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Asian Journal of Communication

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NGOs in India's elite newspapers: a framing analysis

Rebecca de Souza
a a

Communication, University of Minnesota, Duluth, USA

Available online: 04 Dec 2010

To cite this article: Rebecca de Souza (2010): NGOs in India's elite newspapers: a framing analysis, Asian Journal of Communication, 20:4, 477-493 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2010.496863

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Asian Journal of Communication Vol. 20, No. 4, December 2010, 477493

ORIGINAL ARTICLE NGOs in Indias elite newspapers: a framing analysis

Rebecca de Souza*
Communication, University of Minnesota, Duluth, USA (Received 25 October 2009; nal version received 7 March 2010) Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are deeply embedded within the sociopolitical landscape of India. NGOs were instituted by the Indian government specifically for the purpose of nation-building at the time of national independence in 1947 (Muttalib, 1987). In recent times however, NGOs have come under much scrutiny because of the expanding neoliberal agenda, and global discourse surrounding NGOs often involves questions of accountability. Communication scholars have studied NGOs in various contexts, but what remains unexplored is the question of how NGOs are portrayed within the media, which in contemporary society constitutes the public sphere or space of public opinion. It is important to look at the media because public legitimacy can have serious consequences for an NGOs ability to garner funds, influence policy, and build trust in beneficiary communities. This study thus asks the research question: How are NGOs framed in the Indian media? A qualitative analysis was employed to identify news frames or interpretive packages used to talk about NGOs in two of the most widelycirculated English daily newspapers in India. The analysis identified four frames: the do-good frame, protest frame, partner frame, and the public accountability frame. The findings show that, for the most part, NGOs are represented in a positive and even a nationalistic light, in spite of the larger global discourse interrogating NGO practices. The discussion elaborates on institutional, political, and historical reasons why NGOs are portrayed favorably in the newspapers. Keywords: media; NGOs; India

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Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) constitute an increasingly vibrant sector in India as evident from the large amount of aid channeled through them for development purposes (One World South Asia, 2008). NGOs are voluntary and formally constituted non-profit organizations not related to either state or business sectors, hence they are also called the third sector (Salamon, 1993). NGOs constitute an important part of global civil society, which is defined as the arena in which people come together to pursue their common interests not for profit or political power, but because they care enough about something to take collective action (World Bank, 2004). In India, NGOs are deeply embedded within the socio-political landscape. The notion of civil society has long been an integral part of the Indian society, dating back to 1500 BC when it was mentioned in the Rig Veda, one of the earliest religious texts (Sen, 1992, 1993). The post-independence period saw a wave of NGOs in India, often attributed to the initiative taken by the newly independent State to promote NGOs in development (Sen, 1992, 1993). For example, the government formed the Central
*Email: rdesouza@d.umn.edu
ISSN 0129-2986 print/ISSN 1742-0911 online # 2010 AMIC/SCI-NTU DOI: 10.1080/01292986.2010.496863 http://www.informaworld.com

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Social Welfare Board in 1953 to promote NGOs (Inamder, 1987), and NGOs were frequently requested to train government officials in development projects (Muttalib, 1987). Also, Gandhians who could not join the government worked closely with the government to set up handcraft and village industries, rural development agencies, and credit cooperatives (Kothari, 1986). Today, there are about 1.5 million NGOs in India, which continue to occupy a prominent role in health, development, and provision of other social services (Voluntary Action Network, 2009). In the global arena, NGOs have come under a lot of scrutiny because of their increased partnerships across state and business sectors. Scholars caution that a primary strength of NGOs is the human commitment to collective survival driven by a vision that transcends the behaviors conditioned by existing institutions and culture, which makes it relatively immune to the political agendas of government or to the economic forces of the market place (Korten, 1990, p. 105). Critics argue that cross-sector alliances compromise goals of NGOs making them service-contractors conditioned by the very institutions they are supposed to ameliorate (Edwards & Hulme, 1996a). NGOs are also criticized for wasteful procedures; Vaknin (2005) argues that NGOs are top-heavy bureaucracies, which resemble multinational corporations because of their large media departments, government lobbying, and competition in government tenders. In addition, economic interests have led to competition among NGOs; NGOs with overlapping missions, values, and target groups often compete with each other, thereby resulting in unnecessary duplication of services, disruption of each others projects, and increased costs (Korten, 1990). NGOs have captured the interest of communication scholars in various transnational contexts (e.g., Ganesh, 2005; Shumate, Fulk, & Monge, 2005), however what remains unexamined is how NGOs are represented in the media. In other words, are NGOs constructed as legitimate actors in the media? The legitimacy of an organization is a measure of the extent to which the public and the public sphere at a given time and place find the organization sensible and morally justifiable (Munk Nielsen, 2001, p. 19). In light of global debates surrounding NGOs, it is important to know how NGOs are portrayed in local media contexts, especially in a country like India, which has hundreds of local, state, and national NGOs working on various health and social issues. This study thus uses framing methodology to ask: How are NGOs portrayed (or framed) in the Indian newspapers? Qualitative analysis is used to identify frames related to NGOs in two of the most widely circulated English daily newspapers in India. A frame is a central organizing idea or story line that provides meaning to an unfolding strip of events (Gamson & Modigliani, 1987, p. 143). The study contributes to our understanding of the relationship between NGOs and the media in a country where NGOs have long been part of the social and political landscape. Frames The concept of framing can be traced back to Goffman (1974), who defined frames as embodiments of the principles of organization which govern (social) events (p. 10). Tuchman (1978) argues that frames organize news stories by their patterns of selection, emphasis, interpretation, and exclusion. Frames are also seen as interpretive packages that give meaning to an issue (Gamson & Modigliani, 1987). Norris (1995) concurs that news frames bundle key concepts, stock phrases, and

