International Conflicts News Coverage in Romanian Press

The paper aims to analyze the way in which international news is rather shaped by journalists and mass-media per se and affected by national level factors than by real world events or the activities of political actors. There is a lack of empirical theories and studies regarding external news. This study’s purpose is to fill in this void, at least   partly, by means of comparative analysis of international conflicts news coverage in Romanian press.  International news coverage plays an important role in building a foreign country’s image and translating foreign cultures in their countries of origin. Mass-media should have a significant influence on external news perception, given the fact that the national audience is usually distant towards international events and relies upon national media coverage. As the majority of mass-media are still focused on national audience, these will accentuate the conflicts perspective with the risk of answering national stereotypes. Numerous empirical studies show that the conflict perspective is dominant, with an accent on “domestic” news and strong accent on elite political actors.  This leads to external news “decontextualization”. It claims that during crises and times of conflict, the journalists have moved the emphasis on citizens and individual actors, increasing the international events news coverage  with soft news. Approximate 1,000 articles regarding the Ukraine, Turkey, and Catalonia conflicts were analyzed during research and the results showed that the attention given by the mass-media had been strongly influenced by national policies.