Extended Abstract 12
through December 2001. 146 articles from four U.S. major newspapers and 53 articles
from two New Jersey-based newspapers were analyzed in comparison with 40 news
stories from alternative press. The unit of analysis was each news story.
Looking into primary themes, topics, editorial stance, and main sources, thematic
categories for coding were developed; they are based upon previous research results and
a pilot study, which analyzed 16 major, six local, and five alternative paper articles
(About 10% of all articles were analyzed in the pilot study). The coding scheme (five
different primary themes) was constructed to explore how each type of U.S. newspaper
systematically frames news stories on the African AIDS and patent issue. Here, it is
theoretically assumed that almost every news story has a dominant “frame” to guide it in
a specific direction and that framing is defined as the primary theme (Konick, 2003).
Three coders, including the author, coded 16 major, six local, and five alternative paper
articles, which were not used for the pilot study, for the inter-coder reliability check. And
a considerable degree of inter-coder reliability (>. 85) was achieved. Then the author
used the coding scheme for a qualitative, interpretative, and critical thematic analysis of
all the collected news stories.
Convention