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stereotyped images together in order to reinforce certain interpretations. Notably, frames are important because they set the parameters in which citizens discuss public events and in doing so promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation (Tuchman, 1978, p. IV). News frames tell the public how to think about the issue, legitimizing certain viewpoints and pushing others out of the discursive space through the process of selection bias (Entman, 1993; Gitlin, 1980). Scholars suggest that normal institutional processes, such as issues related to state politics, make some issues more newsworthy than others (Oliver & Maney, 2000), as do stories or news pegs that are notorious, consequential, extraordinary, or culturally resonant (Ryan, 1991). Critical media theorists thus argue that frames are never value neutral, but reproduce the ideological orientation of the larger socio-political system. The regular assignment of reporters to specific locations and their reliance on a constant set of convenient and credible official sources also filters out other possible sources of political information (Gamson, Croteau, Hoynes, & Sasson, 1992; Tuchman, 1978). Thus as Gitlin (1980) asserts, those in positions of power do not directly maintain the status quo, rather: The task is left to writers, journalists, producers and teachers, bureaucrats and artists organized within the cultural apparatus as a whole (p. 254). Civil society and media There have only been a few studies that have looked at the relationship between media and NGOs, but many more that have studied the coverage of social movements at large, so we turn to the literature on social movements as a starting point of discussion. It should be noted that social movements and NGOs are similar in that they both occur within the larger arena of society termed civil society, but they are also quite distinct from each other. Social movements are defined as organized efforts, on the part of excluded groups, to promote or resist changes in the structure of society that involve recourse to noninstitutional forms of political participation (McAdam, 1982, p. 25). Examples of social movements include the anti-globalization movement, feminist movement, and the environmental movement. A social movement is constituted of various individual activists, and formal and informal groups working on a particular social or political issue. NGOs, on the other hand, are legally constituted non-profit organizations. As organizations, they are important stakeholders within particular social movements, but are themselves not synonymous with the notion of a social movement. NGOs may be devoted to issues of public interest such as the environment, development, human rights, and peace; they may initiate and promote social movements by mobilizing campaigns, but they are not movements in themselves. However, given the lack of literature on NGOs in the media and given that NGOs are often important stakeholders within larger movements, this paper uses the social movement literature as a point of departure. Overall, studies show that mainstream media outlets tend to delegitimize social movements. With regards to the feminist movement, for example, scholars found that the mainstream press demonized, personalized, and trivialized feminists (Lind & Salo, 2002), framing them as deviant sexually, a bunch of man-haters out to destroy family values (Creedon, 1993, p. 75). Akhavan-Majid and Ramaprasad (1998) examined US and Chinese press coverage of the Fourth UN Conference on Women and the NGO Forum in Beijing in 1995; the frames used in the US coverage were

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anti-communist and anti-feminist, while the Chinese coverage reflected a proequality frame with a strong focus on issues concerning the global feminist movement. This study highlights the role of cultural context in shaping frames. With regards to the globalization movement, scholars found that protestors are almost always represented as fringe elements of society, while the pro-globalization parties are represented as the law-abiding, well-groomed and mature people (Broad, 2002, p. 1; DeLuca & Peeples, 2002). Bennett et al. (2004) analyzed coverage of the globalization debacle between the World Economic Forum (WEF) and its protesters at the World Social Forum. They found that the media favored the elites over the activists; WEF participants were recognized more formally and given more input in news content. These studies support the notion of a protest paradigm, a package of characteristics through which an audience develops impressions of the groups and issues involved in protest situations (Chan & Lee, 1984; McLeod & Detenber 1999). Overall, the studies demonstrate that the media regularly delegitimize and marginalize protest groups that challenge the status quo. Public legitimacy can only be achieved when interest groups are presented positively and their respectability enhanced, but if they are portrayed in a negative light, their legitimacy is undermined and the public may be discouraged from identifying with the group (Chaiken, 1980). Techniques of delegitimization include reliance on official sources and official definitions, the invocation of public opinion, and focus on protesters appearance and actions, rather than the issues raised (McLeod & Detenber, 1999). Hall (1981) suggests that media bias cannot be proven as such, but is evident from who is or is not accorded space to articulate views, tones of voice, and how opposing groups are portrayed. The interaction between the media and NGOs in particular has been studied on rare occasions. Gibelman and Gelman (2004) conducted a content analysis of publicized wrongdoings or scandals involving NGOs; they uncovered six major categories of wrongdoing: personal lifestyle enhancement, parallel enterprises, resource expansion opportunities, theft, mismanagement of resources, and support of activities and groups outside of the organizations purview. Giffard (1999) also examined coverage of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing by three international news agencies (AP, Reuters, and Inter Press Service) to determine the amount of coverage given to conference themes, Asian actors, organizations, and nations. He found that NGOs accounted for most of the organizations mentioned; this suggests that, in the context of human rights issues, the media do in fact deem NGOs to be important stakeholders and worthy of news coverage. Trenz (2004) analyzed news coverage of European governance and policy-making to examine conditions for a European mediated public sphere. He states:
. . . the remarkable absence of non-institutional, non-statal actors be it on the transnational, national or local level is striking . . . There is a clear media bias towards institutional and governmental actors and away from civil society. Although NGOs and civic associations have become progressively included in European governance and quite often play a decisive role in EU policy deliberation and decision-making, this activity is not documented in news coverage (p. 301)

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Thus, in the case of more mundane political decision-making in Europe, civil society actors including NGOs are absent from the news discourse. In sum, even though

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NGOs are important stakeholders in contemporary society, except for few studies, little is known about how these entities are constructed in the media and how this relates to public legitimacy. It should be pointed out that even though NGOs participate in larger movements, there are reasons to speculate why NGOs may be portrayed more often and more positively in the news media than social movements. Institutional linkages between NGOs and government and business sectors could result in a more positive portrayal of NGOs. In contemporary society, NGOs form strategic alliances with state and business sectors; as a result they have accountabilities both downward to their beneficiaries and upward to their donors and host governments (Edwards & Hulme, 1996b). These multiple accountabilities caused by cross-sector alliances mean that NGOs often take less radical positions than those espoused by the larger social movement. For example, Alejandro Bendana (2006) elaborates on the debt cancella tion initiative within the anti-globalization movement. The initiative proposed to write off the debt of the worlds poorest countries by 2000, but while many NGOs called for countries to work with governments and global financial institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), social movement activists called for the total dismantlement of the IMF and the World Bank. It can be speculated that these more moderate positions and affiliations may lead to positive portrayals of NGOs compared to social movement actors. This might especially be true in the context of India, where there is a deep rooted historical relationship between NGOs and the government. However, given that we do not have any studies that look at how NGOs are portrayed in the media; this study takes a first step to fill this gap in the literature. Method A qualitative framing analysis was conducted to answer the research question: How are NGOs framed in the Indian newspapers? Data comprised of articles (reports, features, opinion pieces) from two of the most widely circulated English daily newspapers in India, The Times of India (TOI) and The Hindu. According to a 2002 report by the Registrar for Newspapers in India (2005) across all newspapers, The Hindu was the largest circulated edition daily (937,222 copies) and The Times of India was the fourth-largest circulated daily newspaper (843,874 copies). In terms of readership, The Times and The Hindu were the most-read English-language newspapers with readerships of approximately 13 and 6 million, respectively. It is important to point out however that even though these papers have high circulation rates, they are not the most widely-read newspapers. The three most-read newspapers in the country are the Hindi dailies Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhaskar, and Amar Ujala with readerships of 56, 34, and 29 million, respectively (Indian Readership Survey, 2009). These readership figures alongside national literacy rates of about 51% indicate that the two English dailies chosen for this study do in fact have a limited reach; nevertheless, they are influential papers because they reach a distinctly urban and educated audience that constitutes the nations elite. I searched the two newspapers on Lexis-Nexis for the terms NGO between January 2005 and January 2006. I chose this time period because the tsunami in South-East Asia occurred in the last week of December 2004 and thus assured a substantial amount of news coverage on NGOs. There were 322 articles in The Hindu

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and 120 articles in The Times of India resulting in a total of 442 articles. After eliminating redundant articles (i.e., the same article that appeared more than once in the search results), there was a total of 375 articles (301 in The Hindu and 74 in The Times of India). The discrepancy between the number of articles between the two newspapers can perhaps be attributed to their particular leanings; The Hindu has its roots in radical social reform and is still known for its leftist leanings, while the The Times of India, despite being praised in the past, has recently come under criticism for its tabloid-style journalism, not particularly committed to social issues. The goal of the data analysis was to identify frames used to talk about NGOs. First, in order to get an overall sense of the data, I conducted multiple readings of all articles. Next, to separate out issues from generic frames (Carragee & Roefs, 2004), I used a process of open-coding (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990) to identify the single most prominent issue the NGO was associated with in each article. For example, in the article entitled Protecting mangroves in south Andamans, the NGO was coded as associated with the issue environment. Next, to get a sense of the role of institutional politics in shaping frames, articles were coded for the presence of institutional linkage(s). Institutional linkage was defined as any explicit reference to or association with state institutions (government, judiciary, law enforcement), international institutions (global institutions and international governments), and/ or economic institutions (for-profit institutions). Once the issues and institutional linkages were identified, the next step was to identify the frames. A line by line reading of each article was conducted asking the question: How are NGOs talked about in the article? Several categories or themes were identified such as good work, novel moves, watchdog, and challenge government. A framework was then generated to examine categories using the constant comparison technique; comparing and contrasting themes that emerged from the articles (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). I grouped similar categories together to eliminate redundancies asking the question: What is the overall sense that articles within each frame convey? So, for example, the good work and novel moves was merged to form the do-good frame, while the watchdog and challenge government categories formed the protest frame. The analysis identified four frames: do-good frame, protest frame, partner frame, and public accountability frame. Lastly, I identified specific resources (e.g., choice of words, metaphors, images, narratives, and repetitive phrases) used to build each interpretive package. NGO news frames The data showed that NGOs were represented in association with a number of issues. The top issue was natural disaster (17.6%), primarily due to the Tsunami, civic issues (12.5%), health (11.2%), environment (9.9%), political and legal issues (8.8%), issues related to NGO administration and accountability (9.3%), child-related issues (6.9%), women-related issues (5.1%), there was no reference to an issue in 12 articles (3.2%), and miscellaneous issues (15.5%) made up the rest of the data set (animal rights, rights of disabled, celebrity events, and homosexuality). Regarding institutional linkages, 61.1% of the articles made a reference to some aspect of the state machinery, 12% made a reference to international institutions or governments, 1.6% made a reference to business, while 25.3% talked about NGOs without any reference to dominant institutions. The articles with institutional linkages comprised quotes

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provided by officials (governors, ministers, other politicians), information regarding a state legislation or policy, report on government program, or report on events such as inaugurations or award ceremonies.

The do-good frame A number of articles report on the various activities (projects, campaigns, resourcemobilization activities) that NGOs perform. NGOs are portrayed as highly active or proactive organizations engaged in doing various things, and the compelling reality created here is that NGOs do good. The discourse echoes with action-packed phrases such as NGOs are active in, the NGO embarked upon, NGOs brought together, and NGOs launched. NGOs are especially talked about in the context of organizing events. For example, The Crafts Bazaar being organised by Kala Srusti-an NGO working for welfare of handicraft, or SOMA, an NGO working with the Kerala AIDS Control Society, will organise various awareness programmes on HIV prevention (Hindu, November 30, 2005). The frame showcases the useful work NGOs do in the fields of health care, disaster relief, and poverty reduction as seen in the following excerpt:
Dastkar Andhras work with the weavers in remote parts of Andhra Pradesh is one of the great NGO success stories of our times. By giving the weavers sustained work with design inputs that use their skills in contemporary formats and by marketing their products Dastkar has ensured better economic wages for the weavers (Hindu, April 22, 2005).

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Here is another instance in The Times of India, which shows NGOs doing good:
After over 17 years of strife, a section of the civil society has started coming to Kashmirs rescue in managing the ever-increasing destitute load. While a Kerala NGO has taken 250 Kashmiri orphans for education, another Pune-based group had adopted 90 boys and girls from J&K (TOI, January 14, 2005).

These reports are punctuated by state (government) officials praising the work of NGOs. The term lauding appears frequently in the discourse. For instance, state actors are found lauding the efforts of NGOs and lauding the work being done by NGOs for uplifting the families of prisoners. The innovative character of NGOs also stands out in the discourse. The message here is that NGOs are pioneers who undertake novel initiatives for the good of the people. The terms novel, creative, and pioneer are frequently used in conjunction with NGO activities. NGOs thus do good through pioneering work in the fields of health and womens empowerment. For example:
Ethnic garments made by female artisans in the villages of Kutch could soon be selling along with Gap, Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger labels on the fashion-streets of London and New York. Sewa, an Ahmedabad-based NGO, known worldwide for its pioneering work in the field of womens empowerment in India, has opened negotiations with these global fashionwear labels to contract manufacture ethnic-wear products (TOI, April 8, 2005).

The report goes on to discuss ways in which the NGO is preparing itself to enter the global textile market and to cash-in on the opportunities in a quota-free trade

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regime; the article lacks any sort of critical examination of the business alliances forged by the NGOs. The innovativeness of NGOs is enhanced by narratives about the bold or novel moves made by NGO visionaries. The focus of these articles is the individual and his or her crusade for social justice. The reports discuss the opposition that the individuals face, the self-sacrifice, and the ultimate reward of a personal sense of doing good. An example of this is seen in The Times of India headline: Braving odds, he worked for juvenile justice. In addition, the sense that NGOs do good is heightened by comparing their activities to the inadequacies of the government. This is conveyed in stories about people who have switched sides; that is, individuals who have moved from the government to the NGO sector because they were frustrated with the system. This phenomenon features quite frequently in the discourse. For example, the following feature talks about a novel initiative by a government official:
In a novel initiative, former Rajasthan Chief Minister and Congress general secretary Ashok Gehlot on Sunday collected Rs.16 lakhs towards relief for the earthquakeaffected people in Jammu and Kashmir. Mr. Gehlots efforts, carried out through Bharat Sewa Sansthan, an NGO he has founded, came in the wake of an almost total absence of any such effort on the part of the State Government (Hindu, November 7, 2005).

Similarly, another article features a government official who resigned from his position in the state forest department in order to work for an NGO; the headline of the article is Former forest conservator in new role. The following is a brief excerpt:
The . . . sleepy hill town of Shimla witnessed a different kind of function on Wednesday. Hundreds of people gathered at a public felicitation function for Kuldip Singh Tanwar, an IFS officer who has resigned from the State Forest Department and decided to work for the Himachal Gyan Vigyan Samiti, a leading NGO . . . He had launched a crusade against the forest mafia and even faced a direct confrontation with the State Government on the issue of illicit felling of trees in the State (Hindu, October 29, 2005).

It should be pointed out that the main focus on these articles is the particular individual, not the social issue associated with the individual. In conclusion, the reality created by the do-good frame is that NGOs are highly proactive organizations doing various deeds in service of the nation, NGOs make up for the inadequacies of the government, and NGOs are led by innovative, courageous, and selfless people who harbor a burning desire for social reform. Protest frame The news coverage often depicts NGOs protesting government actions and policies in non-disruptive and non-threatening ways. Notably, except for two articles which report on a violent protest, the rest of the protests take place through non-protest forms such as press conferences and releases, public ceremonies, speeches, and legal procedures such as the filing of public interest litigations. The non-protest form can be attributed to the increasing routinization of protests. In a Western context, scholars argue that authorities have shifted away from dealing with protests in a confrontational manner, which in turn has reduced the novelty and disruptiveness of

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protests resulting in more routinized forms of protest (Oliver & Maney, 2000). In fact many protest forms have become legal and even normative ways to express opinions. Oliver and Maney (2000) state: Protests are often symbolic statements with important elite or institutional support, not disruptive challenges to public order. Some protest messages are delivered through nonprotest forms such as ceremonies, speeches, displays, or lobbying days (p. 468). Non-protest forms of protest are also true of the Indian context under study here. The sample comprises only two headlines that actually even use the term protest: Protest against eviction of tribal people from forest (Hindu, 31 July, 2005) and NGO launches power protest (Hindu, October 3, 2005). The terms commonly used to describe NGO routinized protest activities include NGOs that urge, demand, exhort, and call upon the government as seen in the following headlines: Call to withdraw bus fare hike (Hindu, November 26, 2005), NGOs ask WTO to keep off farm sector (Hindu, November 5, 2005), and NGOs fear plan to put Gorai on tourism map (TOI, March 23, 2005). An example of how routinized protests may appear in the article:
City-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) Prayas has filed a petition before the Maharashtra electricity regulatory commission (Merc) urging it to restrain the Maharashtra state electricity board (MSEB) from issuing average bills to consumers, in accordance with its (Mercs) directive (TOI, February 18, 2005).

In addition, the more threatening terms used to describe NGOs protest acts include NGOs that allege, accuse, express displeasure, express concern, oppose, and denounce. For example, A day after a non-government organisation Kalpavriksha alleged that the Union Environment and Forest Ministry had not taken any action on its report (Hindu, October 6, 2005). In another example, NGOs point out:
Calling the law retrograde and coercive . . . Population First, points out that the provision is against the principles of democracy, especially when viewed from the perspective of informed choices and reproductive right (Hindu, April 13, 2005).

Furthermore, protests taken up by NGOs are often initiated and/or find support within state institutions as seen in the following example:
At a press conference on Tuesday, over 35 NGOs, who have come together under the banner Protest Against Non Governance in Society (PANGS), announced a peaceful march along the Mithi River . . . B.G. Deshmukh, former Union Cabinet Secretary, who is part of this effort, told the press that unless the citizens of Mumbai realize that they have to help themselves, no one would help them. He called for a mass movement in which people should come out and protest against government inaction and demand accountability (Hindu, September 29, 2005).

Thus, in this instance, a peaceful march is used to protest government actions, and importantly, it is legitimated by a state official. Thus, contrary to the protest paradigm, in which protesters are delegitimized, the NGOs represented in this discourse are not. In this media sample, NGO actors are portrayed as individuals who work for the rights of marginalized communities by keeping watch on state actors and activities. The protests are not disruptive, but rather take the form of ceremonies, legal processes, and lobbying. The NGOs are

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shown to be rational actors, who use scientific evidence and legal procedures to validate their claims as seen in the article about Population First, where contradictions inherent in the policy are exposed.

Partner frame A prominent frame that emerges from the discourse is the partner frame, which speaks primarily to collaborations between NGOs and the government. Reports, announcements, and news briefs talk about the multiple partnerships that NGOs forge with the government for the purpose of development, human rights, and disaster relief. Several news briefs announce the assistance NGOs provide to the government. For example, the article titled Landslip: NGOs to help in rehabilitation work states: District Collector Rachna Shah has said that the Government efforts in rehabilitating those affected by the landslips . . . are being supplemented by assistance from Non Governmental Organisations too with a view to improving the quality of aid being given (Hindu, December 3, 2005). In the following example, the government partners with NGOs to help with missing children:
Childline is a national 24-hour free phone emergency service set up in 1996 as a project by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in partnership with states and NGOs, to help children who are missing, abused, have run away from home, or in need of medical assistance. The typical example of its patrons would be the three boys who called from Mumbai Central station. They had run away from home in Delhi to escape an abusive step-father, and their kid brother had gone missing from the station. They were placed in a shelter. The search for their youngest brother has been futile (TOI, September 20, 2005).

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The reports thus create the perception that the government together with NGOs is able to manage problems effectively; there is a sense that NGOs are necessary because the government cannot do it single-handedly. The discourse also reports on NGOs and international governments working together to enable the better functioning of NGOs. For example, the article titled AFPRO bring relief for Tsunami hit (TOI, January 18, 2005) reports on how Action for Food Production (AFPRO), a national-level NGO engaged in providing socio-technical support at the village level, is collaborating with international state development agencies like the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, to rehabilitate people in the tsunami-hit areas of Tamil Nadu. Besides reports on collaborations, the partner frame is brought to light by depictions of rescue operations carried out by NGOs and government officials. The reports showcase the successful partnership between the two entities working in perfect union with each other. The image evoked is that of the government and NGOs as a tightly-knit crime-fighting duo who rescue vulnerable people. Typically, the operations involve rescuing women and children from human trafficking:
A 10-year-old boy, employed as a domestic labourer in a schoolteachers house in Mehdipatnam was rescued on Thursday by a group of NGOs and Government officials . . . A nearby STD (telephone) booth worker who noticed the inhuman treatment meted out to the boy alerted the anti-child labour organisations, which swung to action on Wednesday . . . At the Asif Nagar police station, where the rescue team brought him, the

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badly bruised boy showed wounds on his hip, and other parts of the body (Hindu, October 7, 2005).

The phrase swung into action is quite commonly used to describe NGO{government actions, thereby enhancing the energetic nature of the partnership. The following excerpt shows the government enlisting the help of NGOs to rescue children:
The Mumbai Police on Wednesday rescued 465 children who are suspected of being employed in various industrial units in Madanpura, central Mumbai. An early morning raid was conducted with the help of 46 NGOs working for child rights . . . The children sat huddled together in the Byculla police station while a Task Force, comprising members of child rights NGOs, collected information from them about their native place, age . . . employers treatment and whether they wanted to go back (Hindu, June 2, 2005).

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The partner frame is further cemented by multiple calls from government actors for collaboration across sectors. For example, Krishna district Collector Navin Mittal has suggested closer cooperation between various government departments and voluntary organisations to end the problem of child labour in the district (Hindu, October 7, 2005). Thus overall, the reality created here is that the government and NGOs work successfully together as a team and should therefore continue to forge partnerships with each other.

Public accountability frame The articles within this frame implicate NGOs in wrongdoings. Notedly, this frame is used in less than 10% of the data and, except for one article, all appear in The Hindu. Similar to the study by Gibelman and Gelman (2004), NGOs are criticized for corruption, lack of accountability, hidden agendas, and bad management skills. In the articles, government officials and other civil society actors are found commenting on a particular scandal that an NGO is involved with. For example, the international network of people living with HIV/AIDS levies charges against NGOs stating . . . that the official agencies and NGOs were exploiting the plight of the HIVinfected people to generate publicity and to attract funds (Hindu, December 2, 2005). In another article, NGOs are chastised for collecting bribes and the crime is especially heinous because NGOs should ideally be working for the welfare of marginalized communities as seen in the following excerpt:
The Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) should not indulge in collecting bribe from SHGs or lending money for interest to the Self-Help Groups, said the District Collector, D. Karthikeyan today . . . The Collector said he had received complaints from the SHG members that the NGOs were demanding bribe for putting down their signature to obtain the Revolving Fund or bank loan. Further some NGOs were collecting money as deposit from the SHG members and advancing it to the needy, collecting interest (Hindu, March 5, 2005).

Thus, here we see the government acting as a watchdog of the NGOs. There are also a few editorials that discuss the issue of NGO accountability in much depth. For instance, the only article that appeared in the Times of India was an editorial that explored the repercussions that NGO corruption has on the public:

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The greatest concern for citizens, and one that sometimes inhibits the loosening of purse-strings, is the fear that the money they donate for relief work will be misused. Instances of NGOs siphoning off funds and of proposed rehabilitation projects remaining on paper came up during the Latur and Bhuj earthquakes and stick in public memory . . . Even in altruism, accountability remains the key (TOI, January 3, 2005).

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NGOs are criticized for duplicating each others efforts and running unsustainable endeavors as in: Concern has arisen over duplication of rehabilitation of tsunami-hit fishermen here with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) continuing to distribute equipment in Pondicherry (Hindu, March 20, 2005). Overall, this frame resonates with the larger global discourse surrounding NGO accountability. Interestingly however, even though NGOs are criticized for their corruption, this is usually placed alongside discourse celebrating the good work that NGOs do, as seen in the following editorial:
NGOs working selflessly among the poor and the needy are bright spots in the generally gloomy picture of development in India . . . it is imperative for decision-makers . . . to run them so as to result in the greatest good for the greatest number, especially for the weakest and most vulnerable. This should not be at the expense of the ethical values which give meaning to work and existence. The writing is on the wall: NGOs need to address the issue of their accountability to society at the earliest. Failure on this front will negate the very purpose for the NGOs existence and add to the on-going deterioration of societal values. NGOs with a professed commitment to justice, equity, rights, democracy, and gender equity must actually live up to these ideals (Hindu, November 13, 2005).

