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News from Germany between 1985 and 1995 - a casualty of the end of the Cold War

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News from Germany between 1985 and 1995 - a casualty of the end of the Cold War

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Content  
NEWS FROM GERMANY BETWEEN 1985 AND 1995 – A CASUALTY OF THE END OF 
THE COLD WAR 
 
 
 
by 
 
Jessica Donath 
 
 
 
A Thesis Presented to the 
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL 
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 
In Partial Fulfillment of the 
Requirements for the Degree 
MASTER OF ARTS 
(PRINT JOURNALISM) 
 
 
May 2012 
 
 
 
Copyright 2012 Jessica Donath 
 
ii 
Table of Contents 
List of Tables iv 
List of Figures v 
Abstract vi 
Chapter 1: Introduction 1 
Chapter 2: Literature review 3 
2. 1 Media and foreign policy 3 
2. 1. 1 Steven Livingston: Beyond the CNN effect: The media‐foreign 
policy dynamic 4 
2. 1. 2 Robert Y. Shapiro and Lawrence R. Jacobs: Who leads and who 
follows? 5 
2. 1. 3 Robert M. Entman: Decision‐making in a glass house 6 
2. 1. 4 Patrick O’Heffernan: Mass media and American Foreign Policy 8 
2. 1. 5 Warren P. Strobel: Late‐breaking Foreign Policy 10 
2. 1. 6 Edward S. Herman: The media’s role in U.S. Foreign Policy 12 
2. 1. 7 Piers Robinson: Theorizing the influence of media on world 
politics 13 
2. 2 The media and democracy 14 
2. 2. 1 Walter Lippmann: Newspapers 14 
2. 2. 2 John C. Nerone: Last rights 15 
2. 2. 3 Michael Gurevitch and Jay G. Blumler: Political Communication 
systems and Democratic Values 16 
2. 2. 4 James Carey: The mass media and democracy: Between the 
modern and the postmodern 17 
2. 3 Summary 18 
Chapter 3: Research design, method, expectations and results 19 
3. 1 Expectations: what is most likely to happen to coverage of Germany 
from 1985 to 1995 based on theories of media and foreign policy and 
democracy? 19 
3. 2 Research design and method 21 
3. 2. 1 Inter coder reliability 24 
3. 3 Research results 24 
3. 3. 1. General numbers 25 
3. 3. 2 New York Times 26 
3. 3. 3 Los Angeles Times: 28 
3. 3. 4 Washington Post: 30 
 
iii 
3. 3. 5 USA Today 32 
3. 3. 6 Newsweek 33 
3. 3. 7 Time Magazine 35 
3. 4 Summary 36 
Chapter 4: Analysis: What are the consequences of less and shifting 
foreign news coverage? 37 
4.1 Consequences for policy makers and the transatlantic relationship 38 
4. 1. 1 Opinion polls: what do Americans think of Germany and do 
they follow news from Germany? 40 
4.2 Consequences for journalism 42 
Chapter 5: Open Questions, Final Thoughts 45 
Bibliography 49 
 
 
iv 
List of Tables 
Table 1: Number of byline stories from Germany (all publications from 
1985 to 1995) 24 
Table 2: Number of byline stories from Germany per category (New York 
Times) 26 
Table 3: Number of byline stories from Germany per category per year 
(Los Angeles Times) 28 
Table 4: Number of byline stories from Germany per year and category 
(Washington Post) 30 
Table 5: Number of byline stories from Germany per year and category 
(USA Today) 32 
Table 6: Number of byline stories from Germany per year and category 
(Newsweek) 33 
Table 7: Number of byline stories per year and category (Time Magazine) 35 
 
v 
List of Figures 
Figure A: Number of byline stories from Germany per paper, per year 25 
Figure B: Visualization of change in coverage per year/category (New 
York Times) 27 
Figure C: Visualization of proportional coverage of categories/year (New 
York Times) 27 
Figure D: Visualization of change of coverage per year/category (Los 
Angeles Times) 28 
Figure E: Visualization of proportional number of stories per 
year/category (Los Angeles Times) 29 
Figure F: Visualization of change of coverage per year/category 
(Washington Post) 30 
Figure G: Visualization of proportional coverage per year/category 
(Washington Post) 31 
Figure H: Visualization of change of coverage per year/category (USA 
Today) 32 
Figure I: Visualization of proportional coverage per year/category (USA 
Today) 33 
Figure J: Visualization of change of coverage per year/category 
(Newsweek) 34 
Figure K: Visualization of proportional coverage per year/category 
(Newsweek) 34 
Figure L: Visualization of change of coverage per year/category (Time 
Magazine) 35 
Figure M: Visualization of proportional coverage per year/category (Time 
Magazine) 36 
 
vi 
Abstract 
This work examines the close relationship between news media and foreign policy 
on one hand, and news media and democracy on the other. Using foreign news 
coverage of Germany in six American newspapers and magazines between 1985 and 
1995 as an example, it tries to answer the question what happens to the bilateral 
relationship between two countries if one virtually disappears from the public 
agenda of the other as portrayed by the news media.
In chapter four, theories about democracy and the foreign policy decision‐
making process will inform the interpretation of the content analysis. The Cold War 
as the story of stories that dominated news coverage for 40 years provides an 
indispensable backdrop for this thesis. The end of the Cold War and the loss of 
dominant frames of coverage changed how journalists see and report the world to 
their readers.
 
1 
Chapter 1: Introduction 
On Sunday, May 5th 1985, President Ronald Reagan spent eight minutes at a 
cemetery in the German city of Bitburg. Accompanying him were 90‐year‐old retired 
General Matthew Ridgway, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl – and hundreds of 
American and foreign journalists who produced hundreds of articles about these 
eight minutes.
The controversy raged over the president’s decision to lay a wreath at a 
cemetery where former SS members were buried. Many of the journalists reporting 
about the state visit did not have to travel far for their story. Germany was on the 
front line of the Cold War, and newspapers paid a great deal of attention to it. In this 
thesis I will examine the nexus between journalism and foreign policy, its role in 
democracy, and the Cold War.
It seems to be a well‐accepted fact that Americans are not very interested in 
foreign news – if they are interested in news at all. In a study conducted by the Pew 
Research Center for the People and the Press from December 2010
1
, 55 percent of 
people asked said they were not very interested or not at all interested in news from 
Germany, for example. But the Cold War was different. For 40 years it dominated 
the news and seeped into the lives of ordinary citizens all over the world. The 
dichotomist worldview it offered provided analysts, politicians and journalists a 
readily available frame through which to describe complex situations.

1
 http://www.people‐press.org/question‐search/?qid=1781003&pid=51&ccid=51#top. 
 
2 
So it is not surprising that stories related to the Cold War (and indeed most 
stories could be made to in some way or another relate to this story of stories) 
found greater play and resonated more with the general public. For the same 
reason, stories about Germany received a prominent place in the media. 
Before the details of the findings are discussed in chapter three, a review of 
relevant articles and books will build the foundation for later interpretation. Much 
has been written about the relationship between the media and politics or 
democracy in general and foreign policy in particular. For the purpose of this thesis, 
the works that helped inform the analysis and the understanding of the topic will be 
excerpted in greater detail in chapter two.  
Given the topic of this analysis, the relevant theories used to understand and 
interpret the findings fall into two categories. First, they deal with the relationship 
between journalism ‐‐ or newspapers, to be more precise ‐‐ and the foreign policy 
process. How do experts see the role of the media in this process? Next, it is 
important to understand the role of the media in a democracy to fully appreciate the 
problem of not covering certain parts of the world. 
Chapter four will be devoted to analyzing and interpreting the research 
results and putting them into context. The theories put forth by the scholars 
referred to in chapter two will help achieve this. Finally, in the concluding chapter, 
not only the findings will be summarized, but also what it all means and give an 
outlook on potentially new research questions that spring from my analysis.
 
