DOCUMENT RESUME ED 415 536 CS 509 661 TITLE Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Assocation for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (80th, Chicago, Illinois, July 30-August 2, 1997): International. INSTITUTION Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. PUB DATE 1997-07-00 NOTE 477p.; For other sections of these Proceedings, see CS 509 657-676. PUB TYPE Collected Works - Proceedings (021) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC20 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome; Agenda Setting; Copyrights; Foreign Countries; *International Communication; International Relations; Internet; Journalism; Mass Media; *Mass Media Effects; *Mass Media Role; Media Research; *News Media IDENTIFIERS Japanese People; *Media Coverage; Press Releases; Romance Novels ABSTRACT The International section of the Proceedings contains the following 16 papers: "A 'Pernicious New Strain of the Old Nazi Virus' and an 'Orgy of Tribal Slaughter': A Comparison of U.S. News Magazine Coverage of the Crises in Bosnia and Rwanda" (Melissa A. Wall); "Information Sources, Teenage Pregnancy, and Contraception Use in Kenya: Implications for HIV and AIDS Control and Prevention" (Isaac Obeng-Quaidoo, Cornelius B. Pratt, Charles Okigbo, and Waithira L. Gikonyo); "Re-Assessing America's Program of Media Assistance in a Fluid Democratic State: The Case of Zambia" (Folu Folarin Ogundimu); "Who's Setting the News Agenda on Sino-American Relations? Prestige Press Coverage from 1985 to 1993" (Robyn S. Goodman); "AFKN (American Forces Korea Network) as a U.S. Postwar Propaganda Program: A Hypothesis" (Jae-Young Kim); "The United States-China Copyright Dispute: A Two Level Games Analysis" (Krishna Jayakar); "Hegemonic Frames and International News Reporting: A Comparative Study of the 'New York Times' Coverage of the 1996 Indian and Israeli Elections" (Ritu K. Jayakar); "Development and Disjuncture on Television in India" (Divya C. McMillin); "Purchasing Involvement in South Asia: Its Relationship with Attitude toward and Beliefs about Advertising" (Jyotika Ramaprasad); "Western Romance Fiction As Urban 'English Popular Culture' in Postcolonial India" (Radhika E. Parameswaran); "Getting the News: How Japanese and American International Correspondents Choose Their Sources" (Beverly Horvit); "Fujimori Puts the 'PR' in Peru and PromPeru Leads the Way: How the President is Projecting His Administration's Neoliberal Policies" (Alan R. Freitag); "Terrorists on the Web: Propaganda and Pubic Diplomacy in Cyberspace" (Alan R. Freitag); "Television Viewing and Perceptions of the 1996 Olympic Athletes: A Cultivation Analysis" (Xueyi Chen); "Sold American: The Influence of U.S. News Consultants on Newscasts in Great Britain and Germany" (Craig Allen); and "Through the Dragon's Eyes: News of the United States in the Press Releases of the New China News Agency" (Charles Elliott). Individual papers contain references. (CR) PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR EDUCATION IN JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION (80th, Chicago, Illinois, July 30-August 2, 1997): INTERNATIONAL U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND Office of Educational Research and Improvement DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION BEEN GRANTED BY CENTER (ERIC) CIT ,11is document has been reproduced as ceived from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES Points of view or opinions stated in this INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. 1 BEST COPY AVAILABLE 2 A 'Pernicious New Strain of the Old Nazi Virus' and an 'Orgy of Tribal Slaughter': A Comparison of U.S. News Magazine Coverage of the Crises in Bosnia and Rwanda by Melissa A. Wall University of Washington School of Communications Box 353740 Seattle, Washington 98195 USA 206/543-2660 email: [email protected] FIRST PLACE WINNER, MARKHAM COMPETITION A paper presented at the AEJMC Annual Convention, International Communication Division, Chicago, Illinois, July 30-August 2, 1997. The author wishes to acknowledge the helpful comments of Nancy K. Rivenburgh and Gerald Baldasty on earlier drafts of this paper. (For those wishing to cite this paper in future work, please be aware that this paper will appear in Gazette, vol. 59, nr. 6, Fall 1997.) 3 Paper Title: A 'Pernicious New Strain of the Old Nazi Virus' and an 'Orgy of Tribal Slaughter': A Comparison of U.S. News Magazine Coverage of the Crises in Bosnia and Rwanda. by Melissa A. Wall University of Washington Abstract: This study compares U.S. news magazine coverage of conflict occurring in Bosnia and Rwanda. Bosnia's violence was characterized as an aberration for Europeans, while Rwanda's violence was presented as typical of Africans. Coverage suggests that in Bosnia, participants made a logical, albeit evil, decision to commit violence in an attempt to seek revenge for past grievances. In contrast, Rwanda's violence is depicted as having no logical explanation and is portrayed as irrational and so alien from Western understanding as to defy explanation. 