A Quantitative analysis

of international newspaper coverage

of the 1981 hunger strike in Northern Ireland

Oulun yliopistoHistoriatieteet

Kevätseminaari29.3.2014

Erja Simuna

2

When the republican prisoner, Bobby Sands, launched hunger strike in a Northern Irish prison

on 1 March 1981, the world outside the Maze prison was not interested in it for various reasons1.

But as it turned out, the turns of events during the following months proved to be so peculiar

that the hunger strike gained plenty of worldwide publicity. This paper examines the international

newspaper coverage from the point of view of quantitative analysis.

The newspapers analysed here are Helsingin Sanomat (Finland), Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), The Times

(Great Britain), The Irish Times (Ireland), Le Figaro (France), Die Welt (Germany), Neue Zürcher

Zeitung (Switzerland), El Pais (Spain), The New York Times (United States of America), The Globe

and Mail (Canada), The Age (Australia), La Prensa (Argentina), Arab News (Saudi Arabia), South

China Morning Post (Hong Kong) and The Sowetan (South Africa).

Quantitative newspaper analysis2 has its roots in a very simple question of how much news does a

newspaper contain.3 Even though the idea has become more complex, the underlying significance

remains the same. Quantitative analysis provides the first glimpse of what the makers of a

newspaper see newsworthy. The aim of this paper is to discuss what we can find out just by

looking at numbers. The main questions for this paper are: What kind of a news story the hunger

strike was? With what kinds of material the coverage was carried out? What was typical for each

of the newspapers? What were the differences and similarities between the papers?

The purpose of this paper is not to explain the reasoning behind the quantitative results. That

extensive and complex task is the main motive of my thesis4. However, some cursory explanatory

examples are to given to make the process more understandable. This paper focuses on revealing

the numeric foundations for the newspapers’ representations.

1 According to O’MALLEY the reason for this was that the people were still fed up with the previous hunger strike(O’Malley 1990, 58). Also the news value of a single person’s hunger strike was not that high (as it is notexceptional). In addition as the authorities were the main, or even the sole, source of information, the willingness ofthe government to give information was a major cause for the low number of news. In this case the authorities werenot very keen to inform at first (Beresford 1994, 43)2 In this paper the newspaper analysis refer to a method of research in which basic features of a newspaper arecounted and then compared. Comparisons can be made within one newspaper or in sets of several papers, eachcomparison providing different results. More profound statistical methods were not used.3 Krippendorff 2004, 5.4 My thesis ”From historical battle to political violence, Representations of the 1981 Northern Irish hunger strike in internationalpress” analyses the (mental) images mediated in international newspapers and explains how differing sociological andcultural environments affect the coverage.

3

Brief outline of the hunger strike

Early 1970’s was the bloodiest time of the Northern Ireland conflict. In 1971 the British

government gave the security forces special interment powers to arrest and jail suspected

terrorists without filing charges.5 This was almost exclusively applied to one side of the conflict,

the Catholics. Those arrested during the internment were given rights that the other terrorism-

related prisoners did not have. Internees were, for example, segregated according to paramilitary

alliances and they were able to behave like prisoners of war by wearing their own clothes and

associating with each other. The ordinary prisoners started to protest against this inconsistence.6

At the same time the British were negotiating for cease-fire with the IRA. The then Secretary of

State accepted the agreement in 1972. The political prisoners were given Special Category Status.7

Soon the government changed its politics and wanted to criminalize the prisoners. This was

carried out in 1976.8 The prisoners did not approve the new law and launched a protesting

campaign. At first even some loyalist prisoners took part in protesting but they were few in

numbers9. Protesting started with the “blanket protest” as the prisoners refused to wear prison

clothing and covered themselves with mere blankets. As the number of prisoners joining the

protest grew, authorities’ attitudes hardened. In 1978 protesting escalated first into “no wash

protest” in which prisoners did not wash themselves, and finally into “dirty protest” when they

started to smear cells with their excrement.10

Outside the prison interest towards protesting was increasing. In 1979 a National H-

Block/Armagh Committee was founded to give voice to the prisoners’ cause.11 At this time the

five demands of the prisoners were finally clinched. These demands were: 1) to wear their own

clothes 2) to refrain from prison work 3) to associate freely with other prisoners 4) to organize

recreation activity, and certain number of letters and visits allowed 5) to have remission of their

sentences.12 Protesting did not have any effect on authorities, so the prisoners had to find new

ways. In October 1980 seven prisoners launched a hunger strike. During the following weeks the

prisoners and the authorities negotiated for the demands. In December a proposed settlement

was presented to the prisoners who expected their demands to be conceded and the hunger strike

5 Hennessey 1997, 1946 O’Malley 1990, 18 – 197 Hennessey 1997, 2108 O’Malley 1990, 19 – 209 Campbell 1998, 9410 O’Malley 1990, 3, Campbell 1998, 3111 Campbell 1998, 8412 Beresford 1994, 41

4

was called off after fifty-three days. Soon it became clear that there was not going to be any

reforms.13 A new hunger strike was planned with greater determination.

