Less Oedipus, more Telemachus: the framing of fatherhood in international press

Abstract The aim of this article is to present an analysis of the image of the father of the family in four newspapers: The New York Times, Corriere della Sera, Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita. The study is not limited to examining what is explicitly presented in a journalistic text (what is ‘said’), but focuses also on what is implied or mentioned in it (what is left ‘unsaid’). This methodological approach includes three key concepts for our qualitative analysis: the frames, the common places (tòpoi) and the anthropological roots of social relations (the social virtues). The research objective is not only descriptive but also operational, therefore it tries to deliver a series of data which can be useful for people or institutions who promote the family in the public space, in order to put into place possible communication strategies in a professional and efficient way.


Introduction
Fatherhood is the subject of studies in various fields of science, such as sociology (Donati 1997;Szulich-Kału_ za and Wadowski 2010), psychology (Ris e 2013; Recalcati 2015), pedagogy (Augustyn 2011;Novara 2011), history (Dupuis 1992;Quilici 2010), philosophy (Tytko 2012) and theology (Rocchetta 2011;Pelanowski 2017). Many authors indicate different symptoms of a profound crisis in the concept of paternity in contemporary society. It is not only a matter of the absence of a father or the loss of his identity, it is also a reduction of his role in the family or lack of consideration for his role in society. This fatherhood crisis is described symbolically by the myth of Oedipus, the assassin of his own father.
This article presents case studies that focus on an analysis of the image of the family father as it emerges from the pages of four newspapers: The New York Times, Il Corriere della Sera (Italy), and two from Poland: Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita, including weekly supplements of the two last newspapers. The author argues for the validity of a qualitative methodology to examine the family topics presented in the media. This qualitative analytic method, however, is not limited to examining what is explicitly presented in the journalistic text, but also focuses on what is implied in its latent meaning. An analysis of the latent content is possible by examining the frame, the common places and the social virtues.
Therefore, our research is determined by the following questions: What frames are used in the articles about the father of the family? In what common places, natural and cultural, do the authors of the analyzed texts about fatherhood try to 'meet' with readers? What social virtues are related to the journalistic texts about fatherhood? Finally, this qualitative analysis allows us to inquire about the condition of the father of the family as it appears on the pages of the selected daily newspapers: does this mass media image reflect only shadows of the crisis of fatherhood in actual society or does it also show the light of some more positive aspects? What are the conclusions for people or organizations promoting the family in public space?
The article is structured as follows: (1) main assumptions of the methodological approach, (2) a description of the field of study, (3) a critical analysis of the frames, (4) a review of the natural common places, (5) a review of the cultural common places, (6) examination of social virtues and conclusions.

Methodological approach
The methodological approach of this study is exemplified by three key concepts: the frame, the common places and the social virtues. Each of these concepts is a subject of extensive study, but their presentation is beyond the scope of the introduction of the methodological assumptions of this article. Therefore, the author limits himself to only a few key points.
1. The frame is an 'overview' with which the information is presented. Among many descriptions of this concept (Chong and Druckman 2007;Scheufele and Tewksbury 2007;Weaver 2007;Pluwak 2009;Goffman 2010;Borah 2011;Lecheler and De Vreese 2012;Powell, Boomgaarden, De Swert and de Vreese 2015;K€ uhne, Weber, and Sommer 2015;Valenzuela, Piña, and Ram ırez 2017), this research follows a definition of Robert M. Entman who describes framing as, 'the process of selecting and highlighting some facets of events or issues, and making connections among them so as to promote a particular interpretation, evaluation and/or solution' (Entman 2007). According to the author, the frames include four functions: they define the terms of a problem, offer a causal interpretation, encapsulate a moral opinion and promise a solution, remedy or line of action (Entman 1993). The analysis of such a conceived frame of the article allows us to discover the structures used as starting points of a journalistic text. In this perspective we can say that the frame is an explicit dimension of the common places expressed in a journalistic way. 2. The t opos is the common place where the author of the article seeks to meet the readers. It concerns the ideas which are taken for granted and on which the author and the readers usually agree; they serve the journalist as a reasoning premise and as a base in argumentation (Reboul 1996;Ellero 1997;Walton, Reed, and Macagno 2008). Gonz alez Gaitano (2011) distinguishes between natural (anthropological) t opoi, i.e. previous concepts corresponding to the social structure shared consciously or unconsciously as being deeply rooted in the common human nature, and cultural t opoi, i.e. the ways in which anthropological spaces are fulfilled historically in a certain culture and how they shape it, especially in the cultural mainstream. 3. The social virtues are the anthropological roots of social relations. They are the natural human inclinations that are realized in the interpersonal relations. These inclinations can be deformed but they cannot be eliminated. They are directed at the good and improvement of the human person. (Malo 2011). Drawing on the works of Aristotle and Cicero, Thomas Aquinas distinguishes nine social virtues: pietas, observantia, oboedientia, honor, veritas, affabilitas, liberalitas, gratitudo and vindicatio. Like the other virtues, the social ones are also the middle ground between two extremes; therefore, social tendencies can appear either in their full form or can be missing, and so it can be present as virtue or as vice. A short description of nine anthropological roots is presented in Table 1. The distinction between virtue and vice is a criterion for valuation of the image of paternity in the analyzed newspapers. When the article shows a father who is practicing a virtue in his life, the image of the fatherhood is evaluated as positive; when the text describes a father who is practicing a vice in his life, the image of the fatherhood is evaluated as negative. When an article describes two or more different examples of the fatherhood, positive and negative, the image of the father of the family is considered neutral. The process of analyzing the content implied by the journalistic text proposed by the research project Family and Media (Gonz alez Gaitano 2011), can be described using an analogy from the music world. Firstly, in the most elementary stage, it is necessary to consider the 'sounds' of the 'violin strings' of our common human nature, the anthropological roots of the social relations, and the 'strokes' of the journalists as they tell the stories and report the ideas. Next, it is necessary to capture and identify the 'catchier' of the journalistic 'pieces.' Those more characteristic elements which are often included in the headlines, or the 'refrain,' stay longer in our memory and impose an interpretative setting of the whole piece. In the last and most refined stage, it is necessary to indicate and denominate the 'music subjects,' that is the recognizable 'melodies'. The reason is that the universal character of the melodies is usually molded by the common anthropological and/or cultural places in which the journalistic 'pieces' are rooted.
