Your assignment is to (1) compare two web news sites and (2) to compare and contrast an international news story.

Part I- Two News Sites

• For this part of the assignment you will examine two web news sites for both content and format.

• One news site should be one of the more well-known western sites such as CNN or the BBC, both of which report the majority of important international stories.

• The other site should be from a non-western area of the world. I have included a list of some of those sites at the end of this assignment. The list is not intended to be inclusive of all news sites. You many use one of the sites listed here or select another similar site.

Part II- Comparison of a Specific News Story.

Media researchers often content analyze a new story. Using this method they look for the frequency of specific references or certain words that may influence the audience. Another method of analysis examines how a story is framed. Here the researcher examines how phrasing and background information might be presented to subtly influence the audience or get an opinion across to the audience. Framing refers to the wording/phrasing used in a story, how we read a story and what we read into it.

Since we are not working with a specific methodology in this class, I am asking you to select one important story (usually the lead story) from the two different web site pages and compare the information provided.

If the story appears both on CNN (or BBC - our two western news sites) and on the website from the non-western country, you can compare the story from the western and non-western perspective.

If you see a major story about the war in Iraq, or Iran and Nuclear power or a bombing in the Middle East, the story will most likely be on CNN and BBC. Then you can locate the story on another non-western site. Sometimes the best place to look would be on http://english.aljazeera.net/ . Al Jazeera is one of the few sites that strives to be involved in international news reporting and providing a more Arab / Gulf State perspective on global events.

Here are some points to look for when comparing stories:

• What information is included in one and not the other?

• What information is provided in the first few paragraphs of each story? --- often that information is considered the most relevant and important.

• What words are used to describe a person or an event in each story --- e.g., is it a group of ‘freedom fighters' in one story and ‘aggressors' in the other; terrorists or liberators?

• Who is quoted as a relevant authority in each story?

• Are there different photos accompanying the stories?

• Are there links to other events that might aid in understanding the story?

• How in-depth is each story?

• If controversial, are both sides (or other points of view) presented?

Some possible news web sites for analysis:

1. http://www.panapress.com/ Panafrican news press
2. http://www.eians.com/ Indo Asian News Agency (mainly Indian)
3. http://allafrica.com/ All news about Africa
4. http://eurasia.org.ru/index_en.shtml Russian
5. http://www.granma.cu/INGLES/2007/internacional-i.html Cuba
6. http://english.aljazeera.net/ International news from the Gulf States region
7. http://202.84.17.11/en/ Chinese News Agency
8. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/ Hong Kong News Agency
9. http://home.kyodo.co.jp/ Japan news agency
10. http://www.wafa.ps/english/ Palestinian News Agency
11. http://www.haaretz.com/ Israeli new agency
12. http://news.bbc.co.uk/ BBC home page
13. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/default.stm BBC world news
14. http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/ CNN
15. http://nytimes.com/ New York Times
16. http://www.vnagency.com.vn Vietnam