Framing Terrorism Good versus Evil?

Koen Leurs, 0225304

26 Jul. 07, Utrecht University Research MA Media Studies

Coordinator: Frank Kessler (UU) Second reader: Ingrid Hoofd (NUS)

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Foreword

A cautionary note against getting carried away by the wildly exaggerated rhetoric about September 11 somehow forming a turning point of world-historic proportions in the life of humanity such that one may speak of the world before and after September 11, pretty much the way we speak of before and after Christ, before and after the Hijra of the Prophet Muhammad or even before and after the First and Second World Wars or before and after the atomic bomb over Hiroshima (Al-Azm, 2004; 12).

During the third semester of my master studies I enjoyed the privilege of studying at the

National University of Singapore (NUS). In my orientation to go abroad I often read about

Singapore being a very safe place to live. I wondered why the safeness of the locale was often

so specifically emphasized. During my talks with Milagros Rivera, head of the (NUS)

Communication and New Media Programme and Ingrid Hoofd, a lecturer and researcher at

the programme, it became clear why the absence of danger in the city-state of Singapore is

often accentuated. Since 1991, Singapore had been successful to counter terrorism, in

comparison with other countries in South-East Asia which had not been able to do so such as

most notably Indonesia and the Philippines. In these countries the militant Islamic

organization Jemaah Islamiah – an organization linked with Al-Qaeda – had been able to

carry out attacks. The Singapore government was thus rightfully proud that investments paid

off and citizens and visitors on the small island enjoyed safety.

After being in South East Asia for a while, it struck me that the news media offered

different angles and perspectives in comparison with the news reporting I was used to in the

Netherlands. Although of course this is by no means an insight that will change the world

dramatically, I began to wonder about the implications of what I thought were perhaps

regionally or culturally specific modes of address and news angles. An exemplary eye-opener

was a burdensome critique of the Netherlands in The Star, the most-widely read Malaysian

daily newspaper. In the sunday edition of the paper of September 10, 2006 – roughly five

years after the attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001 – an article was

published in which the Netherlands were bashed after politicians had had formal discussions

about the status of the head-scarfs and most notably burquas in Dutch society. In the article,

the author mentioned a growing pan-European anti-Muslim stance, by referring to the

Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.

The ‘cartoon war’ started after the publishing of twelve cartoons by artists who wanted

to raise a discussion on criticism of Islam and censorship. Some of the cartoons showed

depictions of the prophet Mohammed – something unacceptable within the Muslim

community – and Muslim organizations complained of mockery of their faith. After 45

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newspapers throughout the world and an assumable even larger circulation through the

Internet, protests from Muslims around the world became considerable. In the British

newspaper The Sunday Times Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen was quoted labeling the

controversy as Denmark’s worst “international relations” incident since the Second World

War (2006). During the period of the cartoon wars I was in the Netherlands. In Dutch papers,

as I have remembered it, I predominantly read articles about how artists were raising attention

to censorship debates, but from the article in The Star, I got the impression they would have

had laid their focus presumably on the other side of the controversy: the hurting mockery of

the Islam.

But what are the consequences of these different representations? Perhaps because

more than fifty percent of the population of Malaysia is Muslim, they probably did not get the

side of the story I remember. The same holds for the Netherlands. Even though the majority

of inhabitants is not Muslim our news media did, as far as I can recall, not provide near as

much attention to the side of the story that takes into account the possible mockery of the

religious belief. When expanding this problem to a world-scale, one begins to wonder whether

the news media of the Western world presents the Non-Western world structurally different.

And vice versa one wonders how the non-Western world news media frame the Western

world.

The lengthy quotation taken from Syrian philosopher Al-Azm can bring together the

first and second part of this personal introduction to my master thesis. Radical Islamist attacks

have left a mark on the world, but what are the consequences of different news media

presentations of these attacks, if they can indeed be proven to be presented differently? What

are the consequences of these terrorist attacks for the world? These are the questions that were

beginning to pop up in my head throughout my study abroad period in Singapore.

I am grateful for the food for thought on this topic provided by William Hioe, Ingrid

Hoofd, Milagros Rivera and T.T. Sreekumar, all working at NUS. Additionally, thank you

Ingrid for being a second reader for this work. Fellow exchange-student René Schnitzmeier

provided valuable insights from his background of political science and Arab studies. At

Utrecht University, I would like to thank David Onnekink and the OGC Thesis Laboratorium.

Joost Raessens and Christina Slade helped me to narrow down the research. Thomas Poell,

your references were certainly beneficial. Also, I would like to thank Frank Kessler for

coordinating this research master project. Finally, thanks to my dear family and friends for

coping with me during the writing of this thesis. Stephanie, your copy-editing and endless

support was invaluable.

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Contents Chapter Page 1. Introduction…………………………………………………………….... 04

§ 1.1 Terrorism and the media 04

2. Theoretical framework…………………………………………………... 08

§ 2.1 Defining terrorism 08

§ 2.2 Framing terrorism 17

§ 2.3 Framing ‘the Other’ 21

§ 2.4 Philosophy in a time of terror 24

§ 2.5 Framing intercultural dialogue 30

3. Methodology…………………………………………………………….. 32

4. Television news…………………………………………………………..38

§ 4.1 TV news as a perceived realistic window on the world? 39

§ 4.2 The institutional nexus of CNN’s broadcasting 40

§ 4.3 9/11 on CNN 48

§ 4.4 The institutional nexus of Al-Jazeera’s broadcasting 56

§ 4.5 9/11 on Al-Jazeera 63

§ 4.6 CNN, Al-Jazeera and the public sphere 70

5. News in the blogosphere………………………………………………… 74

§ 5.1 Medium specificity of the weblog 76

§ 5.2 The institutional nexus of blogging in the United States 81

§ 5.3 American bloggers on 9/11 86

§ 5.4 The institutional nexus of blogging in the Arab world 92

§ 5.5 Arab bloggers on 9/11 98

§ 5.6 The blogosphere: a public sphere? 103

6. Discussion and conclusions………………………………………………109

§ 6.1 Discussion 110

§ 6.2 Conclusions 117

7. List of works cited …………………………………………………….....122

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Chapter 1 Terrorism and the media

§ 1.1 Terrorism and the media

Recently the Netherlands was flooded by foreign journalists on two occasions that were

unheard of in recent Dutch history. Two controversial Dutch public figures were murdered.

On May 6, 2002, charismatic populist right wing politician Pim Fortuyn was gunned down,

while on November 2, 2004 the polemic film director, tv maker and columnist Theo van

Gogh, who befriended Fortuyn, was shot to death, nearly decapitated, and subsequently

stabbed multiple times. Both public figures openly criticized Islam after the September 11,

2001 (9/11) attacks on the United States. Fortuyn was killed during the Dutch national

election campaign by Van der Graaf, an animal rights activist. He confessed in court he

wanted to stop Fortuyn’s quest for political power. Van der Graaf disapproved Fortuyn’s

focus on “the weak parts of society to score points” (Oranje, 2002). Fortuyn stated that the

country offered no place for more immigrants. He called the Islam a “backward culture” and

wanted to close the Dutch borders for Islamic migrants (De Volkskrant, 2002).

After 9/11, the controversial media-personality Van Gogh became known for his

critical view on Islam. In 2003 he for instance published the book Allah Weet Het Beter (in

English: Allah Knows Best) in which he cynically mocks the Islamic religion. He was

murdered by Mohammed Bouyeri, who after 9/11 radicalized and started living according to

the Sharia, the traditional set of strict Islamic rules. Bouyeri claims it was his duty as a

Muslim to kill Van Gogh based on the note “Gedoopt in bloed” (Baptized/immersed in

Blood) he left on the bodyof the filmmaker. Dutch media scholar Benschop stated that the

Dutch attitude towards the Arab world altered incontrovertibly after these assassinations:

“[m]any people transformed their sorrow over Van Gogh’s death into an exceptional

aggressiveness towards everything experienced as ‘culturally impure’” (2004).

The Dutch media presented the murders as terrorist acts by implicating that the

killings were connected with the September 11, 2001 attacks. It was repeatedly mentioned

that these two Dutch public figures were increasingly skeptical of Islam, while their killers

wanted to silence their skepticism. These utterances are exemplary for how the Western news

media spoke of rising tendencies of Islamophobia. These two political murders in the

Netherlands attracted the attention of news reporters from all over the world, and Western

news presenters framed the murders as being connected to the 9/11 attacks. Often, the news

media referred to American political scientist Huntington’s book Clash of Civilizations

Remaking of World Order. Huntington claims conflicts will increasingly stem from

differences in religious identities. The September 11, 2001 attacks and other events that were

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framed as ‘Jihadist’ were often depicted as vindications for his clash-theory, arguing that

clashes were to be “particularly prevalent between Muslims and non-Muslims” (1996; 208),

on the basis of his identification of the “bloody borders” between Islamic and non-Islamic

civilizations (ibid.; 258).

Iinitially, the political murders in the Netherlands were local events. But in this

globalised world, these were rapidly presented to a global audience as illustrative for the clash

of civilizations. The Italian feminist philosopher Braidotti has voiced her concern about these

developments in a Utrecht University lecture regarding the Dutch pavilion at the 2007 Venice

Biennale. She states that in our current era of globalization and interconnectedness, populism

and paranoia tend to dominate the public debate. I understand the mainstream media’s

uncritical connecting of the assassinations in the Netherlands with the September 11, 2001

attacks as clear examples of populism and paranoia. Braidotti has stressed the need for pan-

humanity to address these issues, and described the Dutch submission to the Biennale as a

way to critically think and reflect on these matters (2007). This thesis analyses whether the

media have provided pan-humanity with means to do so. Therefore critical questions need to

be raised, such as: were the consumers of news programs dealing with terrorist acts such as

for instance 9/11 provided with sufficient objective facts, varieties of opinions and contextual

background information so that they could make up their own mind and act accordingly?

Historically the media have had a peculiar relationship with terrorism. For instance,

even though official records show that there is an overall downward trend of international

terrorist attacks observable – American sociologist Tilly states that in the 1980’s there were

highs of over 650 attacks yearly while 2001 saw less than 350 attacks with a relative low

number of deaths in comparison with the mid 1980’s (2004; 7) – international terrorism

nowadays seems to be increasingly more publicized by mainstream media outlets throughout

the world. Illustratively, several researchers have demonstrated the lack of a systematic

relation between the frequency of terrorist attacks and news reports on terrorism worldwide,

see for instance Jenkins (1980), Weimann and Winn (1994; 131) and Kern, Just and Norris

(2003; 281-302). The relatively recent upheaval of fundamentalist ‘Jihadist’ terrorism

constitutes a large factor contributing to the recent distorted levels of news media attention on

terrorism.

I accept the lack of a direct relationship between the frequency of terrorist attacks and

media exposure as one of the main points of departures for this analysis. Several questions

logically arise when critically engaging with this relationship. One of the first questions that

comes to mind is the question whether the media should pay attention to the fundamentalist

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terror acts at all, when taking into account that publicity and spreading their message to larger

audiences is exactly what any terrorist wants? Take for example the recent upheaval of (mass)

medial news reports of Muslim fundamentalist terrorist acts, while we know that Al-Qaeda’s

Osama bin Laden has explicitly stated: “God willing, you will see our work on the news”

(cited in Schmid, 2006; 94). In its core, the relationship between news media and terrorists

can be addressed as a very delicate debate that requires great care. On the one hand citizens

demand to be kept informed. On the other hand, and this has been clear since a few decades,

mainstream media exposure of terrorist attacks spreads fear and as such the media directly

play into the hands of the terrorists, as for instance Dutch terrorism scholar Schmid attests

(1983; 70). But with terrorist attacks of unprecedented and unexpected proportions such as the

September 11, 2001 attacks, where hijacked jumbo jets rocketed into the United States’ World

Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the mainstream media were left no choice but to inform the

public.

Terrorist attacks can be seen as deliberately shaped to be newsworthy, as they are

often structured to meet the requirements for breaking news coverage. Indeed, the magnitude

of the 9/11 attacks certainly screamed for publicity. Polish historian Laqueur goes as far as to

say that news media and terrorists are dependant on each other, describing this dynamic as a

“symbiotic relationship” between terrorists and the media (1986; 87). American historian

Whittaker does not want to go this far, but insists that terrorists and the news media “both deal

in publicity” (2004; 92). I am not convinced whether the relationship between media and

terrorists is by any means equal. News media can operate without terrorist attacks, but

terrorism cannot exist without the publicity offered through media attention. Thus, the sense

of mutual benefit or (inter) dependence that characterizes a symbiotic relationship does not

hold.

What is of more interest is to look at how different media outlets throughout the world

choose to present terrorist attacks1. In this research, I specifically delve into the framing of

terrorism by taking into account the medial representation of acts of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism. Is the

news presenter aware of the problematic relationship between news media and terrorism and

does he or she take precautions to provide the audience with an adequate depiction? Or, are

the attackers able to communicate their message of fear to a larger audience than those

directly affected during their attacks? And from an overarching intercultural perspective, it is

1 Dutch journalist Luijendijk has raised a similar debate in the Netherlands on regional and cultural differences of war coverage by detailing his personal experiences as a Middle-East correspondent in his book Het Zijn Net Mensen (Almost Human) (2006).

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interesting to analyze whether Western media outlets present terrorist attacks in a different

way in comparison with news broadcasted from the Middle East. Do the news media serve

pan-humanity by providing the public with means to address the so-called clash of

civilizations between the Islamic and the non-Islamic world? By asking this question, I am

aware of the fact that I implicitly accept the Libertarian perspective on the role of news media.

This perspective puts forward that news media must seek to “provide the consumer with

sufficient objective information and variety of opinion so that that consumer can make up his

or her own mind” (Rush, 1979; 26)

People of course probably also base their apprehension of the world on the basis of

their socio-cultural and religious background as well as on for instance face-to-face dialogue

with peers. However, this research will focus predominantly on the interpretative material

offered by news media. I believe the question posed above begs for an approach that

considers different media outlets. Apart from the influences described above, people do not

rely solely on one medium to make sense of the world. The space available for this research

asks for specific analysis, therefore two of the many important media of news dissemination

are taken into account. The historically powerful television news (Price, 1995) and the

upcoming weblogs or blogosphere (Kline and Burstein, 2005) on the internet are seen as

exemplary cases for present-day news media.

The following main research question has sprung from these considerations:

To what extent have North-American and Middle-Eastern television news

broadcasts and weblogs through their framing of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism

contributed to, or blocked, greater inter-cultural understanding between the Western

and non-Western world?

The following sub questions are used as guiding principles towards answering the question

posed above. Also they are used to narrow down the analysis.

1. How are acts of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism framed in televised news reports and on weblogs

and from which institutional backgrounds do these messages emerge?

2. To what extent do these representations differ when comparing news reports from

North-America and the Middle-East?

3. Have these different news sources contributed to, or blocked, the emergence of a

transnational public sphere?

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Chapter 2 Theoretical framework

This chapter provides the theoretical framework which must be seen as the starting point for

analyzing news reports on terrorism. As such, the chapter can be seen as an inventory of the

tools that are useful for my approach. The tools introduced here include both merely indirectly

used theoretical backgrounds as well as directly applied theoretical notions. In this section, I

am specifically interested in gathering the theoretical background to be able to grasp the

different ways of how the media present terrorist actions, as well as to get an impression of

possible implications of specific framing processes.

The chapter is structured as follows: first the object of study is described, by looking at

the history and the different angles that exist to understand and analyze terrorism. More

specifically, the emphasis is put on what I perceive as the key element of recent acts of

‘Jihadist’ terrorism: the terrorist performance by which it is able to reach broader audiences

than the group of people that is directly affected by the action itself. Second, theories of

framing and ‘the Other’ are combined to be able to address the medial representation of these

terrorist performances. Third, the theoretical stance of German philosopher Habermas is

introduced. This perspective will provide a solid fundament to assess possible implications of

specific framing processes on a more complex level.

§ 2.1 Defining terrorism

Defining terrorism lies beyond the central aim and well beyond the limits of space available

for this thesis, but in order to grasp the framing of ‘Jihadist’2 terrorism and the responses it

evoked, a firm grip of the label terrorism and its history is necessary to understand its specific

application throughout this work. Especially since U.S. President Bush declared a “War on

terrorism” in response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States,

application and understanding of the term as such have become problematic, as it has become

an increasingly ambiguous identification and classification marker. Even before this recent

declaration of war, the label has been used for centuries to describe various acts of violence.

The brief history of terrorism below will illustrate the diversity of the label terrorism.

2 I understand that by using this term, I frame the object of study in a certain way. For Muslims the term can be offensive, as the term ‘Jihadist’ terrorism omits to take into account the complexity of the notion. However, I do not intend to use it in this way, as I keep the term bracketed thereby indicating that it is not accepted as a given. The term is namely applied here in the narrow definition provided by Rodinson: “[j]ihad is a propagandistic device which, as need be, resorts to armed struggle – two ingredients common to many ideological movements” (2002; 351).

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A brief history of terrorism

For the purpose of this thesis, a brief history of terrorism suffices. This provides the basis for

the highlighting and analysis of specific characteristics that are of interest for my analysis.

The word terror entered the Western vocabulary having a fairly narrow meaning; it was a

label for the actions carried out by French revolutionaries against their domestic enemies

during the 1793-1794 Reign of Terror, killing between 18.500 and 40.000 people. Tilly

describes this form of terrorism as an example of state-organized inevitable, inflexible justice.

Ever since, the scope of the term has fluctuated continuously. The label was used for

describing governmental intimidation of citizens such as Lenin’s campaigns of terror during

the Russian Revolution of 1917 to silence dissent voices. However, it also became common to

describe clandestine attacks carried out by domestic groups such as the Basque separatists in

Spain, the Irish Republican Army and Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam on

governmental institutions as acts of terrorism. In addition to this, ethnic cleansing and

genocide also came to be included under the heading of terror (Tilly, 2004; 8-9). The way the

label is applied indicates conceptual shifts in the understanding and application of the term

terrorism, as it was interchangeably used for both ‘top-down’ governmental acts against

certain groups as well as ‘bottom-up’ acts by clandestine non-governmental groups against

governmental targets.

For interpretation purposes, I use American political scientist Rapoports’3 (2006)

historical overview of terrorism. He distinguishes between four waves of modern international

terror, being the “Anarchist”, “anticolonial”, “New Left” and the “Religious” wave. These

waves, lasting about a generation each, were driven by different energies and all had their

own momentums. He sees the Russian anarchistic movement which arose in the 1890’s or the

“Golden Age of Assassination” as the first wave of terror. During this period, absolute

leaders, presidents and ministers were assassinated by antagonists who could effortlessly

cross international borders. In 1905, the Russian anarchist Terrorist Brigade illustratively had

its headquarters in Switzerland, conducted attacks from Finland, imported arms from Armenia

and received funds from the Japanese and Americans (Rapoport, 2006; 7-9).

He labels the second cycle of activity as the “anticolonial” wave. Starting in the

1920’s and 1930’s, terrorist groups subsequently arose in all empires except for the Soviet

3 Throughout this work, I deliberately use classification markers, which include an indication of the locational background as well as the area of specialization, to contextualize the authors that are quoted. By framing the quotations as such, I aim to give an indication of the specific (disciplinary) norms and values that have to be taken into account.

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Union, and their actions reflected the ambivalent stances of the states in which they were

active towards retaining colonial status. This wave symbolizes the success of terrorist activity;

as terrorists were crucial in the establishment of new states such as for instance Ireland, Israel,

Cyprus and Algeria. Colonial ruling encountered difficulties while being under attack by

terrorists through guerrilla-like (hit-and-run) actions in Burma, Ceylon, Ghana, India,

Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tunisia. In the meanwhile, the United States became

the supreme Western power, partly also because they insisted on the elimination of colonial

empires worldwide (ibid.; 9-12).

The third wave, the “New Left”, was stimulated by the Vietnam War, as Western

groups arose, such as the American Weatherman, the West German Red Army Faction, the

Italian Red Brigades, the Japanese Red Army and the French Action Directe, who saw

themselves as “vanguards for the Third World masses”. Theatrical targets were chosen and

this preference is reflected in the popularity of international hijackings (700 hijackings in

three decades), kidnappings (from 1968-1982 409 international kidnappings, involving 951

hostages) and the revival of assassinations of prominent figures, as it was also favored during

the first wave of terror (ibid.; 12-17).

The fourth and final wave of “Religious terrorism” marks a shift in the application of

religious motives by terrorist groups: terrorist groups are now increasingly being driven by

religious motives. In modern terror, religion has been an important factor, however in the

cases of for instance the Armenian, Macedonian, Irish, Cypriot, French Canadian, Israeli and

Palestinian struggles the aim was the establishment of secular states. Today, “Islam is at the

heart of the wave”, and religious motives have been used as justifications and organizational

principles in state formation processes. The act of suicide bombing, “reminiscent of anarchist

bomb-throwing efforts” became the weapon of choice. The decline of international terrorist

groups (from 200 in the 1980’s to 40 in the next decade) is seen as illustrative for the size of

their primary audiences, which shifted from nations to religions. The United States

increasingly began to be perceived as the main opponent of the Middle East. Middle Eastern

states increasingly opposed the presence of U.S. soldiers in their region, while Al-Qaeda

already “regarded America as its chief antagonist immediately after the Soviet Union was

defeated” and Iran soon after labeled the United States as the “Great Satan” (ibid.; 17-21).

This overview serves to remind the reader of the fact that the phenomenon terrorism is

nothing new. Through its history, terror has grown into a concept with an ambivalent nature,

as it was in the past both the label for state violence, as well as actions directed against these

very states. The fourth wave of “Religious terrorism” is the emphasis of this research, I will

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however also show that some of the key features of terrorist acts from earlier waves are also

recognizable in recent acts of terrorism. Moreover, the section above also serves to illustrate

that American condemnation of terrorism is nothing new, as a matter of fact, 100 year before

president George W. Bush issued his declaration of Global War on Terrorism (GWOT),

president Theodore Roosevelt called for “a crusade to exterminate terrorism everywhere” in

September 1901 following the assassination of former president William McKinley by an

anarchist. He stated that “[a]narchy is a crime against the whole human race and all mankind

should hand together against the Anarchist […] His crimes should be made a crime against

the law of nations […] declared by treaties among all civilized powers (cited in Aubrey, 2004;

29). When comparing this statement with statements made by George W. Bush’s on GWOT

such as “America and our friends and allies join with all those who want peace and security in

the world, and we stand together to win the war against terrorism” (cited in Rapoport, 2006;

3), the resemblance in rhetoric is striking.

The historical account given above hints at a diverse understanding of terrorism

throughout the different historical periods in which the term was used. In essence, the

vagueness of the term as such only asks for more questions rather than provides answers,

therefore to delve further into medial framing and representation of terrorism, first a more

specific angle on a more distinct and tangible key feature of modern terrorism is necessary.

To be able to do so, in the next section I will arrive at a more specific understanding of

current, “Religious” terrorism.

Understanding religious terrorism

The wide range of definitions of terror and terrorism that exists emphasizes a variety of focus

points such as levels of scale, scope, abstraction and/or territory and/of certain groups of

actors. In addition to this, one can distinguish between academic, political and international

(such as issued by the United Nations) definitions. Illustratively, a study carried out by Dutch

terrorism studies scholars Schmid and Jongman in 1988 included an inventory of 109

definitions of the term, covering 22 definitional characteristics (1988; 5-6). While it lies

beyond my goals to define terrorism - several in-depth works have analyzed the concept on a

meta-level (see for instance Khatchadourian, 1998; Bjørgo, 2005; Goodin, 2006) - I do aim to

provide a brief overview of common characteristics, to come to a better understanding of its

workings.

Most definitions of terrorism incorporate several shared features such as target,

objective, motive, perpetrator, and legitimacy. According to Polish historian Laqueur the only

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thing that all terrorist actions seem to encompass is a shared target: “the only general

characteristic generally agreed upon is that terrorism involves violence and the threat of

violence” (1996; 6). However, this conceptualization can include many acts that are not

necessarily viewed as terrorism, such as rioting and organized crime4.

The objective of terrorist acts is commonly seen as a form of instilling fear and having

psychological impact. American historian Whittaker describes this as a form of “instilling fear

in the public at large” (2003; 3). American sociologist Juergensmeyer elaborates on this by

describing terrorist acts as a “performance” and thus as performative acts, as they are the

product of an internal logic: “[t]hey are dramas designed to have an impact on the several

audiences that they affect” (2003; 126). By attacking, for instance, national symbols (such as

the attack on the WTC at September 11, 2001), terrorists exhibit the power they have and they

thereby are able to reel the foundations of a country.

A next predominant trait of international terrorism is its political motive. Tilly sees

this as a reflection of a political strategy. He defines such a strategy as the “asymmetrical

deployment of threats and violence against enemies using means that fall outside the forms of

political struggle routinely operating within some current regime” (2004; 5). Terrorism is thus

politically motivated; terror encompasses acts that are perpetrated for a political goal. Texts

on terrorism often refer to the notion that “[o]ne person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom

fighter” (see for instance Martin, 2003; 9). This can also be seen as the reason why terrorists

often dismiss the label of ‘being terrorists’ and prefer labels that more explicitly reflect their

political motivation, ideological perspective and/or ethnic struggle. British journalist Perry

illustratively describes that terrorism is in the eye of the beholder by stating that “the Tamil

Tigers would dispute that tag [of being terrorist, KL], of course. Like other guerrillas and

suicide bombers, they prefer the term ‘freedom fighters’” (2005). Other terms that according

to popular encyclopedia Wikipedia to a certain extent dispute the tag of terrorism include:

separatist, liberator, revolutionary, vigilante, militant, resistant, paramilitary, rebel, jihadi,

mujaheddin or fedayeen (2006).

Another characteristic of religious terrorism is its tendency to deliberately target non-

combatants5. By attacking innocent people, in the sense that these groups of people did not

pose a direct threat to the terrorist organization itself, terrorist acts can intimidate the public at

4 However, acts of organized crime can also become acts of terrorism, when they are carried out to instill fear. One can think of acts of organized crime such as assassinations of police chefs and judges by the Italian mafia to terrorize non-combatants and pressure governments. 5 In contrast with acts of terrorism that were carried out during the “Anarchist” and “New Left” wave of terrorism. During these periods, public figures and representatives were targets.

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large (Whittaker, 2003; 3). The direct targeting of non-combatants, predominantly civilians,

plays an important role in the performance terrorist organizations wish to present to their

audience. Civilians are utilized as a coercive tool to establish convincing symbols of fear. As

such, they exploit what philosopher Habermas describes as the high level of susceptibility of

our societies, which offer terrorists the “ideal opportunities for a prompt disruption of normal

activities”, which can have “considerably destructive consequences” (cited in Borradori,

2003; 34).

Whittaker uses the analogy of a “poor man’s air force” to describe the fifth and final

feature of terrorism: legitimacy. He does not choose this analogy because terrorists tend to

have insufficient resources, but because terrorists believe, that they “have no choice but to

operate clandestinely, emerging from the shadows to carry out dramatic (in other words,

bloody and destructive) acts of hit-and-run violence in order to attract attention to, and ensure

publicity for, themselves and their cause”. Terrorists strongly think that acts of terror, “are the

only means with which […, they, KL] can challenge and get the attention of the more

powerful state” (2003; 8). Terrorists find their “raison d’être in dedicated terrorist action”

(ibid.; 22). The promotion of the desired outcome offers enough perceived ground for

terrorists to legitimatize their actions.

The five features of terrorism discussed above provide the grounds to come to a

general understanding of terrorism. In sum, terrorism shares five characteristics: (1) it

includes violent attacks, (2) the objective of this violent attack is instilling fear, (3) the motive

to do so is grounded in a political, ideological or ethnic struggle, (4) the perpetrators – as a

coercive tool – deliberately target civilians, and (5) they legitimate their actions in seeing

terrorism as their last resort to draw attention to their cause. Interesting for this research is the

apparently inherent performative character of terrorist attacks. The process of how terrorists

perform their attacks to intimidate the public at large is described more in-depth in the next

paragraph.

Performing terrorism

As described above, terrorism can be understood as a tactic of coercive intimidation aimed at

advancing sociological, ideological and/or political ends. Studying the performance of

terrorism or, for that matter, a cultural analysis approach to criminal behaviour in its broadest

sense, is something relatively uncommon as British criminologist Brown informs us:

“[s]urprisingly, while cultural studies and anthropology have been attentive to matters of

language, image, and iconography, much criminology has tended to regard these aspects as

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inconveniences” (2003; 41). To a certain extent, I believe, the same holds for the study of

terrorism.

Juergensmeyer conceived religious terrorism as politically engaged violent “street

theater” (2003; 128). Delving into the performance of terrorist action is therefore of chief

importance as some terrorists have quite explicitly underlined the fact that they structure their

terrorist performance for the media. Reported founder of al-Qaeda Osama bin Muhammad bin

‘Awad bin Laden, for instance stated: “God willing, you will see our work on the news” (cited

in Schmid, 2006; 94). A non-identified former terrorist active in the German Red Army

Faction and Italian Red Brigades elaborates on the ambiguous relationship broadcasters have

with terrorist organizations:

[w]e give the media what they need: newsworthy events. They cover us, explain our causes and this, unknowingly, legitimate us […] You must understand: the media are very interested in our actions. They look for contacts with us, they try to get information from us and they are eager to report everything we do and say […] Take for example the news agencies – within half an hour after calling them and briefing them, which we did quite often, you are in the headlines all over the world […] All you need is one phone call with a threat or a declaration […] Those [terrorists, KL] I know managed to establish contact and close contact with selected journalists. And the activity is often planned with the media as central factor. Some actions are planned for the media (Weimann & Winn, 1994; 61).

Juergensmeyer states that the dramatic violence of terrorists is part of their strategic plan. He

sees the theatrical display of violence as constructed symbolic events with a distinct

demonstrative nature: “At centre stage are the acts themselves – stunning, abnormal, and

outrageous murders carried out in a way that graphically displays the awful power of violence

– set within grand scenarios of conflict and proclamation” (2003; 124). The terrorist

performance as such is a coercive tool aimed at the exploitation of the susceptible state of our

society.

Performance can embrace a wide range of human behaviours. The performance of

terrorist action can be grasped by taking it into account from the perspective of cultural

studies. Within cultural studies, performance is broadly defined as a form of “repetition with a

difference”, a behaviour “which can be repeated, rehearsed, and above all recreated”

(Schechner, cited in Roach, 1995; 46). More specific, and in line with how terrorist

performances are grasped here, is the application of the term by British cultural studies

scholar Hartley: “the concept of performance directs the analyst’s attention […] to the formal,

rule-governed actions which are appropriate to the given performative genre […] it is clear

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that there are performative protocols in play that require skill and creativity” (Hartley et al.,

1994; 223).

I believe that for this research, terrorist actions are to be perceived as performances

based on the use of certain (stylistic) methods out of a certain repertoire, established over

time. Fundamental for this research is that I contend that the news media frame these

performances in a certain way. The repertoire differs from one terrorist organization to the

other. There are rules, or performative protocols, that direct the course of (future) action in

line with a groups’ earlier attacks. The emphasis in this research is on what Rapoport

described as the fourth or “religious wave of terrorism”, and more specifically ‘Jihadist’

terrorist acts. The question arises how terrorists operating during this wave perform their acts.

To understand the actual workings of the ‘Jihadist’ terrorist performance one must take into

account that the coercive tool receives its strength from two factors. One the one hand, the

terrorist performance is structured to reach more people than those that are directly affected

with the attack. On the other hand, the fact that the terrorists are willing to give their own lifes

for their cause intensifies the performance.

Take for instance three acts attributed to ‘Jihad’ such as the 11 September, 2001

attacks on the World Trade Centre in the United States, the October 12, 2002 bombing in

Bali, Indonesia and the 7th of July 2005 bombings of London Underground trains and a

double-decker bus. What is striking use here is that next to the unprecedented immense

violence and loss of life on three different continents, these acts where all carried out by

bombers who gave their life for their act. As such the ‘Jihadist’ terrorist act can be understood

as a form of repetition with a difference, the difference being the renewal of a wave of fear,

through suicide bombings.

These performances are to be understood as acts of communication. The message is

successful, if their violence force works into the consciousness of the people who witness it

(through the media); as Juergensmeyer elaborates: “[w]hen we, who observe these acts take

them seriously – are disgusted and repelled by them, and begin to distrust the peacefulness of

the world around us – the purposes of this theatre are achieved” (2003; 128). The recent

‘Jihadist’ terrorist acts further illustrate the established growing distrust of the peacefulness,

as the perpetrators who believe in the promise of reaching paradise do not fear suicidal

attacks. The perpetrators do not fear to ‘be killed in action’ at all and this can be understood as

an amplifier of the strength of the terrorist performance and the impact of the terrorist

message because, as American scholar of law Martin puts it: “[o]ne man willing to throw

away his life is enough to terrorize a thousand” (2003; 9)

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However, terrorism is not all about killing as many people as possible. The terrorist

performance is shaped to reach the broadest audience possible. The message is devised to

damage the experienced peacefulness of the world of the receiver, not necessarily to kill as

many people as possible. The September 11 attacks are a good example. In this case, as I will

demonstrate below, the suicide bombers reached a truly global audience, as the news media

disseminated the symbolic images throughout world, in real-time. Terrorists were capable of

damaging symbols of what in some ways can be seen as the centre of the financial world, and

thereby they have demonstrated their immense capacity to instantaneously spread terror. As

such the aphorism uttered by the American security and terrorism specialist Jenkins that many

terrorists simply “want a lot of people watching, not a lot of people dead” (cited in Baumann,

2004) can also be understood. Repeatedly, starvation and natural disasters have resulted in

greater loss of life than for instance 9/11, however the incidental terrorist performance

remains ‘breaking news’, as the performance generates a more powerfully amplified message.

