Title

Negotiation in the news: The role of newspaper reporting in the broader social acceptance of principled negotiation

Date of this Version

January 2006

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Details

Interim status: Citation only.

Power, Mary R. (2006) Negotiation in the news: The role of newspaper reporting in the broader social acceptance of principled negotiationis published in the Australasian Dispute Resolution Journal, Volume 17, Issue 1, pp. 20-28.
To view the published article contact the Australasian Dispute Resolution Journal

2006 HERDC submission

Abstract

This article investigates how the concept of negotiation is represented in newspaper stories. The Factiva database of Australian and New Zealand newspapers was searched over a period of two years using "negotiation" as a search term. Two hundred and eighty-five stories relating to negotiation were categorised by the content of the headline and first paragraph by two coders. Over 90% of the stories could be classified under eight catgories. These were, in order of frequency of occurrence: business negotiation; trade negotiation; government and political negotiation; industrial negotiation; real estate; terrorist, hostage and war negotiation; international negotiations; and negotiations with indigenous people. Most uses of the word negotiation could be classified as "haggling" rather than "principled negotiation". The Diffusion of Innovations Model is applied to help explain the persistence of a "haggling" rather than a "principled negotiation" frame in newspaper reports of negotiation.


This document has been peer reviewed.