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US press coverage of the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident: Frames, sources and news domestication

Using the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant incident as its focal point, this paper employs the concepts of generic frames and news domestication to study US media portrayal of the disaster. Specifically, it uses the framing theory on the coverage of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant accident in selected US newspapers, namely, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and USA Today. Further, the study identifies the use of four generic frames: (a) conflict, (b) economic consequences, (c) human interest, and (d) responsibility frames in the disaster coverage to answer the following questions: How did the US newspapers frame the Fukushima accident in the time period from the first explosion in March 2011 until 16 December of the same year when (at the time) Japanese Prime Minister Noda declared the state of cold shutdown? If there are differences in coverage, what are the differences? Additionally, the study explores the most prominent topics and the use of sources as frame indicators in the coverage of this nuclear accident. The quantitative and qualitative content analysis results of 549 stories from the three newspapers employed in this study indicated that news coverage was dominated by the conflict, responsibility and economic consequences frames. Lastly, the paper demonstrates that certain generic frames may be found in disaster and crisis news, and therefore transcends topics, time and cultural context.