Additionally, United Nations advisor Schmid interprets terrorist actions as “message

generators”:

[t]hreat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperilled) 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 (1983; 70)

In sum, the main point of departure throughout the following analysis of the framing

of terrorism is the assumption that terrorism can be understood as a performance. The

theatrical terror performance is structured to communicate a message to a broader audience

than those that are directly affected by the acts themselves through diverse media outlets. The

suicidal terrorist attacks as they occur during the current fourth wave of terrorism

communicate an amplified message to a worldwide audience.

The message intends to do considerable damage to the supposed peacefulness of the

situation any member of the audience receiving the broadcasted terrorist performance finds

him- or herself in. The understanding of terrorist acts as performances provides the basis for

researching acts of terrorism and the way these acts are framed in the news media. Before

describing a perspective that offers the possibility to assess the functioning and possible

outcomes of specific media attention, first medial framing itself is conceptualized below.

Framing theory namely provides the means to address the relation between terrorist

performances and news media from a specific angle.

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§ 2.2 Framing terrorism

For most of the people of the world, for most of the events in the world, what the news system does not transmit did not happen. To that extent, the world and its inhabitants are what the news media say they are (Bagdikian, 1971; xii-xiii).

The people’s view on the world equals the view of how the world is framed in the news. This

is how the role of news media was described by Turkish-American media sociologist

Bagdikian in the 1970’s. It still holds some ground for interpretational purposes. Among other

actors, the media still have the capability to magnify some issues (for instance violent

conflict) while they are also able to minimize other aspects (such as peaceful co-existence)

(Schmid, 2006; 96). In the introduction, I have already introduced this feature in terms of how

Laqueur described the “symbiotic relationship” between terrorists and the media (1986; 87).

Whittaker elaborates on this by stating that terrorists and the news media “both deal in

publicity” (2004; 92).

I am interested here in the role framing plays in the broadcasting of performed terror

events6. This paragraph introduces framing theory as an approach to address the object of

study. To be able to do so, a composite model of news framing will be developed. First, I will

describe the historical developments that are of interest for my understanding of framing.

Subsequently, framing will be coupled with notions of ‘the Other’ to come to the desired

approach of framing of terrorism. I will base my assessment of the meaning of particular news

media frames of terror performances, on how ‘the Other’ is framed.

History of framing

Throughout recent history, theories of framing have been used in divergent ways in research

projects within the field of social sciences and humanities. What remains of framing can now

be characterized as a “scattered conceptualization” (Entman, 1993; 51). The rise of framing

theory is commonly attributed to the Canadian sociologist Goffman and his 1974 book Frame

Analysis: an Essay on the Organization of Experience. He defines frames as the basic

elements that structure situations “in accordance with principles of organization which govern

events – at least social ones – and our subjective involvement in them” (1974; 10-11). His

specific interpretation of frames focuses on individual actors (ibid.; 13), who organize their

social life through their specific frame of reference which acts as a guiding principle.

Goffman emphasizes the workings of frames within unmediated settings such as face-to-face

6 A more in-depth contribution on what role the news media should play in publicizing terror can be found in the discussion chapter (§ 6.1).

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communication and the spectator-actor relationship in theatre. Individual actors are then

placed within larger contexts, by describing them as social groups who are to be seen as

constituents of “a central element of its culture”, because they form a domain or “a group’s

framework of frameworks”. As such, social groups can make sense of events, through “the

sum total of forces and agents that these interpretive designs acknowledge to be loose in the

world” (ibid.; 27).

Goffman approached framing as a “microconstruct” (Scheufele & Tweksbury, 2007;

12). In this way it describes how people use offered or presented information as they form and

organize their experiences. Over the years, the micro-level approach to framing theory and

research has generally shifted to a macro-level approach7. As a “macroconstruct”, framing can

be seen as a common label to describe and understand presentational modes that journalists

employ to present information for instance in ways that reflect underlying schemas that exist

among their audiences (ibid.). Because framing theory has been used both as a theoretical tool

to understand bottom-up as well as top-down communication processes its status has become

somewhat unclear:

[p]erhaps the most dramatic change in framing research is that its various expansions amount to more than the sum of their parts. They have transformed framing research from a method of media-content analysis to a theoretical concept or even a theory in the making (Roefs, 1998).

Framing however constantly adheres to the principles concerning the power of a text,

be it from the side of the interpreter or the disperser.�In this research, it will be used as a way

to achieve greater understanding of the latter. German and American communication scholars

Scheufele and Tweksbury place framing within the broader context of communication tools

for modern political campaigning, alongside theories such as agenda-setting and priming. As

such they understand it as a media-effect (2007). For this research it is beneficial to

understand framing within the context of these theories, and to grasp it as a theoretical media

7 After Goffman’s publication on micro-level, ‘bottom-up’ framing, other authors began to utilize and build on some aspects of his work. In 1978, Tuchman used framing to come to an understanding of power relations and ideology in the construction of news in newspapers from a more top-down perspective. He focuses on the narrative flow of events and its establishing within institutions. Riker, a leading scholar of the Rational Choice School of political science (1986) applied framing to develop “heresthetics”, a theory centered on manipulation involving the structuring of processes so that other partners in discussion accept it more willingly. Snow and Benford (1988) also used framing from a more political perspective and expanded the concept further by coupling it with social constructionism. Within the frameworks of social theory, they developed frame analysis theory to –on an ideological level– understand and secure participant mobilization in social movements. In 1991, Fiske and Taylor incorporated framing in social cognition theories to come to a bottom-up like understanding of the cognitive workings of how people understand themselves and each other through social schemata, while Entman and Rojecki in 1993 used framing more as a macro-construct to describe the rhetoric function of narrowing communicational options in the organization and presentation of political debate.

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effect model. I however do not solely understand these theories as tools for political

campaigning, as they – fundamentally – can also be used by other actors. My methodology

reflects the specific understanding and approach of the ‘effects’ of framing. In this research,

framing is coupled with the conceptual ‘Other’. Before a coupling with this notion is possible,

a more specific understanding of framing is necessary. Therefore, I will come to a narrow

definition of framing below.

Defining framing

American political scientist and media scholar Entman believes that framing, in its core,

offers a way to analyze “the power of a communicating text”, however in most work on

framing the concept remains repeatedly merely casually defined, leaving a lot open for

interpretation and understanding for the researcher and his or her audience. He believes this is

due to the fact that key terms for framing research such as frame, framing and framework are

common outside of the academic world while “their connotation there is roughly the same”.

Entman pins down the meaning of framing by stating that it involves “selection” and

“salience”:

[t]o frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation (1993; 51- 52).

As can be derived from the quote taken from Entman, framing of news can be characterised

by four features that are generally at play and that work through selection and salience: an

identification of a problem, a specific interpretation of this problem, a specific evaluation of

this problem and a specific solution for this problem.

However, prior to framing a problem, the particular ‘news-event’ has to be judged as

newsworthy. For the purpose of this research I accept the observation made by American

media scholars Gurevitch, Levy and Roeh who stated that an event is judged newsworthy

when it can be anchored “in a narrative framework that is already familiar to and recognizable

by newsmen as well as by audiences situated in particular cultures” (1991; 207). Arguing

along this line of interpretation, events are presented in familiar frameworks, pertaining to

certain cultures, and are as such contributing to a stable interpretation within that culture.

Subsequently, one can say this provides steadfastness, and thus resistance to change, within

the specific culture. This research will try to see whether forms of culturally specific framing

of the theatre of terror cause cultures to dissentiate because of this.

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Frames “have at least four locations within the communication process: the

communicator, the text, the receiver and the culture” and every frame “includes similar

functions: selection and highlighting, and use of the highlighted elements to construct an

argument about problems and their causation, evaluation and/or solution” (Entman, 1993; 52).

I will now elaborate upon these four from the perspective of this research. Also, I will add

another location: the channel of dissemination through which the message is framed.

Communicators deliberately or without being aware make use of framing devices (or

schemata as they are also called) to organize their presentation of newsworthy events. The

text is based on the application or the lack hereof of stereotypical imagery, words with

specific reference points, certain sources of news and its enforcing use of certain

interpretations, evaluations and recommendations. It represents choice, and “can be defined as

actualized meaning potential” according to American linguist Halliday (1978; 15). Israeli

psychologists Kahneman and Tversky (1984) illustrate that framing can determine how

people notice, understand, evaluate and decide on problems. I accept as a starting point that

framing can indeed have a shared (but not universal) effect on the majority of the recipients8.

Frames can be characterized as cues within the process of discursive construction. The

discourse shapes the audience’s stance towards of the news narrative. The working of this

processes is expanded and in the methodology section. Another location in the

communication process is the culture, which consists of a repository of frequently employed

framing devices; or as Entman describes it “culture might be defined as the empirically

demonstrable set of common frames exhibited in the discourse and thinking of most people in

a social grouping” (ibid.; 53). The news channel is another location of interest, especially in

this research, where several channels (in this case different news media) are compared. Each

channel has its own set of commonly used framing devices, and as such channels can be

distinguished on, amongst other things, their different modes of address.

In this research, I investigate whether the same terrorist performances are broadcasted

throughout the world in divergent ways and what these differences implicate. Differences in

framing are to be expected, when for instance taking into account that frames will be “geared

to the social and political frameworks and sensibilities of several domestic audiences”

8 Kahneman and Taversky empirically tested subjects in an experiment. They presented their subjects with an ethical problem. Two groups were given two differently framed texts on the same situation. In both cases, around 75 percent of the subjects chose for one way to act upon the problem. They were given identical options, but these options were framed completely different. And the framing made 75 percent of the subjects choose for the direct opposite solution to the problem. They also attribute this result to the fact that in general, people are not sufficiently informed and active cognitively. Framing can this way to a greater extent influence the people’s responses to communication.

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Gurevitch et al. (1991; 207), as the broadcasters use frames from culturally-specific

repositories. I assume that the terror event will be broadcasted differently, because the news

media’s approach to their audiences’ social world borrows from what American

anthropologist Edelman describes as “a kaleidoscope of potential realities any of which can be

readily evoked by altering the ways in which observations are framed and categorized” (1993;

232).

To sum up, framing refers to the power of a communicated message. Through the

selection and emphasizing of some features and the downplaying of other aspects, a particular

presented stance is highlighted by the communicator. Communicators offer framed texts

through certain channels. Thereby framing devices that are common to the receiver are

selected from culturally-specific repositories, which means terror events are broadcasted to

the world in divergent ways. To specifically address the cultural dynamic framing of

‘Jihadist’ terrorist performances, framing can be refined by coupling the term with notions of

‘the Other’. Violent conflicts are often framed in terms of binary oppositions such as good

versus evil. Terrorists are often presented as the evil ‘Other’, and for clarification purposes,

‘the Other’ is often generalized. In the framing of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism by the Western (news)

media ‘the Other’ is often simply the bearded Arab or Muslim9 in general.

§ 2.3 Framing ‘the Other’

The media coverage of the Middle East has been intense for most of the last fifty years and the current Western image of the Muslims and Arabs […] has been very much affected by that coverage. The sense of Islam as an innately hostile, negative and militant entity has been reflected in Western perceptions and in Western coverage for some decades. In some ways it can be seen as reaching back to the pre-colonial European fear of the Arabs massing at the very gates of Christendom (Parfitt & Agarova, 2004; 2-3)

The sense of evilness of Muslims, Arabs and the Islam is rooted in older representations of the

‘Other’ “against which Europeans defined themselves [...] embedded in our collective

Western imaginaire” (ibid.; 1). I expect that framing theory can help to lay bare the current

reflections in news media of these cultural dynamics. However, these cultural dynamics beg

for a complimentary approach, to highlight the mechanisms of in- and exclusion of framing.

9 As Egyptian media scholar Abdulla notes, the terms “Arab” and “Muslim” must not be conflated. Even though the Western media tends to use both terms interchangeably. “Arabs are members of an ethnic group of people who reside in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Muslims are those who choose Islam as their religion. Most Arabs (more than 90%) are Muslims. However, the majority of Muslims are not Arabs. The majority of Muslims come from India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, all of which are non-Arab countries” (Abdulla, 2007).

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Divergent news frames can namely be addressed by what they include and exclude, or what

they call attention to, or choose to let fade into obscurity, since metaphorically speaking a

frame is essentially “a fixed border that includes some things and excludes others” (Jamieson

& Waldman, 2003; xiii).

To grasp the significance of those ignored or excluded, framing can be coupled with

‘the Other’. The emphasis here is on the postcolonial understanding of ‘the Other’, but I am

well aware of the fact that ‘the Other’ is a philosophical notion that has recurred in the works

of a great number of philosophers10. Palestinian-American literary theorist Said explored the

workings of inter-cultural discourse and the representation of the Middle East in British

universities by asking:

[w]hat is another culture? Is the notion of a distinct culture or race, or religion, or civilization a useful one, or does it always get involved either in self-congratulation when one discusses one’s own or hostility and aggression when one discusses the ‘other’ […] How do ideas acquire authority “normality” and even the status of “natural” truth? (1978; 325-326).

In his work, Said contests values and definitions in the representation of the presumed

opposite, the ‘Orient’: Arabs, Islam and the Muslim world. He claims that the Western world

subordinates the ‘other’ by continuously emphasizing the inferiority of ‘the Other’ and this

process “operates as representations usually do, for a purpose, according to a tendency, in a

specific historical, intellectual, and even economic setting” (Said, 1978; 273).

Similar to how Said looked at representations of marginality, I will focus on both the

commonsensical Orientalist as well as Occidentalist ‘Othering’ of culturally, politically and

geographically alien people through framing processes of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism. Rodgers argues

that “a tendency to portray particular kinds of information in particular kinds of ways can

exclude information, ideas and actors that may reasonably be expected to have a place in the

reporting of events” (2003; 204). Through its fundamental application of narratives, news

framing can be seen as a form of storytelling. The stories are produced in what Indian

anthropologist Appadurai labeled as “media-scapes”: “image-centered, narrative-based

10 ‘The Other’ is believed to be originally set out by German philosopher Hegel in the beginning of the 19th

century, for instance in his dialectic of the master and slave (Solomon, 1986; 427). The distinction was subsequently adopted and discussed by several theorists, for instance by French psychoanalyst Lacan to describe the Mirror-phrase a baby goes through when experiencing his or her uniqueness or disconnectedness with the world. As such it reflects the binary of self and other (Fryer, 2004; 54). The postcolonial understanding of the term builds on the gender studies notion of ‘the Other’ as set out by French existentialist philosopher de Beauvoir: “for a man represents both the positive and the neutral, as indicated by the common use of man to designate human beings in general; whereas woman represents only the negative, defined by limiting criteria, without reciprocity” (de Beauvoir, 2002; 33). De Beauvoir developed these notions of the construction of difference relatively early (in 1949 she introduced these in her work The Second Sex).

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accounts of strips of reality”. These are experienced as characters, plots and textual forms

“out of which scripts can be formed of imagined lives […] by which people […] constitute

narratives of the Other” (1996; 35-36). In this way, framing can play a significant role in the

production and reproduction or “schematic categories in terms of which a society represents

itself” according to Turkish sociologist Yumul (2004; 35). This is realized, for example, by

defining groups as ‘the Other’ by perceiving them to be in any way different, alien or

threatening, by utilizing labeling terms that consolidate existing ideas of groups, thus in sum

by “assigning different semantic roles to the members of different groups” as researched by

American linguist Fowler (1991; 120).

When the portrayal of ‘the Other’ is fed by the media’s tendency to focus on bad

news, as set out by Spanish sociologist Castells, the audience member is provided with bleak

representations of the other:

[o]nly ‘bad news’, relating to conflict, drama, unlawful deals, or objectionable, behavior, is interesting news. Since news is increasingly framed to parallel (and compete with) entertainment shows, or sports events, so is its logic. It requires drama, suspense, conflict, rivalries, greed, deception, winners and losers, and, if possible, sex and violence (2004; 379).

In line with this approach of framing the other, it is possible to analyze the framing of terrorist

performances in terms of ‘us’ versus ‘the Other’ and thus in categories such as ‘us’ versus

‘them’, winners versus losers and good versus evil. English Jewish studies scholars Parfitt and

Agarova have argued that after 9/11 attacks, two influential discourse emerged: “one puts the

blame on Islam as a whole – the other pins responsibility on the Jews” (2004; 2). In this

research, I focus on the first discourse. Representations of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism have for

example been expressed earlier in the Western mass media negative framing of Islam by

using expressions such as “violent Islam”, “Islamic bombs”, “Islamic terrorism”. Also

framing references such as “the confrontation of cultural identities”, “the clash of

civilizations” and “the ideological conflict” (Marquina and Rebolledo, 2000; 166-168) are

illustrative examples of framing of the ‘other’ that I want to highlight and assess.

Thus in this research, framing ‘the Other’centers around the marginalized

representation of ‘the Other’ through a specific framing of ‘Jihadist’ terrorist acts. Also, news

reports from the Middle East are taken into account. The ‘Othering’ in these news reports can

possibly be the ‘Othering’ of Western traditions, more specifically for instance North-

American consumerism. Without sub-textual or contextual references and through the

exclusion of certain actors and the highlighting of certain parts of information, schematic

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societal divisions are presented as unquestionable truths. To assess the consequences of

specific framing processes, a perspective to take into account the possibilities and

impossibilities of intercultural dialogue is introduced in the next chapter.

§ 2.4 Philosophy in a time of terror

In this research, the workings of the framing of terrorism are assessed by taking into account

the Habermasian perspective on the possibility of intercultural dialogue. By interviewing both

Habermas and Derrida in her book Philosophy in a Time of Terror (2003) Borradori

juxtaposes two completely different stances on the political and philosophical notion of

dialogue. In the beginning of the book she asks the reader whether dialogue can be a universal

tool of communication or whether it should be considered a culturally specific practice (2003;

xi). This simplified juxtaposition can help us understand the philosophical stance occupied by

Habermas. Habermas, as I will show, advocates mutual understanding and thereby would

affirm the first part of the question, while Derrida’s position is in accordance with the second

part by highlighting and insisting on the rigidity of the inherent hierarchies in dialogue-

situations. Borradori states that “for Habermas, reason, understood as the possibility of

transparent and nonmanipulative communication, can cure the ills of modernization,

fundamentalism and terrorism among them, for Derrida these destructive strains can be

detected and named but not wholly controlled or conquered” (2003; 20)

The position of Derrida is not examined further here, because I am more interested in

Habermas’ more applied philosophical strive of diagnosing societal problems and providing

possible remedies. Habermas has namely elaborated on the rich potential of rationally acting

individuals and their inherent strive towards reaching understanding. Derrida however insists

that reaching understanding as such is a-priori impossible, as he beliefs dialogue situations are

always hierarchically structured. According to Derrida, on this basis, dialogue partners can

never be seen as fully equal, which subsequently can never result in reaching rational

understanding. American scholar of philosophy Hoy elaborates on Derrida’s stance as

follows: [a]s opposed to interpreters who purport to enable us to read the text, Derrida would

make us unable to read it. Instead of assuming the text succeeds in establishing its message,

Derrida’s strategy is to get us to see that it does not work (Hoy, 1985; 44). Habermas’ position

is therefore used as one of the main point of departures, to assess to what extent the potential

of reaching understanding is realized through broadcast media and the blogosphere.

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Habermas and his ‘grand theory’ of rational understanding

British historian Skinner understands the term grand theory as a non-polemic, descriptive

label11. I contend that by descriptively approaching the philosophical stance of Habermas as a

grand theory, better understanding of his perspective can be created. Skinner described a

grand theory modeled after the “traditional image of the natural sciences” as an “overarching”

theory which aims to provide “through singular schemes of explanation” a more speculative,

overall and broader explanation of topics of interest for the social disciplines (1985; 1-20).

Skinner states that Habermas’ writings have been of chief importance for reviving the

tradition of grand theory with one of his central preoccupations, the model of “the ideal

speech situation”. Habermas developed this model to explain the “nature of circumstances in

which we might be capable of reaching a fully rational appraisal of our own social

predicament, undisturbed by external constraints or ideological preferences” (ibid.; 16-17).

Habermas and terrorism in the news

Habermas’ work can be placed within the tradition of critical theory. A philosopher engaging

in critical theory can be expected to serve a diagnostic function “to both the ills of modern

society and the intellectual discourse that underlies their insurgence and justifies their scopes

and motivations […] toward the possibility of remedy” (Borradori, 2002; 15). His take on the

medial representation of terrorism logically builds on some of the basic premises developed

earlier in his career, namely the theory of the public sphere (1962) and the theory of

communicative action (1981).

11 The label ‘grand theories’ is controversial within the domain of media studies. American film scholar Bordwell for instance insists that general theoretical stances are immanently connected with a top down approach to analysis. As such, he believes that film critics in this tradition transform the films that are analyzed into examples of the prior established theory: “[r]ather than formulating a question, posing a problem, or trying to come to grips with an intriguing film, the writer often takes as the central task the proving of a theoretical position by adducing films as examples. From the theory the writer moves to a particular case. Lévi-Straussian analyses of the Western, feminist conceptions of the body in film, Jamesonian accounts of the postmodernity of Blade Runner again and again research is seen chiefly as “applying” a theory to a particular film or historical period” (Bordwell, 1996; 19). I intend to use the premise of Habermas, although I partly agree with Bordwell, as it can be restricting to approach research objects from a singular prior-established theoretical perspective. To bypass the necessity to address the lengthy debate within philosophy of science on the validity of top-down research, I have taken my precautions. I namely do not blindly accept the Habermasian perspective as a given, but by critically engaging with his philosophical thinking from a comparative and intermedial perspective, I believe more insights can be established to achieve greater understanding about the dynamics of the medial framing of terrorism and their implications for intercultural dialogue. I do thus not intend to apply a ‘grand theory’ in the way Bordwell criticized.

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More specifically for this thesis, one characteristic recognizable in both concepts is the

assumption that all rational speech acts can be characterized by an inherent telos: mutual

understanding. According to British sociologist Giddens in his analysis of Habermas as a

‘grand theorist’, Habermas notion on the telos of rational argumentation is based on four

validity claims: “(1) That what is said is intelligible; (2) That the propositional content of

whatever is said is true; (3) That the speaker is justified in saying whatever is said and (4)

That the speaker is sincere in whatever is said” (1985; 128). On these claims, Habermas

formulated “a ‘court of appeal’ of the rationality inherent in communication, making possible

the continuance of communicative relations when disputes arise, without recourse to duress”

(ibid.; 132).

German sociologist Bonacker describes this inherent goal of communication as a

fundamental characteristic of Habermas work:

Jürgen Habermas [richtet, KL] sein Augenmerk besonders auf die Rationalisierung der Lebenswelt, die den gemeinsamen Lebens- und Erfahrungshintergrund wie die allgemeine Handlungsorientierung der Menschen ausmacht. Die Lebenswelt als ein intersubjektiv symbolisch vermittelter Lebenszusammenhang erfährt in dem Maße eine Rationalisierung, wie unhinterfragt gültiges Wissen und gültige Normen problematisiert und kritikfähig werden. Entscheidend für eine rationalisierte Lebenswelt ist daher die Legitimationsform des Gültigen, die nach Habermas auf sprachlicher Begründung beruhen muß (Bonacker, 1997; 18).

As such, a fundamental aspect in Habermas’ thinking, is the common human intention of

being a rationally acting and communicating individual. The internalization of rationality

offers the ground for the establishment of a society which is built on premises of critical

discussion with others. German sociologist Müller-Doohm adds “[dass] das im Zentrum der

Theorie von Habermas steht” as the so-called “Rationalitätskonzept der Konsensfindung” and

“[d]abei scheut er auch nicht vor der Gretchenfrage zurück, ob alle Konflikte in der

Gesellschaft rational, d.h. kommunikativ lösbar sind” (cited in Bonacker, 1997; 11).

This question directly examines the very heart of the problem I want to address in this

study. In this case the question arises whether intercultural communication and the

overcoming of conflicts is in its conceptual core possible at all. This “Gretchenfrage” is

answered by Habermas as follows: “a prior consensus concerning important preconditions of

communication” is necessary: “[o]nly an impartial fundamental knowledge could foster the

desired communication between different forms of belief” (Habermas, 2001a; 41-42).

Habermas elaborates on the normative resources of communicative reason for intercultural

communication as follows:

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I mean the insight that intercultural understanding can only succeed under conditions of symmetrically conceded freedoms, a reciprocal willingness to view things from the perspective of the other. Only then can a political culture develop which is also sensitive to the need for the institutionalization of appropriate preconditions of communication, in the form of human and constitutional rights (ibid.; 44).

This elaboration helps us interpret the following statement by Habermas on terrorism

and communication: “conflicts arise from distortion in communication, from

misunderstanding and incomprehension, from insincerity and deception”. This is amplified by

the fact that these conflicts arise between “cultures, ways of life, and nations” which “are at

great distance from […] one another” (cited in Borradori, 2002; 35) and as such, trust that is

generally developed between members of society through communicative everyday practices

is lacking (ibid.; 36). “Attempts at understanding have a chance only under symmetrical

conditions of mutual perspective-taking […] Without the structures of a communicative

situation free from distortion, the results are always under suspicion of having been forced”

(ibid.; 37). From this perspective, the news media must facilitate intercultural understanding

through for instance equally presenting different perspectives. The different perspectives can

further a mutual sense of inclination to be able to also view problems from the viewpoint of

the other. These conditions are necessary to foster an inclusive society that builds on rational

discussion:

[t]he communicative theory of society whose development I am advocating conceives of the life process of society as a generative process mediated by speech acts. The social reality that emerges from this rests on the facticity of the claims to validity implicit in symbolic objects such as sentences, actions, gestures, traditions, institutions, worldviews and so on” (Habermas, 2001b; 86).

With respect to the object of this research, the framing of terrorism in the news, one

could state that news media can be attributed positively if they can contribute to

understanding by bringing undistorted representations of all parties involved, to foster

symmetrical conditions for rational discussion and understanding. Habermas’ notion of the

public sphere helps to understand how this media initiated intercultural dialogue and reaching

of understanding can take place. The Habermasian notion of the public sphere can be seen as

a domain of social life in which public opinion can be formed through discussions.

Participating in the discussions that constitute the public sphere is open in principle to all

citizens that want to discuss matters of public interest:

“[j]enes Publikum, das als Subjekt des bürgerlichen Rechtsstaates gelten darf, versteht denn auch seine Sphäre als seine öffentliche in diesem strengen Sinne; es antizipiert in

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seinen Erwägungen die Zugehörigkeit prinzipiell aller Menschen. Schlechthin Mensch nämlich moralische Person, ist auch der einzelne Privatmann” (Habermas, 1971; 107.

A public sphere can be constituted when private persons have a rational conversation.

The grouping of these persons can be seen as the formation of a public12: “Bürgerliche

Öffentlichkeit lässt sich vorerst als die Sphäre der zum Publikum versammelten Privatleute

begreifen” (1971; 42). The ideal conception Habermas had of the public sphere, was

eventually realised during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Britain, France and

Germany. The bourgeoisie were the ones who could exclusively match the liberal connotation

of the public sphere; “they guarantee society as a sphere of private autonomy” (1996a; 95).

The realization of the public sphere means that during a brief period of time, a situation

existed in which according to the British sociologists Crossley and Roberts “a zone of

mediation” could be formed: “large numbers of middle class men, qua private individuals,

came together to engage in reasoned argument over key issues of mutual interest and concern,

creating a space in which both new ideas and the practices and discipline of rational public

debate were cultivated” (Roberts & Crossley, 2004; 2).

Habermas illustrates the downfall of the public sphere with the rise of newspapers and

magazines. In the very beginning, newspapers were praised. “From mere institutions for the

publication of news, newspapers became the vehicles and guides of public opinion as well,

weapons of party politics” (Bücher, cited in Habermas, 1996a; 95). At first, news media were

expected to be perfectly well suited to provide grounds for discussion. Although the public

political discussion could be feuded and intensified, the news media initially were nothing

more but conveyors of information because they were according to Habermas not

incorporated in the profit driven consumer culture:

[e]ine Presse, die sich aus dem Räsonnement des Publikums entwickelt und dessen Diskussion bloss verlängert hatte, blieb durchaus Institution dieses Publikums selbst: wirksam in der Art eines Vermittlers und Verstärkers, nicht mehr blosses Organ des Informationstransportes und noch kein Medium der Konsumentenkultur (1971; 219).

When profit making motives became increasingly important, journalists more and

more anticipated on the personal necessities of the people; “the sphere of publicness was

changed by an influx of private interests that achieved privileged representation within it”

(1996; 96). The private interests of the working class people that ended up in the public

domain caused a downfall of the public sphere, states Habermas: 12 Some (for instance Carey, 1989) have argued that Habermas thoughts on the public were based on notions set out by American philosopher Dewey who wrote on publics and communities (1927) in the early decennia of the 20th century.

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[w]ith the spread of the press and propaganda, the public expanded beyond the confines of the bourgeoisie. Along with its social exclusivity the public lost the cohesion given it by institutions of convivial social intercourse and by a relatively standard of educations. Accordingly, conflicts which in the past were pushed off into the private sphere now enter the public sphere” (ibid.).

The news media that are taken into account in this research are assessed from a

Habermasian perspective. Coupled with critiques on Habermas fairly narrow definition and

interpretation of the public sphere, I will show whether or not TV news and weblog news

postings and discussions foster the growth of a public sphere on the basis of mutual

intercultural exchange. A more inclusive interpretation of the public sphere is given in the

case study sections to take into account the medium specific characteristics and workings of

the news media. However, the basis for taking into account the news media lays in the fact

that they can be addressed as what Habermas described as a distinctive space for the

representation of a public sphere “ein Lokal ihrer Repräsentation” (1971; 21). As described

above, the (news) media have the potential to provide the means for and the ability to

intensify public discussion. Swedish media scholar Dahlgren even underlines that nowadays

“media-based interpretive communities are a precondition for sense making in a modern

public sphere” (1991; 17). The remarks made by Habermas about the downfall of the public

sphere can be helpful to criticize modern-day news media and their contribution to a zone of

mediation.

British communication scholar Curran goes as far as to say that from a classical liberal

theory13 perspective – which is used throughout this research – media can be seen as “the

principal institutions of the public sphere”.

They distribute the information necessary for citizens to make an informed choice […] [and] facilitate the formation of public opinion by providing an independent forum of debate; and they enable the people to shape the conduct of the government by articulating their views (1991; 29).

While Dahlgren insists that publics emerge through discursive interaction processes of

citizens and “it constitutes the encounter with media output within the immediate social

ecology of reading/viewing/listening” (1991; 17). The moment a public is formed a diverse

community can be generated and a public sphere can arise.

13 Curran defines the central role of the media for the public sphere from this perspective as “assisting the equitable negotiation or arbitration of competing interests through democratic processes”. It “celebrates the canon of professional objectivity, with its stress on disinterested detachment, the separation of fact from opinion, from balancing of claim and counterclaim” (1991; 30 & 32).

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As a given, it can thus be accepted that the media in essence have the potential to

foster a flourishing public sphere and by doing so they can potentially contribute to

intercultural understanding based on this flourishing public sphere. Intercultural

understanding can be reached within the transnational public sphere, which can be seen as a

“social space generated by communicative action” (Habermas, 1996b; 360). Such a social

space can be a part of the solution in what Habermas labels as “The Conflict of Beliefs14”. If

the perspective of ‘the Other’, in this case for instance the Arab world, is mis- or

underrepresented, this can possibly damage the reciprocal willingness to foster intercultural

communication.

In the following case studies, this perspective on the role of the news media will be

assessed. If the news report furthers the clash between the one who presents the news report

on terrorism (for instance someone from the Middle East presenting a discordant world view

of the West or vice versa), the distance between the Middle East and the United States will

not (begin to) dissolve. This research aims to lay bare the implications for mutual

understanding as a result of specific framings of ‘the Other’ through television and weblogs.

To do so, the perspective on intercultural dialogue and the public sphere is coupled with two

ways to comprehend the consequences of framing.

