Tales of terror: News coverage of terrorism and the construction of public crisis

Research into the relationship between terrorism and the media traditionally has treated news media as a conduit for the terrorist and thus as responsible for increased terrorist activity. Few studies have focused on the emergence of terrorism as a threat of crisis proportions. The perceived crisis posed by terrorism deserves scrutiny given the fact that, during the 1980s, international terrorist activity did not increase substantially, and the actual danger terrorism posed to American citizens was remote. Through an analysis of news coverage of terrorism during the Reagan presidency, this study identifies ways in which media representations of terrorism and official discourse about terrorism escalate the significance of discrete terrorist acts to constitue a threat capable of immobilizing the United States. Using coverage of terrorism in ABC World News Tonight and statements regarding terrorism as published in White House and State Department documents, this study analyzes the relationship between media portrayals of terrorism and official U.S. policy statements and objectives. News reports are treated as popular narratives that are grounded by ideographs of terrorism and statistics which demonstrate the magnitude of the terrorist threat. Features characterizing ABC News narratives include the decontextualization of terrorism, the mobilization of audience emotions through an emphasis on victims and their families, and the building of speculative scenarios about terrorist events that might transpire. These narratives constitute morality plays that privilege overt military action over diplomacy as an appropriate response to terrorism. News coverage of terrorism also relies on images of the terrorist that are reproduced in official discourse. Depictions of terrorism in public statements made by President Ronald Reagan and Secretary of State George Shultz resonate with the portrayals of terrorism presented in the news and indicate points at which official discourse and ABC News representations of terrorism are structurally aligned. Broadcast news portrayals of terrorism are seen to reproduce an official ideology that supports foreign policy objectives based on military strength and intervention and which forestall the knowledge necessary to address the international challenges posed by political violence