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210 Communication Theory & Research
comment piece, two in-depth articles and 14 news items. The articles were
accompanied by graphics on the deployment of armed forces and two photographs.
The German dailies and Le Figaro each had one article on the front page and
five pieces on the inside pages. Le Figaro published one photo on the front page
and another on the inside pages as did Die Welt. Frankfurter Rundschau had a
cartoon on the front page and a photo on the inside.
Il Corriere della Sera was the most assiduous, with 142 items during the period
between 17 and 29 March inclusive. La Repubblica followed with 126 articles.

For and against

The use of arms in Serbia was one of the principal arguments in the public
debate. Initially, public opinion was not prepared for discussion on aerial inter-
vention. The news media had given little importance to the negotiations taking
place at Rambouillet or the risk posed by Milosevic’s despotism. During the first
weeks of the conflict many opinion polls were carried out to evaluate the pub-
lic’s attitude. One such poll was carried out by the Archivo Disarmo in Rome
and the Trieste company SWG on a sample of 1007 individuals between 15
and 25 April (that is, three weeks from the beginning of intervention). It showed
that informed citizens, i.e. those that read a daily paper at least twice a week,
were more favourable towards the conflict (48 percent) than those not informed
(28 percent).
One area of the schedule used in this study is dedicated to the analysis of the
positions held explicitly by both the people quoted and the author and to what
motivated them to take a particular position. The following figures are expressed
as percentages of the total sample of articles.
The motivations behind the positions people adopted were deduced from
a sample of articles and public debates. The necessity for intervention has
been graduated into five levels: ‘unavoidable’, ‘indispensable’, ‘necessary’, ‘not
indispensable’ and ‘avoidable’. Given that there is often more than one opinion,
the schedule took multiple answers into account. In order to facilitate inter-
pretation of the role of the press in supporting or criticizing favourable atti-
tudes to intervention, a portion of the analysis sheet was dedicated to the
positions and reasons explicitly stated by the persons quoted and by the
authors of the articles. Cross-checking the responses separately produces a clearer
picture and it is possible to ascertain whether the positions are quantitatively
balanced.
Furthermore, the collected data have been divided into two subperiods: the
week preceding the first air attack and the one following it. During the first
period some 179 articles were published, or 20 percent of the total, and 718 in the
second.
The proportion of favourable opinions towards armed intervention, i.e. con-
sidered ‘unavoidable’, is 26 percent (6 percent in the first week and
20 percent in the second), whereas 23 percent do not feel it was ‘unavoidable’.