§ 2.5 Framing intercultural dialogue

Communication scholar D’Angelo, argues for a news framing research program15 which

essentially enables scholars to take into account a variety of theories and approaches to

understand framing. He makes an illustrative distinction between the cognitive, critical and

constructionist approach to framing. The first approach focuses on individual audience

members, while the last two encompass the perceptive processes of audience groups. The

constructionist and critical approach to framing can be combined to understand the

14 Habermas entitled his essay on Karl Jaspers and his notion of the “Clash of Cultures” as The Conflict of Beliefs. In this essay he elaborates on this clash as follows: “Since the collapse of the Soviet empire and the end of a polarization of the world which seemed to reflect a conflict of basic social policies, conflicts are increasingly defined from a cultural standpoint. They are viewed as conflicts of peoples and cultures whose self-understanding has been shaped by the traditions of opposing world religions. In this situation, we Europeans are faced with the task of achieving an intercultural understanding between the world of Islam and the Judaeo-Christian West” (Habermas, 2001; 31). 15 D’Angelo in his critical answer on Entman’s plea for a Kuhnian paradigmatic general theory approach to framing argues for a Lakatosian news framing research program. Lakatos (1974) essentially believed that Kuhn’s description of progress within the “normal science” (1962), which supported shared paradigmatic outlooks, was irrational. He introduced a metatheoretical counterpart: a research program which can incorporate several paradigms. Within this metatheoretical stance on science, it is believed that several, often competing, theories can be combined to come to greater understanding of any phenomenon. I adopt the Lakatosian research program outlook, by combining several approaches to understand framing in my analysis.

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Habermasian perspective on the workings of framing terrorism. Within the constructionist

approach frames are seen as elements out of a “tool-kit”, from which citizens should draw to

form their opinion about the framed problem. American sociologists Gamson and

Mogdigliani believe that this “requires an effort” from the citizens. This effort is facilitated by

the frames, because these “tools that are developed, spotlighted, and made readily accessible

have a higher degree of being used” (1989; 10). The studies of the different channels of news

dissemination will show whether these facilitate discussion about and between the two

cultures that are affected with ‘Jihadist’ terrorism and the U.S. “War on Terrorism”. The

constructionist approach as such focuses on the enabling elements that audience members can

choose out of the whole set of offered frames. Audience member groups are expected to use

the offered tools to their best interest. In this research, on the Habermasian informed

– Liberal theoretical – end of the spectrum citizens strive for intercultural understanding of

‘the Other’ by engaging with the news on terrorism they consume.

The critical approach can be used to take into account the haltering workings of

framing. It helps to understand that spotlighted tools do not necessarily foster debate. The

critical approach within the framing research programme builds on the Gramscian notion of

hegemony16. Within the critical perspective it is assumed that frames that dominate news

reports do also directly dominate audiences. Martin and Oshagen illustrate that news “is a

significant part of the structuration process as it works to frame the hegemonic social relations

[and, KL] limit the range of debate […] and occlude the potential for a democratic public

sphere” (1997; 690-691). In contrast to the “tool-box” approach to framing, which through the

effort of the recipients can foster democratic participation and rational discussion, the critical

approach can help to shed light on how news can also halter this potential.

Approaching framing from this combined perspective I accept the notion that frames

have to be assumed to be able to both enable as well as restrain debate. Having set the terms

of what I want to research, in the methodology section below I describe how this analysis can

be carried out. The methodology provides the means for a discursive, qualitative analysis of

media used, texts spread via these channels and the culture as a repository of framing devices.

16 Hegemony, a concept used by Marxists to frame working-class leadership in the time of a democratic revolution, was reformulated by Italian political theorist Gramsci in the beginning of the 20th century. It is a form of spontaneous consent over a given topic by the general public directed by a dominant group (1971; 12). More recently, Argentinian politcal theorist Laclau and Belgian political theorist Mouffe re-conceptualized the term, by emphasizing hegemony as a strategy which enables the distillation of an unequivocal ideology form through a contextual and discursive framework. They for instance state that “the concept of ‘hegemony’ will emerge precisely in a context dominated by the experience of fragmentation and by the indeterminacy of the articulations between different struggles and subject positions” (2001; 13).

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Chapter 3 Methodology

As can be derived from the theoretical framework set out above, I am interested in analyzing

whether terrorist acts are framed differently in news reports on terrorism presented by

Western and non-Western news media. In addition to this, I believe that a comparison of

different media themselves can be fruitful to analyze the (im?)possibilities of intercultural

dialogue. Despite the shared role of the television news broadcasts and the news weblog as

interlocutors between the terrorists, governments and society, the media also exhibit

significant differences. The methodology section sets out how the news media are analyzed

and compared.

First, the differences between the two media are introduced briefly by taking into

account their specific characteristics. The medium specificity is seen as influencing the

framing process. Subsequently, the actor-network theory will be introduced. This theory helps

to locate and address these influences by taking them into account as actors. The framing

process is demarcated by taking it into account as a discourse. The whole methodology is

furthermore based on the idea that looking at the workings of small actors eventually raises

the possibility to be able to display general mechanisms.

Medium specificity

Medium specific characteristics influence the framing processes. For instance, the structure

and nature of a news report offered through an online news outlet is necessarily different from

a news bulletin shown on television. Medium specifics are understood here as operating in a

twofold way. On the one hand, I assume that the two news media addressed here – TV and

news weblog (blogs) –employ a distinctive presentational mode. The televised news report

predominantly centers on the presentation of (live) images and, albeit to a lesser extent, sound

while the newspaper aims to inform the reader through a textual account of the matter. Blogs

can combine the characteristics of television and newspaper news reports, and offer an

important third dimension: interactivity. As such, news media can be distinguished on the

basis of their different styles of addressing the targeted audience group. Also, recipients will

have specific expectations toward the news medium they choose to use. Throughout the

explorative case study, more insights on how the presentational mode shapes the presented

content will be given.

On the other hand, all news channels have a specific institutional background.

Institutional settings such as market forces, ownership, possible political agenda’s and

accessibility can influence the final news product, as they all leave their mark during the

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process of framing. The representation is partly shaped through these factors. In the following

explorative case-study, medium specificity will therefore be taken into account as an

important actor in the process of framing. Besides the specifics inherent to the physical

medium, there are thus underlying, often not directly visible mechanisms at play. The medium

specific characteristics and their institutional backgrounds will be determined and weighed

throughout the whole analysis. The actor-network theory provides the means to address this

process as a whole.

Actor network theory

The analysis of the power of the discourse is exercised by means of the actor-network theory

(ANT). This theory principally derives from the writings of French philosopher of science

Latour. He holds that “power, like society, is the final result of a process and not a reservoir, a

stock, or a capital that will automatically provide an explanation”, and ANT is the way to

analyze this power (2005; 64). The theory can help to characterize “momentary associations”

(ibid.; 65) made up of humans and “non-humans”, by asking actors the question “[d]oes it

make a difference in the course of some other agent’s action of not?” (ibid.; 71-72). French

sociologist Callon adds that “the actor network is reducible neither to an actor alone nor to a

network. Like a network it is composed of a series of heterogeneous elements, animate and

inanimate, that have been linked to one another for certain period of time” (1987, 93). As

such, ANT provides the resources to take into account non-human actors such as medium

specific characteristics, and the actual media content, as well as human actors such as the

audience’s stance towards the news medium in the framing process. The institutional

backgrounds for instance are to be seen as an actor influencing the action of another actor, in

this case for instance the journalist who, implicitly, frames her story in a certain way as a

result of the institutional influence. To demarcate this process, it can be approached as a

discursive field.

Discourse analysis

By approaching terrorism primarily as performative acts, it is possible to circumvent the

necessity to address the opaque character of the concept itself. In this research, terrorist acts

are understood as products of an internal logic: they are “dramas” or “street theaters of

performance violence” that are specifically “designed to have an impact on the several

audiences that they affect” (Juergensmeyer, 2000; 126-128).

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The majority of these audiences do not necessarily directly experience terrorist attacks,

however the terrorist dramas reach the masses by being presented through a variety of news

outlets.

News reports covering these acts are operative within the sphere of consciousness.

Within this sphere, I hypothesize that newsmakers, through ‘Othering’, frame culturally,

politically and geographically alien people, establishing commonsensical ‘Orientalist’ and

‘Occidentalist’ notions. By approaching this issue as a process of discursive construction, I

aim to show which perspective holds for which medium of news distribution. Canadian

scholars of management Phillips and Hardy (2002; 20) distinguish four different categories of

discourse analysis approaches (see figure 1).

Figure 1. Four main perspectives in discourse analysis (Phillips and Hardy, 2002; 20).

The vertical axis distinguishes between levels of focus; the linguistic structures and functions

of text and the contextual embedding of texts, while the horizontal axes separates the critical

and constructivist approaches. The social constructivists tend to work on a micro-level,

exploring how specific social realities are constructed, while critical discourse analysts focus

more on power dynamics, knowledge distribution and ideological assumptions (ibid.).

Moreover, the vertical axis separates between on the one hand methodologies to study the

internal cohesion of the text, while the critical approaches focus more on coherent contextual

connections (Stillar, 1998; 16)

According to Dutch literary scholar Van Dijk, a critical approach to discourse analysis

“should describe and explain how power abuse is enacted, reproduced or legitimated by the

talk and text of dominant groups and institutions (1996; 84). This research asks for such an

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approach, because I am chiefly interested in questions of power dynamics and highlighting

contextual connections of the broadcasted news messages on terrorism and counterterrorism.

The commonality of the critical perspective within discourse analysis stems from the

influence of post-structuralist philosopher Foucault, who triggered research on the

disciplinary effects of discourses and interrelationships between knowledge and power.

Foucauldian-informed work predominantly centers on diagnosing the constituted objects and

subjects within discursive settings; as such it is often aimed at showing how discourses

subsequently arrange the social world and practices in constraining manners. Foucault

believed that discourses shape particular subjectivities which ultimately come to be seen as

self-evident and rational. These constrain subjects to think otherwise (Alvesson and

Kärreman, 2000; 1127-1128).

Hereby, it is necessary to accept discourse analysis as a methodology rather than only

a method as Phillips and Hardy attest: “an epistemology that explains how we know the social

world, as well as a set of methods for studying it”:

[discourse analysis, KL] requires us to study individual texts for clues to the nature of the discourse because we can never find discourses in their entirety. We must therefore examine selections of the texts that embody and produce them. […] we must refer to bodies of texts because it is the interrelations between texts, changes in texts, new textual forms, and new systems of distributing texts that constitute a discourse over time. Similarly, we must also make reference to the social context in which the texts are found and the discourses are produced. It is this connection between discourses and the social reality (2002; 3-5).

Throughout this research, discourse will thus be applied as a Foucauldian process of

“making meaning” as it is understood within the field of media studies: a system of

communicative practices consisting of human and non-human actors that is inherently related

to its extensions within broader social, political, economic, and cultural practices that

structure frameworks of thinking (MacDonald, 2003; 10). The explorative nature of my

approach and methodology can thus be characterized as being more hermeneutic than

systematic or empiric. The methodological precaution of ascending analysis of power, as

described by post-structuralist philosopher Foucault (1980; 99) will serve as one of the

underlying basic principles for exploring the discursive field in which terrorism is framed.

Ascending analysis of power

Instead of beginning at the power centre of intercultural dialogue, (mediated) extensions are

analyzed to gradually achieve greater understanding of the (im?)possibilities of intercultural

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dialogue. When one gradually improves one’s understanding of basic levels or “molecular

elements of society”, later on, generalization is made possible, according to Foucault.

“Starting [...] from its infinitesimal mechanisms, which each have their own history, their own

trajectory [...], and then see how these mechanisms of power have been [...] invested,

colonized, utilised, involuted, transformed, displaced, extended etc., by ever more general

mechanisms and by forms of global domination” (Foucault, 1980, 99). By analyzing details at

micro-level, general phenomena can be demonstrated and understood later on as well.

Therefore the extensions and peripheral influences on the framing of terror performances in

our society will be looked at in the beginning, pursuing a specialization along the way to end

up with the core, where I will assess the (im?)possibilities of intercultural dialogue on the

basis of the two different news meda.

The explored news reports constitute the extensions. In this case the extensions

include a corpus of selected media texts of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism. I will distinguish between the

two mediums: television and current affairs or news oriented web logs. I compare news

messages from the West with messages from the Non-Western world17 and vice versa. My

case study on Western18 news media centers on the United States, while the case study on the

non-Western world news media focuses on the Arab world19. Both case studies center on

news reports covering the September 11, 2001 attacks.

This research can be contextualized in the field of media studies by taking into

account similar investigations. Several researches have been conducted on framing terrorism

and the GWOT by news media such as television, newspapers and online discussions. For

instance British media scholar Pintak studied television news by looking at broadcasts aired

by the American channel CBS and concluded that the US media silenced oppositional and

contextual voices and promoted the GWOT (2006). Egyptian media scholar Fadel compared a

newspaper from the Arab world (Al Ahrem) with a newspaper from the US (USA Today) in

the months following 9/11. He found that Al Ahrem stressed the condemnation of the attacks

17 I am aware of the fact that a distinction between these two is never precise; however, they are merely used as interpretational mechanisms. This does not entail that there is a fixed or distinct homogeneity of characteristics to be discerned in either of the two worlds. 18 American and German psychologists Rothbaum and Trommsdorff provide a useful description of the Western world: “[b]y ‘Western’ we are referring primarily to English-speaking (United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) and Western- and Northern-European communities” (2007; 462). 19 American and Egyptian media scholars Gher and Amin estimate that the Arab world entails 10.8 percent of the World’s surface, covering 13,738,000 km2. This land mass stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Persian Gulf in the east and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Indian Ocean in the south. The unifying characteristic is the shared language, Arabic, but it must be noted that local dialects are used throughout this region (1999; 59). Illustratively, the Arab League, an organization that aims to unify the Arab region covers the following Arab countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arabic Emirates, Qatar and Yemen.

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in the Arab world, while USA Today connected the Arab world with Islamic fundamentalism,

terrorism and extremism, while Egyptian media scholar Gomaa (2006) showed that the

International Herald Tribune framed the Arab world and Muslim countries as safe havens for

terrorists and breeding grounds for “a culture of violence” (cited in Abdulla, 2007). Also

Egyptian media scholar Abdulla focused on Arab world interactive discussions (2005 and

2007) and displayed their diversity of opinion.

The comparative character of this study, where traditional and recent Western news

media’s framing of terrorism is confronted with the non-Western one, and vice versa, is

innovative in the field of media studies. The case-studies are carried out on an explorative

level and throughout these studies, the analytical focus differs from medium to medium. For

instance, in my analysis of actual televised terror performances, I specifically delve into the

workings of the presented image and aired commentaries. Current affairs oriented web logs

are the basis for the last case study. Blogs can encompass both (moving) images, sound and

text and therefore their intermedial character will be taken into account. The corpus thus

entails moving images, and to a lesser extent sound and online discussions on ‘Jihadist’

terrorism.

Before doing so, the medium specific, contextual and institutional backgrounds from

which these texts emerged are to be taken into account. This helps to understand the actual

framing processes on a meta-level. By selectively doing so, I follow the advice provided by

Dahlgren who stated that “an understanding which can guide our thinking and research about

the contemporary ‘post-bourgeois’ public sphere needs to examine the institutional

configurations within the media and the social order” (1991; 9). These media of interest have

emerged from completely different backgrounds, and their respective institutional

backgrounds need to be explored.

In sum, throughout my analysis, I will look at whether and how the privileged within

these several selected discursive settings such as objects, people(s), countries, cultures are

framed. Thus, I will examine whether hierarchies are being inserted in the discourse through a

specific framing of ‘the Other’. This is for instance done by unraveling the implicitly and

explicitly shaped binary oppositions of advantage versus disadvantage such as us versus ‘the

Other’. The different sorts of discursive frameworks are also assessed according to medium

specific characteristics, social settings and other selected contextual factors that I will

encounter in my complimentary literary study on these media and their usage. As such, by

understanding what Foucault would label as basic levels or “molecular elements of society”

(1980; 99), the power centre of the framing of terrorism will be laid bare.

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Chapter 4 Television news

Dahlgren asserts that television “has become, for better or worse, the major institution of the

public sphere in modern society” (1995; x). This chapter consists of an explorative and

comparative analysis of the Atlanta-based CNN and Qatar-based Al-Jazeera to see to what

extent this statement holds for the fostering of a transnational public sphere. More

specifically, the case-study entails an analysis of the institutional backgrounds of both stations

as well as the actual framing of the September, 11 2001 attacks and attackers by these

stations. News reports issued by CNN USA are approached as illustrative for an American

perspective on the attacks, and Al-Jazeera news reports are seen as illustrative for a Middle-

Eastern perspective. I am not the first to connect CNN with an American outlook on the world

and Al-Jazeera with a Middle-East perspective. For instance American scholar of modern art

Fabricius asserts that “CNN now is considered by many to represent exclusively American

political interests and values”, whereas “Al-Jazeera has become the most-watched network in

the Middle East” (2004; 37). This chapter will try to show if, and if so how CNN and Al-

Jazeera have fostered the establishment of a intercultural public sphere. Does CNN provide

the means for discussing ‘the Others’, for instance the people from the Middle East living side

by side with ‘Jihadist’ terrorists? Does Al-Jazeera enable viewers to engage in intercultural

dialogue about ‘the Others’, for instance American citizens, represented as the opponents of

‘Jihadist’ terrorists?

In the theoretical framework, five locations of framing within the communication

process were distinguished: the communicator, the channel, the text, the receiver and the

culture. In this case study, the communicators are the terrorists who spread a message by

hijacking passenger jets and flying them into symbols of the American state. Their acts are

taken as a given, as I am more interested in the representations of these messages. Therefore,

the channel (in this case the medium of news dissemination) and the text (the news broadcast)

are the most interesting locations to analyze. These are addressed explicitly, while the other

locations within the framing process are contextual actors that are taken into account where

relevant.

The chapter is structured as follows. First, general characteristics of the channel TV

news are given. Subsequently, an analysis of CNN and Al-Jazeera follows. The two sections

in which the channels are analyzed, are structured as follows: first an inventory of the

workings of specific institutional background mechanisms of CNN and Al-Jazeera is made.

By delving into the “intricate institutional nexus” (Dahlgren, 1991; 19) of media, the

fundament is established for looking at the actual framed messages. The framing location of

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the text is therefore taken into account next, by looking at exemplary news broadcasts as they

were shown on CNN and Al-Jazeera after the 9/11 attacks. Conclusions are drawn from these

findings and the chapter ends with an assessment of the findings begotten from the

comparison between the two channels in terms of Habermas’ notion of the public sphere.

§ 4.1 TV news as a perceived realistic window on the world?

A historical account of media technologies and their specifics provides the means to highlight

the complex relationship that television has with (representing) reality. Dutch visual culture

scholar Smelink argues that the common sense notion of the relation between image and

reality radically changed after the introduction of photography in the mid 19th century. Before

the arrival of the photograph, reality could never be directly mediated. When people began to

use the camera and chemicals they believed they could capture unfolding reality. And also

nowadays, for a lot of people, a photograph still feels like an objective document of the

particular event that occurred before the lens of the camera. Smelink insists that this idea

remains important in the viewing experience of film and television as viewers get the feeling

that the camera and microphone were present at the moment and place that is depicted. These

media, she states, in a way promise the viewer a direct experience of reality. However, direct

mediation of reality is impossible, because an unmediated image of reality cannot exist. Every

image is per definition mediated. This is evident for the audience member who looks at a

painting, but this also holds for modern media. The word medium itself reminds us that the

medium always acts as an intermediary, a channel or a carrier (2006; 22).

In the case of televised news, news makers use modern audiovisual technologies to

communicate the news ‘as it unfolds’. Media studies have addressed the relationship between

popular representations and the ‘real world’, and scholars within this field generally agree that

the news broadcast always is the end-result of a process of cultural construction, it cannot be

the ‘real’ as such. They have also argued the other way around that reception is always also

the end-product of a process of construction on the part of the audience member20. The

broadcast is framed to give the audience member the feeling that he or she is watching

unmediated reality, while in reality the broadcast is the result of a process of negotiation. This

20From the 1950’s onwards, the broad field of Cultural Studies evolved around this assumption at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham. Scholars working in this tradition emphasize processes of active sense making of audience members in a twofold way: social interaction and media decoding. This research program has united social and cultural practices together with textual practices. For some key and overview works of this field and theoretical and methodological implications see for instance Fiske, 1987 & 1989; Hall, 1973 & 1997; Williams, 1974 & 1989; Moores, 1990; Morley, 1989; Silverstone, 1990 and Jensen and Jankowski, 1991.

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specific relationship between the audience and reality is intentionally kept in place to attract

viewers through providing a sense of realism. Illustratively, both CNN and Al-Jazeera

employed similar framing devices in their presentation of the 9/11 attacks. A sense of

immediacy21 is created by the prominently displayed label: ‘live’. The viewer gets the feeling

as if he or she is directly experiencing the unfolding event. The feeling of live-ness is

enforced by this label, as well as the lively comments made by the news anchor who in the

process underlines that the viewer of the program is watching a live program.

According to British cultural studies scholars Lister, Dovey, Giddings, Grant and

Kelly news images can be seen as realist on two levels: first, they can conform to the generic

form of realism, by being believable and by providing realistic scenes and characters, second,

they can be “coherent references to a reality beyond the representation itself, thus

transcending or denying their status as representations by appearing as a ‘window on the

world’” (2003; 391). British media theorist Ellis states “there is no realism, but there are

realisms. A series of arguments, justifications and procedures for the production of

representations alike” (1982; 8). In this chapter, I will show how respectively CNN’s and Al-

Jazeera’s strive towards a ‘realistic’ representation of the 9/11 attacks works as a perceived

reality. Both stations namely provide their viewers with specific windows on the world. More

specifically, the consequences of their realisms for the framing of the “other” is taken into

account.

§ 4.2 The institutional nexus of CNN’s broadcasting

This section centers around an inquiry into the institutional background of CNN’s

broadcasting in the United States. At first, CNN’s guiding principles are set out.

Subsequently, the possible result of the gradual withdrawal of foreign news correspondents at

the end of the 20th century is given. After looking at recent global media monopolization

processes, the commodification of news shows is addressed. These four mechanisms at play

behind the directly visible, daily operating of CNN are actors that exert influence on the

framing of the ‘Jihadist’ terrorist performance. These actors implicitly and explicitly guide the

framing of terrorism in a certain direction. 21 Interestingly, the combining of the two seemingly oppositional mechanisms of transparent immediacy and hypermediacy seems to enforce the feeling of experiencing the event as it unfolds. American media scholars Bolter and Grusin described immediacy as the “transparent interface”: a “style of visual representation whose goal is to make the viewer forget the presence of the medium and believe that he is in the presence of the objects of representation”, while hypermediacy refers to a “style of visual representation whose goal is to remind the viewer of the medium” (2000; 272-273). In this case, the direct experience of the viewer is made stronger through the use of hypermedial features such as multiple screens, the label ‘live’, the anchor in the studio commenting on the event as it unfolds, etcetera.

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CNN’s guiding principles

At 6 P.M. on Sunday, June 1, 1980, Cable News Network (CNN) came to life as an “around-

the-clock all-news channel”. The news channel was founded by Ted Turner, who most

prominently through the rise of CNN became one of the world’ largest media moguls. Swiss

communication scholar Küng-Shankleman states that the core concept of CNN was geared

towards the introduction of a radical new approach to news broadcasting. According to Küng-

Shankleman22, CNN’s strategy comprised three innovative approaches to news. First, the

channel would broadcast news non-stop 24-hours a day, 7 days a week. Second, CNN would

report news “from all over the world to all over the world”. Third, it would “cover news as it

happened rather than report after the fact” (2000; 78-79). Concerning the first approach,

American communication scholar Barkin argues that the innovative character of CNN

“changed the playing field” for the traditional divisions of broadcasting by introducing

twenty-four-hour all-news services. Particularly international news coverage of the first Gulf

War in the 1990’s as well as coverage of domestic affairs such as the O.J. Simpson case in the

mid 90’s lead CNN past the other major American networks (2003; 104-109).

The second element from CNN’s innovative strategy concerns its audience. CNN, next

to BBC, successfully established itself as one of the most important news channels that people

turn to all over the world. Illustratively, in 1993, international CNN viewers had matched the

viewing numbers of the U.S. audience. In little over 10 years, CNN developed from “a

network bringing international news to the United States, to a U.S. based network bringing

news to the world”, as “its constellation of channels [is] viewed by 1 billion people worldwide

in more than 200 countries and territories in 8 different languages through household

subscribers, hotel rooms, embassies, airports, and hospitals” (Fabricius, 2004; 34). Besides a

news channel aimed at the domestic market, in 1985, CNN-i (CNN International) was

launched (first as CNN Europe, which was eventually expanded to CNN International). Even

though both the domestic as well as the internationally oriented channel are managed centrally

from Atlanta, “CNN International’s news is now being tailored to broad regions of the world,

the news one sees in Asia is somewhat different from that seen in Europe or Latin America.

Nor are the faces one sees on CNN International the same, either among the anchors or among

the correspondents” (Silvia, 2001; 36). One can thus broadly distinguish between CNN

22 Several histories of CNN have been written, for this section, Küng-Shankleman’s and Barkin’s works have been used. Another account of CNN’s history is written by Whittemore (1990), while another prominent work is for instance the book on CNN and agenda-setting by Robinson (2002).

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International and the domestic-oriented CNN. In this research, I focus on the latter to take into

account the American perspective on the ‘Jihadist’ terror performances.

Zooming in on the third principle, the covering of news as it happened rather than

report after the fact, lead American management scholar Peters to argue that CNN redefined

the concept of television news. According to Peters, traditionally news narratives emphasized

the closure of the presented event. The event happened in the past. News media, before CNN,

deliberately emphasized this characteristic. CNN presents news as it is happening at the very

moment. As such, CNN set a new standard for news. News reports are now seen as broadcasts

that provide us with information on the news as it unfolds ‘live’23. The channel enforced this

approach by making the viewer believe that he or she plays a role in the news process.

“Ragged edges” were intentionally left visible for the viewer, providing the feeling of

immediacy and authenticity. CNN aims to give the viewer the sense that the news story

evolves before his or her eyes (1992; 33).

To better understand the functioning of this specific guiding principle, some meta-

level reflective stances on CNN’s operating can be taken into account. Speaking with a

colleague, first chief news editor Schonfeld described the covering process as follows:

[w]e’re gonna cover national news as if we were handling local stories. We’ll report the big stuff out of Washington on the basis that these things really affect our viewers’ ordinary lives. We’re not gonna try to prove how smart we are. As a result, they won’t feel like they need a Ph.D. to understand it (Whittemore, 1990; 105).

An unnamed CNN interviewee adds that “we offer breaking news live, as it happens; we

don’t comment on it. Judgments are up to the viewers themselves” (Küng-Shankleman, 2000;

128). In sum, CNN grew by means of adhering to principles such as broadcasting live,

internationally oriented news 24 hours a day. Until the 1990’s, CNN was well-equipped to

broadcast live events that unfolded throughout the whole world. As is set out in the following

paragraph, budget-cuts can be seen as a detrimental development to this capacity.

The American trend of withdrawing foreign correspondents

American political scientists Hess and Kalb argue that in the post World War Two era “until

the collapse of the Soviet Union, American news organizations reported on the world largely

through the prism of the cold war. Particularly on the TV networks’ evening news programs, 23 This particular approach to the reporting of news can probably partly explain the high ratings of CNN. On the other hand however, CNN has also been criticized specifically for their reporting style. The channel has for instance been dismissed as being nothing more than a mile-wide inch-deep “visual wallpaper” (Auletta, 1996), by shallowly aiming at the “lowest common denominator” (Barkin, 2003; 7). However, for the purpose of this research there is no use in delving deeper into these critiques.

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where stories have to be short and preferably dramatic, the East-West conflict was a useful

framing device” (2003; 1). The US news media chose to frame the world as separated in two

parts. The Berlin Wall divided the world in two. However, after the Berlin Wall came down in

1989, the East-West framing device became obsolete. Subsequently, after the conflict ceased

to exist, American media enterprises shifted their focus more inwardly to domestic affairs,

“which were of greater interest to their consumers” (ibid.). American news broadcasts more

and more focused on matters deemed to be more tangible and less distant from the livelihood

of the audience members. Hess and Kalb conclude that “by the morning of September 11,

2001, the world outside the United States had become of only modest interest to the rest of the

American journalist establishment” (ibid.). In the early 1990’s, CNN expanded its

international presence, but after Time Warner took over Turner Broadcasting Services in

1996, CNN’s expansion strategy changed and international budgets were slashed (McPhail,

2006; 152 and Barkin, 2003; 5).

For explanation purposes one can magnify this development and argue that after the

end of the Cold War, major American news media were not fully equipped to provide

different background and contextual perspectives in the presentation of 9/11. More

specifically, when it gradually seeped in that the attacks were carried out by ‘Jihadist’

terrorists, reporters were still unable to provide an outsider view on the atrocious acts. I would

like to argue that the diminished attention on international news for the Americans, as was

illustrated by the withdrawal of foreign correspondents and foreign offices, probably caused

reporters to be to a smaller degree capable of portraying ‘the Other’. This can be one of the

reasons why for instance non-‘Jihadist’ muslims’ stances towards the attacks were not aired

on CNN USA during the first days of 9/11 broadcasts. Domestic perspectives were still

dominant. Processes of media-monopolization and the commodification of news shows are

other institutional actors that can be attributed to a specific framing of 9/11. The functioning

of these processes is discussed in the following two paragraphs.

Media monopolies

Bagdikian is one of the most prominent media critics who have dealt with recent processes of

media monopolization. He argues that the number of multinational corporations that control

most of mainstream America’s daily television and radio stations, daily newspapers,

magazines, movie companies and book publishers has decreased from 50 in 1983 to 5 in

2003. The five dominant corporations are the American conglomerates Time Warner, by 2003

the largest media corporation in the world; The Walt Disney Company; Viacom; Murdoch’s

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News Corporation, based in Australia; and Bertelsmann A.G., based in Germany. Their news

products are used by the vast majority of the American people. For this research, what needs

to be taken into account is the anticipated result of the functioning of these five

conglomerates.

“The Big Five hunger for the $236 billion spent every year for advertising in the mass

media and the approximately $800 billion that Americans spend on media products

themselves” (2004; 27-29). None of these companies focuses on one single mass medium.

“Each medium they own, whether magazines or broadcast stations, covers the entire country,

and the owners prefer stories and programs that can be used everywhere and anywhere. Their

media products reflect this” (ibid.; 3). “And that means that inevitably people who have such

power see the world in a particular way” (1998). Bagdikian goes on to argue about the fact

that these five multinationals dominate the different communication channels which gives

“each of the five corporations and their leaders more communications power than was

exercised by any despot or dictatorship in history” (ibid.). I believe Bagdikian, in his

pessimism, sketches a rather bleak picture of the five companies. Through his generalized

depiction of (the workings of) the five companies he aims to back his argument. However, on

the one hand, he does not take into account any form of agency of side of the audience in their

reception or acceptance of the media product. On the other hand, he has the tendency to

dismiss media products that are presented to the audience, also the American audience, by

other companies than the big five media conglomerates.

For this research, it suffices to take Bagdikian’s argument as a starting point in

understanding the institutional background to the framing of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism on CNN. I

agree with Bagdikian that a particular way of seeing the world influences the presented

message. CNN was taken over by Time Warner in the late 1990’s, and Bagdikian’s media

monopoly argument helps us to grasp the policy choices that were made, such as the

economizing on resources for foreign news. Other news outlets established higher viewer

ratings – Ruport Murdoch’s Fox News grew in popularity through for instance its specific

focus on domestic matters – forcing CNN to choose the same approach to attract more

American viewers. Besides the specific focus, the presentational mode employed in televised

news reports is also adjusted to meet the demands of the average viewers. How this can affect

the framing of terrorist performances is set out below.

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Commodification of news shows

Unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late. I do not advocate that we turn television into a 27-inch wailing wall where longhairs constantly bemoan the state of our culture and our defense. But I would just like to see it reflect occasionally the hard, unyielding realities of the world in which we live […] This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it toward those ends. Otherwise, it is merely wires and lights in a box (Murrow, cited in Barkin, 2003; 22).

In 1958, American pioneer of TV news Murrow already foresaw the detrimental

consequences of mixing ‘Show Business’ values and profit making motives with news

reporting. In the section above, it became clear that recently a few media conglomerates have

consolidated their power on a large scale. Barkin asserts that this development has virtually

turned the news industry into “an oligopoly, similar to the airline and automobile industries,

in which power is vested mainly in a few enormous companies”. This development has lead

to a shared “expectation of regular substantial profits from news” at an institutional level

(2003; 4-5). American communication scholar Phelan adds that “the broadcast system of the

United States, of which television is a principal part, is commercial; it is fundamentally an

advertising medium” (1991; 75). The question arises how news networks can make profits

from their broadcasts and how this in turn can affect the framing of terrorism. Or in other

words, how does CNN turn a news report on terrorism into a sellable commodity?

According to Joseph, American scholar of gender studies, from a Marxist perspective

on political economy, commodification occurs when value becomes assigned – through social

and historical processes – to anything that commonly did not have economic value (2005;

388-389). Commodification works on two levels, according to English media studies scholars

Silverstone and Haddon. First, commodification refers to the commercial process of turning

material and symbolic artifacts into commodities. Second, it also refers to the ideological

process that defines the artifact as a commodity (1996; 45) Examples of commodification can

be the gaining of profit out of sex, gender, ideas, etcetera. In this research, commodification

of news entails the development from news being freely exchanged towards news becoming a

commodity that can be marketed and sold to a particular audience. Before news reports could

be offered to audiences as commodities, a specific shaping of news reports was required. The

regulatory framework that was set up in the United States enabled the flourishing of a

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commercial system and this framework – at least partly – facilitated the development of

turning news into commodities. This regulatory framework was unique in the world.

