Exploring national culture through international media The publication of a viral pro-LGBT image compared against a nation’s wealth, level of religion, and democracy
Abstract
Gay marriage is now legal in 22 countries around the world. However, homosexual acts remain punishable by death in 10 countries and are now illegal in a further 65 countries. Thus, there appears to be very clear national cultural distinctions in how local cultures consider the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. In 2016, an image of a 12-year-old boy who stood against a sea of anti-LGBT marriage protesters in Celaya, Mexico went ‘viral’ around the world as an icon for LGBT rights. This research will examine newspapers from a sample of 17 countries to see where this particular pro-LGBT image was used. This research asks the question, what is the relationship between the publication of this image and a country’s level of democracy, wealth and religion – socio-economic factors that have been found to be correlated to the acceptance of LGBT rights. The findings of this research could potentially suggest the presence of ideological biases at the national level in regards to how international news stories are told and also which news stories are even addressed. These factors may help to coalesce into a cultural perspective unique to each country examined
Full text article
References
Administrador Regeneración. (2016a). Niño enfrenta a multitud que protestaba contra matrimonios igualitarios. Retrieved from http://regeneracion.mx/nino-enfrenta-a-multitud-que-protesta-contra-matrimonios-igualitarios/
Administrador Regeneración. (2016b). Se viraliza foto de niño que enfrentó a manifestantes contra matrimonio igualitario. Regeneración. Retrieved from http://regeneracion.mx/recorre-el-mundo-foto-de-nino-que-enfrento-a-manifestantes-contra-matrimonio-igualitario/
Agis, K., & Brown, H. (2016). Look at this breathtaking picture of a child trying to stop an anti-gay rally. Retrieved from https://www.buzzfeed.com/karlaagis/the-picture-of-a-child-in-front-of-pro-family-pro?utm_term=.iazjgOZDP#.ndZjr7MPZ
Allen, H., & Savigny, H. (2012). Selling scandal or ideology? The politics of business crime coverage. European Journal of Communication, 27(3), 278-290.
Altheide, D. (1976). Creating reality: How TV distorts events. Beverly Hills: Sage.
Brummett, B. (1994). Rhetoric in popular culture. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Cameron, D., & Berkowitz, B. (2016). The state of gay rights around the world. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/world/gay-rights/
Campbell, D. F. J., Pölzlbauer, P., Barth, T. D., & Pölzlbauer, G. (2015). Democracy Ranking (Edition 2014): The Quality of Democracy in the World. Vienna: Democracy Ranking.
Carragee, K. M., & Roefs, W. (2004). The neglect of power in recent framing research. Journal of Communication, 54(2), 214-233.
Chong, D., & Druckman, J. N. (2007). A theory of framing and opinion formation in competititve elite environments. Journal of Communication, 57(1, March), 99-118.
Conover, P., & Feldman, S. (1981). the origins and meanings of liberal/conservative self-identification. American Journal of Political Science, 25, 617-645.
Cottle, S. (2000). Rethinking news access. Journalism Studies, 1(3), 427-448. doi: 10.1080/14616700050081768
Crabtree, S. (2010). Religiosity Highest in World’s Poorest Nations. Retrieved from http://www.gallup.com/poll/142727/religiosity-highest-world-poorest-nations.aspx
Dahlberg, L. (2001). The internet and democratic discourse: Exploring the prospects of online deliberative forums extending the public sphere. Information, Communication & Society, 4(4), 615-633.
Domke, D., Watts, M. D., Shah, D. V., & Fan, D. P. (1999). The politics of conservative elites and the "liberal media" argument. Journal of Communication, 49(4), 35-58.
Encarnación, O. G. (2014). Gay rights: Why democracy matters. Journal of Democracy, 25(3, July), 90-104.
Entman, R. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51-58.
Entman, R. (2004). Projections of power: Framing news, public opinion, and U.S. foreign policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Entman, R., & Rojecki, A. (1993). Freezing out the public: Elite and media framing of the U.S. anti nuclear movement. Political Communication, 10, 155-173.
Eurobarometer. (2008). Eurobaromter 69: Values of Europeans. 113. Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/archives/eb/eb69/eb69_values_en.pdf
Fedler, F., Smith, R., & Meeske, M. (1983). Time and Newsweek favor John F. Kennedy, criticize Robert and Edward Kennedy. Journalism Quarterly, 60, 489-496.
Fenton, T. (2005). Bad news: The decline of reporting, the business of news, and the danger to us all. New York: Regan Books.
Ferree, M. M., Gamson, W. A., Gerhards, J., & Rucht, D. (2002). Four models of the public sphere in modern democracies. Theory and Society, 31(3), 289-324.
Gamson, W. A. (1992). Talking politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gasher, M. (2007). The view from here. Journalism Studies, 8(2), 299-319. doi: 10.1080/14616700601148895
Gitlin, T. (1980). The whole world is watching: Mass media in the making and unmaking of the new left. Berkley: University of California Press.
