The contribution deals with media analytics and its role in inadvertently setting the agenda and constructing conceptual frames of reference for institutional policy (cf. Sundar & Nass, 2001). The paper takes an historical perspective, focusing on the interbellum as the formative era of today’s globalised world (cf. Herren, 2012; Pedersen, 2007; Nordenstreng & Seppä, 1986). The object of the study is the construction of the international hegemonic discourse on North-South development in its early institutionalised phase. It departs from the observation that the discourse transitioned from pre-war colonialism to post-war de-colonisation, yet without the according shift in underlying values and presumptions (cf. Pedersen, 2015; Hettne, 2009; Rist, 1997; de Vylder, 2013); on this base, it investigates the role of systematic press analytics employed by the League of Nations (LoN) in the 1930s.
Main sources are two thematic newspaper clippings collections on policies and possible reforms of the LoN Mandates System, compiled and edited between 1933 and 1938 by the LoN Information Section, and the annual reports of the LoN’s Permanent Mandates Commission from the concerned time period. These sources are subjected to a comparative hermeneutic historiographic discourse analysis (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009) focusing on issues of ‘race’, inclusiveness and respect with the aim to illuminate the role that the selection of newspaper clippings by Information officers in Geneva played in the discursive construction of transnational institutional policies on ‘development’ and colonialism.
The contribution focuses on media representations of minorities and unprivileged social groups and especially addresses issues highlighted in the call of IAMCR’s history section, such as media in imperial and post-colonial contexts and national identities, including how the media are used to promote transnational power positions. It also touches upon the topics hate speech, misinformation and propaganda
and equality and discrimination from the point of view of membership, citizenship and the ‘right to belong’.
By critically discussing the underresearched topic of newspaper clippings as a precursor to contemporary media analytics and their discursive function, the study combines the historiography of international communication and media with a critical historical approach to media industries, connecting to contemporary questions on the influence of media analysts — human or algorithmic — as gatekeepers and discursive actors in their own right (cf. e.g. Thorson, 2008; for the historical perspective, cf. Popp, 2014).
Sources
Annual reports Permanent Mandates Commission, 1933–1938 (sessions 26–34).
League of Nations Archive Dossiers S302-1 & S302-2: collections ‘Mandates (general) (33-38)’ & ‘Native Policy’. (33-38)’.
Literature
Alvesson & Sköldberg (2009). Reflexive Methodology. London.
De Vylder (2013). Utvecklingens drivkrafter. Lund
Herren (2012). Europäische Erinnerungsorte 3. München.
Hettne (2009). Thinking About Development. London
Nordenstreng, & Seppä (1986). The League of Nations and the Mass Media. IAMCR, New Delhi.
Pedersen (2007). Back to the League of Nations. AHR, 1091–1117.
Popp (2014). Information, Industrialization, and the Business of Press Clippings, 1880-1925. JAH, 101(2), 427–453.
Rist (1997). The History of Development. London.
Sundar, & Nass (2001). Conceptualizing sources in online news. JoC, 51(1), 52–72.
Thorson (2008). Changing Patterns of News Consumption and Participation. iCS, 11(4), 473–489.