Barkin states that in America, in the 1990’s, “TV news was solidly moored in the

realm of popular culture”. In four decades, TV news and journalism became popular for the

masses “with all its rewards and limitations”. This leads Barkin to ask himself “Why, almost

alone among countries in the West, did the United States opt for a commercial system with

almost no practical accountability?” (2003; 16). In 1996, a new Telecommunications Act was

signed by president Bill Clinton, “that emerged as a compact between Big Government and

Big Business”. For the purposes of economic efficiency, broadcasters were now seen as

participants within a marketplace. Public-interest standards were lowered, while concentration

and cross-ownership were not discouraged (ibid.; 175-176).

American communication scholar Aufderheide described the development of the act

initiated as follows: “[b]roadcasters successfully maintained the privileges of an old order –

preservation of monopoly control over spectrum – while claiming to be potential players in a

competitive environment” (1999; 67). Legislation paved the way for American news

networks’ quests for attracting a larger audience to subsequently gain higher advertisement

revenues. Former CBS vice president Ed Fouhy acknowledges that news broadcasters wanted

to reach a broader audience:

[the networks, KL] are pursuing a group of people who watch a lot of television and who may have only a slight connection with the civil society in which they live, people with only a marginal interest in the events of the day that engage the vast middle of the television audience, which is a mass audience. They’re trying to engage people who are not normally engaged by television news, and in trying to do that, I think they alienated the most regular and most faithful viewers of TV news (cited in Barkin, 2003; 86).

CNN sticks to similar guiding principles that stem from their profit-making ideology –

broadcasting live and 24 hours a day, everyday of the week – to attract a steady stream of

viewers. But there are also specific processes at play in their actual presentation of news

which can be grasped under the heading of the narrativization of news. Barkin argues that the

roots of journalism (both TV as well as print) can be traced back to the arts of the narrative,

which makes him state that “television news is a form of visual storytelling that adheres to the

requisites of plot and character development and the attainment of dramatic unity” (2003; 7).

He believes that journalism in its core presents the audience member with an amalgam of

news and entertainment. News reports are drivingly forceful in their depiction of reality,

resulting in stimulation of both the intelligence and the senses of the audience member.

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Therefore, “[d]istinctions between ‘news’ and ‘entertainment’ are never easy from the point

of view of the audience member, who is likely to be ‘entertained’ at some level by any story

that is well-told” (ibid.).

In 1968, CBS director Hewitt formulated some rules to attract larger audiences

through the specific use of narratives. These are still recognizable in present-day CNN news

reports. He for instance stated that reports are most attractive to the audience when the story

follows the (Hollywoodesque) script of a “discernible beginning, middle, and end, and a

coherent, engaging story line”. In addition to this, news channels preferably “provide stories

with a clear good-versus-evil orientation, so that the viewer is caught up in the cupidity,

duplicity, and sheer gall of the wrongdoers” (cited in Barkin, 2003; 9). Barkin insists that

success of the tabloid-like news programs stems from the general audiences boredom with

fiction and “hard news” (2003; 8). News events thus become structured as attractive stories,

and for instance American communication scholar Boyd-Barrett believes that “classic warfare

is the epitome of a ‘good story’, high in tension and drama, with complex main plots and sub-

plots played out within traditional binary opposition of aggressor and victim, winner and

loser” (2004; 26). The audience appetite for news grows in times of war, as Küng-

Shankleman illustrates: “[m]ajor stories bring surges in viewers (the so-called ‘news junkies’)

which fall off dramatically once the event is over” (2000; 128). Illustratively:

[t]he war on terrorism was the top story of 2002, with 2,092 minutes on the network evening news programs compared with 1.756 minutes for ‘economy, finance, business, according to Tyndall Report New York (cited in Hess and Kalb, 2003; 2).

During the first Gulf War, CNN’s average ratings were five times higher in

comparison with the ones from before the war started. In line with their successful broadcasts

during this period (when judging success on ratings), it can be expected that CNN will

continue to use these mechanisms that proved to be successful earlier. More specifically, the

GWOT that was declared shortly after the September, 11 attacks in 2001 can also be expected

to have been framed according to these principles that were established earlier. Brown

demonstrates that this was actually the case by typifying ‘Saving Private Jessica’ as an

example of “temporary marketization of war and the commodification of its symbolic forms”.

Hollywood-style entertainment values were employed in the framing of the so-called rescue

(later it became known that there was no military opposition) of US Private Jessica Lynch

from an Iraqi hospital by the U.S. forces. The Western news media, including CNN were

“iconicising Lynch as the face of American heroism” (Brown, 2003; 63), the suppressers were

the clear losers, whereas the authoritative US army certainly won this ‘battle’.

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In sum, the commodification of news results in the blending of entertainment values

with current events. CNN utilizes framing devices from the entertainment industry to attract a

large audience, to boost advertisement revenues. New legislation enabled the tendency to

stick to profit making motives. With the relative absence of public accountability, the U.S.

news reports provide viewers with short comprehensible stories that are filled with tension

and drama. The narratives emphasize the (active) role of the viewers, who find themselves

encapsulated in the drama that is unfolding before their eyes. The engaging narrative is

structured so as to let the viewer experience, in a way, what is happening from the beginning

to the end. They can identify with the heroes, the good guys, because the distinction between

the good and the bad-guys is emphasized interminably. The institutional characteristics that

are now made visible all play their part in the framing of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism. They are all

actors within the discursive field that attribute to a specific framing of ‘the Other’. The next

section examines how the actual framing worked in practice. For this reason, the live

broadcasts covering the September 11, 2001 attacks are scrutinized.

§ 4.3 9/11 on CNN

In this section, the live newscasts that were aired on the domestic version of CNN are

analyzed, by delving into transcripts as well as looking at actual broadcasts. The transcripts

are accessible via LexisNexis, while the broadcasts are made accessible online by the Internet

Archive. For clarification purposes, a differentiation between two framing processes is made.

First, the framings of the actual attacks as they unfolded before the eyes of the millions of

viewers on September 11, 2001 are taken into account. Subsequently, framings of the

attackers, the ‘Jihadist’ terrorists, are studied. For the former, the focus will be on the framing

of the attacks at the World Trade Center. The latter concerns depictions of the attackers that

were mostly aired on the days following the attacks.

Framing the attacks

On September 11, 2001 four planes were hijacked by nineteen terrorists affiliated with Al-

Qaeda. Two planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 were

subsequently rocketed into the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York, the first

plane into 1 WTC and the second into 2 WTC. Another jet, American Airlines Flight 77, was

crashed into the Pentagon, near Washington D.C. United Airlines Flight 93, the fourth

airliner, crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers and the flight crew attempted to

regain control of the airplane (CNN.com, 2006). At 8.48 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time CNN

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interrupts its ‘live at daybreak’ program Money Matters. With the caption “Breaking News,

World Trade Center Disaster”, viewers are presented with a close-up image of the north-side

of 1 WTC. The camera is zoomed in on the top floors of the building with a gaping hole that

is emitting clouds of gray-black smoke. CNN anchor Lin comments: “Yeah this just in. You

are looking at a very disturbing live shot. This is the World Trade Center and we have

unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed in one of the two towers”.

From the start of the broadcast, CNN tries to include the viewer in the process of making

meaning. Repeatedly, the individual audience member is addressed by Lin: “you are looking

at live picture of the World Trade Center tower” and one of the other CNN anchors, Cellini:

“Again, you are looking at pictures now”. The viewers are reminded time and time again that

they are directly experiencing the event by looking at images as it unfolds before their eyes.

Moreover, the principles of addressing the audience members individually and

emphasizing the ‘live-ness’ of the broadcast are clearly visible when roughly 15 minutes after

the first jet flew into 1 WTC, United Airlines Flight 175 crashes into 2 WTC. A number of

local news stations had their cameras pointed towards the towers when the second airliner

crashed into the WTC. CNN airs several videos one after another. The viewers thus witness,

from multiple camera angles, how an airplane flies into a building. The ‘Jihadist’ terrorists

performed their acts under perfect weather conditions, enabling the news channels to shoot

their clear images of the WTC from great distance. A loop of moving images is aired,

consisting of video showing the crash from several different perspectives.

When these images are shown, Harris, another CNN anchor cannot help but to

excitingly exclaim “live coverage here of this amazing picture we’re getting from lower

Manhattan, two planes, one hitting each of the twin towers, at the World Trade Center”.

While another angle on the crash is shown, Harris tells the viewers that “this is just

frightening pictures indeed”. Another unidentified anchor reminds the viewers when repeating

the video clip that “there you can see to the right of your screen a plane coming in […] It

comes into the south side and then boom”. The device of “actuality” is a tool from semiotic

analysis, and as described by Australian media scholar Hartley it can be used to describe this

kind of broadcasts. Actuality can be seen as a key mechanism to naturalize a meaning:

[i]n producing ideological closure, by anchoring the preferred reading on the apparently unarguable facts of the event-as-filmed: Actuality is presented as self-evident; the production processes are rarely shown, so that viewers are encouraged to make sense of the footage in terms of the event, and not of the way it is represented (1994; 5-6).

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In this case, the preferred reading lets the viewer experience live footage of passenger

jets that fly into one of the premier symbols of American identity. The viewer gets the feeling

that he or she is included in the process of making meaning, while the newscast is actually

ideologically closed through the commentary of the anchors. Through the commentary as well

as through the repetition of the images, the event is framed or ‘ideologically closed’ as above

all amazing and, to a lesser extent, frightening, one could retrospectively argue that this is

done this way to keep attracting the audience. The presentational mode does not necessarily

address the atrocity of the acts themselves, which may be too difficult for the viewer to deal

with. When an anchor states “this is frightening pictures” he refrains from connecting the

frightfulness of the pictures with real life consequences of human suffering. Through the

channel’s focus on the spectacular character of the acts, it more or less disconnects the acts

from the consequences in reality. Other examples that illustrate the emphasis on the

spectacular or theatrical depiction of these acts can be found when looking at CNN’s framing

of the collapsing of the WTC towers.

2 WTC collapsed around 10.00 a.m., while 1 WTC collapsed around 10.28 a.m. The

collapse of 2 WTC was framed as follows. At 9.58, CNN correspondent McIntyre who was�

speaking about the crash at the Pentagon is interrupted by CNN anchor Brown as he almost

shouts: “Wow! Jamie, Jamie, I need you to stop for a second. There has just been a huge

explosion we can see a billowing smoke rising. And I can’t – I tell you that I can’t see that

second tower. But there was a cascade of sparks, and fire, and now this – it looks almost like a

mushroom cloud explosion”. Later he adds that it is an “extraordinarily scene” to see the

smoke that blocks the vision on the towers: “What is behind it, I can not tell you”. Within the

fixed borders of their television sets, the viewers see a close up of smoke. The anchorman

hints the viewers that 2 WTC might have collapsed by stating that he cannot see what is

behind the dramatic mushroom cloud of smoke. The viewer learns that this smoke is

billowing from the collapsing 2 WTC, as the close-up gradually fades out into an overview

shot of lower Manhattan under clear blue skies with the damaged and smoking structure

centered in the middle of the frame. The sequence is shaped as a short narrative with a

discernable beginning, middle and end. The attention-level from the viewers is raised by the

agitated voice of the anchorman, with background noise consisting of police and fire brigades

sirens.

The collapse of 1 WTC was similarly framed and presented to the audience: again

there is the same narrative of beginning, middle and end. This time, first a close-up of smoke

and falling debris is given, from two different camera angles. At the very moment the debris

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falls below the bottom edges of the television screen, the event is re-framed. An overview of

the Manhattan skyline is given, and the viewer can witness the collapsing of 1 WTC alongside

the other skyscrapers of New York. Right when the tower has completely collapsed, replays

of the scene are shown from different angles and an unidentified CNN anchor exclaims

“Good Lord”. Then he states that “there are no words” to comment on these replays of the

collapsing tower. Still he goes on to comment on the pictures: “This is just a horrific scene”.

Again, the direct relation between the actual events and the representation given by CNN is

dismissed, when the anchorman underlines that viewers are witnessing a scene, instead of a

real-life event.

I want to highlight the editorial choices that are made in the framing of the collapsing

towers, as they resemble entertainment formats. For the purpose of achieving realism, the

production process is rendered invisible. However, somebody will have had a say over the

presented images of the collapsing buildings. Presumably this was a CNN television producer,

supervising the shot selection and the ordering of movie sequences. The question arises what

the consequences of these editorial choices are. American Journalist Stasi stated that on the

day of the attacks, the catastrophe was increasingly presented through entertainment frames:

I lived through Sept. 11 – I don’t need to see the whole nightmare treated like some disaster movie by every media outlet on earth […] If you choose to watch however, the choices of tragic entertainment are limitless (cited in Dixon, 2004; 11).

American media scholar Uricchio states that television is a medium that is “so often filled

with simulated images of death and destruction”, and therefore an event of the shear

magnitude of 9/11 “easily reads as a spectacle. Flattened on the small screen and consumed in

our living rooms far from the sounds, smells and dust of lower Manhattan, the images seem

fantastic, even surreal” (2001).

People in the U.S.A. watching CNN potentially predominantly perceived the terrorist

attacks as media spectacles, as they were framed according to entertainment formats. But

what does this mean, apart from the lack of sensitivity to the violence and bloodshed? In the

1960’s French philosopher Debord already wrote about the permeation of society by media

spectacles. He believed that “in societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life

is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has

receded into a representation” (2005; 7). Of main interest for grasping (the workings of)

representations of terrorist attacks as media spectacles is Debord’s notion that direct

relationships between people can be overthrown by the insertion of images. This way, people

engage in relationships with commodities: the images projected by the mainstream media.

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The spectacle, is namely not only a collection of images but “rather, it is a social relationship

between people that is mediated by images” (2005; 7). The images are perceived as “real

beings”, influencing behavior, by making it a tendency “to make one see the world by means

of various specialized mediations” (Debord, cited in Kellner, 2005; 1).

In the case of CNN’s framing of the 9/11 attacks, I believe that an emphasis on

showing the attacks as spectacles leads to a dissolution of (meanings and) means for the

public to directly relate to the affected people, the political situation and/or the underlying

contextual problems and struggles that lead up to the event. The spectacular, symbolic images

meet the expectation of the public. As French philosopher Baudrillard puts it, they “propagate

the brutal fascination of the terrorist act” (1983a; 106). His radical standpoint can be helpful

to theoretically illustrate my earlier observations. He insisted that consumer societies have

grown in to hyperrealist worlds, were mediated experiences are seen as more intense than the

external reality. Within the hyperreal, TV news encompasses self-referential signs in

established narrative formats. The distinctions between objects of real life and representations

have dissolved, since media messages only refer to themselves: they become self-referential.

Baudrillard describes it as follows: “So it is not: I exist, I am here! But rather: I am visible, I

am an image – look! Look! (Baudrillard, 1983b; 23). This notion can for instance also help to

understand how the audience member digests the on September 11 (frequently) repeated

images of people falling or jumping from the towers.

Events shown in the TV news can become part of the commodity culture, when the

news is presented as a symbolic representation within the frame of a coherent storyline that

corresponds with an established Hollywoodesque narrative format. The news media have

structured their news after the longing of the masses in these societies; Baudrillard called

them the “silent majority”, for longing for spectacles instead of meaning. As shown above,

CNN’s early depictions of the 9/11 attacks partly consisted of such a monologue of

“simulacres”. According to Slovenian philosopher Žižek reality can become attributed “the

character of a (symbolic) fiction” (2002; 21). On the night following the attacks, CNN anchor

Edwards states: “September 11 will never be forgotten by those who experienced them

firsthand or by the millions of people around the world who actually saw them unfold”. The

question remains what the consequences of CNN’s hyperrealist framing are. Do the viewers

that watched the attacks unfold remember the attacks because the spectacle seemed

impressive, or will they never forget the attacks because of the sheer atrocity of the acts?

According to Baudrillard, hyper-reality “short-circuits in advance all possibility of

communication” (1983; 98), rendering in this case intercultural dialogue with ‘the Other’ in

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principle impossible. Paradoxically, live, real-life, on the spot coverage showing explosions,

chaos and traumatized people moves these happenings away from the real-life perceptional

situation of the recipient. The viewer may (unwarily) choose to relate the viewing with earlier

experienced narratives of ‘entertaining terror’ (s)he is familiar with: Hollywood blockbuster

movie plots with horror, violence, chaos and trauma’s. The medial representation of the

attacks is more powerful and it thereby completely devours the possible underlying meaning

and understanding of the conflict. These plots meet the seemingly widespread public demand

for violent images. However, according to Baudrillard “simultaneously, in the most total

ambiguity,” […] the media are made the vehicle of the moral condemnation of terrorism and

to the exploitation of fear for political ends” (ibid.). This ambiguity is addressed in the next

section, where the notion of moral panic is introduced to understand CNN’s framing of the

attackers.

Framing the attackers

On September 11 at 13.04 a video of a speech of President George W. Bush is aired. In this

video he states: “[m]ake no mistake, the United States will hunt down and punish those

responsible for these cowardly acts […] The resolve of our great nation is being tested. But

make no mistake, we will show the world that we will pass this test”. At that moment in time,

the audience is not yet aware who “those responsible” are. An half hour before that, CNN

correspondent Robertson reported from Kabul that Mulla Omar, the spiritual leader of the

Taliban in Afghanistan had issued a statement that Osama bin Laden was not responsible for

the attacks. CNN’s national security correspondent Ensor however informs viewers about the

“good indications that people with links to bin Laden may have been behind the attack”

around 4.01 pm. Shortly before 6 p.m. on September 11, 2001 Lawrence Eagleburger,

secretary of state with the administration of the first President George Bush set the standard

on CNN for the framing of the attackers and their origins: “you start with Osama Bin Laden, I

suppose, and you start with the Afghans […] There is only one way to begin to deal with

people like this, and that is you have to kill some of them even if they are not immediately

directly involved in his thing”.

The resemblances with the preferred narratives rules as set out by CBS director Hewitt

above to attract large audiences are striking. Engaging story lines and the structuring of stories

with a clear beginning, middle, and end were shown in the analysis of CNN’s framing of the

attacks. His second advice concerning the framing of stories in terms of a good-versus-evil

orientation is also observable in the framing of the attackers. This principle is most evident

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when taking into account the speeches delivered by President George W. Bush. Take for

example the one that was aired live on CNN at 10.53 am on September 12. He explicitly

concludes it by stating: “America is united. The freedom-loving nations of the world stand by

our side. This will be a monumental struggle of good versus evil, but good will prevail”. Five

days later, Bush spoke to reporters and this was aired on CNN from 12.16 am onwards. He

stated that “those evil-doers, those barbaric people who attacked our country and we are going

to hold them accountable, and we are going to hold the people who house them accountable.”

In a speech given on September 16, George W. Bush elaborates on the War declaration, by

stating the U.S.A will do its best to fight terrorists, but he is aware of the difficulties that await

by describing that “[t]hey hide in caves. We’ll get them out”.

In all of these examples, a clear black and white picture is sketched by an authoritative

figure. Officials that are interviewed are asked and are willing to offer a sharply defined good-

versus-evil orientation. Their authority is assigned (on the air) by repeatedly using

identification and classification markers, as well as their appearance and the interview setting.

Lawrence Eagleburger is for instance in a less than four minute interview specifically

identified as the secretary (of state) for 8 times. Through the use of identification markers and

the conduction of interviews in military or otherwise governmental settings, the speakers are

classified as representative authorities within their field of knowledge. On the basis of their

established authority, they have the ability, and believability, to be heard when morally

condemning the attackers. Additionally, the viewers are encouraged to interpret the events in

line with the understanding offered by the authoritative figures, by giving them the feeling of

being included in the process. American media scholar Miller observes that the American

people were included in the news stories with the “repeated, embarrassingly crass use of such

othering Membership Categorization Devices as ‘we’” (2006; 7). The American people were

included, while the rest were excluded. CNN emphasized the impact of these events on the

lives of the viewers.

And, as shown above, the authoritative actors often deliver clear interpretations,

without space for nuance or negotiation. When over time all perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks

were identified as Muslims, CNN – through the aired speeches that were delivered by officials

and broadcasted analyses – increasingly conflated innocent Muslims with terrorists. For

instance on a show aired September 16, “religion leaders” and “reporters and experts” are

asked about their opinion of the GWOT on CNN. American TV journalist Jeff Greenfield

speaks out his opinion:

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I think we are at war. And I think we should go in now and take care of - take care of the terrorism, take care of Osama Bin Laden because they’re talking about that this is a Holy War. They’re calling it a Holy War. They’re going in – they’re saying that, you know, that they’re shielding the people – they’re shielding their leaders behind innocent people. I have to agree with what Zell Miller said from here in Georgia, ‘We should bomb them all to hell’ because they thought our people were expendable. If we bomb their people, there’s innocent lives lost [sic]. So be it. They didn’t care about our people.

In his comment, Greenfield includes the innocent people under the heading of ‘them’, those

people that need to be bombed. As such, a situation is framed where innocent people are

depicted as the ones presenting the conflict as a ‘Holy War’. ‘They’ are presented as seeing

Osama bin Laden as their leader. This is one example of how CNN and Western news

increasingly conflated evil-doers, barbaric people, ‘them’ and the evil ‘Other’ with the Arab

world, Muslims, the people of Afghanistan and the Islam.

Illustratively, the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting Institute (FAIR) reported that

following the attacks, the media made “gross generalizations about Arabs and Islam in

general” (2001). The Lebanese political scientist Abu Khalil describes this tendency as

follows: “[t]hough neither the West nor Islam exist as monolithic entities, journalists and

politicians insist on framing the current situation in these terms” (2002; 18). ‘The Other’ has

been incorporated in a model which places them on the right side of the common sensical

WE:THEM and US:OTHER binary oppositions. I understand these oppositions in line with

Hartley as “an analytic category from structuralism […] Such binaries are a feature of culture

not nature; they are products of signifying systems, and function to structure our perceptions

of the natural and social world into order and meaning” (Hartley et al., 1994; 30). Over time,

the OTHER or THEM side is constructed as being of no direct importance to the daily lives of

the viewer.

The binary opposition is legitimated, through the norms that are inscribed by the

“prevailing systems”: “a combination of public opinion, the media, the rhetoric of politicians

and the presumed authority of all those, who, through various mechanisms, speak or are

allowed to speak in the public space” (ibid.; 93). Messages are ideologically closed, by

comments made by ‘authoritative figures’, to keep this binary opposition in tact. The notion

of moral panic as defined by American criminologist Cohen helps to understand the effect of

“othering”. In the 1970’s, under the heading of moral panic Cohen studied “folk devils” such

as football hooligans, skinheads and punks. He coined the term moral panic and defined it as

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[a] condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions, ways of coping are evolved (or more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates and becomes visible” (Cohen, 1987; 9)

Cohen’s notion of moral panic was subsequently used as a principle that could offer insights

into how moral condemnation takes place. From a media studies perspective24, in the case of a

moral panic actuality is distorted and a mass-medial framed moral panic breaks out.

The preferred reading in a newsreel on terrorism – for instance by a so-called expert

analysis – in this case raises fear by emphasizing a certain behavior of a group and religion,

instead of shaping awareness on the contextual situation. By stereotypically putting the

emphasis on the stylized distinctiveness or the ‘Otherness’ of the barbaric ‘Other’, news can

initiate a feeling of hostility toward the acting terrorist group, leading up to a consensual

agreement that danger posed by ‘the Other’ is serious. By doing so, and by maybe

institutionalizing it further, the moral panic may eventually blow up to disproportional

proportions. These five dangers I mentioned correspond with the five indicators of moral

panic as defined by American and Israeli sociologists Goode and Ben-Yehuda: concern,

hostility, consensus, disproportionality and volatility/institutionalization (2005; 33-40). After

showing CNN’s institutional backgrounds and the actual framing processes at play in their

representation of the attackers and the attacks, the next paragraph will introduce Al-Jazeera’s

framing.

§ 4.4 The institutional nexus of Al-Jazeera’s broadcasting

Before analyzing exemplary broadcasts of Al-Jazeera, an account of the institutional

background of the news channel is given. First, a background of censorhip in the Arab world

is sketched. Subsequently, the functions of Arab news media are given. On this basis, Al-

Jazeera’s general motive of airing “the opinion and the other opinion” is set out. This

operating principle is shown to reflect the Arabic historical rich tradition of oral, face-to-face

communication.

24 Examples of real or imagined moral panics are for instance McCarthyism and the demonization of communists, the American moral prohibition movement of the 1920’s and moral crusades against Marijuana use and sexual deviance (Goode & Ben-Yahuda, 1994). Research on the moral condemnation of the Arab world and Muslims is sparse (see for instance Bavelaar, 2005).�

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Censorship

Above I demonstrated CNN’s market driven approach which among other things resulted in

the frame of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism as commodified spectacles and a moral panic. One could

argue that this approach reflects an unconscious policy of self-censorship. CNN

correspondent Amanpour states this was the case during CNN’s competition with FOX News

for the attention of the American audience:

I think the press was muzzled, and I think the press self-muzzled… I’m sorry to say but certainly television, and perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my views, in terms of the kind of broadcast we did (cited in Johnson, 2003).

Illustratively, Jasperson and El-Kikhia analyzed CNN´s coverage of the GWOT and

concluded that governance and military frames dominated their news, while humanitarian

frames were structurally less employed (2003; 116-121). Arab news media are also commonly

seen as self-censoring institutes, however the news is not censored to attract a larger audience,

but through governmental influences.

Several Arab states launched national satellite news channels after the 1991 Gulf War,

sometimes in collaboration with local business entrepreneurs. These governments were

inspired by CNN’s broadcasting successes of the Gulf War and realized the strategic

significance of the medium. Channels such as the Middle East Broadcasting Center, The

Egyptian Satellite Channel, and Emirates Dubai Television are all at least partly state-owned.

The Egyptian communication scholars El-Nawawy and Iskandar argue that these channels

chiefly aim to pressure audiences through the spread of propaganda (2002; 39). American

scholar of Arab Rugh divided the Arab press systems in four categories. Rugh’s typology has

been criticized for being defined too roughly as well as for the assumption that the Arab press

can not be categorized in strict categories (see for instance Mellor, 2005; 46-74). However for

the purpose of this research the typology remains valuable to grasp the operating of Al-

Jazeera within the context of censorship in the Arab world in general.

Rugh’s typology consists of the mobilization, the loyalist, the diverse and the

transitional press. The press in Syria, Libya and Sudan can be understood as mobilized press,

national governments of these countries use the media as a tool for political mobilization. A

history of European colonialism has left its mark and the media systems were established

under politically unstable circumstances. The press in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Palestine,

Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates exhibits loyalty to the ideologies of the

governments of the countries they broadcast from. Even though a certain amount of freedom

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is given to the press, and private ownership is permitted, the broadcasters are still partly under

control of the national governments. The press of Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco and Yemen

operates under less authoritarianism and generally offers a diverse set of opinions and

perspectives. The press in pre-war Iraq could also be characterized as such. Algeria, Egypt,

Jordan and Tunisia have press systems that find themselves in transition, and according to

Rush it “is not clear which way they are headed or indeed that they are in fact in transition to

a different type of system that will stabilize” (2004; 134). On this basis it can be noted that the

Arab news media perform different functions geared towards the background of the political

system under which they operate. Nonetheless, the Arab press serves different functions in

comparison with the Western press. This difference is displayed below.

The functions of Arab news media

In 1979 Rugh studied the news media in the eighteen Arab states mentioned above, and his

insights are still valuable to understand some of the general principles that are still – both

visibly and invisibly – at play in the Arab press. He distinguished five basic functions of

media: (1) conveying news and information of general interest; (2) interpreting and

commenting on news, providing opinion and perspectives; (3) reinforcing social norms and

cultural awareness by transmitting information about the society and its culture (4) providing

specialized information for commercial promotion (advertising) or available services; and (5)

entertaining. Throughout his analysis, he tries to show how the Arab media carry out these

functions (1979; 15).

When first taking into account the five functions and how they work in CNN’s news

broadcasting, on the basis of the findings set out above, CNN seems to incorporate all five

functions. However as I tried to show, some of the functions are more prominent in the

operating of CNN in comparison with the others. Throughout the years of media

monopolizations, the commodification of news and the firing of foreign correspondents,

functions four and five increasingly left their marks on the TV news. Under the heading of

function one and two, the conveying of news and the interpreting of events, news media

increasingly framed events as spectacles set within established entertainment formats. Instead

of offering multiple perspectives, just one black and white orientation on the news was given,

while the emphasis on the ‘Otherness’ of the other dismissed cultural awareness and

reinforced patriotic American norms.

Regarding the first two functions, Rugh notes that political and cultural bias is often

discernable in the Arab media news presenting and commenting. News is often consciously

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distorted for political goals, whereas cultural bias results from unconscious conformity with

certain accepted standards. However, people consuming Arab news media have traditionally

only skeptically accepted facts presented and information from the mass media “is not

necessarily trusted more just because it is printed or broadcast” (1979; 14-19). This tendency

of skepticism can partly be attributed to the continued importance of oral communication and

discussion within the Arab world which is addressed later. The third function also works

rather in contrast with CNN, since traditionally the content in Arab media is created by

educated Arabs who generally have a non-journalism related educational background in the

field of arts and literature (ibid.; 20). Schools of journalism have only rather recently emerged

in the Arab world. Cultural reinforcement also works through the use of Arab, as the language

connects people from different countries.

Interestingly, function four and five are not the influential factors they are in the

Western world. “Entertainment per se plays a relatively small role in the Arab press”, as the

news remains regarded “primarily as a serious vehicle for news, information, and opinion […]

not as entertainment” (ibid.; 23). This feature can also partly be attributed to the fact that most

newspapers and television stations have a historical relationship of funding with national

governments. Also, leaders of major Arab businesses have not embraced advertisement after

World War II to the same extent as their American counterparts, because “the press as a

whole, and even more so the electronic media, have not developed in the direction of

American big business, mass-oriented media as some observers thought they might” (ibid.; 9).

There is a big difference with the commercially appealing Western news media.

Al-Jazeera’s guiding principles

In the post Gulf War era Al-Jazeera began broadcasting from the peninsula of Qatar. In 1996,

Al-Jazeera, in English ‘the island’ or ‘the peninsula’, arose from two parties: the Arabic

Television division of BBC News service and the Saudi-Arabian Orbit Radio and Television

Service. After withdrawal of funding by Saudi-Arabian investors from the Arabic TV division

of the BBC news service, Qatar’s progressive emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani made

funding available to establish Al-Jazeera. He wanted to democratize the peninsula of Qatar by

setting up “an independent and non-partisan satellite TV network free from government

scrutiny, control and manipulation” (El-Nawawy and Iskandar, 2002; 33). The Sheikh

promised $140 million to launch the station for the five-year period until November 2001.

From 2001 onwards, the station was expected to become self-supporting through

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advertisement revenues, but Al-Jazeera has not yet been able to become fully self-

supporting25.

Up until now, Al-Jazeera has not been able to self-support itself through advertisement

revenues. The channel reaches an increasing audience - Qatari scholar Ali Al-Hail, beliefs that

“approximately 70 percent of Arabs who own a satellite dish rely primarily on Al-Jazeera”

(cited in El-Nawawy and Iskandar, 2002; 33) - but it has not been able to transform its

operating to the likes of CNN and its big business approach. One could argue that this leaves

Al-Jazeera with less worries about advertisement revenues in comparison with their American

counterpart. In turn this can benefit the engaged viewer as the need for spectacle and

populism is not dominant. CNN’s broadcasting of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks

was successful in terms of increasing their viewing numbers.

Nielsen Media Research has shown that in the six months predating the attacks, CNN

averaged an average household rating of 0.3 per total day (with a prime time average of

275.000 households and 336.000 viewers), in the six months after the attacks CNN’s ratings

went up to 0.8 (with a prime time average of 733.300 households and 860.000 viewers). The

advertisement revenues reached the figure of 30.900.000 USD per month (Goetzl, 2002; 17).

The moral panic orientation and emphasis on the spectacle can have attributed to this success.

These framing mechanisms are not directly visible in Al-Jazeera’s representation of the

attacks. Could this be due to the fact that Al-Jazeera up until today does not rely primarily on

advertisement revenues in contrast with CNN? Miles describes CNN and Al-Jazeera and

illustrates the differences in advertising as follows:

[i]f you watch Al-Jazeera for more than a few minutes you will notice one of the principal differences between it and other twenty-four-hour news networks: how few advertisements there are. It is possible to watch Al-Jazeera for an hour and not see any at all. When they do appear, they are brief and often conspicuously cheap. Al-Jazeera has only about forty to forty-five minutes of advertising each day, compared with about three hundred minutes of daily commercial advertising on CNN (2005; 2).

