The Terrorism News Beat

Critics of terrorism news coverage often describe it as a sensationalized and intimidating area of reporting. However, this characterization offers a misleading guide to the coverage of terrorist threats and attacks, counterterrorism, and community responses to terrorism that appears in U.S. newspap...

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Главный автор: Hoffman, Aaron M.
Формат: Online
Язык:английский
Опубликовано: University of Michigan Press 2025
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Online-ссылка:https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/99841
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author Hoffman, Aaron M.
author_browse Hoffman, Aaron M.
author_facet Hoffman, Aaron M.
author_sort Hoffman, Aaron M.
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description Critics of terrorism news coverage often describe it as a sensationalized and intimidating area of reporting. However, this characterization offers a misleading guide to the coverage of terrorist threats and attacks, counterterrorism, and community responses to terrorism that appears in U.S. newspapers. Counterterrorism—not terrorist threats or attacks—is the most reported-on subject in newspapers such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Rather than focusing on accounts of terrorist attacks, militarized counterterrorism, or counterterrorism failures, journalists more often cover counterterrorism successes, criminal justice, and diplomatic or community responses to terrorism. The Terrorism News Beat engages thinking about terrorism and the news media from the fields of political science, communication, criminology, economics, and sociology using multimethod research involving more than 2,500 newspaper articles published between 1997 and 2018. Chapters analyze the terrorism news beat’s subject matter, language, and coverage of the Oklahoma City Bombing, Olympic Park bombing, 9/11 attacks, DC Sniper case, and Dallas Police shooting. When it comes to language use, Hoffman finds that, rather than giving into the temptation to convey the news in lurid detail, journalists are minimalists. The language used to depict events on the terrorism beat is typically moderate and extreme words like “torture” appear only as necessary. The Terrorism News Beat shows that contrary to claims of sensationalism, the tone of terrorism coverage becomes even more sober during terrorism crises than it is during non-crisis periods and meets journalistic standards for quality.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-1574712025-07-30T09:00:01Z The Terrorism News Beat Hoffman, Aaron M. terrorism, counterterrorism, news, media, reporting, newspapers, psychology, politics, security, language, sensationalism, journalism, political science, communication, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Boston Marathon bombing, 911, DC Sniper, Oklahoma City bombing, Olympic Park bombing, Dallas police shooting, construal level theory, experiments, statistics thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPW Political activism / Political engagement::JPWL Terrorism, armed struggle thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPW Political activism / Political engagement::JPWL Terrorism, armed struggle thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies Critics of terrorism news coverage often describe it as a sensationalized and intimidating area of reporting. However, this characterization offers a misleading guide to the coverage of terrorist threats and attacks, counterterrorism, and community responses to terrorism that appears in U.S. newspapers. Counterterrorism—not terrorist threats or attacks—is the most reported-on subject in newspapers such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Rather than focusing on accounts of terrorist attacks, militarized counterterrorism, or counterterrorism failures, journalists more often cover counterterrorism successes, criminal justice, and diplomatic or community responses to terrorism. The Terrorism News Beat engages thinking about terrorism and the news media from the fields of political science, communication, criminology, economics, and sociology using multimethod research involving more than 2,500 newspaper articles published between 1997 and 2018. Chapters analyze the terrorism news beat’s subject matter, language, and coverage of the Oklahoma City Bombing, Olympic Park bombing, 9/11 attacks, DC Sniper case, and Dallas Police shooting. When it comes to language use, Hoffman finds that, rather than giving into the temptation to convey the news in lurid detail, journalists are minimalists. The language used to depict events on the terrorism beat is typically moderate and extreme words like “torture” appear only as necessary. The Terrorism News Beat shows that contrary to claims of sensationalism, the tone of terrorism coverage becomes even more sober during terrorism crises than it is during non-crisis periods and meets journalistic standards for quality. 2025-03-16T10:01:15Z 2025-03-16T10:01:15Z 2025-03-13T09:16:54Z 2025 book https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/99841 9780472077304 9780472057306 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/157471 eng open access image/jpeg image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/99841/1/9780472904914.pdf https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/99841/1/9780472904914.pdf University of Michigan Press 10.3998/mpub.14327772 10.3998/mpub.14327772 b7359529-e5f7-4510-a59f-d7dafa1d4d17 Simon Fraser University 0c98200f-18dd-41e8-b2d7-338b224c743e 9780472077304 9780472057306 255 open access
spellingShingle terrorism, counterterrorism, news, media, reporting, newspapers, psychology, politics, security, language, sensationalism, journalism, political science, communication, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Boston Marathon bombing, 911, DC Sniper, Oklahoma City bombing, Olympic Park bombing, Dallas police shooting, construal level theory, experiments, statistics
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPW Political activism / Political engagement::JPWL Terrorism, armed struggle
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPW Political activism / Political engagement::JPWL Terrorism, armed struggle
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies
Hoffman, Aaron M.
The Terrorism News Beat
title The Terrorism News Beat
title_full The Terrorism News Beat
title_fullStr The Terrorism News Beat
title_full_unstemmed The Terrorism News Beat
title_short The Terrorism News Beat
title_sort terrorism news beat
topic terrorism, counterterrorism, news, media, reporting, newspapers, psychology, politics, security, language, sensationalism, journalism, political science, communication, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Boston Marathon bombing, 911, DC Sniper, Oklahoma City bombing, Olympic Park bombing, Dallas police shooting, construal level theory, experiments, statistics
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPW Political activism / Political engagement::JPWL Terrorism, armed struggle
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPW Political activism / Political engagement::JPWL Terrorism, armed struggle
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies
topic_facet terrorism, counterterrorism, news, media, reporting, newspapers, psychology, politics, security, language, sensationalism, journalism, political science, communication, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Boston Marathon bombing, 911, DC Sniper, Oklahoma City bombing, Olympic Park bombing, Dallas police shooting, construal level theory, experiments, statistics
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPW Political activism / Political engagement::JPWL Terrorism, armed struggle
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPW Political activism / Political engagement::JPWL Terrorism, armed struggle
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies
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