Help, Need and Cooperation as Portrayed in the Austrian Press

Sammanfattning: Investigating the discourse around development aid and cooperation yields insights into development policy choices and their public legitimisation and justification because of the recognised opinion-forming effect that public information, especially media, has on the public. Hence, public development discourse informs and shapes how ordinary people make sense of development issues and the perceived necessity of development aid and cooperation. Austria has publicly emphasised the importance of development aid and cooperation yet is one of the European countries that is spending the least when it comes to official development assistance, making it an interesting case. The purpose of this study is therefore to analyse how development aid and cooperation is presented in Austrian public information, more precisely in the printed press, in 2021. In connection to this, another focus of analysis is the presentation of developing countries and development problems. Therefore, 20 articles have been selected from popular Austrian newspapers and analysed using Critical Discourse Analysis. Five different themes have been identified to represent development aid and cooperation: stability/exhaustion, charity/heroism, security/protection, conditionality and criticism. Drawing on previous research and the theoretical and conceptual framework World Society Theory and White Saviourism development aid and cooperation has been found to be dominantly portrayed using a dichotomy between developed and developing countries. The former is depicted as stabilising, saving, protecting and disciplining, whereas the latter as crisis-ridden, in need, unstable and irrational. The problems seemingly have been depoliticised and oversimplified by displaying the causes as endemic to developing countries, disconnected from developed countries.