An analysis of news sources used in reports on slavery in the Sudan in the New York Times and Washington Post between 1986 and 2001

Abstract

For over 25 years the Sudan and the United States have had a contentious relationship. In 1986 several international human rights organisations pointed to the re-emergence of the practice of slavery in the Sudan. Past research by American media has shown that journalists tend to use routine channels and American government officials, especially those from the ‘golden triangle’ (the White House, Pentagon and State Department) when covering stories related to foreign countries. However, in the case of the Sudan there was no clear American foreign policy for an extended period of time. Consequently, there was a stark absence of reporting on the slavery issue in the two elite American newspapers (the New York Times and the Washington Post) examined in this study. Furthermore, even when the topic was covered the sources used defined the issue through an American perspective, rather than within an historical and geopolitical context.     

Advance Agent of the Truman Doctrine: The United States,The New York Times,and the Greek Civil War

Democratic theorists observe high correlations between public opinion and government policy, but it is difficult to determine the direction of causation. This article concerns the relative abilities of government officials and media owners to influence political discourse. Both affected The New York Times' coverage of the Greek civil war before the declaration of the Truman Doctrine. When the Truman administration leaked its intention to intervene in Greece and offered a new interpretation of the civil war, the Times instantly adopted the new theme. The Times had the resources and opportunity to challenge government arguments, but its correspondent in Athens suppressed available information that contradicted official statements, and the publisher supported his reporter despite obvious partisanship. Top reporters maintained close ties with government officials, and they promoted American interventionism in the pages of the newspaper. And a seamless connection between editorials and news coverage reflects ownership's support for the Truman Doctrine. Government's influence may be strongest when officials and media owners share interests and values. And the temporal order raises implications for the relationship between opinion and policy: Policymakers may select new policies first and then move public opinion to win support for planned policy changes.     

Daring to Be Heard: Advertorials by Organized Interests on the Op-Ed Page of The New York Times , 1985-1998

Advertorials are a form of outside lobbying that organized interests use to influence policymakers and attentive publics. It is apparent from their popularity that organized interests consider them to be an effective form of political communication. This article analyzes 2,805 organized interest advertorials that appeared on the lower right quadrant of The New York Times op-ed page from 1985 to 1998. Advertorials take two broad forms: (a) image advertorials, which are paid messages by organized interests designed to create a favorable climate of opinion, and (b) advocacy advertorials, which are sponsored messages intended to win support for an interest's viewpoints on controversial issues. Typologies of advertorials (11 categories), organized interests (21 categories), corporate and noncorporate economic interests (29 categories), and policy content (28 categories) are used to document annually and over time who is sponsoring advertorials, what types of advertorials are being used, what interests avail themselves of advertorial campaigns, which issue areas are receiving attention, what images and policy messages are being communicated, which organizations sponsor the most advertorials, and the timing of such political advertising campaigns. We find over time an increasing number of advertorials, an increasing number and diversity of sponsoring interest organizations, an increasing trend toward advocacy advertorials, a continuing but declining sponsorship dominance by corporate interests, a shifting policy issue emphasis that corresponds to events in the political environment, and evidence that organized interests employ a variety of sponsorship strategies.     

The structure of the international telecommunications regime in transition: A network analysis of international organizations 1

This paper examines the structure of the international telecommunications regime in terms of networks of social interaction and institutional affiliation among international actors. Social interaction and overlapping membership data of 69 international telecommunications organizations in the Yearbook of International Organizations 1994/1995 are analyzed to describe the social structure of the international telecommunications system through network analysis. The analysis reveals a center‐periphery structure with the Western industrial countries at the center and the less developed countries at the periphery. The international telecommunications system is also regionally structured suggesting influence by geopolitical and cultural proximity. The results indicate that inter‐governmental global organizations such as the ITU and UNESCO play intermediate and coordinating roles at the central linking‐pin positions (or cut‐points) in the international telecommunications regime. In summary, this research shows that transitional trends in international telecommunications have affected the interaction patterns of international actors.     

