How the Media Framed the NSA Surveillance Scandal

The leaking of the NSA surveillance programs by Edward Snowden in 2013 was a major news event with serious legal and constitutional questions which are still being debated. This study examined news coverage on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, BBC News, and Democracy Now. Textual analysis was used to determine if the news coverage on each network was thematic or episodic, personalized, dramatized, and fragmented and content analysis was used to determine who was used as sources, and whether those sources supported or opposed the NSA surveillance programs. This study found that news coverage on the mainstream news channels was episodic, personalized, dramatized and fragmented while coverage on BBC News was not and Democracy Now was more thematic. Official sources were most frequently used by all the networks and while the total number of sources who supported or opposed the program were almost even, there were differences with regard to the opinions of live guests on each network. This study can serve to guide framing research which looks at the scandal over a longer time period, or what effect mainstream news has on viewers??? perceptions of NSA surveillance in comparison to BBC News and Democracy Now