the crisis. These insights are not limited to Syrian-Western and SyrianChinese relationships, but are also manifest in other institutions. In addition to political tensions, the Syrian Refugee Crisis also forecasts serious economic troubles for the EU that will inevitably. 19.

(21) ripple outwards to the U.S. and Chinese markets. Even more significantly, Syria and the other Middle Eastern countries that bear the heaviest burden of the Syrian refugee crisis also have major economic strengths, such as large oil supplies and important trade contracts, which may be compromised under the heavy influx of displaced Syrians. The question that comes to the forefront is how, and to what extent, the public is informed about these threats and developments, and how newspapers present the huge-scale crisis to publics in different yet ‘united’ nations.. Organization This study is organized as follows. The first section will briefly present the historical background of the Syrian Refugee Crisis and the salient issues and events that appear within the selected news media. The second section of the literature review will discuss the theoretical foundations of the study by reviewing key themes from media framing and crisis reporting, mainly focusing on framing and crisis storytelling. Finally, the literature review will present an overview of the specific frames that will be examined in this study and will provide rationale for using the frames as an analytical tool for the data collected within the selected six-month period. Next, the methodology section will introduce the research questions and specific steps that will be taken to address them. After introducing the methodology of this study, the analytical section will present the results of the content analysis of media coverage of the refugee crisis from June to December 2015. The differences and similarities between American and Chinese coverage will be described in detail. Through a comparison of the newspaper framing of this humanitarian disaster, the analysis will also introduce several variables that may have influenced the different ways newspapers in the East and West have framed the Syrian refugee crisis, portrayed the refugees themselves, appointed responsibility, and suggested potential solutions.. 20.

(22) Finally, the study will discuss the results within a broader context of transnationalism and refugee studies in order to explore larger implications that media framing may have for understanding international humanitarian crises. The discussion and conclusion will summarize and appraise the main findings of the content analysis and propose a route for future research.. 21.

(23) Chapter Two Literature Review. Historical Background of the Syrian War and Refugee Crisis Before this study introduces the key concepts from the literature on newspaper framing and content analysis, it is important to briefly introduce the historical background of the Syrian refugee crisis on which this study will focus. First, it is necessary to ask: what elements gave rise to the Syrian conflict and subsequent outpouring of refugees from Syria? Next, how has the refugee crisis evolved since the Syrian conflict began, and what has been the general global reaction to this crisis? Finally, what are the political relations between the Syria, the U.S., and China, and how have the U.S. and China in particular responded to the Syrian war and resulting refugee crisis? Syria is a land of diversity, and has been a land of prosperity as well. According to a 2012 estimate, the population of Syria is around 21,118,000 (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2013). Ethnic division includes 90.3 percent Arabs and 9.3 percent Kurds, Armenians and other small groups. 74 percent of the total population is Sunni, and 13 percent are Shia, while the remaining 13 percent of the population are Christians, Druze, Jews, and others (World Population Review 2013). Since 1970, the Shia minority has ruled over the majority by means of suppression; this is considered to be the cause of hatred and insecurity among the majority Sunni population. Corruption, unemployment, a greater ratio of youth in the country’s population, and poor economic policies of the Assad regime are other factors which contributed to the suffering of the Syrian people, mobilizing them to stand up for their rights in 2011. In fact, Syrians have lived under continuous authoritarianism since 1963, when the Ba’ath Party established its rule in the country as the result of a successful coup, promptly 22.

(24) imposing emergency and martial law in the country, as well as confiscating people’s basic personal, political, and social rights. Current president Bashar al Assad has also put curbs on media and individual freedom (Dunne, 2013), creating a sense of frustration among Syrians about the political future of the country. The Syrian uprising occurred as part of the Arab spring, which was triggered by the selfimmolation of Mohammad Bouzaizi of Tunisia on September 18, 2010, protesting against the local authorities (Basselgia, 2012). After sweeping across various Arab countries, the wave of protest entered into Syria and turned into a nationwide uprising on March 15, 2011 aiming for the immediate exit of Bashar al Assad and his Ba’athist rule: the same ruling party that has controlled the country since 1963 (Bhardwaj, 2012). Syria contains great significance due to its geostrategic position in the Middle East. It is situated between both friends and enemies; Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas are its regional allies, while Israel and other Sunni regimes in the region are considered as its rivals. Russia and China are the state’s strategic allies, as Syria has lent its strategically important warm-water seaport of Tartus to Russia, and is buying billions of dollars-worth of weapons from China. Furthermore, Syria’s pro Sino-Russian and anti-Israel policy also affects United States interests in the region. Thus, Syria is a hub of conflicting interests for the world powers. The outcome of the Syrian conflict and the international response to the Syrian refugee crisis will define the future power politics of the region. The events of the civil war and refugee crisis are continuously being monitored and covered by international newspapers, and also thereby framed by news media, in particular the media of those countries who have stakes in the region. Media scholars of the agenda-setting and news framing schools believe media owners and organizers have different agendas when covering the same event, and thus present the issue. 23.

