Giving peace a chance?
Agenda-building influence of
Nobel Peace Prize announcements in
U.S. newsmagazines, 1990-1997
Markham Competition
Michelle M. Tedford
masters student, Ohio University E.W. Scripps School of Journalism
6798 Hoover Ave.
Dayton, OH 45427
937-837-7021
[log in to unmask]
Submitted for consideration to the International Communication Division of the
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication National
Conference, August 1999.
Giving peace a chance?
Agenda-building influence of Nobel Peace Prize announcements
in U.S. newsmagazines, 1990-1997
ABSTRACT
This study found no support for an agenda-building influence in U.S.
newsmagazines by the Norwegian Nobel Committee's announcement of Peace Prize
winners. Stories about the winners were measured for the two years surrounding
each announcement since the end of the Cold War. Those not already considered
news makers before the announcement received little coverage after the
announcement. In stories announcing the winners, greater space was devoted to
those already on the news agenda.
Giving peace a chance D
Giving peace a chance?
Agenda-building influence of Nobel Peace Prize announcements
in U.S. newsmagazines, 1990-1997
Late last year, Indonesia announced that it would begin talks regarding the
possible independence of East Timor. This was a welcomed prospect for a country
that has been dominated, colonized and neglected for 400 years. The struggle of
the East Timorese was highlighted internationally when the Norwegian Nobel
Committee awarded the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize to Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo and
Jose Ramos-Horta, two champions for peace and human rights in the island's
battles with Indonesia. A former Portuguese colony, East Timor was invaded by
Indonesia after a military coup and civil war drove away the Portuguese
government. Since 1976, Indonesia has claimed the Pacific island as its 27th
providence, though the United Nations Security Council and many world
governments never recognized the invading government (Nand 1996, B-07).
While the Nobel committee is known for recognizing the efforts of those who
work for peace, it is also known for politicizing the prize and using it to
bring attention to issues that would normally go unnoticed by the world. The
Timorese prize was "an example of the Nobel committee trying to shine a light on
a conflict, using the prize to focus world attention on a conflict that is often
forgotten" (Goldfarb 1996). The awarding of the prize_attempts, more
specifically, to put the people and the issues acknowledged by the prize on the
world's agenda.
THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
The Nobel Peace Prize was first awarded in 1901 from the estate Alfred Nobel,
the inventor of dynamite who wrote in his will that the prize should be awarded
to the "person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity
among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the
holding and promotion of peace congresses " (Sch ck et al. 1951, 12).
Nominations are submitted by past or current members of the committee, previous
Peace Prize winners, university professors of political science, history and
philosophy and certain government officials. The Norwegian Nobel Committee does
not release the names of nominees, although the nominees are not prevented from
doing so. Nominees have been known to take their cases to the Norwegian press,
in an attempt to influence the committee, though the committee writes that such
agenda-building on part of the nominees is counterproductive (Nor. Nobel Inst.,
"The nomination..."). Through the 1990s, announcement of the winners has been
made in October and the prize is awarded on the anniversary of Mr. Nobel's
death, Dec. 10.
In addition to rewarding those who have made strides toward a more peaceful
world, the prize highlights "forgotten struggles" and urges world citizens and
leaders to act on these issues. As the committee itself wrote in its
announcement of the 1996 winners, "The Nobel Committee hopes that this award
will spur efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict in East Timor
based on the people's right to self- determination" ("The Nobel Peace Prize
winners for 1996"). In awarding peace prizes, the committee has encouraged world
leaders to intensify efforts toward nuclear disarmament, invited greater
participation in the elimination of land mines, expressed hope for increased
efforts by grassroots organizations to secure peace, and championed peaceful
solutions to religious, ethnic and national conflicts around the world.[1]
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to measure what impact the announcement of Nobel
Peace Prize winners may have on the coverage of the winners and their issues in
U.S. newsmagazines, to see if the recognition helps build the agenda of news
magazines, a first step in the process of ultimately moving the winners' issues
onto the people's agenda.
RELATED RESEARCH
While no literature is available on the agenda-building influence of Nobel
peace prizes, this annual event poses an opportunity to study international news
coverage in U.S. newsmagazines. First, the prize has been awarded annually for
over 90 years to people throughout the world, is highly regarded and follows a
predictable time table. These factors could facilitate potential high profile
coverage of this international news event. Second, agenda-building studies have
identified the importance of issue salience thresholds, pointing to the need to
study coverage of international issues that the Nobel committee often identify
as "forgotten struggles." Finally, newsmagazines are often read by a public
interested in getting a more complete picture of the world. While this may be
the hope, it is important to determine the diet of news actually presented in
newsmagazines.
