Ioli-Nektaria Taktikou s1689207 August 11th, 2016
Master thesis: MSc Crisis and Security Management Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs
Leiden University
Thesis supervisor: Dr. C.W. Hijzen Second reader: Prof. E. Bakker
Terrorism and the media
A multi-country study of the media coverage of ISIS and the
influence of geographic proximity
Table of contents TABLE OF CONTENTS ………..1 LIST OF TABLES ...………..……….……….…2 1. INTRODUCTION ……….………3 2. BODY OF LITERATURE ……….………...………7 2.1. ISIS ……….…7
2.2. Media and terrorism………..………12
2.3. Media, geographic proximity and terrorist attacks ……….…….19
3. RESEARCH DESIGN ………25
3.1. Operationalization ………25
3.2. Research type, methods & variables ………26
3.3. Case selection ………...28
3.4. Unit of analysis & Unit of observation ………29
3.5. Data collection methods ………...…29
4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ………31
4.1. Quantitative media content analysis ……….……31
4.2. Time Span & Data collection ………...…33
4.3. Variables of media content analysis ……….…34
4.4. Coding scheme explanation ……….…35
4.5. Use of SPSS ……….43
4.6. Intercoder reliability check ……….……..44
5. RESULTS ……….45
6. DISCUSSION ……….52
7. CONCLUSION ………...69
8. REFERENCES ………74
9. APPENDICES ...……… ………...101
9.1. APPENDIX 1: Data from the Independent ………....101
9.2. APPENDIX 2: Data from La Libre ………106
9.3. APPENDIX 3: Data from Le Monde ……….…111
List of tables
1. Table 1 - ISIS names through the years ………9
2. Table 2 - The terrorists’ use of the media ………...19
3. Table 3 - The codification sheet ……….36
4. Table 4 - The values of each variable ……….42
1. Introduction
The issue of terrorism and the fight against it is one of the highest priorities of the United Nations and the international community (Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2006). Incidents, such as 9/11 and the Paris terror attacks, show the emerging dimensions of the phenomenon and the way it draws media attention, it influences the public opinion and governmental policies by the spread of fear. Many academics have examined the issue of risk perception, its influence on public health (Heneweer, Bertels & Meier, 2015), the role of the media (Gadarian, 2010) and the fear of terrorism (Lemyre, Turner, Lee & Krewski, 2006). Especially the case of ISIS has managed to draw the attention of the whole Western world due to its attacks on western soil.
At first, “the emergence of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and ISIS/Da’ish in 2013 seemed to catch the world community by complete surprise” (Stathis, 2015, p.4). Gradually, ISIS (Islamic State in Syria and Iraq) drew the attention of the international community and the news media, because of its brutal activities -i.e. the beheadings of foreign journalists, the torture of hostages-, its successful recruitment tactics and the large amount of casualties following its attacks. Since 2014, the insurgency in the Middle East and the activities of ISIS have led to the death and the displacement of thousands of people (OHCHR, 2016). The intention of ISIS to create a new Caliphate and the war for the control of cities of strategic importance have led to the destabilization of the Middle East (Gonchar, 2014).
ISIS poses a new threat not only to the Middle East, but also to the Western world and civilization as a whole. It has repeatedly threatened the Western countries and has rejected any element of the modern globalized society that does not coincide with the Sharia law. Only a month before the writing of this paper ISIS threatened the West of massive attacks, worse than those of 9/11 or the Paris attacks of November 2015 (Bhutia, 2016). Two alarming developments that increase the levels of uncertainty in western countries are the rising numbers of foreign fighters and the fear of them being transported to Europe among the influxes of refugees fleeing the war zones. The abovementioned events have led to the formation of an international coalition in 2014, aiming to fight the ISIS threat. More specifically, President Barack Obama announced the formation of the coalition in September 2014 and Resolutions 2170, 2178 and 2199 of the United Nations Security Council provide the legal framework for the
actions of the coalition (McInnis, 2016). The attacks on European and American soil have strengthened the actions taken against ISIS.
The threat posed by ISIS to both the West and the Middle East is extremely alarming (Al-Oraibi, 2015; Hundal, 2014; Ross, 2014), because of the complex nature of the problem. ISIS is not a current threat only because of the declaration of the intention to create a global Caliphate, but also because of the implications that the group’s activities have to all levels of security. To be more precise, the group constitutes a threat to international, national, and individual security and this combination of issues can only explain the striking dimensions of the problem. At the international level, ISIS has managed to disrupt the effort for global peace and security, whereas at the national level, the group has provoked insurgencies, it has shown the ineffectiveness of current security measures and it has spread fear by executing terrorist attacks. Finally, ISIS has also a great influence on each individuals’ security, not only because of the execution of attacks, but also through the spread of its ideology, the exploitation of the unrest and rebel nature of the youth for recruitment purposes and the causation of humanitarian crisis in the areas it operates. Because of its actions, “ISIS is perceived as the personified evil abroad and by most Syrians alike – and ISIS takes pride in it” (Scheller, 2014, para.23).
Taking into account the global reach and the high level of danger posed by ISIS, the media coverage of the new threat is of great importance. The global news agencies have the capacity to transmit images and narratives worldwide, informing people from different cultures and countries about the latest developments. This ability gives the media the unique opportunity to shape or alter people’s opinions by influencing their perception or interpretation of specific incidents (Herbert, 2001). However, it has been established that the coverage of incidents by the media is not unbiased; instead, it is influenced by a variety of factors that are called the determinants of the information diffusion process (Chang, Shoemaker & Bredlinger, 1987; Dupree, 1971; Wu, 1997, 1998, 2000; Zipf, 1946). Geographic proximity has been acknowledged as a news value of great importance by communication scholars (Burns, 2002; DeLung, Magee, DeLauder & Maiorescu, 2012; Neveu, 2002). The notion that the media care more about events that take place close to them seems to prevail in determinant studies.
In the case of terrorism, many authors argue that there is a symbiotic relationship between the media and terrorism (Hoffman, 1998, 2006; Juergensmeyer, 2000; Miller,
1982; Rohner & Frey, 2007; Wilkinson 2000). The media can serve either as the mediators of governments or as the facilitators’ of terrorist goals. On the one hand, through the projection of terrorist attacks, the victims and their families, the media can help governments in gaining support for counter-terrorism measures. On the other hand, by broadcasting such images or terrorist propaganda videos, the media serve the terrorists’ goal for publicity and make their messages known worldwide.
