V. Results of content analysis What news service members had to say to one another Each computer run calculating relationships between the 242 coded NNS stories resulted in more than 1,300 individual results, ranging from the possibly profound to the demonstrably trivial. For example, the computer analysis discovered precisely one story that combined elements of communications, culture, demographics, education, environment, exchanges, indigenous peoples, government, renewable resources, science-technology and Russia. While speculation on what event might have generated such a combination can be entertaining, no trend has been postulated on the basis of that discovery. Robert Philip Weber has noted that, "The best content analytic studies use both qualitative and quantitative operations on text. Thus content analysis methods combine what are usually thought to be antithetical modes of analysis" (Weber, 1990: 10). Theodor Adorno addressed the two different modes, and said, "... empirical investigations are not only legitimate but essential, even in the realm of cultural phenomena. But one must not confer autonomy upon them or regard them as the universal key" (Adorno, 1968: 353). Precisely such a mix of analysis is called for in this case. To sort the thousands of individual results obtained through computer-assisted coding requires subjective judgment. This was approached as a two-step process: (1) to inventory the numerical results, looking for patterns, trends or differences to mark a particular area as ripe for further analysis, and, (2) to examine those selected areas and search for explanations or insights to be drawn from them. The scope of this inquiry has been necessarily limited, concentrating most on the activities of the Russian participants. In doing so, Alaska is used as the comparison against which to interpret them. This approach is justified by several factors: * The news service was initiated by the Russians, and changes in Russian politics and intentions provided the primary impetus for it. Glasnost' and perestroika, the essential preconditions of this multinational news cooperative, have been extensively researched, and there is a great deal of scholarly literature that can enrich the analysis of the NNS. * Russia contributed more than half the articles used in this study. If Alaska's contribution is added, 75% of the total articles are included. * NNS data on Russia and Alaska are the most readily available. Russian participants have been most forthcoming in responding to questionnaires, supplying materials and answering follow-up questions. In the case of Alaska, I was a principal actor in NNS as editor of the Anchorage Daily News throughout the study period, and bring to this research detailed knowledge of activities and behaviors. The quantitative data generated by the combinatorial process outlined in Section IV produced far more data than is used in this analysis. For example, data detailing performance by date is employed only briefly in Section VI, to examine possible impacts of reported censorship, and data about treatment of stories is not reflected here at all. Each could profitably be studied at greater depth in furture research. Overall results of the analysis Totals of stories produced in the four-year study period are useful in showing the overall shape of subjects covered, but are of limited utility in describing differences between nations. Far more Russian than Western newspapers participated, resulting in more Russian stories in the bulletins than any others. Overall, about 53% of the stories studied were from Russian newspapers, 22% from Alaska, 13% from Canada and 5% each from Norway and Finland. Greenland's participation was token. In the total data-set, four subjects were present in 40% or more of the stories: government (48%), culture (44%), indigenous peoples (43%) and economics (41%). [Any story can have multiple subjects, so percentages do not add to 100]. The next cluster found four subjects in the 20-25% range: science-technology (26%), environment (26%), exchanges-cooperation (21%) and renewable resources (19%). Another six subject areas clustered between 10-20%, including wildlife (15%), education (14%), demographics (14%), language (13%), pollution (13%) and non-renewable resources (11%). The remaining categories were energy (9%), transportation (9%), communications (8%) and health (7%). The most useful analysis of differences and trends comes when looking at the combinations detailed below, but a few anomalies stand out even in this grossest level of examination. For instance, stories from Finland account for just 5% of the total data-set, but 38% of all stories about language. Alaska stories are 22% of the total, but represent 41% of the stories about wildlife and 36% of those about energy. Science-technology stories were 60% from Russia, owing largely to the coverage of nuclear power, which is disproportionately a Russian concern. (There is no nuclear power in Alaska.) Russian journalists likewise produced more than 60% of the stories concerned with exchanges, visits, and cooperation. Because there are more Russian newspapers and thence more Russian stories, analysis of gross numerical participation--i.e. total number of stories contributed--offers no genuine comparison. One effective way to compare relative performance is to evaluate each country's participation in a particular subject as a percentage of its own total. This shows that while Russia wrote more stories than other participants about government (60-24, compared with Alaska) the relative weight of such stories was almost identical. Government stories comprised 47% of the Russian total and 45% of Alaska's. This relative percentage calculation is most often used in the following comparisons. The top nine of 18 subjects are discussed below. Accompanying charts do not necessarily incorporate all statistics used in the narrative, but are standardized to show cross-percentages for the nine top categories. In some cases of special interest, I have also discussed subject classifications not shown on the charts. 