Title:
|
Media accuracy and the effects of framing in distant crises : British television news representation of the war in Bosnia
|
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.
|