GLOBAL TALES OF TRAGEDYLessons Learned from an International Media Content Analysis

By Katharine Wiley

Faculty Mentors: Dr. Zach Hart and Belle Zembrodt

November 20, 2014- Since 1802FALL 2014 CONFERENCE OF HONORS

Main Points- Since 1802

• Overview of project• Motivations• Methods• Results• Significance of project• Next steps

Overview- Since 1802

• A quantitative analysis of newspaper media from three countries• United States of America• United Kingdom• Australia

• Focused on three crisis events• 9/11• Japanese Tsunami• Eurozone Crisis

Motivations- Since 1802

Motivations- Since 1802

• Current events• Knew I could find a lot of information about crises• Interesting viewpoints • Wanted to know how different countries’ media

would “frame” events• Culture• Prior knowledge of the perception of American media• Desired to know more about other English-speaking

media

Methods- Since 1802

• Began with traditional library research• Searched NexisLexis, Ebscohost, and

The New York Times’ databases• Conducted advanced searches,

including specific dates, papers, and countries

• Narrowed it all down• Decided to find primary (headline)

article and two follow-up articles from three papers from three countries

Methods- Since 1802

• Selected articles based off of dates, similarity and topic• Did not pick articles based on:• Individuals’ stories• Speculation• Opinion columns

• Looked for articles that:• Gave the “headline”• Told updates on the story

• Organized articles into a folder based on country, date and event

Methods- Since 1802

• 9/11• Death/

bodies/blood• Destruction• Government• Fear• Hope• War• Allegations• Details (the

story)

• Tsunami• Death/

bodies/blood• Destruction• Hope• Individual

Country• Details (the

story)

• Eurozone Crisis• Individual country• Fear or negativity• Hope• Allegations/ fault• “Fixes”• Government• Details (story)

Used “framing” method to analyze articles into different categories:

Methods- Since 1802

• Used different colored highlighters or pens for different categories

• Looked for phrases or keywords for different categories• Ex. 9/11 article • Fear – “This changes

everything. We essentially have been attacked at home. We are changed forever more. We will look to our president for where to turn.”

Methods- Since 1802

• Used word count feature on Microsoft Word• Calculated averages for:• Each article, followed by• Each date for each event, followed by• Total average for each category for each event

EXAMPLE- Since 1802

TsunamiUSAMarch 12, 2011 (Fackler) – NYTDeath – 13%Details – 21%Destruction – 29%Hope – 4%Country – 10%Other – 23%

USA Today (Steiner)Death – 0%Details – 8%Destruction – 20%Hope – 0%Country – 65%Other – 0%

Washington Post (Stuever)Death – 10%Details – 23%Destruction – 35%Hope – 0%Country – 15%Other – 17%

March 12, 2011 USA Averages:Death – 7.6% Other – 17.3%Details – 17.3%Destruction – 28%Hope – 1.3%Individual country – 30%

Final Averages for Tsunami in USA:Death – 15% Other – 10.9%Details – 18.6%Destruction – 45.3%Hope – 7.3%Country – 10.7%

Resulting product

- Since 1802

• Final product• A research paper outlining project from start to finish• Details about methods, more examples, detailed results

and results

results

- Since 1802

Fear War Govern-ment

Other Destruct-ion

Alleg-ations

Death Details Hope

USA 25% 20% 14% 12% 11% 9% 7% 6% 5%

UK 9% 20% 13% <1% 11% 10% 18% 12.5% 7%

AUS 8% 20% 12% 2% 9% 19% 7% 24% 4%

9/11

results

- Since 1802

Owncountry

Destruct-ion

Other Death Details Hope

USA 10% 44% 9% 11% 25% 3%

UK 6% 39% 16.5% 20% 17% 7%

AUS 19% 38% 16% 10% 23% <1%

Japanese Tsunami

results

- Since 1802

Govern-ment

Other Own country

Fault “Fixes” Details Hope

USA 17% 2% 24% 10% 12% 29% 6%

UK 15% 6% 35% 22% 8% 16% 2%

AUS 9% 5% 22% 36% 16% 7% 2%

Eurozone Crisis

Significance

- Since 1802

• Significant to the journalism industry• Says a lot about our media’s culture• How we respond vs. other countries• Reveals how we prioritize information

• Speaks for how media report based on geographical location

• Could be a starting point for changing the way media work

Conclusion

- Since 1802

• Learned a lot about myself, media and writing for crises• Next steps…• Finish up the final paper• Study how Twitter/Facebook have affected crisis

reporting• Continue this project further in my graduate studies

GLOBAL TALES OF TRAGEDYLessons Learned from an International Media Content Analysis

November 20, 2014- Since 1802FALL 2014 CONFERENCE OF HONORS