Posc 150

Do The Media Inform?

Content Analysis of Coverage

Extra Credit


Throughout the semester I have made two major arguments:

The discussion of the media suggested that news coverage is marked by several characteristics

In April 2000 10 to 15 thousand people protested against the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The behavior of the demonstrators was thoroughly covered in newspapers and some television news casts. But what was singularly lacking was much attention to the reasons behind the protests and the merits of the claims and counter claims. All sorts of groups have complaints about how the work of these two international economic organizations. But what exactly are the complaints? And are they justified? How do the IMF and WTO respond? The mass media--the sources of information available to the average person--seldom supply this kind of information.

Do you disagree with this indictment of the news media? Consider then this "article" taken from USA Today's web site.

Finance officials meet despite protests

04/17/00- Updated 08:50 AM ET

WASHINGTON (AP) - World finance officials got an early start on the final day of spring meetings that have been overshadowed by thousands of anti-globalization protesters in the streets and plunging stock markets from Tokyo to London.

The two-day spring meetings of the 182-nation International Monetary Fund and World Bank were concluding Monday with discussions by the Development Committee, the policy-setting panel for the bank.

The official agenda for those talks ranged from how to broaden debt relief for the world's poorest nations to how rich nations can assist in the fight against AIDS in poor countries.

But the finance officials were also preoccupied by turbulence in global markets. Following last week's record declines on Wall Street, Tokyo stocks plunged today with the benchmark Nikkei Stock Average suffering its fifth-worst point drop in history.

Markets were also down sharply in Hong Kong, Singapore, London and Germany despite words of assurance from top finance leaders that the economic fundamentals underpinning the global economy remain strong. Last week saw nearly $2 trillion in wealth evaporate from huge declines in both the Dow Jones industrial average and the technology-heavy Nasdaq.

As they had done Sunday, the IMF and World Bank ran shuttle buses starting at 5 a.m. today from local hotels to get the 750 delegates attending the sessions into the barricaded area ahead of protesters.

The IMF and World Bank buildings, two blocks from the White House, remained under heavy security guard.

Thousands of protesters disrupted the meetings Sunday by delaying by several hours the arrival of some delegates who did not heed the warnings of officials to catch early buses. But unlike the winter meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, they did not prevent the meetings from being held - something they had promised to do.

British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown told reporters late Sunday that officials needed to focus on improving the IMF's surveillance of international economies, especially in light of the drop in stock prices. ''I think it's been recognized in every meeting that we've had: the need for continued vigilance, the need to be absolutely sure that the macroeconomic foundation, the stability of the economies is assured,'' he said.

He also repeated pledges to seek greater debt relief for the poorest countries and reform the IMF so it can better prevent financial crises. ''Our message to those people who have been demonstrating is this: that the way forward for those people who want to reduce poverty and want to see greater stability in the world ... is not to advocate turning our back on the global economy,'' he said.

In addition, a World Bank proposal aims to help poor countries increase exports to the industrialized world. Under the plan, countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia would sell their goods to the United States and other Western nations without facing tariff or import quotas - something that would give them a substantial economic advantage. The United States has opposed the measure, fearing it could increase protectionist measures in the United States at a time when America's trade deficit has soared to record levels.

French Finance Minister Laurent Fabius said it made ''little sense to provide debt relief on one hand without providing countries that receive this assistance with access to our markets.'' Fabius was one of four finance ministers who did not make it to the meetings until six hours after the start Sunday because police could not provide a secure route for an IMF shuttle bus from their hotel.

He said the thousands of demonstrators had an ''enormous misunderstanding'' about the poverty-reduction missions of the IMF and World Bank, but conceded that ''some improvements'' could be made. Asked if any of the protest slogans had caught his eye, Fabius said in French: ''There were two slogans, 'death to capitalism' which is a large subject all by itself and 'down with red meat.' Of course, there is no connection in my mind between the two.''

Source: USA Today (May not be available.)

If we count the paragraphs or lines, I think we'll find that most of them (70 percent, perhaps) describe or discuss the protestors behavior and the reactions of the police. The article, in other words, makes the dramatic aspect of the demonstration the story line.

Extra Credit

How common is this type of presentation? To earn some extra credit perform an informal content analysis of a printed news story about this or another protest demonstration.

Guidelines

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This page was created by H. T. Reynolds,
April 17, 2000.