Apart from governmental funding, Al-Jazeera is said to be an independent news

channel. In contrast with the other more traditional news channels from the Middle East, Al-

Jazeera proclaims to be free from government influence. Sheikh Hamad insisted on the end of

media censorship in Qatar by closing down the Ministry of Information that had been

25 These funding initiatives, among other things, led Rugh to label the news media from Qatar as loyalist. El-Nawawy and Iskandar attest that the internal affairs of Qatar has had less attention from Al-Jazeera in comparison with external affairs. “Public criticism of the ruling family and the Islam is forbidden” (2002; 75) but the sheikh increasingly takes initiatives to champion free speech and to create the base for a “free, balanced and fair media” to flourish (ibid; 82).

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responsible for censorship of radio, television and newspapers. Qatar became the first country

with an Arab government without such a ministry (ibid.; 37).

When the initiators of Al-Jazeera were successful in the recruitment of the best part of

the BBC Arabic TV editors, the channel “inherited not only most of the staff of the former

BBC network but also its editorial spirit, freedom and style (ibid.; 31). Its freedom is apparent

when taking into account that Al-Jazeera “touches on issues considered by Arab standards to

be forbidden, like sex, polygamy, corruption of governmental regimes, women’s civil rights,

and Islamic fundamentalism” (El-Nawawy and Iskandar, 2002; 29). Al-Mirazi, from Al-

Jazeera’s bureau in Washington illustrates the functioning of the channel as follows:

[w]e follow the BBC model in that we are a public corporation that enjoys editorial independence. It used to be the case that Arab people used to prefer Western media over Arab media, thinking that you cannot have an independent media body in the Arab world that is free from government control. Al-Jazeera broke that rule (cited in El-Nawawy and Iskandar, 2002; 41).

The broadcast model is further structured by the motive “the opinion and the other

opinion” of which Al-Jazeera journalists claim it “emphasizes neutrality and objectivity when

dealing with the news” (Yousif, 2006). In its code of ethics, the Qatar based Al Jazeera

proclaims to “[p]resent diverse points of view and opinions without bias or partiality” (2006).

This motive has been the main guiding principle of the channel. On this basis, former BBC

interviewer Frost who is now employed by Al-Jazeera proclaims “Al-Jazeera is the new

frontier” in the international media landscape (cited in Bernhard, 2006). And although Al-

Jazeera has established itself as a mainstream channel in the Arab world, in the eyes of the

Western world, Al Jazeera is seen as a global “alternative” news network (Iskandar, 2005).

The core motive of showing different angles and different sides to stories can be said to have

contributed to this perception. Al-Jazeera anchor Serra states that “[i]f it’s newsworthy, it gets

on air, whether it’s Bush or Bin Laden” and this is often described as something new in the

Arab and international landscape of television news (Bernhard, 2006).

Oral communication

Al-Jazeera’s general principle of “the opinion and the other opinion” can be understood when

taking into account the historically established communication tradition in the Arab world.

Illustratively Rugh attests that oral communication remains important throughout the Arab

world as an information channel. He argues that face-to-face communication “has always

been very important in Arab society, and the traditional reliance on information from friends

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and personally known individuals has continued as a strong preference among Arabs” […]

despite the widespread and recently quite rapid growth of mass communications media in the

Arab world, oral communication channels remain extremely important” (1979; 13-14).

Opinions are formed on the basis of exchanged information through direct oral

communication in groups. Arabic terms that refer to this phenomenon are for instance

‘shillas’, ‘bashka’, ‘dawra’ (‘dowreh’ in Persian26) or ‘halghah’ (ibid.). Al-Jazeera can be said

to incorporate these traditional communication practice in its operating. It can be said that in

some ways, the channel has chosen to include the normally supplementary character of oral

communication and discussion to the forefront of its programming. The principle is

recognizable in the motive of the channel, when one opinion is followed by the other opinion.

And most prominently this occurs during talk shows that were unheard of in the Arab world

before Al-Jazeera started broadcasting.

In contemporary Arab society it is common to find “informal circles of friends who

meet regularly and talk frankly about public affairs as well as private concerns” (ibid.). Al-

Jazeera tried to duplicate these sessions by airing lively discussions on public as well as

private matters. This was revolutionary within the field of television news in the Arab world.

In contrast with the medium specific possibilities of photo realism that television can offer,

Al-Jazeera for instance offers Al Ittijah Al Mo’akis (The Opposite Direction). This is a two-

hour weekly broadcast hosted by Faisal Al-Kasim where “two guests from diametrically

opposed sides on a variety of issues come face-to-face in debate and take calls and respond to

faxes from viewers” (El-Nawawy and Iskandar, 2002; 92). This talk show is one of many

where Al-Jazeera in my opinion tries to resemble the more informal face-to-face discussions

of the ‘shillas’. Al-Jazeera namely provides a platform for mediated face-to-face

communication, often resulting in “unbridled and often noisy debases on some of the most

sensitive issues in Arab society” (ibid.).

Another example of a successful Al-Jazeera talk show is Akthar Men Ra’y (More than

One Opinion) hosted by Samy Haddad. The principle of offering diverging perspectives is

underlined in the name of the program. But it is also something the talk show hosts strive for

in their programs. “They try to provoke their guests, energize the discussions, and instigate

debates – often to the breaking point – without taking one side or the other. In doing so, their

main objective is to present all points of view for viewers and let them decide. Most other talk

shows on Arab TV offer little more than top-down dictation” (ibid.; 102-103). Thus, Al-

26 American anthropologists Eickelman and Anderson illustratively define ‘dowreh’ as “an informal discussion circle, frequently meeting on a regular schedule, among friends in Iran” (2003a; 202)

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Jazeera’s operating is based on face-to-face communication. The channel does not necessarily

have to exploit media spectacles because the talk shows have gained blockbuster-like status.

Hollywoodesque entertainment formats are unnecessary to achieve ‘bashka’-esque

discussions. Maybe due to the historical tradition of face-to-face communications, watching

discussions has become popular. The statement made by Lebanese Islam scholar Hitti

illustrates this assumption: “no people in the world has such enthusiastic admiration for

literary expression and is so moved by the word, spoken or written, as the Arabs” (cited in

Patai, 1973; 32).

American anthropologist Anderson identifies the phenomenon of broadcasting

meetings that resemble the private life discussions as the “migration of discourse from

narrower to broader more ‘public’ realms”. According to him in this way

[m]edia make public what previously circulated in narrower, face-to-face interpersonal settings, such as coffee houses, dowrhes, the majlis, and informal discussion circles from university dormitories to parlors to dissident cells and other places where familiars meet, by giving messages additional circulation (2003; 46).

The following section explores how Al-Jazeera migrates the more informal discourses to a

public realm in their framing of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism. First, the framing of the 9/11 attacks is

analyzed. Second the framing of the ‘Jihadist’ terrorists is taken into account.

§ 4.5 9/11 on Al-Jazeera

In this section, broadcasts on 9/11 that were aired on Al-Jazeera are analyzed, by delving into

scholarly works, transcripts and newspaper items that have dealt with the matter.

Unfortunately, in stark contrast with CNN USA, Al-Jazeera Arabic does not keep a publicly

accessible archive27. For the analysis of Al-Jazeera’s material I therefore, for the most part,

will have to rely on secondary sources. However, I have sought to also include primary

sources by corresponding with Al-Jazeera officials. My private correspondence with Samir

Khader, one of Al-Jazeera’s program editors, is therefore used as a primary source on Al-

Jazeera’s framing of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism. Khader’s opinion is of course a form of self-

presentation of the channel, which is something that needs to be taken into account critically. I

am aware of the fact that the sources used for this section differ from the sources used in my

analysis of CNN. In this section, the focus lays on the first established non-English version of

27 CNN’s material is written out in transcripts, and these are accessible via an online database system (Lexis Nexis). Additionally, CNN’s actual footage of the 9/11 attacks has been archived by the Internet Archive, alongside material from other American channels ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC as well as BBC from the United Kingdom, but Al-Jazeera’s footage is not stored on this site or anywhere else.

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Al-Jazeera. For clarification purposes, again the differentiation between the two framing

processes of the attacks and the attackers is made.

Framing the attacks

Al-Jazeera news editor Khader states that Al-Jazeera’s framed the event of 9/11 as it

unfolded:

[f]irst of all, the event has been presented as is [sic] i.e. reporting the factual events, showing all live footage coming from various us networks and channels. Live reports by our correspondents in the United States. Broadcasting live speeches and press conferences of major American officials, as well as reactions inside and outside the United States

In his description of Al-Jazeera’s framing of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Khader thus states that

the channel presented the events to their viewers ‘live’ as they unfolded. Similar to CNN who

at first almost continuously showed replays of the planes flying into the World Trade Centre,

Al-Jazeera “also kept on running these pictures again and again”. However when confronting

Khader with the question of whether Al-Jazeera similar to CNN in the beginning was unable

to provide proper research journalism analysis and commentary Khader insists that Al-Jazeera

aired the clips “never without commentary”. Al-Jazeera, according to Khader “always tried to

link these pictures to accusations against alqaeda and the team of 19 accused of carrying out

the attacks”. The difference in framing with CNN is immediately obvious when accepting

Khader’s self-presentation of the channel as accurate. Apart from the fact that Al-Jazeera

supposedly presented commentary from all over the world, the channel also did not

ideologically close the event. It can be said that in contrast with CNN, no clear-cut good

versus evil orientation is provided by labeling the attackers as the ‘accused’. In the next

paragraph, Al-Jazeera’s framing of the attackers is taken into account more on a more in-

depth level.

Al-Jazeera has relatively soon after the attacks taken into account the amalgam of the

actual attacks and their representations in (Western) mainstream media. Khader for instance

implicitly refers to Al-Jazeera’s awareness of the construction of the news on the ‘Jihadist’ act

of terrorism by underlining Al-Jazeera’s usage of multiple sources of broadcast material.

Also, he insists on the emphasis Al-Jazeera put on the contextualization of the attacks by

showing commentary from all over the world. The rivalry between CNN and Al-Jazeera and

Al-Jazeera’s unwillingness to blindly accept American footage is obvious when Khader talks

about the footage used: “[a]s for footage used, at the beginning we relied heavily of U.S.

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networks and agencies (Reuters, Associated Press, ..). Later, we used our own crews in the

U.S. and our own pictures” (ibid.).

An illustrative example of Al-Jazeera’s explicit attention to the media construction of

terrorism was obvious in the talkshow Al Ittijah Al Mo’akis (The Opposite Direction), that

was aired on November 20, 2001, following the incidental bombing of Al-Jazeera’s bureau in

Afghanistan on November 13 by American troops. In this program, two guests were given the

chance to discuss terrorist attacks and the War on Terrorism: Ross, a former U.S. ambassador

to Syria, now a U.S. counterterrorism coordinator, Alloush, an Arab mass-communication

scholar and the editor-in-chief of ‘The Free Arab Voice on the Internet’. They discuss the

attacks (in Arabic) by taking into account the media attention they have raised. The host of the

program, Al-Kasim, at the beginning of every show raises a set of questions that reflect two

opposite sides in a controversy.

In this case, Al-Kasim on the one hand raises several critical questions about the US

media such as “[a]re the Western media really free?”, “[h]ave the Western mass media

become mouthpieces for Western governments?” and “[w]hy have the Western news media

lost their abilities to listen to any opposing opinions?”. On the other hand, he asks the two

guests whether the U.S. media are in their right to present the events the way they do “[i]sn’t

it the Western media’s right to fashion their coverage to adapt to the exceptional

circumstances that the United States is going through?”, “[i]sn’t the American public opinion

supportive of its government’s policies”, “[i]sn’t it unfair to accuse the American media of

becoming a mouthpiece for the government or a public relations machinery?” and “[a]ren’t

the Western mass media still the best example of free speech?” (El-Nawawy and Iskandar,

2002; 91).

Of course, Al-Jazeera here also uses binary oppositions like the Western world versus

the rest, but the good versus bad orientation is absent, because throughout the show, equal

attention is paid to both sides of the spectrum. The speaker from the West, Ross, represents

the American stance on the problem, while Alloush represents the Arab world. The show

provides a good example for the possibility of intercultural dialogue, as discussion between

the two worlds is shown to be actually feasible. In sum, the problem of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism

and the rather problematic relationship with mainstream media is addressed on Al-Jazeera

from the Western and Arab perspective as one interconnected issue, in contrast with CNN

which does not reflect on the media’s troublesome relationship with terrorist attacks.

One broadcast of the attacks that can be seen as exemplary for Al-Jazeera’s framing of

the September 11 attacks is the Al-Jazeera English broadcast of the Listening Pole that was

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shortly aired after Al-Jazeera English started broadcasting on November 15, 2006. In this

program the attacks and their representations are seen as interconnected and addressed as

such. As former ABC correspondent Gizbert introduces the program “what we are interested

in is where the media comes in to play on a story like this”. The program is inspired by the

Arab “peoples distrust of official media” and examines the upheaval of conspiracy theories

that immediately arose after the attacks. The Arab’s world critical reception of mainstream

media is validated in a sense when the independent filmmaker O’Conner’s 9/11 PRESS OR

TRUTH conclusion is presented as accurate in the program: “the mainstream media did a

decent job of reporting 9/11 but it came up short in one critical respect: context”.

I believe that this show on the English daughter of the channel is representative for Al-

Jazeera’s framing of the September 11 attacks. The attacks are framed as acts of terrorism but

almost immediately after the attacks were conducted, their relationship with mainstream

media is taken into account. The attacks are not addressed as stand-alone acts but they are

repeatedly taken into account as being inherently connected with the media attention they

received. In the analysis of CNN’s framing of the attacks, I showed that the portrayal of the

attacks through the use of entertainment formats rendered the attacks as a spectacle. The

audience member was not provided with background information or, and as such he or she

was not given the means to relate with the ‘Others’ who were soon identified as Arab

Muslims.

Interestingly now is to take into account a question which is not even so far fetched

like what if the terrorist thought out their performance so well and actually anticipated the

presentational modes employed by U.S. mainstream media? The terrorist performance was

maybe deliberately planned to resemble scenes from a Hollywood action movie. The terrorists

might have intentionally carried out these spectacular attacks to enhance a clear good versus

bad guy orientation. And so they could have anticipated the subsequent media- framed binary

opposition of the USA as good guys versus the Arab world as bad guys, as such furthering the

perception of growing tensions between us versus them or the USA or the West and the Arab

world.

Framing the attackers

Khader from Al-Jazeera underlines that Al-Jazeera, in contrast with CNN, from the beginning

presented the attackers as the ones that were accused for the attacks, in stead of repeatedly

framing the attackers as proven and convicted terrorists from Arab decent. In his elaboration

on the use of repeated images, he states the following:

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[w]e also used [graphic & video material of, KL] them in our promotional material (e.g. spot publicity to assure our audience that we are the first to convey live events). We even invented later on a new slogan to counter CNN: “CNN be the second to know” The first being, of course, Al-Jazeera.(2007b)

He underlines the fact, that in comparison with CNN, Al-Jazeera always sought to bring

insightful commentary to the pictures that were aired. Similar to CNN, the horrific images

were used to attract audiences, but also to show their audience the independence from the

likes of CNN. In his last sentence, Khader refers to the fact that Al-Jazeera was the first to

bring TV viewers information about Al-Qaeda.

Even though Bin Laden initially denied his involvement in the attacks, the US

government from the start insisted on his involvement.

I stress that I have not carried out this act which appears to have been carried out by individuals with their own motivation […] On this occasion I affirm that I did not carry out this act. I live in the Emirate of Afghanistan and I have pledged allegiance to the emir of the faithful, who does not allow such acts” (Bin Laden, cited in Miles, 2005; 107).

On September 16, 2001, Al-Jazeera received this statement, signed by Sheikh Osama bin

Laden, “that was to propel the station to instant notoriety in the eyes of the West” according

to Saudi-Arabian journalist Miles (ibid.). As Khader illustrates “[l]ater on, as accusations

were made against Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden, we tried to show our audience what is Al-Qaeda

and who was Bin Laden, and why did they do it, if they really did it [emphasis mine]”

(2007a). Again, the more hesitant stance of the channel to present accusations as the truth is

recognizable. Thus, after the attacks, Al-Jazeera did not so much focus on the individuals who

carried out the actual attacks, but focused more on the minds behind the attacks, and aired

their perspective on the attacks. Therefore, the framing of these leading figures is taken into

account in this section. Because Al-Jazeera had historically provided a platform for Bin

Laden to air his voice, the United States were, at the very least, suspicious of the channel

broadcasting from Qatar.

In 1998 the US government was threatening to attack Iraq. In this year a one-hour

interview with Bin Laden was aired several times on Al-Jazeera. During this interview, Bin

Laden stated that all Muslims had the “Religious Duty” to engage in a war “targeting all

Americans”. In September 2000, after the U.S.S. Cole aircraft carriers was attacked for the

coast of Yemen, Al-Jazeera broadcasted a tape in which Bin Laden appeared alongside

Ayman Al-Zawahiri and Assad Allah Rahman, the son of Omar Abdul Rahman who later

turned out to have directed the September 11 attacks. In this movie, Bin Laden urged Muslims

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to “move forward” against American forces in the Middle East, while Al-Zawahiri stated

“[e]nough of words; its is time to take action” and Rahman added to the strong rhetoric by

stating that “[i]t’s time to move forward and shed blood” (ibid.; 108).

Miles states that the Arab press was pressured by information ministries to refrain

from publishing Bin Laden’s utterances:

Bin Laden had sent videos to Arab news stations in the past, before the existence of Al-Jazeera, but had been consistently ignored. The Arab States Broadcasting Union obliges member states not to broadcast anything that prejudices or annoys another member state and that would certainly include footage of bin Laden (2005; 112).

As I already described above, everything Al-Jazeera staff perceives as newsworthy for its

viewers is put on the air as Al-Jazeera news editor Sheikh Hamad bin Thamir al Thani insists:

“[w]e believe in objectivity, integrity and presenting all points of view – which includes both

Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush’. Adding that “[w]e will never change our strategy of

covering news wherever it is. The viewers are our only judge […] We are looking for big

news” (Miles, 2005; 124-132). Al-Jazeera sees it as its duty to present both sides of issues,

including the GWOT. According to Al-Jazeera’s Al-Mirazi, “it’s a matter of credibility with

the audience […] they want us to cover it” (ibid.; 114). The Palestinian newspaper Al-Hayat

al-Jadidah leapt to the defense of Al-Jazeera: “Al-Jazeera is now accused of promoting hatred

against the United States […] We reassure our colleagues in Al-Jazeera that they have a huge

credit in the Arab street. We congratulate them on the anger of America and Israel at their

respected channel” (ibid.; 125). Al-Mirazi also voiced his frustration of being unable to reach

American officials: “We are desperate to find any officials,” he said. “We say every day,

Please, come talk to us. Exploit us.” He denied the existence of any exceptional relationship

between Bin Laden and Al-Jazeera, underlining that Bin Laden did not choose the channel

because of “any perceived loyalty to his cause. It’s the same reason that the Una Bomber

would send a letter or a fax to the New York Times” (ibid.; 113-114).

The Arab audience demands for differing perspectives to be aired but the U.S. were

increasingly concerned about these and the statements aired after the September 2001 attacks.

Nine days after the attacks, Al-Jazeera aired a re-run of the 1998 interview (ibid.; 110). On

October 7, the channel broadcasted a video from bin Laden. “Dressed in a camouflage jacket

over a traditional thoub, bin Laden spoke in ornate Arabic, claiming that the terror attacks of

Sept. 11 should be applauded by Muslims. It was a riveting performance - one that was

repeated on Nov. 3, when another bin Laden speech aired in full on the station” (Ajami, 2001;

48). Regarding Al-Jazeera, U.S. Secretary of state Colin Powell illustratively stated on ABC’s

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Goodmorning America that “[i]t is an important station in the Arab world; our concern,

however, is that they give an undue amount of time and attention to some very vitriolic,

irresponsible kinds of statements”. During his meeting with the emir of Qatar, he asked the

channel to “tone down” its rhetoric. In a news conference with Powell the emir responded by

stating that “[p]arliamentary life requires you have free and credible media, and that is what

we are trying to do” (El-Nawawy and Iskandar, 2002; 176).

Lebanese Middle East scholar Ajami demonstrated the American perception of Al-

Jazeera by arguing in the New York Times Magazine that the channel influenced the Arab

world as it turned Bin Laden into a hero “he is clearly its star, as I learned during an extended

viewing of the station's programming in October. The channel's graphics assign him a lead

role” Ajami underlines that tapes were broadcasted of Bin Laden firing a rifle and dressed in

military gear (2001; 48) however, these very tapes were soon after also shown on the

American mainstream television channels, including CNN. Al-Jazeera’s managing director

responded:

[w]e learned media independence from the United States, and now the American officals want us to give up what we learned from them […] Our critics tend to forget that bin Laden is one side in this war that we need to present to our viewers. How would our news be balanced without presenting both sides? (El-Nawawy and Iskandar, 2002; 176).

The US concern was further raised through the fact that Al-Jazeera repeatedly

criticized the Global War on Terrorism by referring to what CNN refers to as the “war on

terrorism” as “so-called terrorism” or “the US war on what they called terrorism”. And the

channel provided a stage for Arab leaders who questioned this war. For instance Muammar

Qaddafi, the leader of Libya, was interviewed by Al-Kasim on October 24, 2001 stated that

the US had the right to seek revenge after the September 11 attacks but “We must sit down at

any level without emotions […] and after we define terrorism we agree on fighting terrorism”

(ibid.; 100). The critical ‘opinion and the other opinion’ motto that Al-Jazeera uses as a

leading principle in this case results in the questioning of the GWOT. This subsequently

evokes a change in perception in the US, where station was increasingly seen as a mouthpiece

for Al-Qaeda.

This negative stance towards the channel is beneficial for American media

conglomerates. In the talk show Ittijah Al Mo’akis mentioned above Aloush illustrates this

argument for the sceptical stance of the US towards Al-Jazeera “Al-Jazeera is targeted by the

American media, which are monopolized by four or five conglomerates […]. Al-Jazeera has

broken such media monopoly through its competition in the news market (El-Nawawy and

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Iskandar, 2002; 94). Altough this argument is a bit far-fetched, Fabricius argues that indeed

“Al-Jazeera posed a serious and important challenge to the dominance of CNN” (2004; 37).

Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden videos have their exclusive premiere on Al-Jazeera, to the

disapproval of the US government, media and people. However the US media do pick up and

replay these videos that were aired first on Al-Jazeera. It is for instance interesting to note that

CNN rapidly “signed a deal with Al-Jazeera by which it could broadcast Al-Jazeera’s pictures

for six hours before anyone else could touch them” (Miles, 2005; 131). Concluding, it can be

said that CNN was given a new sparring partner within the international media landscape, and

the next section examines possible consequences for this development.

§ 4.6 CNN, Al-Jazeera and the public sphere

In the theoretical framework, my elaboration on the Habermasian conception of the public

sphere highlighted the possible positive as well as negative consequences of (news) media for

the flourishing of an international public sphere. This section explores whether the findings

from the comparative analysis of CNN and Al-Jazeera’s framing of 9/11 provided viewers

with the means to foster a public sphere. In brief, the public sphere can be seen as a zone of

mediation for rationally reaching consensus. Regarding the public sphere, American law and

media scholar Price insists that broadcasting “is an instrument for the carriage and promotion

of these competing ideas of the good” (1995; 16). As such, news media, potentially provide

the means to foster citizen engagement, intercultural awareness and public discussion. News

media that gear towards the Habermasian notion of the public sphere, according to Dutch

cultural studies scholar Ang, ideal-typically address audiences as a public not as a market:

[t]his audience-as-public consists of citizens, in whose interest it presumably is to be reformed […] In this context, the importance of radio and television programmes lies in their potential to transfer meaningful messages rather than in their capacity as vehicles to deliver audiences to advertisers; programmes and programming matter for their symbolic content rather than as agent for economic exchange value” (1991; 105).

The public sphere can be fostered when the audience-as-public is given the critical

means to engage in rational discussion, but as American political scientist Cohen attests these

mass media as “organs” for critical reason need not to have “their critical thrust blunted”

(cited in Price, 1995; 28), as Price elaborates: If “the electronic media control the quality of

the public sphere, the architecture of the media is of utmost importance” (1995; 27). At first

glance, when taking into account the institutional background of CNN and Al-Jazeera as the

organs for the establishment of an intercultural public sphere, CNN’s contribution can be

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understood as increasingly negative, while Al-Jazeera’s contribution can be seen as

increasingly positive. The nature of the news channel CNN that seeks to provide its audience

with twenty four hours a day and predominantly live news reports is based on the assumption

of selling news as a commodity to the largest audience possible. The common audience

member is expected to consume the news habitually, in the background, while serious and

constructive reception was not stimulated through habits such as continuous repetitions.

Advertisement revenues dominate their presentational mode, which resulted in the

problematic withdrawal of foreign correspondents. American media outlets where less

capable to frame ‘the Other’, in this case the Arab world. This was further reinforced through

the framing of news as spectacles.

Brittish media scholar Cottle has made a similar observation about Western media and

their framing of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism: “[r]esearch findings in fact suggest that though the

generality of media coverage grants terrorist acts and consequences attention, and may

thereby be implicated in insurgency efforts to disseminate fear, media coverage typically fails

to provide explanation, reason or political motive” (2006; 140). Canadian media scholars

Raboy and Dagenais illustrate the downfall of citizen engagement through the representation

of news as spectacles in mainstream media:

[h]enceforth, all discussion of what the worlds’ rulers do is organized through the spectacle, through the unilateral and unidirectional communication via the mass media of the results of decision that have already been made. Only that which is recognized by the spectacle has historical validity; only those consecrated by the spectacle are entitled to speak with authority […] those who consume the spectacle cannot act (Raboy and Dagenais, 1992; 4).

The audience-as-consumers do not act within the public sphere. And, by not giving

contextual backgrounds or motives of the ‘Jihadist’ terrorists, it can be said that CNN played

into the hands of the terrorists, who benefit from the greater distance between the Western

world and the Arab world. Al-Jazeera however, as a new player in the international (news)

media landscape, provided a platform to air the voice of ‘the Other’. Also in the coverage of

9/11, the channel provided an alternative to mainstream news media outlets. As El-Nawawy

and Iskandar illustrate, “[b]y questioning everything, Al-Jazeera has opened a window to

issues long avoided and restricted by the Middle East” (2002; 12). The general motive “the

opinion and the other opinion” finds its reflection for instance in the lively discussions in the

talk shows that are structured to resemble face-to-face discussions of the ‘shillas’. The interest

of the Arab audience is served, as the channel enforced a migration of informal discussions to

a public platform. For the first time, topics that were taboo were discussed openly.

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By inserting themselves within the global media landscape, CNN met a new sparring

partner. On an institutional level, the Arab world presented itself as a new dialogue partner,

enabling the exchange of footage, ideas and news28. Khader’s remarks about Al-Jazeera’s

framing of the 9/11 attacks (“CNN be the second to know”) showed several hints that there’s

an international rivalry going on between the two stations. This institutional hot-headed

debate may contribute to a rethinking of CNN’s operating. When the officials from the

channel reassess the growth of Al-Jazeera, they might find their presentation of the news

centers to much on a Western-world perspective of the world, which might eventually lead to

the adaptation of non-Western perspectives in the framing of everyday events.

Price argues that essentially, the role of broadcasters is to help to define an objective

public voice: “objectivity has the meaning of searching out competing views of the proper

running of society, acting as a forum for diversity, providing a mechanism for the coming

together of a public consensus”. As such, the media must frame situations from different

perspectives, “they must not be seen as a picking and choosing, favoring one view among

many. Objectivity, in that sense, is a process, not a narrow attitude towards truth” (1995; 35).

However as Iskander and El-Nawawy have also argued, both CNN and Al-Jazeera find

themselves in a constant relationship state of friction between raw information and their

projected audience members:

[c]ontextual objectivity, the perpetual tension between the decontextualized message of the news deliverer and the nuanced and coloured perceptions of the receiver of news message’s can be witnessed on virtually every news bulletin of war on every media outlet in the world today, not the least CNN and Al-Jazeera. It permeates every story, and has become increasingly emblematic of the struggles for the construction of mediated messages (2004; 321).

On the level of Al-Jazaara itself, the channel seeks to circumvent this issue by

providing multiple perspectives on complex issues. On an international level the

preconditions for this process of the forming of an non-manipulated objective view are

beginning to present themselves to an international public, because through the establishment

of Al-Jazeera, international public consensus is possible through new means, as different

views are now accessible in widely available, mainstream settings. However, the workings of

28 Recently, Iran commenced broadcasting a 24/hours a day English language television channel called PressTV. Sarafraz, vice-president of PressTV said that “since the 9/11 attacks in the US in 2001 the world's media had divided into two camps”. PressTV was “to deliver a different view of the security situation in Iraq, US military threats and the push for democracy in the Middle East” (BBC News, 2007). Other dialogue partners are thus presenting themselves in the international field of news broadcasting.

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Al-Jazeera need also to be taken into account critically. As Miles stated, Al-Jazeera presents

itself to its audience as neutral by providing “the opinion and the other opinion”, and by

claiming that the “viewers are our only judge” (Miles, 2005; 124-132).

However, when taking into account that the channel dismissed policy issued by the

Arab States Broadcasting Union platform to refrain from offering Bin Laden a platform to air

his voice multiple times, one can also question Al-Jazeera’s neutrality. The competitive drive

to counter CNN and their coverage can also be understood as controversial. By airing the

perspective of Al-Qaeda through reading faxed messages and conducting interviews with Bin

Laden, the channel attracted a large audience, but one can wonder if Al-Jazeera this way

operates similar to CNN by trying to provide a specific group of (especially non-Western /

Arab) viewers with what they want. If giving ‘the other opinion’ merely entails talking back

to CNN’s or Western coverage, the neutrality of the channel itself becomes arbitrary.

In sum, viewers of both channels are presented with a specifically constructed

perspective on the world and ‘the Other’. CNN’s framing of the events as spectacles without

insightful commentaries and Al-Jazeera’s inherent focus on ‘the other opinion’ goes against

what Hartley describes as the “professional skill” of “contextualizing [the news] for the

‘benefit of the viewers’” (2002; 4). British news presenter Sissons has elaborated on the

importance of contextualization in news reports “[l]et’s remember that although a picture can

tell the story, only a word can put it into its historical perspective, can caution against

gullibility, can weigh the true significance of the event” (quoted in Hartley 2002; 4).

CNN’s framing of the 9/11 attacks and attackers can be said to not meet the standards

of skeptical research journalism, which can partly be attributed to the lack of foreign

correspondents after budget cuts in the 1990’s, its tendency towards commodification of news

and its attempt to reach wider audiences through presenting clear good versus evil framings.

Canadian media theorist McLuhan’s critical assessment of Western people and their tendency

to “look at the present through the spectacles of the preceding age” (1994; 243) is shown to be

accurate in this case. CNN fed the audience with hyperreal framings of the attacks, through

emphasizing the spectacular rather than offering contextualization by demonstrating possible

consequences, implications, reasons and international perspectives. When magnifying some

of the tendencies observable in the coverage of Al-Jazeera, one can state that their weighing

of the news is also not beneficial for their public at large, as the channel found itself

predominantly in a competition to complement CNN’s coverage, resulting in the ‘exclusive’

airing of justification coverage of speeches by Al-Qaeda members and especially Bin Laden,

as an answer on CNN’s coverage of speeches of condemnation by George W. Bush.

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Chapter 5 News in the blogosphere

This chapter centres on a case-study of the blogosphere. There has been done very little

theoretically grounded research on news and weblogs in comparison with the extensive

research that has been conducted on television news. Instead of highlighting my position

within the theoretical discussion, as demonstrated above in the analysis of TV news, this

section on blogs encourages me more to independently try to systematically theorize on this

new phenomenon. Where possible, the analysis follows the format used in chapter four.

Again, the principal framing locations that are examined are the channel (in this case the

weblog as a medium of news dissemination), the text (the interactively written news report)

and the culture (economic background as well historical backgrounds). This is done on the

basis of the threefold definition of new media by American and British media scholars

Lievrouw and Livingstone. They argue that new media can be studied as merely technological

devices, the communicative practises enabled by these new media and the social and

institutional context of their usage (2002; 15-32). This chapter focuses on the later two

dimensions.

First, the window on the world provided in the blogosphere is critically examined by

taking into account the medium specific characteristics of the blog. Second, on an explorative

base, the blogs or ‘Warblogs’ from Andrew Glasser, Reid Stott and Matt Welch from the

United States and reactions on blog-portals Arabia, Masrawy and Islamonline from the Arab

world29 are taken into account that have dealt with the September 11 terrorist attacks

specifically. Rather than taking a large at-random sample, I chose to delve into some

American blogs that were of interest for this research at more in-depth level. The functioning

of these blogs and the way perspectives were presented on the blogs are seen as illustrative for

the U.S. and Arab blogosphere on the topic of September 11. The results that are presented in

these sections are thought through on a more abstract level by taking them into account from

the perspective of Habermas’ notion on the public sphere in the last paragraph. Before doing

so, a short history of the blog is provided for clarification purposes.