(25) differently for pursuit of their own national objectives. Therefore this study will look into how the two selected newspapers, The New York Times and People’s Daily, which are both known but having divergent policies, contexts and regional backgrounds, frame the problem in question. China and the U.S. differ greatly in terms of their strategic interests in Syria and the Middle Eastern region at large. Cordesman (1996) has listed several of the major strategic interests of the United States in Middle East, including oil, security of regional allies and countering regional and ideological foes, the Iranian nuclear program, counter terrorism, support for military presence in the region, defense bases and installations, Russian and Chinese influence in the region, arms control, capitalist ideologies, democracy, humanitarian issues, and many others (Cordesman: p.13). In the period of the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East was built around a "holy trinity" of American interests: Israel, oil and anti-communism; however the collapse of Soviet Union left a vacuum in American policy which was filled by Islamic terrorism or fundamentalism. Soon after the attacks of 9/11, the anti-communism frame was replaced by anti-Islam framing in U.S. newspapers (Ibrahim, as cited in Ibrahim, 2010). By contrast, Chinese-Middle Eastern relations are far simpler and perhaps more “shallow” (Alterman, 2008). Once, China sought to be the reliable friend of liberation movements around the world and the foe of most established governments. Today, however, China’s thirst for energy guides much of its policy in the Middle East, with other commercial, military, and diplomatic interests taking a secondary role. Since Middle Eastern governments control much of what China seeks in the Middle East, China has sought to broaden its relationships with the governments of the region. Meanwhile, China views the United States as a hegemonic power that aggressively pursues its own interests at the expense of others. Analysts have determined that China sees. 24.

(26) recent U.S. efforts to reform the Middle East and replace unsavory rulers as undermining stability rather than supporting it (Zhu, 2010). Therefore, China tends to view the U.S. as acting against the interests of not only China, but of the international community at large (Chipman, 2007; Dumbaugh, 2008). The U.S., meanwhile, holds equally unfavorable views of Chinese involvement in the Middle East, especially considering trading of weapons and arms. The observation that the U.S. is highly active in the Middle East, while China is more cautious, also corresponds to the levels of involvement that the U.S. and China have committed to the Syrian refugee crisis. According to UN funding data and various media reports, China, the world’s second largest economy, has supported UN efforts to alleviate the refugee crisis with a modest $23 million, but has not given any money to Syrian relief efforts since 2014 (Ignatieff, 2016). Given these meager contributions by a fellow major global player in the Syrian conflict, many opinion pieces in the U.S. have expressed that the United States ought to exert more pressure on China, as well as Russia, to contribute more significantly to UN efforts to address the Syrian refugee calamity (Bacchi, 2015). China has not yet hosted any Syrian refugees, and apparently has no plan to (Pan, 2016). Comparatively, the United States has expressed more explicit efforts to assist and accept Syrian refugees than China, though many critics argue that U.S. efforts are nowhere near enough. As of February 2016, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced nearly $601 million in new humanitarian funding for Syria and neighboring countries. Meanwhile, U.S. relief agencies continue to reach out to besieged areas in Syria with emergency food and other assistance, while health teams vaccinated 3 million children across Syria against polio in 2015 (USAID). However, the U.S. has not welcomed a large number of Syrian refugees either: only 2,290 as of 2015, or 0.0005 percent of the total number (Bremmer, 2015). Furthermore, to hear American politicians. 25.