Agenda Building
Agenda-building mass media studies are an outgrowth of the original
agenda-setting studies. Agenda setting refers to the media's ability to raise
the importance of an issue in the public's mind. In the first empirical study of
agenda setting, McCombs and Shaw (1972) determined a correlation between issues
in the media surrounding the 1968 presidential election and what undecided
voters regarded as salient and important election issues. Following this study,
the focus of agenda-setting studies centered on public issues, including the
exploration of contingent conditions, candidate image and political interest as
alternative agendas (McCombs 1992). This study of Nobel winners helps build on
the fourth stage of agenda-setting research, the one that asks "Who sets the
news agenda?" The fourth stage can include research of news sources,
journalistic routines or the rhetorical perspectives of news stories (McCombs
1992).
This fourth stage encompasses what is called agenda building, a concept used in
political science studies and employed by Lang and Lang (1983) to explore the
relationship between the press and public opinion during the Watergate crisis.
Agenda building includes several steps, the ones most relevant to this research
being:
~ The events and activities in the focus of attention must be "framed," or
given a field of meaning within which they can be understood;
~ The media link the activities or events that have become the focus of
attention to secondary symbols whose location on the political landscape is
easily recognized; and
~ Agenda building is accelerated when well-known and credible individuals
begin to speak out on an issue (Severin and Tankard 1997, 265).
In the example of Nobel Peace Prize winners:
~ Stories after the announcement of winners have the possibility of being
framed based on the committee's statements (see Appendix B);
~ The issues championed by the winners could become tied to the winners and
their status as peace proponents; and
~ The agenda-building process could be accelerated by subsequent speaking
engagements accepted by prize winners.
In all of these cases, legitimate agenda-building outcomes could be viewed as
news hooks by the media, and have the potential to spawn increased coverage of
the winners and their issues.
Since the birth of this fourth stage of agenda-setting study in the 1980s,
communications and political science studies have investigated its implications
(Cassara 1998; Johnson and Wanta 1996; Ohl et al. 1995; and Shibuya 1996-97).
Wanta (1991) continues research on the theme of the first agenda-setting studies
D_politics D with a look at how a president can interfere with the agenda
relationship between the media and the public by presenting an agenda different
from that of the press. In their look at local agenda building, Weaver and
Elliott (1985) find that the happenings in the city council and committee
meetings do influence coverage in the local newspaper. They suggest "a prominent
news source can have a major influence on the subsequent media agenda, but
selective processes and news judgements of journalists also play a significant
part in shaping this agenda." Both studies are important to the issue of the
Nobel winners, since the peace prize is often politicized if not specifically
political in nature, such as the 1990 award to Gorbachev. Weaver and Elliott
(1985) hint at the uncertainty inherent in agenda building, that influences from
outside the media organization (i.e. Nobel committee announcements) must compete
with the other media content influences, including the influences of individual
media workers, media routines, organizational influences and ideological
influences (Shoemaker and Reese 1996).
Cobb, Keith-Ross and Ross (1976) offer three models to explain agenda building
. The one most applicable here is the "Outside-initiative" model, where issues
originate with citizen organizations who raise the issues to the public before
the issues reach the government. Despite the fact that the Norwegian Nobel
Committee has ties to the Norwegian parliament (to be discussed later), the
process of outside nomination may put the committee more in the "public" realm.
Also, the announcements are made publicly, not just for government leaders, and
committee recommendations for further action on the highlighted issues extend
both to citizens and governments. For the committee to be successful in the
outside-initiative model of agenda building, then, public awareness becomes a
crucial phase.
The amount of coverage given to the people and issues associated with the Nobel
Peace Prizes is important to consider. Lang and Lang (1983) found that different
issues have different "issue thresholds," demonstrating that more obscure Nobel
winners or less salient peace issues may need more press coverage to penetrate
the public's agenda. Both Zucker (1978) and Eyal (1979) found that the less
obtrusive the issue is, the more the public relies on the press for information,
and the more similar are the public and press agendas. International issues of
peace, by nature, are issues with which the U.S. public has little personal
experience. These studies then reiterate the importance of coverage by the press
of less salient international issues.
Newsmagazines
There is an underlying question of how much information on world events the
readers of newsmagazines are receiving. First, it must be determined if the diet
of international news provided by the main U.S. newsmagazines varies among
publications. In a look at the coverage of terrorists in three U.S.
newsmagazines, Simmons and Lowry (1990) recorded no distinctions among the
three. Similarly, little difference was found between U.S. newsmagazines in a
study of global election coverage. Buckman (1993) showed that U.S. newsmagazines
covered significantly fewer international events than their foreign
counterparts, and that Newsweek, Time and U.S. News & World Report scored
closely in newshole space devoted to national and international news, as well as
the amount of coverage they gave the foreign elections. As he found,
"Subscribers to newsmagazines in the United States and other countries no doubt
believe they are diversifying their sources, but as the data indicate, they
still may not be getting the full picture" (Buckman 1993, 790).
