Sensitivity of news is expected to influence news framing significantly, write Xianwen Kuang and Rining Wei, both of Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. The authors choose two sensitive political issues with different geographic relevance and explore the frame use of three party and three nonparty newspapers in China.

The study confirms the assumption that the framing of nationally sensitive issues is similar across China, while the framing of locally sensitive issues diverges. The news framing of nationally sensitive issues is more associated with the leadership frame and the use of factual information, while the framing of locally sensitive issues involves more use of the human interest, responsibility and conflict frames, the authors write.

The article “How framing of nationally and locally sensitive issues varies? A content analysis of news from party and nonparty newspapers in China” was published by Journalism and it is available here (abstract public).

Picture: News papers? by faungg’s photos, licence: CC BY-ND 2.0