1 Shifting the Terror frame How 9/11 changed the framing of Terrorist events Nel Ruigrok * , Wouter van Atteveldt † , Rens Vliegenthart † * ASCOR † Faculty of Social Sciences University of Amsterdam Free University Amsterdam Kloveniersburgwal 48 De Boelelaan 1081 1012 CX Amsterdam 1081 HV Amsterdam [email protected][email protected], [email protected]Abstract The images of the second plane flying into the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001 shook the world and shaped the way terrorism would be reported on in the years afterwards. Analyzing all articles on terror in 4 newspapers in the US and UK from 1996 to 2006, we conducted an automated study of the way terrorism events were framed before and after 9/11. We found that, especially for the US, 9/11 was the defining moment: both normal terrorism coverage and event peaks were higher after 9/11; 9/11 caused a permanent frame shift from diagnosis to prognosis and from the enemy as criminals to focusing on fanatical Muslims as the enemy; and 9/11 was literally used as the point of reference in describing later terrorism events. We also investigated the short-term dynamics after a terrorism event, and found that in the first week there is a peak in frame variation and diagnosis, while the amount of coverage only peaks in the second or third week, which sees a decrease in the amount of frames used and a focus on prognosis. Introduction The violent terrorist attacks in the last decade form clear examples of Wolfsfeld’s (1997) argument that events determine media coverage to a great extent. Media on their turn determine the images that the public receives by selecting certain topics and excluding others. Being highly dependent on the media as their main source of information concerning far away happenings, journalists create a “window on the world” (Tuchman 1978: ix) for their audiences. Besides the influence on the world view of the public in choosing topics, these media give the events meaning by transforming them into words and images. Especially during a sudden, dramatic event, people depend on these journalistic choices how to perceive the event. It is commonly understood that the presentation of events in the news coverage has a considerable impact on how the audience feel about the particular event being described, and how we interpret the event and other related issues (Pan and Kosicki, 2001). From a journalistic point of view an unexpected dramatic occurrence, or key event, can lower the future threshold for news selection in such a way that occurrences that resemble the key event are covered more often, increasing the effect the news might have (Brosius
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1
Shifting the Terror frame
How 9/11 changed the framing of Terrorist events
Nel Ruigrok*, Wouter van Atteveldt†, Rens Vliegenthart†
The images of the second plane flying into the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001 shook the world and shaped the way terrorism would be reported on in
the years afterwards. Analyzing all articles on terror in 4 newspapers in the US
and UK from 1996 to 2006, we conducted an automated study of the way
terrorism events were framed before and after 9/11.
We found that, especially for the US, 9/11 was the defining moment: both normal
terrorism coverage and event peaks were higher after 9/11; 9/11 caused a
permanent frame shift from diagnosis to prognosis and from the enemy as criminals to focusing on fanatical Muslims as the enemy; and 9/11 was literally
used as the point of reference in describing later terrorism events.
We also investigated the short-term dynamics after a terrorism event, and found
that in the first week there is a peak in frame variation and diagnosis, while the
amount of coverage only peaks in the second or third week, which sees a decrease
in the amount of frames used and a focus on prognosis.
Introduction
The violent terrorist attacks in the last decade form clear examples of Wolfsfeld’s (1997)
argument that events determine media coverage to a great extent. Media on their turn
determine the images that the public receives by selecting certain topics and excluding
others. Being highly dependent on the media as their main source of information
concerning far away happenings, journalists create a “window on the world” (Tuchman
1978: ix) for their audiences.
Besides the influence on the world view of the public in choosing topics, these media give
the events meaning by transforming them into words and images. Especially during a
sudden, dramatic event, people depend on these journalistic choices how to perceive the
event. It is commonly understood that the presentation of events in the news coverage has
a considerable impact on how the audience feel about the particular event being described,
and how we interpret the event and other related issues (Pan and Kosicki, 2001).