Officer Commanding of the IRA prisoners Bobby Sands started his hunger strike on March 1

1981. He was joined at two-week intervals by other prisoners. At first, the hunger strike did not

attract any greater attention outside the prison. But then the MP for Fermanagh and South-

Tyrone died and Sands was nominated for the by-election. Sands ended up as the sole Nationalist

candidate against a Unionist candidate. The election results came on April 9: Bobby Sands had

been elected MP for Fermanagh and South-Tyrone. This gained plenty of publicity for the

prisoners.

After sixty-six days on hunger strike Bobby Sands died on 5 May 1981. The hunger strike

continued and within next few weeks three other prisoners, Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh

and Patsy O’Hara, died. The British government’s hard line against the hunger strikers aroused

much publicity, a significant part of it was critical to the government. More publicity was gained

as Ireland was getting ready for the general election in early June. Due to Sands’ success, nine

prisoners, including four hunger strikers, were nominated as candidates. The election turned out

to be a success for them: hunger striker Kieran Doherty was elected, as well as one other

protesting prisoner.

As the hunger strike went on there were few attempts to try to resolve the situation but because

either side did not yield, deaths continued. In early July two more hunger strikers, Joe McDonnell

and Martin Hurson, died. They were in August followed by Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty,

Thomas McElwee and Michael Devine. By August 20 altogether ten prisoners had died.

Even though the prisoners were still supported to some extent the most intensive stage was over.

The attempts to bring the hunger strike to an end freshened. The families of the hunger strikers

were recommended to authorize medical intervention. The hunger strike was seen more and

more futile. On October 3 1981 the prisoners released a statement that the hunger strike was to

be ended. Shortly after, the British government introduced a set of reforms.14

13 O’Malley 1990, 314 E.g. Beresford 1994, passim.

5

The media’s involvement in Northern Ireland conflict has been the subject of a good few

analyses15 but the hunger strike has usually been mentioned only incidentally. The main focus has

been on the Irish and British media. Research works on international media have been

surprisingly few.

The overall amounts of published material

Before examining the most pivotal numbers regarding the newspaper coverage of the 1981

hunger strike, some words of definition are needed. For this paper the newspaper material has

been categorized into three types of texts. The first consists of standard news articles and is the

biggest group. News articles are the backbone of each newspaper providing the most of the

information given to readers. The second type of text are the various feature articles including

columns and other more in-depth stories published by the newspapers. The use of feature articles

varies between the papers, and in some cases it can even be difficult to see the difference

between a news article and a feature article. Therefore, in basis analysis these are added together.

However, to conduct more specified analysis the numbers of these article types are also separated

when needed. The third type of text are the editorials. Another type of material that are used here

are the news photos published by the papers.

Table 1 provides a summary of all the material gathered for this study, indicating how many news

and feature articles as well as editorials were published in each newspaper between 1 March and

10 October 198116. The numbers of published material give us the very basic information of how

much attention was given to the hunger strike by each of the newspapers, and therefore

providing a starting point for analysis.

15 E.g. Liz Curtis, Ireland: the propaganda war, the British media and the ‘battle for hearts and minds’ (1984); Philip Elliott,“Reporting Northern Ireland, a study of news in Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland”.Ethnicity and the media, an analysis of media reporting in the United Kingdom, Canada and Ireland (1977); David Miller, Don’tmention the war, Northern Ireland, Propaganda and the Media (1994).16 The time scale of the research has been limited to the period of the hunger strike itself plus one week for theimmediate reactions.

6

news and feature articles (altogether) editorials Overall

The Age 147 6 153

Arab News 129 1 130

Dagens Nyheter 97 3 100

Die Welt 63 1 64

El Pais 62 3 65

The Globe and Mail 124 7 131

Helsingin Sanomat 84 1 85

The Irish Times 758 74 832

La Prensa 57 0 57

Le Figaro 80 0 80

Neue Zürcher Zeitung 63 0 63

The New York Times 114 7 121

South China Morning Post 132 8 140

The Sowetan 15 1 16

The Times 185 21 206Table 1. Published material between 1 March 1981 and 10 October 1981.

