The media play an important role in society. They interpret political events, actions, policies, and scandals in a manner that citizens can understand. The media use frames to assist in interpretations and descriptions. They may create their own frames or use frames supplied by the political elites. Frames can also lead to biased coverage when used to omit details or present someone in a favorable or unfavorable manner.
This study examines the frames the media used during the coverage of President George W. Bushs first political scandal, the Plame Game. On July 14, 2003, Robert Novak exposed the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame in his syndicated editorial column. Over the next five years the media followed the Plame Game scandal using frames to describe the actors and their actions.
A content analysis of three national newspapers shows that the media did use frames in their coverage of this political scandal. The media used frames they created and some that political elites gave them through interviews and press releases. Over the five years, the frames associated with each actor in the Plame Game did change. Even though some individual articles are biased in their coverage of the actors in the scandal, statistical results prove that the cumulative coverage of the Plame Game was balanced. This means that an equal number of positive and negative frames were used to describe each actor and their actions over the course of five years.
Little research deals with media framing of political scandals. The results of this study can aid in future research of political scandal framing, and can extend the already existing wealth of framing research.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-04142009-113817 |
| Date | 14 April 2009 |
| Creators | Albrecht, Misty Dawn |
| Contributors | Postelnicu, Monica, Izard, Ralph, Nelson, Richard |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04142009-113817/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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