Predominant frames and topics during the international media coverage of the Tunisian revolution

Abstract

The Tunisian uprising in January 2011 marked the end of the Ben Ali regime and it was the beginning of far-reaching social and political changes that have affected many Arab countries. During this uprising, the huge volume and constant flow of information tested the media’s ability to provide multimedia coverage in keeping with the audience’s new forms of consumption. In this social and media context, we have studied the corresponding frames and topics to find out how seven of the world’s leading media approached their information and created the narrative of a remarkable historical event. The results show that most of the news was framed from the point of view of the conflict and of human interest, that unemployment was the predominant topic on television channels while authoritarianism predominated in newspapers, and that Al Jazeera English set the intermedia agenda.

KEYWORDS: Tunisia, uprising, news media coverage, framing, topics, Al Jazeera English.