The lack of contact between the French- and Dutch-speaking communities in Belgium is a reality: at the production level,
twenty years ago, the Belgian media landscape was described as divided into two distinct parts: both the major private
channels (VTM, RTL-TVI) and public broadcasters (VRT, RTBF) focused on news from their respective communities (Sinardet et
al. 2004). Additionally, they often emphasize the differences and contrasts between the two communities, sometimes
resorting to stereotypes (Sinardet 2009). Community identity is not always explicitly emphasized but can also be approached
subtly through “banal nationalism” (Sinardet 2015). Indeed, certain expressions such as ‘with us’ or ‘our country’ indirectly
emphasize community in-groups and out-groups. In terms of reception, the market shares of Belgian French- and Flemishspeaking
television channels as well as other news media (newspapers, radio, online news) are so insignificant in the other
community that they are not even calculated in the market studies of the Center of Information on Media (CIM). Keeping
abreast of current affairs in the other part of the country is therefore limited and is mostly done via the media of one’s own
community.

Recent analyses are unavailable but these findings remain consistent with current journalistic opinions on the subject (Touriel
2017; Poosen 2022). Considering important changes in both the media system (f.e. arrival of online and social media) and
political system (cf. the recent federal elections in June 2024 and the recurring discussions about state reforms) in the past 20
years, a comprehensive and up-to-date understanding of the role played by news in representations of the other community is
therefore crucial for democracy in our country: beyond the fact that the diversity of actors is likely to generate a diversity of
viewpoints essential to democracy (McNair 2000), analysing the diversity of topics and actors is crucial in the context of
intercommunity stereotypes. Indeed, according to extended contact theory, inter-group interactions (between individuals) are
a powerful means of reducing intercultural prejudices. This principle also applies to the relationships between interviewees
and news audiences (Wong et al. 2022).

In this context, the project aims to answer the following question:

What representations of the other language community are present in Flemish and French-speaking news media in Belgium?

Are the findings obtained by Sinardet 20 years ago still valid today, or have they changed?

To what extent do the results change over time? Our longitudinal study (1993-2023) will enable us to determine this.

What are the topics of discussion concerning the other community? Are they always essentially political (Sinardet et al. 2004)?
Which members of the other community are given the floor in the news and how are they portrayed?

In what language do actors from the other community express themselves? Are they dubbed or subtitled?

To answer these questions, the research will be carried out using a manual quantitative content analysis of Flemish and
French-speaking news between 1993-2023. We will study television news, newspapers and online news. The quantitative
analysis will be supplemented by a qualitative analysis regarding the production of news: Interviews with journalists to
understand how they construct news about the other part of the country, what obstacles they experience, what routines they
have, their language skills, and how they perceive and organize their contacts across the language border (see e.g., Bouko et
al. 2018; Standaert et al. 2020; Vandendaele et al. 2022; Bouko and Standaert 2020).