23pgs, Media scholarship has commonly regarded newspapers as an essential element of strong democratic societies: a forum that structures public debate, providing engaged citizens with coherent frameworks to identify, interpret and tackle complex issues. Despite general agreement on the merits of this goal, there is little empirical evidence suggesting it approximates the democratic role historically played by newspapers. We examined three decades of newspaper coverage of chicken meat production in the UK to find evidence relevant to the normative expectations of the democratic role of newspapers as forum for public debate, by means of a two-stage framing analysis of 766 relevant articles from seven outlets. We found mutually disconnected episodic coverage of specific issues whose aggregate effect is consistent with the diffusion rather than the structuring of public debate. Newspapers here afforded polemic rather than the systemic contestation expected. The polemic contestation we found, with diffusion of public debate as an emergent political effect, troubles the assumptions subsequent to which it is possible to argue for the democratic role of newspapers.
13 pages., via online journal., News reporting on sustainability has been criticized for (1) having a limited
coverage of solutions, (2) reporting on solutions with a negative bias, (3)
being dominated by sources from government and mainstream
business, and (4) promoting frames that prioritize the role of the market
and techno-scientific solutions, which leave unchallenged the
unsustainable behavior of consumer societies and the focus on
economic growth. This study was the first to examine how sustainability
is reported in a constructive media outlet and found that articles (1)
consistently elaborated solutions, (2) described them in optimistic ways,
(3) quoted various sources, and (4) developed a frame that challenged
consumerism and critiqued society’s preoccupation with growth while
helping to imagine a desirable sustainable future. It is thus argued that
this novel, constructive approach to journalism can help move society to
a sustainable future by expanding the repertoire of culturally-resonant
stories to live by.