Baldwin Van Gorp

KU Leuven | ku leuven · Institute for Media Studies

Computational journalistic tools have been implemented in the newsrooms since 2010. As these tools have started automating several work packages, they have the potential to change news workers’ roles and could also jeopardize journalistic autonomy. Due to the rapid technological advances like artificial intelligence, a knowledge gap has emerged in...

Engineering teams – a form of newsroom innovation labs – have been heralded as survival entities in the news ecosystem as they have the potential to improve where news goes and moves. At The Washington Post, these teams have been around for three years, and they started to implement tools like election models fueled by A.I. and smart data pipelines...

Over the last 60 years, media outlets have been covering emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and automation. This countrylevel study wants to give a nuanced overview of how these technologies were covered in US newspapers. First, a Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modeling was conducted on articles on AI and automation in...

Over the past ten years, various newsroom innovation labs have emerged to modernize journalistic workflows. These labs have started to alter the news ecosystem, and we therefore focus on the organization, the roles, and the projects of innovation labs. This exploratory study conducted interviews with members of labs of The Washington Post, The Wall...

Terrorist attacks and the departure of “foreign fighters” to conflict areas have created a hasty security approach towards radicalization in many countries; similarly in Belgium, the country under scrutiny in this contribution. Implemented policies impact society by imposing a dominant security frame. This study centers around conversations with me...

This study investigates how members of the Turkish diaspora connected online using Twitter as a social medium during the Gezi Park protests and how those connections and the structure of the resulting Twitter network changed after the protests ended. Further, the authors examine respondents' online influence and their roles in the movement, using s...

This chapter examines the changing role of gatekeeping of newsworkers as they interact with computational journalistic tools (CJTs) in news distribution and moderation. As these CJTs get more in charge of gatekeeping over the last years, these tools can alter how daily decisions are made, in both how news is distributed and how comments of the audi...

Entities wanting to communicate purposefully should have insight into the different frames and counter-frames that give meaning to an issue. Therefore, this research introduces a Framing Counter-framing Theory (FCT). A conceptual distinction is made between frames that define an issue as a problem and frames that deproblematize it. An experimental...

Newsroom innovation labs have been created over the last ten years to develop algorithmic news recommenders (ANR) that suggest and summarise what news is. Although these ANRs are still in an early stage and have not yet been implemented in the entire newsroom, they have the potential to change how newsworkers fulfil their daily decisions (gatekeepi...

Researching sensitive topics poses multiple methodological and ethical challenges. To overcome these, this contribution proposes the method of cartoon elicitation, inspired by photo-elicitation and based on framing theory. The impersonality and satire of cartoons and the distance made between a sensitive topic and real life events can diminish pote...

The article seeks to unpack the increasingly polarised discussion on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and provide a holistic understanding of it by identifying the diverging interpretations in the form of frames and analysing the competing framing practices of actors figuring prominently in the debate. To that end, this study leverages conceptual...

Background Based on the case of palliative care and euthanasia in the Netherlands, this paper presents an analysis of frames and counter-frames used in the ongoing public debate about these two intertwined topics. Each (counter)frame presents a cultural theme that can act as a prism to give meaning to palliative care and/or euthanasia. Each frame c...

Research-based drawings are used to demonstrate how face masks functioned as floating signifiers in the public space in Belgium during the 2020 pandemic. Face masks have become the external hallmark of a pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2, a potentially life-threatening virus that is, by definition, invisible. Paradoxically, the presence of face masks s...

Background Based on the case of palliative care and euthanasia in the Netherlands, this paper presents an analysis of frames and counter-frames used in the ongoing public debate about these two intertwined topics. Each (counter)frame presents a cultural theme that can act as a prism to give meaning to palliative care and/or euthanasia. Each frame c...

This study explores the evolution of the climate discourses of China’s flagship party paper People’s Daily. Climate reports during COP1-24 (1995–2018) are analyzed in terms of the underlying development ideas and framings of climate change. It is found that climate change received increasing attention, with the years 2007 and 2015 representing two...