3 
Chapter 2: Literature review 
Much has already been written about the theories and themes at the center of this 
project. The theories that inform this thesis deal with (1) the relationship between 
the media and foreign policy and (2) the role of journalism in a democracy. The 
former is most closely linked to the Cold War in the context of media coverage and 
performance during the analyzed time period. Recalling prevalent ideas about 
democracy and the media is important to understand what the consequences of 
media performance – good or bad – are.
2. 1 Media and foreign policy 
That the news media has some kind of role to play in politics has long been a fairly 
undisputed fact among political scientists and communications experts alike. “For 
many journalists, policymakers, and scholars there is little doubt that the media 
profoundly affect the foreign policy process,” (Livingston 1997, 292) Steven 
Livingston wrote in his essay about the role of TV news.
Denis McQuail recounts three phases of research into communication, mass 
media, and their influence. In the first phase, the media was said to have 
considerable power “to shape public opinion and belief, change habits of life, 
actively mold behavior and impose political systems even against resistance.” In the 
second phase, researchers tracked back a bit and noted that other social factors 
played an equally as, if not important role, and grouped the media in with other 
entities able to have influence. They “showed the power of the media to be located 
 
4 
within the existing structures of social relationships and systems of culture and 
belief.” (McQuail 2007, 22) The third phase the author identifies, continues today 
and focuses on the growing power and influence of television on mass 
communication.
Therefore, it is not surprising that a substantial amount of work has been 
done analyzing the connection between media and foreign policy. And while most 
experts agree that there is a significant connection, there seems to be controversy 
about the nature of this important relationship. To put it another way: Who is the 
chef and who is the waiter?
2

2. 1. 1 Steven Livingston: Beyond the CNN effect: The mediaforeign policy 
dynamic 
The phenomenon now widely known as the CNN Effect
3
 refers to the fact that the 
media in general and 24‐hours cable news in particular have a significant impact on 
what the public thinks about and deems important. Livingston argues that the 
majority of American households get most of their information from TV news. Hence 
they only know about things that TV news covers and are unaware of things 
happening in parts of the world that are under‐covered by mainstream news. Prime 
examples of this correlation were the wars in Somalia and Rwanda where the public 

2
This is a German phrase borrowed from former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. He used it to 
characterize his working relationship with Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer.
3
 Ted Turner founded CNN in 1980 as the first 24‐hour news channel in the US. In 1991 the live broadcast of the 
Iraq war is considered one of its defining moment and contributed to its influential role shaping public opinion. 
 
5 
was made aware of what was going on by news media and subsequently demanded 
that politicians take action. Livingston ascribes three functions to the CNN Effect: 
(1) policy agenda‐setting agent, (2) accelerant to policy decision‐making, and (3) 
impediment to the achievement of desired policy goals (Livingston 2007, 293). He 
also points out that “historically the foreign policy of the United States has centered 
on American interests, defined as developments that could affect the lives of 
American citizens.” (Livingston 2007, 300)
When discussing American interests, we need to keep in mind that national 
interests are not always apparent and self‐evident, but are constructed and thought 
of by politicians, influential interest groups, and the news media. The author 
concludes with the observation that if foreign policy priorities align themselves with 
media coverage, decision making may be sped up or go against what was originally 
desired by foreign policy elites. (Livingston 2007, 301) 
2. 1. 2 Robert Y. Shapiro and Lawrence R. Jacobs: Who leads and who follows? 
In their essay the authors “find a great deal of evidence that government policies in 
the United States often and substantially reflect what the public wants” (Shapiro and 
Jacobs 2000, 224). One important factor that brought this evidence about is the rise 
of public opinion polling in modern politics. Politicians and policy advisers had new 
tools in their arsenal to determine what the public wants and could mold and adjust 
their policies accordingly. Shapiro and Jacobs also acknowledge the influence the 
 
6 
end of the Cold War has had on foreign policy coverage and identify three ways in 
which the visibility of foreign news has been affected:
First, the East‐West threat driven by the Soviet Union has disappeared. This 
has made national security a far less urgent and persistent issue than it had 
been since the end of World War II. Second, the end of the bipolar world of 
the Cold War has made foreign affairs more complex to follow and interpret, 
which is yet an additional barrier to increasing the public’s attention to 
foreign policy. Third, domestic policies have easily filled the gap in the 
public’s attention space” (Shapiro and Jacobs 2000, 240) 
Playing off of Pippa Norris’s study of foreign news coverage in TV evening 
news, Shapiro and Jacobs say that “because the press could no longer frame foreign 
affairs news in terms of what was once the widely understood Cold War, East‐West, 
or communist‐anticommunist standard of judgment for evaluating and 
understanding foreign policy issues, it opted to cover such issues less than it had 
previously” (Shapiro and Jacobsen, 243) 
2. 1. 3 Robert M. Entman: Decisionmaking in a glass house 
As Robert Entman writes in the introductory chapter of his book and essay, his 
central argument is that “the demise of the Cold War may heighten the media’s 
power, rendering previous theories of media, public opinion, and foreign policy 
problematic both empirically and normatively.” (Entman 2000, 11).
In his analysis he includes six interrelated developments connected to the 
Cold War and the media or, more precisely, the post‐Cold War media environment. 
Out of these six, the two factors most important given the scope of this research, are 
his assessment that “with the end of convincing demons and the associated difficulty 
 
7 
of invoking patriotism, the media became more independently powerful in defining 
problems for American foreign policy makers,” (Entman 2000, 12) as well as the 
observation that “the media reify and promote the power of putative ‘public 
opinion’ that, because it bears only imperfect resemblance to actual public 
sentiments and interests, does not necessarily augment the public’s representation 
in foreign policy making. Rather, by raising the salience of alleged public feelings as 
depicted by the news, this process further increases the media’s influence.” (Entman 
2000, 4) 
The first statement especially alludes to the power of framing certain issues 
in a specific way. Framing the way Entman understands it means “selecting, 
highlighting, and associating elements of reality to tell a coherent story.” (Entman 
2000, 12) For journalists, the Cold War provided such a frame through which 
foreign policy stories made more sense and were easily interpretable as questions 
of war and peace, East vs. West, good against evil and freedom against communism. 
For Entman, influence (through framing) is a two‐way street or process. 
Government official’s statements shape what the media reports, but the media’s 
decision what to focus on also informs the communication response from politicians 
and officials.
With regards to the end of the Cold War and the subsequent loss of one of the 
media’s most welcome and prevalently used frames, Entman notices a shift in topics 
and themes in foreign news caused by the “dissolution of the worldwide communist 
enemy.” The main themes, in his view, are now human suffering, lack of democracy, 
 
8 
terrorism and other kinds of problems that could lead to refugee or related crises 
for the U.S.
2. 1. 4 Patrick O’Heffernan: Mass media and American Foreign Policy 
Patrick O’Heffernan has no doubt that “the mass media play a distinct role in the 
shaping and reality of American foreign policy.” (O’Heffernan 1991, 37) He lists five 
functions they fulfill: (1) They serve as a rapid source of information useful for 
policy decisions, (2) they are an agenda‐setter which influences the agendas of the 
US and other nations, (3) diplomats use them as a proxy as well as (4) a signaling 
system with policy influence, and (5) terrorists and government organizations use 
them as a tool.
Just as other experts, O’Heffernan emphasizes the agenda‐setting potential of 
the media. Here, this refers to the media’s ability to help determine the salience of 
an issue. This works in two ways: (1) Placement of an issue or region or country on 
the US foreign policy agenda that was not already there, and (2) movement to a 
higher level of policy consideration of an issue or region or country presently on the 
agenda. (O’Heffernan 1991, 45)
The capability of the media to put issues on the agenda or keep them there 
depends on various conditions and is more effective in certain cases than in others. 
O’Heffernan states that global, multilateral issues are more susceptible to media 
influence than bilateral or military ones. Another important factor is the media’s 
 