Almost needless to say is that The Irish Times was by far the most active paper in the coverage

of the hunger strike (figure 117). This is hardly surprising as events in Northern Ireland were and

are considered as ‘home news’. The other paper covering the hunger strike as home news, The

Times, was a clear second in overall numbers in comparison with the foreign newspapers18. But

what is more interesting, is the startling difference between the numbers of The Irish Times and

The Times. The Irish Times published four times more material than The Times. In practice, the

difference developed as The Irish Times usually published several articles in a day, whereas The

Times covered the conflict in one or only few. The underlying reasoning for these differing

practices is an intriguing question. With more material The Irish Times reported the event from

different aspects hinting that it did not see any problem with it. This difference between the two

17 Figure 1 includes ’incidence’ numbers for each of the newspapers. In other words these numbers tell us how oftena news article and/or editorial about the hunger strike got published during the research period. The lowestincidence number (The Sowetan with 0,1) means that an article related to the hunger strike was published in everytenth day, whereas the highest (The Irish Times with 4,38) means that the paper published just over four articlesand/or editorials per day.18 In this study the term foreign newspapers refers to all other newspapers apart from The Irish Times and TheTimes

7

papers was highlighted as The Times seemed to give as less attention to the hunger strike as

possible. This was done by reporting events briefly and focusing on other matters. The stance of

The Times not to give vast attention tells us something significant. The paper considered the

event as distasteful.

Of the foreign newspapers The Age was the most active by the numbers of published stories,

followed by South China Morning Post, The Globe and Mail, The New York Times and Arab

News. The geographical distance can therefore be hardly seen from these samples. This is

obviously due to the fact the many of those long-distance nations have other connections with

the British Isles. A rather interesting detail is that there was more coverage in Australia and

Canada (as well as in Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia) than in the US that has traditionally had

more “interest” in Irish issues. The difference is not big but definitely worthy of consideration.

Obviously the newspapers studied here are only individual representatives of their countries, so

overly solid conclusions cannot be made from these numbers. But on the hand, it could mean

something. This already brings out the gains of quantitative analysis: several sets of information

are received and it is the responsibility of a researcher to analyze and justify which set is accurate.

Figure 1. Proportional comparison of published material.19

19 The ratio numbers were counted by dividing the amount of published material with the number of issues.

0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 4,5 5

The Irish Times

The Times

The Age

The Globe and Mail

South China Morning Post

Arab News

The New York Times

Dagens Nyheter

Le Figaro

Helsingin Sanomat

Die Welt

Neue Zürcher Zeitung

El Pais

La Prensa

The Sowetan

8

The numbers of Arab News and South China Morning Post were significantly high. Interestingly,

they did report the hunger strike slightly more than The New York Times, and also more than

any of the European papers that can labelled as foreign. This just shows that geographical

distance is not always a poignant factor. The reasoning must be looked for from somewhere else.

On the European level the Scandinavian papers had slightly more coverage than the German-

language papers, and also the French Le Figaro was somewhat more active than Die Welt and

Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Instead, the Spanish El Pais had the least coverage of the European

papers. The differences were not big but they existed. It can be considered as surprising that

Dagens Nyheter and Helsingin Sanomat reported more about the hunger strike than the majority

of the papers in leading European countries.

The Argentine La Prensa did not follow the hunger strike as actively as the majority of the

papers. This was probably due to geographical and cultural distance combined. It is noteworthy

that both Spanish-language papers were among the least active newspapers.

The Sowetan had the lowest number of coverage. The hunger strike was reported in South Africa

but the low number suggests that it was not considered as interesting as elsewhere in countries

studies here. There was no continuum. The low number can be partly explained also with mere

editorial factors. In the fragmented South African media field, The Sowetan was founded only

some time before the hunger strike and was probably still focusing on more familiar issues to

draw readers.

Based on mere numbers of published material the main conclusion is that the hunger strike was

considered as a conflict that was followed all over the world. The closest newspapers reported

most attentively, highlighting the local nature of the conflict. From foreign perspectives the

attention given to the hunger strike depended on other issues. The level of interest was grounded

on having some kind of connection with the cultures that were affected by the conflict. At the

same, the numbers hint also that the level of interest is not that straightforward as there were

some unexpected differences in numbers. The quantitative analysis enables one to discover these

interesting facts that make the research even more intriguing and challenging.

9

The more interesting an event is considered, the more versatile material of it gets published.

Based on this assumption, editorials and news photos are used as indicators of interest towards

the hunger strike.

The numbers of editorials (table 1 on page 6) back up the impression that The Irish Times

reported the hunger strike much more actively than any of the other papers, and that The Times

was a clear second. From foreign newspapers South China Morning Herald, The New York

Times, The Globe and Mail and The Age were almost neck and neck in terms of numbers. The

cultural linkage of Australia, USA and Canada to the British Isles explains the need for

comments. Also Hong Kong had a specific connection with Britain. Numbers demonstrate that

newspapers with more overall coverage were more likely to publish more editorials. Only

exception to this is Arab News who published only one editorial on the hunger strike. Yet again,

the quantitative information reveals a need for clarification.

