Framing ISIS in Global Mainstream Media: A Comparative Content Analysis of Television News from Al Jazeera English /AJE/ and Cable News Network /CNN/
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Date
2016-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate how ISIS is covered in the news reports of Al Jazeera English /AJE/ and Cable News Network /CNN/. Informed by Orientalism and Framing theoretical frameworks, the study employed both quantitative and qualitative methods to gather and analyze the data. The quantitative content analysis helped identify frames used in discussing ISIS in AJE and CNN; while the qualitative content analysis provided a ground to explain why the specific frames are selected. Purposive sampling was used to select the media and the news items for this research. The study revealed that both AJE and CNN used 14 individual frames in their news narratives about ISIS, which were further categorized into six umbrella frames: war, killing, outline, victim, intervention and protagonist frames. The analysis shows that these global media used the frames with different level of prominence and emphasis of angles in their news narratives. While the intervention frame was predominantly used by both AJE and CNN, the first reinforced regional military movements but the latter emphasized on western military support to defeat ISIS. Then, AJE used the victim frame to report civilian casualties of the conflict whereas CNN had less news about victims. The war frame was the second dominant frame CNN used to discuss the damages the terrorist group caused, where the broadcaster shed light on the ineffective regional resistance. The war frame was the third frame AJE widely used to show the Sunni rebel group as gaining victory but capitalized on the regional resistance. For CNN the outline frame was the third dominant frame used to narrate and explain about the group and its various aspects. AJE produced very few reports with the killing frame, covering ISIS’ beheadings where it
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sympathized with victims and their families. CNN had much more news about westerners’ beheadings and soldiers’ executions in which it showed how horrible and barbaric ISIS is. In the protagonist frame AJE portrayed Iraq as a country directly threatened by ISIS, whereas for CNN, it was the U.S under threat. The findings show how the media in fact belong to two distinct media hemispheres where CNN’s narratives were shaped by oriental discourse about ISIS and related events in the Middle East and AJE news narratives primarily focused on providing alternative perspectives about the same phenomena. In conclusion, this narrative disparity further proved that AJE and CNN stand on two extreme media poles even on the issue of ISIS
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Global Mainstream Media