The Media and Foreign Policy
Paper
Length: 4000 words (+ / – 250 words) – please include a word count and
number the pages.
Each student should select at least four different nation’s media sources
(newspapers, television, radio, or web-based) and select at least ten news
stories from each source (not each country!) as the “raw input” for their
analysis. For your forty articles, you may only use news coverage that begins
on October 1, 2023, but naturally, you may contextualize the subject with
information from before that date. Following a brief summary discussion of
the event itself (the who, what, where, when, how, and why) the introduction
will also include a discussion of framing and news routines and their
importance in the development and presentation of the news. The paper will
then examine and compare the framing choices and discussions of the chosen
issue or event across the sources representing the different nations. The
approaches of the sources should be summarized and compared and you
should then consider the political implications that different approaches
present. How do these different approaches reflect differences in the interests
of each nation’s decision-makers, elites, and their attentive and mass publics.
If you have second (or third) language skills, you should consider using a
source with a different linguistic tradition. This might prove very
enlightening when comparing approaches to the news and political issues.
The paper topic must be submitted for approval by November 6
(electronically on Gauchospace). The proposal should include the news
story and the four sources, indicating that you have found the ten stories
necessary within each of the four sources chosen.
When complete, submit the paper on Gauchospace no later than 12:30
on December 6, the last day of class.
No late papers will be accepted unless there is a documented case of extreme
emergency. The examinations and the paper will each constitute one quarter
of the grade.
Paper Format
I. Introduction: Please describe what it is you will be discussing,
why – its importance, as well as interesting overall
differences/points to be made. Provide a brief overview of study:
don’t go into methods details but do let us know what you are
analyzing in broad terms (e.g., that you are looking at a particular
story and comparing the approaches and implications suggested
within the media of these different countries).
II. Methodology. Describe your study: the media sources used,
dates, search terms, total numbers, etc. What you are looking at:
headlines, word counts, etc.
III. Analysis of your media. The approaches of the sources should be
summarized and compared and you should then consider the
political implications that different approaches present.
IV. Discussion: Impact of these frames and the news routines.
How do these different approaches reflect differences in the
interests of nation’s decision makers, elites and attentive and mass
public?
V. Conclusion. Sum it all up and make some interesting broad
points about the findings. You could also mention some interesting
further research that this study suggests.
Format: APA or any consistent recognized style- MLA, Chicago,
Harvard, Oxford etc.
Sources to search for Global Newspapers and Media
http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/
https://thebigproject.co.uk/news/#.X3zFHu17kuU
https://newspaperindex.com/
In many cases, English language sources are indicated. Also remember that many
countries around the world have English as their lingua franca, or use English as one
of their second languages and have publications in English
