Abstract

Research on media and diversity rarely compares portrayals of Us and Them with a quasi-experimental design. The present study does a content and discourse analysis of stories on women’s victimization that differ only in respect to the role performed by national or foreign characters. The main pillars of fact-based, «objective» journalism are thus quantitatively scrutinized in their dichotomic application to these two different sets of protagonists. We perform a similar, qualitative, analysis on emotional news based on storytelling. Finally, we explain the bias that emerges considering the shared cultural backdrop that pre-exists newsmaking routines, commercial considerations, and political leaning.