Document detail

Media framing of democratisation conflicts in Egypt, Kenya, Serbia and South Africa: a content analysis

Conflict and Democratisation (MeCoDEM) Media (2017), 26 pp.
ISSN 2057-4002
"This MeCoDEM working paper presents an overview of the main findings from a quantitative content analysis covering different types of democratisation conflicts (i.e., conflicts over citizenship, elections, transitional justice and distribution of power) in four countries: Egypt, Kenya, Serbia and South Africa. The sample involves 5162 newspaper articles and news stories in the four countries selected on the basis of two main criteria: the degree of independence of media outlets from government and political parties, and their relevance. The key findings from the content analysis are organised around several themes: causes of democratisation conflicts, portrayal of conflict parties, preferred solutions to conflicts, perceptions of democracy, role of the media, authoritarian past, and tone of reporting and polarisation. Although this paper focuses principally on description, we also speculate about the main factors that shape similarities and differences in media coverage of democratisation conflicts. The main finding from the content analysis is that cross-national variations that we found in media reporting of democratisation conflicts appear to depend on several factors." (Executive summary)
Contents
Democratisation conflicts in four countries, 3
Method: content analysis, 5
Coder training and inter-coder reliability, 6
Sampling, 7
Causes of democratisation conflicts, 10
Conflict parties, 12
Preferred solutions to conflicts, 14
Perception of democracy, 16
Role of the media, 18
Authoritarian past, 21
Overall tone and polarisation, 22
Conclusion, 24