9 
ability to mobilize domestic forces to care and take action once presented with an 
issue or a crisis.
Mass media are “a pervasive influence in the foreign policy process, shaping 
the tone, style, and emphasis of US policy outputs in various ways.” (O’Heffernan 
2000, 61) O’Heffernan writes that this influence is in turn influenced by the 
perceptions policy officials have of media power, as well as the emphasis the media 
itself injects into their coverage.
“The effectiveness of media’s capability to stimulate and sustain domestic 
pressure is related to the lengths of the media’s coverage and to the nature of the 
issue, with global environmental and human rights issues having the highest 
likelihood of media impact.” (O’Heffernan 1991, 64). According to O’Heffernan’s 
research, policy officials feel that the media helped to introduce five distinct 
transforming factors into the way policies are conceived: (1) Globalization of the 
U.S. foreign policy agenda, (2) introduction of new players to the policy process who 
accelerate the domestication of foreign policy, (3) generally faster pace of foreign 
policy making, (4) use of media as a significant foreign policy output, and (5) 
reduced control over diplomacy. (O’Heffernan 1991, 92) 
The author describes the media’s role as one that works on the inside of the 
foreign policy process as well as from the outside to influence those on the inside. 
“The media operate inside by informing other players’ decisions and lending 
themselves to other players’ uses. They operate outside by acting according to their 
 
10 
own incentives, standards, and self‐interests, lending themselves to foreign 
governments who try to influence US policy.” (O’Heffernan 1991, 97) 
The results of media influence range from a distorted view of the world 
presented to Americans that, as a consequence of this misinformation, perceive the 
world as being more violent than it is, for example, or get wrong and twisted ideas 
of certain world religions, regions or countries.
2. 1. 5 Warren P. Strobel: Latebreaking Foreign Policy 
Warren P. Strobel, a former foreign correspondent for McClatchy newspapers, opens 
the chapter in his book that is most pertinent for my project with a quote by former 
Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright: “Foreign Policy without the Cold War is a 
little like baseball without the World Series.” (Strobel 1997, 57) And Strobel leaves 
no doubt about the applicability of this analogy to journalism when he writes “for 
journalists, the Cold War was perhaps the greatest story of them all. It had, on a 
grand scale, all the elements Journalism 101 professors tell their students are the 
components of news.” (ibid.) 
With the end of the Cold War, presidents “no longer could point to a common 
enemy to rally an unruly Congress or public opinion.” (Strobel 1997, 58) During the 
time of the Cold War, the agenda for news media coverage was determined by 
government politics, by the dichotomy of East and West, good and evil or freedom 
and communism. Strobel quotes editors and journalists throughout his book. 
Bernard Gwertzman, then foreign editor of the New York Times, told his staff 
 
11 
shortly after the transition period after the fall of the Berlin Wall ended: “The Cold 
War created a huge market for foreign affairs news, because virtually any 
development overseas could be tied to the East‐West, life‐or‐death conflict.” (Strobel 
1997, 59) Strobel and the former colleagues he interviewed also point out the 
change in the news economy. News organizations used to spend a lot of money on 
maintaining foreign bureaus in Eastern and Western Europe. This investment then 
influenced what the American public would think about and its view of the world.
In the 1990s, the changing political climate dramatically affected how 
newspapers cover foreign news and where they report from geographically. It also 
led to a general decline in the amount of foreign news newspapers would print
4
. On 
the other hand, the end of the bipolar world order also had a liberating effect on the 
news media. “The end of the Cold War has freed the US news media to a significant 
extent from the agenda of the White House and the State Department, allowing 
reporters, editors, and producers to pursue stories more unambiguously based on 
what the audience is thought to be interested in.” (Strobel 1997, 60) Before, the 
intensity of coverage a particular country received may have had little to do with its 
actual importance as perceived by foreign policy officials. 

4
 Jill Carroll, foreign correspondent for the Christian Science monitor reported in 2007 that small papers shrunk 
their foreign bureaus by 30 percent since 2000, large papers by 2000. Since 1990 the Washington Post cut the 
number of foreign correspondents from 25 during the Cold War to 8‐10. Jodi Enda compared foreign news 
coverage in eight small to mid‐sized papers in seven days in 1985 to seven days in 2010. In 1985 all papers 
combined published 689 foreign stories, in 2010 it was 321 such pieces.
 
12 
“The result is a profound change in the picture of the world relayed to the 
American public.” (Strobel 1997, 65) Not only have the places changed where 
stories are coming from, the topics addressed in these stories have changed as well.
The New York Times and other newspapers have put more emphasis on 
social and economic developments in foreign lands, especially those that 
strike a chord with readers at home. These include other countries’ strategies 
for dealing with problems the United States is facing, such as violent crime, 
health care, and budget deficits. (Strobel 1997, 67)
A practical consequence of this is that many newspapers around the U.S. have closed 
their bureaus in Europe or moved reporters to other places they didn’t have on the 
radar before, such as Asia and Latin America.  
2. 1. 6 Edward S. Herman: The media’s role in U.S. Foreign Policy 
In his 1993 essay, Edward Herman points out that the media itself is a member of 
the elite establishment in the societies it operates in. This introductory statement 
positions him in the corner of the “elite‐consensus” theorists when it comes to 
defining the role of the media in foreign policy. “Media scholarship has regularly 
stressed the tendency of the media to rely excessively on the government as a news 
source and to defer to its positions.” (Herman 1993, 25)
The media not only holds an elite position in society because it has unique 
access to important people and its representatives reach millions of households 
every day with their papers and broadcasts. The economic distribution of power, 
meaning media ownership and the need to sustain itself by selling advertisements 
 
13 
also contribute to making them behave as an elongated arm of a government’s PR 
department.
This behavior is a failure to perform the role the media should commit to. 
“Assuming that the media should serve a democratic polity, then they ought to 
inform the public on the major issues of the day with sufficient context, depths and 
honesty, for the public to be able to make thoughtful judgments and influence the 
course of policy making.” (Herman 1993, 29)
The author laments in his paper that this is not happening and finds 
numerous cases of evidence to proof his points of criticism. He analyzes the media 
coverage of crises in the Persian Gulf in the 1980s and the coup in Nicaragua and 
comes to the conclusion that “both structural and empirical evidence of media 
performance support the view that the mainstream media tend to follow a state 
agenda in reporting on foreign policy, and that their alleged adversarial posture 
reflects tactical differences among the elite, along with factional demands that the 
media function as a public relations arm of the government.” (Herman, 45) 
2. 1. 7 Piers Robinson: Theorizing the influence of media on world politics 
In his paper, Piers Robinson attempts to prove communications theorists wrong 
who think that the media has no independent influence on foreign policy what so 
ever. He criticizes other researchers for focusing on the government’s ability to 
influence media and not on the media’s role as an actor in politics.
 
