Chapter One Literature Review
1.1 Background Introduction on SCO
The creation of Shanghai Cooperation Organization has determined the need to solve problems related to regional security and interstate relations. After Soviet Union disintegration, the leaders of new independent states had to negotiate territorial and border disputes with China. That was example of Chinese desire to have stability and friendly relations with the bordering countries. The involvement of Russia into these negotiations indicated that the above countries still considered the important role of Russia in the region. For China it meant moving forward alongside with Russia.
The relationship between post Soviet countries in Central Asia is complex and ambiguous. The system of interstate relations in Central Asia (Kazakhstan – Tajikistan – Kyrgyzstan – Uzbekistan -Turkmenistan) is based not only on legal and administrative, economic and political structures of post-Soviet time, but also on the more ancient cultural, civilizational and economic components. (Miroshnikov, 2000). Chinese factor in Central Asia has been and remains one of the key in the trade- economic, investment, transport and energy cooperation. China aims to fight against the "Islamic" extremism in the first place, which carries a threat to the stability and territorial integrity of North-Western China. The main value of Central Asia for China is the economic sphere, including its energy security. Therefore China is now actively building up multilateral and bilateral cooperation within the SCO (Titarenko, 2012).
Signing the “Treaty of Deepening Military Trust in Border Regions” in 1996 marked the formation of Shanghai Five. Further steps included examination of mutual interests focusing on transnational security issues, in particular— terrorism— emerging in the late 1990s. After joining of Uzbekistan in 2001, Shanghai Five was renamed into Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
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1.2 Framing Theory
This study is based on the framing theory of mass communication. Framing is a process of selecting and emphasizing certain aspects of experience or ideas and making them more salient. The main contributor to the theory of framing is Goffman. Goffman (1974) believes that people make some efforts in order to project their own experience and to make sense of the world around them. There are special interpretive schemes, the so- called "primary frames". They allow to refer the received information to the right category, and endow it with meaning.
The theory proposed by Goffman, is based on the fact that communicators present the information in the way that it appeals to the minds of people. It is not the deliberate intention of the journalists to deceive readers. Media frames are important tools for effective presenting relatively complex issues in an accessible way for the audience because they use common cognitive schema. By highlighting the specific topic of an eventor situation, media frame affects the evaluation of the audience and its consequences, as well as encourage politicians and citizens to a specific action.
One of the first researches in the field of media framing effects was Iyengar, who described the effects of the agenda establishment. Iyengar (2008) described how mass media influence the public opinion. The result of this research was the proof that the media information forces people to change their opinions, for example, it may be useful in carrying out political campaigns.
Framing starts with an attitude toward an object. The framing theory can be used for effective communication in all fields of media and other organizations. It is mainly applied in understanding media effects. Effective communication among large audience can be done with well-organized framing of meanings and issues.
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Chapter Two Methodology
2.1Content Analysis
The study relies on the content analysis of the newspaper coverage of anti- terroristic cooperation between China and Russia within SCO. Content analysis is very efficient and unobstructive in analyzing message content to produce valid results. The content analysis is very useful as it suits both quantitative and qualitative analyses; through content analysis it is possible to achieve proximity to text that can alternate between specific categories and analyzes the encoded form of the text; it gives an insight into the use of language; unlike discourse analysis, it is a fact-based research method. (Weaver, 2007). Thoughts on agenda setting, framing, and priming, "content analysis takes texts and analyses, shortens and interrogates them in a concise manner by using both pre-existing categories and emerging topics to generate or validate theory". Only articles related to SCO military cooperation were selected. The articles were analyzed based on headlines and texts. The data were collected from relevant articles in the selected newspapers using purposive sampling technique and analyzed using content analysis.
The unit of analysis for this investigation was the individual newspaper article. The sample consisted of two government mouthpieces: People's Daily (Russia), and Rossiiskaya Gazeta. They were chosen because they represent the government positions on the topic. People's daily is one of the leading newspapers in the world and the most influential newspaper in China. Over thousand of journalists are working for it in the different countries. China Daily provides news articles in different languages. For the language convenience China Daily (Russia) was chosen for this research. Rossiyskaya Gazeta is a Russian government daily newspaper that publishes official statements and documents of the State.
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2.2Low Publication Rate
Specific distributions of news stories of the two newspapers in 10 years time period are summarized in the Table 1. The procedure of data collection produced a total of 70 articles involving anti-terroristic issues. Rossiiskaya gazeta had a total of 19 articles devoted to anti-terroristic issues, which constitute 27% of all investigated articles. The highest publication rate was in 2007 (n=8) . It was the year of the first Peace Mission military exercises conducted by all six SCO members. Other years stably show low publication rate, with 2012 and 2015 years when no news stories were published. China Daily (Russia) had the total of 51 news stories (72% ) starting from 2011 to 2017 with the peak publications in 2012-2014 years and sharp increase in the following years, with no publications in 2015 year.
