Coverage of the Third World by the media in the developed Western nations has been a subject of intense debate among scholars since the 1970s. Some of the outspoken media critics have pointed to certain imbalances in Western media reporting on some parts of the world, including African countries. Such imbalances range from inadequate coverage to emphasis on crisis news events. Other critics argue, however, that Western news reporting on African countries, for example, is crisis-oriented because that is the kind of news those countries offer to the media given the recurrence of various forms of crises there. The 1984-85 Ethiopian famine was one such crisis that received extensive coverage in the Western media. Criticisms of this coverage served to fuel a growing concern among African and other intellectuals, particularly about one aspect of Western media reporting: the failure of those media to put into adequate context African events on which they report. Some critics have pointed out, for example, that although environmental decline is a major underlying cause of famine in Africa, it does not receive attention in Western media coverage of this recurring crisis. This is in spite of the pioneering role of the latter in the promotion of environmental issues in the West as a major social and political concern. From a much broader perspective, however, it appears that the case of imbalanced reporting on Africa in the Western media is not an isolated one. A number of studies on news reporting suggests that the criticism of imbalances in Western news reporting may have more to do with the nature of Western news values than with a wilful attempt on the part of the Western media to report on particular countries in those terms. Thus reporting on African countries by the Western media could be one typical example in which standard Western news practices come into full play. Against this background, the present study sought to investigate Western media coverage of Africa as viewed in terms of the application of Western news values. First, using qualitative analyses of relevant literature, the study undertook a contextualisation of crisis events in African countries, with special reference to famines, by identifying environmental degradation as a crucial factor in the unfolding of such crises. This included explanations for the apparent neglect of African environmental issues by Western media. Discussion on the environment was set in a wider context of a global environmental crisis. The qualitative analyses also examined the issue of imbalances, such as the focus on crisis and the lack of context, in Western media coverage of Africa. This was explored within a theoretical framework that encapsulates aspects of the political economy of the mass media, political ideological differences, and culture as some of the theoretical propositions used by some media researchers to explain imbalances in international news flow. Second, the study used the quantitative research technique of content analysis to carry out a longitudinal investigation of reporting on African countries in general during 1982-87 as well as a case study of the 1984-85 Ethiopian famine by three Western dailies: The Times of London, the New York Times, and the Sydney Morning Herald. An IAMCR (International Association for Mass Communication Research) coding scheme was adopted for this purpose. With regard to the qualitative analyses, the study found that even though environmental decline is a major underlying cause of many of Africa's ongoing and recurring crises such as famines, it may not receive attention in Western media reporting on those crises. This appears to be because the nature of Africa's environmental problems does not meet Western news value criteria. As regards the content analyses, the study found, in both the longitudinal and case studies, a dearth of reporting in all three dailies on African environmental issues and an orientation towards reporting events as discrete events, with little or no attention to underlying or contextual information. Crisis and non-crisis events in Africa were found to be, however, equally reported in most of the sample years studied in two of the three dailies. The focus of reporting on the Ethiopian famine was found to be on Western relief activities and on the bizarre or sensational side of the disaster - aspects of reporting that fit into standard Western news practices.

In this paper I present a discourse analysis on the narrative and depiction of the Russia developmental, diplomatic, and military cooperation advancements in the African continent in Western media, and its consequences on the general public. Through the analysis of 31 articles from 8 different newspapers from Italy, Sweden, the UK, and the US, and through the theoretical lens of theories of Western media and the phenomenon of othering and orientalism, I reach the conclusion that Western narrative regarding Russia’s advancements in Africa changes based on whether Russia is perceived as succeeding or failing, with a constant undertext that the West is not happy about eventual deepening relations between Russia and the continent. This narrative is reinforced by the use of othering, however othering is used in a strategical way, based on what the author wants to convey.

This paper retraces the transformative journey I went on as a media-maker in Liberia. I talk about my expectations before landing in Liberia and how my prejudices were confronted and transformed. I explain how I first worked with a family and later made a movie about their lives. I discuss the many questions raised by me, as a Westerner, making media in and about one of sub-Saharan Africa's poorest countries. Using personal experiences and observations, as well as, academic studies about media coverage of Africa, I argue that the Western media fails to reasonably cover Africa. I ask media-makers, specifically Western media-makers, to do something about it. I suggest that media-makers look for stories beyond those that continue to make the headlines, and develop a brand new, more balanced approach when creating media in foreign settings, particularly in Africa.

Previous research on framing has proved its strong effects on the social perception and political preferences of individuals. Therefore, the aim of this research is to explore how Saudi women's issues have been framed in a sample of United States and Saudi newspapers. Saudi Vision 2030 is the post-oil plan for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that was announced on April 25, 2016. The sample of this thesis was 300 news stories from eight newspapers. The U.S. newspapers were the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times. The Saudi newspapers were Al Riyadh, Okaz, Al Jazirah, and Al Watan. This thesis explores how these issues have been covered before and after Saudi Vision 2030 by answering five basic questions. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to analyze the news stories. For the quantitative analysis, five pre-defined generic frames from Semetko and Valkenburg were adopted: conflict frame, human interest frame, morality frame, economic consequences frame, and responsibility frame. An inductive approach to find the new frames was used for the qualitative analysis. Moreover, this thesis looked at how U.S. and Saudi newspapers have visually framed Saudi women through an analysis of the types of images used in the news stories related to Saudi women's issues. The main finding suggests that within the used frames in the newspapers, the U.S. newspapers focused more on the human-interest frame, while the Saudi newspapers mostly used the economic frame. Furthermore, the types of issues covered are discussed.

