Episodic Frames Dominate Early Coverage of Iraq War in the NYTimes.com

Abstract

According Entman's popular definition, frame means to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text.1 In cases of war, for example, news media can focus on victory and successful military strategy. This was found be case in U.S. television news coverage of 2003 Iraq War.2 In contrast, journalists can cover same event by focusing on war victims, destruction and violence. This was indeed true for war coverage of Al-Jazeera.3 Framing of events is achieved by choosing what present and what not present in media coverage.4 Other ways in which news framing can occur, in addition selection and exclusion, is through emphasis and elaboration.5Types of FramesScheufele6 distinguishes between two types of frames-media frames and individual frames. When studying media frames, one can further distinguish between issue-specific frames and generic frames.7 One of advantages of issue-specific frames is that they allow for the investigation of framing of particular events in great specificity and detail.8 This approach has been used in studies of first Gulf War9 as well as in earlier conflicts.10 Media framing of different wars, however, seems focus on different issues. Barber and Weir,11 for example, showed that war-related topics discussed during Vietnam, Grenada and first Gulf War varied in coverage in leading U.S. newspapers, perhaps because of limited access war zones or advancements in media technologies.Other conflict events have also been examined through lens of framing research. Li and Izard12 analyzed U.S. media coverage of Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, searching for presence of eight predefined frames. They found that disaster frame was present in 44 percent of television coverage, but only in 23 percent of print coverage. The political and human interest frames were also more frequently employed in print than television coverage.13Episodic Versus Thematic FramesAnother approach media framing is analyze use of generic news frames in media content. Based on U.S. television news coverage, Iyengar14 developed a typology for two types of generic news frames-episodic and thematic. Episodic news frames are references isolated news events, focusing on discrete cases or episodes, while thematic frames provide broader societal context issues and events.15An example of a common episodic frame is conflict frame.16 Kamhawi's17 study of coverage of Israel-Palestine conflict, for example, found that conflict was dominant frame in TV news coverage. This is a typical media frame in coverage of military conflicts. Examples of thematic frames include prognostic and diagnostic frame. The former discusses consequences of actions or events, while latter provides background on causes for actions or events. Thematic frames are less common in breaking news coverage.While there is a rich framing literature, most prior research has looked at framing as constant over time.18 The goal of this study is examine how framing of 2003 Iraq War changed over time in online New York Times.MethodData Collection and Unit of AnalysisThe first five weeks of online coverage of The New York Times, March 20-April 22, 2003, were content-analyzed. The New York Times is an elite U.S. newspaper, with an online audience that has surpassed that of print edition and reached 1.4 million unique daily visitors in January 2005.19 The home page of The New York Times was unit of analysis. The home page was defined as entry page online edition located at http:// www.nytimes.com/.Coding ProcessThe home page of The New York Times was manually downloaded throughout official war period between 4 p.m. and 7p.m. daily.20 A total of 30 home pages were analyzed.21The presence of following six frames was examined:* Military conflict frame-emphasis on military involvement in Iraq* Violence of war frame-focus on destruction caused by war* Human interest frame-emphasis on personal stories of human participants in war* Rebuilding of Iraq frame-focus on rebuilding of country in short term* Prognostic frame-emphasis on long-term effects of war* Anti-warprotestframe-emphasis on anti-war protesting worldwide. …

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