Karin Raeymaeckers

Letters to the Editor: A Feedback Opportunity Turned into a Marketing Tool An Account of Selection and Editing Practices in the Flemish Daily Press

Letters to the editor are valuable tools improving feedback procedures for traditional print media, placing topics that occupy the public at large on the public agenda. In this article, the results of research on selection procedures and editing practices in Flemish newsrooms are presented. In addition to content analysis of published letters in several Flemish newspapers and in-depth interviews of the editors-in-chief, the study includes some qualitative, innovative and creative research techniques. In an attempt to analyse objectively the selection procedures, the researcher wrote more than 100 letters to the newspapers’ editorial offices. The outcome of this part of the study offers a thought-provoking insight into the selection criteria as well as the editing of the letters section.

Research Note: Young People and Patterns of Time Consumption in Relation to Print Media

This article evaluates trends in young peoples reading habits. In order to get a better understanding of reading habits, the article compares the results of comparative and longitudinal research with results of time budget analysis studies. In accordance with the principle of displacement, time consumption analysis confirms a relationship between television viewing time and reading time, although many variables are influential in this process. Time budget analysis also indicates that the decline in reading time has not been equal across different print media. The article presents the results of a research project that combined qualitative and quantitative research techniques to analyse the media usage of Flemish 16-to 18-year-olds. The results demonstrate that reading is influenced by many different variables, among which socializing variables are the strongest. The hypothesis that television viewing time has a negative effect on reading time has to be differentiated since the results show a different relationship between viewing time and the reading of books, magazines and newspapers respectively.

To Read or Not to Read Can Policy Support the Future Reader Market? A Flemish Case Study

For some time European newspaper markets have been confronted with decreasing circulation and readership figures. Research focused on patterns of consumption reveals that young people in particular spend less time reading newspapers. Since 2003, the government in Flanders has supported the Newspapers in Education programme in search of more qualitative and long-term alternatives to press subsidy, aimed at the preservation of the future readership market. As a result, the government and Flemish newspaper publishers distribute almost 1 million newspaper copies to schools every year. Each school year, approximately 100,000 students participate in the Newspapers in Education project. Over the years the financial support has grown and recently the Flemish government decided to substantially increase its contribution to γ1.2 million, which will make it possible to expand the target group considerably, beyond the original focus on 16- to 18-year-olds. The research presented in this article analyses the shifts in pre and post test design survey results of the participants who took part in the Newspaper in Education project between February and May 2005.

Newspaper editors in search of young readers: content and layout strategies to win new readers

Newspaper editors have to confront declining sales figures while research reveals that this decline is more notable among readers from younger age groups. Consequently, editors have tried to attract young readers by revising content, changing aspects of layout, or by editing special youth inserts and supplements. This paper reports the findings of research which analyzes reading behavior and attitudes towards newspapers among a representative sample of 1200 16–18‐year‐old Belgian students. The results indicate the degree to which the different editorial strategies match the desires of young readers. The paper concludes that content shifts offer the best chances for increasing readership: more attention to local news, extra background information and easier language help to reduce the gap between newspapers and young readers. Adolescents indicate their desire to be treated as mature partners in the communication process and therefore reject a layout that is merely innovative or flashy. Youth inserts seem to be valuable tools to attract readers under the age of 16.

Towards more balanced news access? A study on the impact of cost-cutting and Web 2.0 on the mediated public sphere

In order to assess the impact of cost-cutting and digitalization on the expansion or contraction of the mediated public sphere, we developed a quantitative and longitudinal content analysis focused on sourcing practices for foreign news reporting in four Belgian newspapers (1995–2010). The results show little to no shift in the news access of different types of sources. Political sources dominate foreign news output, but ordinary citizens also play a significant role. Although it becomes clear that Belgian journalists often do not explicitly mention their use of news agency copy, recycled news articles or PR material, our findings indicate that concerns about cost-cutting in newsrooms or sanguinity about the democratic potential of Web 2.0 seem exaggerated, at least in the Belgian context.

