ABSTRACT

In order to better understand how the world viewed the US 2016 presidential election, the issues that mattered around the world, and how nations made sense of how their media systems constructed presentations of the presidential election, Robert S. Hinck, Skye C. Cooley, and Randolph Kluver examine global news narratives during the campaign and immediately afterwards.

Analyzing 1,578 news stories from 62 sources within three regional media ecologies in China, Russia, and the Middle East, Hinck, Cooley, and Kluver demonstrate how the US election was incorporated into narrative constructions of the global order. They establish that the narratives told about the US election through national and regional media provide insights into how foreign nations construct US democracy, and reflect local understandings regarding the issues, and impacts, of US policy towards those nations.

Avoiding jargon-laden prose, Global Media and Strategic Narratives of Contested Democracy is as accessible as it is wide-ranging. Its empirical detail will expand readers’ understanding of soft power as narrative articulations of foreign nation’s policies, values, and beliefs within localized media systems. Communication/media studies students, as well as political scientists whose studies includes media and global politics, will welcome its publication.

chapter 1|24 pages

Strategic Narratives of the 2016 US Presidential Election

Contestations of US, Chinese, Arab, and Russian Soft Power Constructions

chapter 2|16 pages

Research Design

Measuring Narratives Within Local Media Ecologies

chapter 3|25 pages

Illegitimacy of US Democracy and Declining US Influence

Juxtaposing Chinese Success Among US Failures within Chinese Media Coverage of the US Election

chapter 4|28 pages

Arab Views of the US Election

Culturally-Positive and Politically-Negative Depictions of US Democracy

chapter 5|32 pages

The Crumbling Facade of US Democracy

Russian Resurgence Amidst US Moral Decay within Russian Media Coverage of the US Election

chapter 6|18 pages

Compelling Narratives and the Implications for US Soft Power and the Global Order

Comparative Analysis of Chinese, Arab, and Russian Narratives of the US Election