(27) and election candidates to speak in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris, and more recently Brussels, it seems that general opinions in the U.S. are trending towards the belief that Syrian refugees pose a threat to domestic security. So far, the debate about whether or not to accept Syrian refugees has induced a “serious identity crisis for the U.S.” (Bremmer, 2015). Although Chinese and U.S. policy in response to the Refugee Crisis both demonstrate some level of reluctance to fully committing to assisting and hosting Syrian refugees, that does not mean that the two countries express no concern for the matter. It remains to be seen in the content analysis of the respective nations’ newspaper coverage how the media frames portray the refugee crisis to the public.. Crisis Coverage in the News In crisis communication, framing analysis can provide crisis managers with useful insights into appropriate crisis response strategies in order to minimize the damage to an organization’s image (Boyd, 2000; Coombs, 2006). Typologies of crisis response strategies have been developed and tested through framing research (e.g., Benoit, 1995; Coombs & Holladay, 1996). However, these previous approaches often fail to consider how the media framed the crisis at the outset. A crisis is “an event for which people seek causes and make attributions” (Coombs & Holladay, 2004, p. 97). As it occurs, people seek information about the crisis and then evaluate the cause of the event and the organizational responsibility for the crisis based on media coverage of the crisis. Therefore, it is important to look at how the media frame a crisis event, the cause of the crisis, and the actor responsible for it, because those frames influence the public’s perception and impressions of the organization (Coombs, 2006).. 26.

(28) This study aims to identify what kinds of news frames have been used in the coverage of the Syrian refugee crisis, including frames attributing responsibility for the event. Based on previous research into news framing, this study uses content analysis to explore the different media frames used. Ultimately, the findings may better inform crisis managers about how news coverage might influence public perceptions in countries as divergent as the U.S. and China, and may also have implications for future research into international response strategies. Today’s “Syrian Refugee Crisis” or “European Migrant Crisis” is not the first time the world has witnessed a humanitarian crisis of this scale. Several editorial and opinion pieces in the New York Times have drawn comparisons between Syrian refugees boarding trains in Hungary to the haunting history of Jews being sent to concentration camps during WWII. The repeated introduction of the crisis as “the worst since World War II,” further evokes this historical parallel. However, this current event is new and extremely different in many ways. Perhaps more so than ever before, the crisis involves and implicates the entire world. Furthermore, the media portrayal of the current Migrant Crisis via is quite different due to the new media technologies available to instantly report on the crisis. It is now instantly possible for readers far away from the crisis to access images and read about the stories of the refugees and the European citizens who are encountering them, as well as updates about politicians’ efforts to mitigate the crisis and solve the problem at its roots. As European nations directly face the consequences and unfolding events of the refugee crisis, other countries in the world look on, report, analyze, and try to make sense of the situation from a humanitarian, political, and economic viewpoint. The United States and China stand on opposite ends of the world, with the refugee crisis continuing to exacerbate between them;. 27.

(29) indeed, both the United States and China play an important strategic role in the region and in finding a solution to the crisis. Questions of responsibility and human rights in a globalized world are raised through the news coverage of the Refugee Crisis in the United States and China, among other media from around the world. That being said, there are many other countries that are much more deeply implicated in the refugee crisis than China is, nations which almost certainly produce news coverage of the crisis that would prove insightful and meaningful for this study. For example, Russia is one of the most active players involved in the Syrian War, thus holds great potential to resolve the migrant crisis at its source by encouraging a solution to the raging war. An analysis of Russian newspaper framing of the refugee crisis would also prove insightful, however this study focuses on the U.S. and Chinese perspectives in order to illuminate their unique, contrasting perspective. The issues raised by the Syrian Refugee Crisis are highly relevant countries all across the world today, especially key players like U.S. and China. For instance, one of the most significant debates surrounding the coverage of refugees in the media is the extent to which state power is being challenged or even undermined by the movement of persons across borders. This study will consider the implications of refugee flows for how newspapers frame the consequences of the refugee crisis, including security threats and economic effects. Finally, it is also important to ask: are newspaper media empowering refugees to reach safety, or are newspapers reinforcing state policy and control over their movement? As globalization has impacted the transnational flows of people across borders, it has also dramatically impacted international media. According to Sparks (2000), the concept of globalization has replaced the “imperialism paradigm” as the main way of thinking about the international media (2007; 126). As suggested earlier, “the deepest meaning conveyed by the. 28.

(30) idea of globalization is that of the indeterminate, unruly and self-propelled character of world affairs; the absence of a center, of a controlling desk, of a board of directors, of a managerial office” (Bauman, 1998; 59). Power in this world, whether physical or symbolic in nature, is not concentrated in a single place. No state is strong enough to dominate world politics, just as no company is strong enough to dominate the world market, and no news organization is powerful enough to control all information about a certain topic (Sparks 139-40). Such rejection of a notion of any single controlling center stands in contrast to the central claim of the media and cultural imperialism paradigm, which claimed that broadcasting around the world was dominated by U.S. companies and U.S. agendas (Sparks, 2007; 140). Following globalization, the United States “is no longer the puppeteer of a world system of images but is only one node of complex transnational construction of imaginary landscapes” (Appadurai, 1996; 31). Therefore, it is not merely relevant but necessary to study news media outside of the United States in order to gain a broader, more accurate understanding of globalization’s effects on media framing. To further reinforce the importance of examining Chinese media in combination with U.S. media, Sparks (2000) has argued that no media is genuinely global in nature, as the so-called global media’s audience is “too small, too rich and too English-speaking to be considered inclusive.” There is also scant evidence that supports the existence of a global public sphere, and in fact the public sphere remains largely state-oriented. However, there is no question that many globalizing trends are made possible with the assistance of mass media at both domestic and international levels. Optimistic perspectives portray these processes of globalization as a positive force that works to unify widely different societies, integrating them into a “global village,” and enriching all parties in the process (McLuhan 1964). It remains to be seen what effect. 29.

(31) globalization has had on the use of media frames in regards to a uniquely ‘globalized’ ‘internationalized’ crisis such as the Migrant Crisis. Since the dawn of the era of globalization, studies outlining the ways immigration has been portrayed in the popular media have found elements of public anxiety over immigration and related issues of multiculturalism, race, and national identity. According to Chavez (2001), these anxieties did not suddenly burst forth in the 1990s, but rather these issues received increasing attention and formulation over the past thirty-plus years (2001; 12). This raises important questions about the role of the popular press in such coverage (German 1994). In the coverage of refugees and migration, it is pertinent to investigate whether popular newspapers merely reflect the public’s increasing anxiety, or, by playing to the fears and concerns of the public, cite antirefugee, anti-immigrant sentiments (Parenti, 1986). Therefore, the present study’s examination of coverage of refugees by two popular newspapers seeks to raise new questions about the media’s role in the public’s increasing concern about refugees and immigration (Simon and Alexander 1993) as well as in reflecting international relations and policy regarding the Refugee Crisis.. Media Framing and International Relations The political relationships between countries are profoundly important aspects of global society, as they influence the way the entire population of the world lives and divides itself into separate communities. The United States and China are often considered to be at opposite ends of the cultural and political spectrums, and the relationship between the two countries has been considered to be one of the most complex in the world due to centuries of isolation between the two nations. In the modern era, tensions between China and the United States remain heated amidst economic competition and cooperation.. 30.

(32) There is an impressive body of literature that explains the key concepts of international relations in great detail (i.e. Griffiths & O’Callaghan, 2012; Carlsnaes, Risse, Simmons, 2013). U.S.-China relations have long been an interest and enigma for many scholars of international affairs, and the contemporary international relations between the U.S., China, and their interests in the Middle East in particular, has been a growing area of interest for many years, with recent literature focusing on human rights offering especially relevant insights into the present analysis of both countries’ media framing of the refugee crisis. There is also a rapidly growing collection of literature related to the media’s influence on foreign affairs (Gowing, 1994; Neuman, 1996; Bahador, 2007; Evans, 2008; Van Belle & Potter, 2011; Yordanova, 2012; Robinson, 2013), most of which support the hypothesis that the media indeed have an influence on the decision-making in foreign policy. However, these studies often fail to define the degree to which the media coverage plays a role in foreign affairs. Some research has examined the ways that the media of selected countries portray foreign nations by focusing on one country’s media (Yu & Riffe, 1989; Saleem, 2007) or comparing media of selected countries (Soderlund & Schmitt, 1986; Soderlund, Wagenberg, Surlin 1989; Yang, 2003). There is still a dearth of academic research comparing media in U.S. and Chinese media, especially concerning the coverage of the Middle East, including the Refugee Crisis. Even though some studies emerging are about media coverage of the crisis, none of them have compared news from U.S. and China, nor have they explored the framing perspective. The framing of international issues by different national newspapers reflects each country’s different policies and goals. Even for countries in which newspapers are not strictly regulated by the state, the coverage of political issues will follow certain established narratives and political motives. In the era of globalization and communication technology, media have a. 31.

(33) significant influence on international relations. Through coverage of foreign crises, media are able to create an emotional response from public who may extort policy-makers to take action (Neuman, 1996). For example, in 1994 when the Clinton administration decided to withdraw from Somalia after the media’s negative representations of the issue, which caused public response and pressure to retreat (Bly, 2002). Examining the framing at play in the media coverage of international events a key aspect to understanding international relations. Pavlik (2008) defined framing as a tool to organize ideas and thoughts so that particular events and issues make sense as they are put in a meaningful context. The context may be influenced by social and political reality, stereotypes, prejudices, and political agendas. In other words, the way media in different countries frame the same event highly depends on the cultural context as well as political and economic ideologies. For example, Maslog, Lee & Kim (2006) explored how English-language media in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and the Philippines represented the war in Iraq differently according to their own perspectives. The results showed that the media varied significantly in their distribution of war and peace frames, and that there was little consistency in their perception and framing of the incident. The act of framing is intrinsic in the process of making news and may in turn have a great influence on the audience’s perception of reality, though this will not be explicitly measured in the present study. While analyzing media frames of controversial issues, it is helpful to explore news sources used in the media coverage, as they are an important element of the framing process. Through the keywords, metaphors, visual images, concepts, and symbols embodied in the news (Entman, 1991), media framing determines the way in which the public understands the events of processes (Evans, 2008). While writing their stories, journalists interact with different news. 32.

(34) sources and choose those that are suitable to the topic and audience. Depending on the source used in media coverage, media may present a different picture of the same issue. Thus, analysis of the usage of news sources can provide additional information on how media differ in their choice of sources and how it influences the process of framing (Lasorsa & Reese, 1990). Framing is an extension of agenda setting in terms of media effects, and is attributed to second-level agenda setting (McCombs, Shaw, & Weaver, 1997; Scheufele, 1999). It involves selection and salience (Entman, 1993) and calling attention to some aspects of a reality, or obscuring others (Griffin, 2003). While agenda setting is concerned with the salience of an issue, framing is concerned with the presentation or emphasis in salience of different aspects of such issue (De Vreese, 2005). In this way, [the press] is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of the darkness into vision (Lippmann, 1992, p. 229) Like globalization, framing is also a “fractured paradigm” (Entman, 1993), which has no single or universal definition; different scholars have defined the concept differently. The most cited definition provided by Robert M. Entman (1993) states that “to frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described” (1993; 52). A media frame has also been explained as “a broad organizing theme for selecting, emphasizing, and linking the elements of a story such as the scenes, the characters, their actions, and supporting documentation” (Bennet cited in 2002: 42 cited in Boykoff 2008). In practice, a frame is a conceptual lens that brings certain aspects of reality into sharper focus, emphasizing a particular way to understand an issue, while relegating other issues to the. 33.

(35) background. Therefore, the practice of framing embodies the capacity of news media to select certain aspects of a story that promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, or treatment recommendation. According to Snow and Benford (1988), “The robustness, completeness, and thoroughness of the framing effort," rely on three core framing tasks and the degree to which these tasks are attended to: diagnostic framing, for the identification of a problem and assignment of blame for the problem; prognostic framing, to suggest solutions, strategies, and tactics to solve a problem; and motivational framing, to serve as a call to arms or rationale for action. In the context of newspaper framing of the Syrian Refugee Crisis, diagnostic frames describe how the Syrian refugee crisis and its actors contribute to the event and who is to blame. Prognostic frames involve how the solutions to the Refugee Crisis are emphasized in the newspaper media. For example, an article might suggest military intervention and arming the rebels against Assad, as well as providing active humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees, or encouraging diplomatic means and negotiations to resolve the refugee crisis. Motivational frames appeal more to reader’s emotions and sense of morality in relation to the crisis, moving them to action. In this study, Snow and Benford’s three framing tasks will be further explained in relation to Semetko and Valkenburg’s five generic frames. To investigate and compare the framing of the Syrian Refugee Crisis in the U.S. and China, this study takes its content analysis framework from Semetko and Valkenburg’s five frames measuring the attribution of responsibility, conflict, economic consequences, human interests, and morality. It is significant to identify how these five frames are used in newspaper coverage of the Syrian refugee crisis, as frames are powerful mechanisms that can. 34.

(36) help define and solve problems and shape public opinion (Knight, 1999). Much of the previous research on framing has focused on media frames in relation to public policy issues, although framing research is also potentially useful for identifying strategic messages created by public relations practitioners (Hallahan, 1999). Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) studied the differences in the use of news frames of European politics in four national newspapers and three national television outlets in Holland. The results of their study showed that the most common frames were attribution of responsibility, conflict, economic consequences, human interests, and morality. Table 1 Syrian Refugee Crisis – Generic Frames Coding Key Frame name. Description. Attribution of responsibility frame. This frame is defined as “a way of attributing responsibility for [a] cause or solution to either the government or to an individual or group” (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000, p. 96). The story points out who is to blame, or possibly describes how to take responsibility and further plans to solve the issue.. Human interest frame. This frame “brings a human face or an emotional angle to the presentation of an event, issue, or problem” (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000, p. 95). The story focuses on people’s reactions, and emotional aspects of the Crisis.. Conflict frame. The conflict frame is used in such a way as to reflect conflict and disagreement among individuals, groups, or organizations (e.g. politicians, parties, countries, religions, races, etc.). Morality frame. This frame puts the event, problem, or issue in the context of morals, social prescriptions, and religious tenets.. Economic consequences frame. This frame reports an event, problem, or issue in terms of the consequences it will have economically on an individual, groups, organizations, or countries. Other articles, including photo captions, brief factual summaries (e.g. number of drownings in the Mediterranean, statistical updates), announcements, and Syrian Civil War news, which do not provide any form of commentary or analysis.. Other. 35.

(37) According to Semetko and Valkenburg, the way European politics and issues are framed in the news via these five generic frames influence public understanding and evaluation of issues, institutions, and political actors. Furthermore, the public’s perceptions may be easily changed depending on what frames are used in the media coverage (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000). The use of these news frames also depends on both the type of outlet and the type of topic. According to Semetko and Valkenburg’s study, the most significant differences recorded were not between media (television vs. the press) but between sensationalist versus serious types of news outlets. Sober and serious newspapers and television news programs more often used the responsibility and conflict frames in the presentation of news, whereas sensationalist outlets more often used the human interest frame. In crisis situations, the human interest frame stimulates the psychological pulse of people, which ultimately leads them to a more negative attitude toward the crisis (Padin, 2005, October 12). Cho and Gower (2006) showed that the human interest frame influenced participants’ emotional responses, and that it was also a significant predictor of blame and responsibility in a transgression crisis. Therefore, the use of the human interest frame in coverage of the Syrian Refugee Crisis in the U.S. and China will be described in more detail in the results section. As for the conflict frame, Neuman et al. (1992) found that it was also commonly used by U.S. news media. In the Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) study, the conflict frame was the second most common frame, assessing the more serious the newspaper, the more the conflict frame was evident. The economic consequences frame, Neuman et al. (1992) also identified it as a common frame in U.S. news. The wide impact of an event is an important news value, and economic consequences are often considerable (Graber, 1993). While the other frames. 36.

(38) may be evoked more directly, Neuman et al. (1992) found that the morality frame was commonly used by journalists indirectly through quotations or inference because of the journalistic norm of objectivity. The presence of frames in a text are the projection of power (Entman, 2007) and can be gauged by looking at the usage of certain keywords, phrases, stock phrases, stereotyped images and sources of information (Entman 1993) or rhetoric in verbs, nouns or modifiers, adjectives or proverbs (Ray, 2004). The frames in text provide the contexts which are transferred to the audience, who interpret them according to their mental schemata, defined as mentally stored clusters of ideas (Goffman, 1974) that guide individuals’ processing of information (Graber, 1988). Although each member of the audience has unique mental schemata, and all frames are not created equally (Levin, Schneider & Gaeth 1998), they are considered to have an almost uniform effect on the majority, if not all, of the audience exposed to them. This common effect on readers is what makes it significant to study the frames used by mass media (Ray, 2004). This reflects that framing affects readers’ understanding (Price, Tweksbury & Powers, 1997) and recall of thoughts (Valkenburg, Semetko & De Vreese, 1999) about events and issues. Frames are also embedded in a culture, and can therefore be studied by looking at the elements and aesthetics of one’s culture. Culture is comprised of shared beliefs and understandings, mediated and formed by symbols and language of a group or society (Zald, 1996). It plays an important role in giving the context and interpretation of certain information about an occurrence (Wolfsfeld, 2003; Zhou, 2008). The framing of an event or occurrence can have different interpretations from framing of same event (Nelson, Clawson, & Oxley, 1997) in another culture.. 37.

(39) Therefore, culture and ideology of a nation play a significant role in influencing media framing. Aday, Livingston and Hebert (2005) in their study on coverage of the Iraq war found that there were significant biases in the coverage in U.S. and Arab media about the issue. Both the media constructed the reality as per their culture and ideology. The study in hand is concerned with the frames focusing on what attributes of the issue or actors are highlighted and how they have been emphasized in their coverage by the selected newspapers. The present research is limited to media frames; hence only frames embedded in text are analyzed, using a quantitative content analysis of The New York Times and People’s Daily. Therefore, the present content analysis is based on the how the generic frames are used in U.S. and Chinese media according to their different cultures, ideologies, and national interests.. 38.

(40) Chapter Three Research Questions & Methods Summarizing the above literature review on media framing, it can be hypothesized that the U.S. media frames the international crisis and actors involved in it in line with the policies and interests of the U.S. government, as well as with their culture and ideology. Whereas the Chinese media work partially under authoritarian controls, in this case by state-censorship, the framing of external conflicts, such as the Syrian Civil War, and proxy conflicts, including the Syrian Refugee Crisis, also conforms to the political orientations of the country and ideology of the state. Research Questions Based on the literature review, this study focuses on the following broad research questions to fill the gap in existing literature: 1. RQ1: How do news sources and news types correlate with how the New York Times (NYT) and People’s Daily (PD) frame the Refuge Crisis? 2. RQ2: How did NYT and PD frame the Refugee Crisis before and after the death of Aylan Kurdi? 3. RQ3: Were refugees themselves depicted more as individuals or as masses in NYT and PD coverage of the Refugee Crisis, and how does this depiction of refugees vary before and after the death of Aylan Kurdi? 4. RQ4: How does each media outlet attribute responsibility for the Crisis? How does the attribution of responsibility vary between NYT and PD, and who/what are the main parties blamed by the two outlets?. 39.

(41) 5. RQ5: What are the potential solutions to the Refugee Crisis suggested by NYT and PD coverage, if any?. To answer the research questions outlined above, this study will combine one of the most fertile research methodologies in communication sciences – content analysis of newspaper coverage – with an assessment of international affairs related to U.S. and Chinese involvement in the Syrian Refugee Crisis. News content studies focusing on this topic are rare so far, as the event is currently still unfolding. Consequently, this study will be one of the first to scientifically examine the news coverage of the Refugee Crisis with a comparative view of U.S. and Chinese media perspectives. Second, this study aims to employ the operationalizations of news frames, specifically the generic frames of Semetko and Valkenburg (2000), gaining the unique advantage of using generic frames to illuminate more specific categories. Regarding the generic frames, this thesis has an extra scientific purpose to expand the contextual use of these frames, as they are often used in a European context (e.g. Semetko and Valkenburg, 2000; Van Cauwenberge et al., 2009). This study questions how applicable generic frames are in an international setting shaken by conflict. Data Sources This study has selected two major national newspapers to be used in the media analysis: The New York Times and People’s Daily. The two newspapers were selected from among those with the highest circulation in their respective countries. The New York Times is a leading newspaper in the U.S., read by politicians, opinion leaders, and ordinary citizens. People’s Daily is also read by a similar demographic. The articles published in both selected newspapers are available online in electronic and searchable form. 40.

國際傳媒之人權與責任敘事： 比較中美報紙以何框架看待敘利亞難民危機之內容分析 - 政大學術集成

國際傳媒之人權與責任敘事：比較中美報紙以何框架看待敘利亞難民危機之內容分析 - 政大學術集成