When technology meets ideology: Frame analysis of ideological discourses on the nature of the Internet in American magazines of opinion (1995-2019)

This paper uses quantitative and qualitative content analysis of two respected U.S. magazines of opinion — the conservative National Review and liberal The Nation — in the years 1995–2019 to see how they frame discourses on the nature of the Internet. Since media frames organize information and provide a perspective through which message receivers come to understand a subject, they should be regarded as discursive manifestations of political ideologies. This study examines substantive frames which provide a broader context to particular events and information. Just like politicians and mass media are responsible for the construction and dissemination of procedural frames, so magazines of opinion are responsible for the formation of substantive frames, which respond to procedural frames and set them in an ideological background. In order to analyse the process of substantive frame building and frame setting by magazines of opinion, this paper modifies Robert Entman’s cascading network activation model