In order to introduce the subject of the research in its methodological approach, let us examine two newspaper articles. The first example is an abstract from the news section published in The New York Times. The author of the text entitled A Onetime Drug Dealer, Working to Prevent Gun Violence tells the story of Rudy Suggs, whose life was changed when he went from being a drug dealer to being an activist against street violence in his Brooklyn neighborhood. Rudy's work is presented in his own words: When I speak to an individual, I say, you have a problem with this individual over here, you shoot him, he's dead. You have a family; he has a family. You shoot him, you go to jail for 25 to life. Your kids, without a father. Your wife, without a husband. But they have to take care of you. He's dead. His mother and father have no son. So now you're both in the same situation. The only difference is, you're alive. (Yee 2012) During his individual conversations with potential criminals, Rudy Suggs uses argumentation based on the question of fatherhood. Trying to prevent violence, Suggs shows his interlocutor the consequences of a possible crime which not only strikes at his relationship with his own children ('You go to jail for 25 to life. Your kids, without a father'), but it will also irreversibly hurt parents of his potential victim ('He's dead. His mother and father have no son'). Obviously, his way of argumentation is not accidental. To engage his listener and to convince him, Rudy Suggs tries to find common ground that can be comprehensible also for a delinquent. This space is the natural bond between parents and children.
We can say, by analogy, that journalists work in a similar way to Rudy Suggs' approach. While writing and developing an article, they try to find a base for their argumentation. Usually they reach it through a natural t opos, in which can they find more attention and understanding from their readers. One of more natural spaces is based on the virtue of pity.
The premise implicitly present in the text quoted above is described explicitly in an opinion article entitled, A grain of humanity in Brindisi in the words of Melissa's father, published in the Corriere della Sera. The background for the text is a tragic accident which happened a few weeks before: a handcrafted device composed of three tanks exploded close to the gate of a professional institute for social services of the city of Brindisi and it killed a 17-year-old student, Melissa Bassi. During the inquiry, the police apprehended Giovanni Vantaggiato, who later confessed to the preparation and realization of the attempt.
The starting point of the opinion article is the words of Melissa's father addressed to the criminal, 'You are not a father. You have children, cousins, a family, but you are not a father.' The parent touched a profound aspect of the crime: the assassin of an innocent daughter has betrayed the identity and vocation of a father who is called to give and to protect human life and not to kill it. Through the crime he committed, Giovanni Vantaggiato obfuscated his fatherly honor. The author of the article comments on the word of the attack victim in the following way: 'If it is true that every story, however, cruel and infamous, contains a fragile grain of our humanity to recall our humanness, ah, a grain in the tragedy of Brindisi passes through the person of this simple worker, little accustomed to use words in public, but still having in a very natural way a gift of communication.' (Buccini 2012).
The methodological basis of the present study is precisely the following conviction, 'in every story there is always a fragile grain of our humanity to recall our humanism.' This 'grain of humanity' which makes an implicit content of the article and makes possible communication between the author of the text and his/her readers can be decoded thanks to the three key concepts described earlier: the frame, the common places and the anthropological roots of the social relations.

The field of the study
To guarantee results that are valid from a statistical point of view and at the same time sufficiently numerous to allow a qualitative analysis, for this study field four newspapers have been chosen: The New York Times 1 , Corriere della Sera 2 , Gazeta Wyborcza 3 and Rzeczpospolita 4 . The choice of these titles was dictated by the fact that all of them are considered the leading newspapers in their respective countries. As the research indicated, the number of the articles in Polish newspapers was relatively low, it was decided to include in the analysis articles on the father of the family published in their weekly supplements, which proved an interesting and important resource already during the present study. These three supplements are as follows: Plus Minus is a weekly of Rzeczpospolita which examines in depth the questions of the politics, society and culture; it comes out every Saturday as a supplement to the daily. Du_ zy Format is a weekly insert of Gazeta Wyborcza, specializing in reports and interviews; it is published every Thursday as a supplement to the daily. Wysokie Obcasy is another weekly of Gazeta Wyborcza which is dedicated to women; it is published every Saturday as a supplement to the daily.