Given the importance of the media-terrorism relationship, in this thesis, I seek to examine the relationship between the two in the case of ISIS through a multi-country comparative study. To be more precise, the research examines the media coverage of the ISIS threat in four different countries in order to outline the aspects of the threat posed by the group that are more salient in each country under examination based on their geographic proximity to France, which has been the target of ISIS attacks. Thus, the main research question is: ‘To what extent has geographic proximity influenced
the media coverage of ISIS in the UK, Belgium, France, and the US?’. This question
was based on the hypothesis that countries with geographic proximity to the country
target of the recent ISIS attacks are more likely to be interested in the threat posed by the group. In other words, the main assumption is that media coverage is influenced
by geographic proximity.
Therefore, the thesis has four objectives: firstly, to outline the aspects of the ISIS threat that are more dominant in the media coverage of four countries, filling a knowledge gap; secondly, to enhance the literature on the concept of newsworthiness by examining whether geographic proximity to terrorist targets influences the media coverage of the threat; thirdly, to enhance the literature of determinant studies of information diffusion by examining the influence of one of those determinants not only on the media coverage of a security event, but also on particular aspects of the threat; finally, to contribute to media studies by conducting quantitative media content analysis on the coverage of a new terrorist threat.
Researching the media coverage of security issues is of great societal importance, since it can lead to a better understanding of the role of the media in the creation of threat perceptions and more generally, in politics. Rogers et al. argue that communication is of great value in the case of security incidents, because it shapes risk perceptions, which can lead to the success or the failure of public policies (Rogers, Amlot, Rubin, Wessely & Krieger, 2007). By focusing on a specific security issue and on one of the factors that influences the media coverage of events, this
thesis can provide insights about our own considerations and perceptions of the world. If geographic proximity influences the coverage of terrorist attacks, the public is more likely to be emotionally affected by attacks that take place in close distance to them. Does that mean that we care more about the people dying and we fear more when we feel the threat closer to us?
In order to examine the media coverage of ISIS and the importance of geographic proximity the thesis is divided into various chapters. In chapter 2, the body of literature is described in order to provide information about the subject under examination. For the purposes of the research, the development of ISIS is described and a timeline of the attacks executed by the group within the timespan of the thesis is provided. The chapter also offers a literature review concerning the relationship between media and terrorism, and the link between media coverage of terrorist attacks and geographic proximity. In chapter 3, the research design is outlined. Quantitative research is conducted in this thesis, based on a holistic multiple case study design. Next, the research methodology is explained in details in chapter 4. Content analysis is conducted at first in order to establish the salience of specific aspects of the ISIS threat in the media coverage of news agencies in the UK, Belgium, France and the US. In chapter 5 and 6, the results of the quantitative content analysis are presented and analyzed in order to answer to the research question and examine the validity of the hypothesis of the study. Last but not least, chapter 7 offers concluding remarks and discusses the contribution and the limitations of the thesis.
2. Body of Literature
2.1. ISIS
Even though ISIS became widely known after the declaration of the Caliphate in 2014 and the capture of Mosul, the roots of the group go back in 1999. The group was first formed in 1999 by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi under the name Jamaat al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad (JTWJ). Al-Zarqawi’s goal was “first to topple the Jordanian monarchy, with the rest of the Levant presumably to follow” (Zelin, 2014, p.2). After the US-led Afghanistan invasion in 2001 al-Zarqawi became known because of his brutal beheadings and his group’s suicide bombings’ campaign (Zelin, 2014), which drew the attention of foreign fighters who were willing to fight against Iraqi and coalition forces. Concerning the power of JTWJ, Corera (2005) said: “Though Zarqawi and his fighters numerically make a small proportion of the resistance (estimates run from 50 to 500), they exercise an exaggerated degree of influence due to their coupling of extreme violence with an acute understanding of the power of the media” (para.9). In 2004, al-Zarqawi pledged alliance to Osama bin Laden and renamed his group to al-Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers (al-Qaeda in Iraq or AQI) (Corera, 2005; Pool, 2004). The new ‘partnership’ offered al-Zarqawi access to logistics, resources and donors. The group was responsible for the flow and recruitment of foreign fighters and had an important role to play in the Iraq insurgency (Zelin, 2014). In 2004, AQI took a Japanese citizen hostage and threatened to execute him if Japan did not withdraw from Iraq (“Group seizes Japanese man”, 2004). Besides the kidnappings and taking hostages, the group continued its suicide bombings campaign from 2004 to 2006 and declared war on Shiites, the Iraqi government and its forces (“Another wave of bombings”, 2005).
In January 2006, al-Zarqawi tried to unify Sunni insurgent groups under the guidance of AQI, and for that reason he created the Mujahideen Shura Council as an umbrella organization (DeYoung & Pincus, 2007; Zelin, 2014). However, al-Zarqawi died in June 2006 by US airstrikes and Abu Hamza al-Muhajir assumed the leadership of the group (“Al-Qaeda in Iraq names new head”, 2006). A few months later, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) was established through the statement “Announcing the Establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq” (Roggio, 2006), and al-Muhajir pledged his alliance to Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the new ISI’s leader and Emir.
ISI’s plan was to take over Sunni areas in Iraq in order to turn it into a Sunni Caliphate (Mahnaimi, 2007). The group soon expanded its control over the Iraqi governorates of Al Anbar, Diyala and Baghdad (Mahnaimi, 2007), and claimed Baqubah as its capital in 2007. From 2006 to 2007, ISI launched a series of attacks against Christians, Sunni Iraqi and American targets. Nonetheless, ISI has lost most of its strength by 2008 (Phillips, 2009). According to Phillips (2009), this was due to the group’s “ideological inflexibility, its penchant for indiscriminate violence, and its absolute unwillingness to accommodate the sensitivities and political interests of its host communities” (p.64).
In 2010, ISI’s leader was killed in joint US-Iraqi raids near Tikrit (Arango, 2010) and Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi became the new Emir of the Caliphate. Al-Baghdadi changed the administrative structure of the organization and appointed former officers of Saddam Hussein’s regime to important positions (Hubbard & Schmitt, 2014). That way, the group’s success is based on “ its leaders augmented traditional military skill with terrorist techniques refined through years of fighting American troops, while also having deep local knowledge and contacts” (Hubbard & Schmitt, 2014, para.5). The plan of the new ISI’s leader was not only to re-take control over Iraq, but also to expand to Syria, which was tormented by a civil war. Al-Baghdadi aimed at bringing down the Assad regime and replacing it with an Islamic State (Abouzeid, 2014). For that reason, he authorized ISI member Abu Mohammad al-Golani to create a sub-organization in Syria. In 2012, al-Golani established the “Jabhat al-Nusra l’Ahl as-Sham” (Abouzeid, 2014; Benotman & Blake, 2013).