Groups of weblogs are often labelled as the so-called blogosphere. The blogosphere is

a collective term that is used to group together either all existing web logs online or particular

groups of blogs. As a sum of it parts, the blogosphere includes different communities of

socially networked internet users. However, similar communities have existed since the

29 Abdulla (2005 and 2007) has studied these last three portals and through her translations of postings she found on these sites into English she made it possible for non-Arab speakers to analyze a part of the online Arab world. My analysis of the Arab online world focuses on the messages she translated.

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networking of computers began. From 1983 until the 1990’s Bulletin Board Systems (BBS)

and newsgroups such as Usenet where the spaces where people formed digital communities

on the basis of similar interests. These are a good example of computer mediated

communications (CMC) based interactivity. These communities were “clearly built up by

successive inputs of users’ comments”, where the input “becomes part of the text and may be

available to other users of the database” as set out by Lister et al. (2003; 22).

Since the beginning of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) based World Wide

Web in the 1990’s, people have written their personal thoughts on private homepages and

have encouraged other Internet users to react. Visitors of these sites were generally invited to

send comments (often still via e-mail). These websites can be characterized as online diaries.

The term weblog, contracted into the portmanteau blog, was coined in 1997. In 1999, when

only a few hundred weblogs existed, Blogger was launched by Pyra Labs according to

American Journalist Burstein (2005; xiii). As one of the early blog-publishing tools, Blogger

paved the way for increasing popularity of the format by offering internet users easy to use

content management systems and publishing tools.

Currently, most blogs are still primarily text based, although blogs come in several

forms, such as artlogs, audioblogs (podcasts), MP3-Music blogs, photoblogs, sketchblogs, and

videoblogs. The blogosphere can be seen as a part of the network of social media. Social

media enables the linking of different users together synchronously as well as a-

synchronously to share views and digital material and generally exhibits features of

interactivity and openness, according to British computer scientist Dodge and Irish human

geographer Kitchin (2001; 130). Within the framework of social media, the blogosphere has

grown into a substantial network. Illustratively, according to the American software

entrepreneur Sifry – who founded the blog search engine Technorati – there were more than

70 million active blogs in April 2007, and for instance from 2003 to 2005, the number of

indexed blogs doubled every five months. In 2007, 120.000 new weblogs are created daily

(2007).

Besides the fact that blogs are understudied as news media, they are also especially an

interesting medium to research, as many blogs deal with current events and matters of general

interest. For instance media scholar Matheson from New Zealand estimated that around July

2003 “perhaps half of weblogs deal frequently with public affairs”. Because a lot of people

are now covering current events, it is believed that journalism and newsgathering are

changing. Matheson has made this argument explicitly about weblogs, as he stated that “[t]he

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line between journalism and other forms is blurred by the many news-related weblogs

maintained by people who are not employed as journalists” (2003; 409)

However, it remains very much unclear to what extent and how journalism is

transforming. Several media scholars have anticipated that journalism will pass gradually into

a new state through the introduction of new media. American media scholar Fulton argues

that new technologies challenge practitioners of traditional forms of journalism because they

“give journalistic reformers an ideal opening to try new ideas” (1996: 3). Australian

psychologist Mackay and British media scholar O’Sullivan agree, stating that ‘in many ways

the greatest significance of the new communication technologies lies in their impact on

existing media’ (1999: 3–4). Other scholars examine the impact of new media on the actual

practises of traditionally operating journalists more critically. American journalist Katz has

for instance criticized US news media for “refusing to change” and remaining “insanely

stagnant in an interactive age” (1997). Over the course of the following analysis of the

framing of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism on American and Middle-Eastern blogs, I implicitly address

some of the implications of online journalism for more traditional forms of journalism30.

§ 5.1 Medium specificity of the weblog

In the Big Media Age, most people were kept out of democratic discussion and were rendered by broadcast technologies passive consumers of infotainment. Access to media was controlled by big corporations and a limited range of voices and views were allowed to circulate. In the Internet age, anyone with access to a computer, modem, and Internet service can participate in discussion and debate, empowering large numbers of individuals and groups kept out of the democratic dialogue during the Big Media Age (Kellner, 2001).

In the lengthy quotation printed above, American media scholar Kellner describes the

(perceived) limitless potential of new media by underlining the striking differences between

what he labels as the Big Media Age and the Internet Age, even though up until today no new

media has been so successfully adopted on a global scale like radio and television. This

exaggerated binary opposition between the two ages is in actuality not so rigid but it remains

useful for interpretational purposes to grasp the differences between the news presented in the

blogosphere and the television news in especially the Western world. Kellner argues that

users in the Internet age do not necessarily depend on the mainstream mass media channels to

gather information. Global discussions can be conducted in real-time, with relative ease.

Taking these characteristics into consideration, Lister et al. argued that possibly “[t]he 30 For instance American scholars of journalism Kramer (2004), Singer (2005), Robinson (2006) and Reese et al. (2007) deal with this aspect more specifically.

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Internet, through democratising the means of media production, revives the participatory

nature of the idealised public sphere. It encourages us to take part in debate and offers us the

chance to ‘talk back’ to the media, creating dialogue instead of passivity” (2003; 177)

Especially also outside academia the possibilities offered to form online communities

and the potential impact of these communities have not gone by unnoticed. The radical

potential is often presented positively in an uncritical way. Take for instance Time Magazine.

The magazine annually selects a person of the year who has made a great impact in any field,

and in December 2006 an illustration of a computer with a screen consisting of a reflective

surface was put on the cover of the magazine. In the computer screen it read “[p]erson of the

year: You”, accompanied with the following underline “[y]es, you. You control the

information age. Welcome to your world”. In the cover story, American journalist Grossman

elaborated “[y]ou control the media now, and the world will never be the same”:

[i]t’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

(Grossman, 2006; 38)

‘Talking back’ to the mainstream media, it seems, is one argument that keeps

resurfacing to describe and maybe even explain the relative popularity of blogging in the

Western world. For the (Middle-)Eastern world however, this argument does not seem to hold

ground. For that part of the world, the generalized argument has been made that online

communities thrive because people can voice their opinion more freely, something they had

never before known or experienced under the censorship of their governments. In this case,

bloggers do not necessarily want to challenge the messages broadcasted by big corporations,

but want to respond to the censored, directed and/or state owned media. The American

anthropologist Eickelman and American journalist Anderson describe the functioning of new

media in the Muslim world as an expander of the communications ecology into “a market-

place of ideas, identities, and discourses”. And they emphasize that this goes beyond the

metaphor “[i]t is a reality that decisively shifts forms and resources of such discourse and its

practices in favour of middle-class actors” and “feeds into new senses of a public space that is

discursive, performative and participative, and not confined to formal institutions recognized

by state authorities” (2003b; xii-2). Thus, according to Eickelman and Anderson, essentially,

new media opened up unprecedented possibilities for interaction.

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However, I do not want to step blindly in the technological imaginary trap of

uncritically presenting the arrival of the weblog and other online communities as cures for

whatever constraints that have been attributed to older mainstream and/or state run (news)

media. French sociologist Flichy has for instance correctly argued that “communication

technologies, in particular, like network technologies, are often the source of an abundant

production by the collective imagination” (1999; 33). Throughout this chapter, the dangers of

grasping new technologies under the heading of the technological imaginary perspective are

implicitly addressed, by eventually showing how much of this radical potential weblogs holds

for establishing a transnational public sphere. This question is answered by first looking at the

backgrounds of blogging, before analysing actual blogging practises. On the one hand goals

of talking back to the mainstream media and on the other hand undermining government

censorship are assessed on a more theoretical level, before looking at the actual content that

can be found on blogs from the United States and the Middle East. First, for clarification

purposes, a general typology of different sorts of online journalism is given to subsequently

come up with a general typology of weblogs and the implications for the readers of these

websites.

Dutch media scholar Deuze defines online journalism as new sort of journalism next

to three older forms: television, radio and newspapers. Online journalism can be distinguished

from these older forms on the basis of three of the core characteristics of the Internet:

hypertextuality, interactivity and multimediality. According to Deuze, the online journalists

have to decide “which media format or formats best convey a certain story (multimediality),

consider options for the public to respond, interact or even customize certain stories

(interactivity), and think about ways to connect the story to other stories, archives, resources

and so forth through hyperlinks (hypertextuality)” (2003; 206). On the Internet, one can find

several different sorts of online journalism. Deuze distinguishes between four categories:

“mainstream news sites”, “index and category sites”, “meta and comment sites” and “share

and discussion sites” (see figure 2).

These four categories can be separated on the basis of levels of moderation, editorial

content and public connectivity. Deuze situates the weblog between the index and comment

websites, on the basis of his description of the blog as “an often highly personal online

periodical diary by an individual, not in the least by a journalist, telling stories about

experiences online and offering readers links with comments to content found while surfing

the web”. As a form of user generated content these sites, according to Deuze, often present

“plenty of content – and comment on content” by a single author, while the options for

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participatory communication are limited, because the thoughts and initial content is

predominantly provided by one single author or group of authors. Through his or her use of

external and internal hyperlinks, the interactive character of the blog is generally functional,

to present the reader or viewer with a form of authority and accountability (ibid.; 209-215).

Figure 2. A typology of online journalisms (Deuze, 2003; 205).

Matheson argues that “the term ‘web log’ and the statements by early ‘bloggers’

suggest that this kind of webpage developed as a record of the user’s latest browsing, which

was made available for others’ interest” (2004; 448). Dutch media studies student Steeman

has described how weblogs are generally set up for social, political or commercial networking

(2005; 110-144). This research covers the first two aspects of blogging. In line with American

journalist Kline, bloggers are therefore understood as a new type of journalists, as online

journalists who publish their content and comments on weblogs in their manifestation as

citizens who make public “citizen-created media”. Kline positions “blogs, video blogs,

podcasts (or audio blogs), and customized on-demand television, radio, and online newspaper

content” under the heading of the “richly diverse landscape of citizen-created media” (2005;

245).

Generally a weblog contains personal opinions about either private or personal

matters. A website published in the format of a blog generally consists of the recent posting

that is displayed most visibly at the centered top of the page. Under the posting, the

reader/viewer is often encouraged to react. This is made very easy for the reader, most of the

times he or she can jot down a (nick)name and post a reaction, while sometimes additionally

an e-mail address is required (which is not published on the website itself, but is made known

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to the blog owner, who can contact the person reacting when deemed necessary). Earlier

postings are often categorized at least in two ways, first they are often placed under different

topics such as personal thoughts and public matters and second they are often chronologically

sorted in clickable calendar entries.

Weblogs as such typically consist of a network of hyperlinked pages, and their

technological raison d’être is communication (Lister et al, 2003; 176). American media

scholars Kahn and Kellner have argued that from the start “blogging has been about

community, with bloggers eager to read one another’s entries, post comments about them on

their own blogs, and provide lists of links to the blog cartels that identify who particular bloggers

think is ‘who’ in their blog world (n.d.). Apart from this, it is interesting to note that Eickelman

and Anderson have argued that these kinds of interactive, discussion and comment oriented

websites display a tendency to “shift part of the burden of interpretation to the listener/reader”

(2003b; 3). Kahn and Kellner summarize the workings of a blog as follows: “a typical blog

will not only provide postings from a blogger (or a team of bloggers), but it will also provide

readers the opportunity to reply to postings and begin discussions with each other and the blog

author(s) as would a messageboard” (n.d.). The interactive text presented to the reader of the

blog in someway can be said to resemble word-of-mouth (WOM) discussions.

Chinese communication scholars Sun, Youn, Wu and Kuntaraporn have labeled

processes of online social connection and communication as exemplary for what they call

online word-of-mouth (or mouse) communication (2006; 1104). They argue that online WOM

defers from traditional WOM as online WOM involves the transmittal of messages through

typed words, while traditional WOM entails the exchange of face-to-face spoken words. With

common features of online WOM such as its instantaneous one-to-many reach and the

absence of “face-to-face human pressure”, “online WOM is more influential”. Additionally,

people in cyberspace that engage with online WOM have a greater chance to allow voices that

would otherwise not have reached them. Search engines provide the opinions of strangers, and

engaging with these opinions “seldom happens in conventional interpersonal contexts, where

opinion providers are embedded in social networks and well-known people may be more

credible” (ibid.; 1106-1107). The notion of online WOM is useful to grasp the workings of the

interactive character and functioning of blogs.

This chapter therefore also looks at how this interpretative process is recognizable

online, by taking into account the reactions the author of the weblog invokes. A meaning

presented on a weblog is therefore not to be seen as a fixed interpretation, the online WOM

discussion is also part of the message the reader uses to make up his or her opinion. Also,

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besides looking at the framing of ‘the Other’ in the actual message and the reactions on this

message, the architectural framing of ‘the Other’ is taken into account. Thereby I mean to take

into account the network of those members of the blogosphere community with which the

particular blogger identifies. The hyperlinks on any weblog to other weblogs make evident

who is included and excluded within that particular network. Kahn and Kellner describe these

networks as “blog cartels”, and I believe these also show whether the authors of the blogs that

are researched strive towards establishing intercultural linkages.

§ 5.2 The institutional nexus of blogging in the United States

It can be argued that the characteristics of weblogs resemble the functioning of pre-web

Internet bulletin boards and newsgroups. According to Lister et al,

[t]he pre-web was essentially about dialogue, a fundamental basis for democratic political systems and culture […] the participatory nature of the pre-web Internet also answered some of Habermas’s critique of mass media – namely, that the mass media had played a key role in the dissolution of a healthy public sphere by replacing a discourse of critical reason with entertainment and spectacle – active engagement and dialogue (2003; 178).

The American blogosphere is often described, as was noted above, as a way to talk back to

mainstream media. The infotainment and spectacle offered by these outlets are countered with

tools to actively engage in discussions. Dahlgren describes the availability of new

communication technologies among other things31 provide “the contours of historically new

conditions for the public sphere, a new nexus to set in contrast to the dominant one of the

corporate state and the major media”. He adds that “it is precisely in this interface where

interesting points of tension arise” (1991; 14). In this paragraph, some of these conflict

situations are examined. American news editor Wood, who works for the online news site

CNET.com states “that we’re all a little angry at the power holders […] Big media has been

laying down the rules for a long time, and there’s no doubt they’ve abused their power, lost

our respect, and alienated an increasingly tech –savvy generation” (cited in Kline, 2005; 240).

A similar inclination can be derived from the story of American journalist

MacKinnon. She was the head of CNN’s bureau in China and Tokyo, but in 2004 she chose to

change jobs. She now describes herself as a “[r]ecovering TV reporter turned blogger”. In her

final years with CNN, MacKinnon – instead of giving a weighed perspective – was urged by

31 Three other elements that make up these new conditions according to Dahlgren are: the “crisis of the state”, “audience segmentation” and the establishment of “new movements”. There is no room to delve in to the first two conditions, but some of the difficulties pertaining to audience segmentation will be addressed in the discussion section.

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her CNN supervisors to cover Japan like a tourist because “that’s what a U.S. audience could

relate to”. As such, the station was in her opinion “doing more to reinforce stereotypes than it

was doing to bridge gaps” (2005; 325). Instead of trying to bridge the differences between the

American and other English speaking international audience members and Japan, the

differences were underlined to meet the exotic expectations any “Western” tourist will have of

Japanese culture. So in addition to the earlier described problematic withdrawal of foreign

correspondents, these correspondents were also urged to represent on the foreign world

through stereotypical frames. To counter such developments, MacKinnon helped to initiate a

“weblog aggregator” called Global Voice. She namely insists that the blogosphere, more than

traditional media “help people in different countries understand one another”. Also, she states

that weblogs “are stimulating debate in some of the world’s most authoritarian societies”

(ibid.). This last statement is taken into account later on in this chapter.

American communication scholar Jones illustrates why online journalism has been

able to flourish by describing that “the range of possibilities has widened” through the

development of the Internet. And because content that is normally not presented in

mainstream media is easily published and made accessible online, the public’s critical

awareness of the fabrication of the news is on the rise: “we are no longer certain of what is

reported in the news, and we are much more likely to allow alternative explanations

[however, KL] [i]t is not so much that we do not believe what we read, see, and hear in the

news as it is that we are inclined to believe that there is more than what we read, see, and

hear” (Jones, 2000; 177).

The growth of the blogosphere can partly be explained or attributed to the in this case

predominantly American public dissatisfaction with the incomplete and perhaps non-

neutrality of the older mainstream media and the new possibilities for news production.

Accordingly, American media scholar Pavlik speaks of the possibilities that new forms of

journalism such as blogging offer to “reengage an increasingly distrusting and alienated

audience” (2001: xi). The American blog readers stance on the blogosphere can be illustrated

with the results from a poll carried out in 2004 by Copeland – an American who was one of

the first to bring advertisements to the blogosphere – where 15951 (predominantly American)

blog-readers32 gave their opinion on why they read blogs (see figure 3).

32 17,159 blog readers responded to the survey initiated by Copeland. From the 16896 respondents who choose to answer the question on their country of residence, 15451 respondents or 91,4 % were inhabitants of the United States (Copeland, 2004).

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Figure 3. Motivation for reading blogs (Copeland, graphically displayed in Steeman, 2006; 83).

However, the mainstream media, according to Kline, remain the dominant news

source for the American people: “the websites of established news organizations consistently

draw readership numbers that bloggers can only dream of matching”. In 2005, CNN.com

attracted more than 22 million users per month, while MSNBC.com was visited by 20 million

users, which is “more than double the number of even the most popular political blog” (2005;

241). On a large scale, weblogs thus still merely occupy a minor role in the process of news

producing and gathering. On the other hand, the critical stance taken up by weblogs can serve

the audience by sensitively engaging with and responding to mainstream news. American and

Irish political scientists Drezner and Henry insist that “blogs can also serve as repositories of

expertise […] for the mainstream media”, which according to them “almost by definition

suffer a deficit of specialized, detailed knowledge” after the decline of foreign correspondents

working for the Western mainstream media in the 1990’s. They add that “for readers

worldwide, blogs can act as the ‘man on the street’, supplying unfiltered eyewitness accounts

about foreign countries” (2005; 89).

By reading blogs the critical audience member can get the feeling he or she gets news

from a person who is like him or herself. Weblogs can in this way provide the tools to easily

identify with ‘the Other’, when for instance (wo)man on the street accounts are given from

different backgrounds. In this process, personal opinions are transformed into public ones.

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Before the growth of interactive and participatory new media, this was relatively unheard of

in the mainstream news media. The traditional news media such as mainstream news channels

like CNN and major news papers have tried to gear themselves towards new trends, including

the popularity of the weblog, by publishing weblogs on their manifestations in cyberspace.

One could say that on an institutional level, the popularity of interactive and participatory

media such as blogs have caused the traditional media to rethink their modus operandi.

Illustrative is the Wall Street Journal hiring of blogger Steven den Beste who extensively

wrote about war analysis as noted by American law scholar Reynolds (2004; 60).

For this research it should be noted that the American blogosphere expanded rapidly

shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks, in any case partly because of the desire to talk

back and add to the information provided by the traditional media. At first, traditional news

media had difficulties to provide contextual and background information about the events that

were unfolding. The section on CNN’s broadcasting of 9/11 demonstrated this was also due to

the fact that for instance foreign budgets were slashed in the 1990’s. However the information

that was available from throughout the world was rapidly published in cyberspace, on

weblogs, as American blogger Cooper reminds:

[i]f you were scouring the Internet for news and context during those first terrible hours, you could have done a lot worse than eavesdropping on the free-wheeling mini-universe of Web logs [sic] chockablock with first-hand info and spirited commentary about what was going on […] For my money, some of the best stuff was being served up in this most unlikely venue (2001).

According to Cooper, the weblogs that were created in the wake of 9/11 were to be

seen as new gatekeepers that rewrote the rules for news gathering and journalism, in the spirit

of participatory grassroots movements (ibid.). Additionally, as American journalist Seipp put

forward, the growing blogosphere also caused a re-interpretation of the blog in journalistic

terms as well as on an institutional level. The seriousness of the attacks urged frequenters of

cyberspace to search and spread anything that was deemed newsworthy:

[i]n general, ‘blog’ used to mean a personal online diary, typically concerned with boyfriend problems or techie news. But after September 11, a slew of new or refocused media junkie/political sites reshaped the entire Internet media landscape. Blog now refers to a Web journal that comments on the news – often by criticizing the media and usually in rudely clever tones – with links to stories that back up the commentary with evidence (2002).

Kahn and Kellner also found that “post 9/11 the phenomenon of Warblogging appears to

be trumping the simple diary format. More blogs than ever are being created to deal with specific

political positions and alternative media sources than ever before” (n.d.). The blogs that dealt

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with the terrorist attacks and the following GWOT were soon labeled as ‘warblogs’. Kahn and

Kellner also argue that the commentary on news stories on weblogs and their contribution to

spreading news stories has revolutionized journalism. They argue that the blogosphere has the

capacity to alter people’s everyday lives in the sense that they can augment their “realm of

freedom, community and empowerment”. As an “Internet subculture”, bloggers “have taken

up the questions of local and global politics and are attempting to construct answers both locally

and globally as a response” (n.d.). American journalism scholar Wall agrees by stating that these

blogs have suggested a new genre of journalism “that emphasizes personalization, audience

participation in content creation and story forms that are fragmented and interdependent with

other websites” (2005; 153).

The notion of cultural congruency is useful to grasp the growth of the blogosphere in

the wake of September 11. As Steeman has argued, in the process of framing, in order for

messages to be represented by different media and understood in the same way by different

audiences it is important that messages are accepted congruently at different levels (2005; 34).

Entman defined cultural congruence as a way to measure “the ease with which – all else being

equal – a news frame can cascade through the different levels of the framing process and

stimulate similar reactions at each step”. The strongest frames are “those fully congruent with

schemas habitually used by most members of society”. Frames that the American people are

accustomed to thus “have the greatest intrinsic capacity to arouse similar responses among

most Americans” (2004; 14). However, when taking into account that according to, for

instance, Reynolds “[b]ecause of America’s overwhelming military superiority, military

analysts generally believe that the chief constraint to the U.S. warfighting capabilities is found

in domestic public opinion” (2004; 60), framed congruency is of the utmost importance for

the success of U.S. foreign policy. This can be seen as one of the reasons why a dominant

good versus bad opposition between the Western world and ‘Jihadist’ terrorists was

underlined in the military briefings.

After 9/11, a lot of people were not satisfied with the information provided by the

traditional mass media outlets. Therefore they went to cyberspace and shared with one

another all the information that was available on so-called warblogs. A growing group of

persons thus acted as research journalists, constantly looking for more (contextual)

information on what they saw on television, read in the newspapers and heard on the radio.

Another beneficial factor in the growth of the war-blogosphere was the fact that users could

actively engage with the material they published online, as there was plentiful interactive

discussion on the material.

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In sum, I have pointed out that in the US, although mainstream media outlets are still

the most often used sources for news, the blogosphere is increasingly used as a platform to

talk back to and or complement the news disseminated by the traditional news media. The

horrific events that took place on September 11 have been said to have led to an increase of

weblogs and a subsequent development of the blogosphere to a more serious and inquisitive

platform of news gathering and publication. The following section examines the actual

framing processes of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism on American weblogs on the basis of this

institutional background.

§ 5.3 American bloggers on 9/11

A number of American bloggers have under the name of Blog Book taken the initiative to

print a book about some of the warblogs that covered September 11; Blog Nation: the Blook

(sic.) (http://blogbook.blogspot.com/). The contributors have argued that the American war-

blogosphere had successfully worked as a platform for publishing and discussing the 9/11

attacks. They gathered on their Blog Book weblog aimed at “putting together a book on

bloggers’ view on September 11”. In one entry on June 10th 2002, they summed up their aim

to present a diverse interpretation of 9/11. According to the bloggers that worked on the book,

the American war-blogosphere had been able to do so: “[t]he notion that bloggers are divided

into camps is simplistic and ill-serving. Certainly there are those who are bunched toward the

ends of the continuum; but the vast majority, including myself, span many interests and

approaches”. In this section, I will analyze whether the American warbloggers indeed

provided readers with a diverse set of perspectives on the September 11 attacks and the

attackers.

Whereas for the analysis of Arab postings I will have to rely on the material that is

made available by Abdulla, in this section I delve into original material of the American war-

blogosphere that arose in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The focus will be on the weblogs that

were nominated on the Blog Book website on April 28 and the first of June of 2002. As the

aim of the contributors to provide “a blogger’s view on September 11” suggests, the blogs

listed on this site have been selected by American bloggers themselves as being representative

for the American war-blogosphere on the topic of 9/11. In the following analysis of the Arab

world, a selection of interpretative material originating from three websites will be taken into

account. Therefore, in the analysis of the American blogosphere, also three websites will be

analyzed. Therefore, out of the 36 blog entries nominated for the Blog Book, three blogs are

selected.

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From the 36 blogs, nineteen were offline at the time of this research. The blogosphere,

in contrast with the traditional media, thus seems to be more in continual state of fluctuation.

From the seventeen blogs that are still online today, one was written by Bjorn Staerk, a Swede

(www.bearstrong.net). This research however focuses on the American blogosphere. The

random selection of three blogs could thus be made from the 16 weblogs left. Out of these 16,

the blogs of Matt Welch, Andrew Glasser (publishing under the pseudonym of Prometheus)

and Reid Stott (publishing under the pseudonym of Photodude) were picked. By making this

selection at-random, these blogs were seen as representative for the American war-

blogosphere. The coverage presented on these three blogs was explored and three key

characteristics were observable: first, blogs were published as a way to talk back to Big Media

by offering contextualization. Second, bloggers provided personal accounts of the unfolding

events and thirdly bloggers shared their feelings of directly experiencing history in the

making.

American Journalist Matt Welch (http://mattwelch.com/) is commonly seen as the

blogger who coined the term warblog when he started his warblog on September 17, 2001. In

his first post, he explicitly describes his goals for keeping a blog as follows:

[t]here aren’t many who can think and write clearly in the wake of this terrible sadness, and I don’t claim to be one of them, but I will try. This site will also be a press review, allowing you and me both to monitor and react to coverage and opinion as it happens. I had always hoped to conduct my affairs without resorting to the blog, but new times call for new media. Let’s roll.

In my opinion, this is a clear example of not agreeing with cultural congruent news coverage

by engaging in a platform to talk back to the broadcasts offered by the traditional media’s

coverage. The traditional broadcasts are framed according to proven and established – at least

for the common denominator – culturally congruent coverage principles. Warbloggers do not

care about established principles that have historically shown to be successful, instead they

want to look for information and present this to those who are interested in this information.

Or as for instance Andrew Glasser (http://www.xanga.com/Prometheus) put it somewhat less

ambitiously on his blog Prometheus in a post published on September 12, 2001: “[a]nd I’m

not an expert on war. I’m not the one who has any say about what to do about it, and I will

never be the one with all the facts”. By critically examining and reacting upon the traditional

mass media’s coverage on what was now known as the Global War on Terror, Welch, Glasser

and the rest of the American war-bloggers tried to expand and contextualize the GWOT

coverage. Because publishing costs are extremely low in comparison with Big Media

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publishing, a large number of bloggers have started digging for and publishing information in

the aftermath of 9/11.

In his second post on the 17th of September, right-wing oriented Welch cites and

hyperlinks to a statement published by American linguist and political activist Chomsky,

whom Welch labels as a Pacifist who’s politically oriented to the left. Chomsky

contextualized the September 11 attacks as follows:

[t]he terrorist attacks were major atrocities. In scale they may not reach the level of many others, for example, Clinton's bombing of the Sudan with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and killing unknown numbers of people […] But that this was a horrendous crime is not in doubt. The primary victims, as usual, were working people: janitors, secretaries, firemen, etc. It is likely to prove to be a crushing blow to Palestinians and other poor and oppressed people. It is also likely to lead to harsh security controls, with many possible ramifications for undermining civil liberties and internal freedom.

Welch does not agree with Chomsky who in his analysis has aimed to more distantly reflect

on the scale and international consequences of the September 11 attacks. He asks whether

Chomsky believes the U.S. foreign policy “to be inherently Evil”. Adding that

“If you actually try to think, and if your agenda has room for compassion toward your

countrymen, then I don’t think you can honestly compare the two events in your opening

paragraph”. Here in some way Welch insists on a greater value or importance of the death of

innocent Western people (Americans) in comparison with innocent non-Western (Sudanese)

people. He does not principally dismiss Chomsky’s remark, but dislikes Chomsky’s opening

of his analysis of the attacks with this contextualizing remark about “Palestinians, and other

poor and oppressed people”. The Western world, in this posting, is thus framed as superior to

‘Others’ from the non-Western world.

Interestingly, even though Welch has presented himself as a war-blogger and press

reviewer, he remains critical of harsh remarks about the Big Media. In his third post of

September 17, he for instances cites and links to media watcher Parrish from the blog

Working For Change (http://www.workingforchange.com). On that blog Parrish stated that

“Media outlets must be forced to cover this story in a reasonably fair and complete manner,

without jingoism, nationalism, sensationalism, or prejudice. Already, there have been reports

that CNN’s video of celebrating Palestinians is the same tape played during the Gulf War”.

Welch does not agree and dismisses the statement by stating “[n]otice the lovely Totalitarian

instinct” and underlines that Big Media are better equipped to do so “[i]magine what Parrish

might be doing, if he was actually forced to cover this story in a reasonably fair and complete

manner, and without prejudice”.

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He makes his argument stronger by quoting an e-mail from a CNN official who

refuted the rumors of airing of an old videotape: “[t]he suggestion that CNN used 10-year-old

images to illustrate Palestinians celebrating the terrorist strikes in the U.S. is baseless and

ridiculous”. Over the course of making his argument, Welch dismisses the Independent Media

group (http://www.indymedia.org/) as the “anti-globalization Indy Media smurfs” and

“hippie-anarcho kids” who he proclaimed to have also “jumped on the bandwagon” in stating

the tape of the Palestinians celebrating was actually archival material. What I wanted to show

by quoting this discussion is that within the range of a few clicks and mouse scrolls, blog-

readers can thus get completely different perspectives with a diversity of interpretations of the

events, their consequences and the necessary reactions. Even though Welch does not agree

with the statements he cites, blog readers are able to also make up their own mind, because

they can follow the hyperlinks provided to the original remarks within the specific blog cartel.

And in one of his postings on September 18, Welch illustrates the fact that hard truths

are something to be careful with, when he writes about an email he received from one of the

blogosphere household names I also earlier cited, Henry Copeland. Copeland warned Welch

that he should refrain from using phrases like “capital t Truth”, as they could “suck us into

rhetoric and bombast”. Welch however insists that war situations need the “pursuit of capital-

T Truth”, a statement he backs by citing Churchill who he claims to have stated that “[t]he

first casualty of War is always Truth and in addition: “[i]n wartime, the Truth is so precious

that it should always be surrounded by a bodyguard of Lies”. However, by discussing and

linking to information, even though condemning many utterances from especially the left,

Welch actually provides a diverse set of views, and the possibility for readers to engage with

the information themselves33. In the beginning of this paragraph I quoted Glasser who insisted

that he “will never be the one with all the facts”, implicitly referring to the impossibility of

providing complete or all-encompassing and definite truths.

What warblogs also, generally speaking, have sought to do is presenting opinions from

authoritative figures outside of the United states. This way, warblogs contextualized the

33 In line with this remark about presenting information as unquestionable truths, for instance American

reverend and blogger Glenn Frazier (http://glennfrazier.com) who was also included in the list of blog entries nominated for the Blog Book highlights the unclear character of the opponents in the GWOT by asking himself in his December 11, 2001 posts the following questions: “Who is the enemy? ‘Terrorism’ Um, but who is the enemy? Terrorists? More specifically? Terrorists with global reach who target American interests, and the states, para-states, NGOs and individuals who support them in some manner”. Throughout this posting, it shows he is unsure on what to think of terrorism. So after he has done some research, on December 14 he answers his questions by posting a message headed “Who we are fighting” containing six links with different lists of terrorist groups worldwide, including U.S. state issued lists, FBI issued lists and a list issued by the U.S. congress.

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attacks, through their publication of and hyper linking to international opinions on the attacks.

For instance Welch posted on September 18th what he found was the opinion of an important

official; the Czech politician Havel “probably the most influential international voice urging

Bill Clinton to expand NATO and intervene in Yugoslavia”. He is quoted (and hyperlinked)

as saying “[p]eople have comprehended that something very fundamental has been threatened

- human life on this planet, human freedom”. By taking into account a greater diversity of

opinions, including non-American authoritative figures, a more distant view on the situation

could be provided. Warbloggers thus offered contextualization and underlined the fact that

America did not stand alone. Examples showed that indeed the international community was

well aware of the unfolding tragedy in New York and Washington.