14 
“Broadly speaking, this critical literature understands the news media as 
being influenced by, and not influencing government policy.” (Robinson 201, 525) 
As evidence for his position, Robinson takes a look at the media’s role in ending the 
Vietnam War. He comes to the conclusion that, while the media did not start the 
movement that led to the withdrawal of American troops, the fact that the media at 
some point took sides and aligned itself with those opposed to the war helped and 
sped up the decision‐making process. He derives from this observation the idea that 
the more certain a policy is established among the elites, the less influence the 
media has. This means, in turn, that when a policy is controversial among politicians 
or they don’t know what to do, the media can break into this vacuum of power, take 
sides and influence policy outcomes.
2. 2 The media and democracy 
2. 2. 1 Walter Lippmann: Newspapers 
Walter Lippmann’s classic study is among the shortest in Doris A. Graber’s collection 
of analysis of mass media influences on public life and democracy. At the same time, 
it is a poignant theoretical inventory of his time. According to Graber, Lippmann 
explains, “Why the media cannot possibly perform the functions of public 
enlightenment that democratic theory requires.” (Graber 2007, 48) “Every 
newspaper, when it reaches the reader, is the result of a whole series of selections 
 
15 
as to what items shall be printed, in what positions they shall be printed, how much 
each shall occupy, what emphasis each shall have,” (Ibid, 51)
While newspapers, in Lippmann’s opinion, should not bear the sole 
responsibility of “translating the whole public life of mankind,” they can be used as 
an index of the social organization of a society. Readers with their expectations 
charge newspapers (or the media, but for Lippmann both were equal) with the 
burden of accomplishing whatever representative government, industrial 
organization, and democracy have failed to accomplish.” This puts too much of a 
burden on newspapers. “At its best the press is a servant and guardian of 
institutions; at its worst it is a means by which a few exploit social disorganizations 
to their own ends,” Lippmann concludes (Graber 2007, 54).
2. 2. 2 John C. Nerone: Last rights 
As an editor, John C. Nerone revisits the classic book on criticism of press 
performance Four Theories of the Press 40 years after it was first published. He 
starts out by pledging his loyalty to, and admiration for the book his former mentors 
wrote. He also says that a communication system inevitably reflects the society in 
which it operates. This means that a democracy in order to function needs a 
democratic media system that provides citizens with the necessary information to 
make good decisions. “The press has no moral right not to serve the public interest,” 
he writes (Nerone 1995, 95). He clearly favors the one theory that the authors of the 
original book also preferred: social responsibility theory.
 
16 
Social responsibility theory retains a liberal notion of healthy public 
discourse. Essentially, it adheres to the notion of a marketplace of ideas but 
acknowledges that that marketplace must be represented inside a medium. 
Put another way, where media previously competed in the marketplace, now 
the marketplace is contained within the media (Nerone 1995, 99). 
The original book outlined six tasks the media has to fulfill the current author 
still subscribes to: (1) servicing the political system (read: democracy), (2) 
enlightening the public, (3) serving as a watchdog over government, (4) servicing 
the economic system, (5) providing entertainment and (6) maintaining its own self‐
sufficiency. (100) 
2. 2. 3 Michael Gurevitch and Jay G. Blumler: Political Communication systems 
and Democratic Values 
In their essay printed in Judith Lichtenberg’s 1990 book “Democracy and the Media” 
the authors describe democracy as “a highly exacting creed in its expectations of the 
mass media. It requires that the media perform and provide a number of functions 
and services for the political system.” (Lichtenberg 1990, 270) 
A few of these tasks are, for example, “meaningful agenda‐setting, identifying 
the key issues of the day, including the forces that have formed and may resolve 
them,” providing room for a “dialogue across a diverse range of views, as well as 
between power holders (actual and prospective) and mass publics,” and to provide 
“incentives for citizens to learn, choose and become involved, rather than merely to 
follow and kibitz in the political process.”
 
17 
2. 2. 4 James Carey: The mass media and democracy: Between the modern and 
the postmodern 
James Carey famously equated journalism with democracy and concluded that 
neither is possible without the presence of one another. “Whatever democracy as a 
way of life may be, it is constituted by particular media of communication and 
institutional agreements through which politics is conducted,” (Carey 1993, 3) he 
writes in his paper. There is no doubt in his mind that journalism has an important 
role to play in enabling this public exchange between people.
His interpretation of the role of the media is strongly inspired by an idealized 
version of the eighteenth‐century public, defined as a “society of conversationalists,” 
where strangers met in each other’s houses to read the newspaper and discuss 
politics or where citizens engaged in public disputes in town squares resembling the 
Greek agora. The public back then was not reduced to some ominous result of an 
even more obscure opinion poll and it also did not refer to individuals sitting in 
front of their televisions passively consuming news.
Carey sees the need to go back to this original (and, in his opinion, superior) 
concept of the public in order for journalism and democracy to function properly. 
“Without the public, neither the press nor democracy makes any sense.” (Carey 
1993, 5) Once the proper public is restored, journalism can re‐claim its role as 
diarist of world events and common culture. “The importance of journalism is less 
that it disseminates news and information, and more that it is one of the primary 
 
18 
instruments through which the culture is preserved and recorded and, therefore, 
available to be re‐consulted.
2. 3 Summary 
Within the foreign policy process, journalists operate as insiders and part of the elite 
with access to officials, experts and information and are capable of influencing 
decision‐making by alerting the public to what is going on in remote parts of the 
world. This agenda‐setting function seems to be most effective with human rights 
stories.
As the fourth estate entrusted with helping to protect citizens and their 
personal freedoms from governments, the media is charged with informing 
potential voters truthfully and represent the world as it is. What people read about 
in daily papers shapes how they see the world. This media‐mediated worldview 
shapes, in turn, voter behavior and how people live with each other in an 
increasingly globalized world. 
The Cold War frame provided a dominant tool for journalists and editors 
they used to make sense of complex events. It allowed them to predictably connect 
news to viewers and readers at home.
 
19 
Chapter 3: Research design, method, expectations and 
results 
3. 1 Expectations: what is most likely to happen to coverage of Germany 
from 1985 to 1995 based on theories of media and foreign policy and 
democracy? 
In her 1997 book Politics and the Press, Pippa Norris analyzed foreign news 
coverage in the American media during and after the Cold War. Her project is 
similar to this one in many ways. Focusing on TV news, Norris examined which 
countries, issues and themes American journalists deemed newsworthy during the 
years of her research. Her team examined news broadcasts by ABC and CBS on 
Mondays during the month of February between the years 1973 and 1995.
Aside from merely counting the stories that dealt with events in foreign 
countries and registering where the reporters were located geographically, Norris 
and her colleagues also took note of the placement of each story as well as its length. 
They catalogued a range of themes and topics the foreign news segments featured. 
By means of content analysis, Norris uncovered the frames most commonly used by 
TV journalists to make sense of the world for viewers at home.
“The theory of framing suggests that journalists commonly work with news 
‘frames’ to simplify, prioritize, and structure the narrative flow of events. News 
frames bundle key concepts, stock phrases, and stereotyped images to re‐enforce 
 
20 
certain common ways of interpreting developments.” (Norris 1997, 275) Thus 
framing allows reporters and editors to make complicated world events fit into 
expectations and established ways of looking at the world that make their jobs 
easier. Norris notes that reporting on foreign politics has become much more 
complicated since the Cold War frames are no longer useful.
Norris has three hypotheses she attempts to test with her study. Firstly, she 
expects a dramatic increase in international news during what she calls the 
transition period right after the end of the Cold War, symbolized by the fall of the 
Berlin Wall. This time frame lasts from 1989 to 1991. “Thereafter we might expect 
that the amount of international coverage would either (1) return to the levels of the 
Cold War period, or (2) perhaps would fall even lower, if the complexities of the 
‘new world order’ proved difficult for television journalism to convey without the 
structure of the Cold War frame.” (Norris 1997, 280)
Secondly, she expects changes in the countries and regions covered by TV 
news. Given that foreign news is more interesting to Americans when it affects 
them, or when journalists successfully make them care, Norris points out that a shift 
in U.S. foreign policy interests would likely be followed by a shift in news coverage. 
“The end of the Cold War era brought about a major re‐alignment of US interests. 
The story changed from the NATO region versus the Warsaw Pact countries toward 
a diverse series of engagements in Bosnia, Somalia, and the Gulf.” (Norris 1997, 181) 
And lastly, the author expects a change in the themes the news stories from 
foreign lands were dealing with. With journalists no longer bound by the narrative 
 
21 
of the Soviet Union as the Evil Empire, reporters and editors were set free to pursue 
stories they were interested in. The development would then go from topics such as 
military deployments, arms races, trade wars and hostilities to more “peaceful” 
topics. These could be the economy, health care, culture or general human interest.
 