In 2013, al-Baghdadi announced that Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) and ISI were merging into a new organization called “Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham” (ISIL/ISIS) (Gulmohamad, 2014). However, JN leader Abu Muhammad al-Julani rejected the mergence and pledged his alliance to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda (Gulmohamad, 2014). A year later, ISIS declared the establishment of a worldwide Caliphate with al-Baghdadi as its leader/caliph and changed its name to Islamic State (Roggio, 2014; “This is the promise of Allah”, 2014; Withnall, 2014).
IS captured the international attention after the declaration of the Caliphate and the capture of Mosul. ISIS mainly controls Iraq and Syria, but the group has also expanded its branches in Tunisia, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Libya, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Egypt (BBC Monitoring, 2015). ISIS has extensive resources, generating from “robbery, kidnappings, extortions, and even arms and drug trafficking”
(Gulmohamad, 2014, p.2). In addition, the great number of foreign fighters that have travelled to Syria to join the group, estimated around 20,000 (Windrem, 2015) –with approximately 4000 of them coming from EU countries (Boutin et al., 2016) - is only one example of the group’s successful strategy.
Table 1 - ISIS names through the years (Zelin, 2014)
GROUP NAMES YEARS
Jamaat al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad (JTWJ, Organization of Monotheism and Jihad)
1999-2004
Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (TQJBR, Organization of Jihad's Base in Mesopotamia, also referred to as al-Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers, al-Qaeda in Iraq or AQI)
2004-2006
Majlis Shura al-Mujahedin (MSM, Mujahideen Shura Council) 2006
Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) 2006-2013
Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ‘ISIL’, ‘ISIS’, ‘Daesh’)
2013-2014
Islamic State (IS) 2014-present
Another example of ISIS’ success is its communication strategy. ISIS has realized the importance of the media and has exploited them to its favor so as to spread its messages around the world. In order to gain recruits and support to its goals the group realized that it needs publicity. As Milosevska & Taneski (2014) say: “The public attention is especially favorable for terrorist organizations when the groups can use it to garner sympathizers who otherwise would never have given support, as has been the case with the Islamic State” (p. 58). In any case, “the act of terrorism is first and foremost an act of communication” (Williams, 2016, p.6).
The group’s media efforts aim at gaining supporters and also at spreading fear. The first goal is pursued by persuading Muslims around the world that establishing and serving the caliphate is their duty (Farwell, 2014) through media propaganda. In order to transmit this message ISIS uses its own media, mostly al-Hayat Media Center and the A’maq News Agency. Through videos produced by those channels and reproduced by the mass media, ISIS has the chance to recruit people to fight in Iraq
and Syria and/or mobilize extremists abroad to execute terrorist attacks (Williams, 2016).
Williams (2016) argues that the communication strategy of ISIS focuses on three narratives: persecution, utopianism and brutality. Regarding persecution, ISIS propaganda creates the perception that Sunni Muslims are suffering because of the “Iranian-affiliated regimes in the Syria and Iraq” (Williams, 2016, p.4) and by coalition strikes so as to persuade people to fight for the Caliphate. Utopianism is achieved through the projection of idealized images of life within the Islamic State, so as to make it more attractive to people abroad (Williams, 2016). Lastly, the reproduction of terrorist attacks, executions or other brutal activities committed by the group help in spreading fear among its ‘enemies’.
All the aforementioned goals of the group are accomplished through the reproduction of such messages, videos and images by the mass media. Since ISIS’ videos “are of a high quality”, using “cinematic production techniques, Hollywood-style special effects, ‘immersive’ video game-Hollywood-style media, and dramatic, apocalyptic narratives” (Williams, 2016, p.3), they guarantee the attention of the audience. Also, the high quality of the videos means that it does not cost the media much to cover the group’s activities and it spares them from the need to send reporters to the war zones. Thus, there is a symbiotic relationship between ISIS and the media: ISIS depends on the media to disseminate its messages and the media depend on ISIS so as to fulfil the demands of the audience with low cost.
Timeline of ISIS attacks from November to December 2015: (Glenn, 2016)
November 3: ISIS claimed responsibility for an attack close to the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka, which left one police officer dead and another one wounded (Najar & Manik, 2015).
November 12: The Beirut bombings.
On November 12, 2015 two suicide bombers detonated their explosives in Beirut, Lebanon. 43 people died because of the explosions and more than 200 were wounded (Barnard & Saad, 2015). ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
On November 13, 2015 a series of terrorist attacks took place in Paris, France, and its suburb Saint-Denis. Three suicide bombers detonated their explosives near the Stade de France, gunmen started shooting at people sitting at “Le Carillon” bar, the “Petit Cambodge” restaurant, the bar “A La Bonne Biere” and the restaurant “La Belle Equipe”. Gunmen also entered the Bataclan Theater and started shooting at the crowd (de la Hamaide & John, 2015). Overall, 130 people were killed (137 including the perpetrators) and more than 350 were wounded (de la Hamaide & John, 2015). ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
November 24: The Tunis bombing.
On November 24, 2015 a bus carrying members of the Tunisian presidential guard exploded in Tunis, Tunisia. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack that killed 12 people (Zaghdoudi, Sidner, Botelho & Payne, 2015).
November 26: The Bangladesh Shiite mosque attack.
On November 26, 2015 three ISIS militants entered a Shiite mosque in Bangladesh and opened fire on the people inside the mosque. A cleric was killed and three people were wounded. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack (Ruma, 2015).
December 2: The San Bernardino attack.
On December 2, 2015 a married coupled entered the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, shot and killed 14 people, and left 17 wounded (Reid & Whitcomb, 2015). After the attacks, FBI Director James Comey said that the two shooters were “homegrown violent extremists… inspired by foreign terrorist organizations” (as quoted by Williams & Abdullah, 2015). Tashfeen Malik pledged alliance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before the massacre through her Facebook account (Carroll & Walters, 2015) and the terrorist group called the perpetrators “soldiers of the caliphate” (Callimachi, 2015).
December 6: The Aden car bombing.
On December 6, 2015 a car bomb killed the governor of Aden, Jaafar Mohammed Saad, and his entourage. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack (Al-Batati & Fahim, 2015; Mukhashaf, 2015).
December 11: The Tell Tamer bombings.
On December 11, 2015 three car bombs exploded in the Town of Tell Tamer, Syria, killing 60 people and injuring more than 80. The attacks were orchestrated and executed by the Islamic State (Perry, Davison, Hashem & Jones, 2015).
2.2. Media and terrorism
In order to examine the relationship between terrorism and the media a definition of terrorism should be given first. Terrorism as a concept is difficult to operationalize and difficult to define, since ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’. This observation has led to the conceptualization of many different definitions of terrorism that make the response to the terrorist threat even more difficult. For example, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly has defined terrorism as “criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes... whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other nature that may be invoked to justify them” (UN General Assembly, 1994, para. 3).