Despite their large number of subscribers D four million for Time and three
million for Newsweek_ (Gale Research Co. 1999) D_relatively little research has
been done exploring newsmagazines. Gerlach (1987) found that only 116 articles
concerning newsmagazines were published in Journalism Quarterly from 1964
through 1983, or 6 percent of all articles published over 20 years. Therefore,
more research on newsmagazines is needed.
METHOD
For this study, U.S. editions of Time and Newsweek are studied to determine
coverage of Nobel Peace Prize winners and issues. These magazines were chosen
because they are widely read. Differences among newsmagazines have been tested
regarding domestic and international news coverage. Evarts and Stempel (1974)
found that D despite of the preconception that more liberal editorial content
would be found in Newsweek, followed by Time and U.S. New & World Report D Time
carried the most liberal coverage of the 1972 campaign and that all
newsmagazines had a rightward bias. A study by Gutierrez-Villalobos, Hertog and
Rush (1994) found that Time and Newsweek displayed a similar deference to
authority in foreign affairs coverage. In a study of newsmagazine coverage of
Mao Tse-tung and Chaing Kai-shek, Yu and Riffe (1989) found that the individual
newsmagazine and focus on either leader were not significantly related. Because
such similarities between newsmagazines have been found, all figures in this
study,_unless otherwise noted, indicate a combined total from both periodicals.
Based on the need for research on magazine coverage of international issues,
this study will examine one reoccurring event D_the announcement of Nobel Peace
Price winners D and chronicle its coverage in U.S. newsmagazines since the end
of the Cold War. By comparing coverage of the announcement of each prize through
the 1990s, it may be discovered whether the Norwegian Nobel Committee regularly
builds the agenda of the magazines by influencing the amount of coverage the
winners and their issues receive (a first step toward making these international
issues salient with the public).
Post-Cold War Laureates
Literature published by the Norwegian Nobel Committee shows that different
models for choosing winners have been used throughout periods of world history
(Nor. Nobel Inst., "Who has won..."). In an attempt to avoid the pitfall of
comparing Nobel winners across different historical periods (and different
selection processes), this study will look only at post-Cold War winners (Table
1). This definitive period begins with the 1990 award going to Mikhail
Sergeyevich Gorbachev, then president of the Soviet Union, for helping to end
the Cold War (Rule 1990, A-01), and concludes with the 1997 prize, the last year
for which there is complete data.
Table 1: Post-Cold War Nobel Peace Prize laureates included in the study, and
their achievements toward world peace (for complete citations from the Norwegian
Nobel Committee, see Appendix B)
1990 - Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
Awarded to the president of the Soviet Union for championing political change
in Eastern Europe and helping
to end the cold war. He brought greater openness to the Soviet society, helped
slow the arms race and worked
toward peaceful solutions to regional conflicts.
1991 - Aung San Suu Kyi
Awarded for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma.
At the time of the awarding,
she had been under house arrest by the military government for two years.
1992 -_Rigoberta Menchu Tum
Awarded for her campaign for human rights, especially for indigenous peoples in
Guatemala. A Quich Indian,
she works for ethno-cultural reconciliation amid the large-scale repression of
Indian peoples in Guatemala.
1993 -_Frederik Willem de Klerk, Nelson Mandela
Awarded to president of the African National Congress and the president of the
Republic of South Africa for
their work at ending apartheid and moving the country toward peaceful,
democratic elections.
1994 - Yasir Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin
Awarded to the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the foreign
minister of Israel and the
prime minister of Israel for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East.
1995 - Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, Joseph Rotblat
Awarded for their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in
international politics and in the
longer run to eliminate such arms. Rotblat was one of 11 scientists behind the
Russell-Einstein Manifesto,
which formed the Conferences 40 years ago to recognize the responsibility of
scientists for their inventions.
1996 -_Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, Jose Ramos-Horta
Awarded for their work toward a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in
East Timor, ruled by Indonesia.
Since 1975, the island providence has lost an estimated one-third of its
population to starvation, epidemics,
war and terror.
1997 -_Jody Williams, International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL)
Awarded for their work in clearing anti-personnel land mines and making the
international ban of land mines a
feasible reality. The ICBL has created a grassroots network for the expression
of popular commitment for the
reduction of land mines.
For this analysis, two time spans were explored for each year's winner. The
first includes the year before the announcement of the winner. Because
nominations are due by Feb. 1 (Nor. Nobel Inst., "The nomination..."), the
issues and actions for which the winners are nominated should be as much "news"
in the previous year as they are when the announcement is made eight months
later in October. The second time span looks at the year beginning with the
prize announcement and with the date of the announcement of the next year's
winner.
Study Sample
The sample for this study was gathered using Lexis-Nexis. A keyword search for
each winner and time span included the winners' names, countries and causes.
Results were compared with the citations of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, to be
sure the articles centered on the issues for which the prize was awarded.
Articles were then coded as to whether the lauded issue was the focus of the
story or a mention within a larger story. Two coders tested the reliability of
the selection process with a 97% reliability. Any discrepancies were attributed
to choosing between whether the article was a focus or mention story, not
whether the article should or should not be included in the analysis. This study
"sample" includes the entire pool of stories in Time and Newsweek that meet the
above criteria. Therefore, findings below are based on real numbers, not
statistical differences.
To address the first research question, the article is the unit of analysis. An
article was counted as any news story, news brief, essay, letter-to-the-editor,
editorial or other story brief (i.e. "Perspectives" or "Grapevine" pieces)
regardless of length. Cover copy or extended table of contents notations that
appeared in the results list were not counted. Letters were included because,
like news stories, they are also chosen from a large pool of possible topics.
Gatekeepers had to choose letters about the Nobel prize winners, and while
letters do not illustrate the same commitment or resources needed for a news
story, they are still indications of what the magazine recognizes as important.
To address the second research question, articles on the announcement of the
winners were identified and the hard copies of the magazines pulled. The
stories, photos and other graphics were measured by square inch. If the
announcement information was a portion of a larger story, only the announcement
information was measured. All measurements for each year's winners are added to
find the total space devoted to the winners each year. The covers and table of
contents pages for each of the identified issues were looked at to see if the
winner was teased on the cover, the focus of the cover, or highlighted by a
photo on the contents page.
The research questions to be answered, then, are:
R1: Comparing coverage before and after the prize announcement, does the Nobel
committee's announcement increase the amount of coverage the winners and their
issues receive in U.S. newsmagazines?
R2: Looking at announcement stories, what trends can be identified in the
amount of space U.S. newsmagazines allot to winners and their issues?
FINDINGS
1. Coverage before and after the announcement. Regarding the first research
question, an analysis of coverage of each year's winner across the two time
spans indicates that the Nobel committee's announcement does not lead to
increased coverage of the winners and their issues (see Table 2). Any increases
in coverage seem to be attributable to news events. For example, the 35 percent
increase associated with the 1993 prize may be linked to coverage of the first
democratic elections in South Africa. The increase in coverage of the 1991,1992
and 1996 winners may be directly attributed to announcement stories, though a
rise from two to four in the case of Burma, for example, is hard to quantify as
enough to affect the salience of a foreign issue with the U.S. reader. In other
cases, coverage actually decreased. The decrease in coverage of the land mine
ban may be attributed to the death of Princess Diana (a champion against land
mines) before the 1997 award. The decrease surrounding coverage of issues for
which Gorbachev was cited may be due to the shift of power to Yeltsin and the
breakdown of the Soviet system.
It is true that the Nobel committee acknowledged more areas of achievement for
Gorbachev than Mench#, for example, which may partially explain the wide
variation in scores. Stories were counted if they dealt with Gorbachev's actions
in opening up Soviet society, ending the ban on religion, promoting nuclear
disarmament and fostering the peaceful reconfiguration of Eastern Europe.
Mench#'s scope of acknowledgment was more narrow; her accomplishments dealt with
human rights issues of Guatemalans and other indigenous peoples.
Table 2: Number of stories on Nobel Peace Prize winners and their issues the
year before versus the year after prize announcement, in two U.S. newsmagazines,
1990-1997
Year before October announcement
From October announcement through next year
1990 - Gorbachev
f=173
m=108 total=281
f=56
m= 71 total=127
1993 - South Africa
f=19
m=16 total=35
f=38
m=16 total=54
1994 - Middle East
f=27
m=7 total=34
f=21
m=7 total=28
1995 - Nuclear
m=11 total=11
f=2
m=6 total=8
1992 - Guatemala
total=0
f=6
m=1 total=7
1997 - Land mines
f=9
m=2 total=11
f=2
m=2 total=4
1991 - Burma
f=2
total=2
f=3
m=1 total=4
1996 - East Timor
total=0
f=2 total=2
KEY: f=stories in which the winners and the issues are the focus
m=stories in which the winners and their issues are mentioned as part of
a larger story
Despite this revelation, the trend in coverage is striking. Issues and people
who received much attention before the announcement continued to be seen as
newsmakers after, and those who received little attention before were still not
news after the prize announcement was made. This finding questions the power of
the Nobel Peace Prize as a media agenda builder.
And these numbers do not indicate the complete discrepancy between the lesser
covered and more covered prize winners. For example, while the 1996 prize was
given to a grassroots effort at nuclear disarmament, the only stories that dealt
with non-governmental involvement were the two about the announcement of the
prize. All other stories, except for one letter to the editor, focused on the
U.S. government's attempt to control the nuclear threat from Korea or Russia,
for example. Also, the increase in number of stories (zero to seven) after the
announcement of Rigoberta Mench# Tum as the 1992 laureate included four letters
to the editor. One letter reads, "Now perhaps the world will pay some attention
to the genocide taking place in Guatemala" (Letters 1992, 5). While it appears
that there are members of the public already informed of Mench#'s struggles, the
newsmagazines recognized her issues through letters instead of expanded
coverage.
2. Attention to prize winners. Regarding the second research question, the
space devoted to stories announcing the Nobel Peace Prize winners varied greatly
(see Table 3). The mean for total space is 119.54 inches, with the average
deviation between individual years and the Post-Cold War mean being 64.80
inches. The announcement of prize winners occurred at the same time D_during the
second week of October D_in each of the eight years. Therefore, newsmagazines
had the ability to anticipate the announcement of the winners and work coverage
into their news routines. Yet, despite this predictability, the variation
displayed in Table 3 shows that the magazines gave almost five times the space
to winners from the Middle East as to the four least covered laureates. Soviet
Union and South Africa combined got more space than the combined total for East
Timor, nuclear disarmament, Burma and Guatemala. The relatively large space
devoted to the ban on land mines can be attributed to pictures of Diana,
Princess of Wales, which accompanied all stories about Jody Williams and her
effort. (Diana was involved in the movement before her death in 1997.) The scant
attention devoted to the East Timorese winners can be partly explained by the
fact that Newsweek printed no coverage of the winners. For all other years, both
magazines included stories on the winners.
Table 3: Space in square inches devoted to announcement of Nobel Peace Prize
winners in two U.S. newsmagazines, 1990-1997
article
photo
other graphic
Total
1994 - Middle East
124.56
124.66
63.14
312.36
1990 - Gorbachev
100.68
20.84
34.85
156.37
1993 - South Africa
93.74
43.97
11.38
149.09
1997 - Land mines
58.89
41.73
D
100.62
1992 - Guatemala
48.19
17.87
D
66.06
1991 - Burma
45.78
18.29
D
64.07
1995 - Nuclear disarmament
46.37
13.84
D
60.14
1996 - East Timor
27.05
6.19
14.34
47.58
Despite the fact that Rotblat (1995) and Mench# (1992) received so little space
for their announcement stories, and so few stories over the two years studied,
these were the only two winners whose photos were included in the table of
contents page. Yet the addition of these photos (2.625 inches and 0.75 inches,
respectively) does not influence the standing they receive when looking at total
space.
DISCUSSION
Agenda Setting
Results show no positive effects of the Nobel Peace Prize announcements on the
number of stories including information on the winners and their issues, or on
the length of announcement stories. This would suggest that the Norwegian Nobel
Committee does a poor job of building the agenda of newsmagazines. A case can be
made for the fact that the committee does not actively solicit coverage of the
winners. The committee simply makes its announcement and waits for the world to
react. Committee members are prohibited from discussing the nominee evaluation
process (Nor. Nobel Inst., "The Norwegian..."). While the prize's status alone
could be an influence on the media's agenda D and while the committee hopes to
initiate discussion of the issues it awards D_results here do not indicate that
this is enough to change the agenda of U.S. newsmagazines.
Results indicate that the newsmagazine-reading public is not being touched by
the committee's intentions. But it does not mean that the world is not
listening. Newsmagazines are only one source of the public's information on
Nobel Peace Prize winners and their issues, and newsmagazines only reach a
portion of the public. Further research on this subject should look at the
coverage of Nobel Peace Prize winners in other media to see if information is
being more effectively conveyed in other ways.
It is also possible that the announcements skip the public and instead move to
directly influence the international governmental agendas. Despite the earlier
notion that the Nobel committee's agenda-building process follows the
outside-initiative model, it is possible that a third model presented by Cobb,
Keith-Ross and Ross (1976) more accurately reflects the committee's
agenda-building function. In the "Inside Access" model, a governmental group or
group with easy access to political decision makers forms an agenda. Because of
its close proximity, the issue is automatically put on the political agenda. It
does not require mobilization of the public, and expansion of the issue is
instead aimed at particular influential groups. The Norwegian Nobel Committee is
appointed by a political body, Norway's Sorting (parliament), so it has easy
access to the political process. A recent Nobel Peace Prize example that may
illustrate the committee's power inside this model is the case of East Timor.
Despite poor media coverage of the laureates, the occupying government of
Indonesia is considering granting the island independence. The Indonesian
government is known to react to pressure from other governments, as has been the
case; "...Indonesia tends to respond positively to international pressure, and
the prestige of the Nobel Prize tells Jakarta concern about East Timor is not
limited to the United States and its liberal friends."[2]
Other Forces
Larger forces such as international news flow and cultural proximity may be in
charge. In his look at television coverage of natural disasters, Adams (1986,
122) found that the severity of the disaster accounted less for amount of
coverage than did the finding that "the death of one Western European equaled
three Eastern Europeans equaled 9 Latin Americans equaled 11 Middle Easterners
equaled 12 Asians." A study of regional, non-elite newspapers further sheds
light on international news criteria. Cassara (1992) suggests that factors of
political power and conflict dominate news choices more than news selection
because of economic or cultural ties. A closer evaluation of why Nobel winners
such as Gorbachev were hot news, and East Timor barely made a blip, would add to
this discussion.
Other more obvious news routines may be at work. For example, newsmagazines
regularly have correspondents based in countries such as Russia, and Gorbachev
is accessible to journalists through press conferences and interviews.
Conversely, few correspondents are assigned to Burma, and even those who are
would find it difficult to interview a Nobel laureate who is under house arrest.
An evaluation of why correspondents are assigned to Russia instead of Burma,
though, would also be telling in an examination of coverage of Nobel prize
winners and their issues.
On a larger scale, the findings also indicate that news is not "new," that
instead it is the same stories that have already attracted the media's
attention. _As Elliott and Golding (1979, 147) state, news is "essentially a
topping-up mechanism, a means of adding to areas of defined interest and
importance the latest incremental happenings." Since the struggles of the people
of Burma or East Timor were not already defined areas of interest and
importance, it was unlikely that a news "event" like the committee announcement
would propel them to such a standing.
Future Research
A final area that may be interesting for future research is a look at
rhetorical analysis, a technique used to evaluate agenda building. A rhetorical
analysis of coverage before and after the announcement, based on the language of
the committee's citation, could indicate if the committee did have influence on
the contents of news coverage, if not on the amount. A rhetorical analysis would
indicate shifts in the news frame of the stories, and show if what has been
labeled "business as usual" by a strict story count actually contains some
deeper indications of agenda influence.
A key finding in this study is that all winners did get on the agenda, albeit
some very sparingly. Research by Perry (1990)_on international news shows that
inclusion is important and omission is the ultimate negative. What needs to be
determined, then, is the impact Nobel coverage has on reader salience. Through
audience research, a salience threshold for these foreign, "peace" issues can be
determined, to help support the case that some coverage is better than no
coverage.
While the reader salience of Nobel Peace Prize issues has yet to be
established, the reality is that, over two years, U.S. newsmagazines printed
only two stories on East Timorese independence and six on Burma's occupation. If
this small amount of coverage does not attain the exposure level or the
long-term accumulation needed to make the issue salient to the average reader, a
lack of salience would likely negate any measurable change in rhetoric that
could be attributed to the Nobel committee's agenda-building influence. Instead
of finding an agenda-building process, then, all this study can support is a
legacy of poor coverage on poorly covered topics, and more coverage on more
frequently covered topics.
