Press Coverage of the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election: A Multinational, Cross-Language Comparison

Presidential elections in the United States present a unique media research opportunity because their outcomes produce a range of impacts for different countries around the world. Unsurprisingly, these elections generate a substantial amount of media interest; nearly 1,500 reporters covered both party conventions in 2012 and continued reporting to Election Day. This chapter takes a novel approach to assessing international press coverage by combining in-country comparisons of two newspapers, one English language and one local language, with cross-national comparisons of 2012 U.S. presidential election coverage in seven countries: China, France, Iran, Mexico, Russia, Great Britain, and the United States. A mixed-methods content and textual analysis of 663 newspaper articles from 14 newspapers highlights similarities as well as differences among news coverage across the globe, offering insights into a variety of nations’ interests and concerns vis-à -vis the United States and its presidential race. By combining quantitative and qualitative approaches this study both provides a broad picture of the coverage (e.g., prevalence, prominence, types, sources) and captures many nuances of the coverage (e.g., use of localizing angles, cross-language differences within individual countries). Moreover, authors of this study represent a range of national origins, demonstrating the advantages of using culturally diverse research teams to conduct cross-national analyses of news coverage.