(Page 1 of 37) - International Newspaper Coverage of Muslim Immigration since September 11, 2001: A Community Structure Approach authored by Wright, Joshua., Pollock, John., Giovenco, Daniel., DiMarco, Garrett., Dato, Amanda. and Holmes, April-Crystal.

International Newspaper Coverage of Muslim Immigration since September 11, 2001

FULL ABSTRACT

International Newspaper Coverage of Muslim Immigration: A Community Structure Approach

A study compared hypotheses connecting variations in international demographics with

differences in international newspaper coverage of Muslim immigration using an extended form
of the “community structure approach” for researching, which has been developed in nationwide
and international studies by Pollock and others (1977, 1978, 1994-2002, 2007). As offspring of
the family of structural/functional systems theories, the community structure approach does not
ask a classic research question about the impact of media coverage on society. Rather, the
community structure approach quantitatively investigates the influence of social factors on media
coverage.

An international sample of 15 newspapers representing every major populated region of

the world was acquired from NewsBank and Lexis Nexis.  Three hundred and seventy articles of
250 words or more were selected from September 11, 2001 to September 11, 2007 (the sixth
anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks) and analyzed using content and statistical analyses.  A
“prominence” score representing placement, length, headline size and presence of photographs
or graphics, and a “direction” (favorable, unfavorable, or neutral) were assigned to each article -
Scott’s Pi was used as a test of inter-coder reliability.  A special standardized method for scoring
headline sizes was created to enable more valid scoring given the limitations of current news
databases.     Article   prominence   scores   and   directions   were   combined   to   yield   a   positive   or
negative   “Media   Vector”   for   each   newspaper.     Theme   analysis   revealed   that   “Muslim
immigrants as invaders,” “Muslims as victims,” East-West relationship improvement” and “East-
West relationship deterioration” were common themes in coverage and suitable candidates for
secondary frames.  Articles were thus coded for direction two more times, using Victim-Neutral-
Invader,   and   Improvement-Neutral-Deterioration   schemes.     Special   media   vectors   were
computed for each of these secondary frame sets.  Pearson correlations and regressions revealed
links between national characteristics and coverage for two of the three frame sets.

The nations’ media vectors ranged from 0.3362 to -0.5984 for the Favorable-Neutral-

Unfavorable coding scheme; from 0.1952 to -0.2154 for the Victims-Neutral-Invaders scheme;
and   from   0.2044   to   -0.5124   for   the   Improvement-Neutral-Deterioration   scheme.     Pearson
correlation results revealed that two clusters of characteristics had significant relationships to
newspaper   coverage   of   Muslim   immigration   for   the   Favorable-Neutral-Unfavorable   and
Victims-Neutral-Invaders   schemes.     Privilege   (e.g.,   Favorable-Neutral-Unfavorable:   Terawatt
Hours of Electricity per 1 Million Residents; r = .-0.663, p = .004) and Vulnerability (e.g.,
Victims-Neutral-Invaders:  r  =  -0.615;  p =  .005)  variables  were  strong correlates  of  Muslim
immigration coverage; ultimately, twenty-two significant demographic variables in these clusters
were   identified.   “Terawatt   Hours   of   Electricity   per   1   Million   Residents”   yielded   the   most
significant result for both schemes.  Regression analysis found that this variable accounted for
43.9% of the variance in Favorable-Neutral-Unfavorable reporting, and 62.1% of the variance in
Victims-Neutral-Invaders reporting. The particularly notable power of demographic variables
related to energy consumption and production suggests a new community structure hypothesis
linking “consumption and sustainability” variables and international coverage.