Appendix A: Nobel Peace Prize Winners, 1901-1998
1901 -_Henri Dunant, Fr d ric Passy
1902 -_ lie Ducommun, Albert Gobat
1903 -_William Cremer
1904 -_Institute of International Law
1905 -_Bertha von Suttner
1906 -_Theodore Roosevelt
1907 -_Ernesto Moneta, Louis Renault
1908 -_Klas Arnoldson, Fredrik Bajer
1909 - Auguste Beernaert, Paul d'Estournelles de
Constant
1910 - International Peace Bureau
1911 -_Tobias Asser, Alfred Fried
1912 -_Elihu Root
1913 -_Henri La Fontaine
1914-1916 -_not awarded
1917 - International Committee of the Red Cross
1918 - not awarded
1919 -_Woodrow Wilson
1920 -_L on Bourgeois
1921 - Karl Branting, Christian Lange
1922 - Fridtjof Nansen
1923-1924 -_not awarded
1925 - J. Austen Chamberlain, Charles Dawes
1926 -_Aristide Briand, Gustav Stresemann
1927 -_Ferdinand Buisson, Ludwig Quidde
1928 -_not awarded
1929 -_Frank Kellogg
1930 -_Nathan S derblom
1931 -_Jane Addams, Nicholas Murray Butler
1932 - not awarded
1934 - Norman Angell
1935 - Carl von Ossietzky
1936 - Carlos Saavedra Lamas
1937 - Robert Cecil
1938 - Nansen International Office for Refugees
1939-1943 - not awarded
1944 - International Committee of the Red Cross
1945 -_Cordell Hull
1946 -_Emily Greene Balch, John Mott
1947 - American Friends Service Committee,
Friends Service Council
1948 -_not awarded
1949 -_John Boyd Orr
1950 -_Ralph Bunche
1951 - L on Jouhaux
1952 - Albert Schweitzer
1953 - George C. Marshall
1954 -_Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees
1955-1956 -_not awarded
1957 - Georges Pire
1959 -_Philip Noel-Baker
1960 -_Albert Luthuli
1961 -_Day Hammarskj ld
1962 -_Linus C. Pauling
1963 - International Committee of the Red Cross,
League of Red Cross Societies
1964 - Martin Luther King Jr.
1965 -_United Nations Children's Fund
1966-1967 -_not awarded
1968 -_Ren Cassin
1969 -_International Labour Organization
1970 -_Norman Borlaug
1971 - Willy Brandt
1972 -_not awarded
1973 -_Henry Kissinger, Le Duc Tho
1974 - Sean MacBride, Eisaku Sato
1975 -_Andrei Sakharov
1976 -_Mairead Corrigan, Betty Williams
1977 -_Amnesty International
1978 -_Menachem begin, Anwar Sadat
1979 -_Mother Teresa
1980 -_Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees
1982 - Alfonso Garcia Robles, Alva Myrdal
1983 - Lech Walesa
1984 -_Desmond Tutu
1985 - International Physicians for the
Prevention of Nuclear War
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1987 -_Oscar Arias S nchez
1988 -_United Nations Peacekeeping Forces
1989 - Dalai Lama
1990 - Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
1991 - Aung San Suu Kyi
1992 -_Rigoberta Mench# Tum
1993 -_Frederik Willem de Klerk, Nelson Mandela
1994 - Yasir Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin
1995 - Pugwash Conferences on Science and World
Affairs, Joseph Rotblat
1996 -_Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, Jose
Ramos-Horta
1997 -_Jody Williams, International Campaign to
Ban Landmines
1998 - John Hume, David Trimble
Source: McGuire 1992, 11-12 and The
Norwegian Nobel Institute, "List of
laureates."
Appendix B: Citations from the Norwegian Nobel Committee
The Nobel Peace Prize for 1997
International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and Jody Williams
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for
1997, in
two equal parts, to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and to
the
campaign's coordinator Jody Williams for their work for the banning and clearing
of ant
i-personnel mines.
There are at present probably over one hundred million anti-personnel mines
scattered
over large areas on several continents. Such mines maim and kill
indiscriminately and
are a major threat to the civilian populations and to the social and economic
devel
opment of the many countries affected.
The ICBL and Jody Williams started a process which in the space of a few years
changed
a ban on anti-personnel mines from a vision to a feasible reality. The
Convention which
will be signed in Ottawa in December this year is to a considerable extent a
result of
their important work.
There are already over 1,000 organizations, large and small, affiliated to the
ICBL,
making up a network through which it has been possible to express and mediate a
broad
wave of popular commitment in an unprecedented way. With the governments of
several
small and medium-sized countries taking the issue up and taking steps to deal
with it,
this work has grown into a convincing example of an effective policy for peace.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to express the hope that the Ottawa
process will
win even wider support. As a model for similar processes in the future, it could
prove
of decisive importance to the international effort for disarmament and peace.
Source: The Norwegian Nobel Institute, "The Nobel Peace Prize for 1997."
The Nobel Peace Prize for 1996
Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and Jos Ramos-Horta
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for
1996, in
two equal parts, to Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and Jos Ramos-Horta for their
work
towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor.
In 1975 Indonesia took control of East Timor and began systematically
oppressing the
people. In the years that followed it has been estimated that one-third of the
population of East Timor lost their lives due to starvation, epidemics, war and
terror.
Carlos Belo, bishop of East Timor, has been the foremost representative of the
people
of East Timor. At the risk of his own life, he has tried to protect his people
from
infringements by those in power. In his efforts to create a just settlement
based on his
people's right to self- determination, he has been a constant spokesman for non-
violence and dialogue with the Indonesian authorities. Ramos-Horta has been the
leading
international spokesman for East Timor's cause since 1975. Recently he has made
a s
ignificant contribution through the "reconciliation talks" and by working out a
peace
plan for the region.