Gregson, J. (2017). The World’s Richest and Poorest Countries. Retrieved from https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/economic-data/worlds-richest-and-poorest-countries
Harcup, T., & O'Neill, D. (2001). What is news? Galtung and Ruge revisited. Journalism Studies, 2(2), 261-280.
Hertog, J., & McLeod, D. (1995). Anarchists wreak havoc in downtown Minneapolis: A multi-level study of media coverage of radical protest. Journalism Monographs, 151(June), 1-48.
Holton, A. E., Coddington, M., & Gil de Zuñiga, H. (2013). Whose news? Whose values? Citizen journalism and journalistic values through the lens of content creators and consumers. Journalism Practice, 7(6), 720-737. doi: 10.1080/17512786.2013.766062
Jewitt, C. (Ed.). (2016). The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Machin, D. (2016). The need for a social and afforance-driven multimodal critical discourse studies. Discourse & Society, 27(3), 322-334.
Manning, P. (2001). News and news sources: A critical introduction. London: Sage Publications.
Matheson, D. (2005). Media discourses: Analysing media texts. Berkshire: Open University Press.
Mencher, M. (2000). New reporting and writing. Boston: McGraw Hill.
Merrill, J. C. (1965). How Time stereotyped three U.S. Presidents. Journalism Quarterly, 42, 563-570.
Michaud, K., Carlisle, J., & Smith, E. R. A. N. (2009). The relationship between cultural values and political ideology, and the role of political knowledge. Political Psychology, 30(1), 27-42.
Pew Research Center, I. (2013). Pew Research Global Attitudes. Retrieved from
Reese, S. D., Gandy Jr., O. H., & Grant, A. E. (2001). Framing Public Life. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Reich, Z. (2015). Why citizens still rarely serve as news sources: Validating a tripartite model of circumstantial, logistical, and evaluative barriers. International Journal of Communication, 9, 2412-2433.
Ryan, C., Carragee, K. M., & Schwerner, C. (1998). Media, movements, and the quest for social justice. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 26, 165-181.
Schiffer, A. (2000). I'm not THAT liberal: Explaining conservative democratic identification. Political Behavior, 22(4), 293-310.
Schultz, I. (2007). The journalistic gut feeling: Journalistic doxa, news habitus and orthodox news values. Journalism Practice, 1(2), 190-207. doi: 10.1080/17512780701275507
Segev, E. (2015). Visible and invisible countries: News flow theory revised. Journalism, 16(3), 412-428.
Segev, E. (2016). The group-sphere model of international news flow: A cross-national comparison of news sites. The International Communication Gazette, 78(3), 200-222. doi: 10.1177/1748048515620858
Severin, W., & Tankard, J. (1997). Communication Theories: Origins, methods, and Uses in the Mass Media (4th ed.). New York: Longman.
Singer, J. B., Hermida, A., Domingo, D., Heinonen, A., Paulussen, S., Quandt, T., & Reich, Z. (2011). Participatory journalism: Guarding open gates at online newspapers. Maiden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Sotirovic, M. (2000). Effects of media use on audience framing and support for welfare. Mass Communication and Society, 3, 269-297.
Street, J. (Ed.). (2001). Mass media, politics and democracy. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Tankard Jr., J. W., Hendrickson, L., Silberman, J., Bliss, K., & Ghanem, S. (1991). Media Frames: Approaches to Conceptualization and Measurement. Paper presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Boston.
Thompson, J. B. (1990). Ideology and modern culture: Critical social theory in the era of mass communication. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Tuchman, G. (1978). Making news: A study in the construction of reality. New York: Free Press.
Valcke, P. (2009). From ownership regulations to legal indicators of media pluralism: Background, typologies and methods. Journal of Media Business Studies, 6(3), 19-42.
Vasil, A. (2003). World domination. Ryerson Review of Journalism, 20(2), 56-61.
Villarreal, D. (2016). The story behind the now iconic photo of a 12-year opposing an anti-LGBT protest. Unicorn Booty. Retrieved from https://unicornbooty.com/story-behind-now-iconic-photo-12-year-opposing-anti-lgbt-protest/
Westlund, O. (2013). Mobile news: A review and model of journalism in an age of mobile media. Digital Journalism, 1(1), 6-26.
Whithey, J. (2016). Photographer who captured 12-year-old standing up to anti-LGBT protestors receives death threats. Gay Times. Retrieved from http://www.gaytimes.co.uk/news/48845/photographer-captured-12-year-old-standing-anti-lgbt-protestors-receives-death-threats/
Williams, A. P., Wardle, C., & Wahl-Jorgensen, K. (2011). Have they got news for us? Audience revolution or business as usual at the BBC? Journalism Practice, 5(1), 85-99.
Authors
Copyright (c) 2019 Linda Jean Kenix
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This journal provides immediate and free open access to all its content and is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This means readers are permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, as long as proper attribution is given. This policy is consistent with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access.