On the other hand, the US Justice Department defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives” (US Justice Department, 28 C.F.R. Section 0.85). The Federal Bureau of Investigation provides two definitions of terrorism, depending on whether it is international or domestic. More precisely, the FBI has defined international terrorism as “violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law… that appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping... and occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S., or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum” (Federal Bureau of Investigation, n.d.). Domestic terrorism is defined as “acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law... that appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of
a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping... and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S” (Federal Bureau of Investigation, n.d.). Given the large number of terrorism definitions and the lack of one universally accepted definition, Alex P. Schmid studied various definitions and, after identifying similarities among them, he defined terrorism as “an anxiety inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby—in contrast to assassination—the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative of symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperiled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience[s]), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought” (Schmid, 1983, p.70).
In the same wavelength, Karber (1971) has argued that “as a symbolic act, terrorism can be analyzed much like other media of communication, consisting of four basic components: transmitter (the terrorist), intended recipient (target), message (bombing, ambush) and feed-back (reaction of target audience). The terrorist’s message of violence necessitates a victim, whether personal or institutional, but the target or intended recipient of the communication may not be the victim” (p.529). Those conceptualizations of terrorism are extremely useful, because they create a link between the latter and communication. They acknowledge that the victims of terrorist acts are not necessarily the targeted recipients of the message and that the main function of terrorism is to communicate a message in order to gain attention and spread fear. These goals become even easier in the era of the mass media, which do not hesitate to reproduce images of terrorist incidents. In fact, the media have been considered to have a special relationship with terrorism, due to the newsworthiness of terrorist incidents. The latter provoke intense emotions and attract the interest of large audiences. Thus, the media cannot turn a blind eye to such events. “The combination of violence or the threat of violence, emotional intensity, suspense, conflict, confrontation between clearly defined sides, and heroism, offers all of the dramatic ingredients of a ‘good story’” (Weimann, 1987, p.27) that will increase the profit of
news agencies, which, in turn, explains why terrorist acts gain that high publicity from the media.
Terrorists themselves have become aware of the interest of the media in their activities and have exploited that interest for their own purposes. Terrorist attacks are now orchestrated so as to attract the attention of the press, the media and the international community (Jenkins, 1975; Nacos, 1994; Weimann, 1987). As Jenkins states: “Taking and holding hostages increases the drama. Terrorism is aimed at the people watching, not at the actual victims. Terrorism is a theater” (Jenkins, 1975, p.4). Thus, the media offer small groups the chance to make their existence, goals and activities known to the whole world, which in turn helps to the spread of fear. Powell asserts that the media guarantee the success of terrorists’ goals. She says: “Maximum impact of an act of terrorism comes from widespread media coverage, which creates a climate of fear among the population, focusing government attention, economic resources, and military resources on fighting a ‘‘War on Terror’’ ” (Powell, 2011, p.92).
This connection between the media and terrorism has been characterized by many scholars as symbiotic (Hoffman, 1998, 2003, 2006; Juergensmeyer, 2000; Miller, 1982; Rohner & Frey, 2007; Wilkinson, 2000). According to Hoffman (2003) the relationship between the two is based on the vast development in the field of mass communications and he identifies three events that have contributed to the increasing influence of terrorism. The first major event was the invention of the printing machine in the 19th century, which allowed the printing of a large number of papers. According to Hoffman, this invention was exploited by anarchic groups of the time in order to make their intentions known to the world and that is the starting point of the media-terrorism relationship. The second event that enhanced the relation between the two was the use of the first television satellite by the US. The last event that has shaped the media-terrorism relationship was the “CNN syndrome”, as Hoffman calls it, which refers to the intense and continuous coverage of major incidents.
Miller (1982) notes that “terrorism and the media are entwined in an almost inexorable, symbiotic relationship. Terrorism is capable of writing any drama—no matter how horrible—to compel the media’s attention . . . . Terrorism, like an ill-mannered enfant terrible, is the media’s stepchild, a stepchild which the media, unfortunately, can neither completely ignore nor deny” (Miller, 1982, p.1). Lowenthal even states (1989) that terrorism would have been impossible without the contribution
of the media. This argument is also supported by Anita Perešin, who claims that “only after the information revolution has spurred the development of society in the direction of openness and new communication possibilities could this form of new or mega terrorism have come into existence” (Perešin, 2007, p.6).
Mark Juergensmeyer also supports the idea of a symbiotic relationship between media and terrorism. He argues: “Without being noticed, in fact, terrorism would not exist. The sheer act of killing does not create a terrorist act: murders and willful assaults occur with such frequency in most societies that they are scarcely reported in the news media. What makes an act terrorism is that it terrifies. The acts to which we assign that label are deliberate events, bombings and attacks performed at such places and times that they are calculated to be observed. Terrorism without its horrified witnesses would be as pointless as a play without an audience” (Juergensmeyer, 2000, p.139).
Wilkinson (2000) argues that the symbiotic relationship between the two builds upon the fact that terrorism feeds on publicity and that media freedom makes the agencies more prone to manipulation. According to Wilkinson (2000), the core of this relationship is the realization that terrorism is only a communication weapon, whose success depends on it being transmitted to the public. Therefore, the agents of both the media and terrorism are bound to a unique form of cooperation that is beneficial for both sides.
The relationship between the media and terrorism is of great importance, because it can have tremendous consequences on both governments and the public, given the power and multiple functions that the media can perform. Since they have the capacity to cover international events and broadcast at the international level, they address a far greater audience than in the past, shaping views, creating perceptions and leading to the success or failure of governmental policies (Rogers, Amlot, Rubin, Wessely & Krieger, 2007). In the case of terrorism, the media can lead to the success or failure of policy measures by working as a mediator for governments, since they inform the public and create perceptions over the threat posed by terrorism. «As “a cornerstone institution in our democracies” (de Vreese, 2005, p.51), the media act as an “agenda setter” (Entman, 2007, p.164), simultaneously defining what problems and events are important and serving as the main source of information for the public» (Patrick, 2014, p.382).