Despite the prevalence of media-based anti-stigma campaigns, there is little empirical evidence of their effectiveness and little guidance regarding which communicative strategies can bolster their message. Using a Belgian sample (N = 737) recruited in March-April 2019, the current experimental study manipulated a campaign message using counterfram...

Following the terrorist attacks of 13 November 2015 in Paris and 22 March 2016 in Brussels, radicalisation has become the topic of lively debate in Belgium. However, little research has been done on the different perspectives which people use to communicate about radicalisation in Belgium. Therefore, an inductive framing analysis of 2,271 excerpts,...

Background: Stigmatisation by health care providers of people suffering from mental health problems adds to the treatment gap of mental illnesses and discrimination of people with a mental illness in somatic care. Future physicians' effort may be key to reduce these inequalities. AIM: To inventorise the attitudes towards (different) mental illness...

Previous research has identified the frames and metaphors used in the reporting on the Euro crisis. War and disease turned out to be the two most frequently used metaphorical frames. Since coverage of the current financial crisis may have a tangible effect on public opinion, research into the effects of metaphorical frames on attitudes is needed. B...

The aim of this paper is to probe into the social media use by Chinese climate journalists through the examination of their professional practices on social media. Taking COP21 as a case, the study conducted a survey from Chinese COP21 journalists and analyzed WeChat and Weibo posts from Chinese journalists and tweets from their UK and US colleague...

Climate negotiations have increasingly resonated with global governance and world power relations. However, media studies of climate change have paid relatively less attention to media frames of the problem solving. This study addresses this issue by examining the media coverage of COP21 from three countries that have considerable influence on clim...

This study constructs and tests the building of social capital and integration among Turkish minorities (n = 967) residing in three countries with different integration policy realities according to the Migrant Integration Policy Index for Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. Through online and offline surveys, the study examines the extent to wh...

This qualitative study is designed to identify the frames in the debate on the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and analyze the framing by different actors. To that end, it drew insights from framing theory and conducted an in-depth inductive frame analysis based on a representative sample of official documents and news articles. 14 fram...

The media are often blamed for perpetuating the stigma surrounding mental illnesses, but they can also be used to counter stigmatizing narratives. Drawing on framing theory, this study tested the potency of two framing strategies (deframing and reframing) to reduce mental health stigma, using an online between-subject posttest-only survey experimen...

This paper aims to research how asylum seekers and refugees are being framed in the European news coverage in 2015, the year in which the refugee crisis reached new staggering heights (June – December). Therefore, news articles (N = 500) of national quality newspapers (influential both in the intermedia agenda setting and public opinion formation)...

Samenvatting In deze methodologische bijdrage reflecteren de auteurs over hoe frame building onderwerp van onderzoek kan vormen. Het artikel spitst zich toe op culturele frames, en bekijkt hoe deze zich verhouden tot het nieuws, met de schemata van journalisten en met interacties op de werkvloer. Daarbij wordt voor een multimethodische aanpak geple...

This methodological contribution reflects on how frames in journalism can form a subject of research. Starting point is the overview of Entman’s four locations of frames: in the head of the author of a message and in that of the public, in a message and in culture. The paper, however, focuses on cultural frames, and looks at the way in which it rel...

This study constructs and tests the building of social capital and integration among Turkish and Kurdish ethnic minorities (n=976) residing in three countries with different integration policy realities according to the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) for Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. Through online and offline surveys the study e...

This study seeks to determine the extent to which the Flemish press gives voice to gender and ethnic diversity. A total of 16 in-depth interviews with print journalists outlined five key arguments about diversity in the newsroom. Two of these view the portrayal of diversity as conceptually irrelevant or inconsistent with a notion of universal equal...

Purpose: This study discusses the frames that were used in the public debate about raising the retirement age in Belgium from 65 years to 67 years. The aim of the study is to gain insight into the prevailing frames in order to develop counterframes, that are less problematizing and can be used to bring more nuance to the debate. Design/methodology...

