Concern about the representation of distant crises in the 1990s has been the subject of a developing literature, focusing on the relationships of the news system and policy formation. The war in Bosnia was probably the most intensely and extensively reported of the decade, said to have affected the public conscience like no other. However, the precise effects of coverage are much disputed and there has been no detailed, systematic analysis of media representation so far against which this possible influence can be assessed. This study presents the results of a systematic examination of British TV news representation of the war. It aims to answer the question:h ow did the British TV news system describe and frame the war in Bosnia? The study tests the hypothesis that British media obfuscated key questions in the war. It is proposed that this may have made effective intervention in support of Bosnia and its people less likely. The main focus of this inquiry is to assess the accuracy of the TV representation of war and genocide in Bosnia, against a detailed historical account of those events. Secondary questions focus on what inferences can be made from the representation about the context of its production, and about its consumption. Through layered combination of several content analytic techniques,T V news( and broadsheet newspaper) reports from a key period of the war (April to August 1992) are used to describe the framing of the war with the aim of reaching conclusion about its accuracy.I n the light of this representations one potential political effects are discussed. The study has one main conclusion. That is that there were key inaccuracies in the reporting in the period under consideration, particularly regarding Serbia's aggressive war and genocide against the people and state of Bosnia. It is argued from this primary finding that these inaccuracies may have had significant implications for the effects of media coverage on policy.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:536641 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Kent, Gregory |
| Publisher | University of Sussex |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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