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Framing the cuts: an analysis of the BBC’s discursive framing of the ConDem cuts agenda

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 16:32 authored by Lee Salter, Jilly Boyce Kay
This study analyses the discursive framing of the British government’s economic policies by BBC News Online. Specifically, it focuses on the coverage of the government’s Comprehensive Spending Review in 2010, in which the details of the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s broader ‘austerity’ agenda were released. Using frame analysis informed by critical theory, we analyse three online BBC features and compare their framing of the economic crisis – and the range of possible policy responses to it – with that of the government’s. In addition, we analyse editorial blogs and training materials associated with the BBC’s special ‘Spending Review season’; we also situate the analysis in the historical context of the BBC’s relationship with previous governments at moments of political and economic crisis. Contrary to dominant ideas that the BBC is biased to the left, our findings suggest that its economic journalism discursively normalises neoliberal economics, not necessarily as desirable, but certainly as inevitable.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Accepted version

Journal

Journalism

ISSN

1464-8849

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Issue

6

Volume

15

Page range

754-772

Department affiliated with

  • Media and Film Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2013-12-18

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2016-03-22

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2016-11-17

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