Presumptions about populism in the press : An analysis of the framing of the economic policies of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders

• Main Author: Nilsson, Melinda
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen 2018
• Subjects: populism; media; economic policy; newspapers; inductive frame analysis; Political Science; Statsvetenskap
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-351931

This thesis analyzes the framing of the economic policies of American populists Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in American quality newspapers during the 2016 primary elections. This is done with the intent of investigating if the common assumption that the economic policies of pop-ulists are irresponsible could be observed in the news media. By analyzing two newspapers oppo-site each other on the political spectrum – The New York Times to the left and The Wall Street Journal to the right – and their coverage of the policies of two candidates opposite each other on the political spectrum, a complex comparative study is achieved. An inductive frame analysis yielded six different frames used when discussing the economic policies of the candidates: dam-aging, ignorant, unpredictable, unorthodox, status quo and positive change. While none of the frames fit into a binary “irresponsible” or “not irresponsible” category, the frequent use of the damaging and ignorant frames suggests that the assumption of populist irresponsibility is alive and well.