The research method used and expectations formulated in this thesis are similar to 
those of Norris. The scope of this project is smaller and larger at the same time. 
Here, every article written from Germany about Germany during the whole decade 
was counted, but only news from one country is examined and not foreign news in 
general.
When it comes to the amount of stories going back to the level before the 
transition period shortly after the Cold War or sinking even lower, the numbers 
were expected to go down further in the case of Germany. After it lost its status as 
frontline country par excellence, it lost its uniqueness – and wasn’t as newsworthy 
anymore. 
3. 2 Research design and method 
Six newspapers and magazines and their coverage of Germany over the course of 
ten years between 1985 and 1995 were examined: The New York Times, The Los 
Angeles Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Time Magazine and Newsweek.
These publications were chosen because together they constitute the basic 
supply of newspapers ordinary American citizens as well as policy‐makers read on a 
 
22 
regular basis. Although the majority of Americans gets their news from television 
today (or from online sources in the case of younger generations), television 
producers and correspondents still take their cues from opinion‐leading 
newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. 
The chosen time frame is a result of the desire to bracket the fall of the Berlin 
Wall, which marked the symbolic end of the Cold War that dominated foreign affairs 
news coverage for decades. In order to be able to do a before‐and‐after comparison, 
my analysis extends to 1995. It was assumed that the transition period would only 
last a couple of years until after the fall of the Wall, so the years between 1991 and 
1995 could count as post‐Cold War coverage.  
When it came to sifting through hundreds of articles with German datelines 
each year, only articles with a proper byline were included into the analysis. This is 
an important and valid criterion because it allowed me to identify which stories 
reporters and editors found important enough to cover in depth. What section the 
stories were placed did not factor into the analysis. (This might have been another 
interesting element, but since the placement corresponds with the themes covered 
in the article, (determined by the newspaper section it appeared in) it seemed less 
relevant to have a separate table for this element.)
After reading the articles, each one was labeled according to its content and  put 
into categories based to the themes it covered. Coverage of international sporting 
events was excluded from the analysis because sports news has transcended 
 
23 
bilateral or international animosities. Below is a list that explains which story would 
fall into which category: 
• Germany: Attacks on foreigners, right‐wing violence, Bitburg, elections, fall 
of the Berlin Wall, unification, Berlin as future capital, abortion laws, state, 
national and presidential elections. 
• GDR/East Germany: Politics, reforms, demonstrations, first free elections, 
trials against former officials (Honecker, Mielke, Wolf, Krenz), spy scandals, 
aftermath of unification and elections. 
• Economy: Summits, G‐7, strikes, costs of unification, company mergers or 
takeovers, stock market fluctuation, key rates up or down, European 
monetary unity. 
• International Politics: Bilateral relations with other countries, news 
from/about other countries, European Union, wars/military conflicts 
(Bosnia/Yugoslavia, Somalia, Iraq) and border negotiations with neighboring 
countries. 
• Arts/Science: Theater/book reviews, cultural debates, scientific 
breakthroughs, conferences (climate change, AIDS), artist Christo wraps 
German parliament building, annual Frankfurt book fair, annual Berlin film 
festival and abortion. 
• United States: Bilateral relations, state visits, US participation in 
wars/military conflicts (from Germany), hostage crises, US 
interests/perspective, and Bitburg. 
 
24 
• Defense: Wars/military conflicts, the future of NATO, European defense 
policy, arms treaties, troop withdrawal from Germany/Europe. 
• World War II/Holocaust: Commemorations, anniversaries.
• Tourism: Rhine cruises, travel/food reviews and tips. 
3. 2. 1 Inter coder reliability
To ease the problem of inter coder reliability (or lack thereof), it would have been 
beneficial to have at least two coders, as well as enough time to re‐read every article 
to make sure it is in the most accurate category.
3. 3 Research results 
All numbers, years and publications were combined in one table and graph to give a 
first overview of how much coverage of Germany there was over the course of the 
analyzed time period: 
Table 1: Number of byline stories from Germany (all publications from 1985 to 1995) 
Year
New
York
Times
Los
Angeles
Times
Washington
Post
USA
Today Newsweek
Time
Magazine
1985 187 142 131 13 31 10
1986 178 102 87 24 18 4
1987 180 93 133 20 19 9
1988 134 82 86 29 11 9
1989 295 227 251 36 44 21
1990 370 254 304 32 52 21
1991 197 141 146 11 21 6
1992 252 129 169 21 30 9
1993 271 135 155 23 20 3
1994 199 95 103 5 10 4
1995 145 79 83 23 11 2
 
25 
3. 3. 1. General numbers 
A graph based on these numbers allows better visualization of increased or 
decreased coverage: 
Figure A: Number of byline stories from Germany per paper, per year 
 
Two things should be noted from the image above: First, The New York Times led 
the charge in reporting from Germany. Each year, its correspondents reported and 
filed more stories from Bonn or West and East Berlin than all the other publications. 
Among the daily newspapers, USA Today had the least amount of stories from 
Germany every year.
Secondly, for the politically crucial years of 1988 and 1989, the expectation 
that coverage of Germany would rise proved accurate. After that, however, there 
seems to be a general decline in the number of stories in 1991, only to rise again the 
following couple of years. This might seem like an anomaly, but some stories 
published and counted in the analysis also included those pertaining to US interests 
0 
50 
100 
150 
200 
250 
300 
350 
400 
New York Times 
Los Angeles Times 
Washington Post 
USA Today 
Newsweek 
Time Magazine 
 
26 
and military forces based in Germany. So events that might have made the numbers 
for 1992 higher than expected could include the crisis in Bosnia and the first Gulf 
war. Furthermore, it is important to point out that the numbers after 1990 never 
reached those from before 1988.
 
Tables with corresponding charts for each of the six examined newspapers and 
magazines help interpret the numbers. The first chart, a line diagram, allows follows 
the development one particular theme underwent over the course of the ten years. 
The bar chart is better suited to compare which theme dominated each year: 
3. 3. 2 New York Times 
Table 2: Number of byline stories from Germany per category (New York Times) 
85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95
Germany 35 43 43 31 66 106 46 81 76 52 23
GDR/East Germany 13 17 20 12 132 94 21 20 25 18 9
Economy 28 32 27 33 28 60 41 66 73 43 11
Int. Politics 11 38 23 16 22 35 37 31 20 22 17
Arts/Science 18 16 18 14 20 50 26 29 50 34 40
United States 39 13 17 10 12 6 14 7 8 12 11
Defense 28 13 22 8 14 12 6 5 8 11 8
World War II 28 6 10 9 2 1 5 9 9 5 17
Tourism 4 0 0 2 0 1 1 4 3 2 10
 
27 
Figure B: Visualization of change in coverage per year/category (New York Times) 
 
Figure C: Visualization of proportional coverage of categories/year (New York Times) 
 
The story categories Germany and GDR/East Germany clearly dominated coverage 
by the New York Times throughout most of the years. After the transition period, 
however, there was on the economy, as the number of stories with economic 
content rivaled that of stories with hard political news topics. Arts and science 
0 
20 
40 
60 
80 
100 
120 
140 
Defense 
Germany 
GDR/East Germany 
Economy 
Int. Politics 
Arts/Science 
United States 
World War II 
Travel 
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 
1985 
1986 
1987 
1988 
1989 
1990 
1991 
1992 
1993 
1994 
1995 
Germany 
GDR/East Germany 
Economy 
Int. Politics 
Arts/Science 
United States 
Defense 
World War II 
Travel 
 
28 
received more coverage between 1992 and 1995. Both observations prove the 
assumption that a shift in topics would be noticeable after the transition period. 
3. 3. 3 Los Angeles Times: 
Table 3: Number of byline stories from Germany per category per year (Los Angeles Times) 
85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95
Germany 36 27 32 18 40 74 42 49 49 30 13
GDR/East Germany 5 7 18 6 83 56 13 9 10 7 8
Economy 9 6 3 8 6 18 16 24 24 11 12
Int. Politics 8 13 12 8 30 42 20 14 11 10 8
Arts/Science 16 23 18 17 30 28 12 14 18 22 14
United States 24 14 6 4 14 12 24 4 7 7 8
Defense 11 4 8 7 16 14 5 6 7 5 4
World War II 14 3 4 8 4 4 3 5 4 7 10
Tourism 18 5 4 5 4 6 6 4 5 1 2
Figure D: Visualization of change of coverage per year/category (Los Angeles Times) 
 
