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 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 analysis to recognize the dominant news frames about this issue. Three dominant frames were identified: conflict, disease and natural disaster. Secondly, we executed a deductive analysis to measure the frequency of these frames. The conflict frame appeared the most, followed by the disease frame and the natural disaster frame. In this article we studied the news coverage in Flemish newspapers. However, this research is the first part of a larger study that will analyze more EU member states.