Magdalena Nowicka: Media image of state and nation - a comparative analysis (the casse of the weeklies "Polityka" and "der Spiegel"

The paper presents a concept of combining quantitative and qualitative methods of research in an analysis of media image of a state and a nation. According to the perspective of social constructionism, the both notions are regarded as imagined communities and discourse plays one of the most significant roles in a process of intersubjective negotiating and forging social representations of a state and a nation. In this paper, the proposition of juxtaposing the methods of content analysis and discourse analysis (namely historical discourse analysis) in a one research project is introduced on the basis of a case study of a discursive media image of of Germany and Germans in the public discourse in Poland in comparison to an image Poland and Poles in the public discourse in Germany. The analysis covers press articles published in "Polityka" and "Der Spiegel" (major weekly newspapers in both countries) in 2004-2008.