A Two‐Tiered Method for Identifying Trends in Media Framing of Policy Issues: The Case of the War on Terror

Research on media framing of policy issues has flourished. Yet the varied approaches to conceptualizing and operationalizing issue frames that make this literature rich also hinder its advancement. Here, we document the benefits of a two‐tiered method: the first level accounts for issue‐specific frames, while the second level tracks frames that generalize across issues. For this study, we draw on generalizable frames from prospect theory (loss vs. gain frames) and social identity theory (self‐referential vs. other‐referential frames). We discuss the theoretical merits of a two‐tiered approach, arguing that it should yield compound insights greater than the sum of its parts. Applying this method to newspaper coverage of the war on terror, we find a strong trend at the generalizable level: media framing of the war shifted over time from a predominant use of “fear” (self‐referential loss) frames to an increasing use of “charity” (other‐referential gain) frames. Our approach further reveals that the fear frames used in the lead‐up to the Iraq War were not driven by issue‐specific frames related to terrorism or weapons of mass destruction as we might have thought, but rather by frames related to the anticipated threats to U.S. troops. This study sharpens our understanding of how framing of the war evolved, but more broadly it suggests that a two‐tiered approach could be applied both within and across policy issues to advance our understanding of the framing process.     

When “Bomb Canada” is Really Just a Metaphor: Using the American Jeremiad to Reinterpret Anti-Canadianism in the American Press

The most prominent motif in American social commentary is the jeremiad, a biblical prototype that bitterly laments the state of society and calls for its reform. In the post-9/11 period, as Canada and the US pursued diverging military policies, American pundits responded with a torrent of “anti-Canadian” criticism. Canadian pundits and scholars have argued that this critique fosters negative social attitudes and prejudice that could result in less favorable political relations. In contrast, this article evaluates political punditry through the framework of the jeremiad. It argues that these political pundits subject Canada to a unique form of self-criticism that identifies Canada as part of the national mission. The American Jeremiah scolds Canadian “apostates” as he would address American citizens who have backslid from the national ideal. The desired effect is spiritual, and will not necessarily lead to the political sanctions feared by Canadian observers.     

JGHE Biennial award for promoting excellence in teaching and learning 2003

The ability to use literature effectively is essential to provide context and interpret results for any research project. Undergraduate students in geographical disciplines are regularly required to produce research reports, yet formal training in effective literature use is minimal. In this study students were taught effective literature use methods in a workshop involving group work and class discussion. Comparison was made between current students’ and previous students’ performance to determine any improvement with the new teaching methods. Results demonstrate that a relatively basic approach of explicitly teaching effective literature use can be effective and improve students’ research report writing skills.     

News Photographs and Environmental Agenda Setting

Who and what influences the issues that policymakers attend to is central to the question of how power is exercised in politics. This study builds upon research by Soroka that proposes an expanded model of agenda setting as a means to examine how the media influences issue salience for the public and policymakers. It expands on Soroka's model by investigating the hypothesis that photographic attention to environmental issues in the news media influences issue salience for the mass public and governmental decision makers. There is little research that substantiates the idea, but it is widely believed that photographs have influence on the policy agenda. I use a dynamic, multidirectional model to estimate whether the volume of news photographs, in addition to news stories, influences issue salience among the mass public and policymakers. Data are longitudinal and measures of attention are operationalized as the number of congressional committee meetings, concern for the environment as a “most important problem” in public opinion polls, environmental news stories in The New York Times, and environmental news photographs in Time magazine. Results suggest that photographic attention does influence environmental policy agenda dynamics in some counterintuitive ways that are distinct from the effects of the news stories. While news stories appear to increase public attention toward the environment, they have little influence on policymaker attention. News photographs, on the other hand, appear to drive congressional committee attention but elicit an ambivalent public response.     