In this case, the more coherent conclusion is that newspapers with less news coverage discussed

the hunger strike only in individual editorials or even not at all. This confirms the assumption

that editorials are used to comment on issues that are regarded relevant. The editorials are

obviously a rather limited space, so not all issues can be admitted to them. Selection has to be

made, and the result of this selection can be revealing.

In addition to the editorials, news photos (figure 2) can be considered as an easy way to highlight

the interest given to a news event. In this case, the amount of news photos roughly follows the

same lines as the numbers of published material in general. This confirms that topics of interest

are more often reported with news photos.

Again, The Irish Times had the biggest number with 120 published news photos. But in this

field, The Times was not second. This backs up the idea that the paper did not want to give too

much attention to the hunger strike as pictures are regarded to be powerful tools to attract

attention. Instead, South China Morning Post and The Globe and Mail published more pictures

than The Times. The process of publishing pictures was not seen as daunting from a distance.

10

Figure 2. Published news photos between 1 March 1981 and 10 October 1981.

Interestingly, The Age published significantly less (only half of the amount of The Globe and

Mail for instance) news photos than other active papers, and also Arab News had fewer news

photos. All these most active newspapers seemed to have a similar style of reporting in general, in

other words news photos were used more or less in the same way throughout the pages. The

lower numbers of news photos in The Age and Arab News definitely mean something.

The majority of the newspapers published similar numbers of photos of the hunger strike. The

fact that most of them were published during May in all papers just highlights the assumption

that the hunger strike was a major international media event for a brief period. The most versatile

material concentrated on time period of just few weeks.

The newspapers with the lowest numbers of news photos were The Sowetan, Neue Zürcher

Zeitung and Die Welt. However, considering the amount material in general by The Sowetan, the

number of photos (5) is relatively high. This again supports the idea of the hunger strike as a

major media event. In the cases of Neue Zürcher Zeitung and Die Welt, the low numbers are due

to the nature of these papers. They differed from the rest of the newspapers as they did not use

that many pictures in their coverage in general. The pages were filled with text.

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Published news photos

11

The basic publishing numbers tell us that, as anticipated, the hunger strike gained more attention

in countries that had some kind of connection to the societies involved in the conflict. But one

number provides only a limited aspect to the issue. Therefore, a wider range of quantitative

information is needed. Next chapter will expose some further attributes.

Hunger strike as a news story

A closer look at the ‘quality’ of the material in each paper reveals few interesting themes. They

tell us how and with what kinds of attributes the hunger strike was represented. This is turn

reveals the nature of the hunger strike as a news story.

Figure 3. ‘Foreign’ newspapers’ monthly news coverage

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

March April May June July August Septem. October

Monthly coverage

Helsingin Sanomat Dagens Nyheter Die Welt

Neue Zürcher Zeitung The Age The Globe and Mail

The New York Times Le Figaro El Pais

La Prensa The Sowetan South China Morning Post

Arab News

12

It is interesting that each newspaper had a rather similar pattern in their coverage (figure 320).

When the hunger strike started in March the coverage was scarce: just few pieces of news got

published and they were mainly short texts of basic information. In April there was a clear rise in

numbers as the hunger strike started to draw attention after Bobby Sands’s election success. May

was by far the most active month in every paper as there were all sorts of events to report. Then

in June there was a clear drop in numbers. July witnessed again an increase in coverage in the

most of the newspapers. Even though several hunger strike deaths and other turns in events, in

August the coverage started to decrease. Towards the end of the hunger strike overall coverage

decreased in clear numbers. Especially in late September there were hardly any (major) news.

After the hunger strike was called off on 3 October, the end of the hunger strike gained more

attention within few days than in the preceding few weeks altogether.

The quality of the published material support this pattern. During April and May almost all

newspapers published several feature articles and editorials related to the hunger strike. In many

papers it was actually the only time period when this kind of ‘extra’ material was used. After May

newspapers’ coverage changed, not only in numbers but also stylistically. Events were not

covered with as much detail as before. The news coverage normalized. For instance, the context

was not given, amount of pictures decreased and articles were merely listing events. The coverage

in each newspaper became more fragmental.

Based on the above-mentioned, the main conclusion is that the hunger strike was a similar news

event in different parts of the world. It is fascinating that the pattern of publishing activity

follows the same lines. It is up to further investigation to find out if this is due to the newspapers

as a certain type of media or whether there exists something ‘universal’ behind it.

Even though the general lines were rather similar, the more precise numbers uncover differences

as well. For instance the size of published news articles may also give us some hint how the

hunger strike was treated as a news event. For this study news articles were divided into three

groups based on the length. Small news articles contained brief telegraphs and other news articles

with only few short paragraphs of text. Medium size news articles consisted of few columns and

maybe a news photo. Large news articles contained several columns and usually at least one news

photo. This group also included sets of several news articles published on same day. The results

are somewhat expected and somewhat surprising.

