Mary Regovic, left, and Christina Lyons holding daughter, Destiny, stand for a moment of silence at the Daley Plaza in Chicago during a day of remembrance for the victims of 9/11 terrorist attacks. A survey of 34 countries says Americans are No. 1 in the world when it comes to national pride. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
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The Framing of War, in Pictures
By Vivian Tam
In the article “Contrasting visual frames of our times: A framing analysis of English- and Arabic-language press coverage of war and terrorism,” published in the International Communication Gazette’s December 2010 issue, Shahira Fahmy examines the differences between the visual frames used by the US-owned English-language newspaper, the International Herald Tribune, and the Saudi-owned Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat in the period of September to November 2001.
As suggested by the languages in which they are written, each newspaper serves different audiences. Fahmy argues that because of the difference in cultural and the political perspectives to which the newspapers cater, different types of visual coverage of the events of 9/11 and the Afghan War would be used. The author used four indicators to note the differences in framing of the events in the newspapers: the emphasis device, the graphic device, the human-interest vs. the technical frame, and the anti-war vs. the pro-war frame.
After analyzing 1,387 photographs from the newspapers, the author found that in the portrayal of 9/11, Al-Hayat framed the terrorist attack in a more technical frame while depicting the Afghan War in an anti-war frame that humanized victims from the Arab and Muslim world. The opposite was true for the International Herald Tribune; it emphasized human-interest photographs for 9/11 alongside a pro-war frame, while applying a technical frame to the Afghan War story.
Despite possible attempts to be objective, different cultural and political perspectives filter into the news-making process, leading to the dominant frame(s) apparent in the newspapers. In either case, both newspapers did not provide the opportunity to understand all aspects of 9/11 and the Afghan War. The newspapers’ engagement in dehumanization of the other side, coupled with the readers’ potential acceptance of the information given, reinforces the media’s role in affecting our perceptions and understanding of events and of others.