The article examines the way in which media mergers in France and the US are framed. This is done in order to ascertain whether media mergers, which are symptomatic of the growing concentration in the global media industries, are presented as purely commercial events or as events with sociopolitical repercussions. Content analysis of articles in the French press covering the Vivendi Universal merger in France and in the American press covering the AOL Time Warner merger in the US was conducted. Results suggest that in both countries the respective mergers are mostly framed as economic events, thereby removing the event from the realm of political contention.
Arenson, K. W. (2003) ‘Driven By What He Wishes He’d Learned’ , New York Times 14 May: B6-B6 .
2.
Becker, J.-J. and P. Ory (2002) Crises et Alternances 1974-2000 (Nouvelle Edition). Paris: Edition du Seuil .
3.
Bennett, W. L. (1993) ‘A Policy Research Paradigm for the News Media And Democracy’ , Journal of Communication43: 180-189 .
4.
Benson, R. (2002) ‘The Political/Literary Model of French Journalism: Change and Continuity in Immigration News Coverage, 1973-1991’ , Journal of European Area Studies10: 49-70 .
5.
Berenson, A. and B. Carter (2000) ‘When Everything New Becomes Dizzyingly Newer’ , New York Times 11 January: C1-C1 .
6.
Bollinger, L. C. (2002) ‘Opening Day Remarks by President Lee C. Bollinger’ , speech given at Columbia University, 1 August; at: www.jrn.columbia.edu/news/2002-08/bollinger.asp (accessed 6 January 2004).
7.
Browne, D. R. (1999) Electronic Media and Industrialized Nations: A Comparative Approach. Ames: Iowa State University Press .
8.
Chalaby, J. K. (1996) ‘Journalism as an Anglo-American Invention: A Comparison of the Development of French and Anglo-American Journalism, 1830s-1920s’European Journal of Communication11: 303-326 .
9.
Chalaby, J. K. (2004) ‘Scandal and the Rise of Investigative Reporting in France’ , American Behavioral Scientist47: 1194-1207 .
10.
Collard, S. (2000) ‘French Cultural Policy: The Special Role of the State’, pp. 38-50 in W. Kidd and S. Reynolds (eds) Contemporary French Cultural Studies. London: Arnold .
11.
D’Almeda, F. and C. Delporte (2003) Histoire des médias en France de la Grande Guerre à nos jours. Paris: Flammarion.
12.
Dobbin, F. (2001) ‘Why the Economy Reflects the Polity: Early Rail Policy in Britain, France and the United States’, pp. 401-424 in M. Granovetter and R. Swedberg (eds) The Sociology of Economic Life, 2nd edn.Boulder, CO: Westview Press .
13.
Entman, R. and A. Rojecki (1993) ‘Freezing Out the Public: Elite and Media Framing of the US Anti-Nuclear Movement’ , Political Communication10: 155-173 .
14.
Frank, T. (2000) One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy. New York: Doubleday .
15.
Gallup (2000) ‘CNN/USA Today Poll’, 4 February, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research ; Lexis-Nexis database (accessed 10 January 2004).
16.
Gamson, W. A. and A. Modigliani (1987) ‘The Changing Culture of Affirmative Action’ , Research in Political Sociology3: 137-177 .
17.
Gans, H. J. (1979) Deciding What’s News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek, and Time. New York: Pantheon .
18.
Gitlin, T. (2003) The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left. Berkeley: University of California Press .
19.
Gomery, D. (2000) ‘Interpreting Media Ownership’, pp. 507-536 in B. M. Compaine and D. Gomery (eds) Who Owns the Media? Competition and Concentration in the Mass Media Industry, 3rd edn.Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum .
20.
Guillen, M. F. (2001) The Limits of Convergence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press .
21.
Hall, P. A. and D. Soskice (2001) ‘An Introduction to Varieties of Capitalism’, pp. 1-68 in P. A. Hall and D. Soskice (eds) Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Approaches. Oxford: Oxford University Press .
22.
Hancké, B. (2001) ‘Revisiting the French Model: Coordination and Restructuring in French Industry’, pp. 307-336 in P. A. Hall and D. Soskice (eds) Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Approaches. Oxford: Oxford University Press .
23.
Hansell, S. (2000) ‘AOL and Time Warner Share Prices Rebound’ , New York Times 14 January: C2-C2 .
24.
Hart and Teeter Research Companies (2000) ‘NBC News, Wall Street Journal Poll’, January, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research ; LexisNexis database (accessed 10 January 2004).