20 This figure includes numbers from the foreign newspapers. Also The Irish Times and The Times followed thesame pattern. (they were left out from the table merely due to technical reasons)

13

Figure 4. The sizes of news articles in The Irish Times.

On the expected level, news articles in The Irish Times were dominantly large (figure 4). It often

published several articles per day, and the texts were usually longer than an average news article

published by the paper. This again supports the idea that the hunger strike was a major news in

Ireland. In comparison, The Times published more moderate news articles with only 20% of the

articles being large. The difference to The Irish Times is therefore obvious. As The Times treated

the hunger strike as a negative event, it was not given too much attention.

In general, the hunger strike was treated as a normal news event: the majority of news were

average in size. Only in times of few occurrences (particularly the death of Sands) the news

articles were larger worldwide. Of the studied newspaper here, The New York Times (figure 5)

can be considered as typical: a clear majority of the news articles were medium sized, and smaller

news were more common than large ones. This same pattern applied also to The Age, Arab

News, The Globe and Mail, Helsingin Sanomat, Neue Zürcher Zeitung and South China

Morning Post. As these newspapers and their relations to the conflict are not similar, the

reasoning must be more generic. The hunger strike was seen as worthy of active news coverage.

In North America and Australia the cultural connection was a factor, Neue Zürcher Zeitung was

interested in the political dimensions, South China Morning Post and Arab News had a strong

emphasis on international news and so on. Each newspaper had their own reasons for following

the event.

14

Figure 5. The distribution of the sizes of news articles in El Pais and The New York Times as examples.

The proportion numbers provide few interesting notions. For instance, El Pais published

relatively more large news articles than many of the other papers. One explanation for this is

merely technical: the paper did not publish so called telegraph news so the general amount of

small news was lower. It is also interesting that La Prensa published slightly more large (16%)

news articles than small (13%), although the emphasis was clearly on medium sized news stories.

These numbers suggest that from far away it is more likely not to publish smaller pieces of a

news of a matter that is not considered as significant enough.

The emphasis on smaller news articles by Dagens Nyheter and Die Welt (figure 6) is also an

interesting fact, especially when compared to newspapers ‘closest’ to them, Helsingin Sanomat

(closest to Dagens Nyheter) and Neue Zürcher Zeitung (closest to Die Welt). The amounts of

overall material were quite the same with equivalent papers but the profile of the news differed

slightly. This tells us that between seemingly similar contexts there can be considerable

differences.

Figure 6. The distribution of the sizes of news articles in Dagens Nyheter and Die Welt as examples.

15

The Sowetan is a peculiar case. The very low amount of material needs to be taken into

consideration but it is worth noticing that all published material was either medium (54%) or

large (46%). As a new newspaper it probably was still somewhat hesitant in its practices. The

layout of news sections were not stable. However, it is significant that when the hunger strike was

reported in South Africa it was done in a visible matter.

The amount of published large news articles in general backs up the fluctuating nature of the

hunger strike as a news story. The most of the large news articles were published in May by each

newspaper. Even those newspapers that were not the most active in their coverage published

several large news articles. This again supports the perception of the hunger strike as a major

international news in May.

In general, The Irish Times had the largest news articles. However, the numbers of some other

papers are more interesting. For instance, Arab News and South China Morning Post who were

among the most active in their coverage did not report the event in a large scale. One clear

reasons for this was that the both papers relied on material provided by international news

agencies. News material by agencies usually tend to be more compact. This assumption is backed

up by the fact that during those months when also other foreign papers used more material from

news agencies the published news articles were shorter. Another example of how editorial

practices of a newspaper may affect the outcome is El Pais. Numbers suggest that a paper that

had a rather low numbers of published material had a considerable ratio of bigger news. This was

partly due to the practice of not publishing short news stories in general. The above mentioned

cases remind us that the information based on mere numbers is not straightforward.

However, numbers can be used to reveal some broader trends. In this case, the numbers clearly

show that after a period of active coverage the attention diminished considerably towards the

end. The news articles became more moderate and the use of news photos dropped. The profile

of published news photos (figure 7) is even more revelatory. It shows how the May’s peak was

not even close to be reached. But was the hunger strike a top story?

16

Figure 7. Published news photos monthly.

In journalism, top stories generally appear on the front page and one might expect an unusually

dramatic and newsworthy incident to warrant such placement. Additionally, editorials and

columns witness that newspaper personnel consider an incident important enough to be

mediated with differing opinions surrounding it.21 The amount of such material also

demonstrates the interest towards the event.