‘Who is Lhakpa Sherpa?’ circulating subjectivities within the global/local terrain of Himalayan mountaineering

This paper traces different formations of subjectivities negotiated within the transnational circuits of mountaineering media and cultural production. Drawing from ethnographic research in Nepal and Canada in 2000, I examine various representations of the second Nepali woman to climb Everest in order to demonstrate the linkages between scales and geographies of media narratives and subjectivities. Appearing in newspapers, a research interview with myself (a foreign researcher) and on the Internet, these differently scaled narratives render Lhakpa Sherpa in terms of local and global subjectivities, which shift after her successful climb, and are complex and dynamic. I engage with feminist critiques of globalization to encourage a view of globalization as enacted rather than merely resisted and to analyse ‘the global’ and ‘the local’ as inseparable and contingent and productive of particular gendered subjectivities. The disjuncture between her popularity in Nepal and the lack of knowledge about her in Canada reveals the uneven processes of globalization wherein Lhakpa Sherpa struggles against gender and racial politics in mountaineering at the same time that she is privileged to climb as a sponsored mountaineer, a new subjectivity for a Nepali mountaineer.     

Jasbir K. Puar,Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times

The importance of studying human–animal relationships and animal subjectivity is increasingly recognised by social and cultural geographers, particularly in agricultural pursuits. Little research, however, has been undertaken on animals in sport, resulting in a limited understanding of the perceptions and treatment of animals in society. To address this concern, we interrogate print media coverage of the construction and positioning of horses and humans in the controversial activity of jumps racing (National Hunt) in Australia between February 2008 and December 2009. We highlight the importance of seemingly contradictory human–animal relationships involving close frequent contact of some jumps racing advocates in contrast to the distanced, mediated relationships of jumps racing opponents. This paper highlights how the particular activity of jumps racing generates specific human–animal relationships and emphasises the need to reflect on the attitudes that shape and constrain human–animal relationships in varying contexts, including how these attitudes are mediated and the potential consequences for humans and other animals. These findings form the basis for a suggested research agenda that recognises the importance and articulation of proximity and mediation in human–animal relationships, particularly those focused on activities labelled ‘sport’.     

Metrics,models and the meaning of media ownership

Concentrated media ownership has become an increasingly salient issue in the context of global demands for social justice and democracy. This article calls for cultural policy analysts to highlight issues of media ownership and maps out three approaches to ownership that are designed to provide a more holistic account of the problems and potential solutions. Attention is first paid to ‘metrics’ and the gathering of quantitative data; next, to the generation of normative models of media ownership; and then, to an ideological perspective on ownership that locates it in relation to systems of thought and action that privilege particular ways of thinking about and ordering the world. By arguing for a renewed focus on ownership that is based on the integration of all three perspectives into a more holistic methodology, the article aims to provide scholars with a conceptual and a strategic framework for understanding and intervening in ongoing debates about the dynamics of contemporary cultural industries.     

What is the VAT? The policies and practices of value added tax on ebooks in Europe

This article addresses reduction of or exemption from value added tax (VAT) as a cultural- and media policy instrument and analyses the VAT policies on ebooks within the European Economic Area. Examining an area of media and policy studies that is largely overlooked, the article is partly an empirical analysis of VAT policies and partly a discussion paper raising issues applicable to other media sectors and of political and societal relevance. Section 1 of the article conceptualises VAT reduction/exemption as a media and cultural policy tool within national and supranational policy frameworks. Section 2 gives a comprehensive overview of the application of VAT on print books and ebooks in Europe and discusses some consequences of the concrete taxation practices. Section 3 reports and discusses initiatives to alter the European VAT policies on digital media and cultural products and services.     

Legitimising war in a changing media landscape

The media landscape is undergoing a period of radical transformation, characterised by the decline of the traditional media and the rise of digital new media. This article is concerned with the impact these changes are having on political violence and liberal democracies. The article argues that the emergence of citizen journalism and the decline of traditional journalism signals a dangerous deficit in accountability structures in liberal democracies.     

From War 2.0 to quantum war: the superpositionality of global violence

As information networks catalyse local incidents into international crises, as global events appear and disappear on multiple screens at an accelerated pace and as a war of images displaces the image of war, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand the rapidly changing nature of global violence within the confines of security studies. Phase-shifting with each media intervention from states to sub-states, local to global, public to private, organised to chaotic and virtual to real—and back again—global violence superpositions into a quantum war that requires new transdisciplinary, transnational and transmedial approaches.