The media research analysis as an approach to investigate the fabrication of an international subject in the news

Abstract

How does the fabrication of an international subject happen in the media? This article focuses on the theoretical framework for media research analysis in the context of the international media coverage of the Western Balkans and Albania as a case study. The theoretical and methodological approach reflects on the media research conducted both in terms of content analysis as well as theoretical and agency analysis. As Philo C. Wasburn puts it in “The social construction of international news”, in the symbolic universe built by the American media, during most of the 20th century and after 1989, the United States were considered not only the center of the greatest world events but were understood as the “natural order” for the American citizen and consumer.