1. Coverage of government and politics Both Russia and Alaska contributed frequent articles concerned with government or politics, and did so at about the same level. Almost half of each country's report involved the subject: 46.5% of Russian stories and 45% of those from Alaska. With a few notable exceptions, coverage of government showed considerable congruency when subjected to deeper analysis, as well. But Russia produced far more government/economy stories than Alaska, 43% to 25%. Alaska stories about government more frequently involved non-renewable resources (17-13), energy (21-8), and wildlife (21-7). Government stories from Russia and Alaska included similar proportions of material about renewable resources (17% and 13%, respectively), culture (43-38), environment (27-25) exchanges (22-21) and health (5-8). Each side also wrote extensively about subjects involving both government and indigenous peoples, but here Alaska produced an appreciably higher proportion of such reports: 47% of Russia stories about government also involved indigenous affairs; 58% of those from Alaska did so. An example of a Russian story illustrating the prevalent combination of government and economics is this article from January 1991: Will sovereign Yakutia become richer? Russia, which is the largest Union republic, consists of a multitude of national-territorial entities. Quite recently, 26 of these have changed their political status, raising it to a higher level, in a bid to improve their living standards ... Opinions vary on this 'sovereignty parade,' with some people unanimously voicing support, while others reject it completely. A considerable part of the population believes that the current upsurge in the number of areas seeking 'self-determination' is a natural reaction to the fact that central authorities have been infringing the economic freedoms and rights of the autonomous republics and their nationalist sentiment... (Zhuravlev, 1991: 1) 2. Coverage of subjects involving culture The broad category of subjects described as "culture" was the second most widely mentioned among all subjects in the data-set, occurring in 107 of the 242 stories, or 44%. It was represented in a higher proportion of the stories from Alaska than those from Russia, 51-44%. Subjects classified as culture were mentioned at about the same rate in each country in combination with stories involving education (18% Russia, 19% Alaska), environment (9-7%), renewable resources (12-15%) and science-technology (19-15%). Some aspect of culture was mentioned in at least one story involving every other subject category on the list. Culture stories from Russia were more likely than those from Alaska to include reference to economics (32-22%), exchanges (28-19%), government (46-33%), indigenous people (58-67%), and transportation (14-4%). Alaska stories were more likely to combine the subject with wildlife (26-7%), energy (11-2%) and language (22-12%). There were 12 stories from Russia (21%) involving culture and communications compared with none from Alaska. This is almost entirely due to extensive coverage in Russia of books published about aspects of indigenous or Northern culture. An example of a story classified as "culture" that like many Russian examples also contains information about government, exchange and indigenous peoples would be this 1992 article from Yakutsk: The shamanism phenomenon "Shamanism as a religion, its genesis and reconstruction of its traditions" is the subject of an international conference to be held in Yakutsk in Mid-August. Once every three to four years such conferences are held at the international level ... however they had never been held on the territory of the former USSR because of ideological considerations... "Due to its geographic situation, Yakutia was a kind of a buffer zone between the known forms of shamanism of a northern, Tungus-Manchurian, and Turkic peoples," said Prof. Anatoly Gogolev of the Yakutsk State University ... Moreover, since the 19th Century numerous travellers, explorers and ethnographers have been studying shamanism here as a form of Yakut religious beliefs... According to Prof. Gogolev, until the 1930s shamanism featured prominently in the Yakuts' life... (Trofimova, 1992: 1-2) 3. Coverage of indigenous peoples and issues involving them Coverage of indigenous peoples and issues relating to them were often consistent between the two countries, punctuated by a few sizeable differences. In the main, the combinatorial patterns were often similar, for example involving indigenous affairs with the subsets government (54% Russia, 52% Alaska), culture (63-67%), exchanges (13-15%), environment (12-15%), pollution (4-4%), transportation (2-4%) and health (4-7%). Indigenous/government and indigenous/culture were the most numerous stories as well, giving Alaska and Russia a high level of congruency on the most often covered stories about indigenous peoples. There were sizeable disparities in some other combinations. Russians wrote more about indigenous affairs and science-technology (15-4%), economy (35-26%) and renewable resources (25-15%). Alaskans wrote more about the combinations involving wildlife (22-8%), non-renewable resources (11-4%), and language (22-12%). A story from the Tundra Times in Alaska illustrates a typical combination of reporting on indigenous peoples and wildlife subjects: Pribilof Aleuts defend right to subsistence harvest of fur seals Pribilof