Behind the Sources - Project Proposal

Introduction/Background:

On May 25, Hezbollah General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah for the first time publicly acknowledged Hezbollah’s military role in the Syria conflict and pledged to propel Syrian President Bashar Assad to victory against opposition forces. Specifically, Nasrallah addressed the role of Hezbollah in the battle for Qusair, a strategically located town near the northern border of Lebanon that connects the land corridor between Damascus, the seat of the Assad regime, and the Alawite stronghold of Latakia on the Mediterranean coast. Lebanese, Arab and Western news sources gave Nasrallah’s speech prime coverage. The media cycle just ahead of and immediately following his announcement was filled with news analyses ranging from pieces examining Hezbollah’s decision-making process and the potential military impact they would have on the Syrian war to impact of this development on Lebanon’s and the region’s stability.

With the 24-hour news cycle and the media-driven nature of the Syrian conflict, there is huge pressure on news networks to deliver immediate coverage and on the spot analysis as events develop. Often, this cycle drives reporters and news sources to reach out to experts to provide insights on these developments. Availability, relationships and networks of journalists or their news outlets affect who and how these experts are chosen and what perspectives and insights dominate the mainstream media discussion. These media debates and news outlets – and the experts to whom they provide platforms – have a huge impact on policy making and public opinion regarding the Syrian crisis. I propose to examine news analyses in the days leading up to and immediately following Nasrallah’s May 25 speech to reveal the networks of experts and journalism coverage that exist in a snapshot of such Syria coverage.

Primary Question:

Do news sources on Syria utilize a variety of “expert” sources or are certain voices dominating the coverage? Which experts dominate the mainstream media conversation on Syria?

Hypothesis:

Working as a journalist in Lebanon I watched the way networks of reporters and experts formed and how this affected coverage. Peer connections often determine access to experts and the breadth of points of view presented by a news source. I hypothesize that a social network analysis of media coverage will illustrate these networks and show that some voices outweigh others in the coverage on Syria, often giving coverage a certain political slant. These individuals, therefore, may have greater impact on public opinion and policy making.

Data:

To create the data set for this project I will choose a set of the top news sources in the US, Europe and within the region (written in English) to analyze. For each news source, I will look at the news analyses published between May 23 and May 30, 2013 – the period just before and the days after Nasrallah’s May 25 speech – and identify the journalists writing the pieces and the experts quoted in these articles. I will also create attribute sets for the experts and journalists including information on nationality, academic or government background and whether or not the expert is located in the region or is in the US or elsewhere.

The news sources:

US media: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, Syria Deeply, Al Jazeera America, Associated Press,

European media: BBC, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Independent, Agence France Presse, Der Spiegel, Russia Today

Regional sources in English: The National (Abu Dhabi), Al Arabiya (Saudi-own, Dubai), The Daily Star  (Lebanon), Al Akhbar  (Lebanon), Haaretz (Israel), Al Monitor (translations from around the region)

Methodology/Important Network Measures:

Social Network Analysis provides a unique way to visualize this two-mode network of news sources/journalists and experts that other forms of data analysis cannot provide. I will analyze the network on a few different levels: the overall network to determine the most central experts and reporters, the networks by region of news sources and the individual ego networks of different news sources, journalists and experts.

Clique and sub group analysis can identify which groups of journalists or news sources are all utilizing the same expert analysis. Other centrality measures (betweenness, eigenvector) will help determine who are the most central experts and therefore which experts dominate the media conversation. I will also be able compare and contrast the networks by region of news source or nationality of experts, etc.

Conclusions:

This project will take a critical look at the expert inputs to the media discussion on one event in the coverage of the Syria coverage. While this analysis is just concerned with a single event and time frame, the model could be applied to examining other types of media coverage and issue areas. Using social network analysis I hope to highlight the importance of sourcing the media sources and thinking critical about production of news and its impact.