(Un)covering the Economic Crisis? Over-time and inter-media differences in salience and framing

This study takes crisis coverage as the dependent variable. Focusing on the Netherlands, we investigate how print media framed the economic crisis (2007–2013) and to what extent temporal and outlet factors account for variation in the use of frames. Relying on an in-depth qualitative content analysis followed up by a quantitative analysis, five major frames are identified that journalists use when discussing the crisis. Our findings, based on variance analyses, show that frame variation is mainly due to temporal factors. While the specific appearance of frames might differ across outlets, we found a remarkable similarity in over-time frame prominence. These results raise doubts about the availability of varied media content to the public in the context of an all-encompassing crisis.