Others have simply kept their approach to warblogging the attacks on a more personal

level. For instance Glasser on his blog underlined that he was “not an expert on war” and

simply described his feelings in his September 12, 2001 post ‘A View No More’: “I’m going

from shock, and anger, and determination to sadness, and overwhelming sorrow, helplessness

and depression and then, perhaps soon, to resilience and individual commitment”. American

bloggers have commonly expressed similar experiences about the horrific attacks. Through

reading these personal accounts, Western and non-Western blog-readers could experience a

word-of-mouth-like (wo)man on the street account of the attacks. These feel less mediated in

comparison with the oft-repeated images of the plains rocketing in the towers or of the towers

collapsing. One can argue that these personal accounts provide the blog-reader with a more

personal perspective. The messages are framed as if they were first-hand accounts, as the

process of mediation are of smaller scale and therefore probably perceived as far less

sophisticated in comparison with Big media broadcasting. Subsequently it can be stated that

these personal accounts provided insider perspectives on how more or less ordinary

Americans experienced and were affected by the attacks.

Warbloggers also sought to reason about the proper American reaction on the conflict.

For instance Reid Stott on his blog Photodude (http://www.photodude.com/weblog).

In his September 13, 2001 post called ‘Out of My Shell’, Stott urged that the United States

should collaborate and drastically think through how to proceed:

[j]ust don’t expect it to happen tomorrow. Any hasty military response is doomed in be ineffective at best, more likely counterproductive to our long term goals. Our response must be thorough, and effective. It will take time. Blood lust merely lowers us to the level of our attackers.

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This reassurance helped the blog-readers to handle their anger and frustration. For instance

someone under the pseudonym D reacted on the September 13, 2001 post by stating:

“[t]wenty minutes ago, I wanted to nuke the whole middle east. Never for one moment did I

believe this was the work of one entity. Now, you had to go and inflict your damn voice of

reason on me”. Warbloggers thus helped fellow Americans to cope with their emotions and as

the example from Stott shows it offered a way to settle down and think things over.

Besides sharing personal feelings and discussing how to react on the events, the

bloggers often also described anxious feelings of experiencing history in the making first-

hand. Glasser, who actually lived in New York at the time of blogging his thoughts, described

this sensation as follows in the same September 12 post:

I was carried through yesterday by the shock, and maybe exhilaration, from a sense that this is history. It’s as if I was alive when Pearl Harbor was bombed. An act of such horror inundates you with emotions you’ve never experienced. I cannot believe it. I cannot believe those buildings are gone. I cannot believe this happened to us. It amplifies the obvious in the face of death, that while I am grieving unknown peers, and perhaps friends, I am alive. Maybe even more than ever.

Again, similar to how blog-readers could personally identify with directly affected American

ordinary people, they were enabled to experience how citizens were experiencing these

processes of history in the making. The scale of the attacks was soon compared with the

attack on Pearl Harbor and was eventually seen as even having a larger impact in comparison

with that historical attack. In the words of Glasser, ordinary people felt alive ‘[m]aybe even

more than ever” in the sense that the shear magnitude of the event rendered it impossible to

carry on living as if nothing happened. Blog-readers could get a taste of how American life or

in any case New York daily life changed dramatically.

In sum, the Blog Book contributors’ description of the American war-blogosphere was

accurate. The warblog entries taken into account above showed that indeed the blogosphere

provided a wide variety of information, perspectives, personal accounts and experiences.

American journalist Levy summed up the qualities of the American war blogosphere as

follows: “[t]he arrival of war, and the frustratingly variegated nature of this particular conflict,

called for two things: an easy-to-parse overview for news junkies who wanted information

from all sides, and a personal insight that bypassed the sanitizing Cuisinart of big-media news

editing” (2003). Concluding, it can be said that the samples I analyzed also centered on these

features. The blogs offered a great abundance of interpretative material. War-bloggers

published information as well as provided readers with their opinion on these bits of

information. The medium-specificity of the blogosphere made it possible for the authors to

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directly cite and hyperlink to the information that they were discussing. This fundamental

characteristic enabled readers to engage with the material themselves, enabling them to make

up their own opinion.

Additionally, blog-readers were provided with a platform to experience first-hand the

feelings of ordinary American citizens. Big Media’s mediation of 9/11 was not so much

geared towards showing the effect of the attacks on the daily livelihood of the (wo)man on the

street. The American war-blogosphere included subjective accounts of the events, enabling

readers to directly relate with people like themselves. Also, through reading other opinions

and international contextualization, readers could potentially better cope with the situation.

By experiencing first-hand how other ordinary Americans were handling the news, blog-

readers potentially could find better ways to deal with their anger and frustration. On the other

hand, even though a diversity of perspectives was made accessible to the visitors of the sites,

the perspectives were still mainly geared towards providing an American point-of-view on the

events. I will elaborate on this in paragraph 5.6. Before delving into the Arab world

blogosphere, a background to discussing online in the Arab world is provided.

§ 5.4 The institutional nexus of blogging in the Arab world

Eickelman and Anderson state that the recent, newly introduced media have made possible

debates that were normally only conducted in private settings. For example, they state that Al-

Jazeera made possible debates between Arab secularist, Syria’s Sadeq Jalal al-‘Azm and

conservative preacher Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. State-controlled broadcasts would not have

permitted such controversial debates, however as was also set out in chapter four satellite

television can provide an alternative platform. Eickelman and Anderson conclude by saying

that “[v]iewpoints suppressed in one medium almost inevitably find an outlet in others”

(2003b; 4-5). Similar to how Al-Jazeera migrated the informal discourse to a larger scale, new

media technologies can provide such outlets by fostering larger scale debates. Eickelman

illustrates that the “fax-wars” in Saudi-Arabia were successful in circumventing government

censorship. Then, the public could spread their opinion freely, while governmental efforts to

‘guide’ the communication were ineffective. He insists that state governments were “virtually

powerless to control the incursion of the ‘small media’” such as fax-machines. He describes

small media as less controllable technologies “such as email”, and they “create an irreversible

trend toward a freer market in religious, political and social ideas and foster a pluralism often

resisted and poorly understood both by states and by religious authorities” (Eickelman, 2003;

33-40).

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In this section34, an inventory of notions that assess the possible impact of the

introduction of new communication technologies in the Middle-East is made. First, the

troublesome relationship between the use of new or small media and censorship by state and

religious authorities is taken into account. Subsequently, one of the major reasons for the

relatively large-scale appropriation of new media technologies is given by taking into account

mass education developments in the Arab world.

New media and censorship

American scholar of the Middle-East Alterman finds that traditional Arab media, “rail against

the unfairness of purported U.S. and Israeli control of international institutions [but] they are

blind to domestic news, and they cover neither intellectual developments nor human interest

stories”. He insists that new desktop publishing possibilities render the costly and controlled

traditional printing press obsolete. Satellite dish broadcasting despite being heavily regulated

and taxed gets around national government oversight and also especially the Internet

disintegrates structural governmental control over what is discussed (Alterman, 1998; 45-72).

American political scientist Scott describes this tension as follows: through the higher levels

of information circulation and increasing possibilities to speak to wider audiences, lines

between the “official” and “hidden” transcripts are increasingly blurred (1990; 3-4). The

official transcripts reflect the public lines of communication between dominators and the

suppressed, while the hidden transcripts encompass the secretly voiced critiques of the

dominant power by the suppressed.

American scholar of the Middle-East Teitelbaum has analysed the Saudi-Arabian

censorship of the Internet and points at some of the problems governments have to impose

censorship on newer media and their publishing opportunities. He found that besides the

multiplication of communication channels the state and religious authorities mostly struggle

to control or guide new media because they approach these media through the perspective of

traditional broadcasting and printing press. Users of the Internet however, are enabled to use

the improved media technologies in structurally other ways in other contexts and for different

goals, also because these media are fundamentally more participatory (2002; 235-238).

34 I accept as a given that some of the developments discussed in the section on the institutional nexus of American blogging also hold ground for bloggers from the Arab world. When for instance taking into account the growing popularity of forms of online journalism after the September 11 attacks, it is striking that Islamonline – one of the most popular Islamic news portals – also expanded rapidly after the attacks in New York and Washington, as Egyptian journalist El Kashef noted: “Islamonline used to register 24 million page views a year. After 9/11, the page views hit 150 million a year” (2005).

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By using these media in other contexts, users of these new technologies in the Middle-

East establish linkages between domains that were traditionally more separated.

Eickelman and Italian Middle-East scholar Salvatore found that the usage of new media

technologies in the Middle-East has linked the Islamic public spheres with technological,

secular and political ones, one the basis of “cold ties” – formal bureaucratic ruling and state

duties – and on the basis of “warm ties” with families and surrounding communities (2002;

110-112). Additionally, similar to how Al-Jazeera has established a new dialogue partner that

can talk back to CNN as was demonstrated earlier, “new forms of communication and their

increased rapidity allow ‘peripheries’ and audiences to talk back” but also on the other hand,

“new technologies of communication and publication also enable those who hold minority

views, including extremists to join forces with like-minded people elsewhere to accomplish

common goals” warns Eickelman (2003; 42)35.

Anderson describes the process of peripheries being able to talk back as follows; he

attests that media can help to expand the public space or what he also calls the “domain of

discourse” (2003; 47). He states that “[t]he Internet is one of these new media, by some

measures a new public space, which enables a new class of interpreters, who are facilitated by

this medium to address and thereby to reframe Islam’s authority”. He adds that new media

technologies constitute “a world in which Muslims and non-Muslims are increasingly

intertwined” (ibid.; 45-46). In his analysis of Islamic discourse, he believes that new

communication technologies do not separate communities, but instead form “a continuum

instead of dichotomization between elite and mass, literate and folk” (ibid.; 56).

The functioning of the blogosphere is exemplary for these developments. Blogs are

also on the rise in de Middle-East. American political scientists Drezner and Farrel for

instance describe the popularity of weblogs in Iran:

[t]he Iranian blogosphere has exploded. According to the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education’s Blog Census, Farsi is the fourth most widely used language among blogs worldwide. One service provider alone (“Persian Blog”) hosts some 60,000 active blogs. The weblogs allow young secular and religious Iranians to interact, partially taking the place of reformist newspapers that have been censored or shut down. Government efforts to impose filters on the Internet have been sporadic and only partially successful (2005; 93).

35 Besides all the positive potential, there is also a more dark-side to the possibilities offered by new communication technologies. This is an interesting side-step that begs for further analysis, but it does not fit in the body of this research. However I am aware of the fact that new communication technologies offer a plethora of possibilities for extremists and terrorists. During my study period at the National University of Singapore, I developed the following classification of the broad range of Internet activities that for instance terrorists carry out to pursue their intentions: 1. the gathering of information; 2. communicating via new venues of dialogue; 3. establishing a networked type of organization and planning; 4. fundraising; 5. propagating of ideological propaganda and 6. launching attacks against ICT’s (Leurs, 2006; 9-16).

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They also demonstrate that bloggers from the Middle-East have been able to join forces with

the English-language blogosphere. For instance after Sina Motallebi, an Iranian blogger, was

imprisoned for “undermining national security through cultural activity”, Iranian bloggers

cooperated with English-language bloggers such as Jeff Jarvis from the blog Buzzmachine

(http://www.buzzmachine.com/), Dan Gillmor from the blog Silicon Valley

(http://dangillmor.typepad.com/) and Patrick Belton from Oxblog

(http://oxblog.blogspot.com/) to raise attention on the imprisonment. This collaboration

eventually attracted further media coverage, which led to Motallebi’s release from prison

(ibid.). American political scientists Keck and Sikkink understand these developments as a

“boomerang effect”, where “repression at home can lead to international pressure against the

regime from abroad” (cited in Drezner and Farrel, 2005; 92-93).

Eickelman’s depiction of procedures to circumvent censorship in the pre-Internet era,

take for example the successful smuggling of pamphlets and audiocassettes, helps understand

the effective functioning of the blogosphere as a medium for such collaborative action.

Traditionally, the smuggled materials were “passed from hand to hand” and over time this

procedure evolved into a “primary vehicle of communication” creating “bonds of complicity

and trust among those involved” (2003; 34). It can be argued that these bonds based on trust

and complicity are also established in cyberspace by bloggers. As illustrated above,

transnational bonds between collegial bloggers have shown to be powerful enough to pressure

governments to release imprisoned bloggers.

In sum, there is enough reason to believe that new communication technologies and

possibilities such as weblogs provide the possibilities to open up a transnational dialogue.

Voices that were not allowed in the more traditional broadcast media can now be aired and

heard. However, before accepting new media as a solution for a diverse set of problems,

research must show whether the potential ascribed to these new media is actually realized in

reality. Before doing so, mass education in the Middle East is taken into account. Mass

education has been identified as one of the chief reasons for the relative booming usage of

new media technologies.

Mass-education

Several authors have described the processes and consequences of mass education in the Arab

world36. Eickelman is the most noted scholar in this field. He states that free mass education

36 See for instance Qubain, 1962; Starrett, 1998 and Wickham, 2002.

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in the Arab world began in the 1950’s. It took fifteen to twenty years, before the number of

students who where receiving education began to rise rapidly. This can be illustrated with

figures 4 and 5. These graphic representations show the growth of enrolment of students in

secondary schools and university education in respectively Egypt and Morocco. The figures

show that the education growth took of from the 1960’s onwards. Another indication of the

scale of such change in Arab society is the production in books. In 1982, 40 books were

published per million inhabitants, contrasting enormously with the 162 titles per million

world average. However, there are indications that this gap is closing (Eickelman, 1992; 646).

Figure 4 and 5. (Post) Secondary Enrolment in Egypt and Morocco (Eickelman, 1992; 645).

A diverse set of consequences have been attributed to this process of mass education.

For instance French sociologist Fargues has looked at the spread of mass education and its

consequences for families in the Arab-Muslim society (2004; 30). Middle Eastern scholars

Brynen et al. have argued that free mass education in the Arab world sometimes lacked

quality but it nonetheless “created higher levels of consciousness, expectations, and

rudimentary organizational skills”. They argue that these characteristics have been of key

importance in the formation of associations (1995; 38). Eickelman adds that this process has

reshaped “conceptions of self, religion, nations and politics”. He compares the significance of

this development with “the introduction of printed books in the sixteenth-century rural

France”. However he underlines that “we know more about literacy in medieval and

premodern Europe than in the contemporary Muslim and Arab worlds” (1997; 22).

For this research another direct link made by Eickelman and Anderson is of interest.

They namely insist that processes of mass education are to be coupled with processes of

adoption of new communication technologies. Anderson beliefs that mass education and new

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media “are resetting the parameters of citizenship across the Arab countries of the Middle

East” (1999). In the words of Eickelman, “[t]he combination of mass education and the

‘intellectual technology’ of communication innovations has also changed what is said and not

said, radically altering audiences, concepts and practises” (2003; 35). The notion of

intellectual technology refers to the fact that most of these new technologies are ready to use

and they are accessible in the sense that they require relatively low levels of specialist

knowledge.

Alterman described these communication technologies as “mid-range” (cited in

Gonzales-Quijano, 2003; 61). French Arab studies scholar Gonzales-Quijano notes that “their

associated techniques do not always need large financial investments and complex skills”

(2003; 61). On the positive side of globalization, these enabling features potentially “could

lead to more open societies” (Eickelman, 2004; 64), because citizens have begotten more

agency on the basis of higher educational standards and access to new media technologies

(2003; 42).

On the basis of similar assumptions Eickelman and Anderson state that “[a]n important

entailment of new media is this thickening not just of ties to diasporas but also horizontally

with other communities, including non-Muslim ones, that inflect new senses of “Muslim”

community in the Muslim media” (2003b; xii). This would be a promising perspective, also

given the fact that the educated population is steadily gaining influence in the workforce and

politics. American and Egyptian media scholars Gher and Amin for instance estimated that in

1999, fifty percent of the Arab population was under the age of eighteen (1999; 59). With the

proper schooling under their belt and a relative37 open access to the mid-range new media,

they have a lot of potential.

In sum, mass education in combination with affordable and easy to use

communication technologies has enabled large-scale new media adoption in the Arab world38.

The following paragraph shows how these higher levels of agency have contributed to a

37 The World Bank indicators of communication and information technologies per 1000 households shows huge disparities between the numbers of for instance available technologies in the United States and the numbers in any country in the Arab world (Anderson, 1999). Additionally, as Abdulla describes, from the 1.1 billion Internet users in January 2007, the estimated number of users accessing the Internet from the Arab world is 18 million. Nonetheless, in some countries in the Arab world, the user growth rate is expanding with a factor of 500% (Abdulla, 2007). 38 However on the dark side, the introduction and usage of these new communication technologies leads to “fragmentation of authority”. When “large numbers of people” can participate in wider but secluded spheres “of religious and political debate and practical action” this can also have more negative consequences. “Osama bin Laden and the al-Qa’ida terrorist movement epitomize this darker side” (Eickelman, 2004; 64). This observation further illustrates the assumptions I laid out in footnote # 30. Further research on this topic needs to be carried out in the future.

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manifestation of the Arab world on the Internet. Specific focus is put on how the Arab world

frames ‘Jihadist’ terrorism in the blogosphere. Thereby it is specifically interesting to look at

whether the Arab world really associates and establishes ties with other communities like

Eickelman and Anderson envision. This would namely ultimately make the establishment of a

transnational public sphere feasible.

§ 5.5 Arab bloggers on 9/11

Abdulla has studied the Arab world perspective on the topic of 9/11 by examining postings on

some major Arab news and blog portals: Arabia (http://www.arabia.com), Masrawy

(http://www.masrawy.com) and Islamonline (http://islamonline.net). In line with my

description of the use of new media in the Arab world, she states that her research of online

postings “draws on one of the few uncensored media channels in the Middle East, and

represents the basic sentiments voiced in the Arab world regarding the events of 9/11” (2007).

This paragraph centers on a more in-depth look at the material she used in her studies. In her

work, she has covered posts that were written in colloquial Arabic and translated them. For

my analysis of material from the Arab world I focus on secondary literature by predominantly

using the material from Abdulla in this section, and these postings are thus seen as illustrative

for the Arab world blogosphere and message board communities.

These three sites all include news sections, search options, health advisories,

entertainment information, shopping possibilities, instant chat messaging and blog-like

discussion sites. Arabia was one of the first major portals in the Arab world, and was offered

in an English and colloquial Arab format. Rossant estimated that in 2002, the site attracted a

number of 1,5 million visitors per month, which in visiting numbers makes it one of the most

frequented sites in the Arab world (cited in Abdulla, 2007). Besides Arabia, Masrawy (in

English: Egypt) was also one of the first Arab portal oriented sites on the Internet, and the

first to come from Egypt. This site is also offered in an English and Arabic version. Islam

Online is one of the most popular Islamic portals. This site is directed by Sheikh Yusuf Al

Qaradawi, one of the most prominent Muslim scholars in the Arab world today and is

operated by a staff of more than two hundred professionals and Muslim scholars, from a

variety of backgrounds including a considerable number of PhD holders (Abdulla, 2007).

Abdulla analyzed a number of 473 reactions in total that were posted in response to a

diversity of questions on the three sites combined during the period of September 11th and

September 20th. She found that of all these messages that were posted under headings that

ranged from politics, religion and society, 43,1 percent condemned the 9/11 attacks “as an act

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of terrorism with no justification, political or otherwise”, while 30,2 percent did offer some

kind of justification and the rest was not evidently to be placed in either category.

Interestingly, Abdulla demonstrates that condemnation messages were repeatedly structurally

longer than justification messages. Justification messages were posted in the first four days

following the attacks, while condemnation messages were posted throughout the whole time-

period that was taken into account. Exemplary for the justification messages were posts like

“Yes, I agree with the attacks” (ibid.).

When the posters did elaborate on their justification, more often than not they referred

to the Western and especially American foreign policy towards the Middle-East and other

parts of the non-Western world. These posters – through specifically emphasizing certain

elements in their justifications – framed the controversy as a predominantly political rather

than a social, cultural or religious issue. In their dismissal of Western policies, condemnation

of foreign policies regarding the non-Western world was dominant. The Palestinian-Israeli

conflict and the situation in Iraq were mentioned, while occasionally references were made to

the American foreign policy in other parts of world outside of the Middle East and the Arab

world. Disapproval of policies included countries such as “Japan, Vietnam, Libya, Sudan,

Somalia, Bosnia, Chechnya, Iran, Lebanon, and Pakistan” (ibid.).

Three representative examples of these more elaborate justifications are printed below,

the first is a message from a poster Abdulla identified as a female below the age of 21 who

made public the following voice in one of the discussions on Islamonline. The second and

third are anonymous reactions posted on Arabia on September 12.

I think Bin Laden is a hero. Don’t you see how this one person managed to terrorize the United States and cause it to be insecure and worried? He has done what the whole Arab world and Arab governments could not do (ibid.). What about the many thousands of Iraqi children that are being starved, maimed and terrorized? Are these the actions of a civilized nation? When innocent women and children (and men) were killed by American ‘heroes’ who dropped bombs from 3 thousand miles up in the stratosphere, we were told that it was merely ‘collateral damage,’ unfortunate but necessary in order to punish evil […] Just as Americans value their lives they must learn that those of other countries value the lives of their own countrymen equally (Abdulla, 2005; 300). So many nations on this Earth have suffered from American aggression that there must be many millions of people with reason enough to carry out the sort of revenge that has just taken place. It is unfortunate that there had to be collateral damage, albeit trivial compared with what has been meted out by American on weaker nations that posed no threat of retaliation (ibid.).

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In her 2005 research which focused solely on Arabia, she found that “more than 78%

of the messages mentioned some aspect of frustration or dissatisfaction with American

politics in the Middle East” (ibid.), but less than half of these posters framed their

dissatisfaction as a justification. On the contrary, a majority of these posters condemned the

attacks as barbaric acts of terrorism. Unlike the justification postings, the attacks were

explicitly framed as terrorist acts. Illustratively, on the day following the attacks an

unidentified visitor of Masrawy reacted as follows:

I or any Arab or Muslim cannot support barbaric, vengeful revenge like I saw yesterday. No, a thousand no to such naïve, idiotic, barbarian operations. If it were in my hands, it [sic] would kill every terrorist that had to do with this. My hearty condolences to the victims’ families (Abdulla, 2007).

In Western traditional mainstream media, ‘Jihadist’ terrorism is often conflated with

the Islam and the Arab world (as is pointed out by for instance Kellner, 2005 and Pintak,

2006). However, in the reactions posted on the three sites, religion was not generally framed

as a justification for the attacks on the United States. 59 percent of the posters did not mention

Islam at all in their postings, while 30 percent underlined that these attacks went against the

core of the religion. 11 percent or 52 out of the 473 messages framed the Islamic belief as a

reasonable explanation for the 9/11 attacks (ibid.). One poster who used Islam as a means to

justify the attacks on Islamonline argued that “America has chosen to wage war against God”.

He states that “Henry Kissinger, their former Jewish Secretary of State, said publicly, ‘Islam

is not our religion’”. He counters this statement allegedly stated by an US official by asking

himself and the readers the question “[d]on’t they deserve what happened? […] They deserve

more” (ibid.).

Another poster who justified terrorism on the basis of Islamic principles on the same

site argued that “Those who are saying what happened in the U.S. was terrorism, what do you

call what happens in Palestine every day?”. However, the people who specifically insisted on

the fact that it goes against the teaching of Islam to kill innocent people also argued that

terrorism is not something that can be justified with Islam. For instance a female poster on

Masrawy September 14 underlined this by stating: “[t]his is against all religions. God did not

say to kill innocent people […] It is totally against our Islamic religion to terrorize innocent

people […] Terrorizing innocent people is not acceptable in Islam, it is totally against the

religion”. Also it occurred that posters explicitly condemned people that used the Islam as a

justification principle. For instance somebody posted the following on Masrawy, also on

September 14:

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I don't see how people can use our wonderful religion to justify such horrible acts. I am a Muslim who loves his religion, but I want to say something here. If this is Islam, then I don't want to be a Muslim. What I know about my religion is that it is about peace, mercy, and compassion. Anything else is not Islamic (ibid.).

The taking up of the Islam as a justification was often framed as unjust and

embarrassing for believers. One poster for instance stated that “to know if Bin Laden is a

terrorist or a hero, look at his way of jihad and compare it to the merciful nature of Islam”. To

demonstrate this, visitors of these sites often explained or gave their interpretation of Islamic

principles. One male poster explained that the attacks should not be interpreted as an act of

Jihadism: “[t]his is not jihad, this is nonsense. According to our Prophet Mohammad (peace

and prayers be upon him), jihad is struggle 1) against oneself to achieve a higher level of

purity, and 2) against enemies in times of war. This is not jihad”. Additionally, for instance

one female poster on Masrawy provided a lengthy explanation of the Islamic concept of

“Kassas” (in English: retribution):

[k]assas as dictated by Islam is murdering a murderer, and only the murderer. This serves the ultimate good of the human life, because then you decrease the percentage of murder crimes. But this kassas as portrayed by the terrorists or the American media is what was prevalent in pre-Islamic times, and it led to much fighting and wars between tribes and hurt many innocent people. And actually you cannot call this kassas at all, this is pure murder. Our Prophet (peace and prayers be upon him) laid the foundations for these basic rules in Islam. Islam has regulated all this, and put strict rules even for times of war, and it clearly prohibits killing innocent lives. Even if we were at war with America, this would not be permissible in Islam. And since we're at peace, these are definitely not the regulations dictated by Islam (ibid.).

One visitor of the Arabia site had heard rumors about anti-Arab tendencies in the U.S.,

and stated that Arab speaking Americans were urged to speak American in public. Visitors of

the three sites quickly reflectively understood that the 9/11 attacks would hurt the image of

Islam, the Middle East and the Arab world. One female author published her opinion on Islam

Online regarding this matter:

[t]his is not an easy question. I think these attacks both hurt us and benefited us. The hurt will be that anti-Islamists will seize the opportunity to paint a negative image of Islam in the West and make the West hate us. The good part is that Muslims who face American terrorist acts in Palestine and Iraq will get a sense of hope that this undefeated giant has been defeated, and it might also make American citizens pay attention to their government's policies that are so unfair to Muslims. But I think the cost is so much more than the benefit. We need huge political and media efforts to make up for the damage to the image of Islam (Abdulla, 2007).

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Thus on the one hand the person who posted this message thinks the attacks benefit the Arab

world as it will boost the morale of the Palestinian and Iraqi people because their perceived

enemy has been attacked. Another beneficial factor for the Arab world is the possibility that

Americans will grow more aware of the situation of Muslims in the non-Western world. On

the other hand, she paints a black ‘us- versus-them’ picture when stating that the anti-Islamists

will successfully make the West hate the Arab world in their depiction of the Arab world.

This last statement weighs more heavily in comparison with the ‘benefits’. Abdulla weighed

this and similar statements by concluding that “[a] large number of message posters believed

that these attacks would in fact hurt, rather than serve, Arab and Muslim interest, and would

harm and exacerbate the image of Islam in the West” (2007).

In sum, readers of the interpretative material were provided with both simple as well

as fairly sophisticated elaborations. Most interestingly for this research is the fact that

– in a way similar to the operating principle of Al-Jazeera – readers were able to inform

themselves on the basis of a diverse set of opinions. In the first week after the catastrophic

terrorist performance, when also in the Arab world information was scarce, different

perspectives on the issue were published online. For instance, the interpretation of the attacks

as a political issue was on the one hand framed as a justification for the American and

Western foreign policies in the Middle East and other Non-Western countries. On the other

hand, the attacks were condemned as political acts of terrorism. Even though foreign policies

were not always valued positively, the attacks were also framed as out of scale and unjust

barbaric retributions.

The attacks were also framed from the perspective of a religious conflict. The big

difference with the traditional mainstream media was the two-sided framing of Islam as a

means to condemn and to justify the attacks. On the one hand, the United States’ stance

towards the Arab world was projected as a war against Islam, for instance on the basis of an

examination of the rhetoric of U.S. officials. On the other hand, Islam was used as an

argument to condemn the attacks. By referring to and contextualizing Islamic concepts such

as Jihad and Kassas, arguments to render impossible a justification of the attacks on the basis

of Islamic teachings were given.

As such, readers were provided with a sum up of this information – as the opposing

views were often posted in direct reaction on each other – and could also directly engage with

the provided different perspectives by reacting on other opinions. Additionally, they could

follow links provided in the messages to verify claims, or they could do so themselves by

looking up information through search engines. Also, it can be argued that by reading the

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reactions of others, the visitors could get the feeling they were actually receiving accounts

from the (wo)man on the street. This material potentially provides the site visitor with more

identifiable perspectives in comparison with traditional mainstream, but government censored

media. The lack of different voices presented by these media could thus be circumvented by

delving into the variety of opinions offered on websites such as Arabia, Maswary and

Islamonline.

§ 5.6 The blogosphere: a public sphere?

Most recently, the computer has become even more of a tool and mirror: we are able to step through the looking glass. We are learning to live in virtual worlds. We may find ourselves alone […] but increasingly, when we step through the looking glass, other people are there as well (Turkle, 1997; 9).

American psychologist Turkle wrote this statement in her 1985 analysis of identity formation in

Multi User Dungeons (MUD’s). MUD’s are text-based role-playing computer-games that were

played on the pre-Internet bulletin board systems. Players interacted and created worlds with

other players through their keyboards, and Turkle described this process in the above printed and

oft-quoted statement. Dutch media studies student Pulmano used Turkle’s metaphorical looking

glass as a way to look at how weblogs mirror “who we are”. He concludes that “weblogs are

ultimately portraits of the human desire to connect with other beings” (2007; 29) on the basis of

the assumption put forward by Turkle: “social beings that we are, we are trying (as Marshall

McLuhan said) to retribalize” (1997; 178).

People gathering online have been described as members of virtual communities.

American media scholar Rheingold is credited with the invention of the term “virtual

community”. He defined them as “social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough

people carry on [...] public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form

webs of personal relationships in cyberspace” (1993; xx). He was one of the first to explore

the conduct of people that inhabited cyberspace:

[p]eople in virtual communities use words on screens to exchange pleasantries and argue, engage in intellectual discourse, conduct commerce, exchange knowledge, share emotional support, make plans, brainstorm, gossip, feud, fall in love, find friends and lose them, play games, flirt, create a little high art and a lot of idle talk (ibid.; xvi).

American historian and media scholar Poster found that within digital communities,

people are less inhibited to connect with strangers “without much of the social baggage that

divides and alienates” rendering it possible for conversations to “open up in directions that

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otherwise might be avoided” (1995; 90). These oft-cited notions were all developed by

theoretically assessing the gatherings of people in bulletin board settings. American scholar of

journalism Kramer looked at the blogosphere as a virtual community and found that bloggers

saw themselves as members of a specific community on the basis of their shared rituals,

values and language use (2004). What is interesting for this research is to assess whether the

blogosphere, as an amalgam of the American and Arab world weblogs, fosters the

establishment of a transnational public sphere.

In line with the remark made by Kahn and Kellner, the analysis of the Arab and

American blogosphere and their institutional backgrounds demonstrated that blogging seems

to be all about community formation. When taking into account the institutional nexuses of

both spheres, it becomes clear that already on this level processes of community formation are

observable. The groups or in Kahns and Kellner’s words “blog cartels” (n.d.) in the American

world, on the basis of their institutional background alone already form a community. The

warblog community entails a pool of citizen journalists who as a group aim to complement

traditional broadcast media. In addition to this, this active group of people searches to talk

back to Big Media news coverage. Over the course of the establishment of the warblog cartel,

the authors of the individual weblogs have more and more geared their blogs from mere

personal diaries towards a meta-level news gathering and commentating platform.

In the Arab world, a completely different institutional background has urged a group

of individuals to form a blogosphere on the basis of other motives. Processes of mass

education and the – from the perspective of state government censorship – deemed

uncontrollable “small media” technologies (Eickelman, 2003; 33) coupled with the relative

high levels of accessibility of these technologies have fostered the establishment of a growing

community of critical Arab bloggers. These three factors have enabled Arabs to spread ideas

and critiques instantaneously, on a scale larger than ever before.

Next to the architectural principles that made feasible the coming of age of cyberspace

communities, the actual content has also contributed to the formation of communities. Within

the American war-blogosphere, raw data, contextual information, opinions and perspectives

were brought together in one network by the bloggers who linked all these bits and pieces

together. As demonstrated – even though bloggers sometimes presented themselves by for

instance coloring their framing of messages on the basis of their political orientation – the

war-blogosphere spans a variety of perspectives. The hyperlinked character of the sphere

encourages people not to settle with the first account they encounter, but encourages them to

look at different angles to make up their own minds. Additionally, the sense of an American

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blog-community is perhaps encouraged by all the published personal accounts of the

unfolding events. Bloggers and readers were sharing first-hand experiences of the 9/11

attacks, creating a shared feeling of living through an important period of history-in-the

making.

The Arab sphere displayed similar processes of establishing communities through the

sharing of personal experiences on the basis of discussions on possible implications of the

attacks for (living in) the Arab world. They formed communities by engaging in private life

discussions on a public platform. Discussions that were historically conducted in private

settings were made public and accessible to all. Similar to how Al-Jazeera migrated ‘dowreh’s

or “informal discussion circles” to a public level, the Arab blogosphere fostered a platform for

Arabs to engage in more participatory, but also public discussion circles. In contrast with Al-

Jazeera, where discussions were broadcasted to the living rooms of the viewers, the

blogosphere enabled people to actually actively engage in these discussions. Through online

word-of-mouth dialogues, ties between predominantly anonymous dialogue partners – who

did not have to meet in real life (IRL) – were created. As the explorative research showed,

communicators displayed fairly low levels of inhibition. Also, woman were included in a

public discourse, something which cannot be taken for granted as woman voices are not

necessarily publicly aired and/or heard in every country in the Arab world.