All the titles have been studied in their daily issues in the period from 1 June 2012 to 30 June 2012 and from 1 December 2012 to 31 December 2012. The decision to choose the non-consecutive months, i.e. two different periods of the year, was made to avoid cases of long lasting reports, which could influence the results of the research too much and lead to unjustified conclusions.
The study used the digital editions of the daily newspapers, making sure that these corresponded in full to their printed editions. Thanks to the research function based on the key words of the PDF file or in the reading program for the newspapers, we could browse the dailies and choose the articles of our immediate interest. We based our selection of the articles on the following keywords: 'father,' 'fathers, ' 'daddy,' 'parent,' 'parents,' 'daughter,' 'daughters,' 'son' and 'sons' with their equivalents in Italian and Polish used in the family context.
In this way, during the first stage of the research we selected 927 articles in all of the newspapers: 402 articles in English (43%), 272 in Italian (30%) and 254 in Polish (27%). In the next stage of the analysis, during which all the articles were examined in-depth, 572 articles were excluded as not applicable for the research, i.e. 62% of the total number of selected items. The reason for exclusion was simple: Although the term 'father' is mentioned in those texts, fatherhood was neither an argument-theme of the news, nor mentioned either directly or indirectly.
Ultimately, the effective analysis sample consists of 355 articles put together in three groups of a similar linguistic level: 35.5% in English, 34.5% in Italian and 30% in Polish. As Table 2 indicates, 126 articles were selected from the American newspaper (73 in June and 53 in December); 123 articles from the Italian one (73 in June and 50 in December); the total of the articles selected from Polish newspapers was 106 articles: 72 texts from Gazeta Wyborcza and its two supplements (43 in June and 29 in December) and 34 articles from Rzeczpospolita and its weekly supplement (12 in June and 22 in December).

Analysis of the frames
Out of the total of 355 articles found during the study, in 211 cases, accounting for 60%, we identified principal frames of the father of the family, mostly news items in which fatherhood is the main subject. 180 secondary frames were identified especially in the articles where fatherhood is a secondary issue. The difference between the quantity of the text and the number of the frames explains the fact of the identification of both types of the frames in some articles. Out of the total of 391 frames found in our analysis, we collected the similar schemes at the macro level. In this way, as Table 3 indicated, we identified 20 'macro frames.' Moreover, we created a category 'Other' in which we have included four single different frames among them, which do not fit any of the identified categories. The in-depth analysis of the frames helped to discover some interesting data. First, we can notice that, within the categories, in the large majority of the cases the father is presented in a positive way: as a person who in his life realizes at least one of the nine social virtues. These are: the suffering in the family community (97% of the cases in this category), the parent hero (92%), the father educator (90%), the responsible parent (90%), the family in poverty (90%), the state and its family law (88%), children's care over the sick, old and dying parents (80%) and the change of fatherhood (75%).
On the other hand, we can indicate the categories of the frames which predominantly present a negative image of father: as a person who in his life realizes at least one of the nine social vices. These are: domestic violence (100%), double life of a father (100%), dysfunctional family (93%), men's domination over women (92%), succession from the father to the son (83%), matrimonial unity (78%), the father's attitude against homosexuality and transsexuality (75%) and nepotism (67%).
In the remaining types of the overview, the quantity of the positive and negative cases is more or less equal. These are: father of an unborn child (50% versus 50%), family honor (51% positive versus 49% negative), unity or generation gap (56% versus 44%) and the relationship between the family and work (58% versus 42%).
The other relevant data is the greater visibility of the negative news about fatherhood, even if the information represents a minority among the articles under scrutiny. As Table 4 indicates, both in the total of the analyzed news and in the majority part of the examined newspapers (the part from Gazeta Wyborcza with its supplements), there prevails a positive image of fatherhood 5 . Such data can be easily neglected during a superficial reading of papers, as presented in Table 5; the positive image of the father of the family is more frequently secondary then primary (the part from Corriere della Sera), while the negative is more often primary than secondary (the part from the Gazeta Wyborcza with its supplements).
To illustrate this tendency, we propose an analysis of 20 headlines of the articles of The New York Times in which the father of the family appears as the protagonist. Generally, a positive image of fatherhood prevails in the American daily (62% of articles under analysis), while the headlines represent a crushing domination of a negative image of the father of the family. In just four headlines, accounting for 20% of the total, the image is positive or at least neutral; these are as follows: Irreplaceable role of the father: Best Seats in the House? Any Place With Dad. An example to follow: Reform, In the Name Of the Father. A new non-invasive prenatal diagnostic test to determine fatherhood as a base to take legal responsibility for the child: Before Birth, Dad's ID. Two extremes of fatherhood which balance each other: Good Dad, Bad Dad.
