This study examines the production and content of press coverage of therapeutic cloning in the US and Britain from 1997 to 2006. The sample includes 5,128 articles drawn from 19 new publications, as well as 18 qualitative interviews with journalists and editors. Data analysis was conducted in two phases, using both grounded methodology and sociological discourse analysis. The results coalesced around three main themes: Hype, Nationalism and Sources. In the case of hype, its valence and relative distribution was found to differ substantially across the US, UK tabloid and UK broadsheet samples. The elite press in the UK and science advocacy publications in both countries evinced a strong bias towards utopian framing, hyping the imminence and certainty of forthcoming therapeutic cloning cues. Meanwhile, a dualistic pattern of both utopianism and equally excessive dystopianism was visible in the American press and British tabloid newspapers. In addition to utopian/dystopian hype, competitive framing and banal nationalism (Billig 1995) was shown to be influential both in the backstage news judgements of journalists and editors, and in front stage press content. The third results chapter investigates the process of source selection. In keeping with previous research (e.g. Conrad 1999), scientists were found to represent the most important and extensively cited category of journalistic sources. Also significant were subpolitical activists, aligned on either side of this issue as semi-routine journalistic sources. Most notably, patients and anti-abortion groups supplied journalists with sympathetic ‘human interest’ narratives and sensational criticism of embryo research, respectively. Finally, the discussion chapter considers the struggle between market imperatives and professional ideals embodied in the practice of science journalism. Emerging from this struggle are several limitations inherent in the press’s role as a major forum for publics engaging with science.

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This research study explores the death coverage of Osama bin Laden across the seven media outlets of the three countries – US, UK and Pakistan. These three countries are closely tied to each other in the fight against terror, and have also suffered a lot in this regard. This study focuses only on the content of the selected media outlets which includes both print and electronic media. These include: The New York Times from the US, The Daily Telegraph and the Guardian from the UK, the Geo News, the Duniya News, Pakistan Television Corporation and the daily Dawn from Pakistan. The basic research question raised in this study is: How the seven identified media outlets across the three different countries covered the death of Osama bin Laden? This basic research question is supplemented with some additional research questions to explore the content from different dimensions in order to show a broader comparative picture of the coverage carried out by these identified media outlets in these three countries. This study focuses only on the content of the broadcast and print media outlets. It does not explore the production of the content. The research study is based on ‘Quantitative Content Analysis’ and has examined 957 news articles. The findings support that despite being close allies in the ongoing War on Terror, two different set of stories appeared. It includes: the story of dominance and reliance; the story of joy and grief; the story of mistrust and incompetence; the story of success and embarrassment; the story of politics and geostrategic interests; the story covered through joint reporting and individual reporting; the story reported from the field and studio; and the story of mistrust (among the allies) and the future of the war on terror. Additionally, this research study also investigates the questions whether most of the coverage, of the selected media outlets, was based on counterterrorism, i.e., highlighting the narratives of Allies vs bin Laden; or show the impact of bin Laden’s death on the future of War on Terror, on the volatile region, or even on the Al Qaeda itself. It also points out that how these media outlets approached the Pakistani government, Pakistani military/ Intelligence Agencies, and the US government/ Army – besides looking at the rhetoric used for Osama bin Laden and Abbottabad Operation.

This thesis explores the relationship between Chilean political elites and the news media with the aim of better understanding how political elites in Chile have adapted to the process of mediatization of politics. Theoretically grounded within an institutionalist understanding of mediatization processes, this thesis uses a qualitative research strategy to identify the main drivers of mediatization among Chilean political elites, the operational logics structuring politicians’ and journalists’ interactions, and the dynamics of autonomy-control in the relationship between political and media actors. Findings are derived from analysis of sixty semi-structured interviews with politicians, including current and former Cabinet Ministers, parliamentarians and political party leaders, press officers working with politicians, and journalists with experience covering politics in national media outlets. This thesis identifies the core elements of a centralist, elitist and market-grounded political communication culture comprised of political and media actors that engage in routine and frequent exchanges. In doing so, it identifies cultural and structural elements moderating the process of mediatization. Additionally, this study critically examines political elites’ understandings of news media logics, including dynamics of resistance and instrumental adoption of media languages, temporalities, and routines. This is reinforced by power inequalities in the politician-journalist relationship, organisational constraints, and a strong insider culture acting against the development of journalistic autonomy. Overall, this study puts forward the idea that while the mediatization of political actors suggests constraints on political elites’ behaviour, it should not necessarily be equated with loss of autonomy in the political sphere. Additionally, it advances a multi-level approach to mediatization research that enables observation of conflicting patterns of power relations between political elites and the news media, stressing how mediatization processes are open to multiple normative outcomes. Key words: mediatization of politics, political elites, institutional logics, Chile, qualitative research.

This thesis explores the concept of quality in journalism from an Indian perspective with the aim of identifying its elements and the factors influencing it. It is framed in a mixed methods paradigm and uses ‘surface structures’ and ‘story boxes’ as tools to study the perceptions and practice of quality in Indian journalism. Qualitative semi-structured interviews with 22 Indian newspaper journalists and quantitative content analysis of 108 newspaper pages and 569 news items are used to identify an ideal-practice gap between journalists' perceptions of quality and the evidence of it in news content. The research methods are informed by normative assumptions of quality and based on journalism's democratic role and functions. Findings are derived using the principles of applied thematic analysis to identify core themes and sub-themes in qualitative data and from descriptive statistical analysis of quantitative data. This thesis identifies the core elements of quality, which are closely linked to and influenced by the shared professional values of Indian journalists, such as autonomy, objectivity and public service. The content analysis shows little evidence of idealistic perceptions of quality, with notions of quality at the journalists' level converging with content only in four minor aspects and differing in the six critical aspects of accuracy, balance, context, good writing and the informative and investigative roles of journalism.