Aleuts are defending their right to take a small number of northern fur seals in annual subsistence harvest on St. Paul and St. George Islands [in Alaska]. The commercial harvest of fur seals was eliminated on St. George in 1973 and on St. Paul in 1983, but ... regulations allow Pribilof Aleuts to take seals for subsistence purposes. Now that subsistence harvest is under attack by animal rights groups. The Humane Society of the United States is seeking an injunction to halt the subsistence take of fur seals, saying that Pribilof Aleuts wastefully take fur seals... (Crane, 1992: 1) 4. Coverage of economics and commerce The combinatorial analysis of how economics figured in coverage from Russia and Alaska plainly illustrates the value of an analytical method that can chart multiple variables. The results show how initial, superficial patterns can be significantly illuminated by more detailed examination. Stories involving economics played a large role in both reports, figuring in 41% of the Russian stories and 32% of those from Alaska. Within that broad comparison, however, lie distinct differences. Deeper analysis shows that when Russian journalists wrote about economics, those stories also involved government half the time (49%), while in the economics stories from Alaska, government appears about a third of the time (35%). Almost a third of the Alaska economics stories also include content about energy (29%), contrasted with 8% of the Russian economic stories that do so. In Russian stories, however, science-technology figures in far more economics stories (23%) than in Alaska (6%), owing to the prevalence of stories involving nuclear power. In Russia, economics coverage was far more likely than Alaska coverage to associate economics with pollution (17% to 6%) and with coverage of ecology-environment generally (28% to 18%). Alaska economic stories were somewhat more likely to include content about renewable and non-renewable resources (35-28% and 29-21% margins, respectively). A number of similarities also emerged. Both countries produced many economics stories involving the affairs of indigenous peoples (Russia 34%, Alaska 41%), exchanges and visits involving economics (21% and 24%) and each found a close congruency between economics and matters of culture (34% and 35%). Typical of Russian stories combining economics and pollution is this description of Arctic economic development from a 1992 story, written by a doctor of geology and mineralogy: Environmentalists urge resolute efforts to protect Soviet arctic regions ... Dozens of state-owned mining and other enterprises are predatory exploiting the Arctic's immense resources without using ecologically safe techniques. The number of various sources of pollution has topped 100,000. The vast tundra expanses are littered with industrial waste and covered with ravines, pock-marks of fires, and grooves caused by thermo-karst and thermo-erosion landslides ... Unfortunately, too many organizations in the country are responsible for the ecologically safe development of Arctic resources... (Shumilov, 1990: 1) 5. Coverage of science and technology Stories dealing with science-technology were primarily Russian, owing to the coverage of nuclear issues in that country. Of 64 stories dealing with the subject, 38 were from Russia, or 59%. Alaska had 11 stories, or 17%. Culture, government and the environment were among the most frequently mentioned subsets, and they were represented approximately equally in each country's total; Alaska's science-technology stories mentioned culture 36% of the time to 29% among Russian stories; government was in 34% of Russian stories and 27% of Alaska's; and environment was present in 39% of Russian science stories and 36% of Alaska's. Russian science-technology stories were more likely to include mention of economics (32-9%), exchanges (26-9%) , health (16-0%), indigenous peoples (21-9%) and pollution (21-9%). Alaska science-technology stories more frequently included mention of renewable resources (27-11%) and wildlife (45-21%). An early example of a Russian story combining science-technology with environmental issues would be this from January 1989: Community protests stopped plant designers Local Party and government organizations were flooded with letters from concerned members of the public as soon as the word got around that a protein-vitamin concentrates plant would be built in the Komi Autonomous Republic ... Three years ago I would have wondered if locals, with farming, timber and oil and gas as their chief occupations, would have shown they know anything about microbiology, especially about feed proteins being dangerous for all living things. National dailies have educated the general public about microbiology. They wrote a lot about a critical situation in Kirishi, a town in a faraway Leningrad suburb... (Yampolskaya, 1989: 1) 6. Coverage of the environment Both Russia and Alaska wrote a great deal about ecology and the environment, but the ways in which they wrote about it differed greatly. About 25% of the stories from Russia included mention of environment, as did about 19% of those from Alaska. But half the time when Russians wrote about the environment, they also included the subject of pollution. Alaskans writing about the environment included pollution less than half as frequently, or 20% of the time. By contrast, Alaskans mentioned renewable resources in 60% of their stories about environment, compared with 19% for Russians. There were other substantial differences, as well. In addition to the emphasis on renewable resources, Alaska stories about environment were more likely to include reference to indigenous peoples (40-19%) and wildlife (50-28%). Russians were far more likely to write about the environment