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Appearing in the news media is crucial for interest groups. When making a media presence, groups carefully frame their messages to push political processes in their preferred direction and to maintain organisational support. This article provides a cross-country comparison of the frames used by interest groups appearing in the news media. The article addresses the extent to which groups portray their demands as intended to further the interests of group members or other societal groups or to appeal to benefits to the economy or to the public at large. The analysis uses a dataset registering interest group appearances in the news media in Denmark and the UK. It includes 1,958 group appearances in two major UK newspapers and 3,284 appearances in two comparable Danish newspapers. Differences in frame use are demonstrated across the two countries; between different policy areas as well as between different types of interest groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The liberty of the press became one of the main topics of public debate in the 1720s and 1730s in response to Walpole’s restrictive press policy. This debate was carried on mainly in newspapers such as theCraftsmanand theLondon Journal. Country and Court writers did not limit their discussions to legal questions, but conducted a lively debate about what press freedom actually was, and what role the press should have in political life. Among other things, they discussed to what extent it was appropriate for the press to take on an anti-governmental role. This debate is important, not least because it is a foil for one of the ‘classical’ eighteenth-century texts on the problem of press freedom, David Hume’s essay ‘Of the Liberty of the Press’. The debate reveals to what extent, and in what respects, Hume was breaking new ground in this essay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilising critical discourse analysis with corpus-assisted methods of analysis, this study examines the representation of China by English-language newspapers in China versus media in the UK. The study focuses on the linguistic realisation of attitudinal meanings in news reports about the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) Initiative. A sample of news reports by China Daily and Financial Times, dated between March 2015 and March 2016, was collected. Assisted by the corpora and corpus software AntConc and ConcGram, the study first investigated themes from the headlines and key paragraphs in the corpora of China Daily and Financial Times and then compared the classification scheme of the lexis using the concordance lines of key concepts in the Belt and Road Initiative in the two corpora. It was found that China Daily, like other Chinese mainstream media, has attempted to emphasise the initiative's positive attributes and construct positive images of China as a peace-loving nation, an international cooperator, and an emerging global economic and responsible power. Images of China as represented in Financial Times are mixed and conflicting: on Utilising critical discourse analysis with corpus-assisted methods of analysis, this study examines the representation of China by English-language newspapers in China versus media in the UK. The study focuses on the linguistic realisation of attitudinal meanings in news reports about the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) Initiative. A sample of news reports by China Daily and Financial Times, dated between March 2015 and March 2016, was collected. Assisted by the corpora and corpus software AntConc and ConcGram, the study first investigated themes from the headlines and key paragraphs in the corpora of China Daily and Financial Times and then compared the classification scheme of the lexis using the concordance lines of key concepts in the Belt and Road Initiative in the two corpora. It was found that China Daily, like other Chinese mainstream media, has attempted to emphasise the initiative's positive attributes and construct positive images of China as a peace-loving nation, an international cooperator, and an emerging global economic and responsible power. Images of China as represented in Financial Times are mixed and conflicting: on the one hand, China is portrayed as having a significant impact on the global economy; on the other hand, images of China as an authoritarian state, a militant and obstructive force, and a geopolitical threat prevail. The paper concludes with a recommendation that China continues to develop a locally grounded and globally minded media practice, in parallel with its renewed efforts to underline the power of Chinese culture in national development and international politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Those suffering with food allergies and intolerances need to consider risk every day, and professional organisations are increasingly enrolled in this risk management venture (e.g. offering support, developing legislation, and enforcing laws). Following the release of new food allergen rules in the UK, theDaily Telegraph, a national broadsheet newspaper, published a letter and an article in March 2015 endorsed by 100 chefs criticising the legislation. The chefs felt that innovation and creativity were being harmed by the requirement to state the presence of 14 allergens in the dishes they cooked. Following the release, many food allergen-concerned consumers utilised social media to share their views. In this article we use qualitative research data, comments posted online and collected between 9 and 16 March 2015, to explore how claimants positioned themselves and others in the ensuing online debate, and how the debate itself was framed. The data included traditional news articles, online forum comments, individual Twitter posts, and Twitter discussions. We identified frames across the debate discourse that emphasised medical concerns around managing risks associated with food allergy/intolerance, the assignment of responsibility, fairness of access, the political nature of the debate, and the financial implications involved. We draw on Positioning Theory to illustrate how user-positions can be defined, redefined, and challenged in the light of new or varying information. Our findings have implications for understanding communication around managing food risks from both a consumer and business perspective, and understanding the progression of debates through both traditional and new media platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the theory of instrumental actualization in mediated conflicts, the mass media tend to exaggerate events consistent with the editorial line. This theory was tested using press coverage in Germany, Switzerland, France, and the United Kingdom on the Japanese seaquake, the tsunami it caused, and the nuclear disaster of Fukushima. Within