A framing analysis of German news coverage of the events of Cologne's New Year's Eve using the example of the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung

Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject Communications - Media and Politics, Politic Communications, grade: 1,0, University of Duisburg-Essen, language: English, abstract: The aim of the present scientific work is to answer the following key question: How can the frames of German news reporting on the events of New Year's Eve in Cologne be assessed using the example of the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, how do the frames develop in the respective medium, how do they differ the media frames of the daily newspapers from each other and what effects do they achieve on the recipient level? Since frames have great methodological potential, but are also very controversial, I will first define the framing tradition and the frame concept in the theoretical part of this final thesis. For this I will primarily use selected literature from Minsky, Konerding, Entman and Scheufele. After that, I will show different types of frames and discuss their possible effects on the recipient level. With the help of this theoretical basis, I can then use the frame concept as an analytical approach. Three copies each of the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung are used as research instruments. Finally, in a last step, I will make a final assessment of the analysis results including the outlook.