0 
10 
20 
30 
40 
50 
60 
70 
80 
90 
Germany 
GDR/East Germany 
Economy 
Int. Politics 
Arts/Science 
United States 
Defense 
World War II 
Travel 
 
29 
Figure E: Visualization of proportional number of stories per year/category (Los Angeles Times) 
 
The Los Angeles Times, too, focused largely on hard news topics such as election 
coverage, state visits or interest rate hikes. In 1990, the paper opened a second 
bureau in Berlin, in addition to its previously existing one in Bonn. During the time 
frame examined, some of the byline stories were contributions from other 
correspondents in Europe and Russia, as well as articles written by researchers 
employed in the foreign bureaus in Bonn and Berlin.
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 
1985 
1986 
1987 
1988 
1989 
1990 
1991 
1992 
1993 
1994 
1995 
Germany 
GDR/East Germany 
Economy 
Int. Politics 
Arts/Science 
United States 
Defense 
World War II 
Travel 
 
30 
3. 3. 4 Washington Post: 
Table 4: Number of byline stories from Germany per year and category (Washington Post) 
85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95
Germany 39 21 37 25 65 85 42 64 52 42 15
GDR/East Germany 11 13 18 11 100 90 16 19 19 3 6
Economy 9 8 17 17 13 31 11 22 25 8 7
Int. Politics 8 20 16 11 25 27 22 15 12 12 5
Arts/Science 7 5 10 7 9 26 13 18 23 11 16
United States 20 10 9 4 20 17 28 12 10 12 11
Defense 23 8 23 8 18 20 8 8 11 6 17
World War II 13 1 4 2 1 7 4 8 2 9 12
Tourism 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1
Figure F: Visualization of change of coverage per year/category (Washington Post) 
 
0 
20 
40 
60 
80 
100 
120 
Germany 
GDR/East Germany 
Economy 
Int. Politics 
Arts/Science 
United States 
Defense 
World War II 
Travel 
 
31 
Figure G: Visualization of proportional coverage per year/category (Washington Post) 
 
The Washington Post paid very little attention to economic topics, not even after 
1991. During the transition period, however, the paper increased the size of its 
foreign section by 20 percent, former Washington Post correspondent William 
Drozdiak
5
 recalled in an interview. “In those days, people were very eager to follow 
this. The Cold War dominated their lives, dominated foreign policy and dominated 
military policy,” he said. In his opinion, the increased coverage that led to a larger 
foreign section also led to the circulation going up. “There was much more room and 
much more interest,” Drozdiak added. 

5
 William Drozdiak was the Washington Post’s foreign editor from 1986 to 1990 and oversaw coverage by 25 
foreign correspondents. From 1990 to 2000 he served as the paper’s bureau chief in Paris and Berlin. Drozdiak 
is currently the president of the American Council on Germany. 
 
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 
1985 
1986 
1987 
1988 
1989 
1990 
1991 
1992 
1993 
1994 
1995 
Germany 
GDR/East Germany 
Economy 
Int. Politics 
Arts/Science 
United States 
Defense 
World War II 
Travel 
 
32 
3. 3. 5 USA Today 
Table 5: Number of byline stories from Germany per year and category (USA Today) 
85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95
Germany 2 3 3 5 6 5 2 5 2 0 1
GDR/East Germany 0 2 2 4 19 12 2 1 0 1 0
Economy 2 3 2 4 5 8 2 11 4 0 6
Int. Politics 0 2 1 2 0 0 0 2 1 1 1
Arts/Science 2 3 1 3 2 5 0 2 11 1 5
United States 5 3 4 7 1 2 4 0 2 2 4
Defense 1 2 3 0 2 0 1 0 3 0 4
World War II 1 2 6 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 1
Tourism 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Figure H: Visualization of change of coverage per year/category (USA Today) 
 
0 
2 
4 
6 
8 
10 
12 
14 
16 
18 
20 
Germany 
GDR/East Germany 
Economy 
Int. Politics 
Arts/Science 
United States 
Defense 
World War II 
Travel 
 
33 
Figure I: Visualization of proportional coverage per year/category (USA Today) 
 
Out of the daily papers analyzed, USA Today had the least amount of foreign news 
coverage ‐‐ not just from Germany, but Europe in general. The stories that were 
written from Germany were very much focused on economic themes. Even in the 
political very eventful year of 1990 there were almost as many stories about the 
economy as there were stories with a political news emphasis.
3. 3. 6 Newsweek 
Table 6: Number of byline stories from Germany per year and category (Newsweek) 
85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95
Germany 5 2 4 3 12 20 8 9 4 2 0
GDR/East Germany 0 1 1 0 10 4 0 2 1 0 0
Economy 1 0 2 1 2 6 3 7 6 3 3
Int. Politics 5 7 3 1 5 8 2 3 1 0 0
Arts/Science 4 6 2 3 8 7 2 5 6 2 3
United States 6 0 2 1 3 2 4 1 2 0 1
Defense 2 0 3 2 2 1 1 0 0 2 0
World War II 8 2 2 0 0 3 1 2 0 1 4
Tourism 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 
1985 
1986 
1987 
1988 
1989 
1990 
1991 
1992 
1993 
1994 
1995 
Germany 
GDR/East Germany 
Economy 
Int. Politics 
Arts/Science 
United States 
Defense 
World War II 
Travel 
 
34 
Figure J: Visualization of change of coverage per year/category (Newsweek) 
 
Figure K: Visualization of proportional coverage per year/category (Newsweek) 
 
Both weekly magazines included in the research, naturally, had significantly fewer 
foreign articles. The arts beat enjoyed a stronger representation in the magazines 
than in the daily papers.
0 
5 
10 
15 
20 
25 
Germany 
GDR/East Germany 
Economy 
Int. Politics 
Arts/Science 
United States 
Defense 
World War II 
Travel 
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 
1985 
1986 
1987 
1988 
1989 
1990 
1991 
1992 
1993 
1994 
1995 
Germany 
GDR/East Germany 
Economy 
Int. Politics 
Arts/Science 
United States 
Defense 
World War II 
Travel 
 
35 
3. 3. 7 Time Magazine 
Table 7: Number of byline stories per year and category (Time Magazine) 
85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95
Germany 1 1 1 2 5 5 2 4 1 1 0
GDR/East Germany 1 0 1 0 9 7 1 1 0 0 0
Economy 1 0 1 1 0 2 0 1 0 0 0
Int. Politics 0 0 0 1 4 0 1 0 0 0 0
Arts/Science 6 3 2 2 2 4 1 0 2 2 2
United States 2 0 2 1 0 2 1 0 0 1 0
Defense 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0
World War II 7 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Tourism 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Figure L: Visualization of change of coverage per year/category (Time Magazine) 
 
0 
1 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 
7 
8 
9 
10 
Germany 
GDR/East Germany 
Economy 
Int. Politics 
Arts/Science 
United States 
Defense 
World War II 
Travel 
 
36 
Figure M: Visualization of proportional coverage per year/category (Time Magazine) 
 
From 1988 to 1990, Time was more interested in developments in the GDR or East 
Germany than in the West. While they cared much less about economic topics the 
rest of the time, they were more interested in arts, culture and World War II than 
other publications. 
3. 4 Summary 
The previous tables and figures illustrate that the expected research results actually 
materialized. A surge in stories from Germany is noticeable during the transition 
period between 1989 and 1991 as well as a proportionally higher number of stories 
that did not have hard political content. A closer look at what this means for the 
bilateral relations between Germany and the US and how journalists cover foreign 
news is next. 
0 5 10 15 20 25 
1985 
1986 
1987 
1988 
1989 
1990 
1991 
1992 
1993 
1994 
1995 
Germany 
GDR/East Germany 
Economy 
Int. Politics 
Arts/Science 
United States 
Defense 
World War II 
Travel 
 
37 
Chapter 4: Analysis: What are the consequences of less and 
shifting foreign news coverage? 
As Entman, O’Heffernan and others have shown, the news media plays an important 
role on all stages and levels of the foreign policy process. They are an agenda setter 
and can help issues and countries penetrate American consciousness that are not on 
the radar of many policy officials. For policy‐decision makers, they serve as a source 
of information. These are just a few of the important functions highlighted in the 
previous chapter.
The second part of the literature review focused on the connection between 
democracy and the media and what the latter can contribute to the former. Based on 
Lippmann, Carey and others, it can be concluded that the media are not only 
important because they help citizens and voters make informed decisions about 
how they want to govern themselves. They also allow us to learn something about 
people with whom we live in an increasingly globalized community. This leads to 
the consequences or lessons foreign policy practitioners and journalists can learn 
from this analysis.
 