Journalistic coverage informs audiences about poverty in developing countries. However, little is known about the contribution of individual journalists to the frame building of this topic. This study explores the cognitive frames of 54 journalists from the Netherlands who regularly write about the issue. The results are compared with the media fra...

In this chapter, the authors analyse the role of Belgian news media in policy-making. The chapter starts with a characterization of the Belgian media landscape, with its absence of ‘national’ media, a strong public service broadcast and an increasing degree of media concentration. Next, by analysing the ways in which the media report on and define...

This book presents the first systematic overview of policy analysis activities in Belgium. Contributors from both sides of the Dutch-French language border use original empirical data to provide a comprehensive, comparative study of multi-level policy-making both within and outside government.

This book provides the first comprehensive examination of the practice of policy analysis in Belgium and its federated entities. The book integrates available and new knowledge about the science, art, and craft of policy analysis by all relevant policy actors at different levels of government. The book’s investigation of policy analysis in and outs...

The media play an important role in risk communication, providing information about accidents, both nearby and far away. Each media source has its own presentation style, which could influence how the audience perceives the presented risk. This study investigates the explanatory power of 12 information sources (traditional media, new media, social...

Research into frame building, which aims to investigate the development of news framing in the journalistic realm, is on the rise. While most frame-building studies focus on the relative contribution of journalists or sources to news frames, this article presents and evaluates an integrated methodological model. The model is based on constructionis...

The purpose of this research is to uncover the manner in which newspapers and non-governmental organisation (NGO) campaigns in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Flanders represent poverty in developing countries. An inductive framing analysis, based on a social constructionist approach, reveals nine frames through which this subject is portr...

This article contributes to the ongoing debate on the representation of global poverty in Western media. Both NGOs and journalists are being criticized for their one-sided emphasis on the misery and dependency of people in developing countries. The objective of this paper is to measure the extent of such problematizing representation in newspaper a...

The aim of this paper is to grasp the influence of the newsroom on frame-building processes. First, journalists’ own understanding of “frames” and “framing” is discussed. Second, from an academic interpretation of these concepts, journalists’ framing practices are studied. To this end an ethnographic study was conducted at two newsrooms, one in Bel...

This article seeks to understand the genesis of frame-building based on the early coverage of the Belgian Syria fighters in the four leading newspapers in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. For a period of 6 weeks, a frame analysis of news stories was linked to reconstruction interviews with reporters and supplemented by newsroom observa...

The Gezi movement in Turkey which began on 28 May 2013, was a key moment with potential impact on attitudes and “loyalty” of the Turkish diaspora in European countries towards their country of residence and their “home” country. Results of our previous research on the Gezi movement illustrate that during this event the social capital built in the d...

In this article we present a cross-national comparison of framing of the issue of the ‘Syria fighters’ in Flanders and the Netherlands. We examine this topic using inductive and deductive framing analysis and interpret the results in terms of the advocates expressing the frames and the newspapers they were published in. We argue that variation in f...

Demographic diversity in the Flemish press Demographic diversity in the Flemish press This study analyses the diversity of the Flemish news by looking at demographic diversity, i.e. the extent to which gender, age and ethnicity in society are proportionally represented in the news. In a constructed week (April-May 2012) (N = 4,800) 12,743 persons w...

This study analyzes the diversity of the Flemish news by looking at demographic diversity, ie the extent to-which gender, age and ethnicity in society are proportionally Represented in the news. In a constructed week (April-May 2012) (N = 4.800) 12.743 persons were Mentioned, each of them were assigned to age groups, man or woman, ethnic minority o...

Iedereen hoopt ooit oud te worden, zeker als dat in goede gezondheid kan. En toch is het een met taboes omkleed onderwerp. In deze bijdrage komt aan bod vanuit welke courante perspectieven de samenleving naar ouderen kijkt. Vaak resulteren deze immers in een problematiserende voorstelling van het ouder worden. De assumptie is dat dit een bezwarend...

The objective of this paper is twofold. The first aim is to examine the characteristics of the celebrity press in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) in comparison with the foreign celebrity press. The second aim is to characterise the interaction between local celebrities and journalists, as conflict, cooperation or negotiation. To this...