Post-war economies and the New York dissensus

We will follow the owner of the money and the owner of labour-power into the hidden foci of production, crossing the threshold of the portal above which is written, ‘No admittance except on business’. Karl Marx, Das Kapital     

The emerging international system: A European perspective

The author describes the breakdown of the international system of the mid‐twentieth century as unique in nature and consequences. The situation of bipolarity, characteristic of the Cold War years, has disappeared. Power has diffused greatly, making predictions as to what kind of international system will emerge difficult. Two models of possible developments in the international system are presented. In one, a tripolarity between the United States, China, and the USSR develops. In the other, there arises a five‐power multiple balance comprising China, Japan, the USSR, the USA and a unified Europe. The latter model is seen as the more hazardous, for its emergence would be a consequence of the breakdown of the spirit of coalition presently obtaining between the Atlantic powers and Japan and the proliferation of nuclear powers.     

地缘政治学与现时代

随着全球化的不断发展和科学技术的日益进步,地缘政治学似乎已经过时了。但是,从地缘政治学的理论立论来看,“人与自然环境”的联系链条作为其立论的依据是始终存在的,地理环境对国家政治行为的影响是客观的事实。在现时代,分析冷战结束以后的国际政治现实以及中国所处的国际环境,也说明了地缘政治研究的重要意义。因此,现时代的地缘政治研究性质抛弃了原有的旧观念,是用适应时代发展的新的观念来考察新的国际政治现实,其意义更为重要。     

Learning from the news: Experiments in media,modality, and reporting about star wars

This study explores what ordinary American adults learn from news reported in different communications modalities and media. In the first experiment, the text of news items about Star Wars is held constant but the communications modality varies. In the second experiment, news reports reflect the journalistic style of television, newspaper, and magazine reporting. In the modality experiment, subjects learned equally well from the audiovisual, audio, or print versions of the stories. In the media experiment, subjects in the magazine and television conditions gained substantially more information than those in the newspaper condition; but when subjects were asked to apply information to policy judgments about Star Wars, magazine readers were more dovish than television viewers. For Star Wars news, it appears that the content and characteristic style of a news medium have important effects on news comprehension, particularly for the least informed and least interested members of the public.     

Evaluating Polysemy: An Analysis of The New York Times' Coverage of the End of the Cold War

This study examines The New York Times' definition of the end of the Cold War and its portrayal of the social movements that successfully challenged Communist authority in Eastern Europe. The analysis is located within and draws its significance from two research traditions. The first examines the degree to which media texts have a polysemic character, while the second tradition has explored the influence of Cold War ideology on the American news media's definition of international affairs. The Times' definition of the Cold War, its portrayal of the emerging post-Cold War world, and its depiction of collective action produced a text characterized by limited polysemy. This restricted polysemy was a product of the newspaper employing frames that resonated with American political values, excluding or minimizing frames divorced from mainstream American political beliefs, constructing a selective tradition in its definition of the past, and limiting the polysemic implications of particular frames.     

与时俱进的列宁主义学说和实践

列宁主义的确立是一个艰苦探索与论战的过程,是一个与时俱进的不断创新的过程.列宁主义经历了两次大的飞跃.第一次飞跃是,社会主义革命能够在一国单独胜利;第二次是在俄国这个农民国度里只有通过新经济政策"整整一个历史时代",才能建成社会主义.不幸的是,新经济政策过早地夭折了.     

Informal interference in the judiciary in new democracies: a comparison of six African and Latin American cases

This article focuses on the efforts of power holders – at the executive or the legislative level – to influence or curb court activity informally or extra-legally, an acknowledged but under-researched topic in studies of judicial politics. We first define informal judicial interference and operationalize the concept; we then explain how we collected information on the topic through systematic cross-country interviewing. Our concept focuses on judicial intervention actions exercised by political actors once judges are on the bench. We distinguish these actions according to type – direct or subtle – and further differentiate each type according to six different modes. We provide new empirical data on informal interference in six third-wave democracies, three in Africa (Benin, Madagascar, and Senegal) and three in Latin America (Argentina, Chile, and Paraguay). Our empirical findings, first, confirm the importance of informal practices in shaping political-judicial relations. Second, they point to long-standing legacies and to the level of socio-economic development as possible explanations for different performances in terms of the prevalence and severity of informal interference in the judiciary in these newly established democratic regimes