In the remaining 16 cases, accounting for 80%, the image of fatherhood is negative or ideologized, for example:   As we can see, the secondary themes and frames which are less likely to be linked to negativity, conflict or ideology more often show a positive image. On the contrary, primary frames, which try to draw readers' attention to the content and provide the key to interpretation, are more exposed to criteria of newsworthiness as negativity, drama or conflicts (Harcup and O'Neill 2017) and are at risk of being influenced by preconceptions or ideological biases. This tendency is confirmed by different categories of the frame, for example: Parent educator: 90% of these cases present fatherhood in a positive way, though most are secondary themes (39 texts, accounting for 62%); The analysis of the frequency of the frames per newspaper presents two other important aspects: a similarity between American and Italian newspapers, and the difference between these two and the Polish dailies. As it is shown in Table 6 and  Table 7, the principal and secondary frames which are more frequent in The New York Times and in Corriere della Sera highlight the same dimension of fatherhood. The father of the family is often interpreted as a principal educative figure for his children, a responsible care-holder and defender of the well-being of the family, a Table 6. Frequency of principal frames per newspaper in descending order.

The New York Times
Corriere della Sera Gazeta Wyborcza Rzeczpospolita Responsible (10) Educator (7) Honor (7) Between father-son (6) Family-work (5) Homosexuality (5) Violence (5) Dysfunctional (3) Family-state (3) Suffering (3) Domination (2) Hero (2) Poverty in the family (2) Unborn (2) Between spouses/parents (2) Other single cases (4) Educator (11) Suffering (11) Responsible (7) Honor (7) Dysfunctional (6) Between spouses/parents (6) Violence (6) Domination (5) Hero (4) Family-work (4) Family-state (4) Nepotism (4) Change (3) Homosexuality (2) Between father-son (2) Other single cases (4) Poverty in the family (5) Family-work (5) Educator (4) Violence (4) Domination (3) Dysfunctional (3) Succession (3) Honor (2) Other single cases (8) Family-State (7) Family-work (4) Nepotism (2) Violence (2) Other single cases (5) Total 68 86 37 20 man of honor whose moral attitude influences in a positive or negative way the entire family's reputation and a suffering man because of the loss of his children. The fact that the same categories are more habitual among principal and secondary frames shows that the tendency is not accidental, but it illustrates the editorial profiles of the newspapers. A more significant difference among the more frequent categories of the frames seems to be the way to relate to the question of suffering in the family. While Italian journalists emphasize this subject in the first place using it as a principal overview, for their colleagues from the United States it is only a secondary frame.
Other important categories for The New York Times and Corriere della Sera are also significant for Polish newspapers, such as the frame 'parent educator,' especially in Gazeta Wyborcza, and 'suffering in the family' in Rzeczpospolita. In general, though, as Table 6 shows, the Polish press is focused on a different dimension of the paternal figure. The father is often presented in relation to the economic problems besetting the family, torn between family and professional duties which, most of the time, he can't reconcile, and finally as supported by the state law, especially with the right for paternity leave.
This data confirms the global similarities and differences in approaching the subject of fatherhood between the newspapers analyzed as observed in the quantitative analysis. On the pages of The New York Times and of Corriere della Sera, the question of the father of the family is present in around 85% of the days of the research with an average of two texts per day, i.e. in a permanent and systematic way. Regarding these two dailies, we can see a significant difference in the Polish press, both from the point of view of the importance of the topic and in the way of approaching it. The theme of fatherhood in Gazeta Wyborcza appears less frequently and less regularly, with an average of one article per day (including the supplements, it reaches 1.5 texts per day) and in Rzeczpospolita it is very irregular, with an average of one piece every two days.

Review of the natural common places
The review of the 20 frame categories that journalists are using to present the theme of fatherhood has helped to indicate 18 natural common places (t opoi) understood as Table 7. Frequency of secondary frames per newspaper in descending order.
(1) Spousal and family unity is a t opos which stands at the very core of marriage and the family. The spousal community is founded on a free, sincere, total and mutual giving between a man and a woman, which brings them to the unity in one body and transforms the man into a spouse/husband and father; and the woman into a spouse/wife and mother. This absolute and mutual gift of the spouses by its nature calls for their complete fidelity and indissoluble unity. In this way, the intimate union of the married couple constitutes the widest family community of parents and their children, of brothers and sisters, of relatives and their other family members. So, the family takes roots in the natural ties of body and blood and develops into the bonds of paternal-filial love, which recognizes and trusts parental authority.
Not only the frames which present concord or division between parents, or between generations, are based on this common place, but also the stories of the economic difficulties of the family in as much as they become a litmus test of the unity of its members.
A beautiful example of this common place can be found in the interview with Irena Szaszkiewiczowa , published in Wysokie Obcasy. The 95-year-old Polish artist and writer, interpreter of the satire Krakow-based theatre Piwnica pod Baranami, recalls 'her father's recipe for a perfect marriage.' 'My parents had celebrated the 25th anniversary of their wedding and everybody asked them, "What are you doing to live in such a harmony?" And my father replied: "Before  the wedding we made an agreement that I would make decisions concerning the important issues and my wife would decide on minor things. And during these 25 years there weren't any big issues." My mother laughed a lot about it.' They were truly such a perfect couple?