38 
4.1 Consequences for policy makers and the transatlantic relationship 
“For Germany – or any foreign country for that matter – to make it into an American 
newspaper or an American television newscast
6
, it must compete among myriad 
other stories vying for precious airtime or print space,” observes James Willis in his 
book Images of Germany in the American Media (Willis 1999, 45).
How the world is portrayed in news media profoundly affects the opinions, 
ideas and perceptions the American public is exposed to and forms. In a study that 
appeared in Safeguarding GermanAmerican Relations in the New Century, Monique 
Laney, who grew up in Germany but moved to the US later in life, examined how 
coverage of the most recent Iraq war was different in the New York Times and 
German national daily paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Her goal was to find 
out whether the articles readers in either countries read, helped create the political 
divide over participation in the war. “The voting public of each nation receives 
information about other nations’ interests and perceptions mainly through their 
national media,” Laney explains (Laney 2006, 173).
She comes to the conclusion that, while the New York Times did not actively 
deepen the political divide by perpetuating stereotypes about Germany or 
portraying it in a negative light, “the lack of information about Germany can be even 
more devastating to the transnational relationship.” (Laney 2006, 181) When it 
comes to the role news media can or should play in facilitating amicable bilateral 

6
 In a 2010 study, media research and consulting firm Media Tenor found that only 19 countries receive more 
than 1 percent media coverage on TV prime time news. Iraq led with 18 percent, followed by China and 
Afghanistan with 12 and 6 percent.
 
39 
relationships between countries, Laney has the following suggestion with regards to 
Germany: 
If the goal is to have better relations between the United States and Germany 
(or other nations, for that matter), we all need to learn more about other 
countries’ perspectives and challenge any form of stereotyping; either 
consumers need to start looking for foreign news outlets, or the local media 
needs to be more cognizant of providing informed and balanced reports 
about other nations. Encouraging both, or course, would be optimal. (Laney 
2006, 182) 
Former Washington Post foreign correspondent and editor Drozdiak uses the 
current Euro crisis as an example that illustrates what lack of coverage or biased 
coverage can mean. “As a result you get a lot of politicians saying ignorant things 
about not just Europe, but other parts of the world, because they are not so well 
informed.” The way newspapers report the world to those at home has an “impact 
on the political leadership that reads a paper like the Washington Post on a regular 
basis and also on the general public that is responsible for electing these officials.
Former US deputy ambassador to East Germany, J.D. Bindenagel,
7
also 
pointed towards the importance of media coverage for bilateral relations when he 
explained “there is a dialogue going on between the two countries that takes place 
on several levels. On the official level, of course, with diplomats, but the journalistic 
one is also very important, because the reporting on issues will be read by people 
who are doing the official dialogue and will have an impact.” 

7
 J.D. Bindenagel was U.S. Chargé d'Affaires and deputy chief of mission in the U.S. Embassy, Bonn, Germany, 
from 1994 to 1997. In the mid‐80s he served at the US embassy in East Berlin. He is currently vice president for 
community, government and international affairs at DePaul University in Chicago. 
 
 
40 
Experts on the transatlantic relationship from Germany and the US seem to 
agree that it was and is much more important for Germany to keep Americans 
interested in their affairs than the other way around. “German diplomats and 
officials are very concerned that there isn’t enough regular coverage. They have 
always been concerned that the United States is turning away from Europe,” 
Drozdiak says. “There has always been an imbalance. Germans have always been 
more interested in the US than Americans have been interested in Germany. And 
that makes sense, because they are much more dependent on us than we are on 
them,” says Germany expert Stephen Szabo at the German Marshall Fund of the 
United States. 
Szabo also points to other forms of connection between the two countries 
that entered a state of demise that coincided with the end of the Cold War with its 
diminished and shifting coverage. “The connections the average American has with 
Germany has dropped because our military presence has dropped. We had 
something like 12 million Americans living in Germany during the Cold War; they 
were sort of like little ambassadors for German‐American relations,” he said. 
4. 1. 1 Opinion polls: what do Americans think of Germany and do they follow 
news from Germany? 
One way to judge the state of relations between countries is to ask voters their 
perception of said country and whether they are interested in news from that 
country. In the case of Germany, Schatz said the image was “never pretty good.” In a 
 
41 
2002 study his organization asked ordinary Americans as well as opinion leaders 
and foreign policy officials they called ‘elite’ to name German public figures. Among 
the elite, a little less than 40 percent named Adolf Hitler, 20 percent named Helmut 
Kohl (who hadn’t been chancellor at that time for four years) and 2 percent knew 
about then Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. The gap between Hitler and Kohl was 
even larger when residents of Iowa, Indiana and Idaho were asked. 40 percent 
identified Hitler as an important German personality, 4 percent Helmut Kohl. 
Nobody knew who Gerhard Schroeder was, according to the report’s authors. Lack 
of media coverage of Germany or German politics is to blame for this situation, 
Schatz writes. “The fact that not even one report was devoted to the German 
chancellor in the whole of 2002 helps neither German companies to be perceived as 
business partners in America, nor does it help the Americans.” 
In a 2009 poll conducted by Frank N. Magid Associates, 28 percent of people 
asked stated they had good knowledge of Germany. This number was at 25 percent 
the year before. 50 percent of responders said the media does not provide enough 
information about Germany, 19 percent thought they didn’t need to be informed 
about the country.
The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press asks people about 
their news consumption habits and their opinions of foreign countries every year. In 
1987, at the height of the Cold War, 75 percent said they had a favorable or very 
favorable opinion of West Germany. In 1989, the events in East and West Germany 
had to compete with the earthquake in San Francisco for audience attention. Only 
 
42 
one year later 61 percent stated they followed the change in Germany and Eastern 
Europe fairly or very closely. In 1993, the Pew Center asked about the need to 
protect against a resurgent Germany and about attacks against foreigners in the 
unified country. 46 percent thought it should be a priority to protect against a 
resurgent Germany. In 2010, interest in news from Germany was down to 33 
percent. These numbers illustrate that media coverage can shape opinions and 
perceptions about countries. It also shows that political events can drive coverage.
4.2 Consequences for journalism 
Strobel, who wrote his book on media influence on foreign policy after the end of 
the Cold War, pointed out that the “new world order” journalists and politicians 
alike were faced with left both without the structure and predictability of agreed‐
upon frames and thought patterns they were used to provided them with. The 
dominant worldview communicated from politicians to voters through the media 
that was, to a large degree shared and endorsed by the media, was no longer valid.
“The absence of this old bipolar agenda alone fundamentally altered how the 
US news media reported on foreign affairs and their impact on those charged with 
making foreign policy,” he writes (Strobel 1997, 59). He draws a direct line between 
media coverage of foreign policy and the image of the world the American public is 
presented with. “The result is a profound change in the picture of the world relayed 
to the American public.” (Strobel, 65) 
 
