Selection of the Media and Sample

It is not possible to select and analyse all the media output about any one phenomenon. Therefore, the content analyst must select a smaller sample of the whole and, according to Berelson (1952), this process has three stages. The first is the selection of the type of media to be analysed (television, radio magazines, newspapers) and then which programmes or titles of a particular media are to be analysed. The next step requires the selection of the issues or dates to be analysed from the titles selected and the final stage requires the selection of the relevant content.

3.2.5.1 Selecting the Media

The term the media covers a vast range of outlets and could be anything from radio, television, magazines or newspapers. In selecting the media to be analysed the content analyst must take into account a number of considerations including: accessibility and availability of the material, geographical reach, audience size, audience type and the content

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characteristics of the media, for example, tabloid versus quality press (Hansen et al., 1998). According to Hansen et al. (1998), most researchers limit themselves to the analysis of one or two types of medium. The current research limits itself to the analysis of six New Zealand newspapers, four metropolitan dailies: The Dominion1, The New Zealand Herald, The Press,

Otago Daily Times and two regional dailies the Manawatu Standard and the Waikato Times. The four metropolitan dailies were chosen because they have the largest circulation of all newspapers in New Zealand and cover both the North and South Islands. The two regional dailies were selected as both were published in cities where GM research was conducted. The circulation figures for these newspapers as at the September 30, 2001, one month before the policy announcement concerning the Royal Commission’s findings, is shown below in Table 1. This date is between the announcement of the Royal Commission’s findings and the Government’s subsequent policy announcement.

Newspapers were chosen for analysis over other forms of media because while television has to some extent replaced newspapers as a major source of news and information, in the 1990s newspapers were still regarded by New Zealanders as the most reliable source of information over television and radio (Roberts & Levine, 1996). Whether the New Zealand public still holds this view is unknown. However, recent newspaper readership surveys suggest that newspapers are still a strong source of information for the New Zealand public. A newspaper readership survey conducted in 2008 found that 1.6 million New Zealanders would read a newspaper on a daily basis and that 80% of all homeowners would read a newspaper each week (Newspaper Advertising Bureau, 2008). Given New Zealand’s population at the 2001 census was 3,737, 277, this is a relatively high proportion of the population that read newspapers (Statistics New Zealand, 2002, p. 9). As Table 1 shows the six newspapers chosen for this study had a combined circulation of just over 477,000 at the time of analysis making newspapers a large source of information for many New Zealanders on the issue of GM.

       1

TheDominion is now known as the DominionPost, the result of a merger between the Dominion and Evening

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Table 1: Average Circulation of the Selected New Zealand Newspapers as at September 2001

Newspaper Ownership Average Circulation, September 30, 2001

The Dominion (now The Dominion Post)

Fairfax New Zealand Ltd 68,571

New Zealand Herald Australian Provincial Newspapers

211,117

The Otago Daily Times Independently Owned by the Smith family

43,822

The Press Fairfax New Zealand Ltd 91,024

The Waikato Times Fairfax New Zealand Ltd 41,909

Manawatu Standard Fairfax New Zealand Ltd 20,840

Total 477,283

3.2.5.2 Selecting the Dates

The selection of the sample for analysis can be made either on the basis of particular events occurring, or alternatively it may be selected to map a particular dimension of coverage, for example, race relations. In terms of this research the period 1998 – February 2002 included the beginning of the GM debate in New Zealand and also included the major event that occurred during that time, the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Genetic Modification. The Commission was pivotal for the establishment of public policy regarding the use of GM in New Zealand and therefore, the dates selected included the period that the Inquiry sat. However, as Hansen et al., argue:

while event-specific coverage may be clearly defined by the dates of an event, the key to understanding the role and nature of media coverage would often necessitate analysis of coverage both before and after the dates or period of a specific event (1998, p. 103).

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With this in mind a search of the Newztext and Otago Daily Times databases was conducted to find a point where the coverage of the GM issue became current. While stories began to appear sporadically in 1997, material for all newspapers was not available for analysis until January 1998 and, therefore, this was chosen as the starting date. The year 1998 also coincided with the discovery of genetically modified in New Zealand supermarkets also making it a logical starting point. The chosen finish point was February 28, 2002. This was four months after the Government had announced its policy decision regarding the findings of the Royal Commission, and analysis of the database also indicated a marked decline in the number of items being published on the issue.

3.2.5.3 Choosing a Relevant Sample

The last step in selecting the content for analysis is to ensure that such content is relevant. The relevance of content will be based on the research questions or hypotheses already established. It is the interest of this thesis to analyses the reportage of the GM issue by the selected newspapers with regard to what themes were reported and what types of news sources were most frequently cited. Hence, a search of the Newztext newspapers and Otago Daily Times databases using the search terms ‘genetic modification’, ‘genetic engineering’ and ‘biotechnology’ was conducted. The Newztext newspapers database gives the full text of most New Zealand newspapers from 1995 to the present. However, the New Zealand Herald did not appear on this database until January 1998 and this, along with the fact GM foods had been found in New Zealand supermarkets the same year, was another reason why 1998 was chosen as the beginning point for the data collection.

The resulting items included letters to the editor, opinion pieces, columns, editorials, features and news stories. This sample was reduced further to analyse only hard news stories as the study was concerned with GM reportage and more specifically how the sources in those stories discuss the issue. Moreover, science stories are often reported as hard news (Baran & Davis, 2006: Friedman, 1986). Given this focus, editorials, opinion pieces and columns were not considered for analysis as they cannot be considered news items per se, nor can their authors be regarded as informed sources in the normal sense of the term. According to Kuypers (2002) editorials, columns and opinion pieces do not adhere very strongly to the journalistic ideals of objectivity and balance; rather these articles put their opinions forcefully and with little room for other viewpoints. While opinion pieces and letters to the editor may give some indication of public opinion on an issue/event they are not news items written by journalists. Rather they are the opinions of a constructed public on various events and issues

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(Wahl-Jorgensen, 2001). Finally, feature articles are in-depth articles which background specific issues and are not event-led like news stories, and so feature articles were also excluded from the final sample.

The remaining sample was further reduced as in a minority of cases the search terms produced stories not concerned with the GM issue. For example, a story entitled, “Room for all in Citroen cruiser” published in The Dominion, September 15, 2001 used the words ‘genetically modified’ to describe the styling of Citroen’s C5 Cruiser. This story is obviously not connected with the GM issue under investigation, although it does reflect the manner in which the term slipped into more common usage. Another example is a story entitled, “At last - how to run a royal commission of inquiry”, also published by TheDominion, February 13, 2001. This story, while mentioning the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Genetic Modification, concerned reportage of a document produced by the Department of Internal Affairs entitled Setting up and Running Commissions of Inquiry (italics in original). Such stories where similar search terms were used but not concerned with the GM issue were omitted from the sample.

As Kaid and Wadsworth (1989) note, any sample must be representative of the universe from which it is drawn. In terms of this thesis a relevance or purposive sample was selected (Krippendorf, 2004) of all news stories appearing from January 1, 1998 to February 28, 2002 in the six selected newspapers, meaning that the whole universe of stories was selected and, therefore, the sample was representative.