Logo image
Newspaper Coverage of Government Contracting in the United States: Fueling a Narrative of Distrust and Incompetence
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Newspaper Coverage of Government Contracting in the United States: Fueling a Narrative of Distrust and Incompetence

Haris Alibašić and Christopher L. Atkinson
Journalism and Media, Vol.3(4), pp.650-664
10/12/2022

Metrics

154 File views/ downloads
171 Record Views

Abstract

The individual interpretations of purchasing policies weaken fair government purchasing practices. However, this does not fully account for the nature of the media’s coverage of government contracting, taken as a whole. The authors seek to understand better framing in newspaper stories on government procurement, with the government as a force that creates opportunity and fraud. The paper focuses on an area of cognitive uncertainty in understanding portrayals of public procurement in newspaper articles as positive or negative, and, assuming a lack of balance, what interest or group do articles favor in their portrayal of this public function? Sentiment analysis of a corpus of newspaper articles focusing on government contracting was conducted. This analysis suggests that the negative perception of government contracting is reinforced and exacerbated by sensationalized media coverage, a negative impact on the policymaking process and public discourse, and public trust in government results.
pdf
Newspaper Coverage of Government Contracting in the United States304.20 kBDownloadView
Published (Version of record)Article pdfCC BY V4.0 Open Access
url
Newspaper Coverage of Government Contracting in the United States: Fueling a Narrative of Distrust and IncompetenceView
Published (Version of record)link to articleCC BY V4.0 Open

Related links

Details

Logo image