43 
The subject matter [italicized in the original] of journalism has become 
globalized. The social, political, economic, cultural and ecological phenomena 
and processes that are the subject matter of journalism are no longer bound 
by national borders. Significant decision‐making processes that affect 
domestic affairs take place now in the international arena or within private 
sector transnational corporations that are for many purposes location‐less in 
nature. The actors about whom journalism reports are now global (Nerone 
1995, 160)
The author follows the globalization trend further and writes “we are 
beginning to see more and more expressions of a sense of being members of a global 
civil society, sharing concerns as much with those beyond nation‐state borders as 
with those within” (Nerone, 161). Transcending coverage of national interests and 
national politics seems especially necessary in an increasingly globalized world. 
Veteran foreign correspondents like Drozdiak agree that more coverage of the rest 
of the world is needed. “It’s a deplorable situation, because we are living in an age of 
globalization, when our daily lives are affected by events in other countries of the 
world, and yet we are getting less and less factual coverage in good newspapers.”
The journalist also pointed out that the media doesn’t always utilize the full 
potential of its agenda‐setting ability. “The media follows what is actually 
happening,” he said. Bindenagel agrees when he attributes the shift of focus of the 
American media with a change in foreign policy interests. “The American attitude 
was that reunification of Germany was the culmination of our foreign policy; it was a 
success; it was finished; this job was done.” The topics in the bilateral relationship 
shifted from things like Pershing rockets to economic concerns, for example.
 
44 
While it is not surprising that the number of articles from the geographical 
region of “Old Europe”
8
 has plummeted once the conflict that supplied journalists 
with a seemingly never‐ending source of angles, journalists have to accept partial 
responsibility for the dilemma they are facing after 1991.
“Americans, like most people, are not very interested in foreign affairs unless 
they perceive the national interest to be involved. The Cold War outlook could turn 
anything into an issue of national interest if communism was somehow implicated,” 
writes Henry A. Grunwald
9
, former editor‐in‐chief of Time Magazine in an article 
about post‐Cold War journalism.
After the Cold War, journalists had to find their way through a new world 
order. As mentioned earlier, the Cold War frame simplified reporting and 
interpreting foreign affairs. After its demise, journalists have to rely on themselves 
much more and study up on history or geography, for example. Willis cites Louis D. 
Boccardi, former president and chief executive officer of the Associated Press who 
asked in a 1993 essay: “The end of the Cold War has been nothing but good for 
journalism. If analysis is journalism’s greatest art, what could be more invigorating 
than a world where everything has to be analyzed anew?” 

8
 Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rummsfeld coined this term to distinguish European countries willing 
and eager to participate in the war against Afghanistan from those that refused to send troops. 
9
 After retiring from Time, Grunwald was ambassador of the US to Austria from 1987 to 1990. 
 
 
45 
Chapter 5: Open Questions, Final Thoughts 
One aspect of the bilateral relations and the impact the news media has on them 
that this thesis could not sufficiently explore is how German politicians and 
diplomats try to bring their country back into the news in the United States and 
portray it in a favorable light.
The interviewed journalists and foreign policy experts agreed that German 
officials have always complained about lack of coverage or negative coverage. 
German foreign policy expert Szabo mentioned the current Euro crisis and 
Germany’s role in it as a recent political event that drives coverage in American 
news media. “Now we are turning to Germany to see how they are doing it,” he said. 
Whenever there is a political or economic crisis that concerns the US, its media will 
report about it. When news coverage warrants reporting from or about Germany, 
officials only need to worry about the kind of coverage their country gets, not the 
absence of coverage.
Szabo also pointed to the work of German Goethe Institutes. As part of the 
country’s public diplomacy and nation branding, the Government established this 
organization in 1951 to spread German language and culture through language 
courses, music, movies, talks and education. Germany Information Centers in major 
cities work in a similar fashion. They try to shape the country’s image. Anna Schwan, 
who headed the German Information Center’s educational department in 
 
46 
Washington D.C., said in a paper issued by Dimap Communications
10
 that it was her 
goal to “bring Germany into the classrooms.” This was necessary, she explained in 
the same article, because many Americans would still only connect Germany with 
WWII. 
In a 2010 interview with the website Cultural Diplomacy Research, Dimap 
consultant and public diplomacy expert Daniel Florian explained the complicated 
relationship between the media, a county’s image and a country’s desire to shape or 
change its image. “It’s the case with many countries that they see their image in the 
media, and how the media only reports a very small fraction of what is actually 
happening. It’s very important to tell the audience about the other stories as well, 
and media relations are very important in that respect. But it’s also important that 
states create their own direct outreach programs, independent of mainstream 
media. That could be in the form of a website or other social media networks.”
Another way a country tries to ensure that favorable articles and media 
reports about it are being written and produces is putting on (very often sports‐
related) events that show the country and its citizens in a different light. In 2006, 
Financial Times Deutschland tracked articles written about Germany in English 
newspapers between January and July, before and during the soccer World Cup in 
Germany. The authors noticed that before the event, journalists told soccer fans to 
expect a well organized but subdued and boring event. As soon as the first kickoff 

10
 German dimap communications is a political and public relations consulting firm that also advises national 
governments in nation branding. 
 
47 
occurred, the tone and the language of the analyzed articles changed. Flag‐waving 
and enthusiastically partying Germans apparently surprised reporters in a very 
positive way.
Using theories about the media and democracy as well as the media and 
foreign policy that helped interpret the research results, this thesis showed that the 
media has an important role to play in the foreign policy process. The media is also 
very important when it comes to facilitating democratic community in a globalized 
world by giving voices to those who can’t speak for themselves, reporting on events 
ordinary media consumers as well as those in powerful positions would otherwise 
not know about and by providing a forum for public discourse and better decision 
making.
When, as in the case of Germany, a country sees a decline in coverage and, 
connected with this, a decline in interest, bilateral relations can suffer. A change in 
the political situation has an influence on what journalists are interested in. 
Therefore, it is understandable that the themes the analyzed articles covered 
changed too. In a post‐Cold War world, the frames that journalists used to make 
sense of the world are no longer available. But then it is up to the journalists to learn 
about the historical context of a conflict or newsworthy event and give readers, 
viewers and decision‐makers alike the information they need to function in a 
globalized world.  
And, as the above examples show, politicians and policy makers have tools to 
influence their country’s image and they use them to bring it back into the news. 
 
48 
Then journalists and editors have to determine what they want to write about to 
best serve their readers as well as democracy.
 
49 
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract This work examines the close relationship between news media and foreign policy on one hand, and news media and democracy on the other. Using foreign news coverage of Germany in six American newspapers and magazines between 1985 and 1995 as an example, it tries to answer the question what happens to the bilateral relationship between two countries if one virtually disappears from the public agenda of the other as portrayed by the news media. In chapter four, theories about democracy and the foreign policy decision-making process will inform the interpretation of the content analysis. The Cold War as the story of stories that dominated news coverage for 40 years provides an indispensable backdrop for this thesis. The end of the Cold War and the loss of dominant frames of coverage changed how journalists see and report the world to their readers.

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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Asset Metadata

Creator Donath, Jessica (author)

Core Title News from Germany between 1985 and 1995 - a casualty of the end of the Cold War

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Journalism (Print Journalism)

Publication Date 05/07/2012

Defense Date 05/04/2012

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Cold War,democracy,German-American relationship,Germany,media,news coverage,OAI-PMH Harvest,US foreign policy

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Parks, Michael (committee chair), Cross, Mai'a (committee member), Tenderich, Burghardt (committee member)

Creator Email donath@usc.edu,jessica.donath1@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-34503

Unique identifier UC11289139

Identifier usctheses-c3-34503 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-DonathJess-803.pdf

Dmrecord 34503

Document Type Thesis

Rights Donath, Jessica

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA