Framing Beijing

This study examined framing in the American press coverage of the Fourth UN Conference and the NGO Forum in Beijing as a means of (1) assessing the coverage of this event and the extent to which its critical areas of concern were communicated, and (2) exploring the influence of dominant ideology on framing in the news. Employing qualitative and quantitative methods, the study found evidence of an anti-communist as well as an anti-feminist frame. Under the influence of dominant ideology, the newspaper coverage of the conference focused considerably on an extended criticism of China as a communist nation. The study found that the goals of the global feminist movement and their critical areas of concern held far less immediacy and salience for the American press than the need to assert dominant American values.