Framing journalists' kidnappings: a textual analysis of news frames from U.S. and U.K. newspapers covering journalists' kidnappings in the Middle East

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] A textual analysis studied U.S. and U.K. newspaper articles written about journalists kidnapped while reporting in the Middle East to uncover news frames, explore differences in journalism standards, and to see if there was any alignment with the respective countries' military or political agendas. There were four dominant news frames that emerged from this study: responsibility, conflict, human interest, and morality. Also, various sub-frames emerged that were connected to each primary frame. The primary frames were shared across newspapers, though the morality frame was more likely to be used by U.K. newspapers. The U.K. newspapers showed differences in reporting standards through frequent utilization of anonymous sources and unattributed facts, by using first-person accounts, and through emotive language. These differences in factuality, neutrality, and detachment were seen across news frames and were not connected to a specific frame used by U.K. newspapers. The newspapers showed various levels of agreement with the political and military agendas of the U.S. and U.K. The main area of dissonance was the lack of a terrorism frame in the newspaper articles. The articles view of the terrorist networks involved in the kidnappings was also inconsistent with the governments' stance that the networks are extremely violent and an imminent threat.