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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
Neuman, Just, and Crigler’s study (1992) about news and the construction of political
meaning has identified a few frames that occur commonly in the news. Based on their
frames, Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) analyzed news stories in national newspapers
and on television and identified the five generic news frames attribution of
responsibility, human interest, conflict, morality and economic consequences. De
Vreese (2005) explains that studies of generic frames either concentrate on the
coverage of politics (more specific on election campaigns) or on frames “that are
structural and inherent to the conventions of journalism” (de Vreese, 2005, p. 55).
Furthermore De Vreese (2005) has shown how generic news frames may be used to
understand cross-national differences in news coverage by concluding that “the use of
similar news frames in different political and journalistic cultures emphasizes the
generic nature of such news frames. Thereby generic frames teach us about journalism
and render cross-national differences visible.” (de Vreese, 2005, p. 59)
The studies of Neuman et al. (1992) and of Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) have
developed the generic news frames and found the abovementioned frames to be
generally applicable. The responsibility frame accentuates an issue or problem in such
a way as to attribute responsibility for its cause or solution to an individual, a group or
the government. The Human interest frame emphasizes a human or personalized face
or an emotional angle to the presentation of an event issue, or problem. The conflict
frame emphasizes conflict or disagreement among individuals, groups, organizations or
countries. The morality frame understands events, problems, or issues in the context of
morals, religious or social prescriptions.. The economic consequences frame reports
an event, problem or issue in terms of the economic consequences on an individual or
on a group, an institution or countries.
Semetko & Valkenburg (2000) found that the responsibility frame was the most
commonly used, followed by conflict and economic frames (Semetko & Valkenburg,
2000). In the process surrounding the constitutional reform of the Netherlands Antilles
the governments of Aruba and Netherlands Antilles/Curaçao needed to guard the right
of self-determination. The kingdom council of ministers, in which the Netherlands has
the majority of representatives, symbolized the dominance of the Dutch government as
perceived by Aruban and especially Curaçaoan politicians. The ‘dismantling’ of the
Antilles was not only a constitutional reform but also an enormous effort to relief the
indebtedness of the islands. One of the aims was to ensure that the (financial)
dependency of the islands (as was agreed for Aruba in 1986) on the Netherlands would
end. When looking at framing in the news coverage on relationships in the Kingdom of
the Netherlands between 2005 and 2010, an emphasis on conflict, economic
consequence and attribution of responsibility was expected.
Therefore the first research interest was to compare the use of frames in the different
newspapers in the three countries Aruba, Curacao and the Netherlands and to
consider if there are significant differences in the uses of frames between the
newspapers.
RQ1: Which of the five news frames has been used in the news coverage in the
different newspapers?
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