Rossiiskaya Gazeta started to cover military cooperation within SCO since 2007, after the first Peace mission was held by all SCO members. However after 2007 the coverage sharply decreased to 1-2 articles each year, therefore the newspaper did not focus on anti-terroristic cooperation within SCO.
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Chapter Three Frames of the Three Newspapers ............................19
3.1 Low Publication Rate ............................19
3.2 Key Frames of the SCO Anti-terroristic .........................20
3.3 Issue Frames of the SCO Anti-terroristic Cooperation of the Two Newspapers ..............23
Chapter Four Findings .....................................30
4.1 Frames of SCO Anti-terroristic Cooperation by the Two Newspapers ................30
4.2 The Main Aim of Peace Mission in the Two Newspapers ..........................32
4.3 Coverage of the Threat from the Third Countries ........................33
Chapter Four Findings
4.1 Frames of SCO Anti-terroristic Cooperation by the Two Newspapers
This study examines the anti-terroristic cooperation within SCO countries in two government media of China and Russia by mostly comparing the total number of news stories and the news frames. The result of this framing analysis shows several important findings.
The newspapers produced different amounts of articles, directly related to SCO anti-terroristic cooperation, within the data collection period. Chinese newspaper, China Daily, produced 51 articles. Meanwhile, Russian newspaper, Rossiiskaya Gazeta produced 19. The overall of 70 SCO anti-terroristic cooperation -related articles were analyzed. This clearly indicates that China Daily (Russia) produced more SCO anti-terroristic cooperation related articles within the chosen period of data collection. There might be some other articles that are indirectly related to anti-terroristic cooperation or Peace Mission, but due to their indirect relation, only those directly related to SCO anti-terroristic cooperation were selected. This is the reason why researchers used the purposive sampling techniques in this study. The overall 70 newspaper articles (N=70) were analyzed. The number of all the stories of two newspapers is relatively low which shows that military cooperation within SCO was not among priorities for these government newspapers.
Among issue frames were fighting three evil forces and fighting against the third countries; SCO positive/negative influence on the region; SCO is non-intervention, non-anti-NATO bloc. Table 4 in the section 4.3 clearly indicates that almost half (47%) of the articles published by the China Daily (Russia) portrays Peace Mission in the context of fighting three evil forces, with only 6% of articles pointing at fighting the third countries. Almost half of articles in Rossiiskaya gazeta also depicted Peace Mission as fighting with extremism, separatism and terrorism (47%).
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Discussion
The overall publication rate during ten years were very low in all two newspapers. Rossiiskaya gazeta and China Daily (Russia) have only positive coverage of SCO anti- terroristic impact on regional and international security. This is connected to a number of circumstances: on the one hand, the changing military and political situation in Central Asia rises the issue of ensuring collective security. On the other hand, Chinese and Russian authorities are increasingly in favor of intensifying the anti-terroristic component.
Nowdays Western media distorts the goals of China-Russian joint exercises by presenting China-Russian exercises as a threat to the United States security and neighboring countries. However, compare to other joint military exercises conducted by other countries, Chinese-Russian exercises are not offensive, they reflect the efforts of the two countries to protect world and regional stability. Rossiiskaya gazeta states that not Moscow nor Beijing are interested in the emergence of new blocs. China Daily highlights that the military cooperation between Russia and China meets the common aspirations of the people of the two countries, reflect the desire to forever strengthen the friendship and be reliable partners, good neighbors and true friends. In general, Rossiiskaya gazeta and China Daily (Russia) usually portray the main aim of military cooperation within SCO as antiterroristic. Officially joint military counter-terrorism exercises of the SCO are not aimed against third countries, they are based on equality and cooperation. Apart from this anti-terroristic aim, there are articles in China Daily that also mention that Russia and China are not formally military allies and emphasize that their exercises are not directed against other countries. From the official point of view, the exercises are aimed only at mutual exchange of experience and the study of various techniques used in the partner's army. At the same time, among its fundamental principles is the prevention of illegal actions against the interests of member States. Nevertheless, China Daily (Russia) states that for several years Russia and China have been preparing their armies for possible joint participation in large-scale military operations and in case of any threat to SCO region, SCO country members will use the experience gained at the military exercises against the enemies.
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