This thesis explores the current ongoing structural transformations of the (digital) public sphere(s) on Twitter, given that the technological advancements pose questions about the value, the sufficiency and the sustainability of Habermas’ theory in a digital epoch. The theoretical framework is developed around the concepts of the public sphere, democracy and journalism, which are examined diachronically and through the lens of hybridity. It focuses on their systemic relationship, which is defined by their common ground, participation. By building a parallel between the Habermasian theory and Athenian Democracy, and by examining the evolving role of the public, the study focuses specifically on the role of media actors in political dialogue during elections. The deep interrelation of the concepts guided the thesis’ rationale, which regards the public sphere through a different prism, that of its duality: as a concept with a normative and a pragmatic side. The structural transformations of the (digital) public sphere(s) and its formation on Twitter are affected by two factors: the role of the press within the platform, and the current political and financial setting. As such, the empirical research looks into the General Elections of 2015 in the United Kingdom, and contributes to the development of appropriate empirical research methodologies, so as to shed light on the use of this popular platform by traditional media, net-native media and journalists, as well as to audiences’ level of responsiveness. The empirical research consists of Twitter research on media actors’ accounts and on electoral hashtags; and of interviews with journalists. The thesis concludes with an internal conversation between the normative and the pragmatic models: the first defines how the pragmatic public sphere on Twitter is mapped, whereas the latter is the foundation for the thesis’ proposal for the re-conceptualization of the normative model in the digital epoch.

This thesis investigates the representation of African migrants in Italian and Spanish online news media through the lens of the border. By employing an interdisciplinary approach, in which the migrant crossings of the Libya-Italy and Morocco-Spain borders are a central research focus, this work explores the written and visual representations of migrants from September 2013 to August 2015. Throughout this time frame, which represents a crucial period in the long-lasting story of migration from Africa towards Europe, the analysis of online news items demonstrates that news media representations of migrants depend on the very nature of the borders that migrants attempt to cross while paralleling the institutional standpoints provided by official news sources. Furthermore, from a cultural perspective, the research here explores the features of online news narratives as well as the role of the working practices of Italian and Spanish journalists in the production of migrant representations. It also discusses the meanings that are embedded in such news narratives. As a result, through an innovative methodological approach, which includes the analysis of online news items and interviews with journalists, this thesis provides a critical framework for the investigation of online news production and contemporary journalism more broadly.

If there is one revolution that claims to have happened in the name of the people, that is surely the Cuban Revolution. This thesis examines the discursive construction of ‘the Cuban people’ during the periods of national debate. More specifically, this thesis analyses ‘the people’ through the lens of national newspaper Granma during the Party-led calls for debate that preceded the IV (1991), and the VI (2011) Congresses of the Communist Party of Cuba (Partido Comunista de Cuba, PCC). I then go on to discuss the hegemonic construction of ‘the people’ with contemporary Cuban journalists, who offer competing articulations of national belonging. This thesis draws on Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985) Discourse Theory, which is systematised through a combination of qualitative methods of analysis. In this work, I have analysed over 500 newspaper articles, paying special attention to historical interdiscursivity, that is, to the historical origins in which media discourses are embedded. Then, contextual factors are further examined through in-depth interviews with Cuban journalists. The data indicates that Granma has constructed a populist discourse by which ‘the Cuban people’ are united against a common, hubristic enemy. On the one hand, the revolutionary leadership has externalised problems through the mediated construction of an external enemy, the United States, which is held responsible for the failures of the revolutionary project. On the other hand, the leadership has simultaneously managed to channel a great deal of social discontent through hegemonic interventions aimed at renewing consensus from within. While the leadership has historically maintained a communicational and informational hegemony, which ensured the dissemination of the official discourse in the media, recent changes in the media and technological landscape have enabled the appearance of new spaces online, ending the PCC’s hegemonic control of the media system. In this new communicational setting, people’s demands are not just seen as the systematic result of a Revolution led astray from its democratic principles by an external enemy. Instead, the data indicates a discursive move from the externalisation to the internalisation of ‘the enemy’, presented as bureaucratic resistance to a people-led change.

This research project sets out to investigate the gender and racial traits of female performative identity in hip-hop journalism, having identified this as a gap in hip-hop scholarship. This study aims to evaluate the editorial strategies that inform hip-hop femininity in relation to the commercial agendas of the artists, their record companies and management teams. Additionally, the research aims to address the potential feminist value of hip-hop journalism, and to identify the ways in which female performers relate to each other in this context. Through an investigation of femininities in hip-hop journalism, the objective of the research is to demonstrate that editorial and artistic agendas produce specific discourses regarding gender and race. The research approach is based on discourse analysis of narrative texts and images in relevant US and UK-based hip-hop magazines, as well as of qualitative interviews with their main editors. The evidence demonstrates that articulations of identity in hip-hop journalism seem rooted in the fetishisation of the Black female body – a strategy that paradoxically possesses a counter-hegemonic value in its resistant approach to normative gender and race discourses. From this perspective, the research finds that the journalistic mediation of hip-hop womanhood presents some of the socio-cultural challenges posed by hip-hop feminism, such as the double jeopardy of the assertive reclamation of female sexuality and the compliance with race-specific sexist discourse. In addition, the evidence demonstrates that editorial strategies perpetuate commercially driven notions of gender and race, which are co-opted by mutually dependent financial interests of press and record companies – a finding that extends the current debates regarding hip-hop journalism. In this context, an important insight is that female artists appear to be complicit in the production of mediated performative identities that undermine their position as authentic rap artists. Hereby, new knowledge is contributed to feminist hip-hop scholarship.