The article thus attempts to reconcile idealistic notions of NGOs alongside more recent criticisms. Questions of NGO accountability are juxtaposed alongside idealized imagery of NGOs and NGO workers.

Discussion If legitimacy refers to the extent to which the public and the public sphere at a given time and place find the organization sensible and morally justifiable (Munk Nielsen, 2001, p. 19); the newspapers in this study certainly frame NGOs as legitimate entities. Previous literature shows that the mainstream media tend to delegitimize social movement actors. With regards to NGOs in particular, NGOs were associated with publicized wrongdoings or scandals (Gibelman & Gelman, 2004), and an absence of coverage in European news discourse (Trenz, 2004). This study however shows that NGOs are represented in popular English daily newspapers and, for the most part, in favorable terms. For example, the do-good frame puts forth the message that NGOs do good work and are courageous visionaries furthering development goals of India. The partner frame creates the reality that NGOs and the government form winning partnerships to aid the most vulnerable members of society. The protest frame depicts NGOs protesting the government in non-disruptive ways, but differs from the protest paradigm previously identified, because NGOs actors are not delegitimized. In fact, the image of the NGO worker toiling selflessly at the grassroots looms large, while the government sector is disparaged by comparison. It is only within the public accountability frame that criticisms against NGOs are discussed; however, this frame

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is not often in play, and even here the idealistic image of NGOs is present, thus the larger global criticisms levied against NGOs recede into the background. The next section discusses possible reasons for the positive framing of NGOs. It should first be pointed out that, in this sample of newspapers, NGOs are rarely associated with issues that seriously threaten the public order or status quo; hence NGO credibility is never in question. In fact, most news articles deal with morally agreed upon issues such as human rights, disaster relief, protection of children, and addressing civic problems. The only issue that could pose a threat to the status quo is that of legalizing homosexuality; however, there were only three articles in The Times of India and one in The Hindu in which NGOs were associated with the issue and here too the protest was in a routinized form as seen below:
In a development that could generate a debate on the correctness of the current trend of treating homosexuals as a threat to civil order and society, the Supreme Court on Friday issued notices to the Centre and the Delhi government on a petition challenging the constitutional validity of Section 377 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) which makes all types of unnatural sex, including homosexuality, a punishable offence. NGOs working for the gay citizen have been campaigning for defining the rights (TOI, April 2, 2005).

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There are several possible reasons for this absence of discourse associating NGOs with homosexuality; perhaps there are not many NGOs that are engaged with the issue, or other issues took prominence in the particular time period such as disaster relief, or the newspapers do not cover more contentious issues supported by NGOs, especially when they lack institutional support. That said, NGOs manage to maintain legitimacy in the news discourse by being associated with morally agreed upon issues such as human and health rights and not being associated with more contentious issues that threaten the social order. The role of institutional and political processes in news-making also contributes to the positive frames. Scholars argue that news tied to politics tends to receive more coverage than news without political linkages. In this study, 75% of articles make reference to some aspect of institutional machinery and each frame has a predominant governmental association. For instance, the do-good frame talks about how NGOs do good in contrast to the government, the protest frame portrays NGOs protesting the government in routinized forms, the partner frame is primarily about successful partnerships with the government, and the accountability frame has government officials calling for NGOs to be more accountable. to that, the selection bias is clear in these newspapers; journalists tend to rely heavily on official government and NGO sources, while the voices of vulnerable victims rescued by NGOs or the views of lay non-institutionally-linked communities served by NGOs remain noticeably absent in the discourse. Finally, it is possible to speculate that context plays an important role in shaping positive frames. The notion of civil society dates back to 1500 BC, and NGOs in particular have been a part of Indias socio-political climate since Independence in 1947. At this time, India had just regained its independence from the British and was exuberant about future possibilities, thus many young idealistic professionals joined NGOs as they provided a means to express their commitment to the poor, and provided an alternative to employment in dead-end jobs or migration to developed countries (Eade, 2000). Thus today too, the notion of the Gandhian worker

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continues to linger in the Indian psyche, even in the face of neoliberal critiques. NGO actors are selfless, charitable do-gooders who give up their comfortable lives to work in remote areas of the country for little remuneration. The public tends to associate NGOs with ideals of national independence and development. Thus, the newspaper coverage tends to reconcile contemporary criticisms alongside more historicallyrooted idealized notions of NGOs. It should be pointed out that the two newspapers were different not just in the number of articles that referenced NGOs, but also in terms of the main focus of the article. The articles in The Hindu discussed NGOs with regards to a variety of social issues; in these articles, the NGO or the issue were the primary focus of the article. In The Times of India however, the primary focus of several articles was an event, a celebrity, or young Indian cosmopolites, while the NGO itself appeared as a peripheral reference. For instance, a number of articles centered on how sociallyconscious young city professionals are:
Whoever said young people of today do not think beyond malls and pubs? Bangalores young population doesnt hesitate if theres a call for help in the wake of a disaster . . . G. Ananth Raj, an advertising professional, was an engineering student when the tsunami struck. We didnt want to just donate something through an NGO. So we collected Rs 2.5 lakh and did a quick review of what people there needed the most (TOI, October 19, 2005).