Yet again, The Irish Times separated from the else (table 2). Roughly two-thirds of the time

something about the hunger strike was reported on the front page. During some months (May,

July) the hunger strike was covered on front page more or less daily. The numbers of front page

news show that home news are more likely to be published on front page as The Times was a

clear second with a quarter of news published on front page.

21 Letters to editor are usually also used as an evidence for the research of “top stories”. However, in this researchthe letters to the editor were not included a) because of the different practices of the newspapers (all papers do nottreat them same) b) the already vast amount of material c) the background and reasoning behind each individual’swritings in all of the newspapers would have been an overwhelming task to go through.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

March April May June July August September October

The Sowetan Die Welt Le Figaro

Dagens Nyheter Arab News The Age

El Pais Helsingin Sanomat The New York Times

La Prensa The Times The Globe and Mail

South China Morning Post The Irish Times

17

March April May June July August September October altogether(units)

%

The Age 6 10 1 3 3 2 1 26 13,7Arab News 1 15 1 4 5 2 28 12,7Dagens

Nyheter

2 5 2 3 1 13 5,9

Die Welt 2 5 1 2 3 13 6,8El Pais 3 3 1,4The Globe

and Mail

8 12 1 3 24 12,6

Helsingin

Sanomat

1 3 1 5 2,3

The Irish

Times

7 19 24 14 27 20 7 5 123 64,7

La Prensa 2 5 1 8 3,6Le Figaro 2 3 1 6 3,2The New

York Times

2 6 1 2 11 5,0

Neue

Zürcher

Zeitung

5 1 4 3 1 14 7,4

South China

Morning

Post

7 21 1 4 1 1 35 15,9

The Times 9 15 5 9 8 1 2 49 25,8Table 2. The monthly numbers of news published on front page.22 The column on the righthand sideincludes a relative proportion of front news in each newspaper. For example, The Irish Times published64,7 % of its news articles about the hunger strike on the front page.

Out of the foreign newspapers the most active were also the ones with more coverage on front

page. The Age, Arab News, The Globe and Mail and South China Morning Post had an

incidence number of over 10%. The rest of the papers were well below it. As numbers suggest,

the coverage in May made the difference: papers with more coverage also used the front page

22 The numbers are calculated based on so called main news articles.

18

more. During latter months the numbers of front page news were more or less the same. Most

interestingly, The New York Times had also a very low number of front page news. This gives an

impression that the stance towards the hunger strike was cautious despite the strong Irish

connection on the east coast.

The amount of front page news suggests that the hunger strike was a so called top story at least

for a while. Instead, the numbers of editorials (table 1) tell a bit different story. Apart from The

Irish Times the hunger strike was commented only occasionally. Even the eventful May did not

push newspapers to extensive comments (figure 8).

Figure 8. Editorials published in May.

Also the used sources for the news articles hint that the hunger strike was followed and reported

but not considered as a major news story. The underlying supposition is that significant news

stories are covered mainly by papers’ own journalists. As figure 9 points out the vast amount of

published material were from international news agencies. Obviously this is also a question of

resources, not all newspapers had their own reporters in different parts of the world.

19

Figure 9. News agiences as the source of news articles (%).

Arab News, La Prensa and South China Morning Post relied solely on material provided by

different news agencies. These newspapers can be considered as geographically and culturally as

the most distant. The cultural connection seems as imperative as other papers with thousands

miles apart (The Age, The Globe and Mail and The New York Times) but with certain cultural

interest had their own reporters on the case. Especially The Age relied less on the news agencies.

On the European level, the most interesting foreign aspect must be Neue Zürcher Zeitung that

used news agencies the least. Considering the otherwise narrowish nature of its coverage the

emphasis on own reporters’ stories is worth noticing. To report on an issue considered not that

significant with own staff tells us something about the general editorial line of the paper. Own

material was preferred.

All in all, it is significant that the hunger strike was covered in different parts of the world. The

hunger strike was primarily a local conflict after all, so a worldwide coverage is not self-evident.

The patterns of published news material are strikingly similar between the newspapers. It means

that the hunger strike was a media story that drew similar attention regardless cultural contexts.

Same events were considered dramatic, and therefore newsworthy. But they also show how

media gets numbed when an event continues without startling changes. Even death becomes

routine news.

20

Now that we have found out of how much and what kind of material were published about the

hunger strike, let’s take a brief look at numbers telling us what topics were reported.

Reporting concentrated on certain themes

For this section the news material was roughly divided to categories to describe the different

attributes of the conflict.

The front page news were clearly divided to few differing themes (table 3). The Irish Times was

excluded from the table as, due to the bigger amount of front page news, the coverage was more

multifaceted. There were no explicit preferences. With the rest of the newspapers, few

differences came up.