'A fantastic one. My father was always a very humorous person. Everywhere he went, even if for a few hours, something funny happened to him; when he came back he would tell us all about it. And my mother, because she was in another room and she could not hear well, was shouting, "Wait, don't start telling yet, I also want to listen to you!" If he had not been employed in agriculture, he would have been a good actor' (Szostak and Szaszkiewiczowa 2012).
In the style of a family anecdote, Irena shows the positive legacy of her father and mother: it is a good example of their spousal community, a model of their harmony and unity proved by a quarter of a century of a shared life. The example is so positive that it caused questions from the guests at their wedding anniversary and it is surprising for the journalist even today. The readers of his article nevertheless may not share the journalist's evident doubts that spousal unity is a precious value.
(2) Responsibility of the parents for their own children is a natural law, which is expressed in civil law. Paternal responsibility is based on the power entrusted to the parents to guard, protect, feed, educate, train, administrate and represent their underage children. In other words, both parents are responsible for providing for their children's material and spiritual needs.
An interesting example of this anthropological t opos can be found in the text entitled Before Birth, Dad's ID, published in The New York Times. It makes possible a meeting between the author of the text and his readers already at the very first stage of the text: 'It is an uncomfortable question that, in today's world, is often asked by expectant mothers who had more than one male partner at the time they became pregnant. Who is the father?
With more than half of births to women under 30 now out of wedlock, it is a question that may arise more often. Now blood tests are becoming available that can determine paternity as early as the eighth or ninth week of pregnancy, without an invasive procedure that could cause a miscarriage. Besides relieving anxiety, the test results might allow women to terminate a pregnancy if the preferred man is not the fatheror to continue it if he is.
Men who clearly know they are the father might be more willing to support the woman financially and emotionally during the pregnancy, which some studies suggest might lead to healthier babies.
And if the tests gain legal acceptance, some lawyers say, women and state governments might one day pursue child support payments without having to wait until the birth' (Pollack 2012).
The author of the article, upon describing a new technology of prenatal diagnostic which makes it possible to determine one's paternity with certainty, is building his text on the t opos of the father's responsibility for his son and his mother since the beginning of his life, i.e. from the baby's conception. Moreover, in the dominant modern culture where, as in the example above, extramarital or casual sexual relations are very common, it is impossible to escape from the fact that a man (father) can guarantee a pregnant woman (mother) emotional and financial support. Additionally, the journalist is stressing the responsibility of the father for his child since the beginning of his life. This emphasis not only presupposes that fatherhood starts from the moment of the baby's conception rather than from the moment of birth, but at the same time indicates in an indirect way (and maybe unconsciously) that human life has its precious value since its dawn's early light.
(3) Parents are the first and principal educators of their children. A mother and a father, because they gave life to their children, have moreover a duty to educate them. Therefore, parenthood is expressed not only in responsibly bearing children, but also and above all in their education, i.e. in making them grow within a sustainable formation of character and autonomy worthy of a human person. As human experience teaches us, the family is the place of the beginning of humanization and it is the first school of human, moral and religious virtues.
To illustrate this common natural place, let's see an article published in The New York Times. It is a review of the movie The Girl, which tells the story of Ashley (played by Abbie Cornish), a single mother who loses her job in a supermarket and finds herself in financial difficulties. Looking for the help of the father (Will Patton), she is drawn by him into the illegal smuggling of people from Mexico to the United States. In this way, Ashley meets Rosa (Maritza Santiago), a Mexican girl left by her family, and decides to bring her back to her native city in the state of Oaxaca. And, this shared trip radically changes the lives of both the movie's protagonists.
Although fatherhood is neither the main topic of the movie, nor the principal theme of the review, the journalist highlights in his article the natural concept of the relationship between a father and a son. The principal frame can be noticed in the title, A Daughter Stumbling in her Father's Footsteps (Dargis 2012) which refers to the idiomatic phrase 'following in his father's footsteps.' This expression includes a very ordinary concept in which the writer finds the readers easily. The phrase means to imitate the example of one's own father by either doing the same job or representing an aspect of the character of, or similar behavior to, the parent's. It is used very often in the American press by sports reporters who show the father figure behind the children's personal life and career and take it for granted as an explanation of their successes. Though, in the case under scrutiny, the parental example is not positive: it is the father who introduces his daughter to crime, so she walks in the footsteps of her father. Therefore, this is a negative example of a father who spoils his own daughter and influences her life in a bad way. And this educational anti-example of a parent for his daughter is the principal schema of the article.
Such a frame is based on a very natural common place which can be described in the following way: the father is the first and principal example for his children to follow. This is part of the educational, formative role of the father. If in general, the process of education is based on the principle expressed by the well-known saying 'words teach, examples attract,' this is even more valid for the educational process in the family. An example of the moral life of the father should attract his children in their integral growth and in this way should influence in a positive way their attitude and moral behavior.