This study examines the frames used in reporting on the euro crisis. As far as the debt crisis is concerned, the media are the main source of information for European citizens. It is therefore interesting to carry out an in-depth content analysis of news coverage. The study looks into five dominant frames in Flemish (i.e. Dutch-speaking Belgium) an...

The objective of this paper is to test whether the effect of variables such as knowledge, attitudes, trust, risk perception, and psychometric risk characteristics changes in the different stages of risk-related information processing. To address this question, a distinction is made between two information-processing steps, reception (measured as a...

This article presents an overview of the scientist as a special character in Belgian comics. In the years after World War II and during the first stages of the Cold War, scientists were introduced in many long-term Belgian comic series. The first aim of this article is to find structural commonalities in the scientist as a comic character. The char...

The origin of news production processes has not been extensively researched. This study identifies the factors that influence journalists' preferences for certain newsgathering channels to others at the genesis of news production: (1) the type of newspaper; (2) the centralization of the newsroom; (3) the story selection autonomy of the reporter; an...

In this article, an educational project is described that was formulated with the aim to give master’s students in business communication the opportunity to experience how theory could be applied to shape practice. A 4-week project was developed in which students were urged to use communication theory and linguistic theory to manage the communicati...

European debt crisis in the news. A frame analysis of Flemish newspaper coverage European debt crisis in the news. A frame analysis of Flemish newspaper coverage This research examines the news frames used in the news coverage about the European debt crisis. The mainstream media are the main source of information for the European citizens concernin...

Preparedness of the general population plays a key role in the effective implementation of protective actions in case of a nuclear emergency (e.g., evacuation or intake of iodine tablets). In this context, a good communication of emergency management actors with the public along the entire cycle of preparedness-response-recovery is of paramount imp...

The aim of this paper is to gain insight into the prototypical scientists as they appear in fiction and non-fiction media consumed by children and teenagers in the Netherlands. A qualitative-interpretive content analysis is used to identify seven prototypes and the associated characteristics in a systematic way. The results show that the element of...

This research examines the news frames used in the news coverage about the European debt crisis. The mainstream media are the main source of information for the European citizens concerning this crisis in the Eurozone. Therefore, it is interesting to research the news coverage through an in-depth content analysis. First, we conducted an inductive a...

Veertig jaar geleden, in de herfst van 1972, verscheen het allereerste nummer van het Tijdschrift voor Communicatiewetenschap, toen nog Massacommunicatie geheten. Guido Fauconnier (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), James Stappers (Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen), Paul Hendriksen (Nederlandse Omroep Stichting) en Eldert Willems (Universiteit van Am...

Hoe brengen de media de ziekte van Alzheimer en andere vormen van dementie in beeld? En kan dit ook anders? Onderzoekers van de KU Leuven lieten aan de hand van een concrete campagne zien dat je met enkele eenvoudige ingrepen een heel andere boodschap zou kunnen brengen. En dat zonder dat deze aan impact hoeft in te boeten.

Starting point of this study was the assumption that Alzheimer's disease is made worse for the person who has the disease by the negative regard in which the illness is held by society. The aim was to test by means of a campaign advertisement whether more nuanced counterframes could have an impact while remaining credible and comprehensible to the...

Despite its importance, the notion of sustainability is open for discursive struggle. This article's primary objective is to acquire insight into the manner in which the principal stakeholders strategically use frames in their public communication about sustainable food and agriculture. A framing analysis of 272 communications revealed a repertory...

Media tend to reinforce the stigmatization of dementia as one of the most dreaded diseases in western society, which may have repercussions on the quality of life of those with the illness. The persons with dementia, but also those around them become imbued with the idea that life comes to an end as soon as the diagnosis is pronounced. The aim of t...

Van Frankenstein tot de Goede Moeder: de inzet van frames in de strategische communicatie over duurzaamheid Van Frankenstein tot de Goede Moeder: de inzet van frames in de strategische communicatie over duurzaamheid In deze bijdrage wordt onderzocht welke frames de stakeholders hanteren in het debat over duurzaamheid. De duurzaamheiddiscussie rondo...