From a journalistic point of view an unexpected dramatic occurrence, or key event, can
lower the future threshold for news selection in such a way that occurrences that resemble
the key event are covered more often, increasing the effect the news might have (Brosius
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& Zillmann, 2000). Moreover, the initial news images provide a ready-made framework in
which related and further events can be presented. In this way the initial coverage is turned
into a news icon, that can be defined as “a powerful condensational image, arising out of a
news event” (Bennett and Lawrence, 1995, p.22). For example during the war in Bosnia,
the pictures of the emaciated men behind barbed wire in the ‘concentration camp’ of
Omarska, in which the war was directly compared with the Holocaust, formed such a news
icon. Politicians, the public, and journalists all embarked on a crusade to free the Muslims
from the evil Serbs. This framework reinforced by a congruence of opinion among
journalists, politicians and elites, already provided the interpretations for journalists. The
news coverage of this ‘event’ was highly emotional and portrayed the parties involved in
clearly distinguishable ways, with the Serbs being the bad guys and the Muslims being
their victims. This initial framework caused a stereotyped one-sided news coverage in
western media of the subsequent years of war (NIOD, 2002; Ruigrok, 2005).
Currently the world is confronted with a global conflict in which parts of the Muslim
population play an important role. However, this time not as the victims, but as the culprits
of several attacks to ‘our’ Western ‘values’. The War on Terror, initiated by the United
States after the attacks on 11 September 2001, is widely seen as a conflict between the
Western countries and the Islamitic countries, especially in the Middle East. With the
attacks on the early morning of 11 September 2001 the US was touched right in the heart.
The sensational attacks, with instant coverage making millions around the globe witness of
the second plane flying into the WTC building, destroyed many lives and disrupted the
entire society. The news about the events found its way into every local rag around the
world. Not only was the news covered everywhere, the coverage was accompanied with
highly emotional language and images. Moreover, the portrayal of the protagonists were
clear, with the terrorists of Al Queda being the ‘bad guys’ and the Americans being the
‘good guys’ (Seib, 2004). The tone was set within the first days and caused similar
coverage after de US decided to bomb Afghanistan and declared the War on Terror against
all terrorists and the ‘Rogue states’, sponsoring or protecting them. In the running up to the
Iraqi war the news coverage continued within this initial frame (Aday, 2005).
Terrorism, however, was not a new phenomenon in 2001, and the US had been hurt
before, with the bombings of the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the suicide
bombing on the Navy guided missile destroyer USS Cole in 2000. In fact, according to
American statistics there has been an estimate of 400 terrorist acts per year in the 90s
(Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, 2001).
This raises the question what differential consequences events can have on news coverage,
not only looking at the 9/11 attacks but also before these attacks and afterwards. We
compare its effects on news framing with other events and investigate whether it has been
really such a ‘world changing’ happening. More specifically, we are interested if the
attacks following 9/11, such as the Bombs in Bali, the Train in Madrid and the Subway in
London reinforced or weakened the existing frames. Or to put it differently: which events
caused a shift in the frames in the news, and were these shifts durable or permanent? In
this study we will look at news coverage about terrorism and Islam in US, British and
Dutch newspapers from 1996 to 2007. Using associative framing we will determine the
way in which a number of terrorist attacks caused shifts in frames concerning terrorism,
the perpetrators, the causes and remedies.
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Theoretical Considerations
Associative framing
The study of framing gained an important place in the field of communication research
and became the most studied concept in the recent years. One of the most common
definition of framing is provided by Entman (1993) who describes framing as selecting
“some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text,
in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral
evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described." The definition
shows already the multi-facet aspect of framing research. It is about selection, salience,
and recommendation, including not only the communicator but also the audience. As
Entman (1993) points out there are at least four locations of framing that can be studied:
the communicator, the text, the receiver and the culture. Frames as found in texts, news
frames, form the core interest of numerous mass media studies. Cappella and Hall
Jamieson (1997, p.39-40) describe news frames as “those rhetorical and stylistic choices,
reliably identified in news, that alter the interpretations of the topics treated and are a
consistent part of the news environment.” Examples of news frames are for example
‘strategic’ or ‘game’ frames which are often found in coverage of political campaigns
(Patterson, 1993). Other examples of news frames are ‘conflict’ and personalization
frames (Price & Tewksburry, 1997) or episodic versus thematic frames as distinguished by
Iyengar (1991).