(4) The family is a community of compassion and shared suffering. Suffering is not only a profoundly personal but also a social experience, especially when it is caused by the death of a relative. The grief that a family experiences through a strong and deep pain and sadness after a loss of a parent, a child or a spouse, reveals the existence of a profound and natural relationship and love between the family members. Sometimes, in the confrontation of a dramatic event, the family reveals and renews its unity and strengthens its solidarity. Moreover, suffering as an integrating element of a human life keeps alive its formative dimension.
To illustrate this common space, we analyze an article published on the pages of The New York Times on the day of the Sandy Hook massacre, on the outskirts of Newtown, Connecticut, US. On 14 December 2012 Adam Lanza, a 20-year-old man, opened fire inside an elementary school, killing 27 people, 20 of them 6 and 7-yearold children, committing suicide before the arrival of the police. As if this had not been enough, Lanza had killed his mother before leaving the house to begin his spree.
This horrible slaughter of children, of course, was the dominant argument (four of five articles) on the first page of the principal American daily on December 15. The main text and the photo concern children who were the first victims. Next to them are their parents, full of immense suffering. An article on the first page is entitled and shaped with a phrase of the parents, Who Would Do This to Our Poor Little Babies (Applebome and Wilson 2012). These words show an extreme pain and at the same time they are asking for the one responsible for this, and therefore for justice. Obviously, this touching and natural argument of suffering of mothers and fathers after the death of their children is an anthropological t opos where the journalists can easily find rapport with their readers.
(5) A family is a community of honor. To understand the concept of honor within the family context, two aspects should be remembered. On one hand, in opposition to the ancient proverb 'Fathers have eaten tart fruit and the teeth of their sons numbed,' (Ez 18:2) it is also true what the same prophet Ezechiel says later on, 'the child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child' (Ez 18:20). There is, therefore, no 'collective responsibility,' but only personal. That principle is valid for the whole society as well as for the family community. On the other hand, though it is trueas the present analysis of the journalistic text bears outthat the moral behavior of a family member influences the reputation of the whole family and it can be both a reason for pride or shame for the relatives. A lot is said about family honor, because all members of a family share a common honor, for better or worse. So, there is a social projection of the patrimony and the virtues or habits acquired from the members of someone's family in their actions.
Our analysis shows that when it comes to the term 'honor,' it is rarely used by journalists and has invariably a negative connotation (for example 'honor killing'). Therefore, the concept of this virtue is well disguised in the journalistic text in different shades of the frame. Out of the 11 articles, the father's crime (or mistake), not only tarnishes his own honor, an indispensable element of his authority, but also his children's, and this is the reason for their shame. In eight texts, the father's shame is for the crime done by the children. In five texts, it appears as a fundamental expression of the respect of the children toward their parents encapsulated in the fourth commandment of the Decalogue, 'Honor your father and your mother' (Ex 20:12). Two articles show paternal pride for the good behavior of his children. In one piece we can see the good moral behavior of the father as the cause of the understandable pride of his daughter and the text speaks about the father's aura. In conclusion, the study of honor presents the family in the press more frequently as a community of shame than of respect and pride.
An interesting example of this natural t opos can be found in the news published in a local section of The New York Times. The principal frame of the article concerns racism. Michael Daragjati, an ex-policeman from New York, who used a racist description to boast of having arrested a black person, was sentenced to nine months in jail for having violated human civil rights. The subject of the father of the family is secondary and it is incorporated in the text with the words of Daragjati, who begged the judge not to send him to jail, but to free him so that he can help others. For our study, his way of argumentation is of paramount importance: 'My biggest problem is that my daughters know I put bad people in jail,' he said tearfully. 'Now how do I explain to them that Daddy is in jail?' (Secred and Edwards 2012). Even if, as the judge answers, a former police agent uses his fatherhood in an instrumental way trying, 'to hide himself behind the family,' his argument hits a true 'string' of human nature and reveals a profound aspect of what happened. Not only did Michael Daragjati commit a crime of racism through his nasty moral behavior, but at the same time, as the father of the family, tarnished paternal honor, which is part of the authority of a parent in the education of his children. In this way, it can be seen that fatherhood is not only a man's function, but his identity and therefore concerns all of his being and actions.

Analysis of the cultural common places
Apart from the natural t opoi in our analysis, we have indicated also eight categories of common cultural places. Sometimes it happens that the anthropological t opoi are realized and molded by a given culture, or by its most common media representations, in a distorted way because of simplification, stereotype or dominant ideology, as it happens to those presented in Table 9.
