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Language Wars in the Abortion Debate: A Comparative Analysis of Media Framings in the United States
University West, School of Business, Economics and IT, Divison of Law, Economics, Statistics and Politics.
University West, School of Business, Economics and IT, Divison of Law, Economics, Statistics and Politics.
2020 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

This thesis examines how the media in the United States frame the abortion issue in 2019 by studying specific language related to the two ideological positions of Pro-Choice and Pro-Life, and whether the framings reveal aspects of polarization. The theoretical approach consists of framing theory and assumptions based on feminism, both deriving from social constructivism. Drawing from these theoretical tools, the framework designed identified four themes, namely 'What is abortion?', 'What is the object of abortion?', 'Who is the right-bearer in the issue of abortion?', and 'Why is abortion morally right or wrong?'. This thesis constitutes a small-N comparative study where five ideological news sources, Huffington Post, Washington Post, USA Today, Washington Times, and New York Post, were sampled, examined and deductively coded with a content analysis, quantitatively when counting the assigned codes and qualitatively for a more in-depth analysis. The findings of this study show that the frame ProChoice is prioritized among the five news sources and the framings align with the liberalconservative scale in general. However, both ideological frames are consistently present and mixed between the news sources, although when used, the framing depends on the context of the language choices.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2020. , p. 53
Keywords [en]
abortion, United States, polarization, media framing, content analysis
National Category
Political Science
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hv:diva-15330Local ID: EIS501OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hv-15330DiVA, id: diva2:1451263
Subject / course
Political science
Educational program
International Programme in Politics and Economics
Supervisors
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Available from: 2020-07-20 Created: 2020-07-02 Last updated: 2020-07-20Bibliographically approved

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