This book is based on a quantitative content analysis of the press coverage of the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) negotiations as it unfolded in 776 newspaper articles from Argentina, India, Spain,
the UK, and the US during four Ministerial Conferences of the so-called ‘Doha Development Agenda’
(DDA) negotiations.
While the DDA was set off in 2001 and was intended to be concluded by the end of 2004, the
multilateral negotiations are in the end of 2007 still short of agreement. This thesis conceives of the
media agenda as an important factor influencing trade policy formation and trade negotiation in the
WTO. Combining elements from agenda-setting and institutional media theory, the study examines
which issues and themes have been covered (priming) and from which angles these issue have been
covered (framing). In particular, this thesis investigates the degree to which this priming and framing
seems to be institutionalised across time (the four summits) and across space (the five countries).
Using stable trends in coverage as indications of institutionalisation the thesis concludes that the press
agendas are highly institutionalised across both time and space. This is so because: A) From mentioning
several purpose-definitions of what the DDA talks are about, the press in both G20 and OECD
countries has narrowed down its purpose-definitions to only two: liberalisation and development for the poor.
B) In all countries, it is increasingly the same themes and issues, namely Breakdown or breakthrough and
agriculture that dominate the press agendas. C) The most covered issues are in all countries framed with
an increasing bias in favour of liberalisation. D) The poor are in all countries framed as the sole victims of a
lack of liberalisation, and E) the rich are in all countries framed as the ones who should liberalise.
When this particular press coverage of the DDA is highly institutionalised, it means that it will be sticky
and less prone to change. And because the media agenda is taken to affect the WTO agenda, the actors
who are (dis)advantaged from this particular coverage in the press will likely continue to be so some
time into the future.