As this sum up of the American and Arab blogospheres as separate entities already

suggests, the two could strictly speaking not be interpreted as united in one singular

transnational public sphere. Actors were linked to one another within different networks or

blog cartels. When approaching the complete blogosphere, one thus cannot help but to point

out its fractured character, as smaller communities seemed to thrive well within the

overarching sphere. However, this development can be seen as a positive one when taking

into account its implications for authority. Eickelman argues that the possibilities for people

from the Arab world to connect with each other in cyberspace results in a “migration” of

discourses, leading to “an increasing fragmentation of authority” and it “multiplies the ways

in which authority can be represented and by whom”. On this basis, he argues that

“fragmentation may contribute to political volatility in the short run, but in the long run, it

may become one of the major factors leading to a more civil society throughout” the Arab

world (2003; 41-42).

The workings of the fragmentary character of the blogosphere on the 9/11 attacks can

be used as an example to grasp its significance for the Arab world and the Western world as

well. For instance, Canadian philosopher Taylor argued that people living in modern societies

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meet one another through both face-to-face meetings as well as through media

representations, in order “to be able to form a common mind about matters of shared concern”

(cited in Eickelman and Anderson, 2003b; 5). This argument forms one of the basics for the

appreciation of the importance of a transnational public sphere. Price however argues that

pluralism is key to the notion of an ideal public sphere. He argued that therefore “it is

necessary for the fundamental laws of society to place a duty on instruments of mass

communications to further pluralism and public discourse” (1995; 27).

American feminist critical theorist Fraser has also argued against the notion of a

singular, overarching public sphere by insisting that “a postmodern multiplicity of mutually

contestatory publics is preferable to a single modern public sphere oriented solely to

deliberation”. In her critique of Habermas, she underlines the importance of so-called

“subaltern counterpublics”. These publics enable “members of subordinated social groups

invent and circulate counter discourses”. Against the one-sided interpretation of one singular

achieved understanding in the public sphere, people are namely able “to formulate

oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests and needs” (1995; 291).

Habermas already foresaw the incomplete character of the ideal notion of the public

sphere by stating that:

[t]he modern public sphere now comprises several arenas in which, through printed materials dealing with matters of culture, information, and entertainment, a conflict of opinions is fought out more or less discursively. This conflict does not merely involve a competition among various parties of loosely associated private people; from the beginning a dominant bourgeois public collides with a plebeian one (1992; 430).

On the basis of these insights, it cannot be dismissed that one singular transnational public

sphere is something that cannot be achieved realistically, but rather it must be agreed that the

public sphere encompasses several arenas in which through the use of media understanding

can be reached on matters of public concern. When focussing on the “competition among

various parties” Habermas spoke of, in terms of the Arab and American blogosphere, the

question logically arises how the functioning of this process must be perceived.

I believe these social spaces can be grasped by illustratively taking into account

German philosopher Gadamer’s notion of “fusion of horizons”. As Portugese scholar of

linguistics Guilherme details, “[u]nlike Habermas, Gadamer thinks it is impossible to reach

agreement and he describes the process of achieving understanding as a ‘fusion of horizons’”

(2002; 78). Gadamer beliefs that “no one knows what will ‘come out’ in a conversation”

(1970; 345) and describes the process as follows: “reaching an understanding in conversation

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presupposes that both partners are ready for it and are trying to recognize the full value of

what is alien and opposed to them” (1970; 348). Guilherme explains it well:

[f]or Gadamer, a ‘horizon’ is not necessarily rigid or limiting, something we cannot surpass, but a line from where we can see what lies beyond and which also moves with us. Despite using the term ‘fusion’, he does not consider that a ‘fusion of horizons’ means melting two ‘horizons’ into one but rather the expanding of each one in such a way that they will never be the same again.

As such, the “fusion of horizons” can be understood as the expansion of one’s

perspective to take into account features of the other horizon. In Gadamer’s conception

“hermeneutical reflection teaches us” that the dialogue situation then entails a “[s]ocial

community, with all its tensions and disruptions, ever and ever again leads back to a common

area of social understanding through which it exists” (1976, 42). The blogosphere can be

approached with the concept of “fusion of horizons”. The American war-blogosphere and the

Arab sphere concerning the 9/11 attacks showed to be productive, seen from a meta-

perspective it can namely be said that both dialogue partners (the Western and Non-Western

blogosphere) geared themselves towards expanding their perspectives.

The Western world wanted to contextualize the attacks and tried to take into account

the perspective of the Non-Western and Arab world, while the Arab world tried to take into

account the perspective of the Western, and especially American world. For instance in the

Arab world, posters discussed the impact of the attack from the perspective of the American

people. In the American war-blogosphere discussions were carried out that critically

examined the U.S. Big Media conflation of Islam with terrorism by looking at what terrorism

and “Jihadism” means. Both spheres included different approaches and perspectives,

enriching the horizons of the ones browsing through the abundance of interpretative material.

The relevancy here does not lay in the fact that there was little actual intercultural

dialogue between visitors from both blogospheres, but it lays in the fact that both

blogospheres showed efforts to expand their respective horizons by taking into account the

perspective of ‘the Other’. Actually it can be said that the growth of both spheres in the wake

of 9/11 can possibly partly be attributed to the willingness of the members of both

communities to expand their horizon in their interactive framing processes. The blogosphere

as such provided a platform for expanding horizons, resulting in “social understanding” which

in this case entails a growth in intercultural awareness.

In the wake of 9/11 the American and Arab bloggers did however not utilize the full

potential the medium offered. As demonstrated above, the American bloggers principally

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linked to American interpretations and reactions. The hyperlinked blog cartel, at that moment,

did not include blogs from the non-Western world. The posters in the Arab world merely

responded to the questions posed, and as such their behavior resembles the sending of letters

to editors of news papers. References to other sources were made, but there were no direct

hyperlinks given to cited (Western or non-Western) material. Users thus had to use search

engines to verify the provided interpretative material. In this research the seeming absence of

actual intercultural dialogue between the American and Arab world can possibly also be

explained on the basis of the fact that I compared an English-speaking community with an

Arab-speaking community on the specific topic of the 9/11 attacks.

Most war-blogs that span across the Arab and American world have appeared only

years after 9/11 and discussed the GWOT. Especially after Non-Western citizen journalists

filed their reports from regions affected by the GWOT in English, transnational blogging

came into existence. Most famous warbloggers that have contributed to the emergence of

transnational blogging are the two Iraqi bloggers Sam Pax and Riverbend. Sam Pax is the

pseudonym of a male blogger who started warblogging in 2002 on his blog Where is Read

(http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/). In his first post on 17 Dec. 2002, he provides readers with

some “pearls of wisdom” from his cousin on living in Iraq: there are three things you can do

whenever you like in Iraq: get seriously ill, get arrested and get exicuted [sic]”. The following

statement posted on May 30, 2003, is often cited as exemplary for personal accounts of

warblogging: “[o]ne day, like in Afghanistan, those journalists will get bored and go write

about Syria or Iran; Iraq will be off your media radar. Out of sight, out of mind. Lucky you,

you have that option. I have to live it”. His blog attracted attention from all over the world, as

he posted about living under conditions of war on a regular base. Eventually he was hired by

the American newspaper The Guardian. Riverbend is the pseudonym of a female blogger who

publishes on the blog Baghdad Burning (http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/) since 2003. In

her first post on August 17, she writes “[a] little bit about myself: I’m female, Iraqi and 24. I

survived the war. That’s all you need to know. It’s all that matters these days anyway”.

In the years after 9/11, Western and Non-Western bloggers began to link to each other

and engage in direct dialogue. Even traditional broadcast media have incorporated war-

blogging in intercultural settings. For instance Time has “in partnership with CNN” set up

The Middle East Blog (http://time-blog.com/middle_east/), a blog in English “about life in the

hottest and holiest region in the world”. In terms of Gadamer, the warbloggers increasingly

employed framing mechanisms that through direct contact enabled the horizons of people in

the Western world to fuse with horizons of the Arab world and vice versa.

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Chapter 6 Discussion and conclusions

Figure 6. Still from The Myth of Sisyphus video installation (Ochoa, 2006)

The Myth of Sisyphus, the video-installation made by Ecuadorian artist Tómas Ochoa that

was on display at the Singapore Biennale 2006 inspired me to do this research. The myth

centers on the philosophical problem of suicide. In the video-installation, the public is

provided with two perspectives on Palestinian suicide bombers. By asking people in the

streets of Morocco and Switzerland the question “[w]hat are the last thoughts of a suicide

bomber just before he detonates his bomb?” Ochoa gives the ‘Western’ and ‘(Middle-)

Eastern’ perspective. These perspectives are not uttered by professional communicators, but

by regular people on the street of both countries. Opinions of children, adults and elderly are

captured. More interestingly, the two perspectives are provided simultaneously, as the video

installation consists of two screens that display on the left hand the Moroccan perspective, and

on the right hand side the Swiss perspective.

Visitors of the Singapore Biennale, including myself, viewing this installation in a

pitch-black room had no choice but to continually shift their viewpoint from the immense

video screen of the ‘Western’ to the screen of ‘Eastern’ perspective and vice versa. There was

no ideologically closed or otherwise fixed frame interpretation given, as was evident from the

lively discussion that arose each time after the 20 minute videos ended. This master thesis was

introduced with an exemplary case from the art world, the Dutch pavilion at the Venice

Biennale, and to complete the structuring of this thesis as a frame story the final part is

introduced with Ochoa’s video installation.

These artworks from the Venice and Singapore Biennale are examples of how a

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medium can respectively be used as a means to strive towards pan-humanity and towards

providing multiple angles on often singularly presented events. Media have the potential to

provide multiple sides of any story, and in this research television news and weblogs were

assessed on the realization of this potential. Before concluding on how television news and

the blogosphere worked as a zone of mediation between the American and Arab world, a

discussion on the findings is given.

§ 6.1 Discussion

I emphasize in it accordingly that neither the term Orient nor the concept of the West has any ontological stability; each is made up of human effort, partly affirmation, party identification of the Other. That these supreme fictions lend themselves easily to manipulation and the organization of collective passion has never been more evident than in our time, when the mobilizations of fear, hatred, disgust, and resurgent self-pride and arrogance – much of it having to do with Islam and the Arabs on one side, ‘we’ Westerners on the other – are very large scale enterprises (Said, 2003; xvii).

In the 25th anniversary edition of his boek Orientalism, Said highlights the constructed

character of the binary opposition between the Western world and the Non-Western world, in

this case the Orient. In line with Said, I see Othering as the result of processes of

representation, attribution, naming, labeling, classifying, identification, perception and

framing. With this research, I have aimed to lay bare the assembled aggregate of features and

traits of this process. In a way through comparing news media from what I have labeled as the

Western and Non-Western worlds or the American and the Arab world, I myself, have

contributed to this process. This is something that I am aware of.

But throughout this contribution, I have sought to explore to make an inventory of

important constraining factors as well as possibilities to curb these processes. In this section, I

seek to contextualize and more reflectively assess some of my findings. At first, after

discussing the results with other students from within and outside my field, I felt the need to

critically take into account one of my basic presuppositions for actually carrying out this

research. On the surface, this assumption can easily be dismissed as being merely normative

and prescriptive. An important question that needs to be asked on this behalf is the following:

should news media aim to contribute to communal well-being? When reading this research

one can get the impression that this is the message I want to present to my audience.

However, apart from the fact that I hold nothing against anyone’s attempt to distill a

normative statement out of this research, I have not intended to write what news media should

do.

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With my research, I have aimed to show whether in our recent history, news media

have contributed to greater intercultural understanding between the American and Arab world

and if so, how and if not, why not. Nonetheless, when one wants to read this thesis more

normatively, the message that needs to be distilled can be described as follows: news media

could strive to present their audience with different perspectives and enough contextual

information and references to different sources. This description reflects the ideal of

communication, for instance described by American communication scholar Peters, as “a

registry of modern longings. The term evokes a utopia where nothing is misunderstood, hearts

are open, and expression is uninhibited” (1999; 2). Through the establishment of a more

reflective coverage of everyday events, greater inter-cultural understanding could be fostered,

and I have not encountered one solid argument that would dismiss such a recommendation.

Indeed, as American scholar of philosophy Bohman has argued “higher levels of publicity are

possible”:

[h]igher order publicity introduces talk about talk, ‘second-order’ deliberation and dialogue, that is, dialogue about the norms of publicity and the normative contours of the social space that is opened up by communicative interaction (2004; 136).

Second, the explorative nature of this research has the general overview of the

findings somewhat obscure. Therefore, a birds-eye perspective on some of the key remarks is

needed to help to grasp the complete picture of the research, which subsequently ideally

enables more discussion on a more abstract level. Cottle provides a graphic representation of

the global media sphere (see figure 7). This overview can be useful for the purpose of

situating some of the findings of this research. In this figure, the communities that have been

established by both mainstream as well as new media are depicted. The mainstream media,

including CNN USA, dominate the global news flow. From the top it disseminates its

coverage to the bottom, its audience members. Audience members have no capabilities to

directly talk back to the mainstream CNN.

On an institutional level, according to Cottle, the “periphery” of the world in

comparison with the Western world has seen the arrival of a new dialogue partner: Al-Jazeera.

This new partner is embodied by what Cottle labels as “diasporic media” (2006; 51). A large

arrow presents the influence of CNN upon the likes of Al-Jazeera, while the smaller arrow

with small stripes reflects the influence of Al-Jazeera on the likes of CNN. So on the positive

side, CNN has witnessed the arrival of a new player on the international news market, but on

the negative side, this new player is not yet seen as a capable dialogue partner yet. These big

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arrows can be seen to highlight the approach to news media as a possible establisher of one

singular transnational public sphere.

Figure 7. “Media sphere” (Cottle, 2006; 51), here used to graphically present the findings of this research

The blogosphere analysis can be seen as situated in the middle, where a great number

of dots are connected with each other in a large network. The blogosphere, as a new media

network was seen not to emphasize the functioning of one singular public sphere, but rather

indicated the workings of nexuses of interacting smaller publics. Cottle defines the

establishment of these smaller interacting public spheres as “public spherecules” (2006; 51).

For the purpose of providing a complete picture, the description of the graphic representation

of the “media sphere” was described by Cottle in the following terms:

[t]he Internet while certainly no panacea for the inequalities of strategic and symbolic power mobilized in and through the mass media evidently contains a socially activated potential to unsettle, and possibly on occasion disrupt, the vertical flows of

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institutionally controlled ‘top-down’ communications and does so by inserting a horizontal communicative network into the wider communications environment” (2006; 50-51)

The vertical flow of communication is thus demonstrated to be disrupted by Al-Jazeera. Also,

over the course of the GWOT, especially the war-blogosphere was institutionalized, resulting

in the adoption of the format by several main-stream media outlets. Additionally, several

former citizen-journalists were hired by Big Media on the basis of their skills as connoisseurs

of the functioning of news gathering within the framework of new media networks.

Thirdly, after now being able to see the bigger picture, the findings beg for a more

detailed assessment to come to a better understanding of the dynamics that are at play in the

world of TV and blogosphere news dissemination. In my opinion, this can be done on the

basis of a comparison of the modus operandi of both channels, or more specifically the shared

and commonly used framing mechanisms of both media. When taking into account how each

media presents its news story, it can namely be argued that both media have a distinct way of

reasoning. The two media can be distinguished on the basis of their dominantly employed

rhetoric or reason. Brazilian scholar of philosophy Dascal provides us with the theoretical tool

to ground this distinction.

In his description of media reporting, Dascal has argued that their use of rhetoric can

be labeled “either as purely irrational/emotive (close to propaganda) or as purely rational (as a

complementation of logic)”. Based on the assumption that media rhetoric in practice however

always includes elements from both sides of the continuum, Dascal insists that “each

occurrence of argument- and, for that matter, of war – is a particular blend of power and

rationality, of violence and persuasion” (2004; 238). When comparing the two news media

that have been taken into account in this research in terms of their rhetoric, that in their

extremes, the TV (for instance in the case of CNN) has more leaned towards emotive news

framing, while the discussions on the September 11 attacks in the blogosphere can be seen as

more oriented towards rational discussion.

Zooming in on this distinction and media use of rhetorics, Dascal has made another

useful distinction which can help us grasp the difference in news framing. He also has

distinguished between what he describes as “Hard Reason” and “Soft Reason”. He has

dubbed the first on the basis of its “strict adherence” to a conception “which provide a

decision procedure determining which side is right and which is wrong. Hard Reason also

believes it is the only form of rationality deserving the name. Anything that deviates from its

requirements is Non-Reason” (ibid.; 241). Hard reason is a label to understand the news

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presentation in terms of binary oppositions. This binary opposition reasoning was observable

in some points in the framing of CNN of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism. Also, it can be argued that Al-

Jazeera through its continuous suspicion of American footage in comparison with their own

footage observed a rigid distinction of what their audience should accept as a given and what

not.

In line with Dascal, who assumes that “for Hard Reason there should be in all solvable

conflicts a clear winner and a clear loser “[v]ictory and capitulation are the only possibilities it

permits” (ibid.), both channels, so-to-say strictly adhere to their principle of providing viewers

clear-cut portrayals of the presented events, structured to their own specific preferences of

closed interpretations. The channels engage in a hot-headed debate on an institutional level.

Clear winners are the ones attracting large audiences. Al-Jazeera strives to be like CNN, and

to draw a large audience present themselves as superior to their Western counterpart. Al-

Jazeera’s slogan “CNN be the second to know” used in the framing of the 9/11 attacks is an

explicit reference to this process.

Al-Jazeera presents itself as a neutral medium, where different perspectives are aired,

‘one opinion after the other’, to let the audience member make up his or her own mind.

However, when critically engaging with this claim of neutrality, one has to wonder whether a

quantitative balance of different perspectives is in its core possible for a channel which seeks

to establish itself as a true competitor to the likes of CNN. CNN, in its search to sell larger

audiences to its advertisers, has chosen for spectacular news framing, clear good-versus-evil

orientations and an emphasis on domestic American issues, whereas Al-Jazeera has provided

a platform for Bin Laden. This move by Al-Jazeera attracted a lot of Arab viewers, as these

viewers were probably not used to seeing this side of the story on a public mainstream news

channel as the Arab States Broadcasting Union forbids the airing of these voices. Al-Jazeera

also created a big stir in the international political landscape. But for instance also its

continuous framing of the 9/11 hijackers as “accused attackers” emphasized the side of the

terrorists and Al-Qaeda in the GWOT. This particular framing prism did not encourage the

growth of greater intercultural awareness. On the contrary, when magnifying this observation,

it can be said that both channels caused for a growing disparity between the Western and the

Arab world.

The comparison of CNN and Al-Jazeera shows that the actual usage of medium

specific characteristics of the medium television decides whether intercultural awareness or

intercultural dialogue is championed. Peters has analyzed the distortion of dialogue caused by

broadcast media and asserts, in line with my observation of the operating of CNN and Al-

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Jazeera, that “media can sustain diverse formal arrangement” (1999; 34). He underlines it is

indeed the usage of the medium, under the influence of a great diversity of interests which

results in a specific communicational mode: [i]t is a mistake to equate technologies with their

societal applications […] the lack of dialogue owes less to broadcasting technologies than to

interests that profit from constituting audiences as observers rather than participants” (1999;

34). Under the pressure of specific interests and a specific institutional nexus CNN and Al-

Jazeera however have exploited the medium specific characteristics of the medium television

for goals other than encouraging intercultural understanding.

The blogosphere seems to embody the principle of “Soft Reasoning”. In terms of

Dascal, soft reasoning entails processes of more reflective reasoning:

[s]oft Reason, which does not work with absolute dichotomies and does not play only zero sum games, can acknowledge the partial truth or rightness of each position, and thus lead to compromises without absolute winners and losers. Whereas Hard Reason stimulates the contenders to be persuaded that they are absolutely right and their opponents absolutely wrong, Soft Reason fosters a measure of skepticism toward one’s own position as well as a measure of tolerance toward the opponent’s position (ibid.).

The nature of the blogosphere in essence contrasts sharply with the conception of hard

reasoning. The inherent participatory features rendered the framing of the terrorist event

through the prism of absolute dichotomies impossible, as on the whole many different voices

were aired. In contrast with the closed interpretation that is characteristic for hard reasoning,

the blogosphere provides more open-ended oriented interpretative material. On a micro-level,

persons can engage in hard reasoning oriented depictions of reality, but as these contributions

often attract a lot of – often oppositional – reactions. For instance the girl in the Arab blog

cartel, one visitor who hailed Bin Laden as a hero was immediately countered by others who

would argue for sympathy towards the innocent victims of barbaric acts. Another one

claiming the attacks will increase the world’s attention on the Arab world is complemented by

remarks that this attention will not benefit the Arab world, as it will present a negative,

exploitable, imago. In the section on the blogosphere, I argued the American war-blogosphere

and the Arab world sphere did not necessarily interact as such. However their tendency to

contextualize ‘the Other’ through their inquisitive framing of 9/11 could be seen as a process

of “fusion of horizons” in the terminology of Gadamer. The virtue of soft reasoning enabled

participants of these communities to do so. Eventually, GWOT warbloggers further used the

medium specific potential to engage in direct dialogue with ‘the Other’.

The principle of hard reasoning already inherently implicates that partners in the

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dialogue situation have unequal positions, as only winners and losers exist. However, as

definite binary oppositional oriented truths do not come by on a daily base, hard reasoning’

mainstream media could search to incorporate soft reasoning principles that have proven their

successfulness in the blogosphere. In terms of Matheson, the epistemology of mainstream

broadcast journalism needs to be altered. He states that the journalistic epistemology entails

the “the rules, routines and institutionalized procedures that operate within a social setting and

decide the form of the knowledge produced and the knowledge claims expressed (or

implied)”. The truth production that fosters greater intercultural understanding is more geared

towards principles of soft reasoning.

The traditional mainstream news media have to alter their processes of knowledge

production to do so. However this is of course more easily said than done. Phelan has for

instance correctly argued that continuance is key to the success of any medium that is not

tangible in any way. Unlike the blogosphere in cyberspace, where web pages potentially can

remain accessible for several years, television news does not leave any tangible traces,

making radical changes relatively problematic. Phelan describes the importance of

continuance for the “identity” of TV news channels as follows:

[i]t should be noted that ‘identity’ for any medium that exists in time, rather than space, takes the form of ‘continuity’. Although the local station obviously has an address on a real street in a real town, it is presented to its market on screens everywhere along with other entities from New York, London, Tokyo, even outer space. Thus the repetitive display over time of the station logo, the network mark, the series ‘billboard’, is the fundamental tool of establishing identity, just as scheduling is the fundamental programming tool for reaching specific audience” (1991; 78).

As shown in the blogosphere section, CNN seems to have incorporated the blogosphere in its

modus operandi by publishing the Middle-East warblog in partnership with TIME.

Unfortunately, the shift from hard reasoning to soft reasoning in television news demands a

radical identity transformation. In times of success, as the mainstream broadcast channels

currently are established as the most important news providers in the lives of the majority of

the people in the world, there are of course little incentives for radically altering. Therefore I

hope, for achieving greater intercultural understanding between any of the Western and Non-

Western worlds, people benefit from the possibilities offered by the blogosphere to

complement their traditional forms of news consumption.

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§ 6.2 Conclusions

In the introduction section, Braidotti’s philosophical account of the Dutch submission for the

Venice Biennale 2007 was cited. In this account, Braidoitti pleads for an approach of pan-

humanity to counter populism, fear and paranoia which she saw as dominating forces in the

public debate. I illustratively showed that traditional mainstream media have a peculiar

relationship with terrorism, and that as of late there was no relationship between the actual

frequency of international acts of terrorism and the number of news reports on these acts. As

the number of international acts of terrorism went down over the last decennia, it seemed that

the recent cataclysm of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism can be attributed to the current overrepresentation

of terrorism in the news media.

Taking this development into consideration, coupled with a hypothesis that news

media gear their modus operandi towards their primary audiences, one can wonder what

implications are connected when news media frame ‘Jihadist’ terrorism differently. Therefore,

the following research question was formulated:

To what extent have North-American and Middle-Eastern television news

broadcasts and weblogs through their framing of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism

contributed to, or blocked, greater inter-cultural understanding between the Western

and non-Western world?

This question was narrowed down by specifically focusing on televised news reports and the

blogosphere. More specifically, CNN and Al-Jazeera were studied as respective mainstream

broadcast media from the Western and Non-Western world, while the American war-

blogosphere and the Arab world blogosphere were the topic of the second case-study. By

looking at whether and how their news presentation differed, I subsequently theorized on

whether these different news media have contributed to the flourishing of a transnational

public sphere.

A theoretical framework was developed to understand different forms of terrorism as

well as the interesting relationship that terrorists have had over time with news media.

Juergensmeyer’s conception of the theatre of terror was useful, especially for this research as

it looks at representational matters. On this basis, I have implicitly addressed the current acts

of ‘Jihadist’ terrorism on the basis of their inherent performative character throughout my

research. The way news media approached the performative character of terrorism was

addressed by means of frame theory. Essentially framing was taken into account as a macro-

level construct, where framing is seen as a common label to take into account presentational

modes that journalists use to present their audience with information in ways that correspond

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with underlying schemas that exist among the audiences they aim to reach. In terms of

Entman, the power of a communicating text was interpreted on the selection and emphasis on

certain specific parts of for instance a news message and salient dismissal of other parts of the

news story that could also have been addressed.

I specifically coupled framing theory with notions of the Other, to come to a grasp of

how Western news media frame the Other (or the non-Western world) and vice versa. The

Other was seen as a tool used by news presenters and audience members to render easy

comparisons possible and by doing so enabling the formation of identity against clearly

defined Others. Said’s work was chief in this part of the theoretical framework, he underlined

the constructed character of representational processes of ‘Othering’ and hinted at their

institutional embedding.

Habermas grand theory of communicative action and the public sphere was introduced

to grasp the potential for achieving greater inter-cultural understanding between the American

and Arab world. But the latter was also used as a way to measure or weigh the actual differing

framing processes observable in the international media landscape. The public sphere was

therefore essentially grasped as zone of mediation were members of the public could discuss

and reach understanding. The framing of this potential of intercultural dialogue demanded a

coupling of both critical and constructionist approaches to framing.

The methodology to carry out this research was developed in Chapter 3. On the basis

of a Foucauldian informed ascending analysis of power, a discourse analysis approach was

formulated coupled with notions from actor-network theory to address all relevant actors in

the field of news framing. The divergent discourse analysis approach was narrowed down to

the critical way of studying media discourses, an approach with the potential of achieving a

greater understanding of how people know the social world. In this section it became clear

that studying framing would also entail the studying of medium specific characteristics as

well as the institutional background from which the news messages emerged, besides the

studying of actual framed media content.

The case-study of television centered on CNN USA and the Arab version of Al-

Jazeera. The medium specifics of television broadcasting include the commonly shared

opinion of the audience members that television news merely provide them with an

unmediated window to the world. The case-study however demonstrated that the news

messages are the end-products of processes of construction. Several institutional actors leave

their mark on these processes. On this basis these specifically framed messages can be said to

construct a specific world view. The institutional nexus of CNN’s broadcasting demonstrated

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ongoing processes of news commodification, where news messages are being blended with

entertainment values. The lowest common denominator is addressed, by emphasizing the

drama throughout the presentation of news. In the study of CNN’s framing of 9/11 it showed

that the attacks were framed as almost being hyper-real in Baudrillard’s terms, while the

framing of the attackers relied heavily on good-versus-bad guy narrativization and

stereotyping.

The institutional background of Al-Jazeera displayed its search for migrating the

traditional informal face-to-face discussions, or ‘shillas’, from the street to a public realm. It was

demonstrated that entertainment values played a relatively smaller role in the Arab press in

comparison with the American press. The most prominent guiding principle in Al-Jazeera’s

broadcasting can be summed up by taking into account its motive “the opinion and the other

opinion” which was recognizable in its framing of the GWOT, regarding which an Al-Jazeera

official stated that “[i]f it’s newsworthy, it gets on air, whether it’s Bush or Bin Laden”. The

competitive drive of the channel was recognizable in its framing of 9/11. It was the first

channel to present an audience with interviews with Osama bin Laden and Western critics’

arguments to stop doing so were dismissed. The focus on airing a voice that had been

forbidden by the Arab States Broadcasting Union can be said to be detrimental for the Arab

viewers’ understanding of ‘the Other’.

When taking the two channels into account from the perspective of Habermas’ notion

of the public sphere, at first glance it appeared that CNN was less successful in providing the

means for intercultural understanding in comparison with Al-Jazeera who presented more

sides on the conflict as well as contextualization. Al-Jazeera was innovative in the Arab world

by successfully migrating informal discussions to a public platform. However, most notably

on an institutional level, the possibility to engage in a transnational dialogue presented itself.

For the first time in the international television news broadcasting field, CNN met a new

strong dialogue partner from outside the Western world. This potentially could lead to CNN

rethinking its position and framing mechanisms, under the pressure of Al-Jazeera’s success in

attracting audience numbers in the Arab world. On the other hand, over the course of Al-

Jazeera’s competition with CNN it resorted to means that were also adverse for the Arab

worlds’ view of ‘the Other’.

The case study of the American and Arab blogosphere brought different results.

Regarding the blogosphere’s medium specific characteristics, it should be noted that the

possibilities to engage in online word-of-mouth discussions are more geared towards

discussion and Habermasian dialogue in comparison with the characteristics of the medium

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television. The institutional nexus of American warblogging displayed the willingness of

bloggers to complement and talk back to Big Media news coverage. In the framing of 9/11 the

abundance of offered interpretative material provided blog-readers with a diversity of

information, enabling readers to make up their own minds. Also, readers were offered man-

on-the-street accounts of unfolding events, potentially fostering greater awareness and

understanding of history in-the-making.

The institutional background of blogging in the Arab world displayed the urge of

people to circumvent governmental censorship. Government restrictions on cyberspace were

seen to be unsuccessful, enabling the flourishing of a rich community steadily fed by a

growing number of mass educated people. These “small media” were relatively easily

accessible, enabling a migration of the informal discourse to cyberspace. The anonymous

character of the web also enabled female dialogue partners to air their voice, something they

could not necessarily always do in-real-life. In their discussions of 9/11, the event was

analyzed from a political, religious, and social perspective. Similar to the American war-

blogosphere, readers were offered with a wealth of interpretive material. The blogosphere

enabled circumvention of the lack of different voices in mainstream and government censored

news media.

In the theoretical analysis of the American and Arab blogosphere, I argued against the

notion of a singular transnational public sphere, on the basis of some of the findings from the

case study. Both blogospheres, displayed the opening up of directions that traditional

mainstream media would not have presented. The meta-level news gathering and commenting

platforms in their dealing with 9/11 were however still to be seen as separate entities. There

was no overarching blogosphere to be found at that moment in time. However, both

blogospheres displayed strong efforts to achieve greater understanding of the Other. I dubbed

these attempts as a strive for a “fusion of horizons” in terms of Gadamer, as it can be argued

that people from both blogospheres have sought to expand their horizon to take into account

the perspective of the Other. A few years after 9/11, the GWOT was expanding and

warbloggers were beginning to realize the potential of the medium specific characteristics of

blogging to be able to understand one another through direct exchange. Only after bloggers

from the Arab world presented their world in English, a transnational public sphere arose.

Direct fusion of horizons of ‘the Other’ was now possible. The earlier cited former CNN

correspondent MacKinnon was right in her assumption that the blogosphere could “help

people in different countries understand one another”.

In the discussion, I have delved into some of these findings on a more abstract level.

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I have displayed my awareness of the seemingly normative and prescriptive character of this

research. Prescribing what has to be done was not something I have sought to do, as I have

looked at the implications of news framing in our recent history, however it can be argued that

news media could gear themselves more towards achieving intercultural understanding. In terms

of Bohman, “higher levels of publicity” are indeed possible. More reflective coverage would

provide audience members with the means to more evenly engage with the Other. Second, I

framed my research within Cottle’s graphic representation of the “media sphere” for clarification

purposes. Especially top-down (TV) and bottom-up (blogosphere) processes of news gathering

and consumption could be emphasized on the basis of that figure.

Finally, the distinction between the emotive TV news and the rational oriented

blogosphere was made on the basis of Dascal’s labels of hard and soft reason in media rhetoric.

For interpretative purposes, I showed how the newsmakers of the television news coverage of

9/11 on both CNN and Al-Jazeera have predominantly employed hard reasoning principles. I

subsequently explained that the war-blogosphere could be characterised on the basis of the

bloggers’ usage of soft reasoning action. Subsequently, it was demonstrated how media that exist

in time rather than in (cyber)space heavily rely on continuance of their operating principles to

remain identifiable for the public. And when profits are made steadily by the dominant and

established broadcast media, these traditional media will have little incentives to change.

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