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Images of War: Content Analysis of the Photo Coverage of the War in Kosovo
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Images of War: Content Analysis of the Photo Coverage of the War in Kosovo

Alexander G Nikolaev
Critical sociology, v 35(1), pp 105-130
Jan 2009

Abstract

media bias content analysis photo journalism international news coverage war and conflict
This study is a content analysis of the coverage of the war in Kosovo by three major American magazines - Time, Newsweek, and US News & World Report. American and independent international official documents show that the Kosovo conflict was a civil war between Kosovo's Serbian population supported by the Yugoslavian government and an Albanian nationalist terrorist organization (KLA). The main question of this study is: Did the American media tell this story correctly? The general hypothesis of this study was that the photo coverage of the war had been imbalanced with apparent bias against the Serbs. The hypothesis was statistically supported. A theoretical explanation for similar types of situations is offered in the discussion section. The author refers to this phenomenon as the media agitation mode and identifies eight main characteristics of such situations. The theory of supply and demand of political news is also introduced in this article.

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