Constructing an image of the United States in the British and French editorials about WikiLeaks

Failure or Reasonable Move?: Portrayal of American Pullout from Afghanistan in Russian and American International Media

“…In Sputnik's articles, the United States appears as an imperialist country but also as a failing one that spent twenty years fighting terrorists in the country and training the Afghan army only to leave the country in chaos and disarray to the Taliban, which could have consequences for the entire world. This supports the findings of our previous research (Pjesivac et al, 2018) in which we discovered that in the foreign press, the United States can be portrayed as a weakening powerhouse, careless, and overactive. Using the language of the second-level agenda setting, Sputnik's portrayal of the United States as a failing imperialist corresponds to negative object (country) attributes (United States as weak, losers, incompetent, unreliable, insensitive, irresponsible, duplicitous, threatening).…”

“…Historically, the United States has been portrayed in international media differently depending on its relationship with that country. Media in countries that are political allies frame stories based on the United States global power, although the amount of power attributed to the United States has differed over time (Pjesivac et al, 2018;Glick et al, 2006;Wike et al, 2021). Media in countries that are not politically aligned with the United States have portrayed it as aggressive, dominating, hypocritical at worst, and neutral at best (He et al, 2012;Liu & Yang, 2015).…”

“…Negative perceptions about the handling of the Afghanistan crisis coupled with foreign policy failures could harm the American image on the international scene and its soft power capacities. Although some studies showed that the United States is respected for its power, others have indicated that countries, even traditional American allies, can be suspicious toward the goals of the U.S. foreign policies (Glick et al, 2006; Pjesivac et al, 2018; Wike et al, 2021). As primary sources of individuals’ information about distant places, news media play an influential role in portraying other countries and constructing images of various societies (e.g., McNelly & Izcaray, 1986), mainly through processes of agenda setting and framing (e.g., Besova & Cooley, 2009; Brewer et al, 2003; He et al, 2012; Wanta, 2018; Wanta et al, 2004), thus significantly impacting relations among nations (McCracken, 1987).…”

Surveillance of Global Corruption by Transparency International: Construction of a ‘Corrupt’ South and ‘Clean’ North Discourse

“…There is no denying that corruption exists in developing countries and, obviously, in Bangladesh. However, singling out only developing countries as the prime source of corruption is a 'one-sided campaign' (Murphy, 2011) and, therefore, a neocolonialist notion as 'colonial image' becomes prominent when a nation is portrayed as culturally inferior, non-progressive and backward (Pjesivac et al, 2018). This neocolonialist surveillance of global corruption by TI identifies Bangladesh as a country associated with 'opaque' 'nontransparent' 'dysfunctional' 'criminalized' 'paralyzed' 'bureaucratic', 'violent' 'harbour of criminals and terrorists' which lacks some basic characteristics of being civilized and functional.…”