Framing cooperation among regional economic powers: The South in global spheres of influence

Abstract

This study examined the coverage of the trilateral commission of India, Brazil, and South Africa (IBSA) in the national press of these three countries over a 6-year period. Even though this group has pre-dated the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) group and shares an affinity from political and economic standpoints, it has received little attention in media research. The goal of the study was to understand how news media framed the relationship among the IBSA member nations, and their individual and collective policy stances to their citizens. Each news source emphasized different areas of the cooperation; all three news sources expressed faith in IBSA to varying degrees, but also kept a close eye on the more recently formed BRICS. In sum, this study offers an exploratory view of cooperation among emerging regional economic powers located across and lobbying for the South in contemporary global spheres of influence.

Has India’s tripartite cooperation with Brazil and South Africa helped it combat human trafficking? A news media framing analysis spanning two decades

“…Given India’s richly diverse multiethnic communities, this kind of rich theoretical analysis is needed. Framing has the potential to significantly and critically influence citizens’ evaluation of issues (Han and Wang, 2012; Han et al, 2009), affecting how they think about and act upon the issues confronting them (Kuypers, 2002; Sosale and Rosas-Moreno, 2016). Furthermore, analyzing framing across news stories helps identify journalism’s role along with political elites and governments in fostering official political discourse regarding (inter)national organizations’ workings and operations as they unfold and evolve over time (Entman and Rojecki, 1993; Snow and Benford, 1988; Sosale and Rosas-Moreno, 2016).…”

“…The public often relies on news to make sense of less familiar foreign policy and international issues, of which IBSA would be one (Sosale and Rosas-Moreno, 2016). The newsgathering process literature suggests that rather than influencing the nature of the debate, news media mostly echo the narratives presented by major participants in the policy process and, thus, help support the dominant views (Gulati, 2010).…”

“…In 2003, India, Brazil, and South Africa co-founded the IBSA Dialogue Forum, or IBSA, to counter marginalization and promote social equality among the Global South nations. IBSA’s underpinning principles, norms, and values include participatory democracy and respect for human rights (Sosale and Rosas-Moreno, 2016) – despite each regional economic leader’s reputation for human rights violations: South Africa underwent years of international pressure to disband apartheid and continues to wrestle with violent crime, possessing one of the world’s highest murder rates; Brazil, the last Western hemisphere nation to formally abolish slavery in 1888, continues its struggles for racial equality, despite claims of being a racial democracy; and, India, the world’s largest democracy and this study’s focus, has more people enslaved than any other country (NDTV, 2016). Harboring hideous histories of oppression, these linked democracies face another huge human rights antagonist: the social injustice of human trafficking.…”

Framing of Bangladesh in U.S. Media: A postcolonial analysis

“…News is an important discursive site for media and communication researchers to understand what framing is and how it works (D'Angelo and Kuypers, 2010;Sosale and Rosas-Moreno, 2016). Studies (Abbas, 2001;Ali et al, 2013;Fahmy, 2010;Ha and Shin, 2016) suggest that U.S. media coverage of other nations, especially developing countries, tends to emphasize violence, political unrest, extremism, disaster, famine, and confrontation.…”

Framing Mandela: An (Inter)National Comparative News Analysis of the Iconic Leader’s Death

“…Among their international political alliances, Brazil and South Africa are both IBSA and BRICS nations. These memberships serve at least in part to help these two regional hegemons act with greater prominence in the global sphere (SOSALE; ROSAS-MORENO, 2016).…”