National interest and the media

The present study is an attempt to analyze how a British and an American newspaper covered Kenya's elections based on the premise that Britain and the U. S. have different national interests in their relationship with Kenya. The period covered is from the date the elections were announced to one month after the elections were held. There were 11 articles from the New York Times and 12 from the Guardian. Each of the papers had a reporter assigned to cover the elections in Kenya. Qualitatively, the study tries to examine the connotation of the words and phrases within the particular context they are used so as to identify recurring themes that could correspond to each of the country's perceived self-interest. The analysis is divided into two phases - the period before the elections and the period after the elections. The first was examined under two sub-themes: election fairness and stability. The specific areas that the study analyzed were sources of information, threat to stability and headlines. Findings show that the mass media have become important and powerful instruments in today's process of foreign policy formulation especially in the US and Great Britain which are driven by national self interest.