25.
Herman, E. S. and N. Chomsky (1988) Manufacturing Consent. New York: Pantheon .
26.
Hoover’s (2002a) ‘Vivendi Universal’; at: Hoover’s Company profile database (accessed 1 May 2002).
27.
Hoover’s (2002b) ‘AOL Time Warner’; at: Hoover’s Company profile database (accessed 1 May 2002).
28.
Iyengar, S. (1991) Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press .
29.
Lamizet, B. (1996) ‘The Media in France’, pp. 173-205 in A. Weymouth and B. Lamizet (eds) Markets and Myths: Forces for Change in Western Europe. London: Longman .
30.
Lamont, M. and L. Thevenot (eds) (2000) Rethinking Comparative Cultural Sociology: Repertoires of Evaluation in France and the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
31.
Le Monde 2 (2002) ‘Saga’, September: 25-42.
32.
Lemann, N. (2002) ‘The Chairman’ , New Yorker 7 October: 48-55 .
33.
Livingstone, S. (2003) ‘On the Challenges of Cross-National Comparative Media Research’ , European Journal of Communication18: 477-500 .
34.
Neveu, E. (2004) Sociologie du journalisme. Paris: Editions La Decouverte.
35.
Patterson, T. E. (2000) ‘The United States: News in a Free-Market Society’, pp. 241-265 in R. Gunther and A. Mughan (eds) Democracy and the Media: A Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
36.
Potter, W. J. and D. Levine-Donnerstein (1999) ‘Rethinking Validity and Reliability in Content Analysis’ , Journal of Applied Communication Research27: 258-284 .
37.
Price, V. and D. Tewksbury (1997) ‘News Values and Public Opinion: A Theoretical Account of Media Priming and Framing’, pp. 173-212 in G. A. Barnett and F. J. Boster (eds) Progress in the Communication Sciences. New York: Ablex .
38.
Princeton Survey Research Associates (2000) ‘Newsweek Poll’, 15 January, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research ; LexisNexis database (accessed 10 January 2004).
39.
Rich, F. (2000) ‘Two 21st Century Foxes Elope’ , The New York Times 15 January: A17-A17 .
40.
Scarborough Research (2001) ‘Release 1 (Top 50 markets)’; at: www.naa.org/info/facts02/8_facts2002.html (accessed 1 November 2002).
41.
Scott, W. A. (1955) ‘Reliability of Content Analysis: The Case of Nominal Scale Coding’ , Public Opinion Quarterly19: 321-325 .
42.
Semetko, H. A. and P. M. Valkenburg (2000) ‘Framing European Politics: A Content Analysis of Press and Television News’ , Journal of Communication50: 93-109 .
43.
Shiller, R. J. (2005) Irrational Exuberance, 2nd edn.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press .
44.
Tagliabue, J. (2002) ‘Europeans Curbing Their Appetite for Stocks’ , The New York Times 11 September: W1-W1 .
45.
Terkildsen, N. , F. I. Schnell and C. Ling (1998) ‘Interest Groups, the Media, and Policy Debate Formation: An Analysis of Message Structure, Rhetoric, and Source Cues’ , Political Communication14: 45-61 .
46.
Tuchman, G. (1997) ‘Making News by Doing Work: Routinizing the Unexpected’, pp. 173-192 in D. Berkowitz (ed.) Social Meanings of News: A Text-Reader. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage . (Orig. pub. 1973.)
47.
Tversky, A. and D. Kahneman (1981) ‘The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice’ , Science211: 453-458 .
48.
Vaara, E. and J. Tienari (2002) ‘Justification, Legitimization and Naturalization of Mergers and Acquisitions: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Media Texts’ , Organization9: 275-304 .
49.
Waters, R. (2001) ‘No Apologies from Blodget as He Leaves Merrill Lynch’ , Financial Times 16 November: 27-27 .
50.
Weber, M. (2002) The Protestant Ethic and the ‘Spirit’ of Capitalism. New York: Penguin . (Orig. pub. 1905.)
51.
Welch, J. (2003) ‘The “But” Economy’ , The Wall Street Journal 30 October: A16-A16 .
52.
West, D. M. (2001) The Rise and Fall of the Media Establishment. Boston, MA: Bedford/St Martin’s.
53.
White, D. M. (1997) ‘A New Gatekeeping Model’, pp. 63-79 in D. Berkowitz (ed.) Social Meanings of News: A Text-Reader. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage . (Orig. pub. 1950.)