Table 3. Most common topics reported on front pages. (The Sowetan did not publish any front page newsabout the hunger strike.)

A majority of the front page news in The Age, Arab News, Dagens Nyheter and South China

Morning reported about the hunger strikers (their health, deaths and funerals). This topic was

typical also for El Pais, Helsingin Sanomat, La Prensa, Le Figaro and The New York Times. In

other words, majority of the newspapers were more likely to cover hunger strikers on their front

prisoners (health, death etc.) violence, riots thatcher elections "blows to fast" the endThe Age 9 3 1Arab News 9 5 4 2 2Dagens Nyheter 7 2 1Die Welt 3 4 2El Pais 2The Globe and Mail 7 9 1Helsingin Sanomat 3 1La Prensa 3 2Le Figaro 2 1 1The New York Times 3 1 1 1 1 2Neue Zürcher Zeitung 2 5 1South China Morning Post 12 9 1 1The Times 8 10 3 4 4 2

21

pages than any other topic. Also the rest of the paper had some front page news focusing on

hunger strikers (practically in these cases the focus was on Bobby Sands), so the hunger strikers

were definitely represented. Die Welt, The Globe and Mail and The Times had the most front

page news about incidences of violence and riots. Therefore giving a different kind of nature to

the conflict. Yet another interesting detail is that the front page news of Neue Zürcher Zeitung

most often dealt with political issues related to the matter.

Based on what issues were published on front pages, different aspects got highlighted. Similar

trends can be found out from news photos as well.

Again, The Irish Times (figure 10) and The Times (figure 11) provide differing approaches. The

Irish Times published plenty of news photos related to the hunger strikers, either them personally

or their families and supporters. A total of 60% of all news photos can be considered as such.

Also The Times published a rather considerable amount of photos of the hunger strikers (39%)

but the same amount was published of more violent images, pictures portraying masked IRA

men with weapons and people rioting. Also the photos of soldiers and police forces created a

sense of conflict. In comparison, The Irish Times published a good amount of pictures of riots as

well, although a majority of them were printed within just few days after protests in Dublin. What

is noteworthy is that The Irish Times did not associate the IRA so strongly with the conflict. Also

soldiers and police were pictures only on few occasions.

Figure 10. Themes of news photos in The Irish Times.

22

Figure 11. Themes of news photos in The Times.

Foreign newspapers had more balanced set of news photos: all aspects of the conflict were

pictured more or less. Again, there were interesting differences between the papers. For instance

Arab News (figure 12) published remarkably few photos of the hunger strikers. It published only

one picture of the prisoners themselves. However, it did portray supporters more but the overall

view concentrated on the conflict nature of the event. Soldiers and police were pictured often.

Figure 12. Themes of news photos in Arab News.

23

Other papers that had a slight emphasis on conflict photos were Die Welt, South China Morning

Post, La Prensa, El Pais and The Globe and Mail. Pictures of conflict are obviously good news

photos but, as the certain thematic features appeared time after time, one can assume that there

was at least some sort of conscious decisions behind them. To what extent, are points of analysis

in each of the newspapers.

At the other end of the scale was Dagens Nyheter (figure 13) that pictured the hunger strikers in

40% of its all news photos emphasizing the humane nature of the conflict. Other newspapers

that published significant ratio of pictures of the hunger strikers and their families and supporters

were (in addition to The Irish Times) The Age, Le Figaro and Helsingin Sanomat. The latter

pictured more about the supporters than the hunger strikers themselves. Also The New York

Times had a rather high ratio of these pictures but it also published equal amount of conflict

images.

Figure 13. Themes of news photos in Dagens Nyheter.

The very few news photos published by Neue Zürcher Zeitung and The Sowetan make it

difficult to compare them with the rest of the papers. When comparing them with each other a

similar division appears. The pictures of The Sowetan focused on the hunger strikers and their

supporters, whereas Neue Zürcher Zeitung had more conflicting pictures.

24

So one again, the material of the newspapers were thematically distributed. On one hand, there

were newspapers that highlighted the hunger strikers as a humane participant in the conflict. On

the other hand, there were papers that underlined the violent side of the event. It is evident the

different stances of the newspapers were represented via various elements of a newspaper. Also

the other commentary material of the papers support this thinking. As the commentary material

is considered as the most visible evidence of the stance of a newspapers, by looking at themes

discussed in them we’ll be able to find out how a particular news event was seen and treated. A

brief look at the topics of editorials and feature articles published by the newspapers (table 4) give

a glimpse of what was considered as essential.