For instance, citizens would instantly seek for information in the case of a terrorist attack. The coverage of the incident by the media, especially through visual imagery, can influence opinions and create perceptions much easier (Brader, 2006). The images and videos give rise to feelings of fear and vulnerability, increasing the possibility for persuasion (Marcus, Neuman & MacKuen, 2000). Research has shown that as the reports on terrorism increase, the public’s view of terrorism as a major national issue is also enhanced (Iyengar & Kinder, 1987; Nacos, 1996). That is of importance, because people who are concerned about terrorist attacks are more likely to support foreign policies presented by officials through the media (Bloch-Elkon & Nacos, 2014; Druckman & McDermott, 2008) and people who are upset about the harm that others have suffered, are more likely to support aggressive measures against the perpetrators (Gordijn, Yzerbyt, Wigboldus, & Dumont, 2006). Therefore, it is evident that the media can act as facilitators to governmental efforts to gain the support of their people towards foreign policies. It is not an overstatement to say that the media are the actors that create public perceptions on terrorism (Picard, 1993) and for that reason, governments try to cooperate with them in order to gain the support of the public for new policies.
Besides being governments’ big helpers in the selling of foreign policy measures (Bloch-Elkon & Nacos, 2014), the media can also put pressure on governments for action through the so called “CNN effect”. According Neuman (1996), the CNN effect “suggests that when CNN floods the airwaves with news of a foreign crisis, policymakers have no choice but to redirect their attention to the crisis at hand. It also suggests that crisis coverage evokes an emotional outcry from the public to 'do something' about the latest incident, forcing political leaders to change course or risk unpopularity” (Neuman, 1996, pp. 15-16). Thus, the term implies the “elite decision makers' loss of policy control to news media” (Livingston & Eachus, 1995, p.413). It should be noted that the term does not only refer to the influence of the CNN TV network on governmental policies, but also of all real-time media.
In the case of terrorism, the publicity that terrorist attacks or other activities gain increases the media and public pressure on governments to take actions against terrorism. Two are the most cited examples of this case in the literature: the Iran hostage crisis in 1979 and the hijacking of TWA flight 847 in 1985. Regarding the Iran hostage crisis, former Congressman Tom Lantos stated about the consequences of the media coverage on the unfolding of the crisis: “Focusing on individual
tragedies, interviewing the families of people in anguish, completely debilitates national policymakers from making rational decisions in the national interest” (as quoted by Hoffman, 2006, p.176). In fact, both former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, and his adviser during the crisis agreed that the media have undermined the strategies of the American government (Hoffman, 2006). The examination of the media coverage of the hijacking of TWA flight 847 led Alex P. Schmid (1989) to state that the media coverage of the incident undermined the American policies and that new journalistic rules and ethics should be introduced.
It is evident that the media can challenge and put into risk governmental policies. As Milosevska & Taneski (2014) state: “The structure and competitiveness of the news industry appear to influence media attention to terrorism. As the media environment becomes more decentralized and competitive, news outlets may try to maintain market share by devoting more attention to terrorist attacks that employ novel tactics or that are particularly violent. Such a development could pose new challenges for the media relations of homeland security agencies by giving the public a distorted picture of the threat from terrorism and reducing the ability of the authorities to explain their policies and to put the problem of terrorism in an appropriate context” (Milosevska & Taneski, 2014, p. 58).
On the other side, the media also facilitate the ‘work’ of the terrorists. Already in 1969, Carlos Marighella, a Brazilian terrorist, captured the importance of the media for terrorists and discussed the various ways that terrorists can use the media in his book, “Mini-manual of the Urban Guerrilla” (Marighella, 1969). Marighella established five principles to guide future terrorists’ activities: “Terrorist acts should be aimed at the audience, the general public; Victims should be chosen for their symbolic meaning; The media are eager to cover terrorist violence; The media can be activated, directed, and manipulated for propagandistic effect; Governments are at a disadvantage because their only choice is between censorship and letting terrorists make use of their media” (as quoted in Schmid, 2004, p.208). Thus, the importance of the media in the success of the goals of terrorists was acknowledged in an early stage of their relationship.
The media also allow terrorists to initiate propaganda war (Perešin, 2007). Propaganda is a great psychological tool for terrorists, because it allows them to make their goals known and attract new supporters to their actions. According to Wilkinson (2002) terrorist propaganda has four objectives: “to convey the propaganda of the
deed and to create extreme fear among their target group; to mobilise wider support for their cause among the general population, and international opinion by emphasising such themes as righteousness of their cause and the inevitability of their victory; to frustrate and disrupt the response of the government and security forces; to mobilise, incite and boost their constituency of actual and potential supporters and in so doing to increase recruitment, raise more funds and inspire further attacks” (Wilkinson, 2002, p.192).
Tanja Milosevska and Nenad Taneski (2014) have argued that terrorist groups do not even need to set up their own communication channels thanks to the mass media. By repeating propagandistic messages that terrorists post online and by projecting images and videos of their actions, the news agencies contribute to the dissemination of fear and panic, which is the main goal of terrorists. In addition, projecting propaganda videos only helps terrorists to make the public more familiar with their goals, which in turn is vital for the recruitment of new members, as it became evident in the case of ISIS. Thus, the media offer terrorists the kind of publicity they seek and offer them the means to obtain the ‘glorification’ they believe they deserve. It should be noted that by reporting on terrorist attacks, the media may even undermine the government in power by exposing policy failures, which also serves the terrorists’ goals.
Nonetheless, what one should bear in mind when studying the media coverage of terrorist incidents is the fact that journalists choose words that offer “a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described” (Entman, 1993, p.52). Media labeling is intentionally chosen so as to create perceptions. The labels produced by the media are based on the national context they operate in (Dimitrova & Strömbäck, 2005), the characteristics of the audience and the society (Katzenstein, 2003) that they intend to communicate with. For example, the distinction between a freedom fighter and a terrorist is difficult across different countries and societies (Cohen-Almagor, 2005; Jackson, 1990). The means used by specific groups,as well as their goals, may seem barbaric to some countries, but holy to others. The main reason for that difference is that public perceptions for almost every issue, including terrorism, are based mainly on rhetorical biases employed by the media (Picard, 1993). Thus, the labels used by the press related to those methods may lead to either the demonization or the glorification of the perpetrators.
Table 2 – The terrorists’ use of the media (Paletz & Schmid, 1992, p.33; Schmid, 2004, p.209)
2.3. Media, geographic proximity and terrorist attacks
Over the past decades, the diffusion process of international news has drawn the attention of international scholars, who have examined factors that may influence the media coverage of events. Academics have created and tested variables that may affect media coverage and may determine the newsworthiness of events (Chang, Shoemaker & Bredlinger, 1987; Dupree, 1971; Galtung & Ruge, 1965; Hart, 1966; Hicks & Gordon, 1974; Semmel, 1977; Zipf, 1946). Their main assumption has been that there must be some factors that influence the diffusion of information. In other words, they assume that there are factors that dictate which events are newsworthy. Those factors are called determinants (Chang, Shoemaker & Bredlinger, 1987; Dupree, 1971; Zipf, 1946) of the news flow.