In awarding this year's Nobel Peace Prize to Belo and Ramos-Horta, the
Norwegian Nobel
Committee wants to honour their sustained and self-sacrificing contributions for
a small
but oppressed people. The Nobel Committee hopes that this award will spur
efforts to
find a diplomatic solution to the conflict in East Timor based on the people's
right to
self- determination.
Source: The Norwegian Nobel Institute, "The Nobel Peace Prize winners for 1996."
The Nobel Peace Prize for 1995
Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for
1995, in
two equal parts, to Joseph Rotblat and to the Pugwash Conferences on Science and
World
Affairs, for their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in
international
politics and in the longer run to eliminate such arms.
It is fifty years this year since the two atomic bombs were dropped on
Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, and forty years since the issuing of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto.
The
Manifesto laid the foundations for the Pugwash Conferences, which have
maintained a high
level of activity to this day. Joseph Rotblat was one of the eleven scientists
behind
the Manifesto, and has since been the most important figure in the Pugwash work.
The Conferences are based on the recognition of the responsibility of
scientists for
their inventions. They have underlined the catastrophic consequences of the use
of the
new weapons. They have brought together scientists and decision- makers to
collaborate
across political divides on constructive proposals for reducing the nuclear
threat.
The Pugwash Conferences are founded in the desire to see all nuclear arms
destroyed
and, ultimately, in a vision of other solutions to international disputes than
war. The
Pugwash Conference in Hiroshima in July this year declared that we have the
opportunity
today of approaching those goals. It is the Committee's hope that the award of
the Nobel
Peace Prize for 1995 to Rotblat and to Pugwash will encourage world leaders to
intensify
their efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
Source: The Norwegian Nobel Institute, "The Nobel Peace Prize for 1995."
The Nobel Peace Prize for 1993
Frederik Willem de Klerk and Nelson Mandela
The Nobel Committee said Mr. de Klerk and Mr. Mandela, almost universally
regarded as
the last white President and the first black President of South Africa, had
displayed
"personal integrity and great political courage" in finding a middle ground in
the b
itterly polarized politics of South Africa.
"South Africa has been the symbol of racially conditioned suppression," the
committee
said, announcing the $825,000 award in Oslo. "Mandela's and de Klerk's
constructive
policy of peace and reconciliation also points the way to the peaceful
resolution of
similar deep-rooted conflicts elsewhere in the world."
Source: Keller 16 Oct. 1993.
The Nobel Peace Prize for 1992
Rigoberta Mench# Tum
Menchu was selected for the $1.2 million prize, the committee said, "in
recognition of
her work for social justice and ethno-cultural reconciliation." Amid the
"large-scale
repression of Indian peoples" in Guatemala, she plays a "prominent part as an
advocate
of native rights."
Source: Nelan 26 Oct. 1992.
The Nobel Peace Prize for 1991
Aung San Suu Kyi
Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi was commended for her "non-violent struggle for democracy
and
human rights," said the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awarded the $ 1 million
prize.
The committee said it "wishes to honor this woman for her unflagging efforts
and to
show its support for the many people throughout the world who are striving to
attain
democracy, human rights and ethnic conciliation by peaceful means."
The committee said Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's "struggle is one of the most
extraordinary
examples of civil courage in Asia in recent decades."
Source: Atlanta Journal and Constitution News Services 14 Oct. 1991.
The Nobel Peace Prize for 1990
Mikhail Gorbachev
''During the last few years,'' the five-member Nobel Committee said in its
official
announcement, ''dramatic changes have taken place in the relationship between
East and
West. Confrontation has been replaced by negotiations. Old European
nation-states have
regained their freedom.
"The arms race is slowing down, and we see a definite and active process in the
direction of arms control and disarmament. Several regional conflicts have been
solved
or have at least come closer to a solution. The U.N. is beginning to play the
role which
was originally planned for it in an international community governed by law.
''These historic changes spring from several factors, but in 1990 the Nobel
Committee
wants to honor Mikhail Gorbachev for his many and decisive contributions. The
greater
openness he has brought about in Soviet society has also helped promote
international
trust.''
Source: Rule, 16 Oct. 1990.
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[1] For examples, see The Norwegian Nobel Institute, "The Nobel Peace Prize for
1995," "The Nobel Peace Prize for 1997," and "The Nobel Peace Prize 1998."
[2] This belief is attributed to Sydney Jones, executive director of Human
Rights Watch, and other human rights analysts, as reported by O'Hara 1996.
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