Coverage of bombings for political advantage: Turkish on-line news reporting of the 2016 Ankara attacks

On 17 February 2016, a suicide bomber blew himself up, killing 28 people and injuring another 61 in the “heart” of Turkey’s capital Ankara. A few hours after the attack, the Turkish government blamed Salih Neccar from the (mostly) Kurdish-Syrian People’s protection Unit (YPG). Two days later, the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) claimed responsibility and named the bomber as Abdülbaki Sömer a Turkish citizen. The bombing is part of a resumption of violence in Turkey between Turkish government authorities and Kurdish groups. In this paper, we examine how on-line news stories recontextualise the bombing. We assert that news sources multimodally recontextualise the bombing in ways which are advantageous to the news organisations’ owners, political alliances and supporters. By each news source representing their political interests unquestionably positive and opposition unconditionally negative, polarisation in Turkish politics is articulated. This does nothing to solve problems and heal wounds in a time of national crisis.     

When good news is scarce and bad news is good: Government responsibilities and opposition possibilities in political agenda‐setting

Recent studies have drawn attention to the political contingencies of the media's political agenda‐setting influence, finding, for instance, that issues from the media agenda are more likely to attract attention if a party enjoys ownership of the issue. Supplementing the debate on why political parties respond to news, it is argued in this article that ownership is only part of the picture and that policy responsibility, together with news tone, constitutes a stronger explanation of news politicisation. Opposition parties respond to bad news because they reflect negative developments in social problems for which the government could be held responsible. The government responds to good news that reflects positive developments in social problems because this could politicise policy success, but is also forced to react when news explicitly address government responsibility and thereby threatens its image as responsive and competent. Furthermore, it is shown that news tone and policy responsibility condition the incentive to politicise owned issues from the media agenda. Thus, opposition parties will not politicise owned issues when news is good because this could draw attention to government success, while government is unable and unwilling to prioritise owned issues when news is bad and instead is likely to make use of its ownership strengths when news is good and the pressure to respond is low. The arguments are tested on a large‐N sample of radio news stories from Denmark (2003–2004). Opposition response is measured through parliamentary questions spurred by the news stories, while government response is indicated by references to these stories in the prime minister's weekly press meeting. Results confirm the expectations, suggesting that parties care more about the tone of news stories and the type of attention they might produce, rather than what type of issues they could serve to politicise.     

Models of the economy implicit in public discourse

The interdependence of the U.S. and the world economy has been a central problem in politics during the 1980s. The politically cognizant have had to become economically cognizant. This paper examines news reports about the economy to determine what may be learned from the news media. A macroeconomic model is developed which is consistent with the statements found in the news reports. The connectedness of economic relationships as presented is estimated. The focus of attention in the news stories is reported. An upper bound on learning is assessed.     

Prospects for Solving the Cyprus Problem and the Role of the European Union

Although the Cyprus problem is basically an international questionand a geopolitical issue, the problem's domestic aspects aredirectly related to its international dimension. Resolutionof the problem's domestic aspects, within the framework of afederal constitutional arrangement based on the high-level agreementsof 1977 and 1979, the relevant United Nations resolutions, andthe provisions of the European Union acquis communautaire isperhaps possible. A federal system is a compromise between aunitary state, as initially desired by the Greek Cypriot majority-community,and a confederation, as currently pursued by the Turkish Cypriotminority-community with the support of Turkey. Nevertheless,even though federation is the agreed framework for a solution,a sizable proportion of Greek Cypriots express misgivings abouta federal solution because they fear that what is actually beingdiscussed is a system lying between federation and confederation.A viable federal solution would create a pluralist democraticstate with a market-oriented economy in the Eastern Mediterranean.Given that the Republic of Cyprus is on its way to joining theEU, the EU could play a substantive role in promoting such anoutcome. From a geopolitical perspective, a united Cyprus, asa member of the EU, would be an asset to the EU and also contributeto stability and security in the Eastern Mediterranean.     

The Effects of Human Interest and Conflict News Frames on the Dynamics of Political Knowledge Gains: Evidence from a Cross‐national Study

A well‐functioning democracy needs the news media to provide information to its citizens. It is therefore essential to understand what kinds of news contents contribute to gains in citizens' political knowledge and for whom this takes place. Extant research is divergent on this matter, especially with respect to ‘softer’ news coverage. This cross‐national study investigates the effects of exposure to human interest and conflict frames in the news on political knowledge. Drawing on panel surveys and media content analyses in three countries, the study shows how these two frames contribute positively to political knowledge gain. This relationship is moderated by political interest so that those who are least interested learn the most from this type of easily accessible news coverage. The results are discussed in the light of research on news media and knowledge acquisition.     

A comparative analysis of Channels TV and CNN's coverage of World News

This study did an analysis of the Western and Third world coverage of World News using the broadcast stations (CNN and Channels TV) as case study. In other words, the study sought to examine if the Western and Third World nations are still guilty of imbalance, bias and distortion in their treatment of news. The findings showed that both the North and South nations are guilty of bias and imbalance in their coverage of World News and that each nation seeks to promote their interest rather than a true world interest or the interest of their counterpart nations. The study further revealed that the Third World media still depend heavily on Western media sources for its news albeit their standpoint on the News Flow debate. About 50% of the entire World News stories on Channels TV were sourced ‘outside’, while about 40% were unidentified. Only 10% were from the in‐house personnel. It was also observed that about 55 and 67% of World News coverage by Channels TV and CNN, respectively, were focused on ‘bad news’; an age‐long controversy that has bedeviled news coverage globally. In view of the foregoing, it has been recommended that there is need for the acceptance of ‘imbalance’ as a major feature of all media systems as well as a re‐evaluation of the standards and values of news evaluation. The rapid industrialization of Third World economies will also go a long way to stop the one‐way traffic in international communication which is what encourages media dependence. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Elite economic forecasts,economic news,mass economic expectations,and voting intentions in Great Britain

Abstract In order to test the notion that the electorate relies, derivatively, on professional economic forecasts, we consider the entire chain between elite economic expectations, economic news, mass economic expectations, and voter preferences. We find that while elite expectations are based on the objective economy, they are politically biased in the neighborhood of elections. Reports of economic news, while based on the objective economy and on elite expectations, have their own political rhythm in the form of election–related cycles. The pattern in news coverage, in turn, is mirrored by election–related cycles in personal and general expectations formed by the mass public. While the relevance of each of the linkages from elite expectations to news coverage to mass expectations is thus confirmed, our findings challenge the view that the link between mass expectations and voting intentions can be attributed mainly to the dissemination of elite forecasts to the general public. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for an understanding of the ability and functioning of mass electorates.     

Ecologies of Unease: Geographic Context and National Economic Evaluations

Assessment of the nation??s economic performance has been repeatedly linked to voters?? decision-making in U.S. presidential elections. Here we inquire as to where those economic evaluations originate. One possibility in the politicized environment of a major campaign is that they are partisan determinations and do not reflect actual economic circumstances. Another possibility is that these judgments arise from close attention to news media, which is presumably highlighting national economic conditions as a facet of campaign coverage. Still a third explanation is that voters derive their national economic evaluations from living out their lives in particular localities which may or may not be experiencing the conditions that affect the nation as a whole. Drawing upon data from the 2008 presidential election, we find that varying local conditions do shape the economic evaluations of political independents. Moreover, unemployment is not the only salient factor, as fuel prices and foreclosures also figured prominently. Local economic factors, what we call geotropic considerations, shape national economic evaluations especially for those who aren??t making these judgments on simple partisan grounds.     

Across time and space: Explaining variation in news coverage of the European Union

News about the European Union (EU) looks different in different countries at different points in time. This study investigates explanations for cross‐national and over‐time variation in news media coverage of EU affairs drawing on large‐scale media content analyses of newspapers and television news in the EU‐15 (1999), EU‐25 (2004) and EU‐27 (2009) in relation to European Parliament (EP) elections. The analyses focus in particular on explanatory factors pertaining to media characteristics and the political elites. Results show that national elites play an important role for the coverage of EU matters during EP election campaigns. The more strongly national parties are divided about the EU in combination with overall more negative positions towards the EU, the more visible the news. Also, increases in EU news visibility from one election to the next and the Europeanness of the news are determined by a country's elite positions. The findings are discussed in light of the EU's alleged communication deficit.     

Elite economic forecasts, economic news, mass economic expectations, and voting intentions in great britain

In order to test the notion that the electorate relies, derivatively, on professional economic forecasts, we consider the entire chain between elite economic expectations, economic news, mass economic expectations, and voter preferences. We find that while elite expectations are based on the objective economy, they are politically biased in the neighborhood of elections. Reports of economic news, while based on the objective economy and on elite expectations, have their own political rhythm in the form of election–related cycles. The pattern in news coverage, in turn, is mirrored by election–related cycles in personal and general expectations formed by the mass public. While the relevance of each of the linkages from elite expectations to news coverage to mass expectations is thus confirmed, our findings challenge the view that the link between mass expectations and voting intentions can be attributed mainly to the dissemination of elite forecasts to the general public. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for an understanding of the ability and functioning of mass electorates.     

Good news and bad news: evidence of media bias in unemployment reports

This study employs information obtained from media content analyses, as well as economic and political data, to investigate negativity in unemployment news between 2001 and 2010 in Germany. The data indicate a substantial bias in terms of the amounts of negative and positive reports, compared with the actual development of unemployment. Moreover, the media tend to place negative unemployment reports more prominently than positive ones. The estimates suggest that the bias is not the consequence of journalists asymmetrically interpreting the official unemployment numbers. Instead, it is associated with the exploitation of often non-economic information and structural influences in the process of news production.     

Merging content analysis and the policy sciences: A system to discern policy-specific trends from news media reports

In this article we set out to bridge a surprising methodological gap between two time-honored research traditions – news media content analysis and the policy sciences analytic framework. Lasswell, a recognized pioneer of both the method and the framework, discussed the mutual benefits of each decades ago. But few researchers, if any, have formally linked the two. To that end, in this article we (1) make the case for using news media content analysis to inform research studies using the policy sciences analytic framework; (2) introduce an original content analysis categorical system for that purpose; (3) demonstrate that system with a study of 90 national news articles about the stratospheric ozone hole; and (4) compare our system to others used to examine news content. We report that our system, used by human coders, is well geared to describing and mapping trends in the social process surrounding the development of the Montreal Protocol ozone treaty during the intelligence gathering and promotion phases encompassed by our data sample. We argue that other content analysis systems fall short – in structure and purpose – of meeting the promise ours holds to the policy scientist.     

National protest agenda and the dimensionality of party politics: Evidence from four East-Central European democracies

Contemporary democracies show considerable differences in the issue composition of their protest politics, which tends to remain relatively stable over time. In countries like Germany or the Czech Republic, the vast majority of protests have been mobilised around sociocultural issues, such as human rights, peace, nuclear power or the environment, and only a tiny portion of protest has focused on economic issues. At the opposite extreme, protest in France or Poland usually has a strongly economic character and voices demands relating to material redistribution and social policy. What lies behind the cross-country differences in national protest agendas? In this article, the national protest agenda depends on what issues mainstream political parties are contesting: the content and strength of the master-issue dimension. In reference to the literature on the multidimensional political space and niche political parties, one should expect that there is a substitutive effect; where the stronger a specific master-issue dimension is in party politics, the less salient that issue dimension is in protest politics. This substitutive effect results from the tendency of electoral politics to reduce political conflict to a single-dimension equilibrium, which decreases the importance of other issues and relegates the contest over secondary, niche issues to the realm of policy-seeking strategies, with protest being a common type of this political strategy. In party systems where single-dimension equilibrium does not exist and the master-issue dimension is weaker, the same dynamics result in a more convergent relationship between party and protest politics and a greater similarity between the protest- and party-system agendas. To investigate this theory, the national protest agendas in four countries are examined. The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia show four combinations of two crucial factors that are not available in the old Western democracies: the content and the strength of the master-issue dimension. The study draws on an original dataset of protest events organised in the four countries between 1993 and 2010, and on qualitative and quantitative data on issue dimensions of party politics obtained from studies on party politics and expert surveys. The results show that in the Czech Republic, where the master-issue dimension has remained strongly economic, protest has been predominantly sociocultural. In Poland between 1993 and 2001 and Hungary between 1993 and 2006, the master-issue dimensions are strongly sociocultural, while protest is predominantly economic. There is no single-dimension equilibrium in party politics in Slovakia or in post-2001 Poland and mainstream parties compete on both economic and sociocultural issues. Consequently, the substitutive dynamics between party and protest politics is weaker and the issue agendas in party and protest arenas are here more alike.     

Decentring state categories: diaspora within a Palestinian geopolitical assemblage in Nicosia,Cyprus

With over 50% of Palestinians in diaspora, global constructions of what is Palestinian are central to Palestinian geopolitics. This article examines how the meanings and implications of the label “Palestinian” in diaspora are produced as Palestinians negotiate the politics of migration and citizenship while living in Cyprus. Using the concept of a geopolitical assemblage incorporates the role of state immigration control into a critical discussion of diaspora. Cyprus provides a complex context in which the momentary constructions of a Palestinian diaspora in relation to other geopolitical entities affects Palestinians despite their immigration or citizenship status in Cyprus.     

Representing the national economic agenda in Latin America: Variation by fat and lean times and party brands

Representation is greater when legislators and voters agree on the national agenda. Under what conditions are higher degrees of “issue priority representation” more likely? Our answer focuses on economic conditions and party branding dynamics, and the case of Latin America. With mass and elite survey data we show that economic hard times and left-leaning preferences increase the prioritization of economic issues. We likewise document fairly high levels of economic issue priority representation in most of Latin America. From the perspective of democratic quality, evidence of representation in this domain is good news; yet, variation does exist. Consistent with our argument that party branding dynamics matter, we find that leftist and centrist parties tend to over-prioritize economic issues relative to their supporters, and the reverse for rightist parties. Further, we find a significant interaction between economic conditions and the ideological brand of parties: in economic downturns the left and the center are more likely to express a strong commitment to economic performance, whereas the right is less responsive to lean times.     

Cyprus: Federation Under International Safeguards

Constitutional engineering to overcome ethnoregional cleavagesis being put to a severe test on Cyprus, where Greek and Turkishcommunities haltingly endeavor to salvage a divided state Threeyears after independence in 1960, the attempt to govern throughfunctional federalism ended in civil war. Intervention by Greeceand Turkey in 1974 resulted in a de facto partitioning of therepublic into two ethnically homogeneous areas. Under UnitedNations auspices, communal elites bargain for a consociationalsettlement, balancing national autonomy and individual rights.The solution requires international safeguards guaranteeinga new constitution and providing for "free cities" under a bicommunaladministration. Failure of the international community to actwill lead to a partitionist solution as manifested by a growingacceptance of Turkish Cypriot statehood.     

Conceptualizing economic security and governance: China confronts globalization

Abstract

With the expansion and deepening of globalization, as well as China's entry into the World Trade Organization, the nexus between economic growth and national security has gained prominence in China since the mid-1990s. How to ensure socio-economic security while maintaining its robust economic growth is now the most serious concern of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese government. This paper addresses three questions: first, it explores why and how the transformation of economic growth and national security as two separate logics to a single domain evolved conceptually over the past two decades in China; second, what kinds of insecurities are generated by China's robust economic growth coupled with the expansion and deepening of globalization, and in which way and to what extent do they challenge China's government; third, what kinds of mechanisms or policy instruments have been adopted by China's government to address emerging economic insecurities while maintaining robust economic growth. The paper concludes that in the case of China, globalization has posed new challenges to economic security, but given that economic insecurity has its particular salience in individual countries, national institutional adjustment or adaptation becomes increasingly important for each country to govern in the interests of economic security while maintaining economic growth.     

Politicians on TV news: Getting attention in Dutch and German election campaigns

Abstract. Different strategies apply in the Netherlands and in Germany when TV channels have to decide how often politicians are mentioned or shown in the news during national election campaigns. Extensive content analyses in the 1990s suggest that Dutch political and media traditions promote a more equally distributed attention to different political positions. In Germany, TV news focuses almost exclusively on the incumbent candidate for the top function of the national government (the office of Chancellor) and his challengers. The likely causes are not only the political system and the particular circumstances of the 1990s (with the pre–eminence of Helmut Kohl), but also recent developments in the way in which German journalists define their task.     

Enacting multi-layered citizenship: Turkey’s Armenians’ struggle for justice and equality

Throughout the history of the Turkish Republic, Turkey’s Armenians have been subjected to a trade-off between the limited minority rights granted by the 1923 Lausanne Treaty and equal national citizenship. Traditionally a closed, depoliticized community, the citizenship practices of the Armenian minority have become increasingly differentiated in recent years. Building on a notion of citizenship as multi-layered and constituted through collective practice, this article investigates the implications of the political acts of Turkey’s Armenian minority on sub-national and national citizenship in Turkey. We show that Turkey’s Armenians are coupling rights demands, identification, normative references, and mobilization at the sub-national, national, and transnational levels in innovative ways, and are thereby negotiating different layers of citizenship in Turkey in a way that strengthens equal national citizenship.     

Reports from “Backstage” in Entertainment News

While “serious” news outlets struggle financially in the United States, evidence suggests that entertainment news coverage is thriving. By expanding upon Erving Goffman’s performance perspective and performance theory, this article seeks to illuminate representations of celebrities in the news media, with attention to the recent news stories regarding Tiger Woods and Sandra Bullock. The analysis also explores the off-screen performance of celebrities—developed and presented in news stories, interviews and photographs—and the repercussions when reports of a celebrity’s unmanaged backstage performance exposes the front stage performance as a pretense.