Even though many factors have been identified as influencing the flow of information in the media, the list is not exhaustive (Chang, Shoemaker & Bredlinger, 1987). Chang, Shoemaker & Bredlinger (1987) created a categorization of those determinants that are mostly external to the journalistic process (He, 2003). They divided them into context-oriented and event-oriented factors. On the one hand, “the context-oriented perspective looks at the origin of foreign news and its relationship
with some contextual factors, such as economic relations, cultural similarity, political affiliation, social distance, and geographic proximity” (Chang, Shoemaker & Bredlinger, 1987, p.400). On the other hand, “the event-oriented approach suggests that irrespective of the external factors, some characteristics inherent in foreign events, such as the degree of deviance and the negative nature of the events, tend to determine whether a foreign news event will be covered in the mass media” (Chang, Shoemaker & Bredlinger, 1987, p.400).
According to Chang, Shoemaker & Bredlinger (1987) and Shoemaker, Chang & Brendlinger (1987), influential determinants are “timeliness; proximity; importance, impact or consequence; interest, conflict or controversy; sensationalism; prominence; and novelty, oddity or the unusual” (p.398). Rosengren (1970, 1974) identified the factors influencing the diffusion of news between nations to be the “degree of the importance of the events, physical or cultural distance of the events, and degree of the predictability of the events” (as quoted by Chang, Shoemaker & Bredlinger, 1987, p.399). Östgaard (1965) argued that those determinants are embedded in the political and economic system of a country, and also derive from the news process. They can be simplification, identification (proximity in a geographic and cultural sense), sensationalism (how interesting an event is), and the news barrier (proximity in time) (Östgaard, 1965, pp.45-51).
It is evident that among the various determinants, such as drama, negativity and pain (Nossek, 1994; Weimann and Brosius, 1991) academic scholarship on media coverage has recognized proximity as an important news value that influences newsworthiness (Burns, 2002; Chang, Shoemaker & Bredlinger, 1987; DeLung, Magee, DeLauder & Maiorescu, 2012; Dupree, 1971; MacLean and Pinna, 1958; Neveu, 2002; Östgaard, 1965; Wolpert, 1966; Zipf, 1946). Proximity is an influential factor of the way news agencies cover major events (DeLung, Magee, DeLauder & Maiorescu, 2012). Research has shown that proximity is of importance, because of its likelihood to trigger the audience’s emotions over an issue. Events that take place to a close distance are more likely to mobilize the public, provoke reactions and make them seek for information (Gantz, Krendl, & Robertson, 1986). For that reason, the media tend to focus on events with cultural or geographic proximity (Schaefer, 2003; Sparkes, 1978; Sreberny and Stevenson, 1999; Wu, 2000).
Geographic proximity is a determinant that influences not only the nature, but also the volume of news coverage (Pande, 2010). “Findings in general suggest that
geographic distance correlates negatively with the amount of coverage one country receives in another country’s press. In other words, the more distant a country is, the less it will be covered” (Wu, 1998, p.253). Rosengren (1970) has defined geographic proximity as the distance “between the place of the event (or the capital of the country of the event) and the place of publication of the report of the event” (p.103). For instance, Chang, Shoemaker & Bredlinger (1987) have argued that the Western media tend to ignore incidents that have occurred to distanced countries. Thus, the media are more likely to focus on an event that takes place close to their country of operation. George Zipf (1946) constructed a formula in order to determine the diffusion of news on a dyadic basis, after “using population and distance statistics, correlated with inter-city passenger statistics” (Dupree, 1971, p.225). The formula is 𝑃1𝑃2
𝑑
,
where P1and P2 represent the two populations equivalently. According to the formula, the flow of information between two populations is the product of the populations divided by the distance between them. Thus, as the distance between the two examined populations increases, the volume of information decreases. In a similar study, MacLean and Pinna (1958) examined the interest of people in news about far places and found a link between distance from a place and interest in information from that place (Dupree, 1971). They found that there is a negative correlation between geographic distance and interest in news from other places. The actual correlation between distance and interest in foreign news was established at 0.88.
Dupree (1971) explored the correlation between the number of news items registered in Atlas and factors that are believed to influence the flow of information. Concerning geographic proximity, the results from Dupree’s study suggested that “Zipf’s formula, if tempered with international factors affecting communication may in fact be valid” (Dupree, 1971, p.234).
Sparkes (1978) examined the work of Hart (1963) who analyzed the media flow between Canada and the US. Sparkes raised concerns about some of the findings of Hart’s work. Among other issues, he argued that, despite the findings of Hart that geographic distance does not affect news coverage, “the distance hypothesis is applicable where psychological or functional distance factors have been neutralized” (Sparkes, 1978, pp.267-268).
Wu (1998) examined the influence of geographic distance on the American media coverage of Canada and Mexico so as to determine whether geographic proximity is a
determinant of information diffusion. In order to do so, he examined the coverage of the two countries by various US newspapers from the West Coast, the Midwest, the East Coast and the South. He concluded that the closer the newspaper to the Canadian or Mexican border, the more intense the coverage of Canada and Mexico equivalently. In a different study, Wu (2000) examined the influence of nine determinants on the news coverage in 38 different countries. Specifically, he investigated the influence of “the guest country’s population, territorial size, level of economic development, language, degree of press freedom, presence of international news agency, geographic distance, trade volume and colonial ties with the country whose media” were analyzed (Wu, 2000, p.111). Among the nine hypotheses he set, the fourth assumed that “the closer a guest country and its host country are physically, the more media news coverage the guest country will receive in the host country” (Wu, 2000, p.117). However, this hypothesis was only partially supported.
Wilke, Heimprecht & Cohen (2012) investigated the geography of news in 17 different countries. The geography of news, also known as map or mapping (Atwood & Buillon, 1982), describes “which countries or regions of the world are represented in the news” (Wilke, Heimprecht & Cohen, 2012, p.305). The researchers employed that concept in order to analyze the content of TV news in the 17 countries under examination, examine the audience’s perceptions about foreign news and explore the criteria that influence the flow of information among countries. Based on their findings, they concluded that countries tend to report more about nations within their geographic region and they asserted that “the coverage of foreign countries by the news is primarily determined by geographical proximity and the status of the covered country” (Wilke, Heimprecht & Cohen, 2012, p.306).
Ruigrok & Van Atteveldt (2007) created a link between geographic proximity and the media coverage of terrorist attacks when they examined the framing of local and international terrorist attacks by American, British and Dutch newspapers. Their findings showed that geographic proximity is of importance. As an example, they presented “the murder of van Gogh, which was widely covered in the Dutch newspapers while relatively neglected on a global level” (p.85). However, they assert that 9/11 influenced the coverage of similar attacks (e.g. the Madrid attacks and the London bombings) more than geographic proximity itself.
