Influences of the Western Press on News Framing of Global Events in Developing Countries: Examining COVID-19 and Climate Coverages in a Bangladeshi News Organization

Arif Md Tareque Habib, University of New Mexico

Abstract

This study shows that a small number of Western news organizations (e.g., Reuters, The New York Times) may influence how local news organizations in developing countries frame global crises and that this influence may lead local news organizations to ignore locally relevant aspects of those crises. To test this thesis, two studies were conducted on the coverage of two crises -- COVID-19 and climate change -- by a news organization in Bangladesh, a developing country in South Asia. The news organization, www.bdnews24.com, serves both as a news agency or news supplier for local newspapers and an online newspaper for users. For the two studies combined, a total of 13,122 news articles were analyzed, using a qualitative content analysis method complemented by a computational text analysis method. The study on the COVID-19 coverage included 5,374 news stories and the climate change study included 7,748 stories. The findings support the thesis, providing evidence of substantial Western media influence on www.bdnews24.com’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.