in terms of economics (47-30%), and gave considerable weight to science-technology, again often focused on issues surrounding their nuclear industry. There was little to distinguish coverage on the basis of energy, culture or non-renewable resources. A story from the Novosti correspondent in Krasnoyarsk is typical of those Russian articles combining environmental affairs and pollution: Payment of debt to nature is not to be delayed Last autumn large reindeer herds did not follow their usual route from north to south and migrated to Yakutia to the north-east, as if they wanted to spend the winter as far away as possible from the Taimyr Peninsula. Procurers of dietetic reindeer meat armed with carbines wasted their time expecting them at river crossings. Reindeer foiled their plans and left Noril'sk shops short of over 2,000 tons of meat, which was in short supply. Obviously, Nature punished people for the outrage they had committed. Over the past half century, the mining and metallurgical plant at Noril'sk ... has done tremendous damage to the Taimyr tundra... (Ivanov, 1990: 1) 7. Coverage of exchanges and visits Most coverage of exchanges and visits between arctic nations received far more emphasis in Russia than in Alaska. Of 52 stories about this subject, 61% came from Russia and 19% from Alaska. Within the category as a whole, however, the most frequently mentioned subsets were the same for both countries. The subset most often included, culture, was present in 50% of the exchange-visit stories for each country. Next most frequently included with exchanges was the subject of government, 50% for Alaska and 41% for Russia, with economics at 40% for Alaska and 34% for Russia. Russia coverage of visits also more frequently included mention of communications (13-0%), environment (19-10%). science-technology (31-10%) and transportation (19-10%). Many of the Russian stories that dealt with exchanges followed the pattern of this example, taken from a 1992 bulletin: A house to unite Northerners Northerners' cultural and trade center, "Northern Lights," opened in Moscow 18 months ago. It is headed by Olga Ivanova, an energetic and charming Northerner ... The powerful concern "Yakut Gold" supported her idea and helped her finance the project ... The center is going to hold an international festival of northern folk art in Moscow next February. Invitations are being sent to all corners of the Russian north as well as to Alaska, Canada, Finland, and the Scandinavian countries... (Kudrya, 1992b: 1) 8. Coverage of renewable resource issues Renewable resources generated a relatively high level of attention, being the eighth most frequently covered subject among the 18 charted. Within that coverage, the two countries showed congruency in combining renewable resource coverage with culture (Russia 32%, Alaska 40%), economics (68-60%), non-renewable resources (14-20%) and pollution (14-10%). Differences between the two emerged strongly in several other areas. Alaska was far more likely than Russia to write about renewable resources in terms of the environment (60-27%), science-technology (30-18%) and wildlife (50-18%). Russian stories were more likely to include mention of government (45-30%) and indigenous people (59-40%). One of the earliest bulletins included this story, illustrative of Russian reporting that connected the themes of renewable resources and economics: A computer helps a deer-breeder Since time immemorial, Evens, Evenks, Yukagirs and other aboriginal people of the north have been engaged in deer-breeding in Yakutia. Today there are over 320,000 domestic deer here... In October 1987, the All-Union Research Institute of Agricultural Meteorology signed a contract with Yakutia's managers for the elaboration of a method of forecasting the influence of weather on the productivity of deer-breeding ... During this period a small team of the institute's staff ... worked out a mathematical Weather-Deer model which makes it possible for the first time ever to calculate the power consumption of deer in specific weather conditions... (Germogenov, 1989: 1) 9. Coverage of wildlife Stories involving wildlife were ninth most frequently mentioned. The subject was particularly prevalent among Alaska stories, represented in 28% of all stories from the state. In Russian stories, wildlife was represented less than half as frequently, in about 12% of the Russian total. Subcategories make a fairly plain distinction of emphasis between the two, as well. In Alaska, wildlife stories are most likely to include additional reference to culture (47-27%) and indigenous people (40-27%). Russian reporters writing about wildlife, however, were far more likely to include science-technology (53-33%) and the environment (60-33%). The two countries placed about the same emphasis on subcategories involving government or renewable resources (Alaska 33%, Russia 27% in each case). Alaska's high concentration of stories combining wildlife and culture usually focused on the importance of wildlife in the culture of indigenous peoples. But some were applicable to the urban culture, like the following: City moose population booms Imagine a swarm of mosquitoes, biting and creating a general nuisance, the worst mosquito infestation Anchorage has seen in years. Now imagine that, instead of mosquitoes, they are moose. Moose are stepping over cars, roaming through back yards and eating mountain ash trees. They are disrupting traffic, stopping at burger drive-ins and attending services at an East Anchorage synagogue. And these are just the moose that live in the urban core. The problem could get worse in the next two months, state game biologist McDonald said, when moose from Chugach State Park make their annual move into town... (Campbell, 1989: 1)