Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Do media frame attacks with Muslim perpetrators as “terrorism” and attacks with White perpetrators as the result of “mental illness”? Despite public speculation and limited academic work with relatively small subsets of cases, there have been no systematic analyses of potential biases in how media frame terrorism. We addressed this gap by examining the text of print news coverage of all terrorist attacks in the United States between 2006 and 2015. Controlling for fatalities, affiliation with a group, and existing mental illness, the odds that an article references terrorism are approximately five times greater for a Muslim versus a non-Muslim perpetrator. In contrast, the odds that an article references mental illness do not significantly differ between White and non-White perpetrators. Results partially confirm public speculation and are robust against numerous alternative explanations. Differences in media framing can influence public (mis)perceptions of violence and threats, and ultimately harm counterterrorism policy.

Keywords

terrorism mental illness news coverage media framing

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alsultany

(2012). Arabs and Muslims in the media: Race and representation after 9/11. New York University Press.

Altheide

D. L.

(1987). Reflections: Ethnographic content analysis. Qualitative Sociology, 10(1), 65–77. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00988269

Appelbaum

P. S.

Swanson

J. W.

(2010). Gun laws and mental illness: How sensible are the current restrictions? Psychiatric Services, 61(7), 652–654. https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.2010.61.7.652

Arva

Idris

Pervez

(2017, August 31). Almost all news coverage of the Barcelona attack mentioned terrorism. Very little coverage of Charlottesville did. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/

Barry

A. M.

(1997). Visual intelligence: Perception, image, and manipulation in visual communication. SUNY Press.

Beale

S. J.

Sterck

Slingeneyer

Lits

G. P.

(2019). What does the ‘terrorist’ label really do? Measuring and explaining the effects of ‘terrorist’ an ‘Islamist’ categories. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 42(5), 520–540. https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610x.2017.1393902

Bekkers

Beunders

Edwards

Moody

(2011). New media, micromobilization, and political agenda setting: Crossover effects in political mobilization and media usage. Information Society, 27(4), 201–219. https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2011.583812

Bryant

Miron

(2004). Theory and research in mass communication. Journal of Communication, 54(4), 662–704. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2004.tb02650.x

Bump

(2015, June 19). Why we shouldn’t call Dylann roof a terrorism. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/

10.

Caumont

(2013, October 16). 12 trends shaping digital news. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org

11.

Chermak

S. M.

Gruenewald

(2006). The media’s coverage of domestic terrorism. Justice Quarterly, 23(4), 428–461. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418820600985305

12.

Corner

Gill

(2015). A false dichotomy? Mental illness and lone-actor terrorism. Law and Human Behavior, 39(1), 23–34. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000102

13.

D’Orazio

Salehyan

(2018). Who is a terrorist? Ethnicity, group affiliation, and understandings of political violence. International Interactions, 44(6), 1017–1039. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050629.2018.1500911

14.

Dixon

T. L.

(2017). Good guys are still always in white? Positive change and continued misrepresentation of race and crime on local television news. Communication Research, 44(6), 775–792. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650215579223

15.

Dixon

T. L.

Linz

D. G.

(2000). Race and the misrepresentation of victimization on local television news. Communication Research, 27(5), 547–573. https://doi.org/10.1177/009365000027005001

16.

Dixon

T. L.

Williams

C. L.

(2015). The changing misrepresentation of race and crime on network and cable news. Journal of Communication, 65(1), 24–39. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12133

17.

Dolliver

M. J.

Kearns

E. M.

(2019). Is it terrorism?: Public perceptions, media, and labeling the Las Vegas shooting. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2019, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2019.1647673

18.

Druckman

J. N.

(2001). The implications of framing effects for citizen competence. Political Behavior, 23(3), 225–256. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015006907312

19.

Druckman

J. N.

Fein

Leeper

T. J.

(2012). A source of bias in public opinion stability. American Political Science Review, 106(2), 430–454. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055412000123

20.

Entman

R. M.

(1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1993.tb01304.x

21.

Gade

E. K.

Card

Dreier

S. K.

Smith

N. A.

(2018, July 18–21). What counts as terrorism? An examination of terrorist designations among US mass shootings. Political Methodology Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, UT, United States.

22.

Gerbner

(1998). Cultivation analysis: An overview. Mass Communication and Society, 1(3–4), 175–194. https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.1998.9677855

23.

Gilliam

F. D.

Jr. Iyengar

(2000). Prime suspects: The influence of local television news on the viewing public. American Journal of Political Science, 44(3), 560–573. https://doi.org/10.2307/2669264

24.

Gitlin

(1978). Media sociology: The dominant paradigm. Theory & Society, 6(2), 205–253. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01681751

25.

Greenaway

K. H.

Cruwys

(2018). The source model of intergroup threat: Responding to internal and external threats. American Psychologist, 74(2), 218–231. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/k2t56

26.

Gruenewald

Chermak

Freilich

J. D.

(2013). Distinguishing ‘loner’ attacks from other domestic extremist violence: A comparison of far-right homicide incident and offender characteristics. Criminology & Public Policy, 12(1), 65–91. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12008

27.

Huff

Kertzer

J. D.

(2018). How the public defines terrorism. American Journal of Political Science, 62(1), 55–71. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12329

28.

Hutchens

M. J.

Hmielowski

J. D.

Beam

M. A.

(2019). Reinforcing spirals of political discussion and affective polarization. Communication Monographs, 86(3), 357–376. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2019.1575255

29.

Kearns

E. M.

(2019). When to take credit for terrorism? A cross-national examination of claims and attributions. Terrorism and Political Violence, 2019, 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2018.1540982

30.