With respect to the occurrence of framing at different levels we see a distinction in studies
examining media frames and research into audience frames (Cappella and Jamieson 1997;
Entman 1993; Scheufele 1999). The former branch of research focuses on how issues are
presented in the news (Norris 1995; Patterson 1993; Semetko and Valkenburg 2000) while
the latter branch of research focuses on how individuals perceive and interpret issues
presented to them (Domke, Shah, and Wackman 1998; Nelson, Clawson, and Oxley 1997;
Price, Tewksbury, and Power 1997; Rhee 1997; Valkenburg, Semetko, and de Vreese
1999). A combination of these branches is found in few studies examining both media
frames and the effects of these frames on the public (e.g. Cappella and Jamieson 1997;
Iyengar 1991; Neuman, et al. 1992). This points towards two separate questions within the
study of framing: “What are frames?” and “How are frames transferred between media
and audience?” A third important question, however, is largely neglected. This question is
“Where do frames come from?” and deals with the origins of framing and frame variation
(see Snow et al., forthcoming). In this paper, we do not specifically address the effects of
framing, but rather focus on its origins and more specifically the role of key events in the
process of frame building and framing shifts. Before discussing this, some conceptual
clarification of the fuzzy concept of framing is required.
News Frames, Equivalency Frames, and Emphasis Frames
With respect to the question of what frames actually are, research shows a distinction
between equivalency frames and emphasis frames. ‘Equivalency Frames’ present an issue
in different ways with “the use of different, but logically equivalent, words or phrases”
(Druckman 2001: 228), causing a major change in audience preference when the same
problem is presented in different wordings, such as rescuing some versus sacrificing others
(Quattrone and Tversky 1988; Tversky and Kahneman 1981). Emphasis frames, later
called “issue framing” (Druckman 2004), on the other hand, highlight a particular “subset
of potentially relevant considerations” (Druckman 2004: 672). In line with Entman’s
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definition, issue framing can be defined as a process of selecting and emphasizing certain
aspects of an issue on the basis of which the audience can evaluate the issue described or
the protagonists associated with the issues.
We will focus on issue framing rather than equivalency framing, since we are interested in
the relationship between different concepts and their attributes, rather than in the different
descriptions of a certain concept. Issue frames form a substantial part of the research on
news frames. Cappella and Jamieson (1997: 39-40) describe news frames as “those
rhetorical and stylistic choices, reliably identified in news, that alter the interpretations of
the topics treated and are a consistent part of the news environment.” Examples of news
frames are ‘strategic’ or ‘game’ frames, which are often found in coverage of political
campaigns (Patterson 1993). Other examples of news frames are ‘conflict’ and
personalization frames (Price and Tewksbury 1997) or episodic versus thematic frames as
distinguished by Iyengar (1991). Within the context of social movements Snow and
Benford (1988) distinguish three forms of frames that can be found in news coverage.
Diagnostic framing involves the identification of an event or social problem that is in need
of change. Prognostic framing proposes a solution to the observed problem and proposes
types of action. Finally, motivational framing represents a call to action as well as the
rationale for engaging in the proposed action. This research is in line with Entman’s
definition with respect to the “problem definition” and “causal interpretation, moral
evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described” and can also be
considered within conflict situations. As Eilders (2000: 426) concluded in here research
into news coverage about the Kosovo war “Taken together, all newspapers called attention
to the prognostic aspects of the war. Diagnostic and identity-related aspects attracted little
attention” (Eilders, 200: 426).