5 Keywords: ethnic conflict, frame analysis, Bosnia, Rwanda, international news coverage Autobiographical Data Melissa A. Wall is a doctoral student in the School of Communications at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. Her research interests include media systems of Africa and Asia and media images of those regions. She spent part of 1997 training journalists in Ethiopia and researching that country's privately-owned press. 4 A 'Pernicious New Strain of the Old Nazi Virus' and an 'Orgy of Tribal Slaughter': A Comparison of U.S. News Magazine Coverage of the Crises in Bosnia and Rwanda In the early 1990s, both Bosnia and Rwanda were racked by violent conflicts. During the first nine months of 1992 in Bosnia, an estimated 128,500 people were killed or missing while 2 to 2.5 million others were displaced (Bell-Fialkoff, 1996). In the spring and summer of 1994 in Rwanda, an estimated 800,000 to 850,000 people were killed while 2 million others fled to neighboring countries (Rwanda: Death, Despair and Defiance, 1994; Prunier, 1995). This article analyzes U.S. news magazine reports about Bosnia and Rwanda to compare coverage of violence occurring in a European country with coverage of violence occurring in an African country. The results reveal that overall the two conflicts were portrayed quite differently. The news magazines characterized Bosnia's violence as an aberration for Europeans, while Rwanda's violence was presented as typical of Africans. Coverage of Bosnia suggests participants made a logical, albeit evil, decision to commit violence in an attempt to seek revenge for past grievances. The news magazines suggest that while their actions make them inferior to the rest of the West, they should not be totally banished from the Western family of nations. In contrast, Rwanda's violence is depicted as unavoidable and so alien from Western understanding as to defy explanation. The Rwandans, too, are depicted as inferior to the West, but coverage evokes little understanding for those it portrays as a primitive, savage people. Such a comparison is an important means of showing how news is not a mirror of reality but rather a selection and construction process, influenced partly by the norms and practices of newsworkers which in turn reflect larger bodies of social knowledge (Entman, 1991; Tuchman, 1978; Gans, 1979). How news events such as the Bosnia and Rwanda conflictsare portrayed reveals critical, interpretative choices being made by news organizations. Previous comparative studies of news coverage of similar events occurring in different countries often have focusedon the influence of the Cold War as a mechanism for shaping the presentation ofnews (Elliman, 1991; Peh and Melkote, 1991; Herman and Chomsky, 1988). Other scholars have found that beyond foreign policy, issues such as race, religionor cultural perceptions about particular 3 5 peoples and regions can influence media reports about foreign countries (Said, 1981; Sreberny- Mohammadi, 1990; Fair and Astroff, 1991). Despite the end of the Cold War, this study found that U.S. government involvement with particular countries continued to influence coverage of them. In addition, cultural and racial perceptions about the countries experiencing the conflicts appear to have also affected how they were portrayed. How foreign news is covered is important because most Americans have little experience with other countries and rely primarily on the media for their information. Thus the news media can influence the public agenda and help shape public opinion about events in foreign countries as well as perpetuate harmful and uninformative stereotypes (Galtung and Ruge, 1965; McCombs and Shaw, 1972; Sreberny-Mohammadi, 1990). This influence is magnified as American news organizations send their news around the world, where their interpretation of events end up in local media outlets of distant countries (Hachten, 1992). Coverage of International Affairs Certain news values have been identified as influencing the coverage of international news. These include political, economic and geographic proximity, as well as the event's deviance from the perceived norm (Galtung and Ruge, 1965; Shoemaker, Danielian and Brendlinger, 1991). In American reporting, the top influence usually has been identified as the event's relationship to U.S. interests (Gans, 1979; Srebemy-Mohanunadi,