Similarly, an article talks about radio jockeys spreading holiday cheer: Holi is a festival of joy and to spread this joy amongst every section of the society, Radio Mirchi jockeys will go to various places on March 25 carrying food, music, gifts and colours with them ensuring that no one is left out of the celebrations (TOI, March 23, 2005). There are several articles which report on sports stars, Bollywood celebrities, and socialites attending charity events. An article on September 24, 2005, talks about a flamboyant Mumbai socialite rumored to be giving up the society scene, to which she replies: Not at all! Im off to London to attend a charity ball for NGO Pratham. Then, Im off to LA for an exhibition in aid of the girl-child in Kerala, with a pit stop in New York. Personalization of news stories at the expense of larger social issues is thus prominent in this newspaper. Added to that, there are a host of sensational news stories with headlines to match such as: Is India Inc suffering from compassion fatigue? (TOI, October 14, 2005), Snake skins bite Delhi importers (TOI, August 26, 2005), and After Colas, now fear of toxic eggs (TOI, April 6, 2005). Each of these articles makes only a tangential reference to an NGO. Thus, the newspapers seem to conform to their reputations. The Hindu has historically been the paper of social reform, while The Times of India has been a paper of the establishment. These divergent leanings play out in the discourse surrounding NGOs. The Hindu is more serious, analytical, and sensitive in its discussion of NGOs, while The Times of India leans towards gossip, sensationalism, and a superficial celebration of neoliberalism. In sum, this study illuminates how The Times of India and The Hindu, two influential newspapers amongst Indias elite, represent NGOs and the practical implications that these representations may have for contemporary society. On the one hand, positive frames serve to enhance the legitimacy of NGOs, but on the other hand, the frames reinforce a reality of NGOs as do-gooders and a taken-for-granted

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assumption that the work NGOs do is ideal. The newspapers, especially The Hindu, provide a space for the views of government and NGO actors, but not necessarily the views of the communities or publics that they serve. In fact, the voices of NGO beneficiaries are blatantly missing from the news discourse. There are articles that show the government keeping watch on NGOs (as in the accountability frame) and the NGOs keeping watch on the government (as in the protest frame), but there are no articles that show public citizens keeping watch on both NGOs and the government. It might be argued that NGOs, as a part of civil society, do in fact represent the views of the people. But this assumption must be problematized in light of more recent criticisms levied against NGOs: that they are no longer primarily accountable to the communities that they serve, but rather have multiple accountabilities to government and private supporters. In sum, the role of the media as the crucial fourth sector watching both government and civil society remains absent from the discourse. A primary limitation of this study is its small sample. The two newspapers discussed here provide only a glimpse of the English-language newspapers in India, and the findings can certainly not be generalized to all Indian newspapers or to the larger Indian media landscape. This is because while English-language papers once dominated the Indian media landscape, they have now been eclipsed by 24-hour news networks and the sharp increase in the circulation of local language newspapers. The Times of India and The Hindu are still perhaps the most influential among the nations elite, but no longer dominate the media agenda as they did prior to the economic liberalization of the 1990s. Future research should thus explore how NGOs are represented in Hindi and regional language newspapers. Furthermore, given the trend towards 24-hour news, it would be useful to see how NGOs are represented within these newer televised formats. How do fragmentation and sensationalism, flaws that plague the 24-hours news cycle, shape stories about NGOs and social issues? Future research should also focus on media portrayals of NGOs in different sociopolitical settings. This study suggests that cultural and historical context play an important role in shaping how the media orient themselves toward NGOs (and government). Thus, it would be valuable to examine how NGOs are portrayed, for instance, in newly-formed eastern European states or countries in Africa, which have varied historical relationships with NGOs. These studies are important because NGOs are only growing in significance in local and global settings. Civil society groups are increasingly being used as vehicles for service provision because of the new policy agenda. NGOs provide welfare services to those who cannot be reached through markets, and are seen as the preferred channel for service provision as opposed to the State (Campos & Farmer, 2003). In fact, the increasing prominence of NGOs in the contemporary landscape may well confirm Salamons (1993) earlier statement that the Third World is being swept by NGOs in a quiet revolution that may prove to be as significant to the latter twentieth century as the rise of the nationstate was to the latter ninetieth century (p. 1). Given this global scenario, the media play an important role in keeping watch on this NGO explosion and ensuring that the revolution is driven by a vision that transcends government and business agendas. Notes on contributor
Rebecca de Souza (PhD, Purdue University) is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. She teaches and

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conducts research in the fields of health communication and media. Her research focuses on theorizing the emancipatory potential of communication by documenting the interplay of culture, structure and agency in global and local health contexts. She uses post-positivistic and interpretive methods to study communication phenomena in health contexts.

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