The framing process
The second question mentioned above—How are frames transferred from the media to the
audience?—also leads to a number of different hypotheses. Some researchers consider
framing as a linear transfer of salience process, straight from the sender into the audience
(Eagley and Chaiken 1998; Zaller 1992; Zaller 1994). Other researchers, however,
consider the framing process as an interaction between message content and the
interpreter's social knowledge. This interaction process leads to a construction of a mental
model as a resulting state of interpretation (Rhee 1997). Besides the creation of these
mental models, the framing process can trigger a mental model or frame that already exists
within the receiver’s perception. Graber (1988) describes the way people use schematic
thinking to handle information. They extract only those limited amounts of information
from news stories that they consider important for incorporation into their schemata. Snow
and Benford (1988) state in this respect that media frames and audience frames interact
through ‘frame alignment’ and ‘frame resonance’ (see also Snow et al. 1986).The
construction of mental models, schemata or frames is a central part of the cognitive
approach to framing (D’Angelo, 2002). Grounded in cognitive psychology, the approach
uses the associative network model of human memory (Collins and Quillian 1969),
proposing that the concepts in semantic memory are represented as nodes in a complex
hierarchical network. Each concept in the network is directly related to other related
concepts. Minsky (1975) connected this view to framing when he defined a frame as a
structure containing various pieces of information. These discursive or mental structures
are closely related to the description of a schema, which is “a cognitive structure that
represents knowledge about a concept or type of stimulus, including its attributes and the
5
relation among those attributes,” (Fiske and Taylor 1991: 98). These cognitive structures
are based on prior knowledge (Fiske and Linville 1980).
Associative framing: the common denominator
As discussed above, framing study contains many perspectives and research lines. We
perceive, however, a common denominator in that many studies base the idea of a frame
on associations, either between concepts, concepts and attributes, or on more complex
networks of concepts. In this study, therefore, we will focus on what we call ‘associative
framing.’
Associative frames consist of associations between concepts and other concepts, where
‘concepts’ is a general term that can denote actors, issues, and attributes. From the point of
view of the cognitive perspective, these frames refer to the earlier described schemata of
interpretation (Goffman 1974), and the main associations in a message can be seen as its
“central organizing idea” (Gamson and Modigliani 1987).
As mentioned previously, in this paper we follow the distinction in diagnostic, prognostic
and motivational framing as has been proposed by Snow and Benford (1988) for the study
of social movements’ communication to their (potential) participants. Previous studies
have found this distinction of conceptual utility for the study of newspaper coverage as
well (Snow et al. forthcoming, Roggeband and Vliegenthart 2007), though motivational
framing elements are strongly connected to the specific aims and goals of social
movements and are far less present in media coverage. Therefore, we limit ourselves to a
division in diagnostic and prognostic framing elements. This division neatly fits in the
associative framing approach, since both diagnostic and prognostic framing elements are
well represented in a network of associations between concepts.
Framing Terrorist events
In their seminal work into media events Dayan and Katz (1992, pp.196/197) define events
as “dominating televised occasions based on interruption and withdrawal from routine
broadcast schedules.” Overall studies show that major dramatic events increase media
coverage to a great extent. Moreover, media coverage goes beyond the actual event toward
all kinds of related topics (Kepplinger & Habermeir, 1995; Lawrence & Bennett, 2000;
Vasterman, 2005). Besides the increased attention paid to the event, the event might also
change the way in which the issue is portrayed in the media. They can be seen as “critical
discourse moments” in which media can reframe the event and the related issues (Chilton,
1987; Gamson, 1992). Brosius and Eps (1995) for example, studied the impact of four so-
called “key events” on news selection in the case of violence against aliens and asylum
seekers in Germany. They found that the amount, as well as the shape, of coverage
increased significantly after these key events. According to Brosius and Eps (1995: 407),
key events have a prototyping quality, giving dramatic events meaning by constructing
them within a simplified framework. Such frameworks will reduce ambiguity, evoke
myths or prejudices, establish associations, and reinforcing culturally based ideas (Becker,
1995; Kitzinger, 2000). The effect of these tendencies according to Kepplinger and
Habermeier (1995, 389) is that event-based coverage creates ‘the false impression that
events accumulate and problems become more urgent. ’
Studies into news events show that within a short time span, with repeating coverage in all
major media outlets specific news coverage can easily become a news icon, a prototype
(Brosius and Eps, 1995; Bennett and Lawrence, 1995). Such icon is capable of condensing
the issue at hand with all its complexities into one striking image. With respect to the news
6
coverage a news icon provides journalists rich narrative material (Hoskins, 2006; Aday,
2005). One of the characters of a news icon is the fact that this coverage survives the
initial story and reappears in a wide variety of related news contexts. In these cases the
news icon will serve as a definitional cue for new events. As a consequence news icons
can trigger or reinforce existing frames, such as patriotism, or military supremacy. With
news media routinely drawing upon past images, video, phrases, people, places and
events, as well as other media, to locate and to shape what today passes as ‘news’
(Hoskins, 2006), icons can over time turn into media templates. Media templates as
Kitzinger (2000) argues differ from icons in that they are “defined by their retrospective
use in secondary reporting rather than contemporaneous coverage”. Media templates
therefore explain current events, by referring to an ongoing problem “Templates are used
to highlight patterns in particular issues or social problems.” (Ktizinger, 2000, 76).With
respect to the Bosnian war the pictures of the detention camps became a news icon and
media template, while with respect to the war on terrorism the second plane flying into the
WTC tower fulfilled this role for future coverage.