Cultural t opoi were found in 46 articles, accounting for 13% of the total of the study. Although the articles promoting such an ideological vision of fatherhood can be examined in all the analyzed newspapers, they can be mostly found in Gazeta Wyborcza and its weekly supplements: its 15 texts based on the cultural t opoi represent more than 20% of the articles of our interest in this daily, while in the other  newspapers examined they constitute around 10%. It is significant that 10 out of 15 texts in Gazeta Wyborcza are published on the pages of its two weekly supplements: Du_ zy Format and Wysokie Obcasy, where the articles are longer and more in-depth. The figure of the father of the family is often portrayed in a biased way in regards to two current issues: feminism and homosexuality. In the first case a militant feminist who presents man-woman relationships as a clash between two sexes, and who sees, as a consequence, the father as potential aggressor against both his wife's and her children's life. It has to be said that the promotion of an authentic equality of the dignity between man and woman does not exclude the difference between two sexes which is realized in the complementarity of wife/mother and husband/father and their cooperation for the well-being of their children. Such a complementarity is omitted or hidden in the journalistic discourse of a feminist matrix, even if this is involuntary. In the second case, when there is a relationship having to do with the issue of homosexuality, hints to the 'struggle for equal rights' for LGTB people, can be seen woven into the journalistic narrative. There is no space for the opposite narrative, which supports the need not only to defend the natural right of a child to have a mother and a father, but also to promote the virtue of chastity as an alternative to the 'gay life style. ' It is noticeable that, underlying these two cultural t opoi there is a vision of freedom of choice as the only criterion and basis for a new morality, which finds its expression also in the other common places indicated in the analysis that are connected with the fatherhood issues. For example: marriage as a contract that can be entered into and dissolved on demand by the interested parties; parenthood as the absolute right to have or dispose of a child; euthanasia as a free option to decide about the end of life; and, in a more radical way, gender theory, which interprets the identity of a person as a social and cultural construct, which can be arbitrarily selected and changed.

Examination of the social virtues
The analysis of the interpretative schemes and the common anthropological and cultural places of the news on the fatherhood drove the research toward the discovery and examination of the anthropological roots of social virtues. Out of 159 examined articles (45%), only one dominant virtue has been indicated, while in 196 texts (55%) at least two are indicated. In the total of the 532 identified virtues, out of 297 cases, accounting for 56%, the virtues are presented in their full form, whereas in 235 cases, accounting for 44%, they are displayed as deformed. As Table 10 shows, the analysis of the articles on the father of the family has noted the presence of all the anthropological virtues of the sociality, even if in terms of quantity they appear in a very different way. Observantia (present in 37% of the examined texts) and pietas (30% of the items), are the 'strings' more habitually 'struck' by journalists to elaborate their articles where a child is concerned and, as a consequence, they become more 'audible' for their readers. Using another analogy, these two most frequent social virtues on the pages of the press 'paint' an image of the father of the family as a masculine figure who generates a child and who, as a result of his authority, makes him/her grow. So, this is a strong affirmation of the natural paternal-filial bond and recognition of parental power founded on authority; this statement is important not only on account of the quantity of texts, but also because a very positive image of fatherhood is portrayed since both virtues, observentia and pietas are present in the majority of instances.
Moreover, it is observed that apart from observance and piety, generosity, gratitude and obedience are also present more frequently in their authentic form instead of a deformed one. On the other hand, the rest of four anthropological roots of sociality, i.e. 'love, vindication, honor, and veracity' are portrayed more often as vices than virtues. Therefore, the image that emerges from the analysis of the social virtues in the press shows a positive side a figure of the father of the family: as the origin from whom one receives life and to whom therefore one is wholly indebted; as a legitimate authority and worthy of trust; as a giver of what he is and he has; as a benefactor to be recognized with filial gratitude; and as a member of society obedient to its laws, which accord with personal and community well-being. On the negative side, though, the father of the family is shown in the newspapers as an egoist who does not know how to love, i.e. to give himself to others (wife, children) totally and faithfully, and secondly as an unjust person who does not know how to give to others what rightly belongs to them. He is also depicted as a person who is not authentic, living a double life or as a man of bad moral reputation.
The analysis of the anthropological roots of the society shows also symptoms of some 'sicknesses' of current society which also concern family life. Three of these symptoms are particularly evident. In the first place, consumerism which penetrates the paternal-filial relationship and is revealed in confrontation with two intertwined virtues: generosity which prevails in its complete form and loving care which dominates in its missing form. So, there can be noticed a portrait of the father who tries to express and realize his paternal love through giving to his children what can be bought and sold, trying to compensate in this way for the shortages and failures in giving himself, a wealth much more demanding and which cannot be bought in any store or market. In other words, it is a profile of a parent who tries to 'vindicate' the lack of love, instead offering generosity in abundance. Love, though, cannot be replaced by something which can be bought or sold. A father who contents himself with exercising only one dimension of the virtue of generosity by giving things, is not able to satisfy the deeper needs of his children which are rooted in love. A child, indeed, not only has to be maintained economically by his parents, but also and above all be surrounded by their unconditional, faithful and responsible love where parenthood is realized.