In vergelijking met Nederland is er over de positie van public relations en communicatiemanagement in Belgische organisaties weinig bekend. Deze bijdrage presenteert unieke gegevens over de plaats van communicatie in de hiërarchische structuur van Belgische organisaties met minstens vijftig werknemers.

The present study contributes to the external validity of the framing concept by studying the effects of frames actually utilized in newspaper articles. The study assesses the persuasive influence of such frames on the interpretation of news, and how issue involvement and attitude interfere in this process. A total of 282 participants were presente...

This article studies which frames stakeholders use in the debate about sustainability. An inductive framing analysis has been conducted on a diverse sample of communications (N = 578) including advertisements, website texts and brochures of farming federations, the food industry, consumer organisations, and interest groups in Flanders and French-sp...

This study presents data, which were obtained by a web survey (n = 750), concerning the position of communications in the hierarchical structure of Belgian organizations with at least 50 employees. Results show that 43 percent of the organizations in the sample have an integrated communications department. About one third of the communications mana...

The present study contributes to the external validity of the framing concept by studying the effects of frames actually utilized in newspaper articles. The study assesses the persuasive influence of such frames on the interpretation of news, and how issue involvement and attitude interfere in this process. A total of 282 participants were presente...

This article studies which frames stakeholders use in the debate about sustainability. An inductive framing analysis has been conducted on a diverse sample of communications (N = 578) including advertisements, website texts and brochures of farming federations, the food industry consumer organisations, and interest groups in Flanders and French-spe...

This study presents data, which were obtained by a web survey (n = 750), concerning the position of communications in the hierarchical structure of Belgian organizations with at least 50, employees. Results show that 43 percent of the organizations in the sample have an integrated communications department. About one third of the communications man...

This study analyzed the framing of alcohol consumption in the American adolescent drama series The OC. All 51 episodes of Seasons 1 and 2 of The OC were coded for visual and verbal references to beverage use on the level of the scene (n = 1,895) and on the level of the drinking act (n = 1,033). Subsequently, all episodes were analyzed qualitatively...

This paper studies the position and role of public relations in the hierarchical structure of Belgian organizations of at least 50 employees. Empirical data was collected from a web survey (n=750) to find out to what extent principles of excellence in public relations are applied in Belgium.The results show that 43% of the organizations in the samp...

Het concept framing gaat uit van de idee dat gebeurtenissen, personen of kwesties betekenis krijgen door het frame of de invalshoek van waaruit ze in een tekst worden belicht. Frames zijn 'organizing principles that are socially shared and persistent over time, that work symbolically to meaningfully structure the social world' (Reese, 2001: 11). Me...

This article aims, within the constructionist paradigm, at integrating culture into the framing process. Four characteristics are important for this approach: the distinction between the event, the media content, and the frame; the explicit attention to the reconstruction of frame packages; the relationship between frame packages and cultural pheno...

Resumen El objetivo de este artículo, dentro del paradigma constructivista, apunta a integrar la noción de cultura al proceso del framing. Cuatro características son importantes para esta aproximación: la distinción entre el evento, el contenido de los medios masivos, y el encuadre; la atención explícita a la reconstrucción del paquete de encuadre;...

Cet article vise, à l'intérieur même du paradigme constructionniste, à intégrer la culture au processus de cadrage. Quatre caractéristiques importent dans cette approche : la distinction entre l'événement, le contenu médiatique et le cadre; l'attention accordée explicitement à la reconstruction d'ensembles de cadrage; la relation entre ces ensemble...

Innerhalb des Konstruktivistischen Paradigmas liefert dieser Artikel eine Möglichkeit, Kultur in den Framing-Prozess zu integrieren. Vier Merkmale sind für diesen Ansatz zentral: (a) die Unterscheidung zwischen Anlass, Medieninhalt und Frame, (b) die Fokussierung auf die Rekonstruktion von Frame-Bündeln, (c) die Beziehung zwischen Frame-Bündeln und...