Terrorist events: the impact of 9/11
9/11 caused a major shift in the framing of terrorist attacks. A study into the news
coverage of a Swedish newspaper about terrorist attacks in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998,
and Madrid in 2004, showed a significant difference in the amount of attention paid to
both events (Persson 2004). Madrid received far more attention than the African countries.
Moreover, the study reveals differences in the interpretation of the events. Kenya and
Tanzania were framed as a tragedy and crime, while Madrid was a moral outrage everyone
should care about; terrorism was labeled as something ‘new,’ ‘Islamic’ and ‘global’, The
description of the causes of terrorism remained very limited in the news (Persson 2004:
36).
Whereas the attacks in Kenya and Tanzania were covered with a focus on the causes as
well as the actions to take afterwards, the coverage about 9/11 focused more heavily on
the actions to take as retaliation. Addressing the nation on September 20, President Bush
said, ‘‘On September 11th, [the] enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our
country’’ (Bush, 2001, para. 12). With the American government pleading for a war on
terror we see this reflected in the news coverage. As Ryan (2004) found while studying the
editorials of 10 newspapers in the US, the most important remedy after 9/11 was put in a
‘war on terrorism’ frame. No editorials argued against military intervention or took the
time to discuss the possible consequences of such action. Other research found the same
patterns. Marvin Kalb and Stephen Hess (2003: 2) argue that the horrific events 9/11
instantly created a new focus on American national purpose, forcefully articulated by the
president, and a new framing device for the media: The war on terrorism. Norris et al
(2003: 4) argue that 9/11 is a “symbolizing critical culture shift in the predominant news
frame used by the American mass media for understanding issues of national security etc.”
(Norris et al 2003: 4).
In line with Bird’s argument (1990: 380) that journalists perform the role of storytellers
that use ‘general themes’ and put them into ‘established formulae’, researchers found that
the subsequent news coverage about terrorism was framed within certain master frames.
9/11 became a media template providing the framework in which terrorism is perceived.
In line with other studies into key events (see Kepplinger and Habemeier, 1995; Brosius
and Eps,1995), related topics also saw a change in the coverage. Ross and Bantimaroudis
(2006) for example found that that The New York Times covered Israel and the Palestinian
7
territories more frequently and in more diverse ways in the 6 months after September
2001.
The media template of the War on Terror was also found in the news coverage when the
US was preparing to go to war in Iraq. President Bush justified this initiative claiming that
Saddam Hussein was implicated in the 9/11 attacks on the United States and had not
complied with United Nations (UN) requirements about weapons inspections. In addition
he stated that Hussein still possessed numerous weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that
he planned to use against the United States as well as deliver to terrorists. Fitting perfectly
well in the template, these views were taken over easily by the media, without counter
arguments. As Fried (2005: 131) concluded in her study into the news coverage of
newsmagazines in the running up to the Iraqi war “Terrorism and Americans’ fears about
it provided a substantial context to coverage of Iraq before the war.” The New York
Times even apologized recently for its one-sided news coverage in the build up to the Iraqi
war. Ombudsman Daniel Okrent (2004) states that the newspaper “fell for
misinformation,” and concluded that “the failure was not individual, but institutional.”
With respect to the news coverage before and after 9/11 we expect changes, both in the
amount of news coverage as well as the frames in which the news about terrorism is
covered.
