Framing analysis in a transitional media context: Critical remarks
Over the past ten years or so, framing analysis has become an increasingly popular method in the assessment of journalistic content and processes. While earlier approaches in the field tended to focus on individual frames in the analysis (i.e. ‘frame analysis’), recent approaches are more inclusive and takes into consideration the entire production process in the analysis rather than simply looking at the mediated text itself (thus representing a shift to ‘framing analysis’). Central to the latter approach is Scheufele’s (1999, 2000) frame-building concept, which demands an assessment of both organizational factors of the media system and individual characteristics of journalists when considering how these conditions have an impact on the emergent media content. Notably, conventional framing analysis presupposes a liberal media framework, whereby individual journalists are assumed significant influence in the production process.
On this basis, the purpose of the present paper is to interrogate the application of conventional approaches to framing analysis within a transitional media context. The chosen context is Ethiopia, where the government retains substantial control with journalistic production. Through an in-depth analysis of a documentary series produced by the state-owned broadcaster Ethiopian Television (ETV), the study points to two methodological concerns with framing analysis. Firstly, with regard to the notion of frame-building, an assessment of the documentary and its preceding production process suggests that the impact of journalists and the professional environment is vastly overestimated in conventional approaches to framing analysis. In Ethiopian media production, the authority of the individual journalist is significantly minimized in comparison with structural and organizational factors. This calls for an important reconsideration of professional autonomy and restraints in light of the local media context.
Secondly, the analysis of the documentary’s rhetoric demonstrates that its role and function as a mediated text must be expounded not in isolation, as is sometimes the case in frame studies, but towards the societal surroundings and the public perception. Even though the concerned ETV documentary series was found to contain propagandistic features when judged against common criteria, it stirred critical debate among media leaders and the general public alike. This epitomizes the importance of evaluating the argumentative function of a media text in relation to the conditions of the particular media society in which it operates rather than solely considering it on the basis of textual analysis.
These findings, I will argue, indicate that established frame-building methodology entails a conceptual inclination which makes it more compatible with liberal, Western media environments than with the conditions of a transitional media society such as Ethiopia.
On this basis, the purpose of the present paper is to interrogate the application of conventional approaches to framing analysis within a transitional media context. The chosen context is Ethiopia, where the government retains substantial control with journalistic production. Through an in-depth analysis of a documentary series produced by the state-owned broadcaster Ethiopian Television (ETV), the study points to two methodological concerns with framing analysis. Firstly, with regard to the notion of frame-building, an assessment of the documentary and its preceding production process suggests that the impact of journalists and the professional environment is vastly overestimated in conventional approaches to framing analysis. In Ethiopian media production, the authority of the individual journalist is significantly minimized in comparison with structural and organizational factors. This calls for an important reconsideration of professional autonomy and restraints in light of the local media context.
Secondly, the analysis of the documentary’s rhetoric demonstrates that its role and function as a mediated text must be expounded not in isolation, as is sometimes the case in frame studies, but towards the societal surroundings and the public perception. Even though the concerned ETV documentary series was found to contain propagandistic features when judged against common criteria, it stirred critical debate among media leaders and the general public alike. This epitomizes the importance of evaluating the argumentative function of a media text in relation to the conditions of the particular media society in which it operates rather than solely considering it on the basis of textual analysis.
These findings, I will argue, indicate that established frame-building methodology entails a conceptual inclination which makes it more compatible with liberal, Western media environments than with the conditions of a transitional media society such as Ethiopia.
Publisert i Paper presented at the 4th European Communication Conference (ECREA), Istanbul, Turkey, 2012
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