<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>This article explores how 13 mainstream newspapers in five countries (Norway, Sweden, BRD, DDR and UK) covered the first week of three high-profile spy affairs in the late Cold War: Arne Treholt (Norway), Geoffrey Prime (UK) and Günter Guillaume (BRD).</p>
<p>The Eastern European newspapers followed in their governments’ footsteps and prolonged the politics of silence. In the West, newspapers framed the espionage using an issue-specific cultural frame, <italic>the traitor.</italic> Stories are spiced up by irrelevant and false facts, inspired by the spy stories in the fiction media. The traitor frame is constructed in two variations: the single spy betraying his country and the government forsaking its people by being “soft on the Soviets” or “careless about security”. The study indicates no significant differences in coverage between the four Western countries or between the three espionage affairs.</p>
</abstract>

This article explores how 13 mainstream newspapers in five countries (Norway, Sweden, BRD, DDR and UK) covered the first week of three high-profile spy affairs in the late Cold War: Arne Treholt (Norway), Geoffrey Prime (UK) and Günter Guillaume (BRD).
The Eastern European newspapers followed in their governments’ footsteps and prolonged the politics of silence. In the West, newspapers framed the espionage using an issue-specific cultural frame, the traitor. Stories are spiced up by irrelevant and false facts, inspired by the spy stories in the fiction media. The traitor frame is constructed in two variations: the single spy betraying his country and the government forsaking its people by being “soft on the Soviets” or “careless about security”. The study indicates no significant differences in coverage between the four Western countries or between the three espionage affairs.

Mediated Spies: Cold War Espionage Affairs in European Newspapers

Nordicom Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

{"article-title":"Mediated Spies: Cold War Espionage Affairs in European Newspapers"}

This article explores how 13 mainstream newspapers in five countries (Norway, Sweden, BRD, DDR and UK) covered the first week of three high-profile spy affairs...

	Media are not to be trusted
Problem definition	Right-wing media and politicians are aggressors
Source of the problem:	Right-wing media and politicians
Responsibility	Rests with the Springer Press and the right-wing politicians
Solution	Political struggle against right-wing politics
Moral basis	Truth. Peace
Cultural motive	Class struggle
Metaphor/stereotype	The cynical reporter
Visual image	None

	The spy as a traitor	The government as a traitor
Source of the problem:	Ideology, weak character, women, gambling debts	The government is “soft on Soviets”
Responsibility	rests with the traitor and the KGB	rests with the Government
Solution	Strong surveillance and counter intelligence	New government/ministers
Moral basis	Loyalty (to the nation)	Loyalty (to the nation)
Cultural motive	The archetype of the traitor	The archetype of the traitor
Metaphor/stereotype	The deviant person	The politicians are not to be trusted
Visual image	The traitor and the enemy, the traitor as a weak man	The government and the traitor (and the enemy)

	Treholt	Prime	Guillaume
VG	72/56	4/0	3/0
Aftenposten	51/37	1/0	9/0
Arbeiderbladet	63/31	1/0	4/1
Aftonbladet	10/0	1/0	2/2
Dagens Nyheter	8/1	1/0	6/1
Die Zeit	1/0	0/0	10/0
Der Spiegel	2/0	0/0	12/0
Neues Deutschland	0/0	0/0	1/0
Neue Zeit	0/0	0/0	0/0
Berliner Zeitung	0/0	0/0	0/0
Daily Express	0/1	5/0	4/0
The Guardian	4/1	10/0	6/1

Mediated Spies: Cold War Espionage Affairs in European Newspapers

Published Online: Jul 07, 2020

Page range: 115 - 130

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2016-0027

Keywords
espionage, Cold War, newspapers, framing, Treholt, Guillaume

© 2016 Paul Bjerke, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The construction of a frame in DDR coverage of espionage

The construction of frames in Western coverage of espionage

News articles and paragraphsThe first number in each cell refers to news articles, the second number to paragraphs in the first week after the arrest by newspaper and spy

Mediated Spies: Cold War Espionage Affairs in European Newspapers

Published Online: Jul 07, 2020

Page range: 115 - 130

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2016-0027

Keywordsespionage, Cold War, newspapers, framing, Treholt, Guillaume

© 2016 Paul Bjerke, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The construction of a frame in DDR coverage of espionage

The construction of frames in Western coverage of espionage

News articles and paragraphsThe first number in each cell refers to news articles, the second number to paragraphs in the first week after the arrest by newspaper and spy

Keywords
espionage, Cold War, newspapers, framing, Treholt, Guillaume