Kearns

E. M.

Betus

A. E.

Lemieux

A. F.

(2019a). When data do not matter: Exploring public perceptions of terrorism. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2019, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2018.1543145

31.

Kearns

E. M.

Betus

A. E.

Lemieux

A. F.

(2019b). Why do some terrorist attacks receive more media attention than others? Justice Quarterly, 36(6), 985–1022. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2018.1524507

32.

Krippendorff

(2004). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology. Sage.

33.

Lecheler

Keer

Schuck

Hänggli

(2015). The effects of repetitive news framing on political opinions over time. Communication Monographs, 82(3), 339–358. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2014.994646

34.

Linnemann

(2010). Mad men, meth moms, moral panic: Gendering meth crimes in the Midwest. Critical Criminology, 18(2), 95–110. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-009-9094-8

35.

Matthes

Schmuck

von Sikorski

(2019). Terror, terror everywhere? How terrorism news shape support for anti-Muslim policies as a function of perceived threat severity and controllability. Political Psychology, 40(5), 935–951. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12576

36.

McCombs

(2014). Setting the agenda: Mass media and public opinion (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.

37.

Miller

(2018, December 7). Global terrorism database coding notes: Las Vegas 2017. https://www.start.umd.edu/news/global-terrorism-database-coding-notes-las-vegas-2017

38.

Mitnik

Z. S.

Freilich

J. D.

Chermak

S. M.

(2020). Post-9/11 coverage of terrorism in the New York Times. Justice Quarterly, 37(1), 161–185. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2018.1488985

39.

Moeller

de Vreese

(2019). Spiral of political learning: The reciprocal relationship of news media use and political knowledge among adolescents. Communication Research, 46(8), 1078–1094. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650215605148

40.

Nagar

(2010). Who is afraid of the T-word? Labeling terror in the media coverage of political violence before and after 9/11. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 33(6), 533–547. https://doi.org/10.1080/10576101003752655

41.

National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). (2020). Global terrorism database. http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd

42.

Noor

Kteily

Siem

Mazziotta

(2018). ‘Terrorist’ or ‘Mentally Ill’: Motivated biases rooted in partisanship shape attributions about violent actors. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 10(4), 485–493. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/49kac

43.

Price

Tewksbury

(1997). News values and public opinion: A theoretical account of media priming and framing. In Barnett

G. A.

Boster

F. J.

(Eds.), Progress in communication sciences: Advances in persuasion (pp. 173–212). Ablex Publishing Company.

44.

Price

Tewksbury

Power

(1997). Switching trains of thought. The impact of news frames on readers’ cognitive responses. Communication Research, 24(5), 481–506. https://doi.org/10.1177/009365097024005002

45.

Powell

K. A.

(2011). Framing Islam: An analysis of US media coverage of terrorism since 9/11. Communication Studies, 62(1), 90–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2011.533599

46.

Prince

(2009). Firestorm: American film in the age of terrorism. Columbia University Press.

47.

Saleem

Anderson

C. A.

(2013). Arabs as terrorists: Effects of stereotypes within violent contexts on attitudes, perceptions, and affect. Psychology of Violence, 3(1), 84–99. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030038

48.

Scheufele

D. A.

Tewksbury

(2007). Framing, agenda setting, and priming: The evolution of three media effects models. Journal of Communication, 57(1), 9–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00326_5.x

49.

Schmid

A. P.

(2011). The definition of terrorism. In Schmid

A. P.

(Ed.), The Routledge handbook of terrorism research (pp. 39–98). Routledge.

50.

Shaheen

(2014). Reel bad Arabs: How Hollywood vilifies a people. Olive Branch Press.

51.

Slater

M. D.

(2007). Reinforcing spirals: The mutual influence of media selectivity and media effects and their impact on individual. Communication Theory, 17(3), 281–303. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2007.00296.x

52.

Slater

M. D.

(2015). Reinforcing spirals model: Conceptualizing the relationship between media content exposure and the development and maintenance of attitudes. Media Psychology, 18(3), 370–395. https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2014.897236

53.

Solomon

Greenberg

Pyszczynski

T. A.

(2015). The worm at the core: On the role of death in life. Random House Incorporated.

54.

Tsang

K. J.

(1984). News photos in Time and Newsweek. Journalism Quarterly, 61(3), 578–723. https://doi.org/10.1177/107769908406100314

55.

Tversky

Kahneman

(1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science, 211(4481), 453–458. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-70634-9_6

56.

van Atteveldt

Ruigrok

Kleinnijenhuis

. (2005). Associative framing: A unified method for measuring media frames and the media agenda. Mimeo Free University Amsterdam.

57.

Vedantam

(2017, October 5). Classifying attacks: Mental illness or terrorism. NPR. www.npr.org

58.

Weatherston

Moran

(2003). Terrorism and mental illness: Is there a relationship? International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 47(6), 698–713. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X03257244

59.

West

Lloyd

(2017). The role of labeling and bias in the portrayals of acts of “terrorism”: Media representations of Muslims vs. non-Muslims. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 37(2), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/13602004.2017.1345103

60.

Young

J.K.

(2019). Measuring terrorism. Terrorism and Political Violence, 31(2), 323–345. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2016.1228630

61.

Zhang

Shoemaker

P. J.

Wang

(2013). Reality and newsworthiness: Press coverage of international terrorism by China and the United States. Asian Journal of Communication, 23(5), 449–471. https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2013.764904

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.23 MB

How Perpetrator Identity (Sometimes) Influences Media Framing Attacks as “Terrorism” or “Mental Illness”

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References

Supplementary Material