Making news when it has already been broken: A production perspective on the framing practices of newspaper journalists in the Low Countries

Framing has become one of the most popular concepts in the study of news coverage. However, the process of frame-building (Scheufele, 1999), i.e. what factors influence how the news is being framed, has been treated shabbily for a long time (Borah, 2011). Among frame-building studies, the role of journalists and newsrooms remains rather unexplored. This study attempts to bridge the framing tradition with the field of news production. To this end, a multiple-method strategy is adopted: content frame analysis of news stories go together with ethnographic research methods, such as newsroom observations and reconstruction interviews. Thereby, the focus lies on newsrooms in the Low Countries. Following a constructionist approach to framing (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989; Van Gorp, 2007), frames are considered as the unintentional result of journalistic routines, such as the application of news values. The factors that influence frame-building are investigated on different levels (cf. Shoemaker & Reese, 1996), with a focus on individual (e.g., journalistic roles), organizational (e.g., newsroom organization), and institutional (e.g., relationships with sources) influences.nrpages: 287status: publishe