Jetter (2014) also examined the link between the media, geographic proximity and terrorist attacks. Specifically, he examined the attention that terrorist attacks receive
in the US and the factors that influence the coverage of such events. He examined whether the form of the attack (e.g. suicide attack), the political (e.g. regime form of the attacked nation), economic (e.g. trade relations between the attacked country and the US), and societal characteristics (e.g. religious composition of the attacked country), timeliness and geographic proximity (e.g. distance between the attacked country and the US) can be reported as the factors that influence the American media coverage of terrorist attacks (pp.9-11). He argued that maybe “we simply care more about events that happen closer to us” (Jetter, 2014, p.10). After conducting logit regression, he concluded that geographic distance to the US plays an important role to the coverage of attacks by the American media.
Counter views
Despite the academic works that show a connection between geographical distance and media coverage of events, there are also studies that support the idea that geographic proximity is not a determinant of international news flow (Hart, 1963; Hicks & Gordon, 1974; Johnson, 1997; Luttbeg, 1983; Vilanilam, 1983; Wu, 1997). For instance, Kariel & Rosenvall (1995) state that “when relatively short distances are involved, there is some relation to distance, in that news from that nearby sources could be considered local. When longer distances are involved, as in much international news flow, then distance is not an important variable” (p.136).
In their work, “Foreign News Content in Israeli and U.S. Newspapers”, Hicks & Gordon (1974) examined American and Israeli newspapers and found no link between physical distance and international news flow. Similarly, Luttbeg (1983) investigated the assumption of previous studies that geographic proximity influences news flow. He examined and coded 17 news stories from 100 American newspapers and he found that “no bias for stories closer to home is evident” and that “actual distances to each day's events play little role in their rapidly reached judgment as to which stories to include in their paper” (Luttbeg, 1983, p. 732).
Johnson (1997) investigated the influence that geographic and cultural proximity, and organizational norms have on the quantity of the American coverage of Mexico. She tried to identify whether those three factors have an impact on the length and the source of the articles about Mexico. The Pearson correlation showed that even though geographic and cultural proximity, and organizational norms were of importance,
there was no connection between geographic proximity and media coverage. Wu (1997) also found no link between the two, when he examined the media coverage of four industrialized nations in his study “Systemic Determinants of International News Coverage in Four Developed Nations: Germany, Japan, New Zealand, and the US”. Overall, this chapter thoroughly explained the elements of the concepts that are of value for the completion of the thesis. Specifically, the emergence of ISIS, its relationship with the media and its activities during the study’s timeframe were described in details, so that the reader can understand the nature of this new threat. The relationship between the media and terrorism was also analyzed so that its importance can be appreciated by the reader. Then, the concept of information flow and its determinants were explained by presenting examples of previous studies on that subject. The last section helped in creating a link between past research on geographic proximity and the current thesis and thus, contributes to the better apprehension of the research question and the formulation of the hypothesis of the thesis. The next chapter of this study focuses on the research design and moves into the technical characteristics of this paper.
3. Research Design
3.1. Operationalization
This thesis examines whether geographic proximity influences the media coverage of ISIS in four different countries. For that reason, it identifies the topics regarding ISIS that have been mostly reported by four different news agencies. Thus, the concepts of the diffusion of information and media coverage as discussed in the previous chapter are of importance for purposes of the thesis.
Based on the literature, the news flow among countries and the media coverage of events depends on the newsworthiness of the event itself (Chang, Shoemaker & Bredlinger, 1987; Galtung & Ruge, 1965; Hester, 1973; Östgaard, 1965). The latter depends on a variety of factors that have been characterized as determinants of the news flow. Geographic proximity has been acknowledged as one of those factors (Burns, 2002; Chang, Shoemaker & Bredlinger, 1987; DeLung, Magee, DeLauder & Maiorescu, 2012; Dupree, 1971; MacLean and Pinna, 1958; Neveu, 2002; Östgaard, 1965; Wolpert, 1966; Zipf, 1946).
For the purposes of this study, geographic proximity is operationalized into the distance between the city that the event has taken place and the city within which the news agency operates. This form of operationalization of geographic proximity was inspired by the work of Kwak & An (2014), who argue that studies on global news flow are mostly conducted based on a dyadic relationship between a guest and a host country. The former is the place where the event takes place, and the latter is where the media operate. Other studies on the diffusion of information and on news determinants have chosen to operationalize geographic proximity into the distance between the capitals of two countries (Gupta, 2012; Wu, 2000). However, this traditional way of estimating distance was not selected, because it does not provide accurate results. Even though in three of the cases examined for the thesis the news agencies are based on the capitals of those countries, this is not the case for the American news agency. For that reason, and in order to be as precise and as accurate as possible, the distance between the city that the event has taken place and the city within which the news agency operates was chosen as the best option for the operationalization of geographic proximity.
Specifically, the thesis focuses on the distance between Paris (where the ISIS attacks took place) and London (where the headquarters of the Independent are located), Brussels (where La Libre is based), and Paris and Atlanta, Georgia (where
the headquarters of CNN are based). The distance between two cities was calculated automatically through the use of the website http://www.indo.com/distance, following the example of Wu’s (2000) study. The distance between Paris and London is 343 km, between Paris and Brussels is 266 km, and between Paris and Atlanta is 7054 km. Since the attacks took place in Paris and Le Monde is also based in Paris, it is assumed that this agency will focus more than the others on the aspects of ISIS. The same is assumed for Belgium, due to its proximity to Paris.
Regarding the media coverage of ISIS, which is the second concept of interest for the study, it is operationalized into 17 variables that help in answering to the research question and examining the hypothesis. In general, 21 variables were constructed for the completion of the thesis. All variables were constructed prior to the content analysis, and after following the news about ISIS for a long time. However, only 17 of those variables help in operationalizing the coverage of ISIS. To be more precise, those variables are: 1. Length, 2. Main actor, 3. Immediate threat to security, 4. Fear for attacks, 5. Foreign fighters, 6. Radicalization, 7. Threat to democratic beliefs and values, 8. Refugee crisis, 9. Humanitarian crisis, 10. Attacks, war crimes and genocide, 11. CT policies, changes, and extra measures, 12. Anti-radicalization measures, 13. Military action/measures, 14. Change migration policy, 15. Humanitarian action, 16.War on terror and 17. Economic costs.