Our first hypothesis deals with the attention for the issue of terrorism and is rather
straightforward. More than any other event the 9/11 attacks dominated the political and
media agenda for a long period in time and therefore, we hypothesize that:
H1a. The amount of attention for terror increases significantly after the 9/11 attacks
H1b. The peaks caused by events after 9/11 are higher than before 9/11
Our second hypothesis considers the shift of framing from diagnostic to prognostic
elements. The initial coverage, right after 9/11, is likely to focus upon the possible reasons
for the attacks and the attribution of blame to certain actors. After a while, the focus is
likely to shift to more prognostic framing, focusing on the question what needs to be done
to prevent similar events to occur in the future (see Snow et al. forthcoming for a similar
argument).
H2. Framing shows a shift from diagnostic to prognostic framing
The third hypothesis deals with the question how 9/11 has altered the framing of the issue.
Here, we hypothesize the icon-function that 9/11 has. This function is likely to be most
present in diagnostic framing, since it functions as a prototype that helps to make sense of
the diagnostic interpretation (‘what happened?’ and ‘what is going on?’) of other events.
Therefore, our third hypothesis is:
H3. Regarding diagnostic framing, with 9/11 being an icon, reference is made to this
event, more significantly than any other preceding attack.
We argue, however, that the icon-function is contingent upon the proximity
(geographically as well as culturally) of the event. More specifically, we expect that for
the United Kingdom the Metro bombings have led to a change in the event that has taken
up the role as main icon:
H3a: for the British newspapers the London attacks will become an icon,
supplanting the news icon of 9/11
Finally we will focus on the aspect of temporality. “Time matters,” as Abbot (2001)
argues and therefore we expect that also frame shifts within the framing of the conflict. In
8
the initial phase right after an event, numerous actors will try to bring forward different
interpretations of it. After some time, it is likely that some consensus is reached and some
form of frame-crystallization takes place (Snow et al. forthcoming). Therefore, we expect
that after an initial diffuse picture of numerous frames, in the longer run a limited number
of frames will dominate the news coverage:
H4: After initial a huge number of frames right after 9/11, the variation will decrease
over time
Events and emotions
During recent years we see an overall change in the news coverage of catastrophes,
accidents and awful happenings, focusing more on human aspects of the issue at hand,
including a rise in the emotional aspects of the event. Slattery et al (2001, 298) found “a
marked increase in embedded sensationalism/human interest” while Kitch (2000) argues
that ordinary people’s grievances after a dreadful happening is becoming a news story
itself.
When looking at tragic events, and especially at events becoming a media template, the
coverage is often accompanied by a lot of emotions. Several scholars have argued that
extraordinary tragic events are reported on in a striking similar frame, including an
increased number of human and emotional aspects. Some studies even show a national
consensus and unity born out of mourning together ( Kitch, 2000, 2003; Linenthal, 2001;
Pantti, 2005;Pantti and Wieten, 2005). According to Rosenthal (2003), the news media
represent crises as “crucial catalysts of … collective emotions”
One such striking emotion is fear, which is a powerful emotion. Fear can draw people
together, seeking safety in numbers. A situation in which society faces a common threat,
such as a flood, hard winters, or from other groups, has often had a positive effect on
communities, strengthening bonds that might otherwise have been weak, establishing a
sphere of community where instead there would only have been individuals. The same
effect is found when a society collectively mourns victims, such as a public figure being
murdered. News coverage about such an event can create a feeling of temporary national
consensus, ‘‘a nationwide bereaved community’’ (Linenthal, 2001, p. 111), in an
otherwise devided society (Pantti and Wieten, 2005).
9/11 and emotional coverage
The emotional elements were also traced in the news coverage about 9/11. Studying
journalism about the 9/11 attacks, researchers show that television coverage put a high
level of emotions in the footage with repeated showing of horrific images and citizens'
reactions, and news anchors' controlled but clearly visible displays of emotions (Carey,
2002; Schudson, 2002). With reports live from “Ground Zero” and the Pentagon including
ordinary citizens the content of television coverage included emotionally-involved
individuals. In a comparative study into emotional cues in both newspapers and television
coverage of 9/11 Cho et al (2003) found that in both media emotional cues were found,
even stronger in the television news transcripts. The emotionality lasted in within the
dominant ‘war on terror’ frame. As Clausen (2003: 113) concluded after researching the
coverage of the first commemoration of 9/11: “Stories were framed, angled, geared and
worded to suit the emotional and cognitive framework of audiences at home.” The same is
true for the news coverage of the London attacks. Hoskins (2006: 464) argues that a
significant proportion of the mainstream media reports about the attacks “focused around
the ‘public mood’ of shock, fear and resoluteness.”