The other 'sickness' of the modern society concerns the virtue of gratitude. On the one hand, we can see that many times this anthropological root of society manifests itself in its authentic form. On the other hand, instead, we can notice a rather low percentage of this social virtue in the articles analyzed. A marginal presence of the virtue of gratitude can be interpreted as a symptom of a civilization in which the elderly and the sick are regarded as a burden to be rid of. It is a society dominated by the mentality of indifference and the culture of profits, where there is neither honor nor space for more vulnerable people, who are neglected and marginalized. By the fact that in the majority of cases gratitude appears as a virtue, we can deduce that the 'culture of waste' is not clearly manifested so much by our words, but by our actions. Even if we as a society do not speak clearly about the exclusion of the elderly as a part of society, this is actually being done. All this indirectly indicates a great and urgent need to, 'reawaken the collective sense of gratitude, of appreciation, of hospitality, which makes the elderly person feel like a living part of his community' (Francis 2015).
In the third place, the marginal presence of the virtue of religiosity in the family highlights a grave problem of a breakdown in the way parents hand down their faith or religious values to the young (Francis 2013). Indeed, while the 'parent educator' is the most frequent among the study categories drawn out by the analysis (63 texts accounting for 16% of the total), its subcategory of the 'father educator of religion' is peripheral: it appears only in five articles and that is always as a secondary subject. This mirrors a real problem of the modern Western society: the family is no longer seen as an authentic space for religious formation and parents are no longer treated as the first witnesses to the faith for their children.

Conclusions
While American and Italian newspapers show similarity in the image of fatherhood they present, it strikingly differs from the one presented by the Polish ones. These similarities and differences are not only quantitative (number of the articles), but also qualitative. The dominant frames of The New York Times and Corriere della Sera offer an interpretation ad intra of fatherhood being focused more on the inner aspects of family life: responsibility, education, honor and suffering. The principal frames of Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita propose an ad extra vision of a figure of the father, concentrating more on the external dimension of the family: family-work relations, family policies end economic problems in the family.
We may presume that the roots of these differences are numerous and that they concern cultural diversity among Polish, Italian and American societies. Obviously, this working hypothesis calls for verification and scientific rationale through sociological research and cultural studies, which however are beyond this article. The results of such studies should be taken into consideration in the preparation of a strategy of promotion of the paternal figure in the mass media, if we want to efficiently realize it.
Other relevant data is that the bulk of the news regarding fatherhood has a negative news value, although such news represents a minority among the articles under scrutiny. By analogy, we can say that, as water of a lake is usually dirtier on the surface than at the bottom, in the same way the negative images stay often 'on the surface' of the news, as 'accumulating trash,' which at first glance seems more visible and gives the reader an impression of omnipresent and overbalanced negativity. Positive images, instead, are more often hidden in the layers of an article and are therefore less evident for the newspaper readers. In conclusion, newspapers do not miss stories on fatherhood, what is missing, though, is the willingness to promote and examine those ideas in depth.
The qualitative analysis aided the discovery of five frequent anthropological common places that are the base of the argumentation for almost 70% of the news about the father of the family in the analyzed newspapers. The most frequent natural t opoi are: Married people and families are considered happy only to the extent that they are united; lack of unity creates unhappiness. Parents are responsible for caring for their children, protecting them, feeding them, educating them, etc. Parents are the first and primary educators of their children. The family is a community based on compassion and shared suffering. The family is a community of honor: the moral attitude of one member of the family influences the reputation of the entire family and is a source of pride or shame for the other relatives.
The fact that journalists describing fatherhood refer mainly to the natural principal dimensions of a family community can be a precious consideration for those who look for an efficient promotion of core family values. Fatherhood is a true and spontaneous 'meeting point' where journalists, readers and society as a whole, can meet quite naturally.
However, the analysis shows that there are also cultural common places according to which the father-figure is mostly represented in an ideologized way, especially when the news is associated with current themes, such as feminism and homosexuality. In the first case, militant feminism describes relations between men and women as if there were a battle between the sexes and consequently offers a representation of the father as an aggressor who puts the lives of his wife and children in jeopardy. In the second case, that of homosexuality, the battle for the 'the rights of homosexuals' speaks out a very powerful social lobby trying to set the agenda for the mass media regarding these issues.
The data of our research mirrors a paradox of the attitude of the modern society toward the figure of the father of the family. On the one hand, the analysis shows the current ideologies which neglect the figure of the father and the symptoms of the crisis which affects many families, especially consumerism and utilitarianism, which ruin relations between parents and their children. On the other hand, the study highlights the presence of positive signs of an authentic rebirth of interest in the paternal figure, which can be noticed already in the quantity of the news regarding the issue of fatherhood and in its prevailing positive aspect, but first and foremost in a strong affirmation of the father as the origin of life for the children, their principal educator and the figure responsible for the family.
Summarizing, the data of our case studies seems to confirm the opinion of Massimo Recalcati (2015), an Italian psychoanalyst: contemporary societies are no longer described symbolically by the myth of Oedipus, the assassin of his own father, but much more by the story of Telemachus, a son who misses his father and waits for his return. In all the newspapers we have found only 13 texts of this type. My guess is that you cannot speak about fatherhood indifferently, because the father of the family is a person towards whom it is impossible to be neutral 'by default.' They are, instead, texts in which are described at least two different examples, a positive father with a negative father, and for that reason the image of fatherhood is balanced in the general evaluation of the text.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.