Previous studies have shown that Western media often show the wrong picture of what happened during the genocide in Rwanda 1994. What is described in the news reporting is explained as a new civil war between the two different ethnic groups hutu and tutsi. The hate between these ethnic groups is described as an age-old hate that continually inflates to battles between these two different ethnic groups. The genocide witnessed by the entire international community and received no direct help from the outside world. The UN allowed people to kill each other with machetes, shoot each other and brutally and cold blooded murder others because they belong to the wrong ethnic group. Going into the UN's actions is very interesting and something I am thinking of doing in the future, but this essay focuses on two different issues: how was the genocide in Rwanda portrayed by Western media and did the Western image reflects the domestic image of the Rwanda genocide? The result is that Western media initially showed the wrong picture of what preceded in Rwanda. But when the newspapers sent their own cross-ministers, the conflict and the various players in the conflict were clarified.

In February of 2022, Putin invaded Ukraine, leaving many people displaced. When the war broke out, it received widespread international condemnation and was subject to bias from state officials, news outlets and civilians. State officials reacted favorably, expressing a   desire to support Ukraine and impose sanctions on Russia. The invasion brought millions of refugees seeking safety from the conflict to EU member states, resulting in neighbouring countries admitting every single Ukrainian that reaches their territory. Revealing western media's true colors. This thesis employs a Discourse Analysis to examine western media's bigotry language and portrayal towards non-Ukrainians while covering the Ukrainian conflict. Poststructuralism theory will be applied to comprehend the media’s racial undertones in its depiction of the conflict. I argue the prevalent western hypocrisy in media coverage. The findings of the thesis reveal the existence of biased and racist rhetoric language used by western media.

This bachelor thesis is conducted as a Minor Field Study (MFS) in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between journalism and politics from three questions at issue: 1) What is the role of media according to the journalists? 2) How do journalists work with political reporting in the Sri Lankan print media? 3) How does print media and politics correspond to each other in Sri Lanka?. The theoretical framework consists of theories onmedia systems, democracy models, the notion of the public sphere, media during elections and types of regulations. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 informants, both editors and journalists, at eight different editorial offices. The newspapers at which the informants were employed were either state-owned or privately owned. The qualitative material was transcribed and analysed using thematisation and meaning concentration to reveal patterns, attitudes and opinions. The analysis is divided into two major sections; 'Media's Role in the Society' and 'Media and Politics'. The first section investigates the first question at issue. Informing and educating people are valued as important responsibilities amongst the informants. Media is considered to be powerful in terms of affecting both people and politicians, although, some reservations are made. The second section examines the second and third questions at issue. The ideal execution of political reportage includes notions of neutrality, fairness, balance and unbiased reporting. In reality this is not necessarily accomplished. The state newspapers seem to report on behalf of the government in a positive and uncritical way. Private newspapers consider themselves to be more independent, but political ties and restrictions can disable their independence. Tendencies towards clientelism, political parallelism and instrumentalization are noted in the media environment. Sensitive, political news is often self-censored by journalists due to fear of consequences. In 'Conclusions and Discussion' the questions at issue are connected to each other in an attempt to discuss the complex relationship between journalism and politics in Sri Lanka.

This thesis aims to explain the role of media reports in the situation of wars and conflicts where the Ukrainian/Russian war will be the focus. Since the Ukrainian war has become the most global political debate worldwide because it has transferred from a national crisis to a geopolitical conflict, it becomes necessary to observe how different media has portrayed this war. It is a comparative desk study based on the discourse analysis method. The methodological framework is qualitative research because it seeks after a specific war by collecting and analysing different sources. The comparative research design gives depth answers to the four research questions identified. The discourse analysis method uses the collected news articles from two online newspapers, Al Jazeera and the Guardian. The first one is written in Arabic and the second one in English, giving a comprehensive view of the Ukrainian/Russian war. The selected news articles are limited to only the first week of the war because of the intensive reports presented by the media to understand the reason behind the war. The thesis uses abductive reasoning, while the securitization theory is used as the theoretical framework to highlight how the Ukrainian/Russian war has been securitized in different contexts. The results show that Al Jazeera and the Guardian have portrayed the war differently; the selected news articles from the Guardian have succeeded in a securitization process where it considered the Ukrainian/Russian war a threat to western security that has pushed the government leaders to security acts. On the other hand, the Arab media portrayed the Russian invasion as a security threat to Ukraine’s presence.

大學生是一群熱切使用媒體和科技的世界公民，他們特別會透過新媒體接觸來自整個地球村的大量資訊。大學生可以透過學校課程與活動、與國際學生社群互動以及到國外旅行都是其中的管道。本研究援引社會建構理論與涵化理論，以質性研究探討台灣大學生的人口變項、與非洲接觸行為、西方媒體使用、世界主義意識以及媒體呈現偏誤之察覺與台灣大學生對非洲刻板印象建構之間的關係。 線上問卷收集共215位台灣大學生有效樣本。研究顯示非洲接觸行為與媒體呈現偏誤之察覺，皆與刻板印象認同呈現正相關。 / University students are some of the more cosmopolitan groups in society, as voracious consumers of media and technology, especially new media, and exposed to a plethora of information about the global community. University courses, interaction with the international student communities, events on-campus and opportunities to travel abroad are some of the avenues available to them. Using quantitative analysis, this study examined the relationships between demographic and contact variables, Western media exposure, cosmopolitanism and perceived bias of media portrayals and its effect on Taiwanese university students’ endorsement of stereotypes of Africa. The research framework is informed by the theory of social construction of reality and the cultivation theory. Using an online survey, data was collected and analyzed from a sample of 215 Taiwanese university students. The analysis reveals that contact with Africa and perceived bias of media portrayals have the most significant influence on stereotype endorsement.