The Age Northern Irish conflict as context British Government / UK Bobby Sands

Dagens Nyheter Northern Irish conflict as context political aftermath hunger strike as a weapon

Helsingin Sanomat Northern Irish conflict as context historical background, prisoners

Die Welt political aftermath

The Globe and Mail hunger strikers as criminals

Northern Irish conflict as

context violence

The New York Times Northern Irish conflict as context British Government / UK Bobby Sands

The Times political aftermath role of the Church hunger strike as a weapon

El Pais Northern Irish conflict as context role of the Church Bobby Sands

South China Morning

Post hunger strike as a conflict hunger strikers as criminals paramilitary organizations

Arab News paramilitary organizations

Northern Irish conflict as

context British Government / UK

The Irish Times political aftermath

attempts to settle the hunger

strike role of the Church

Table 4. Main themes of editorials and feature articles published by the newspapers.

Regardless of how many or few editorials and feature articles were published in each of the

newspapers, specific contents in them recurred. These themes also differed somewhat between

the papers. In The Irish Times and The Times, political discussion was clearly the most common

theme. This obviously is understandable as the hunger strike had a straight political effect in both

countries. To back up the assumption that newspapers keenly comment on issues relevant for the

25

society, both papers also discussed the role of the Church in the conflict. This aspect was not

discussed widely abroad. In the case of El Pais, the Catholic connection made it an interesting

topic that was referred to on few occasions. Other preferred themes of The Irish Times and The

Times instead focused on differing issues. The pages of The Irish Times the focus was on how

the hunger strike could be solved, whereas The Times regarded the hunger strike as an Irish

weapon.

Abroad the most common theme in commentary texts was to view the hunger strike in context

of the Northern Irish conflict. Newspapers wanted to give background information to their

readers who might have not been so familiar with the topic. Closer look reveals that this

background information was given from slightly different angles23, but the mere numbers suggest

that the hunger strike was considered as a part of the conflict. Other themes instead uncover

differences between the papers. For instance, the editorials and feature articles of The Globe and

Mail concentrated on the violent side of the event. The same happened in the pages of South

China Morning Post. On the other hand, The Age and The New York Times (and also Arab

News) discussed more about the role of the British officials and also the state of the United

Kingdom in general.

Above-mentioned features are only examples. In general, the nature of news coverage is more

complex. Several themes are discussed in one news article and the process of news making favors

pronounced themes. Therefore one has to be careful when drawing conclusions based on them.

Conclusions

The numbers tells us some facts about the international news coverage of the 1981 hunger strike

in Northern Ireland. The amount of published material varied from 16 to 832 per newspaper

during the same time. That is a significant difference. However, it primarily reveals only the

extremes. The big picture is much more complex. Previous chapters have opened a little how

quantitative analysis can be useful.

23 Due to the limited space, it is not appropriate to discuss this topic here. This is discussed more elsewhere in thethesis.

26

Due to information provided via numbers we know several essential features about the coverage

of the hunger strike. We now know that the conflict was followed worldwide, and that there were

significant differences in different parts of the world. Based on numbers, we can assume that a

major news is covered with versatile material. We can also assume that certain cultural and

political factors determine the level of interest. We know which themes were the most discussed.

We also know that the coverage changed during those months. An event that continues without

changes loses its value. Just to name few factors that can be found out via quantitative analysis.

So the numbers help us to find out the very basis of a phenomenon. But it does not explain

them. The above mentioned numeric details give somewhat contradictory results. It just proves

that despite of many advantages the mere quantitative analysis is not enough. This fact alone

makes the quantitative analysis a mere tool for historical research. But it is definitely a useful one.

In this paper I have discussed some of the most obvious and basic ways to utilize quantitative

analysis in newspaper research. But I still wonder whether there exist even more imaginative

means. Should we think outside the box?

To count news articles, editorials, themes and so on provide needed information but somehow

one gets the feeling that there could be more. Are the features mentioned in this paper only

expected results of the preliminary research that I already have done? Do I miss something

relevant only because already having a certain knowledge on the issue? In situations like this fresh

aspects could really be useful.

This pondering leads to a more profound question: what meaning does a quantitative analysis

have and/or give to a newspaper research that examines primarily the contexts behind the

coverage. Can (mental) images be reached from numbers?

27

Selected bibliography

I PRINTED SOURCESNewspapers

The Age 1.3.-10.10.1981Arab News 1.3. - 10.10.1981Dagens Nyheter 1.3.-10.10.1981Le Figaro 1.3.-10.10.1981The Globe and Mail 1.3.-10.10.1981Helsingin Sanomat 1.3. -10.10.1981The Irish Times 1.3. -10.10.1981Neue Zürcher Zeitung 1.3. -10.10.1981The New York Times 1.3.-10.10.1981El Pais 1.3.-10.10.1981La Prensa 1.3.-10.10.1981South China Morning Post 1.3. -10.10.1981The Sowetan 1.3. -10.10.1981The Times 1.3.-10.10.1981Die Welt 1.3.-10.10.1981

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