VALUES IN THE NEWS

Abstract

The presence of values in political speeches and how those values are depicted by journalists in the news are important factors contributing towards the formation of public opinion. A content analysis of online news articles from 10 countries spanning a decade was conducted to investigate these factors and how they differ between developed and developing countries. Combining the Basic Human Values Model with the concept of journalism practices of developed and developing countries, we found that although the top four values were the same for both developed and developing countries, further analysis revealed some significant differences. We also found significant differences in terms of the tone attached to those values which imply that although the journalists of developed and developing countries select similar values, they depict them differently due to the differences in journalism practices in particular parts of the world.

Keywords:

• basic human values
• developed/developing countries
• journalism practice
• news coverage
• political speeches

Notes

1. There were no other restrictions imposed on the article selection. Internationally wired articles and those written by journalists other than those of the respective newspapers were also included. We argue that these articles also reflect the culture and norms of our sample countries as well as their respective editorial policies.

2. Examples of how values and tone were coded: Example 1: “Vajpayee also mocked Musharraf's shrill attempt during his US visit to seek parity with India saying ‘he should not confuse the legitimate aspiration for equality of nations with outmoded concepts of military parity’.” The motivation for Vajpayee's (source) statement (“he should not confuse …”) is to correct or to criticize to show his authority. The value assigned is power. The tone between the source and power is negative because he intended to correct another leader's actions in public. Therefore, the assigned tone is “ 1”. Example 2: “US President George W Bush on Tuesday promised world leaders fearful of a global economic meltdown that Washington would implement a financial bailout package ‘in the urgent timeframe required’.” The motivation for this is to ensure world leaders. We associate this to benevolence. The predicate for this paragraph is “promised world leaders …”. The tone between the source (Bush) and benevolence is positive because the source promises to put in effort to make things better. Therefore, the assigned tone is “ + 1”.

3. The following inter-coder reliability scores are only of variables which were difficult to code. Variables which were more objective (e.g. country of message source, date of news articles, etc.) were not reported; the inter-coder reliability for those variables were perfect (Krippendorff's α = 1.00). Inter-coder reliability for value presence (Krippendorff's α are shown): power = 0.54, achievement = 0.84, hedonism = 0.77, stimulation = 0.58, self-direction = 0.68, universalism = 0.79, benevolence = 0.84, tradition = 0.86, conformity = 0.80, and security = 0.77. Inter-coder reliability for the journalists' depiction of values expressed in Krippendorff's α: power = 0.53, achievement = 0.93, hedonism = 0.64, stimulation = 0.54, self-direction = 0.42, universalism = 0.66, benevolence = 0.42, tradition = 0.87, conformity = 0.95, and security = 0.86.

4. At the article level, the top four values that were most present for developed countries were stimulation (90.5 percent), self-direction (86.2 percent), universalism (72.2 percent), and power (66.8 percent). The top four values that were most present for developing countries were: stimulation (97.4 percent), self-direction (82.3 percent), power (79.2 percent), and universalism (69.4 percent). Although there were similarities in the top four values, Pearson's Chi-square tests showed significant differences between the two types of countries for “power” which was more present in news coverage of developing countries compared to developed ones (79.2 percent versus 66.8 percent), χ ² (1, N=635) = 11.94, p <0.001.

5. Analyses for the value presence were also conducted for individual newspapers and countries. Results were similar to those of the aggregated level of developed and developing countries.

6. At the article level, the tone used to express “stimulation” was more positive for the news coverage of political speeches in developed countries (mean=1.00, SD=0.03) compared to those of developing ones (mean = 0.98, SD=0.14), t(567) = 2.64, p <0.0. There was no significant difference between news coverage of developed and developing countries for “self-direction”, “power”, and “achievement”. Analysis also shows that the tone used to express “universalism” in the news coverage of developing countries were more positive (mean = 0.85, SD=0.46) compared to those of developed countries (mean = 0.75, SD=0.57), t(438) = 2.18, p <0.05.