9
With respect to the framing of the terrorist attacks we expect a change in the emotional
news coverage after the 9/11 attack
H5: The 9/11 attack caused an increased attention to emotional news coverage
regarding the issue of terrorism.
Framing the other
When talking about tragic events that might cause fear and other related emotions, part of
the news coverage immediately turns towards the human side of the happenings, both the
culprits and the victims. As we saw in the example of the Omarska detention camps, the
distinction between good guys and bad guys was easily made and continued on in
subsequent news coverage. A news event therefore has the power to define this distinction
“through priming or framing, events might also guide the positive or negative evaluation
of issues or persons” (Brosius and Eps, 1995: 408). Often the scapegoating starts when
people feel threatened by the events and the fear of new future events. Glassner’s (2003)
provides clear examples of this reciprocal relationship. The diagnoses of the external
threat often employ the devise of scapegoating to demonstrate the immediacy and
relevance of the danger. In describing the scapegoat, news media tend to use simplified
images, creating a distinction between the victims and culprits, by portraying the latter as
‘others’. Enemies and villains are the most extreme form of the Other, and they are
frequently portrayed as evil to make them easier to hate (Harle, 2000, pp. 11-2): ‘‘The evil
Other is, actually, the enemy of God, and the war against it is a holy war’’
9/11 and framing the other
After 9/11, journalists embraced enthusiastically the new framework of ‘war on terror’, in
order to interpret the ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’ of a state. Studies investigated the portrayal
of Muslims in the media before and after 9/11 and found different results. Nacos and
Torres-Reyna (2003: 151) found a shift from “limited and stereotypical coverage in the
pre-9/11 period to a more comprehensive, inclusive, and less stereotypical news
presentation.” The researchers found that not only more access was granted to Muslims,
they also found a difference in the content of the news. Whereas the media associated
Muslims with negative and stereotypical topics before 9/11, afterwards they focused on a
bigger range of topics. Moreover the researchers found a shift from episodic framing
towards more thematic framing patterns. As one expert in the field pointed out as early as
1981, the cultures and peoples of the Middle East “are not easily explained in quick two-
minute network news stories” (Shaheen 1981).Other researchers, however, argue that after
the initial period of disorientation, news coverage recaptured the old frames in which they
shaped the news about Arabs, associating them with violence, terror and Islam (Karim
2002: 12; see also Persson 2004). These findings are in line with the research of Brosius
and Eps (1995) and the stereotypes of asylum seekers in Germany.
Research into the news coverage of the Bali bombings show the same pattern, with a
portrayal of the bombers as terrorists and as a continuous threat. They were also portrayed
as militants, and Muslim radicals. The tone of the stories indicated that the enemy was
identified as members of Al Qaeda, 'Muslim hardliners', 'religious fanatics', and 'Muslim
radicals'.
Researching the news coverage about Bin Laden after the attacks Winch (2005) concludes
that the Al Qaeda leader was mainly described in news reports as a savage, uncivilized and
barbarian.
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In line with these researchers we expect an important shift of the frame in which the
perpetrators of attacks are covered.
H6: 9/11 caused a major shift in the news coverage about the perpetrators of terrorist
attacks from criminals towards Islamic fanatics causing a threat to the world.
Methodology
This study analyzes the coverage of the issue of Terrorism in the United States and the
United Kingdom from the 1st of January 1996 until the 31
st of December 2006. For each
country, we analyzed two newspapers, one ‘quality’ broadsheet paper (the Washington
Post and The Guardian) and one ‘popular’ newspaper (the USA Today and The Sun), and
included all articles in the Lexis Nexis database that included ‘terror*’, i.e. any word
beginning with ‘terror’, yielding a total of 87452 articles. Table 1 shows the amount of
articles and total frequency of ‘terror*’ words per medium per year.
Table 1: Numbers of hits and articles containing ‘terror*’ in the studies period
UK US
The Guardian The Sun1 USA Today Washington Post Total