THE PRINTED RISE OF THE COMMON MAN

Journalists have traditionally focused on a small range of elite sources. Far less attention went to ordinary or common people, resulting in little visibility for that community in news output. However, bottom-up Web 2.0 technologies have given common people new communication tools, allowing them to disperse information autonomously. This has made traditional news media aware of a public desire for bottom-up participation in the news production process. Accordingly, some news media have begun to offer their own participation features. Bearing this context in mind, we address the question whether Web 2.0 has helped increase the visibility and importance of the common people in daily news output. Via a content analysis of five Flemish newspapers, the current representation of ordinary citizens is compared to a decade ago, before the appearance Web 2.0. The analysis shows that citizens appear more prominently in the news nowadays.

Framing the First and Second Intifada: A Longitudinal Quantitative Research Design Applied to the Flemish Press:

Frame analysis, based on the hybrid frame concept, has proved difficult to translate into a comparative, replicable and longitudinal research design. This article seeks to place the study of media frames in a wider theoretical framework with special interest for the various methods of empirical research. The article focuses on a further operationalization of the law and order frame and the injustice and defiance frame as introduced by Wolfsfeld. For this purpose, different framing and reasoning devices are ascertained and applied to the study of the coverage of the First and Second Intifada in the Flemish press. While its emphasis lies on the empirical testing of a framing research tool, this article also aims to broaden empirical data on the coverage of the Intifada beyond the American, British and Israeli media context.

HEROES IN THE SPORTS PAGES: The troubled road to victory for Belgian cyclist Tom Boonen

Concepts such as myth and archetype offer interesting opportunities for research on media content. Both concepts, however, have very diffuse definitions and operationalizations stemming from specific fields of application. As a result, the concepts of myth and archetype have proved difficult to translate into a transparent and replicable research design to study journalistic output. This paper aims at a thorough operationalization of the hero myth/archetype. The hero archetype will be explored in detail as it is one of the most common archetypal narratives. The archetypal hero journey is translated by developing an operational hero grid in which the archetypal hero narrative is classified in nine sequences and three constituent components. The Flemish press coverage of cyclist Tom Boonen is analyzed to test empirically the developed research tool. While the emphasis of this paper lies on the empirical testing of this research tool, it also aims to broaden empirical data on the coverage of sport figures in the press. Results clearly show myth at work in the newspaper reporting on Tom Boonen.

Bias in the News? The Representation of Palestinians and Israelis in the Coverage of the First and Second Intifada

/ Various authors on the media coverage of the Israeli—Palestinian conflict assert that it is biased and unbalanced. This study focuses on the representation of the First and Second Intifada in Flemish daily newspapers. It combines a content analysis with in-depth interviews with journalists to investigate any imbalance and bias in favour of the Israeli point of view. The results reveal a certain evolution and some divergence in the coverage of the two Intifadas. The study shows that while some variables are in favour of the Israeli point of view, others clearly reflect the Palestinian perspective. The study therefore does not support the hypothesis of a pro-Israeli bias in Flemish daily newspapers. They are found to cover the First and Second Intifada in a rather balanced way, in contrast to the conclusions reached by other international studies on the coverage of the Israeli— Palestinian conflict.

Bottlenecks in the coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the coverage of the first and second intifada in the Flemish press

Various authors suggest that the public’s knowledge of the Israeli—Palestinian conflict is inadequate. As it is generally accepted that public opinion on international news items is mainly formed by media content, the international media are often held responsible for sustaining the prevailing misconceptions about the Israeli—Palestinian conflict by covering the conflict parties in a biased and imbalanced way. This study focuses on the representation of Israelis and Palestinians in the news coverage of the first and second intifada by the Flemish press. By way of a content analysis, evolutions and discrepancies in the coverage of both intifadas are described in a longitudinal analytical perspective. The authors conclude that the portrayal of the Palestinian actors shifts from a rather positive view during the first intifada period to a more critical portrayal during the period of the second intifada. At the same time, there is an opposite move in the representation of the Israeli actors in the conflict. Although our results show differences in the distinct portrayals, they do not provide sufficient evidence to conclude unequivocally that the coverage of the first and second intifada is unbalanced. Indeed, the authors find that while some variables definitely favour the Israeli point of view (e.g. the use of sources), others clearly sustain the Palestinian side (e.g. the individualization of victims). In other words, the Flemish dailies cover the first and second intifada in quite a balanced way, contrary to what international studies on the coverage of the Israeli—Palestinian conflict have concluded regarding the media in different national settings.