a period of seven weeks after the seaquake, the coverage in the four countries in 27 national newspapers and magazines on the three events was analyzed. As hypothesized from theory, German and Swiss media concentrated on Fukushima and stressed its relevance to domestic nuclear plants, whereas French and British media placed a greater emphasis on the tsunami and rarely related the nuclear catastrophe in Japan to domestic nuclear programs. In addition, there were remarkable correlations between the views of journalists and the bias of statements on nuclear energy presented in their news sections. Findings are discussed and related to the theory of public opinion and political decisions in liberal democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents a quantitative examination of how newspaper articles in the UK, France and Italy most commonly frame immigration and migrants. A developing literature on the securitisation of policy and discourse related to migration suggests the prominence of this narrative, but the prevalence of this particular portrayal of migration has not been placed into comparative context through cross-country analysis of the relative prominence of various immigration-related issues. To test the securitisation thesis I tabulate not only security narratives in the press, but also economic ones, comparing the relative frequency of these two broader narratives. The results indicate that it would be premature to speak of a pre-eminent securitised meta-narrative within the European press. I find that overt references to physical threat or crime occur relatively infrequently, with only the mention of the border being more common. Instead, issues with economic implications, such as the labour market, asylum and fiscal costs, exhibit at least equal salience, though the degree to which the press grants attention to specific economic or security issues varies substantially between countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This research finds that the emergence of infographics as a regular phenomenon in UK news can be traced back toThe Daily Expressof the mid-1950s. These “Expressographs” were often used not as a means of conveying data accurately and objectively, but in order to propagate the paper's editorial line, and to further Lord Beaverbook's political interests. A series of editorial narratives are established via the literature onThe Daily Express, and its proprietor Lord Beaverbrook. These narratives are used as a framework to analyse statistical infographics published inThe Daily Expressbetween January 1956 and October 1959, by means of a combined content analysis and structural semiotic analysis. Best practice, as espoused in the information design literature, is used to identify misleading graphical methods in the sample, which were then analysed in the context of the editorial narratives identified. This study finds that infographics in UK news were the product of a lavishly financed organisation whose key decision-makers were deeply concerned with the impact of the visual in news. The purpose of these infographics was to perpetuate their employer's idiosyncratic view of how the world should be. Occupational norms and practices may account for some of the biases identified, but cannot account for the breadth, range and consistency of bias found across the sample, which constitutes an example of mid-twentieth-century propaganda. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Frederick Porter Wensley was one of Scotland Yard's ‘Big Four’ detectives, head of the Metropolitan Police Criminal Investigation Department and responsible for establishing the Flying Squad. On his retirement in 1929, he used the two bound scrapbooks of press clippings and photographs he had collated to document his personal life and career to inform his 1931 autobiographyDetective Daysand serialized press articles. Through examining the interaction of material between scrapbooks and autobiographical writings, this article explores how Wensley constructed his post-retirement persona as ‘celebrity detective’ from a canny understanding of what had made him a commercial subject for the press. It argues that Wensley recast his life to promote his own successes at the expense of a narrative of police unity, providing a vehicle for him to suggest further changes to the structure of the police force without official sanction. By juxtaposing this against tightening legislation on police communication with journalists during the inter-war period under the Official Secrets Acts, this article demonstrates how the ‘celebrity’ that Wensley sought to occupy was increasingly regarded as irreconcilable with police ability to effect ‘impartial’ regulation, anticipating the concerns raised by the 2012 Leveson Inquiry into the Culture, Practice and Ethics of the Press. The article thus charts a turning point in defining the relationship between police and press. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Calls for a referendum on UK's membership in the EU entered permanently into the political debate, and several surveys showed that many British citizens may like to leave the European community. This article examines the portrayal of the EU in the British press during the eurozone recession. It presents analysis of news sections in four newspapers: The Guardian, The Times, The Sun and The Daily Mail, which was conducted between November 2011 and July 2012. The research shows inaccuracies in the coverage of the eurozone crisis that lead to a very unfavourable portrayal of the EU as an artificial, undemocratic organisation dragging Britain and the world into financial problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we examine how and why the media construct food risks, from the perspective of ‘media actors’ (people involved in different types of media) using data from 30 interviews conducted in 2013 with media actors from Australia and the United Kingdom. In modern society, many risks are invisible and are brought to the attention of the public through representations in the mass media. This is particularly relevant for food safety, where the widening gap between producers and consumers in the developed world has increased the need for consumer trust in the food supply. We show the importance of newsworthiness in construction of media stories about food risk using Beck’s ideas on cosmopolitan risk to interpret the data. We note the ways in which the strategies that media actors use to construct stories about food risk amplify the risk posed potentially creating consumer anxiety about the safety of the food system. It is important for food regulators and public health professionals to be aware of this anxiety when presenting information about a food incident so that they can target their message accordingly to decrease anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]