Crisis and the media

The book "Crisis and the media" treats theoretical aspects of reception and transmission of messages related to the economic crisis. The crisis, says the author, is rather a pretext in order to develop and illustrate two media theories.

These are agenda setting theory and framing theory. Framing theory is one of the newest and provocative theories in journalism. Mirela Abrudan analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively - using content analysis and survey - the phenomenon of economic crisis presented by the Romanian media in 2008 - 2009. It was interesting to observe the number of word "crisis" in the daily newspaper headlines, tabloids, but also from financial newspapers. For example, the National Journal in February 2008 has one title that contained this keyword, at the end it had to do with 45, 49 such titles.

The study also presents how the economic problem was treated in articles, negative or positive. It was found, especially in 2008 an increasing number of pessimistic articles and from April 2009 the number of optimistic scenarios has been extended.

Crisis – some definitions

• we deal with a crisis situation when it provided a risk. To identify hazards is to give voice to fears, anticipate crises.

• crisis – a threatening situation against one system

• a crisis may be one incident or series of incidents that can trigger negative press reports on a large scale, endangering the image or credibility of an organization or a brand.

Economic crisis

• The financial crisis of 2007 to the present is a crisis triggered by a liquidity shortfall in the United States banking system.

• The crisis rapidly developed and spread into a global economic shock, resulting in a number of European bank failures, declines in various stock indexes, and other large reductions.

• The economic status of Romania gradually got worse as the authorities were incapable of using the sums lent by the IMF and they finally had to reduce budgetary expenses.

Crisis communication and media theories

Crisis Communication is another aspect which this book treats. Situations of crisis are everywhere: terrorism, corruption, natural disasters, social or political conflicts. In most cases, journalists are those who decide the importance of events.

Therefore it is important to understand the theories and effects of the media to know how to perceive the received information. Media, by the way, treat the problems and decide how we see the crisis. A simple example is offered by the Internet and its impact on society. If we read a small rumor on a weblog, there is a risk that it will be believed.

Agenda setting theory

This theory represents the media's ability to order and organize the world for us. The more intensely a subject is treated by the media, so it is perceived to be more important to the receptors. Or, as priorities model explains, it’s all about the placement of the subject in a certain order in the news shows, which leads to determining the importance of the subject.

Framing theory

This a process of creating frameworks of interpretation and evaluation of different topics. So, the presentation of news media influence how the public receives news that so exposed to the same event differently, and thus lead to different assessments and related decisions. Robert Entman, quoted by the author, says: To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communication text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, casual interpretation, moral evaluation and treatment recommendation. In simpler terms, people have, through their lifetimes, built series of mental emotional filters. They use these filters to make sense of the world. The choices they then make are influenced by their frame or emotional filters.

Conclusions

• The paper has shown some limits, given that treats only a step in the evolution of the economic crisis in Romania and, as we know, the crisis continues.

• It wasn’t meant to be an analysis of the economic crisis in the Romanian media landscape.

• Rather, it's all about the place and role of media in everyday life, the addiction that society has developed from this system.

• The economic crisis, as I said, represents only a pretext in this.

• Is important to know how the media shapes and effects of these modeling issues on the public, even if all we talk about is media manipulation but in scientific terms and theories.

Mirela Abrudan: philology PhD, assistant professor at the Babes-Bolyai University, Department of Communication and Public Relations, German study line and associate professor at the faculty of media from Mittweida, Germany. It is also editor of the Journal of Media Research, and german translator and interpreter.