Social Innovation Ignored: Framing Nonprofit Activities in European News Media
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Social Innovation Ignored: Framing Nonprofit Activities in European News Media Gorgi Krlev1 • Anker Brink Lund2
The Author(s) 2020
Abstract News reporting typically has a dual function: it mirrors what is going on in real life, but it also shapes how actors behave. Previous studies suggest that media presence, by way of shaping public and policy perceptions, influence how well nonprofits are able to raise funds and mobilize human resources. Yet, we are lacking insights into how the third sector is actually framed in the media, in particular with regard to innovation, which increasingly complements the more traditional functions of advocacy and service provision. To find out, we performed a longitudinal content analysis and an in-depth framing analysis on national and regional newspapers from nine European countries. The analyses demonstrate that third sector activities, especially those related to social innovation, are largely ignored. We find no systematic evidence that crises increase news attention to nonprofit activities. The third sector is becoming more newsworthy when it co-engages with government and business actors, but can benefit only little from this ‘‘positive glow’’. We suggest how research on these matters can be taken forward, with a specific focus
The data analysed in the article has previously been published in a working paper, Media Framing of Third Sector Activities in Europe, Deliverable 2.3 (Part 1/2015) of the ITSSOIN-project, financed by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme, and preliminarily presented at the ISTR conference in Stockholm in 2016. & Gorgi Krlev [email protected] Anker Brink Lund [email protected] 1
Centre for Social Investment, University of Heidelberg, Bergheimer Strasse 58, 69115 Heidelberg, Germany
2
Copenhagen Business School, Solbjerg Pl. 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
on the agenda-setting theory of mass media, the strategic management of nonprofit organizations, and collaboration in the context of social innovation. Keywords Media Framing Social innovation Nonprofit Third sector
Introduction News reporting typically has a dual function: It mirrors what is going on in real life, but it also shapes how actors behave (Hallin and Mancini 2004). This function has received particular attention with regard to the relation between media and politics, but there is increasing interest in how media affect civil society organizations (Andrews and Caren 2010). The link between the media and the third sector is getting more attention, because scholars have found that news media played a key role in determining third sector actors’ capacity to bring about broader social change (Andrews and Biggs 2016; Vliegenthart et al. 2005). This can be connected to the more recent hypothesis that media climate frameworks are central moderators of action capacity in view of societal challenges, in particular with regard to the perception of who can bring about social innovation (Krlev et al. 2014). Despite the relevance of the topic, the
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