3.2. Research type, methods & variables
For the purposes of the research, quantitative research is conducted, based on a holistic multiple case study design (Baxter & Jack, 2008; Bengtsson, 1999). To be more precise, quantitative content analysis of the reporting of ISIS is conducted in order to establish the main issues addressed by the news agencies of four different countries and examine whether geographic proximity has influenced the coverage of ISIS. The four different countries under examination serve as the four case studies of the thesis. The choice of the specific countries is explained in details on page 28. Even though case studies have received a lot of criticism (King, Keohane & Verba, 1994; Lieberson, 1992), the case study design has become the norm in the world of social sciences, because it offers researchers the opportunity of in-depth knowledge through comparative studying and contribute to explaining results and supporting theories. In this case, the comparative case study was chosen because it enhances the robustness of the conclusions deriving from the study (Robson, 1993; Yin, 1994).
Concerning the method, quantitative research through content analysis on the reporting of ISIS is conducted in order to establish whether the media coverage of ISIS is more intense in countries with greater proximity to France. This method is ideal for this research, because it is “a systematic, replicable and statistical method in which to describe the communication, draw references about its meaning or infer from the communication to its context, both production and consumption” (Riffle, Lacy & Fico, 2014, p. 19).
As stated above, the thesis examines which aspects of the ISIS threat are more salient in in the UK, Belgium, France and the US, and tries to establish whether geographic proximity has influenced the coverage of ISIS. The phenomenon of ISIS was selected because of the focus of the media on this new threat and the specific countries were chosen because of their salience in terrorism related topics on the media. The input of this research is qualitative data, i.e., articles, whereasthe output is statistical results that show frequencies. More specifically, 596 articles from the news agencies of The Independent, La Libre, Le Monde and CNN are examined and used as input. These news agencies were chosen because they are of the most influential in their countries and they had a large number of articles available online concerning ISIS.
The choice of quantitative research is well-suited for the purposes of the research. The statistical results obtained from the quantitative media content analysis of the four case studies are used in order to examine the validity of the hypothesis that countries
with geographic proximity to the country target of the recent ISIS attacks are more likely to be interested in the threat posed by the group and therefore, the influence of
geographic proximity on the media coverage of terrorist threats. Thus, geographic proximity serves as the independent variable of this study and the media coverage of ISIS as the dependent variable.
The choice of the quantitative research method is justified, since it provides the thesis with high external validity, which the qualitative approach lacks (Bryman, 2012), and its combination with the multiple case study design allows for the in-depth research of the subject and serve the objective for well-established insights on the topic. Moreover, the use of a triangulation of methods, contributes to countering deficiencies, such as reliability issues.
3.3. Case selection
This thesis examines the media coverage of ISIS in four different case studies. The multiple case study design not only enables the in-depth examination of the cases, but also facilitates their comparison to each other. Comparative case studies are a great tool for analysis because they “involve the analysis and synthesis of the similarities, differences and patterns across two or more cases that share a common focus or goal” (Goodrick, 2014).
It should be noted that the selection of the cases, i.e. the UK, Belgium, France, and the US is not random. Instead, each country is chosen for specific reasons related to terrorism experiences and geographic proximity to France, so as to help examine the hypothesis of the research. First of all, the US and the UK have both suffered from terrorist attacks in the past and have led the ‘War on terror’, which make the countries more likely to take measures against the ISIS threat and change their policies based on this new threat. However, given their great geographic distance from France, which has been the target of the November 2015 ISIS attacks, they are expected to experience the threat posed by ISIS in a different way than Belgium or France itself and their media coverage of the threat is expected to be lower than in the case of Belgium.
Belgium was chosen, because of its geographic proximity to France and after taking into account the fact that it has become a country of great interest after the Paris attacks, since it has been accused of breeding terrorists and of inaction against the threat posed by radicalization and foreign fighters. In addition, the examination of a Belgian news agency was decided after taking into consideration the fact that Belgium has the highest number of foreign fighters per capita (Van Ostayen, 2015; Van Vlierden, 2015), which makes it of great importance. Finally, France is of great value for the thesis, because the country recently suffered from terrorist attacks organized by ISIS and its President, Francois Hollande, declared the war against ISIS soon after the attacks took place (FT Reporters, 2016).
Moreover, the selection of specific news outlets for those countries was based on the fact that these news organizations have a high level of influential ability in their country of origin and are some of the most well-known agencies worldwide (Van Besien, 2013; Open Source Center (OSC), 2008; Silver, 2011). More precisely, according to a survey on English-language reporting of the news conducted by Nate Silver, CNN and the Independent are among the most frequently cited news agencies
for original reporting. In Google News and Google Blog search, CNN has been cited 1.950 times and the Independent has been cited 394 times, ranking 8th and 30th equivalently, among the 260 organizations (Silver, 2011). Concerning the French language news agencies, La Libre was selected because its printed version is considered as one of the two ‘quality’ news agencies in the French language, the other being Le Soir (Van Besien, 2013). Even though the most popular news agency in Belgium is De Standaard, it was not selected because the news are produced in Dutch and I have no qualifications to conduct research in the Dutch language. In addition, Le Monde was chosen because of its place in French history, given the fact that it was founded after World War II and is still one of the most influential news agencies in France (Open Source Center (OSC), 2008).
3.4. Unit of analysis & Unit of observation
In this thesis, each news article about ISIS serves as the unit of analysis. Thus, the number (N) of articles that have been collected from the four different news sources represent the units of analysis. For the purposes of the study, a news item is a written piece of work about ISIS published by the news agencies under examination. Nonetheless, news items including video materials were excluded. The unit of observation shall be the period under examination, i.e. November 2015 to December 2015. The selection of the specific timeframe is explained on page 33.
3.5. Data collection methods
For the completion of the thesis a triangulation of methods is used, following the words of Rothbauer who states “that the phenomena under study can be understood best when approached with a variety or a combination of research methods” (Rothbauer, 2008, p. 893). Thus, this approach allows for the analysis of different data sources, which, in turn, enhances the validity of the research. Firstly, desk top research was conducted and online scientific journals were studied for the gathering of information about the subject of analysis and the issues that needed to be elaborated. Academic articles were consulted, so as to become more familiar with the formation and activities of ISIS, and the relation between the media and terrorism. Secondly, online news agencies’ websites from the UK (The Independent), Belgium (La Libre), France (Le Monde) and the US (CNN) were visited in order to collect the online articles used for the media content analysis. In total, 596 articles were collected
and analyzed, 210 from The Independent, 122 from La Libre, 143 from Le Monde and 121 from CNN. It should be noted that only online articles were selected and the printed versions of those news agencies were not examined, as explained on page 34. Finally, primary and secondary sources, including speeches, reports, academic journals and previous similar studies, have been examined in order to guide the thesis and help with analyzing the data.
