Conflict Framing in News Coverage of the 2021 GameStop Stock Saga
This research seeks to determine bias within coverage of the January 2021 GameStop incident during which small investors inflated the company’s stock as an act protesting Wall Street, effectively causing short sellers to lose billions of dollars. In pursuit of this goal, this study uses conflict framing theory to conduct a content analysis of three major news sources: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg. Findings from this study show that The Wall Street Journal’s coverage favors investors while Bloomberg favors Wall Street, and The New York Times does not have a clear leaning. Additionally, this research concludes that the presence of conflict frames does not suggest bias and a lack of conflict frames does not suggest neutrality. These findings have implications for how audiences perceive the events, potentially reflecting organizational bias or institutional bias relating to the societal role of business news. Mentor: Harlen Makemson