U.S. Network Television News Framing of the February 2004 Overthrow of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
- The insurgency was reported in 53 stories containing 67 distinct news segments by the time Aristide reached the Central African Republic on March 3, 2004.
- About a quarter of the stories (26%) led the newscast and nearly half (47%) ran in the first three high-impact positions.
- Political and social violence was the dominant frame, present in 74% of stories and the primary frame in 60%.
- U.S. involvement in Haiti appeared as a frame in 60% of stories.
- About half of the stories (49%) included a reporter on the ground in Haiti, and 23% used experts for background and analysis.
Walter C. Soderlund of the University of Windsor examines prime-time coverage of the final weeks of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's presidency on ABC's World News Tonight, CBS's Evening News and NBC's Nightly News. The database is 53 stories on video tape from the Vanderbilt Television News Archive, which the author coded for placement, length, sources, frames and the descriptive language used for Aristide, the rebels, Haiti and U.S. policy. Roughly a quarter of the stories led the newscast and nearly half ran in the first three positions. Political and social violence appeared as a frame in 74% of stories and was the primary frame in 60%, and U.S. involvement in Haiti appeared in a total of 60%. The article was published in the Journal of Haitian Studies in fall 2006.
In the conclusion the author compares the 2004 events with the methods of regime change that led to the 1915 U.S. intervention and questions whether Aristide's rule was bad enough to justify the consequences for Haiti.
How to cite
Journal of Haitian Studies, 2006, U.S. Network Television News Framing of the February 2004 Overthrow of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41715330
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