| The mass media often act as agents of globalization. Although many studies have shown that international news reporting by the media is heavily influenced by particular views like a Cold War news frame, the discussion of media reporting has not gained much attention in the globalization debate.; This study is designed to collect some empirical data on the meaning construction of the 1997 Asian economic crisis and the IMF bailouts within the context of the newly emerged “globalization” paradigm. From the outset, this study is interested in two issues: to know how selected elite newspapers of the five countries as a whole (U.S., Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia) were covering this complex economic globalization issue; and to explain any similarities and differences among the five countries' coverage.; Based on a multi-national comparative study of major newspapers, news frames and sourcing patterns in the U.S. press were compared to those of the three IMF-supported Asian countries—Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea—as well as those of Malaysia, which refused to accept this assistance. The examination of major themes, story direction regarding the IMF programs, primary causes and solutions to the crisis, story context, and sourcing patterns of the news stories in the five countries helped not only to assess described attributes of news reports about the Asian economic crisis and subsequent IMF bailouts, but also to detect a free-market supportive “globalization” news frame.; Overall, the findings support the conclusion that the press of the U.S. and the three IMF-supported Asian countries largely used free-market supportive news frames and news sources that were uncritical of the process of globalization. Although there were notable differences in the way each country covered the crisis, these can be partly attributed to differing journalistic environments rather than substantial differences in conceptualizing the “new world order.”... |
