Trends in the international news coverage on Latin America in Germany in the 21st century

Abstract

Abstract This study aims at analysing the main developments in foreign reporting of Latin America by the German press. The paper provides a content analysis of 3.831 articles published in quality German publications (SZNenhum, FAZ, Der Spiegel, and tazNenhum) between 2000 and 2014. The most common news factors related to the continent are found to be “magnitude,” “power status,” “economic proximity”, and “personification.” Additionally, we identified a decrease in hard news over the years (6 pp within Politics and 8 pp amidst Economy). Despite depoliticisation, a tendency towards tabloidisation was not confirmed since factors such as personification and crisis remained constant.