News as business: the global financial crisis and Occupy movement in the Wall Street Journal

Abstract

This article examines a leading US business newspaper's coverage of the global financial crisis (GFC) and Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the most influential international business newspaper with a global audience, is used as a case study. Although the GFC and OWS are closely related, we found significant differences in the way that they were reported in business news. Specifically, we found divergent frames in the WSJ's coverage: an ‘institutional’ framing of the GFC starkly differs from a ‘hegemonic’ framing of OWS. We relate this framing divergence to (1) the instability and inconsistencies in journalism's ‘occupational ideology’ and (2) the challenges social movements encounter in influencing public discourse.

Keywords:

• framing analysis
• Wall Street Journal
• global financial crisis
• Occupy Wall Street

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Aziz Douai

Aziz Douai (Ph.D. in Mass Communications, Pennsylvania State University) is an Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada. His research focuses on new media and activism, Arab media and democracy, global media and international conflict, among other areas of international communications. He is the co-editor of New media influence on social and political change in Africa (IGI-Global, 2013), and the Managing Editor of the American Communication Journal. In addition to contributing to several books, Dr. Douai's publications have appeared in several journals including Canadian Journal of Communication, Journal of International Communication, Global Media Journal, Arab Reform Bulletin, International Communication Research Journal, and Journal of Computer Mediated Communication. He can be reached at [email protected].

Terry Wu

Terry Wu is Professor of Business at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada. His research focuses on international marketing, globalization, and trade policy. His research has been published in many academic journals including Journal of Marketing Management, International Marketing Review, Management International Review, Columbia Journal of World Business, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, International Journal of Internet and Enterprise Management, and Journal of World Trade.