Latent Styles of German Newspaper Coverage of Allied Prisoners of War During the Gulf War

Abstract

The present paper applies Latent Class Analysis to obtain empirical evidence for some aspects of a propaganda model developed by Herman & ChOlnsky (1988) in order to explain why some subjects are preferably dealt with by the news media whereas no attention is paid to others. An essential criterion for this is the usefulness of a topic. Herman & Chomsky, therefore, refer to "worthy" und "unworthy victims": victims of national or international violence, whose torments, though comparable from an objective point of view, are useful as a weapon against an actual enemy in one case, while they are useless, and hence devoid of interest, in another. If responsibility for violence lies in one's own sphere of influence, any reporting on its victims would be unfavorable to one's national interest.According to Herman & Chomsky, press coverage of worthy victims differentiates from that of unworthy victims both with regard to the focusing on and substantiation of reproaches against the perpetrator, as well as with regard to the featuring of the actions and the victims.In the case of worthy victims, the reproaches- are delivered in a convincing style,- which permits no criticism or alternative interpretations whatsoever,- and makes efforts for corroboration from an authority figure.The featuring of the actions and their victims make use of an aggravating choice of words,- and search for the responsibility of the actions at the top;- the events are dramatized,- and the victim humanized and featured in great detail and context.