Previous research suggested Election 2004 involved many issue regimes and wedge issues (Kaplan, 2004; Drum, 2004; Fagan & Dinan, 2004). Preceding research proposed that the American perception of presidential candidates has been somewhat based on the mass media's increasing priming and agenda setting techniques (Scheufele, 2000; Kiousis & McCombs, 2004). Hence the research addressed two questions: Is there a bias for or against either candidate in the headlines of the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Times? If there is bias, which issues tended to produce the most positive, negative and neutral results? All election headlines, from February to November 2004, pertaining to a specific candidate were recorded and analyzed. The researcher chose to study headlines because they convey the newsworthiness of the story and former research confirms that reader perceptions of a news account can depend on the headline (Pfau, 1995; Tannenbaum, 1953). This study utilized content analysis to assess the word choices and biases of the headlines of the two newspapers. The researcher created definitions for coding, trained two coders, and analyzed and discussed the results. The main findings were the Washington Times contained more headlines that were pro-Bush, while the Los Angeles Times contained more headlines that were pro-Kerry. The key issues that reflected bias included that candidate's campaign, homeland security, and values.

This study aims to contribute to the understanding of ideology conveyed by lexical items and framing of texts. Since ideology is embedded in language the frames used in newspapers construct a narrow ideological perspective for the readers to interpret subjects and events through. On the basis of editorials from The Washington Post and The Washington Times that cover President Barack Obama, the study examines how the editorials differ in their framing of Obama and which discourses and keywords occur unusually frequently in each newspaper. Findings suggest that when it comes to framing, The Washington Post allows for a relatively balanced perspective on Obama as they both support and criticise him, while The Washington Times overwhelmingly condemns and attacks Obama. A keyword analysis points to unusually frequent discourses on race, conservatives and reforms in The Washington Post, and spending, unemployment and political institutions in The Washington Times. Because of their ideological differences the newspapers construct a reality where the subject, Obama, is presented in very different ways.

Undergraduate honors paper--Mount Holyoke College, 2005. Dept. of Religion. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 97-101).

The world of football has changed dramatically in recent years. At present the game has developed into something more than just a ball and a pitch, and the political aspects of football can not be underestimated. In terms of audience football is the biggest sport in the world, and the attention that the huge tournaments bring has become of major interest for authoritarian forces. During 2022 the world cup of football will be hosted by Qatar, and the controversies surrounding the tournament are many and have certainly caught the eye of the media. The aim of this study is to examine how Qatar as organizer of the world cup is portrayed in Swedish, American and Qatari news media based on the reporting on working conditions prior to the tournament. By implementing a discourse analysis inspired by Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau’s discourse theory we have analyzed how the arrangement is portrayed by examining choice of words, subjects, meaning and context in the chosen material. The content to be analyzed consists of articles from Aftonbladet, Washington Times and Gulf Times that have been selected by using a given time period and specific keywords. The results show that there are big differences in how Qatar is portrayed in news media from various parts of the world. Western media tends to portray Qatar as an authoritarian state with poor human rights and transparency in the process that surrounds working conditions leading up to the world cup. On the other hand, Qatari media attempts to produce an image of a groundbreaking tournament that has led to major improvements in developing labour legislation in Qatar and will be a historical event for the Middle East. The conclusions show that Swedish and American news media bases its reporting on Western values of a democracy  and how an organizer of a global event like the world cup should live up to these. The representation in the material from Aftonbladet and Washington Times indicates that Qatar does not live up to these values and ideals and is therefore an inappropriate organizer of the tournament. Qatari media respond to this criticism by defending their position as organizer of the world cup by highlighting the improvements that have been made due to the tournament and by trying to clarify that the information about horrible working conditions in the country is incorrect.