The Global Village in Atlanta: A Textual Analysis of Olympic News Coverage for Children in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Abstract

Newspaper reporting aimed at children has proliferated yet children's news has seldom been the subject of study. This project begins to fill that void by examining the “News for Kids” (NFK) section of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It examines international news reporting for children and specifically the representations of international others as they were portrayed in reporting on the centennial Olympic games. Does news for children structure the “other” into a hierarchy of difference from “us ?” Our findings suggest that powerful dominant discourses emerge which form a systematic strategy of representation. Since representation is one of the ways in which social meanings (e.g., preconditions for the functioning of social practices) are produced and circulated in society, this textual analysis helps break into over-determined discourses by identifying ideological constructions within the news reporting.